Comment on 'In defence of epistemic modesty'

Abstract

Epistemic modesty is the practice of giving little weight to one’s own opinion on an issue and instead deferring to an idealized consensus of experts. The author argues for a strong form of epistemic modesty, suggesting that one’s own convictions should weigh no more heavily than that of any other epistemic peer. The author provides various motivations for this view, including the symmetry case, compressed sensing, repeated measures, and the wisdom of crowds. The author then addresses common objections to this view, such as the self-undermining objection, the existence of cases where experts are demonstrably wrong, and the need for individual insight to drive progress. The author concludes by arguing that the rationalist and effective altruism communities err in the direction of insufficient modesty. – AI-generated abstract.