Xiayou Ke, "Trustworthiness of Affective States and Norms of Inquiry"

Abstract:

A long-standing skepticism holds that affective states are not trustworthy for epistemic activities (e.g. Goldie, 2008; Nisbett and Ross, 1980). In this paper, I consider a related but different question: In what sense are affective states trustworthy in the context of inquiry, if they ever are? Are they trustworthy by virtue of being fitting or correct, or by virtue of leading us to successful inquiry? Here I take inquiry to be a series of epistemic activities aimed at acquiring particular correct beliefs. I argue first that this question is related to a puzzle about how to evaluate the trustworthiness of affective states in the context of inquiry. The puzzle concerns an inconsistency between epistemic norms and zetetic norms (i.e. norms of inquiry) in the case of beliefs (Friedman, 2019; Thorstad, 2021). I then argue that, unlike beliefs, affective states ought to be primarily evaluated by zetetic norms rather than epistemic norms. The upshot of my argument is that the trustworthiness of affective states in the context of inquiry goes beyond fittingness—there are trustworthy states that are unfitting/incorrect and fitting/correct states that are untrustworthy. The standard view that trustworthiness is a matter of fittingness (e.g. Zagzebski, 2012; Magalotti and Kriegel, 2021; Deonna and Teroni, 2012) is thus rebutted.