Epistemic Hypcocrisy and Standing to Blame

Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of epistemic hypocrisy, arguing that agents who culpably violate an epistemic norm can lack the standing to blame other agents who culpably violate similar norms. After disentangling our criticism of epistemic hypocrites from various other fitting responses, I argue that a commitment account of standing to blame allows us to understand our objections to epistemic hypocrisy. Agents lack the epistemic standing to blame when they are not sufficiently committed to the norms they are blaming others for violating. This not only gives us a convincing account of epistemic standing to blame, it leaves us with a unified account of moral standing and epistemic standing. I also consider some potential asymmetries between the standing to engage in moral blame and the standing to engage in epistemic blame, arguing such asymmetries are either only apparent or can be explained away by extraneous factors.