Responsibility to Reflect: Reflection as Epistemic Responsibility in Democracy

The Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Review 4:5-14 (2025)
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Abstract

In this article, I argue that responsible knowers are responsive to critical feedback that their reasons for believing in a given proposition or using certain principles of reasoning are inadequate. The project of democracy expects that agents can provide reasons for their beliefs during testimonial exchange. Voters provide reasons to representatives. Representatives provide reasons to voters. Voters provide reasons to each other. And representatives provide reasons to each other. This means that when voters or representatives cannot provide reasons, democratic mechanisms are obstructed. However, not all beliefs are adopted autonomously through reflection, but rather by social-institutional context. I argue, then, that responsible agents reflect on the reasons for their belief when their reasons are inadequate. They are attuned to the nature of expertise and evaluate expert testimony with this in mind. In full, democracy requires that agents hold beliefs autonomously and be cognizant of the nature of expertise.

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Maddox Larson
Creighton University

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References found in this work

Two Dogmas of Empiricism.Willard V. O. Quine - 1951 - Philosophical Review 60 (1):20–43.
True Enough.Catherine Z. Elgin - 2017 - Cambridge: MIT Press.
The web of belief.Willard Van Orman Quine & J. S. Ullian - 1970 - New York,: Random House. Edited by J. S. Ullian.

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