ABSTRACT
A person can assert “I know that p” in an epistemically responsible or irresponsible way. Epistemic responsibility relativism is the view that the act of making a knowledge claim is epistemically responsible or irresponsible only relative to an audience and its system of epistemic standards, and that there is no neutral way of ranking different audiences and their systems of epistemic standards. According to an instrumentalist account of epistemic rationality, there are criteria for ranking different audiences and their systems of epistemic standards. Such criteria are found by examining which norms, standards, practices, and institutional arrangements are means to desired epistemic ends. I argue that an instrumentalist strategy for refuting epistemic responsibility relativism involves a trade-off. If one prefers one audience over another on epistemic grounds, then one has to admit that epistemic grounds are not morally neutral. If one prefers one audience to another on moral grounds, then one has to make a concession to audiences that are less than ideal from an epistemic point of view. In either case, the criteria for ranking audiences and their systems of epistemic standards are not morally neutral. This becomes understandable when we recognize that the norm of epistemic responsibility is not merely an epistemic norm. It is also a moral norm.
