Epistemic innocence is the idea at the
heart of our research at Project PERFECT. A cognition is epistemically innocent
if it is irrational or inaccurate and operates in ways that could increase the
chance of acquiring knowledge or understanding, where alternative, less costly
cognitions that bring the same benefits are unavailable. Over the last few
years, researchers on the project and beyond have investigated the implications
of epistemic innocence in a range of domains (see a list of relevant work
here). Our epistemic innocence symposium at ESPP2018 was a mark of the
relative maturity of the concept, and the opportunity for us to start expanding
its applications.
I went first, exploring the phenomenon of
confabulation, where a person gives an explanation that is not grounded in
evidence, without any intention to deceive. Confabulatory explanations
sometimes arise where there is cognitive decline, such as in dementia or brain
injury, and also in a number of psychiatric conditions. But there are a range
of studies which demonstrate that all of us, regardless of our cognitive
function, regularly confabulate about all sorts of things from consumer choices
to moral convictions and political decisions.
Next, Valeria Motta and Matilde Aliffi
headed into uncharted waters for the notion of epistemic innocence, thinking
about it in the context of emotions, and asking specifically whether there are
any epistemic benefits to the emotion of loneliness. They first gave their
account of how we should think about loneliness: as a painful subjective
emotional state occurring when there is a discrepancy between desired and
achieved patterns of social interaction. First, we need to know whether
emotional states such as loneliness are rationally assessable. Matilde and
Valeria convinced us that at least some emotions can be because they have intentional content, are receptive to evidence, and shape the subject's view of the world.
They argued that loneliness may be considered irrational when a subject feels
lonely even when she has evidence that social interactions are available to
her. They moved on to defend the position that even the cases that could be
deemed irrational, present a number of epistemic benefits. Some people who
experience loneliness can also experience an enhancement of self-knowledge,
because they recognise the basic need for human contact and meaningful social
relations. Valeria and Matilde argued, further, that there are cases of
loneliness which are epistemically innocent, yet practically beneficial, because
they foster the subject's motivation to explore new and creative possibilities
to connect with people.
Ema Sullivan-Bissett was next up, applying
the notion of epistemic innocence to the debate between one-factor and
two-factor theorists as regards monothematic delusion formation. Empiricists
about monothematic delusion formation agree that anomalous experience is a
factor in the formation of these attitudes, but disagree markedly on which
further factors (if any) need to be specified. (One-factor theorists think not;
two-factor think so). Ema’s aim was not to resolve this debate, but to show
that regardless of where you stand on it, epistemic innocence can be thought of
as a unifying feature of monothematic delusions, insofar both opposing
empiricist accounts can agree on the epistemic innocence of this class of
attitudes.
This constitutes a new application of the concept of epistemic
innocence, showing that the notion allows us to tell a richer story when
investigating the epistemic status of monothematic delusions, one which resists
the trade-off view of pragmatic benefits and epistemic costs. Though
monothematic delusions are often characterised by appeal to their epistemic
costs, they can play a positive epistemic role, a fact that, Ema argued, is independent
of the characteristics of their formation, and as such is a conclusion which
all empiricists can agree upon.
Kathy Puddifoot concluded our symposium
presentations, taking the notion of epistemic innocence beyond the academy and
research lab, to inform policy and practice out in the world – and an important
bit of the world at that – the court room. Kathy first recruited findings from
psychology which establish that eyewitnesses are susceptible to the
misinformation effect: this is where people recollect that they experienced an
event in a way that is consistent with information provided to them after the
event itself.
Kathy argued that the misinformation effect is produced by
cognitive mechanisms that are epistemically innocent: although the mechanisms
produce errors, Kathy maintained that they also bring substantial epistemic
benefits in so far as these mechanisms underlie broadly successful remembering
in the first place. Kathy suggested that eyewitnesses can make errors when
testifying due to the ordinary operation of these cognitive mechanisms that in
general increase the chance of them providing correct details about a criminal
case.
However, jurors are likely to judge the errors that result from the
misinformation effect to indicate that the eyewitness is generally unreliable.
Kathy then made the case for informing jurors about the psychological findings
on the misinformation effect to help them better understand the kind of errors
witnesses are likely to make, and that our cognitive shortcomings do not mean
we are wholly unreliable rememberers.
So, there we have it: the notion of
epistemic innocence prompting us to think about our narrative tendencies; the
epistemic import of seemingly irrational instances of loneliness; as a means to
find common ground between one-factor and two-factor theorists about delusion
formation; and to potentially instruct jurors to help them better judge the
reliability of eyewitness testimony.
What other applications might epistemic
innocence have?
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