I do not want an epistemic culture that finds it acceptable to challenge an individuals overall credibility in lieu of directly engaging with their arguments.
I think I roughly agree with you on this point, although I would guess I have at least a somewhat weaker version of your view. If discourse about people’s track records or reliability starts taking up (e.g.) more than a fifth of the space that object-level argument does, within the most engaged core of people, then I do think that will tend to suggest an unhealthy or at least not-very-intellectually-productive community.
One caveat: For less engaged people, I do actually think it can make sense to spend most of your time thinking about questions around deference. If I’m only going to spend ten hours thinking about nanotechnology risk, for example, then I might actually want to spend most of this time trying to get a sense of what different people believe and how much weight I should give their views; I’m probably not going to be able to make a ton of headway getting a good gears-level-understanding of the relevant issues, particularly as someone without a chemistry or engineering background.
I think I roughly agree with you on this point, although I would guess I have at least a somewhat weaker version of your view. If discourse about people’s track records or reliability starts taking up (e.g.) more than a fifth of the space that object-level argument does, within the most engaged core of people, then I do think that will tend to suggest an unhealthy or at least not-very-intellectually-productive community.
One caveat: For less engaged people, I do actually think it can make sense to spend most of your time thinking about questions around deference. If I’m only going to spend ten hours thinking about nanotechnology risk, for example, then I might actually want to spend most of this time trying to get a sense of what different people believe and how much weight I should give their views; I’m probably not going to be able to make a ton of headway getting a good gears-level-understanding of the relevant issues, particularly as someone without a chemistry or engineering background.