ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses one type of group disagreement: Scientific dissent. Scientific dissent involves disagreement over a consensus view, that is, a view that a scientific community has accepted, either in a summative or in a non-summative way. A widespread view in philosophy of science is that a scientific community has an obligation to engage scientific dissent only when it is normatively appropriate from an epistemic point of view. This view has been criticized on the grounds that the norms constraining epistemically appropriate dissent are ambiguous. In response to this concern, I argue that, even when there is disagreement over the interpretation of such norms, a scientific community has a moral reason to respond to dissenters. I introduce the norm of epistemic responsibility that defines mutual obligations for dissenters and the advocates of a consensus view. I argue that the norm of epistemic responsibility is both an epistemic and a moral norm.
