Group‐deliberative competences and group knowledge

Abstract

Under what conditions is a group belief resulting from deliberation constitutive of group knowledge? What kinds of competences must a deliberating group manifest when settling a question so that the resulting collective belief can be considered group knowledge? In this paper, we provide an answer to the second question that helps make progress on the first question.In particular, we explain the epistemic normativity of deliberation-based group belief in terms of a truth norm and an evidential norm, introduce a virtue-reliabilist condition on deliberative group knowledge, and provide an account and a taxonomy of the types of group competences that are necessary for this type of collective knowledge. GROUP DELIBERATION AND GROUP KNOWLEDGEDeliberation is a practice or activity in which we weigh reasons to settle the question of whether p or to decide whether to φ. It can serve epistemic or non-epistemic purposes and be guided by epistemic or non-epistemic considerations (e.g., practical, moral, etc.). It can be done individually or in a group. In the first case, the weighing of reasons takes place entirely (or at least substantially) in the mind of an individual. In the second case, deliberation is mediated, at least in part, by a communication process, either within a group or between groups, in which beliefs, evidence, information, arguments, etc. concerning the question of whether p or the decision whether toThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.