4.1. Inconsistent beliefs

I suggest that the epistemically hypocritical blamer – the individual who meets conditions (1)–(3) above – commits themselves to an inconsistent set of beliefs that reveals itself in and gives rise to hypocritical blaming practices. That is, each instance of epistemically hypocritical blame rationally commits the blamer to an epistemic inconsistency. If this is the case, and there is an epistemic norm of consistency, the epistemic wrongness of the epistemic hypocrite's blame goes beyond the badness of (1) and (2).

Let's first attend to (3), S's judgment that P is epistemically blameworthy for violating n (in our case, jumping to conclusions on insufficient or irrelevant evidence). I suggest that this act of judging entails a rational commitment to the norm in question. Judging that P is epistemically blameworthy for violating n must commit one to the belief that n is a legitimate epistemic norm worth respecting. We can spell out this entailment further.Footnote ¹⁹ Blaming is a response to wrongdoing; thus, judging someone blameworthy means that you are committed to that person's having committed a wrong. Yet wrongs are constituted by the violation of legitimate norms.Footnote ²⁰ So it follows from judging blameworthy that one is committed to the norm in question. Further, being committed to a norm means that one deems it worthy of respect, or recognizes that it is the kind of rule that has value and ought to be followed. While I am silent on the issue of whether judgments of this kind go beyond mere belief – though I expect that they do – I contend that judgments are the kind of thing that require the judger to take a stance on a proposition. In judging epistemically blameworthy, you are implicitly affirming the truth of the proposition that, in violating an epistemic norm n, an agent is the appropriate target of epistemic blame. It would be difficult to explain this affirmation if one did not also take the epistemic norm in question as worthy of respect. This affirmation, I think, entails the further thought that the epistemic norm is one that, barring exceptional circumstances, commands respect.

Now, let's turn to the epistemically hypocritical blamer's own violation of the epistemic norm n and their subsequent failure to judge themselves epistemically blameworthy ((1) and (2), respectively). We said above that S's failure to judge themselves epistemically blameworthy can take the form either of an explicit judgment in their own lack of epistemic-blameworthiness or a failure to take up the matter in their own case – that is, such an individual either judges that they are not epistemically blameworthy, or deems their own epistemic norm violation properly ignored. Under either interpretation, I take it that S's failure to judge themselves epistemically blameworthy for violating n under like circumstances reflects a belief that n is not an epistemic norm worth respecting.

The reason for this half of the explanation may initially be less clear. However, it becomes plainer once we clarify something about the epistemically hypocritical blamer's failure to judge themselves epistemically blameworthy: this failure to judge is distinctive insofar as I am attending to cases where this negligence is not due to mere oversight. Without qualification, failing to judge oneself epistemically blameworthy does not, on its own, express one's further belief that the epistemic norm one has violated is not worthy of respect. This is because we might imagine that one simply failed to consider or observe one's own epistemic infraction, but that one would, under the right conditions, affirm one's own epistemic blameworthiness. Rather, I am interested in the subset of cases where one's failure to judge oneself epistemically blameworthy communicates one's disposition to refuse epistemic blame from others. This is why the second clause in condition (2) is important. The genuinely epistemically hypocritical blamer fails to self-blame in a way that signifies their disposition to deny (or their active denial of) their status as a worthy target of epistemic blame. After all, if one were disposed to self-blame when prompted, we would not view this individual as genuinely epistemically hypocritical – only as culpably un-self-aware. This clarification fits nicely with the natural idea that to judge epistemically blameworthy is to recognize that one is the fitting target of epistemic blame.

This attitude of the genuinely epistemically hypocritical blamer is revealing of their belief that the epistemic norm in question is not worthy of respect. As Friedman (Reference Friedman2013: 281) notes insightfully of the moral case, “Any intentional failure to apply a moral norm where it should be applied is a lapse of commitment.”Footnote ²¹ I suggest that our normative commitments have both behavioral and rational elements. Let us call one's commitment to acting upon and upholding a norm one's behavioral commitment to an epistemic norm n. By contrast, we may refer to one's belief in the force or authority of that norm one's as rational commitment to n. I am interested in the latter sense of ‘commitment.’ To be disposed to refuse epistemic blame from others requires some further belief about the epistemic norm that has been violated. It is the presence of such rational commitments that support my claim that there is a distinctive epistemic badness that accompanies epistemically hypocritical blame.

Yet one might worry that we need not go beyond our attention to behavioral commitments in explaining what is objectionable about the epistemically hypocritical blamer's failure to self-blame: why posit a further belief, or rational commitment, about the epistemic norm in question?Footnote ²² However, without specifying the nature of this commitment as rational, one runs into problematic cases: suppose one thinks that an office policy is downright foolish, but one chooses to obey it so that their employment is not threatened. There is an important sense in which one is behaviorally committed to the policy in question, but given one's further belief about the rule's foolishness, one would not regard anyone's violations of the policy as genuinely blameworthy or as worthy of punishment – that is, one lacks the rational commitment to the norm's force. Merely behavioral commitment and judging blameworthy can come apart. This is because one can have purely practical reasons for upholding a norm which are disconnected from one's blaming practices and rational commitments. I take it that a failure in behavioral commitment is not, on its own, sufficient to explain why one would fail to self-blame in the relevant way. However, if we further stipulate that there is an additional sort of commitment which is rational in nature – that is, that one is rationally committed to the epistemic norm in question demanding respect – we are better positioned to explain failures of self-blame. This rational commitment, or lack thereof, seems to be required in order to rationalize the attitude non-self-blaming agents hold toward their own epistemic practices.Footnote ²³ One's failure to judge oneself epistemically blameworthy is indicative of one's beliefs about the value of the epistemic norm in question. Moreover, I am limiting my attention to cases where one's failure to self-blame is, in effect, a disposition to judge non-epistemically blameworthy. As above, then, we might add that this sort of judgment involves the denial, rather than the affirmation, of the value of the epistemic norm in question.

Thus, I take condition (3) above to be indicative of the epistemically hypocritical blamer's belief that an epistemic norm n demands respect, and (1) and (2) as revealing of their belief that n is not worthy of respect. At this point, we see a tension manifested in the epistemically hypocritical blamer's actions: they have committed themselves to an inconsistent set of beliefs. The epistemically hypocritical blamer, in violating n themselves, not self-blaming, and judging others blameworthy for violating n, demonstrates both belief that n is not an epistemic norm worth respecting and belief that n is an epistemic norm worth respecting. I will not here take a firm stance on whether these are outright beliefs or merely implicit commitments, but either should be governed by the norm of consistency. One potential theoretical reason for thinking that the epistemically hypocritical blamer really does hold these beliefs comes to us from the traditional dispositional view of belief. On this view, what it is for a person S to believe a proposition p is for S to exhibit certain behaviors regarding p; in other words, S acts as though p is true (Schwitzgebel Reference Schwitzgebel, Zalta and Nodelman2023). Regardless of our theoretical underpinnings, the ideas that we act in accordance with what we believe, and that belief is important to explaining action, have quite an intuitive pull.

In holding each of the constitutive attitudes of epistemically hypocritical blame, S implicitly violates the epistemic norm of consistency, which dictates that we should strive to hold beliefs consistent with each other. The epistemically hypocritical blamer is wide-scope irrational; it is the combination of conditions (1)–(3) that is at issue, over and above the wrongness of S's own epistemic norm violation and failure to self-blame. The epistemically hypocritical blamer cannot, therefore, legitimately form a judgment of epistemic blameworthiness because it would be epistemically wrong for them to do so insofar as it would be inconsistent with their set of beliefs.

4.2. Defending the epistemic norm of consistency

At this point, we should say more to support my claim that the epistemically hypocritical blamer's violation of the norm of consistency, and thus the conjunction of constitutive attitudes, is really the point of contention in the case of epistemically hypocritical blame, rather than simply the blamer's failure to self-blame for their own epistemic norm violation ((1) and (2)). What gives us reason to believe there is an epistemic norm of consistency? Beyond the intuitive pull of such a norm, we can provide an independent argument. Epistemic norms are the rules that govern inquiry and support the achievement of our epistemic goals; they dictate what one ought and ought not do with respect to one's epistemic life. The epistemic norm of consistency suggests that if one believes p at t, then one should not also believe ~p at t.Footnote ²⁴ In general, this is a rule that is conducive to success in inquiry.Footnote ²⁵ Moreover, I suggest that if the badness of the epistemically hypocritical blamer's attitudes was only due to the badness of their (1) violating an epistemic norm and (2) failing to self-blame, then we would get unintuitive results when we compare the epistemically hypocritical blamer, S, to the non-self-blaming epistemic norm violator, S*, who does not judge P epistemically blameworthy (i.e., the individual who meets conditions (1) and (2), but not (3)). This is because, in either of these cases, S would be doing (1) and (2), and thus committing the same set of infractions. But S's badness appears to vary depending upon the presence of (3) a judgment of P's epistemic blameworthiness. That is, S*, who does not judge P epistemically blameworthy, does not seem to be bad in the same way as S, who is an epistemically hypocritical blamer. This is not to say that S* is less bad than S, but that S* is wrong in a different way.Footnote ²⁶ But if the epistemic badness was completely explained by the presence of (1) and (2), we should have the same intuitions about the badness of S and S*. Thus, the badness of the conjuncts (1) and (2) individually do not seem sufficient to explain what is objectionable about the epistemically hypocritical blamer.

One might object here that there is an important difference between S's and S*'s cases as I have described them. Namely, there is an additional badness at work in S*'s case already: they have once again failed to respond to their evidence in not judging P epistemically blameworthy, given that S and S* are each in a position to know that P's violation of n warrants epistemic blame. So, we can suggest that S and S* are bad in different ways without positing any other source of badness in the epistemically hypocritical blamer's case outside of conjuncts (1) and (2). In response, I suggest the following: highlighting this additional badness in S*'s case implies that S ¹ is worse than S because S* has violated a greater number of epistemic norms. This means that the epistemically hypocritical blamer – the non-self-blaming epistemic norm violator who does hypocritically assent to P's epistemic blameworthiness – is at the very least less bad than the non-self-blaming epistemic norm violator who does not assent to P's epistemic blameworthiness. I think this runs counter to our intuitions; S seems to be at least as bad as S*, though in different ways. In order for this to be the case, there must be some additional badness present in the case of the epistemically hypocritical blame apart from (1) and (2). I suggest that this additional badness is best explained by the blamer's violation of the epistemic norm of consistency, since this appears to be the only other possible epistemic wrong in this case. This explanation of what is epistemically objectionable about epistemic hypocrisy fits nicely with the basic picture of a hypocrite as someone who lacks a match between what they profess and what they do.

4.3. Concerns about consistency

There are two other closely related worries that may naturally arise from the preceding. First, inconsistency in one's judgments of epistemic blameworthiness does not seem an apt criterion for marking out epistemically hypocritical blame; and second, the charge of epistemic inconsistency does not seem to identify a badness distinctive of epistemic hypocrisy.

Let's turn to the first of these problems. This concern is suggestive of the idea that inconsistency on its own cannot characterize the badness of epistemically hypocritical blame. However, this line of response relies on a misunderstanding of the claim at issue; on my view, inconsistency in one's judgments of epistemic blameworthiness is not a sufficient condition for epistemic hypocrisy. Rather, as conditions (1)–(3) suggest, it is implicitly a necessary condition. We do not want it to be that inconsistency among judgments of epistemic blameworthiness tout court suffices for one's blame to count as epistemically hypocritical since, as Mark Alicke et al. (Reference Alicke, Gorden and Rose2013: 674) note, “people are inconsistent for many reasons,” and perhaps they merely “forget what they have endorsed.” Importantly, what is at issue in cases of epistemically hypocritical blame is that the blamer at one and the same time both denies their own epistemic blameworthiness and maintains the epistemic blameworthiness of another agent for the same epistemic norm violation under like circumstances. The blamer may forget that they once committed the same epistemic norm violation and did not treat themselves as the appropriate target of epistemic blame; however, in such cases, only individuals who never renounced such a judgment and, if the question of their own blameworthiness was once again presented for their consideration, would continue to deny their blameworthiness will turn out to be epistemically hypocritical on my view.Footnote ²⁷ Thus, I think we can set aside worries that stem from the sufficiency of inconsistency for epistemic hypocrisy.

Still, we may wonder whether epistemic inconsistency of a different form suffices for epistemically hypocritical blame. Consider two relevant kinds of cases: one where one judges themselves but not others epistemically blameworthy for the same infraction under like circumstances, and one where one discriminates evaluatively such that, say, they do not epistemically blame their friends for what they, at the same time, judge a stranger epistemically blameworthy for doing.

Suppose that S views themselves as epistemically blameworthy, but does not view P as such. Galen Strawson (Reference Strawson2008: 357) writes, “I do not regard bad things that I do as mere bad luck, but have true responsibility-presupposing attitudes to them (which may admittedly fade with time)…I do naturally regard bad things that other people do as explicable in ways that make true-responsibility-presupposing blame inappropriate. I suspect that this pattern may not be particularly uncommon.” Strawson's experience demonstrates that we might hold ourselves to higher standards than we do others. We might also frame this type of case as an inconsistency in one's distribution of excuses, in a way that favors others. But is this a case of epistemically hypocritical blame? Insofar as an individual of this kind does not meet the conditions (1)–(3), we must answer No. This is not a concession, because neither hypocrisy, nor a failure of standing, are the only ways in which one's blame – or failure to blame – can be inappropriate. Strawson (Reference Strawson2008: 357) calls his own experience “dramatically inconsistent.” Indeed, S ought to hold others to account, on epistemic grounds, and may otherwise be open to the charge of epistemic inconsistency and going against the evidence. Moreover, there may be moral or prudential reasons that S should hold others to the standards operative in their epistemic community.Footnote ²⁸ We can maintain that this individual's epistemic blaming practices are inappropriate or unfitting, while also upholding that what is distinctive of epistemically hypocritical blamers is a failure to self-blame in a way that disposes them to deny epistemic blame from others.

Similarly, though one might object to a case where one forms differential judgments of epistemic blameworthiness toward others, first and foremost, on the grounds of fairness and of epistemic inconsistency (say, when one's epistemic blaming practices favor one's fellows), this does not suffice for epistemic hypocrisy. Moreover, we should keep in mind that one can choose to refrain from epistemically blaming in a way that does not signify a lack of commitment to the epistemic norm in question, and this is the case in order to maintain the variability characteristic of our blaming dispositions.Footnote ²⁹

We can now turn to the second of the objections above. I've said that the distinctive epistemic badness in epistemically hypocritical blame is an epistemic inconsistency in one's judgments. However, one might point out, there are other scenarios that do not constitute instances of hypocrisy, but which manifest this exact epistemic badness. Our case above, in which one judges a stranger epistemically blameworthy but fails to judge one's friend epistemically blameworthy for violating the same epistemic norm under like circumstances, is an example of this kind of case. But, the blamer here does not seem to be as bad, or going as wrong, as the epistemically hypocritical blamer. If this is right, then perhaps the badness of epistemically hypocritical blame cannot be totally explained by the epistemic inconsistency I've identified.

In response, I first note that maintaining, as I do, that the epistemic inconsistency which accompanies one's normative commitments distinctively characterizes epistemically hypocritical blame does not entail that the badness of such blame is exhausted by this explanation. There are indeed other transgressions at work in the case of epistemic hypocrisy that do not concern us in evaluating the merely differential blamer: one culpably violates an epistemic norm oneself, and there are important potential moral failures for the epistemically hypocritical blamer, like their free riding on others' maintenance of the norms from which they benefit, or their outward deception. Moreover, as we will see in the next section, only the inconsistency inherent in epistemically hypocritical blame is one can which lead to a failure of standing.

5.1. The standing to epistemically blame

So far, we have shown, by appeal to the epistemic norm of consistency, what is epistemically objectionable about epistemic hypocrisy. Our next task is to elaborate upon how (1)–(3) cause the epistemically hypocritical blamer to lose the standing to epistemically blame. One reason for this is that merely showing that one's epistemic blame is objectionable is not sufficient to demonstrate that one lacks the standing to issue such blame. That is, what we've done so far is show that the epistemically hypocritical blamer's blaming practices are inappropriate, but there are important reasons to think a person's standing to epistemically blame is inequivalent to the appropriateness of their blame.

Standing is determined by appeal to features of the blamer, but the appropriateness of one's blame is contingent upon certain facts about the blamer and the blame-recipient obtaining (such as whether the recipient of blame is excused). That is, evaluations of appropriateness are broader than evaluations of standing. Moreover, there are some facts about the blamer themselves that render blame appropriate or inappropriate, but are unrelated to their standing. For instance, it could be contextually imprudent to blame: since blaming often involves a speech act, blaming in a certain context could inhibit one's goals. Whether one possesses standing does not depend on what one's goals happen to be. Or, as Kyle Fritz and Daniel Miller (Reference Fritz and Miller2018: 124–25) point out, we can be mean, petty, or arrogant blamers and yet not lose our entitlement to blame. Furthermore, blaming a certain transgression could be morally required of an agent, which indicates one's blame can be inappropriate along the dimension of standing, but appropriate in other respects. And, as we mentioned before, merely having violated the epistemic norm in question is itself insufficient to explain a loss of standing.Footnote ³⁰ The key idea here is that standing does not track appropriateness, since there are factors relevant to establishing appropriateness that do not figure in ascertaining one's standing (though it does seem that all cases of blaming without standing contribute to the inappropriateness of one's blame). One can have standing while one's blame is nonetheless inappropriate. So, we must tell a further story about how the epistemically hypocritical blamer loses their standing that goes beyond an explanation of why their blame is epistemically objectionable.Footnote ³¹

As we have seen, standing refers to our entitlement to blame or to judge blameworthy. Those entitled to blame can successfully respond to the question ‘who are you to judge me?’ A very plausible way to view standing is that what permits us to epistemically blame is our acknowledgement and participation in a set of shared epistemic standards. This is the line of thinking adopted by Boult (Reference Boult2021b) in his defense of the standing to epistemically blame. Boult defends a Scanlonian, relationship-based view of epistemic blame, where epistemic blame is warranted when one has violated the normative ideal constitutive of our epistemic relationships with others. In enjoying membership in an epistemic community, we “stand in a relationship of mutual epistemic expectation – one that is bound up with a complex network of intentions and expectations that are oriented around our epistemic agency in very basic ways” (Boult Reference Boult2021b: 11364). While Boult is specifically concerned with how others' epistemic errors might be one's own business, his view is that one has the standing to epistemically blame, in this respect, if one's epistemic relationship is impaired – say, one's normative expectations have been unjustifiably violated (Reference Boult2021b: 11365–70).

In the following, I will adopt a similar emphasis on epistemic expectations and community. As such, I view what I say in the following as largely compatible with the view Boult has put forward on the standing to epistemically blame, without relying on an endorsement of any specific framework for epistemic blame. I take it as a point in favor of my view that it is consistent with the current thinking in this small literature. It may indeed be read as extending at least some of Boult's reasoning by showing that this sort of treatment of standing is compatible with explaining the epistemically hypocritical, rather than the merely meddlesome, blamer's loss of the standing to epistemically blame.

Our epistemic communities are committed to sets of epistemic norms that govern inquiry, such as the epistemic norm to believe in accordance with one's evidence. Our relations with other epistemic agents are unified by the common aims of (at least) acquiring knowledge about the world and avoiding falsehoods. It is our general adherence to the set of shared epistemic standards and norms conducive to such aims that ensures our epistemic communities achieve their goals. There are certain expectations that must be at work in order for our epistemic communities to operate effectively. We expect that others will follow epistemic norms. We must be able to trust and rely on other epistemic agents, and they must be able to trust and rely on us. When those expectations are not met, epistemic blame is in order. The suggestion here, for which I lack the space to launch a complete defense, is that epistemic normativity is a system of mutual accountability. In virtue of one's membership in an epistemic community, one is a part of the group whose success is contingent on its members following the agreed-upon system of epistemic normativity. This explains why violating an epistemic norm constitutes a wrong and thus renders one the appropriate target of epistemic blame. It is our commitment to the epistemic norms that underly our communities of inquiry that grounds our complaints about others' epistemic norm violations: such norm violations constitute the violation of an agreement or system of expectations.

The system of epistemic normativity that grounds our right to epistemically blame only functions successfully if we do not discriminate when it comes to epistemic evaluation. The standing to deploy an epistemic norm toward others necessitates a commitment to that norm applying to oneself.Footnote ³² Thus, in doing (1), (2), and (3), the epistemically hypocritical blamer demonstrates their lack of participation in this set of shared standards that importantly underlies our ability to form judgments of epistemic blameworthiness. This individual makes an exception of themselves knowing that they are not entitled to a claim of specialness. We have seen that, minimally, the epistemically hypocritical blamer is committed to the idea that the epistemic norm in question does not apply to them. However, viewing oneself as exceptional to receiving epistemic blame is contrary to being a member of an epistemic community with a set of shared standards.Footnote ³³ But since being committed to a shared set of epistemic standards is what gives us the standing to epistemically blame, the epistemically hypocritical blamer therefore loses this standing. The epistemically hypocritical blamer, in doing (1), (2), and (3) opts themselves out of the set of shared epistemic standards and thus has no grounds to epistemically blame others for epistemic infractions that would typically be taken to violate that set of shared epistemic standards.Footnote ³⁴ Treating oneself as exceptional, on no good basis, is in effect such an opting out. Epistemically hypocritical blamers reveal themselves to be insufficiently committed to the epistemic norms in question by failing to regard such norms as applying first-personally. Such blamers are not entitled to launch an epistemic complaint on the ground of a set of standards to which they do not hold themselves – that is, that are not shared. Such individuals are not participating in their epistemic communities in the way required to epistemically blame.Footnote ³⁵

Let's take stock. So far, we have shown that (a) epistemically hypocritical blame is objectionable on epistemic grounds because it commits the blamer to an inconsistent set of beliefs. We have also seen that (b) the constitutive attitudes involved in epistemically hypocritical blame cause the blamer to lose the standing to epistemically blame. In what follows, I will elaborate upon (b): I contend that the epistemically hypocritical blamer's loss of the standing to epistemically blame occurs at the level of judgment – i.e., these blamers lack the entitlement to form judgments of epistemic blameworthiness. In addition, I will clarify how much work (a) does in explaining (b).

5.2. The standing to judge epistemically blameworthy

I claim that epistemically hypocritical blamers lose the standing to judge epistemically blameworthy. As I mentioned earlier, I start from the uncontroversial point that epistemic blame involves a judgment component. Yet it is also often theorized that full-fledged moral blame involves the taking up of certain blaming attitudes, such as anger, disappointment, or sadness. We may think that such attitudes figure in our practices of epistemic blame, too: I may feel contempt upon judging that you have not believed in accordance with your evidence.Footnote ³⁶ Alternatively, we might contrast feeling epistemic blame with expressing epistemic blame, and suggest that only the latter, which may manifest in, e.g., public criticism or disavowal, requires standing.Footnote ³⁷ Thus, my suggestion that epistemically hypocritical blamers lose their standing to judge epistemically blameworthy should be contrasted with both the view that losses of standing occur at the level of our entitlement to manifest blaming attitudes in response to epistemic wrongdoing and the view that failures of standing tell us only about our entitlement to express blame.Footnote ³⁸ In effect, I deny epistemically hypocritical blamers the standing to epistemically blame – that is, to manifest blaming attitudes or to express their epistemic blame – by way of denying the standing to judge epistemically blameworthy.

There is reason to prefer this view. I offer three arguments for why. The first two are theoretical: building off the preceding view, I argue that the fault that should undermine one's standing is found in one's judgments rather than in one's attitudes or expression. The last is an appeal to intuition.

First, judgments can embody culpable inconsistency. Of course, attitudes can also be inconsistently manifested, yet there are no plausible rules that would dictate which blaming attitudes one should manifest at any given time. Must I always feel contempt when someone fails to believe in accordance with their evidence? Similarly, I am skeptical that there are standing-related standards of consistency as to when blame ought to be expressed or be kept private. Whether one ought to express one's epistemic blame is often conditional upon one's circumstances. The appropriateness of expressing blame seems subject to context rather than consistency. As Todd (Reference Todd2019: 359) notes, “in certain social contexts, it can be wrong to insist on exercising a right one actually has.” Importantly, it is widely recognized as a virtue of an account of epistemic blame if it permits variability in our blaming reactions, both felt and expressed.Footnote ³⁹ Requiring consistency in attitude and expression threatens this desirable variability. If we are concerned to explain the inconsistency of epistemically hypocritical blame, we should turn our focus to the judgments themselves.

Second, variability in judgments, as opposed to variability in attitude or expression, tells us something important about our commitments to the epistemic norms in question in the first place. I have already expressed skepticism above about the sufficiency of a merely behavioral story about one's normative commitments. This is not to say that public reactions are not informative as to one's normative commitments. If one responds with anger to the violation of an epistemic norm, this provides evidence of one's opinion on the sanctity of that norm. However, one important difference between how information-giving judgments and expression or emotion are is that the latter may be feigned or insincere. One may feign epistemic blame in order to better fit into their broader epistemic community. It is easy to express condemnation without feeling it, and expressing blame may reinforce our relations with others. This concern also extends to the manifestation of characteristic blaming emotions. One may object here that it is less plausible to say that felt blaming attitudes may be insincere. I concede this point, but note that one would not internally feel certain blaming attitudes, regardless of whether they are expressed or manifested outwardly, unless one had already formed a judgment of epistemic blameworthiness.Footnote ⁴⁰ Doing this explanatory work is more evidence that it is one's judgments that are most reliably indicative of one's normative commitments. Thus, if consistency with respect to one's commitment to the epistemic norms in question is our concern, it seems that inconsistency at the level of attitude or expression do not serve as reliable guides for revealing one's normative commitments. Judgments of epistemic blameworthiness perform better along this dimension. There is little motive to be insincere in one's private judgments.Footnote ⁴¹ My account also nicely captures why a hypocrite's both publicly and privately judging epistemically blameworthy feels wrong.

That judgments of epistemic blameworthiness, in contrast to the blaming attitudes one may outwardly manifest, may be subject to the charge of culpable inconsistency and are what are most revealing of our normative commitments gives us reason to think that a loss of standing to epistemically blame occurs at the level of judgment. It is one's failure in judgment that is constitutive of the opting out that undermines standing. Furthermore, my account is friendly to those who are skeptical that characteristic blaming attitudes have any place at all in the epistemic domain, where infractions might be taken to be less serious or impactful on the lives of others when compared to the moral domain. Someone with these leanings may favor a more judgment-centric account of epistemic blame to begin with, and would thus naturally be more amenable to my view.

A final reason is intuitive: Suppose that S is epistemically hypocritical with respect to n in a way that satisfies conditions (1)–(3). Suppose further that S demonstrates no internal or external blaming emotions, but nonetheless judges P epistemically blameworthy for violating n. I suspect that we find something objectionable in the mere judgment of epistemic blameworthiness – specifically, something that would suggest a lack of entitlement to form such a judgment at all. In his discussion of moral blame, Todd (Reference Todd2019: 350) advocates for the intuitive appeal of denying the standing to feel blame: he calls

I agree with Todd that the standing to feel blame is more foundational, yet I depart from his view in a significant respect. For Todd (Reference Todd2019: 350), it is not the case that feeling blame is “simply a judgment that the given agent is blameworthy, but also a negative reactive attitude.” I have argued, by contrast, that in the epistemic case, loss of the standing to blame occurs, at its most basic level, in such a judgment.

One may worry about a potentially problematic consequence of adopting my reasoning here. That is, in arguing that the epistemically hypocritical blamer lacks the standing to judge epistemically blameworthy, we have effectively denied them their ability to do one thing right (that is, to correctly identify an agent as epistemically blameworthy).Footnote ⁴² Are we committed to viewing this small success as objectionable? If so, doesn't this count in favor of the view that what is objectionable in epistemically hypocritical blame is that one engages in full-fledged epistemic blame – that is, in feeling or expressing characteristic blaming attitudes?

We have already considered some responses in the vicinity in looking at the differences between someone committed to (1)–(3) and a blamer who holds attitudes (1) and (2) but not (3). This discussion called into question the idea that the belief in someone else's epistemic blameworthiness is a success. In addition, the foregoing should suggest that this kind of epistemic success would be unavailable to the epistemically hypocritical blamer insofar as their inconsistent beliefs regarding the epistemic blameworthiness for violating a particular epistemic norm defeat their justification for identifying another epistemic agent as epistemically blameworthy for violating n. Lastly, we can take a cue from Todd (Reference Todd2019), who responds to a similar worry. Todd (Reference Todd2019: 374) identifies this sort of response as a brand of standing skepticism, writing, “[a]ccording to the standing skeptic, in purported cases of ‘standingless blame’, all that is objectionable is simply the absence of the agent's self-blame, and not the presence of the agent's blame.” Todd asks us to imagine someone who repeatedly violates some norm and fails to self-blame. This lack of self-criticism may be mildly bothersome to you, but if this same person were to suddenly criticize you for a violation of that same norm, you would be liable to object further (Todd Reference Todd2019: 374). From this we may conclude that, “what is additionally objectionable…is not simply an absence” of one's self-blame, “but a presence (perhaps, indeed, the presence together with the absence)” of marking another out another as epistemically blameworthy (Todd Reference Todd2019: 374).

In the preceding, I have provided three arguments for the idea that loss of the standing to epistemically blame can occur at the level of judgment. Note that my explanation of the loss of the standing to epistemically blame is stronger than the alternative views. This is because it makes the home of the relevant entitlements one's internal mental states rather than one's behavior. My view places restrictions on what one is allowed to judge or believe.

On a brief closing note, we may ask how much work the epistemic fault I have identified in epistemically hypocritical blame does in explaining the blamer's loss of standing. I suggest that the epistemic fault plays an important explanatory role, but is not itself sufficient to account for the epistemically hypocritical blamer's loss of standing. The argument in this section has meant to show that one's right to judge others epistemically blameworthy for violating an epistemic norm is forfeited if one is committed to that norm applying differentially – specifically, in cases of epistemic hypocrisy, in a manner which benefits the hypocritical blamer. I contend, however, that genuine commitment to a norm begins in, or minimally requires, belief that the norm is worth respecting. Our normative commitments have their origin in our rational commitments. Although we have seen that it is the epistemically hypocritical blamer's treating themselves as exceptional to receiving epistemic blame that ultimately compromises their standing, the rational commitments of this blamer are nonetheless an integral part of the explanation for why the blamer loses their standing. It is therefore not the case, on my account, that lacking the standing to epistemically blame is only a matter of failing to have a justified belief in another's epistemic blameworthiness.Footnote ⁴³