Epistemic Obligations: Truth, Individualism, and the Limits of Belief

1 The Challenge of Epistemic Obligations

1 1 The Challenge of Epistemic Obligations “ Ihave a right to believe whatever I want.” An academic year never goes by without at least one of my students or peers uttering this phrase or something equivalent to it, such as “I am entitled to my beliefs.” In part, the phrase reflects and is an extension of our individualist culture, where persons view themselves as having a right to do their “own thing,” to be their “own person,” or to form their own beliefs without anyone telling them what to believe. The phrase usually is uttered in a context where speakers assume that it is wrong for people to judge them or others with respect to what they are thinking, writing, or saying. This book concerns this seemingly innocuous phrase. Ultimately I want to question whether it is really true that we have such a right. But answering the question is more difficult than might first appear. The phrase raises philosophical issues that are substantive , complex, and greatly disputed in the literature. The issues drive to the core of human epistemology and merit serious and extended consideration. The task of this book is to conduct this careful exploration. Before I proceed to undertake the requisite serious philosophical analyses, I first will make more precise what I am 2 Epistemic Obligations interested in with respect to this common phrase. I will then introduce four cases (three actual and one partly hypothetical ) about which one might invoke this phrase. These case studies reveal that the issue is neither merely abstract nor artificially constructed but indeed is live and relevant for contemporary society and thought. THE RIGHT TO BELIEVE WHAT WE WANT To have a right is to have the basis for making a claim. Having a right to go to the orchestra concert tonight means that the person has a basis for making a claim for entry to tonight’s performance venue. In such a case the right is established by means of the possession of some token of entry the person justly has acquired in some way (e.g., by purchase). Persons also may have rights by virtue of other things: by being born in a particular country (the right of citizenship), by accomplishing some feat (the right to the trophy), by signing a contract (the right to be paid for services rendered), by being in need (the right to adequate health care), or even by doing nothing at all (the right to privacy). That a right is the basis for making a claim is what makes rights such a powerful notion. If one actually has the right to x, the answer to the question whether the person is justified in claiming x is already provided. One might question whether someone actually or legitimately has a particular right (is the concert ticket a forgery; is the person really a natural-born citizen?) or whether there really is a right of a certain sort (the right of privacy and to adequate health care are the subjects of much strident debate); but if the person’s right to x is granted, that person’s claim regarding x cannot be legitimately denied. There might be some extenuating circumstances, such as, for example, a conflict between rights, but the right is not denied, only mitigated or accommodated in some way. “Rights” appear in diverse contexts. One might consider rights from a legal perspective: the employee has the right to park here because she purchased the required parking permit . Legal rights invoke laws or contracts between persons. The Challenge of Epistemic Obligations 3 Our concern with whether one has a right to believe whatever one wants is not understood as a legal right, for at least in our current Western context the legal system cannot legislate belief. Legal rights apply not to our beliefs but to our actions, so that despite what we believe, we may or may not have a right to act in a certain way, depending on the laws enacted or the contracts made.1 Neither is the issue we are interested in about free speech, namely, the legal right to say whatever we want. It may be the case that when people say that they have a right to believe whatever they want, they really are thinking about free speech: the right to say whatever they want. But if this is what they really mean, it would clearly be a mistake...