Ameliorating Obstructivism: Low-Grade Knowledge and Motivated Ignorance

Abstract Quassim Cassam’s obstructivism characterises epistemic vice as any blameworthy or otherwise reprehensible character trait, attitude, or way of thinking that systematically obstructs the acquisition, retention, or dissemination of knowledge. I argue, contra a defensible common-sense reading of obstructivism, that the view, as stated, is committed to treating all systematic knowledge-obstructions as vice-relevant regardless of the value of the knowledge obstructed, a commitment which yields clear counterexamples. The paper does not attribute this commitment to Cassam as his fully settled position. Rather, I take his official definition at face value and show that it is in tension with several scattered passages in which he himself, without theorising it, relies on an unanalysed value-tiering of knowledge. I propose two friendly amendments. First, I distinguish weighty from insignificant knowledge along Pritchard’s lines, grounding the distinction in the criterion of substantive cognitive contact with reality. Second, I refine the systematicity condition. A trait systematically obstructs knowledge only if it reliably does so across the normal range of epistemic environments at the level of the trait rather than at the level of outcomes in pathological conditions. With these two refinements in place, dispositions towards motivated ignorance, properly characterised as stable traits or attitudes rather than isolated choices, can be epistemically neutral or beneficial when they obstruct only insignificant knowledge while preserving the agent’s capacity for weighty knowledge. The second refinement is underpinned by a teleological-functional criterion of environmental normality, anchored in Sosa’s competence-as-disposition framing. I conclude by offering a refined statement of obstructivism that accommodates these distinctions while preserving Cassam’s core insight.