Epistemology: An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge

6. Trust and Cooperation in Pragmatic Perspective

101 Chapter 6 Trust and Cooperation in Pragmatic Perspective SYNOPSIS • Knowledge is power. But the hoarding of knowledge—monopolization, secretiveness , collaboration avoidance—is generally counterproductive. • In anything like ordinary circumstances, mutual aid in the development and handling of information is highly cost effective. • The way in which people build up epistemic credibility in cognitive contexts is structurally the same as that in which they build up financial credit in economic contexts. • And this is so in particular with regard to our cognitive presumptions. • Considerations of cost effectiveness—of economic rationality, in short— operate to ensure that any group of rational inquirers will in the end become a community of sorts, bound together by a shared practice of trust and cooperation. THE COST EFFECTIVENESS OF SHARING AND COOPERATING IN INFORMATION ACQUISITION AND MANAGEMENT The pragmatic aspect of knowledge is an unavoidable fact of life. In many ways, knowledge is power. Its possession facilitates efficacy and influence in the management of public affairs. It enables those who have “inside” information to make a killing in the marketplace. It opens doors to the corridors of power in corporations. It maintains experts in the style to which the present century has accustomed them, and assures that the U.S. government supports more think tanks than aircraft carriers. Since information is power, there is a constant temptation to monopolize it. But information monopolies, however advantageous for some few favorably circumstanced beneficiaries, exact a substantial price from the community as a whole. In this regard, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century science affords an admonitory object lesson. The secretiveness of investigators in those times—Isaac Newton preeminent among them—in matters of mathematics and astronomy assured that the development of natural science would be slow and difficult. In protecting the priority of their claims through secretiveness and mystification, and adepts of the day greatly impeded the development and dissemination of knowledge.1 Only with the emergence of new means of information sharing to facilitate the diffusion of knowledge, such as academies and learned societies with their meetings and published proceedings , could modern science begin it sure and steady march. In particular, the open scientific literature can be seen as an effective and productive system for the authentication and protection of the state of the creative scientist in the “intellectual property” created by his innovative efforts.2 While there are, of course, exceptions, in most circumstances of ordinary life, and above all in the sciences, it pays all concerned to share information. From an economic point of view, we confront the classic format of a cooperation -inviting situation, where the resultant gain in productivity creates a surplus in which all can share to their own benefit. The evident advantages for the scientific community and its members of creating a system that provides inducement for people to promulgate their findings promptly, while at the same time imposing strong sanctions against cheating, falsification, and carelessness, militate powerfully in this direction. The open exchange of information in science benefits the work of the community, except possibly in these cases where secrecy can confer an economic advantage that can serve as a stimulant to creative effort. To be sure, secrecy survives even now in various nooks and crannies of the scientific enterprise, and good claims can sometimes be made on its behalf . For example, editors of scientific journals do not let authors of submitted papers know the identity of those who review their submissions. Or again, such journals do not publish lists of authors whose submissions have been declined for publication. These practices obviously serve the interests of the journal’s effectiveness by helping to maintain pools of willing reviewers and submitters. The fundamental principles are the same either way, however. Both the general policy of information sharing in science, and the specific ways in which particular practices standardly depart from it, have a perfectly plausible rationale in cost-benefit terms. Broadly economic considerations of cost and benefit play the determinative role throughout. 102 Knowledge and Its Problems THE ADVANTAGES OF COOPERATION Even people who do not much care to cooperate and collaborate with others are well advised in terms of their own interests to suppress this inclination. This point is brought home by considering the matter from the angle presented in Table 6.1. By hypothesis, each of the parties involved prioritized the situation where they are trusted by the other while they themselves need not reciprocate. And each sees...