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Knowing and Not‐Knowing For Your Own Good: The Limits of Epistemic Paternalism
Author(s) -
Bullock Emma C.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/japp.12220
Subject(s) - paternalism , epistemology , dilemma , value (mathematics) , sociology , order (exchange) , philosophy , political science , economics , law , computer science , finance , machine learning
Epistemic paternalism is the thesis that a paternalistic interference with an individual's inquiry is justified when it is likely to bring about an epistemic improvement in her. In this article I claim that in order to motivate epistemic paternalism we must first account for the value of epistemic improvements. I propose that the epistemic paternalist has two options: either epistemic improvements are valuable because they contribute to wellbeing, or they are epistemically valuable. I will argue that these options constitute the foundations of a dilemma: either epistemic paternalism collapses into general paternalism, or a distinctive project of justified epistemic paternalism is implausible.