Topics Knowledge

Question Could there ever be any logical basis for the thought: "I am untrustworthy"?

Accepted:
October 5, 2005

Comments

Clearly I may know that I tend to mislead others. Could I also know that I tend to mislead myself? Well, the complexities of self-deception aside, I may alas have ample empirical evidence that I am incompetent on a wide range of subjects.

I assume your worry is not about whether you are untrustworthy in some areas, or in some sorts of enterprises. As Peter Lipton says, if you are dishonest as a general rule, then plainly you can know that about yourself. And all of us have excellent reason to think that we are not good at many things.

But if your question is whether you could have any good grounds for thinking that you are untrustworthy in some very general way (for example, epistemically--in the way you generate beliefs about the world), then I think the answer is also yes. Most skeptical arguments seem to me to give at least some reason for thinking that we are epistemically untrustworthy. Most philosophers these days are not won over by skeptical concerns, but that is not to say that they regard such concerns as logically impossible or incoherent. I think, moreover, that the field of moral psychology gives us some reasons for thinking that we may be somewhat untrustworthy in other areas, as well.

Question Could there ever be any logical basis for the thought: "I am untrustworthy"? Accepted:October 5, 2005

Question Could there ever be any logical basis for the thought: "I am untrustworthy"?

Accepted:
October 5, 2005