3.1 Explanatory Challenge Dynamics and Closed-Mindedness

Begin by observing that explanatory challenges typically are not an opening move, but a last resort. We are inclined to issue them only after more direct undermining efforts have been exhausted. When our interlocutors remain unmoved after we have presented our strongest counterevidence and our best counterarguments, then we are inclined to exclaim, ‘Don't you realize you just believe that because you were raised that way?!’ This suggests what prompts us to level these challenges is our perception that our interlocutor is responding inappropriately or being altogether unresponsive to counterconsiderations. Thus, part of the concern is that the person's beliefs are overly resilient. As a person's belief becomes more resilient, it becomes harder for counterevidence to reduce her confidence in that belief. A person's belief is overly resilient when it is inappropriately insensitive to undermining considerations. Overly resilient belief is often a manifestation of closed-mindedness. Thus, I submit that current closed-mindedness is the defect explanatory challenges are often meant to highlight. If explanatory challenges were always genealogical challenges, it is unclear why these challenges would have these dynamics. Why would we not just begin the conversation by probing the genealogy of the person's beliefs? Why wait? The hypothesis that explanatory challenges are sometimes concerned not with genealogy, but with current closed-mindedness better explains these dynamics.

What is closed-mindedness? Heather Battaly (Reference Battaly2018) has developed a plausible analysis. Closed-mindedness is an unwillingness or inability to engage seriously with relevant intellectual options. Intellectual options include beliefs, ideas, evidence, the sources one consults, which methods of inquiry one uses, and which questions one asks. A closed-minded person might engage only superficially with relevant options, ‘engage’ with them by flatly dismissing them, or fail to engage by ignoring or failing to seek out these options. One might think these challenges are about dogmatism not closed-mindedness. But on Battaly's view, dogmatism is a type of closed-mindedness. Whereas you can be closed-minded about an issue on which you take no stance, dogmatism is an unwillingness to engage seriously with relevant alternatives to views you already hold.

Closed-mindedness is typically thought of as an intellectual vice. I emphasize that nothing in my argument requires this thought to be correct. Recall, explanatory challenges have two parts: (1) the explanation of why the person holds the target beliefs; and (2) the claim that accurately explaining beliefs in this way renders them problematic. I am attempting to characterize the nature of the explanation without weighing in on whether accurately explaining beliefs in that way renders them problematic. Recall I am setting aside concerns related to the claim that accurately explaining beliefs in this way renders them problematic because the conversion defense is a response to the claim that the belief should be explained as the challenge alleges. Now, if closed-mindedness were not typically considered a vice, it would be odd for someone to challenge a belief by explaining it in terms of closed-mindedness. But it is enough for my purposes to claim the explanation is often meant to be cashed out in terms of closed-mindedness and that it is typically thought that explaining a belief via closed-mindedness renders it problematic.

Is it odd, though, to say a belief can be explained in terms of closed-mindedness? I do not think so. Intellectual vices are cognitive dispositions invoked to provide critical, nonrationalizing explanations of people's beliefs and intellectual behavior (Cassam Reference Cassam2016: 164). If I ask you why you believe what you do, you will cite considerations you take to favor your position. This is a rationalizing explanation: it explains why you hold your belief by citing your reasons for accepting it as true. In contrast, I might say you believe what you do because you are gullible. This is a dispositional explanation: you believe something because you have a certain disposition. These two explanations are related: the reasons you give to support your belief might only strike you as reasons because you have the relevant disposition (Cassam 106: 163). Given that closed-mindedness is typically considered an intellectual vice, there is nothing odd about appealing to it to explain a person's belief.

This is my proposal. When critics level explanatory challenges, often they are implicitly issuing a dispositional explanation of why you believe what you do in terms of closed-mindedness, dogmatism, and related (alleged) intellectual vices. We say, ‘you just believe P because you were raised in a community of P-believers!’ when we think you manifest an unwillingness or inability to seriously engage with relevant intellectual options. Maybe we think you refuse to consider that P might be false, or to accept the authority of certain sources that tell against P or the probative value of some evidence against P. In short, we often level these accusations when we think you continue to believe what you do because you are closed-minded about this issue.

One might reasonably and critically ask why standard explanatory challenges cite genealogy if they are not genealogical challenges. My response has three parts. First, although some explanatory challenges certainly do cite genealogy, not all do. People often say things like ‘you just believe that because you're a liberal!’ or ‘because you're a Christian’. These look like explanatory challenges that do not cite genealogy. Second, I think when genealogy or other allegedly irrelevant factors are cited in these circumstances this is usually an attempt to describe the source of closed-mindedness. These two explanations are related: you just believe that because you are closed-minded and you are closed-minded because of your upbringing, because you want it to be true, because you are a liberal, and so on. Third, there is nothing fishy—or at least distinctively fishy—about the fact that my account requires a reinterpretation of the surface level content of explanatory challenges. Even proponents of genealogical accounts readily acknowledge the obscure nature of these challenges. For example, consider the following remark by Avnur and Scott-Kakures (Reference Avnur and Scott-Kakures2015), who defend the motivated reasoning account of explanatory challenges: ‘while [explanatory challenges that say nothing about motivated reasoning] do not wear the implicated desire on their sleeves, we will argue that they are charitably and plausibly interpreted as implicating desire in the etiology of such beliefs’ (9). Together, I think, these three considerations provide good reason not to worry about this objection.

That concludes my first argument against G1. G1 says all explanatory challenges are genealogical challenges. I have argued this is false because explanatory challenges often explain target beliefs via closed-mindedness, rather than unrespectable genealogy. The closed-mindedness account explains the dynamics of a significant class of explanatory challenges better than G1 does.

3.2 Bolstering the Closed-Mindedness Account

I now bolster this closed-mindedness account by showing that it explains why indoctrination-based and motivated reasoning-based explanatory challenges can be appropriate even when the genealogy of a person's belief is respectable. The arguments proceed as follows: I describe a pair of cases involving motivated reasoning, and I claim that leveling an explanatory challenge is appropriate in both cases. The first case stipulates that motivated reasoning is present in the genealogy; the second stipulates the genealogy is respectable. If it is true that the explanatory challenge is appropriate in both cases, it follows that not all explanatory challenges are genealogical challenges, since the genealogy in the second case is respectable by stipulation. Moreover, the closed-mindedness account can explain why the explanatory challenge is appropriate in both cases. Finally, I briefly describe a pair of cases involving indoctrination to make the same points about indoctrination. The fact that the closed-mindedness account captures what is correct in the motivated-reasoning and indoctrination-based accounts provides it with further support.

Consider a case of self-deception that Avnur and Scott-Kakures (Reference Avnur and Scott-Kakures2015) use to defend their claim that explanatory challenges concern desire-based distortion. Al wants Blair to be interested in dating him, but he has strong evidence that she is not interested (she is already dating someone else, she has told him she just wants to be friends, or the like). But because he wants it to be true that Blair is interested, Al convinces himself she is interested by disregarding this evidence. Now imagine Al sharing his new belief with his friend Cat. After hearing Al's reasoning, Cat says, ‘You just believe that because you want it to be true!’ Cat then identifies all the evidence Al is disregarding.

The fact that the explanatory challenge looks appropriate here might suggest genealogy is the culprit: the origin of Al's belief is motivated reasoning. But a very similar case can be concocted where the origin of Al's belief is perfectly respectable, and yet a motivated reasoning-based explanatory challenge is still appropriate. Suppose Al originally believes Blair is interested because he starts off with good evidence that this is true (she emailed him asking him out), but he refuses to revise his belief when he receives new evidence against the belief he wants to be true (she sends another email saying the first email was not meant for him). Al relays his reasoning to Cat, and again she levels the explanatory challenge. In this case, the origins of Al's belief are respectable, yet the explanatory challenge would be appropriate. If this is correct, then not all explanatory challenges are genealogical challenges. Moreover, the closed-mindedness position can account for both cases. What seems problematic is how Al sustains his belief: he is being closed-minded. This is why motivated reasoning, and other similar distortions, seem problematic. They are manifestations of an unwillingness or inability to engage seriously with relevant intellectual options.

Avnur and Scott-Kakures were onto something when they analyzed explanatory challenges in terms of desire's directional influence. Closed-mindedness, when it is an unwillingness, is in this vicinity. But recall they characterize the problematic desires as going ‘beyond mere interest in believing the truth’ (Reference Avnur and Scott-Kakures2015: 12). This differs from my account, and it is not sufficiently general. I assume the ‘mere interest in believing the truth’ includes both desire to believe truth and desire to avoid error. However, the unwillingness that constitutes an agent's allegedly objectionable closed-mindedness need not be based in desires for anything other than the truth and the absence of error. These desires can themselves close an agent's mind if she is confident she's already satisfied them. She might avoid reading certain materials, consuming certain news sources, entertaining certain thoughts, or living in certain areas precisely because she thinks these sources will corrupt her perspective and mislead her away from the truth she is acquired. In this case, we cannot complain that this person's inquiry is based in interests unrelated to believing truth and avoiding error. Rather, the complaint is that these interests have closed her mind.

One might question this line of thought as follows. On the one hand, an open-minded person need not consider all options at all times. If they did, they would never settle on any belief. Surely, open-mindedness does not demand universal suspension of judgment. So, ignoring some options doesn't entail closed-mindedness. On the other hand, the person who claims to desire the truth while also ignoring a wide array of options to avoid corrupting her perspective is simply engaged in rationalization. So, either way, the sort of example under consideration does not show that one can be closed-minded because one desires the truth.

Much of this seems correct. I agree open-mindedness is consistent with not considering all options at all times and that ignoring some options at some times does not entail closed-mindedness. I am willing to grant open-mindedness does not demand universal suspension of judgment. I also think it is probably true that in many cases a person who behaves in these ways ostensibly in the name of truth is engaged in rationalization. But my reasoning was not meant to show that every person who claims to ignore relevant options for the sake of truth is truly doing so. The point is that the desires for truth and absence of error can close an agent's mind. If that's right and if it is true that explanatory challenges are often about closed-mindedness, then the concern raised by explanatory challenges is not limited to desires that go beyond a mere interest in believing the truth. Now, a related objection might suggest that when the desires for truth and the absence of error close a person's mind, there is nothing vicious, irrational, or otherwise epistemically problematic about this. Again, my project here does not require taking a stand on the conditions under which closed-mindedness is epistemically problematic. That being said, this claim strikes me as implausible. Concluding any and all counterconsiderations are misleading by holding fixed your current beliefs because you believe you've got the truth looks like paradigmatic epistemically criticizable behavior, even if it is done in the name of truth. Being guided only by the desires for truth and the absence of error does not provide sufficient grounds for rebutting explanatory challenges.

I have argued the closed-mindedness account can explain why motivated reasoning warrants an explanatory challenge both in cases where motivated reasoning appears in the genealogy and in cases where it does not. The closed-mindedness account has the same explanatory advantage regarding indoctrination. Because the reasoning here parallels the reasoning regarding motivated-reasoning, this discussion is brief.

According to Callan and Arena (Reference Callan, Arena and Siegel2009), indoctrination need not involve problematic methods, intentions, or dogma. Rather, they argue convincingly that indoctrination characteristically instills closed-mindedness. If that is right, then a concern about closed-mindedness underlies indoctrination-based explanatory challenges. You might be born into a cult that indoctrinates its children into believing P. Later, I might appropriately confront you with an indoctrination-based explanatory challenge. Alternatively, you might begin by open-mindedly believing P on the basis of strong evidence, only to later join a cult that indoctrinates its members into believing P, i.e., closes its members’ minds about P. Later, we might cross paths and I might provide you with excellent counterevidence, evidence you yourself would have accepted as sufficient reason to revise your opinion before joining the cult. After you remain unmoved, I might then appropriately level an indoctrination-based explanatory challenge against your belief. In this case, the origins of your belief were respectable. But the charge is appropriate all the same. Why? Only the former case involved an unrespectable genealogy, so genealogy cannot be the whole story. The closed-mindedness account provides the same explanation for both cases: both involved indoctrination; hence, both involved closed-mindedness.

This subsection has provided additional support for the closed-mindedness account. This account captures what is correct in the motivated reasoning and indoctrination accounts.

3.3 Vice-Free Challenges?

While analyzing prejudice and echo chambers, philosophers have recently identified pernicious epistemic effects certain social arrangements can have on a person's cognitive development. However, these philosophers also argue that what looks like intellectually vicious behavior in these circumstances might instead be perfectly rational and vice-free byproducts of the person's upbringing (Begby Reference Begby2013; Nguyen Reference Nguyen2018). Does this spell trouble for my arguments?

It does not. The two relevant interpretations of these findings are both consistent with my arguments. On one interpretation, these philosophers have identified genealogical worries unrelated to closed-mindedness. But I have only argued some explanatory challenges are closed-mindedness challenges. This does not imply that there are no genealogical worries. On another interpretation, they have shown the impotency of some explanatory challenges by showing that believing things because of your upbringing can be perfectly rational and vice-free. But I am remaining neutral on which belief explanations render those beliefs problematic. Thus, either way I think my arguments emerge unscathed.

Dialectically, these brief comments would suffice to answer this concern. But I want to go a step further. I am not convinced that these cases are vice-free. A full defense of this thought must wait for another occasion. Still, I briefly defend it here because I think that not only do these cases fail to undermine the closed-mindedness account, they may actually provide it with additional support.

Endre Begby's discussion concerns Solomon, a character taught in youth that women are less intelligent than men (Arpaly Reference Arpaly2003). This claim receives confirmation from the distribution of intelligence among men and women in Solomon's isolated community. According to Begby, Solomon's belief is perfectly rational given his evidence. But suppose Solomon goes off to university and fails to revise his belief after encountering many intelligent women. We might think Solomon's belief is irrational now, and perhaps indicative of intellectual vice (Arpaly Reference Arpaly2003; Fricker Reference Fricker2007). But Begby argues that Solomon's continued commitment to his prejudice does not indicate vice. Why not? First, Solomon's belief should be analyzed as a generic judgment rather than a universally quantified statement. So, counter-stereotypical instances don't disprove it. Moreover, Solomon encounters these women exactly where he would expect to find intelligent women: at university. Far from undermining it, then, observing intelligent women at university is what Solomon's prejudice predicts.

C. Thi Nguyen argues that when a person's upbringing inculcates certain patterns of trust and distrust, this can make it rational and virtuous for her to engage in behavior that merely seems intellectually vicious. Doubting climate science, distrusting the mainstream media, and believing Hillary Clinton is running a child sex ring in a pizza parlor need not involve any intellectual vice if you have been taught to trust and distrust certain sources of information. We all rely on others to tell us whom and what information to trust. Once we distribute our trust accordingly, not only can it be very difficult to upset this distribution, maintaining it come what may can also be intellectually virtuous depending on the distribution.

What should we make of all this? Begby and Nguyen have identified interesting—and troubling—consequences of our informational dependence on others. We do rely on others in the ways they describe. What happens next may be a matter of bad epistemic luck. But I am not convinced these cases are vice-free. We know we and the people on whom we rely for information are fallible. This places rational demands on us that, to my mind, Begby's and Nguyen's characters fail to meet.

Some factors that might demand less confidence and more openness to revision in light of counterconsiderations that are not taken into account by their characters include the limited nature of their information and experiences; the complexity of the relevant issues (surrounding intelligence, politics, religion, morality, and trust); the mixed and murky nature of evidence concerning these issues; the possibility of alternative, undiscovered or unconsidered explanations of their evidence; the motives of testifiers; facts about the social dynamics in which they are embedded, like group polarization and echo chambers; possible distortions produced by the order in which information is received; and facts about disagreement. These characters do not appear to take any of this into account when managing their beliefs.

I am not claiming it is impossible to imagine cases where these considerations are beyond the ken of the relevant characters. But Begby's and Nguyen's discussions are interesting precisely because their cases are meant to be pedestrian. And in ordinary cases many of these considerations are available to the relevant agents. Not taking them into account strikes me as a failure of intellectual humility closely tied to closed-mindedness. We do depend on others for information. Knowing we are all fallible means we need to compensate for the ways in which this dependence can lead us astray. This sets high standards for avoiding intellectual vice. I think that is the correct result. It also might set different standards from traditional Evidentialist or Bayesian standards of perfect rationality and intellectual virtue and vice. I have argued elsewhere this, too, is correct (DiPaolo Reference DiPaolo2019).

Nomy Arpaly (Reference Arpaly2003) and Miranda Fricker (Reference Fricker2007) judge Solomon's behavior intellectually vicious. Moreover, it would seem quite natural to level an explanatory challenge against Solomon after attempting to convince him he is wrong about women's relative intelligence. A correlation between these facts is predicted by the closed-mindedness account. Even if Begby's and Nguyen's discussions raise genealogical concerns, it is reasonable to think they also raise vice-related explanatory challenge concerns. Contrary to what these philosophers argue, the cases they describe arguably do involve vice.

3.4 Summary

I have argued not all explanatory challenges are genealogical challenges. The closed-mindedness account, a non-genealogical account, better captures the dynamics of explanatory challenges, and it explains why apparently genealogical concerns—motivated reasoning and indoctrination—can prompt explanatory challenges even when genealogies are respectable. Finally, recent discussions concerning allegedly vice-free byproducts of upbringing do not undermine the closed-mindedness account. Thus, the closed-mindedness account should be judged a serious contender.

4.1 A Convert's New Worldview Might Encourage Closed-Mindedness

Some worldviews encourage closed-mindedness. If the convert's reflective conversion has led her to commit fully to a worldview that encourages closed-mindedness about the domain of that worldview, then her reflective conversion has led her to closed-mindedness and cannot be cited to rebut explanatory challenges.

Interestingly, C. S. Lewis may be someone whose conversion involved open-mindedness yet also caused him to adopt a worldview that encourages closed-mindedness. Lewis was raised Christian, became an atheist, and eventually returned to Christianity. Consider how his new worldview influenced his interpretation of his early intellectual development. In retrospect, Lewis claimed his youthful renunciation of Christianity was initiated by discussions about the occult with a matron at school, but he ultimately blamed someone else for toppling his worldview: ‘the Enemy did this in me, taking occasion from things she innocently said. One reason why the Enemy found this so easy was that, without knowing it, I was already desperately anxious to get rid of my religion’ ([1955] Reference Lewis2012: 60).

The ‘Enemy’ refers to Satan. As Lewis considers these events after returning to Christianity, he thinks Satan took advantage of the doubt and anxiety he felt while the matron opened his eyes to a new worldview. I would wager that a person is unwilling to engage seriously with atheism while he believes doubt about God's existence results from Satan's cognitive meddling. By this person's lights, such questioning amounts to surrendering his mind over to Satan.

Moreover, Lewis endorsed a sort of ‘Satanic skepticism’: ‘The more a man was in the Devil's power, the less he would be aware of it’ ([1970] Reference Lewis and Hooper1994: 40). It seems to me this belief, when it is operative, would lead to closed-mindedness about God's existence. If you start taking seriously God's nonexistence, you will either notice Satan's influence on your thoughts or you will not. If you do, you will probably avoid this line of thinking. If you do not, you will probably think this is one of those times you're in his power without being aware of it. Either way, it seems you would stop taking seriously God's nonexistence while you maintain this belief about Satan's role in your cognition.

To be clear, not every Christian is committed to this worldview, so not every Christian convert will be susceptible to this concern. And plenty of non-Christian worldviews encourage closed-mindedness. Nevertheless, because this sort of case is possible, it follows that conversions characterized by open-mindedness can lead converts to adopt worldviews that encourage closed-mindedness. So, although reflective conversion may be evidence against a convert's having been closed-minded, the status of a convert's epistemic vice after her conversion depends on her new worldview, and how fully she commits herself to it. This means citing an open-minded conversion does not on its own rebut explanatory challenges.

4.2 Virtuous Conversions Can Lead to Vicious Intellectual Behavior

What if the convert's new worldview does not encourage closed-mindedness? Can an open-minded reflective conversion into an open-minded worldview be cited to rebut the claim that she believes her new worldview because she is closed-minded?

I do not want to deny that such conversions provide some evidence against current closed-mindedness. Previous virtue can be evidence against current vice. Moreover, it is natural to expect reflection on one's own conversion to increase open-mindedness: ‘I was seriously mistaken before. Maybe I am mistaken now. I had better keep an open mind!’ Still, converts often strike people as being overly dogmatic: think of the proverbial zeal of the convert. In this section, I describe a mechanism that explains why an intellectually virtuous conversion might make the convert less virtuous. Precisely because the reflective convert can reasonably think she has evidence of her own open-mindedness she is at greater risk of ‘epistemic self-licensing’ akin to ‘moral self-licensing’. If conversion increases the chances of epistemic self-licensing, conversion may therefore increase the chances of the convert's being closed-minded. Thus, conversion may not be strong evidence against current closed-mindedness.

What is self-licensing? As Anna Merritt, Daniel Effron, and Benoît Monin explain, ‘When people are confident their past behavior demonstrates compassion, generosity, or a lack of prejudice, they are more likely to act in morally dubious ways without fear of feeling heartless, selfish, or bigoted’ (Reference Merritt, Effron and Monin2010: 344). In slogan form: virtuous behavior frees people to act less-than-virtuously. Studies suggest an opportunity to choose environmentally friendly products can increase subsequent dishonesty, agreeing to provide help can reduce people's charitable donations, and endorsing a black politician can increase willingness to favor whites over blacks in certain decisions (Effron and Conway Reference Effron and Conway2015). There is a fair amount of evidence that this phenomenon exists (Monin and Miller Reference Monin and Miller2001; Merritt, Effron, and Monin Reference Merritt, Effron and Monin2010; Miller and Effron Reference Miller, Effron, Zanna and Olson2010; Effron and Conway Reference Effron and Conway2015), and in a review, Effron and Paul Conway (Reference Effron and Conway2015: 32) describe moral self-licensing effects as ‘reliable, if modestly sized’ and note that although evidence for this phenomenon comes primarily from laboratory studies, recent field studies suggest generalizability to real-world contexts.

How does self-licensing work? It can work by credits (‘I behaved generously before, so I've earned some selfish behavior now’.) or credentials (‘I behaved generously before, hence I am not selfish, hence I am not being selfish now’.). Regarding the latter, the idea is not that one sees one's previous apparently good deeds as entitling transgression, but rather the apparently good deeds clarify that the subsequent behavior is not actually a transgression. Credentials serve as a lens through which one interprets and disambiguates behavior in line with those credentials (Monin and Miller Reference Monin and Miller2001: 349). This ‘reasoning’ need not be conscious, though there is no evidence that it cannot be. A prominent thought among psychologists about the mechanism underlying moral self-licensing is that the chance to establish your moral credentials to yourself or others reduces your inhibition against behavior that could cast doubt on your morality (Effron and Conway Reference Effron and Conway2015).

What is epistemic self-licensing? It is not obvious what credit-based epistemic self-licensing would be, but credential-based epistemic self-licensing would work by analogy with its moral counterpart: when you believe you possess certain epistemic credentials, you are more likely than you otherwise would have been to engage in epistemic conduct that could cast doubt on your epistemic credentials. When you think you have certain epistemic credentials, you do not worry too much about behavior that might cast doubt on those credentials. Epistemic self-licensing occurs when possessing evidence of certain alleged credentials leads to less or weaker vigilance, giving certain behaviors a ‘pass’ when they are challenged. Again, ambiguous or questionable behavior, perhaps behavior that is being questioned, gets interpreted in ways that cohere with the alleged credentials.

To date, there is no empirical literature on epistemic self-licensing. But there is reason to think it is a genuine phenomenon. First, moral self-licensing is a type of psychological licensing: fear of discredit inhibits certain behaviors, and the source of the license removes that inhibition (Effron Reference Effron, van Prooijen and van Lange2016). In moral self-licensing the fear derives from a concern about appearing less-than-virtuous, and the source of license is evidence of moral virtue. Although psychologists working on this issue have only studied moral virtue, if evidence of virtue grants license, it is reasonable to expect these effects to carry over to epistemic virtue. If you care about being open-minded but do not yet have reason to consider yourself open-minded, fear of appearing closed-minded to others or yourself might make you less likely to behave closed-mindedly. Acquiring evidence against your closed-mindedness, though, might remove that fear and make you less vigilant, and therefore more likely to engage in closed-minded behavior than you would have been without this evidence.

Second, it is not difficult to identify plausible examples of epistemic self-licensing. Consider people who are absolutely confident of their unpopular views. Candidates include Flat-Earthers, conspiracy theorists, Westboro Baptist Church members, and the New Atheists. Clinging to a minority opinion in light of widespread, serious, and thoughtful intellectual opposition is, arguably, an epistemically questionable behavior. How do these people do it? Insisting they simply do not care about truth is implausible, partly because they often profess a deep regard for the truth. Instead, these people, who hold otherwise disparate views, justify their intellectual behavior by telling remarkably similar stories appealing to their own alleged epistemic virtue and others’ alleged epistemic vice. The fact that their beliefs are unpopular makes them nonconforming, independent thinkers. Their beliefs are unpopular because they reflect ‘hard truths’. Their willingness to believe these truths rather than comforting falsehoods is evidence of their own intellectual honesty, and evidence against their own motivated reasoning and self-deception. Others’ unwillingness is evidence of the opposite. For instance, compare the contrasting descriptions of in-groups and out-groups by Richard Dawkins (New Atheist) and Megan Phelps-Roper (former Westboro Baptist Church member). Dawkins (Reference Dawkins2006: 3) famously labels religious belief ‘delusional’ while claiming atheism typically indicates a ‘healthy independence of mind’. Similarly, according to Phelps-Roper, Westboro members—who maintain notoriously hateful and discriminatory interpretations of the Bible—see other Christians as giving into self-deception and motivated reasoning, while Westboro members are the intellectually honest ones committed to truth (Harris Reference Harris2015). Of course, what intellectual honesty and independence look like differs among these people: sometimes it is following reason and science, sometimes literal readings of religious texts. But these stories are structurally similar: confidence in one's own relative epistemic virtue grants license to persist in one's unpopular beliefs. In other words, belief in their own virtue leads to questionable epistemic conduct by removing the fear of discredit. This looks like epistemic self-licensing.

Empirical investigation is needed to determine the prevalence and extent of epistemic self-licensing. I would recommend looking at conversion. When converts take their conversion to evince their intellectual virtue, they may be more likely to behave viciously. There are several ways this might occur.

First, when a convert is not subject to standard genealogical explanatory challenges, this may itself be a source of self-licensing. Even if explanatory challenges do not always concern genealogy, genealogical anxiety is a genuine phenomenon: people often worry about potentially unrespectable origins of their beliefs. Genealogical anxiety is salutary when it inhibits certain vicious intellectual behaviors. When the convert's worldview does not directly reflect her upbringing, she may not suffer from genealogical anxiety. Lacking inhibitions grounded in this anxiety may lead to viciousness.

Second, the reflective convert's path often involves overcoming confirmation bias and motivated reasoning. She might think this indicates her positive epistemic credentials: she is less subject to these distorting forces than others. In turn, greater confidence in her lower susceptibility to these forces may correlate with less vigilance, which may end up increasing her susceptibility. All the while, she may remain confident in her credentials.

Third, the effects may be more direct. She may think her conversion indicates her open-mindedness, which may lead her to behave closed-mindedly without fear of appearing closed-minded. When others challenge her credentials by insisting she is being closed-minded, she may persist in closed-minded behavior. Others who have not undergone a reflective conversion and who lack any special indication of their own open-mindedness might worry in this circumstance that their behavior is closed-minded, which might help prevent or reduce closed-mindedness. But this reflective convert may not worry because she thinks she already knows she is open-minded.

These are three ways converts might succumb to self-licensing. Obviously, not all converts will fall into these traps. The open-mindedness that characterized their conversions may persist. Also, as the unpopular belief example suggests, converts aren't alone in being susceptible to self-licensing. So what is the connection between conversion, explanatory challenges, and self-licensing?

The question I am addressing in this section is whether reflective converts can cite their conversion to rebut charges of closed-mindedness. So far, I have said it depends on whether their new worldview encourages closed-mindedness. No matter how open-minded your conversion was, if you fully commit and conform to a worldview that encourages closed-mindedness, you will likely be closed-minded. Citing your conversion does not rebut the accusation.

Now I am identifying a less obvious way conversion can lead to closed-mindedness, and I am explaining why conversion should not be accepted as a satisfying rebuttal to closed-mindedness explanatory challenges. Empirical evidence suggests that morally virtuous behavior can lead to morally vicious behavior. I am suggesting the same probably goes for epistemically virtuous behavior. It may even underlie the suspicion concerning the zeal of the convert. Recognizing the credentials their open-minded conversion earned them, reflective converts may self-license to closed-minded behavior in two ways pertaining to explanatory challenges.

First, if converts appeal to their conversion to self-license prior to receiving an explanatory challenge, then their conversion is partly responsible for their current closed-mindedness. It is for this reason that it is implausible to think conversion can be cited as evidence against closed-mindedness when responding to an explanatory challenge. It is not just that an open-minded conversion is consistent with the possibility that the convert is now being closed-minded. Rather, recognition of the phenomenon of epistemic self-licensing gives us reason to think an open-minded conversion makes more likely current closed-mindedness. In light of the phenomenon of epistemic self-licensing, an open-minded conversion might provide reason to think the convert warrants the explanatory challenge.

There is a second connection between self-licensing and explanatory challenges. We should be wary of accepting conversion as evidence against closed-mindedness in the context of explanatory challenges because this seems like exactly the context in which credential-based self-licensing is likely to occur. Explanatory challenges question a person's epistemic credentials. Responsibly responding to these challenges requires inquiring into those credentials. The reflective convert might be satisfied relying on the credentials her conversion earned her to disambiguate her resistance to counterevidence, interpreting it as cohering with her previous open-mindedness. But this dodges the challenge, for the challenge alleges current, not previous closed-mindedness. Even if a convert had not been self-licensing prior to receiving an explanatory challenge, she might self-license in answering that challenge.

Thus, we should be wary of accepting the reflective convert's appeal to her conversion to rebut explanatory challenges. The fact that she underwent an open-minded conversion implies nothing about whether she is currently conforming to a worldview that encourages closed-mindedness, and it may provide reason to think she is more likely to engage in closed-minded behavior via self-licensing.