Evaluative Epistemic Norms: Dissolving the Epistemic–Zetetic Tension
Friedman (2020) identifies a tension between traditional epistemic (or doxastic) norms and zetetic norms, which guide our inquiry more generally. In response, some hold that there is a unified domain of epistemic–zetetic norms, taking this tension to motivate the rejection or significant revision of doxastic norms to align them with zetetic norms. Others argue that such revisions are unsatisfactory because they impose an unduly restricted scope on doxastic norms. I share both sets of concerns. In this paper, I argue that there are two sets of doxastic norms. First, zetetic doxastic norms govern knowledge generation by guiding our inquiry, and these must indeed be significantly revised. Second, evaluative doxastic norms govern knowledge transmission by serving as universally applicable standards for epistemic assessment in our practices of social epistemic accountability. Despite a similarity in their subjects, these norms differ in their normative function, scope, and perspective. This framework dissolves the apparent epistemic–zetetic tension: the tension is not genuine, but arises only from misinterpreting the latter as the former. In this sense, the zetetic turn in epistemology motivates a social turn in normative epistemology.