Right and Wrong Futures
Right and Wrong Futures
This chapter discusses the relation between the epistemic value of predictions and forecasts and their moral and political value. We must discriminate those future claims that help justify a decision that ultimately will cover the reasons according to which the initial claim was valid or not from those that, on the contrary, help unveil the validity of the initial future claim or lack thereof. Truthfulness is an essential epistemic and moral criterion according to which claims about the future should be judged in the public space. However, because of the equilibrium between politics and knowledge (chapter 4), the quest for truth (i.e. truthfulness) is often lacking. As this chapter will show, one of the reasons for the epistemic limitations of future claims lies on a moral and psychological predisposition toward inaction, setting therefore a preference for stability (part 2) and inducing a lack of innovation.
Keywords: Future, Epistemology, Ethics, Truth, Truthfulness, Political inertia
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