Santa, socials, and secrets: hard cases for epistemic rights

In The Right to Know , Lani Watson forcefully argues in favor of recognizing epistemic rights to all humans. In this paper, we apply Watson’s framework to three hard cases. First, we consider interpersonal relationships and suggest that there is room to explore how epistemic rights bear on, e.g., wh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Asian journal of philosophy Vol. 4; no. 2; p. 74
Main Authors: Brown, Étienne, Chan, Rebecca
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.12.2025
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
Analytic Philosophy
Book Symposium
Children & youth
Education
Epistemology
Ethics
False information
Parents & parenting
Philosophers
Philosophy
Social networks
Violations
Epistemic rights
Transparency
Attorney-client privilege
Social media
Content moderation
Lies
ISSN:2731-4642, 2731-4642
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In The Right to Know , Lani Watson forcefully argues in favor of recognizing epistemic rights to all humans. In this paper, we apply Watson’s framework to three hard cases. First, we consider interpersonal relationships and suggest that there is room to explore how epistemic rights bear on, e.g., whether parents can permissibly lie to or mislead their children by asserting the existence of Santa Claus. Second, we turn to social media platforms and contend that Watson’s framework is compatible with contrasting moderation policies and transparency requirements. Third, we examine a foundational case of legal ethics—the buried bodies case—which raises the question of how professional and moral duties might be weighed alongside Watson’s epistemic ones. In exploring these cases, we hope to incite practically minded philosophers to reflect upon the implications of Watson’s theory for contemporary debates in applied ethics and political philosophy.
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ISSN:2731-4642
2731-4642
DOI:10.1007/s44204-025-00300-z