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Skepticism, the Virtue of Preemptive Distrust

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2023

JOHNNY BRENNAN Open the ORCID record for JOHNNY BRENNAN [Opens in a new window]
JOHNNY BRENNAN*
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INDEPENDENT SCHOLAR [email protected]
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Abstract

How does trust operate under conditions of oppression? Little attention has been paid to how distrust may be both necessary and costly to its bearer. Distrust is clearly warranted under certain conditions, but do those conditions contribute to a reduction in one's overall well-being? More importantly, is there something about distrust itself (rather than the conditions that warrant it) that contributes to this reduction in well-being? In this essay, I explore these questions in depth. I explain what the costs of distrust are and how they impede our well-being. I argue that the weakened development of trust through oppression has some important downstream consequences: namely, it requires the cultivation of skepticism as a virtue of distrust, which I argue should be included as one of Lisa Tessman's burdened virtues—those that are required for survival but that do not necessarily lead to the agent's flourishing.

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Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , June 2024 , pp. 243 - 260
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association

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Footnotes

I thank the several people—Jason D'Cruz, Vita Emery, and Gwen Daugs, among others—whose critical comments on my concept of recognition trust drove me to explore the notion of burdened virtues of distrust. I also thank Laura Specker Sullivan and Nick Smyth for comments on early drafts of this essay. I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their encouraging comments and insights on how to reconceive certain sections of the paper. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Amy Monaco, who had many enlightening discussions with me on the topics covered in this essay.

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