Elizabeth Edenberg

This chapter brings together debates in political philosophy and epistemology over what we should do when we disagree. While it might be tempting to think that we can apply one debate to the other, there are significant differences that may threaten this project. The specification of who qualifies as a civic or epistemic peer are not coextensive, utilizing different idealizations in denoting peerhood. In addition, the scope of disagreements that are relevant vary according to whether the methodology chosen falls within ideal theory or nonideal theory. Finally, the two literatures focus on different units of analysis that diverge according to the philosophical purpose behind their investigation of disagreement. Epistemologists analyze the rationality of individuals’ belief states whereas political philosophers focus on the just governance of a diverse society. Despite these differences, political epistemologists can learn valuable lessons by considering these debates side by side in ...

Political epistemology is a newly flourishing area of philosophy, but there is no comprehensive overview to this burgeoning field. This chapter maps out the terrain of political epistemology, highlights some of the key questions and topics of this field, draws connections across seemingly disparate areas of work, and briefly situates this field within its historical and contemporary contexts

This chapter addresses the controversy over the role of consent in data protection, as artificial intelligence systems have proliferated in people’s daily lives. Digital consent has been criticized as a meaningless, procedural act because users encounter so many different, long, and complicated terms of service that do not help them effectively assess potential harms or threats. AI systems have played a role in exacerbating existing issues, creating new challenges, and presenting alternative solutions. Most of the critiques and cures for this broken arrangement address choice-making, not consent. As the United States debates whether and why to break up big tech, and the European Union considers enforcement actions under the General Data Protection Regulation and how to update its laws to address tracking techniques in a new AI-driven smart world, consent cannot be confused with choice. Consent must be defined by its moral core, involving clear background conditions, defined scope, k...

Intractable political disagreements threaten to fracture the common ground upon which we can build a political community. The deepening divisions in society are partly fueled by the ways social media has shaped political engagement. Social media allows us to sort ourselves into increasingly likeminded groups, consume information from different sources, and end up in polarized and insular echo chambers. To solve this, many argue for various ways of cultivating more responsible epistemic agency. This chapter argues that this epistemic lens does not reveal the complete picture and therefore misses a form of moral respect required to reestablish cooperation across disagreements in a divided society. The breakdown of discourse online provides renewed reasons to draw out not an epistemic but a moral basis for political cooperation among diverse citizens—one inspired by Rawlsian political liberalism. We need ways to cultivate mutual respect for our fellow citizens in order to reestablish c...

Political epistemology lies at the intersection of political philosophy and epistemology. Put broadly, political epistemologists investigate the ways in which epistemological issues are at the center of our political lives. For example, they explore how claims of knowledge, truth, and expertise impact political decisions and forms of legitimate authority. Research in this domain ranges from asking questions about whether (and to what extent) legitimate authority hinges on epistemic evaluation of the process or outcome of political decisions to questions about epistemic virtues and vices of individuals in their role as political agents. Political epistemologists ask questions such as: which forms of government can leverage the collective wisdom of the public and to what extent does ignorance, propaganda, or misinformation undermine the legitimacy of collective decisions? What role should disagreement play in our political lives and how does disagreement impact society (i.e., does it ...

We will argue that clarifying the “moral core” of consent offers a common metric by which we can evaluate how well different legal frameworks are able to protect the central moral rights and interests at stake. We begin by revisiting how legal frameworks for digital consent developed in order to see where there may be common moral ground and where these different cultures diverge on the issue of protection of personal information. We then turn to ethics to clarify the central interests and rights at stake in morally transformative consent, in order to provide a common basis for evaluating the different legal frameworks. Ultimately, we seek the moral core of digital consent in order to reimagine its role in international conflicts.

While several tests and strategies are recommended for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening, studies suggest that primary care providers often recommend colonoscopy without providing information about its risks or alternatives. These observations raise concerns about the quality of informed consent for screening colonoscopy. We conducted a telephone survey (August 2008 to September 2009) of a convenience sample of 98 patients scheduled for a screening colonoscopy to assess their understanding of the procedure's benefits, risks, and alternatives and their sources of information. Fully 90.8% of subjects described the purpose of screening colonoscopy in at least general terms. Just 48.0% described at least one risk of the procedure. Only 24.5% named at least one approved alternative test. Just 3.1% described the minimal required elements for informed consent: the benefit of colonoscopy, both of the major risks, and at least one approved alternative test. Compared to subjects with high...

We will argue that clarifying the “moral core” of consent offers a common metric by which we can evaluate how well different legal frameworks are able to protect the central moral rights and interests at stake. We begin by revisiting how legal frameworks for digital consent developed in order to see where there may be common moral ground and where these different cultures diverge on the issue of protection of personal information. We then turn to ethics to clarify the central interests and rights at stake in morally transformative consent, in order to provide a common basis for evaluating the different legal frameworks. Ultimately, we seek the moral core of digital consent in order to reimagine its role in international conflicts.

John Rawls pinpoints stability as the driving force behind many of the changes to justice as fairness from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism. Current debates about Rawlsian stability have centered on the possibility of maintaining one's allegiance to the principles of justice while largely ignoring how citizens acquire a sense of justice. However, evaluating the account of stability in political liberalism requires attention to the impact of reasonable pluralism on both of these issues. I will argue that the first question of Rawlsian stability—how a child acquires a sense of justice—remains unanswered in Political Liberalism. This fact has been overlooked by Rawls, his defenders, and his critics. The failure to attend to the ways reasonable pluralism undermines Rawls's own story about a child's moral development ultimately threatens Rawls's account of stability in political liberalism—or so I will argue. Despite all of the changes Rawls makes to justice as fairness in order to resolve the stability challenge, Political Liberalism fails to deliver the robust stability Rawls seeks.

AI systems collect, process, and generate data in ways that further exacerbate many long documented problems with online consent, most notably issues of providing adequate notice, choice, and withdrawal to users. The unpredictable and even unimaginable use of data by AI systems is considered a feature, not a bug. Yet this feature creates problems for notifying users as well as assessing when consent might be required based on potential uses, harms, and consequences. This paper investigates whether these problems impact morally transformative consent in AI systems. We will argue that while supplementing consent with further mechanization, digitization, and intelligence—either through proffering notification on behalf of the consentee or choosing and communicating consent by the consenter—may improve take-it-or-leave-it notice and choice consent regimes, the goal for AI consent should be one of partnership development between parties, built on responsive design and continual consent.

Debates about how to incorporate the severely cognitively disabled into liberal theory typically focus on John Rawls’s assumption that citizens choosing the principles of justice should be understood as full social cooperators. In this paper, we argue that social cooperation is not the fundamental barrier to the inclusion of the severely cognitively disabled. We argue that these persons are excluded from the entire project of liberal legitimacy in virtue of the apparent inability of a severely cognitively disabled person to understand and evaluate the legitimacy of political principles for herself. Severely cognitively disabled persons lack a kind of access to political principles that is crucial, according to liberal theory, for political principles to be legitimate to someone, and not simply for someone.

In this paper, I consider the problem that children pose to understanding the scope and limits of Rawls’s Political Liberalism by focusing on the civic education of children as future citizens. Can a politically liberal state provide all children the opportunity to become reasonable citizens? Or does the cultivation of reasonableness require comprehensive liberalism?
In considering these questions, I show that educating children to become reasonable in the way Rawls outlines imposes a demanding requirement that conflicts with Rawls’s aim of including a wide constituency in the scope of political liberalism. Rawls’s aim of making reasonableness broadly inclusive for political purposes is in tension with his goal of using reasonableness as the standard that delineates the scope of liberal legitimacy. I argue that political liberalism can and should try to cultivate the reasonableness of its future citizens through the civic education of children. However, a defensible version of political liberal civic education requires introducing a bifurcation within Rawls’s conception of reasonableness. Political liberal civic education should aim towards the inclusive scope of reasonableness by cultivating reasonableness in only two of what appear to be three senses that Rawls emphasizes. Teaching children that legitimacy requires embracing public reason demands more than may be justifiably required by a state that seeks to be broadly inclusive.

This study demonstrates that patients scheduled for screening colonoscopy have limited knowledge of its risks and alternatives; subjects with lower education levels and lower income have even less understanding. For patients who do not receive additional information until they have begun the preparation for the test, the quality of informed consent may be low.