Freya von Kirchbach
Humboldt-University of Berlin
Moral Encroachers claim that moral considerations can make doxastic attitudes epistemically unjustified. On radical variants of this thesis, whenever a doxastic attitude morally wrongs someone, it is epistemically unjustified (e.g., Basu & Schroeder 2019). On more moderate versions, the fact that a doxastic attitude morally wrongs someone raises the threshold of evidence or epistemic reasons needed for this doxastic attitude to be epistemically justified. This, in turn, can make the attitude epistemically unjustified, but it need not always do so (e.g., Moss 2018; Bolinger 2020; Fritz 2020). In this paper, I construct a dilemma for Radical Moral Encroachers. Moreover, I argue that Moderate Moral Encroachers can escape this dilemma. Thus, my paper provides an argument in favour of adopting more moderate variants of Moral Encroachment, if one is a Moral Encroacher in the first place.
Most cases advanced by Moral Encroachers are ones where the agent wrongs someone by believing something about her (cf. Basu & Schroeder 2019; Moss 2018; Fritz 2020). However, as I argue, there are cases where one wrongs someone not just by adopting a certain belief, but also by withholding belief. As will be shown, in these cases, an epistemic dilemma obtains under radical variants of Moral Encroachment.
This forces Radical Moral Encroachers into a dilemma:
On the first horn, Radical Moral Encroachers simply accept that there is an epistemic dilemma in cases like the above. However, since such cases are widespread, epistemic dilemmas would be widespread – an implausible result, as I argue. On the second horn, Radical Moral Encroachers deny that, under their thesis, there is an epistemic dilemma in cases like the above. But they can do so only if they accept that a doxastic attitude can be epistemically justified even though it is insufficiently supported by evidence, which is implausible.
Finally, I show that Moderate Moral Encroachers can escape this dilemma by claiming that in cases like the above, withholding belief is epistemically justified despite being an instance of moral wronging: that withholding wrongs the testifier raises the threshold for epistemic justification of withholding, but the epistemic reasons for withholding are strong enough to meet this threshold.
References:
Basu, R. & Schroeder, M. (2019). Doxastic Wronging. In: Brian Kim & Matthew McGrath (eds.), Pragmatic Encroachment in Epistemology. Routledge pp. 191-205.
Bolinger, R. J. (2020). Varieties of Moral Encroachment. In: Philosophical Perspectives 34 (1), pp. 5-26.
Fritz, J. (2020). Moral encroachment and reasons of the wrong kind. Philosophical Studies 177 (10), pp. 3051-3070.
Moss, S. (2018). Moral Encroachment. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 118 (2), pp. 177-205.
Chair: Rafaela Schinner
Time: September 13th, 11:20 – 11:50
Location: SR 1.003
SOPhiA 2026 