Testimonial liberalism and the balance of epistemic goals

Abstract

There are two broad views in the epistemology of testimony, conservatism and liberalism. The two views disagree over a particular necessary condition on testimonial justification: the positive reasons requirement (PRR). Perhaps the most prominent objection levelled at liberalism from the conservative camp stems from gullibility; without PRR, the thought goes, an objectionable form of gullibility looms large for liberals. In this paper I aim to make two main contributions: to introduce a new metric for adjudicating this debate; and to argue that, from the perspective of this new metric, the liberal view is stronger than has been appreciated. Drawing on work from James (The Will to believe and other essays in Popular Philosophy, Harvard University Press, 1896), Goldman (Epistemology and Cognition, Harvard University Press, 1986), and Kelp et al. (Synthese 197:5187–5202, 2020), I firstly countenance the distinction between positive and negative epistemic measures. Positive measures concern, roughly, the acquisition of truths, whereas negative measures concern the avoidance of falsehoods. Both, it is argued, are relevant to epistemic justification, but this debate has proceeded in such a way as to overemphasise the importance of the latter over the former. Once this distinction is made, new conceptual terrain opens for the liberal. Rather than being resigned to a predominantly defensive role—of mitigating worries about negative measures—the liberal can go on the offensive, and explore the independent epistemic strengths of their position. The upshot is that liberals have a new way to dispel their most prominent objection.