Reliabilism, rule-circularity, and the "an inference rule is innocent until proven guilty"-principle

Question

An argument is premise-circular if its conclusion is contained among the premises, and rule-circular if it endorses the reliability of the inference rule by which it was attained.

A rule-circular argument might go as follows:

Induction, say, is the rule that if most observed A's are B's, then most A's are B's.

Is Induction reliable? Well, yes:

1. Most inductive inferences have been successful so far, so
2. most inductive inferences are successful.

Reliabilists argue that rule-cirularity (in contrast to premise-circularity) is alright because the only thing that matters for the justification of the conclusion is whether the inference rule is in fact reliable; others object that this is too permissible. I'm quoting Stathis Psillos (The Scope and Limits of the No Miracles Argument, 2011):

But couldn’t any mode of reasoning (no matter how crazy or invalid) be justified by rule-circular arguments? Take for instance what may be called (due to Igor Douven) Inference to the Worst Explanation:

Scientific theories are generally quite unsuccessful - These theories are arrived at by application of IWE - What is the worst explanation of this? - That IWE is a reliable rule of inference

Let’s call this, following Boghossian the bad company objection. How can it be avoided?

I am wondering about his response:

The reply here is that the employment of rule-circular arguments rests on or requires the absence of specifi c reasons to doubt the reliability of a rule of inference. We can call this, the Fair-Treatment Principle: a doxastic/ inferential practice is innocent until proven guilty. This puts the onus on those who want to show guilt. I take this to be a fundamental epistemic principle.

What about this "Fair-Treatment Principle", is there anything to say in favor of (or against) it?

Why should it be fundamental?

Is there any specific literature about it?

Answer 1

The rule-circular reliability paradigm is functional-pragmatic; we can do things with it. Obviously we could invoke other rule-circular paradigms and apply them self-consistently, and obviously we should give them 'fair treatment' for analytical purposes. But unless we can do something with them (aside from being argumentative) why should we hang onto them?

Interestingly, this is why I'm more sympathetic to religious and spiritual arguments than most science-minded people. Even something as ridiculous as creationism has a distinct moral use in human society. It may not carry any scientific weight, but it is meant to assert the uniqueness and nobility of the human spirit. Creationists are genuinely upset that human beings are equated animals, because that undercuts the moral/ethical framework that the religious use to create a 'good' society. There's something of human value there that shouldn't be denied.

We can talk about Inference to the Worst Explanation (IWE) as a kind of intellectual stalking horse, but when the rubber meets the road IWE has no functional-pragmatic use (aside from giving us headaches). I mean (to leverage an old joke of mine) I could replace the concept of 'gravity' in physics with the concept of 'love', so that massy bodies are drawn together by their intrinsic affection for each other. But what practical use is that? I suppose we could empirically test if romantic partners have a stronger gravitational attraction than people who hate each other, but even if that were true, what could we do with it?