According to doxastic accounts of trust, trusting a person to \(\varPhi \) involves, among other things, holding a belief about the trusted person: either the belief that the trusted person is trustworthy or the belief that she actually will \(\varPhi \) . In recent years, several philosophers have argued against doxastic accounts of trust. They have claimed that the phenomenology of trust suggests that rather than such a belief, trust involves some kind of non-doxastic mental attitude towards the trusted person, (...) or a non-doxastic disposition to rely upon her. This paper offers a new account of reasons for trust and employs the account to defend a doxastic account of trust. The paper argues that reasons for trust are preemptive reasons for action or belief. Thus the Razian concept of preemptive reasons, which arguably plays a key role in our understanding of relations of authority, is also central to our understanding of relations of trust. Furthermore, the paper argues that acceptance of a preemptive account of reasons for trust supports the adoption of a doxastic account of trust, for acceptance of such an account both neutralizes central objections to doxastic accounts of trust and provides independent reasons supporting a doxastic account. (shrink)

Modest pessimism about philosophical progress is the view that while philosophy may sometimes make some progress, philosophy has made, and can be expected to make, only very little progress (where the extent of philosophical progress is typically judged against progress in the hard sciences). The paper argues against recent attempts to defend this view on the basis of the pervasiveness of disagreement within philosophy. The argument from disagreement for modest pessimism assumes a teleological conception of progress, according to which the (...) attainment of true answers to the big philosophical questions, or knowledge of them, is the primary goal of philosophy. The paper argues that this assumption involves a misconception of the goal of philosophy: if philosophy has a primary goal, its goal is the understanding of philosophical problems rather than knowledge of answers to philosophical questions. Moreover, it is argued that if the primary goal of philosophy is such understanding, then widespread disagreement within philosophy does not indicate that philosophy makes little progress. (shrink)

The paper discusses Linda Zagzebski's account of epistemic authority. Building on Joseph Raz's account of political authority, Zagzebski argues that the basic contours of epistemic authority match those Raz ascribes to political authority. This, it is argued, is a mistake. Zagzebski is correct in identifying the pre-emptive nature of reasons provided by an authority as central to our understanding of epistemic authority. However, Zagzebski ignores important differences between practical and epistemic authority. As a result, her attempt to explain the rationality (...) of belief on authority by applying an analogue of Raz's Normal Justification Thesis to the domain of belief fails. A successful explanation of the rationality of belief on authority will need to be attuned to the differences between political and epistemic authorities. (shrink)

Fostering healthy online conversations is essential to the integrity of public discourse, yet the norms that guide such conversations remain contested and difficult to enforce. This paper develops and empirically grounds a conceptual and empirical framework for understanding and addressing online toxicity. Building on the distinction between epistemic and civil norms, we argue that norm violations are the proper target of moderation. While this paper is primarily conceptual, it is informed by empirical observations drawn from a collaboration with a platform (...) designer. Drawing on a dataset of user comments and responses to moderation scenarios, we identify eight recurring types of norm violations and analyse patterns of user agreements about whether such content should be removed. Our findings reveal that while civil norm violations prompt relatively consistent responses, epistemic violations elicit wide disagreement, raising challenges for universal moderation standards. We conclude by proposing a set of general, evidence-informed principles for platform designers and moderators. These recommendations emphasise context-sensitive moderation, platform affordances that encourage epistemic responsibility, and the integration of civil and epistemic considerations into online infrastructure. Our work bridges theoretical and practical perspectives, offering both conceptual clarity and actionable insights for scholars, designers, and practitioners engaged in shaping healthier digital discourse. (shrink)

On many science-related policy questions, the public is unable to make informed decisions, because of its inability to make use of knowledge obtained by scientists. Philip Kitcher and James Fishkin have both suggested therefore that on certain science-related issues, public policy should not be decided on by actual democratic vote, but should instead conform to the public’s counterfactual informed democratic decision. Indeed, this suggestion underlies Kitcher’s specification of an ideal of a well-ordered science. This article argues that this suggestion misconstrues (...) the normative significance of CIDDs. At most, CIDDs might have epistemic significance, but no authority or legitimizing force. (shrink)

This chapter investigates how online conversational environments might be designed to promote epistemic health rather than merely reduce incivility. Drawing on the authors’ empirically informed collaboration with an industry partner developing engagement platforms for publishers, it argues that prevailing industry approaches to “healthy conversation” disproportionately prioritize civility norms while neglecting epistemic norms governing truth, evidence, and inquiry. The analysis distinguishes epistemic toxicity from incivility and examines existing moderation tools, reporting systems, and fact-checking practices, showing that most rely on the identification (...) of manifest norm violations—an approach well suited to detecting insults or harassment but ill suited to tracking misinformation or evidential deficiencies. Survey data from platform users further reveal a striking mismatch between industry priorities and user expectations: participants value epistemic quality at least as highly as civility. To explain this gap, the chapter introduces the “violation-identification problem,” according to which breaches of epistemic norms are typically non-manifest and therefore resistant to automated or surface-level detection. The discussion concludes that improving epistemic health online requires a shift away from civility-centered moderation toward design strategies modeled on high-quality offline epistemic practices, especially those foregrounding evidential standards and norms of inquiry. (shrink)