A Case for Political Epistemic Trust

In Kevin Vallier & Michael Weber, Social Trust: Foundational and Philosophical Issues. Routledge. pp. 220-241 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

There is a widely recognized dilemma of political epistemic trust. While the public needs to rely on the testimonies of epistemic authorities (e.g. politicians, policymakers, and scientists), it is risky to do so. One source of risk is self-interest. Epistemic authorities are prone to abuse the trust placed in them by misinforming the public for material and social gain. To reap the benefits of trust and mitigate the risk of abuse, liberal political theorists adopt the strategy of cultivating vigilant trust. By enhancing epistemic vigilance and epistemic autonomy, trust is both constrained and intellectualized. This chapter rejects this strategy for two reasons. First, it is undesirable. By over-intellectualizing trust, such an approach deprives trust of its important epistemic and social benefits. Second, it is unnecessary. The risk of abuse is exaggerated. The strategy fails to appreciate that epistemic authorities in virtue of their social roles are typically governed by the social norm of epistemic trustworthiness, not self-interest. The chapter concludes by suggesting an alternative strategy of cultivating trustworthiness. It seeks to strengthen epistemic authorities’ responsiveness to the social norm of epistemic trustworthiness, thereby improving epistemic trust without over-intellectualizing it. It is further outlined how liberal-democratic institutions can implement it.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,486

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-10-22

Downloads
1 (#1,954,454)

6 months
1 (#1,572,794)

Historical graph of downloads

Sorry, there are not enough data points to plot this chart.
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Agnes Tam
University of Calgary

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references