The Epistemic Significance of Social Pressure

Abstract

AbstractThis paper argues for the existence of a certain type of defeater for one’s belief thatP—the presence of social incentives not to share evidence againstP.Such pressure makes it relatively likely that there is unpossessed evidence that would provide defeaters forPbecause it makes it likely that the evidence we have is a lopsided subset. This offers, I suggest, a rational reconstruction of a core strand of argument in Mill’sOn Liberty.A consequence of the argument is that on morally and politically laden issues in particular, a high degree of doxastic openness might be appropriate.