![handle is hein.journals/crimlpy15 and id is 1 raw text is: Criminal Law and Philosophy (2021) 15:1-23
https://doi.org/10.1007/si1572-019-09521-9
ORIGINAL PAPER
Are Dissenters Epistemically Arrogant?
Tine Hindkjaer Madsen'
Published online: 2 January 2020
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract
One who elects to serve mankind by taking the law into his own hands thereby
demonstrates his conviction that his own ability to determine policy is superior to
democratic decision making. [Defendants'] professed unselfish motivation, rather
than a justification, actually identifies a form of arrogance which organized society
cannot tolerate. Those were the words of Justice Harris L. Hartz at the sentencing
hearing of three nuns convicted of trespassing and vandalizing government property
to demonstrate against U.S. foreign policy. Citizens engaging in civil disobedience
are indeed at times accused of being arrogant because they apparently think their
own political judgment is superior to that of the democratic majority. This paper
examines and evaluates the claim that dissenters are epistemically arrogant. Con-
trary to the dominant viewpoint in the literature, I argue that epistemic arrogance
involves inflating the epistemic worth of one's view. Indeed, the most plausible
charge against civil dissenters consists of two claims: (A) civil dissenters have a
higher degree of rational certainty in P than is warranted, and (B) civil dissenters
use a method of expression that requires a higher level of rational certainty than is
warranted in the propositions that their political view is right and the injustice they
fight is substantial. I argue that civil disobedience does not necessarily involve epis-
temic arrogance. Whether an act of civil disobedience evinces epistemic arrogance
has to be determined on a case-by-case basis depending on the extent to which each
dissenter lives up to (A) and (B).
Keywords Civil disobedience - Dissent - Epistemic arrogance - Civic virtues
Political judgment - Majority rule - Democratic theory
E Tine Hindkjaer Madsen
thm@hum.ku.dk; tine.hindkjaer@gmail.com
Section of Philosophy, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University
of Copenhagen, Karen Blixens Vej 3, 2300 Copenhagen, Denmark
I_) Springer](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/crimlpy15&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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