Expertise and Social Epistemic Warrant

Abstract John Stuart Mill claims in On Liberty that the robust ability for individuals to question and dispute claims is a necessary condition for us to be justified in believing those claims. But it is not obvious why even bad objections must be allowed to be voiced. On a recent interpretation of Mill’s view, censorship of bad objections does not threaten experts’ justification, but it does threaten laypeople’s justification. Laypeople must be assured that experts are in the business of responding to objections, rather than unfairly dismissing them. But laypeople cannot tell which objections are bad, so even these must be allowed to be voiced. Here, I argue that there is no way to cordon off experts from the epistemically deleterious effects of censorship, regarding many questions of interest. If Mill’s argument is right, then, the epistemic impacts of censorship are more radical than it might seem at first glance.