Melanie Altanian and Silvia Ivani on “A Critical (Re-)assessment of Institutional Epistemic Humility: Lessons From a Pandemic Crisis”

Political decision-making and the communication of policy decisions become especially delicate under conditions of high uncertainty and risk. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is a case in point: because of mixed results and disagreement among researchers, decisions regarding the introduction of disruptive measures, such as lockdowns, were based on uncertain scientific information and competing values (e.g., autonomy, protecting vulnerable groups, and unemployment). In a recent paper, Jaana Parviainen and colleagues drew on the Finnish pandemic context to argue that when public institutions have to make decisions in the face of unavoidable uncertainty, epistemic humility is the appropriate attitude towards crisis management, including decision-making and public communication (Parviainen et al. 2021). Institutions should acknowledge the state of ignorance and communicate transparently about this with the public. Thereby, governments can sustain (epistemic) justification and political credibility and enhance people’s trust in state institutions. Our paper reassesses the call for institutional epistemic humility in crisis management, by considering various contextual factors determining its plausibility and desirability. First, we present a challenge to this proposal by discussing empirical literature on the communication of scientific uncertainty. Second, we provide a different, normative strategy to justify calls for epistemic humility. This is done by discussing potential harms — epistemic and other — caused by its corresponding vice of institutional epistemic arrogance, which we argue is exemplified by medical populism, and appealing to the framework of epistemic rights.

Melanie Altanian (University of Freiburg) & Silvia Ivani (University College Dublin)

To join the session on Zoom, please get in touch with Giulia Terzian at [email protected] for the details.

This event is part of the ArgLab Research Colloquium organised by Maria Grazia Rossi, Giulia Terzian and Gloria Andrada at the Laboratory of Argumentation, Cognition and Language of the NOVA Institute of Philosophy. For any inquiries, please contact Maria Grazia, Giulia, or Gloria.