Self-Control and Deliberate Ignorance

Abstract

This chapter considers the relationship of individual “self-control” to epistemic behavior and ethical responsibility. The authors distinguish deliberate ignorance into two forms: partiality-preserving and impartiality-enhancing, associating the former with “epistemic diligence/negligence” and the latter with “epistemic restraint/recklessness.” As such, they argue that ethical responsibility entails three prescriptive orders of self-control. First, in the moment, the individual should reactively self-control epistemic relevance. However, research on cognitive irregularities such as the introspection illusion highlights difficulties in doing so. Second, the individual should proactively regulate information available to self and others. Here, the authors’ own studies test whether individuals will consistently guard against information contamination. They find that a personal “bias blind-spot” compromises such epistemic discretion. Given epistemic responsibility but unreliable introspection, then, the individual needs a third order of self-control. That is, in certain decision-making situations the individual is obliged to utilize institutions of epistemic justice that mandate to decision-makers information availability/restraint.