Motivated Irrationality, Epistemic Innocence, White Ignorance

According to the standard story, all motivated beliefs are epistemically blameworthy, because they are formed with an eye to practical benefit, rather than for the right—epistemic—reasons. Recently, Lisa Bortolotti has argued that, contra this story, some motivated beliefs are epistemically innocent. In this paper, I argue for two claims. First, Bortolotti’s account has the unfortunate implication that some paradigms of epistemically unjust belief are epistemically innocent. My central case are beliefs formed in (what Charles Mills calls) white ignorance. Second, adding a communitarian condition to Bortolotti’s account avoids the implication that these beliefs are innocent, while honouring some of her plausible insights. The insight of greatest relevance to the special issue is this. Bortolotti’s view allows us to think of beliefs’ epistemic goodness in ways that ‘go beyond the evidence’—ways in which believing for non-evidential reasons can promote important epistemic goods. My communitarian proposal retains this insight, but has the additional virtue of not counting as innocent epistemic benefits obtained at the expense of other members of the epistemic community.