Daring to doubt! Shaftesbury, doubt, and polite conversation

Abstract Shaftesbury thought that dogmatism was an epistemic vice that violated the norms of good inquiry by inhibiting the proper exercise of reason. One way that Shaftesbury attempted to defend against dogmatic thought and culture was to recommend that society followed the norms of what he called “polite conversation.” This notion has received a fair amount of scholarship. However, it was not Shaftesbury's only recommendation. The earl accused his contemporaries of being “too lazy and effeminate, and withal a little too cowardly, to dare doubt!” (C 2.108). In so doing, Shaftesbury endorsed doubt. But just what does Shaftesbury mean by this endorsement? What is doubt? Why should we doubt? Under what conditions should we doubt? This article takes seriously Shaftesbury's invocation to doubt and develops an account of doubt that fits systematically within Shaftesbury's social, ethical, epistemic project. Doubt, for Shaftesbury, is an attitude that inoculates against dogmatism much like polite conversation is an activity that inoculates against dogmatic exchange. This article argues that Shaftesbury endorses doubt because it (1) promotes genuine inquiry and (2) motivates polite conversation, which itself tends to produce epistemically good outcomes.