Epistemic Rights as Human Rights in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Confucian Perspective

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into daily life has engendered new ways individuals can interact with each other and the world and, thus, new possibilities to violate the rights of individuals. This new mode of life places a heavy emphasis on the role and importance of information and engages individuals primarily as seekers, revealers, and bearers of information, thereby bringing forth the need for epistemic rights. In this chapter, I examine Mathias Risse’s argument for epistemic rights as a new generation of human rights. Although Risse’s account is compelling, I question its universalist stance and lack of engagement with epistemological views in other cultural traditions. Using Confucian knowledge as an example, I show how other cultural traditions may offer insights into the discussion on epistemic rights. More specifically, I suggest that a Confucian understanding of knowledge, characterized by contextuality, situatedness, embodiment, and virtuousness, can better account for the epistemic harm arising from non-propositional forms of epistemic activities as well as the epistemic rights required to protect individuals from these forms of epistemic harm.