Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity

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Ac h i e v i ng K now l e dge

When we affirm (or deny) that someone knows something, we are making a value judgment of sorts  – we are claiming that there is something superior (or inferior) about that person’s opinion, or her evidence, or perhaps about her. A central task of the theory of knowledge is to investigate the sort of evaluation at issue. This is the first book to make “epistemic normativity,” or the normative dimension of knowledge and knowledge ascriptions, its central focus. John Greco argues that knowledge is a kind of achievement, as opposed to mere lucky success. This locates knowledge within a broader, familiar normative domain. By reflecting on our thinking and practices in this domain, it is argued, we gain insight into what knowledge is and what kind of value it has for us. joh n g r e c o is the Leonard and Elizabeth Eslick Chair in Philosophy at Saint Louis University. His previous publications include Putting Skeptics in their Place:  The Nature of Skeptical Arguments and their Role in Philosophical Inquiry (Cambridge, 2000). He is also the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism (2008) and Sosa and his Critics (2004), as well as co-editor of Rationality and the Good (2007) and The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology (1999).



Ach i e v i ng K now l e dge A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity Joh n Gr e c o Saint Louis University

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521193917 © John Greco 2010 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2010

ISBN-13

978-0-521-19391-7

Hardback

ISBN-13

978-0-521-14431-5

Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For Lizabeth, Sofia and Marco, Bob and Marie

Contents

Preface

page ix

Pa r t I E pi s t e m ic nor m at i v i t y

1

1 Knowledge as success from ability

3

2 Against deontology

17

3 Against internalism

47

4 Against evidentialism

58

Pa r t II Probl e m s f or e v e r yon e 

69

5 The nature of knowledge

71

6 The value of knowledge

91

7 Knowledge and context

102

8 The Pyrrhonian problematic

125

Pa r t III Probl e m s f or r e l i a bi l i s m 9 The problem of strange and fleeting processes

147 149

10 The problem of defeating evidence

156

11 The problem of easy knowledge

174

Bibliography Index

197 203

vii

Preface

I have been blessed with many opportunities to present and discuss the material that has eventually found its way into this book. In that regard, I am especially grateful to the faculty and graduate students at Fordham University, the University of Geneva, the University of Helsinki, Saint Louis University, and Stirling University, where I have presented material in seminars and lectures. I am also grateful for two conferences that were organized around relevant materials: one at Stirling University, hosted by Duncan Pritchard and funded by the Scots Philosophical Club, and one at the University of Geneva, hosted by Pascal Engel and funded by his Episteme group. In addition to these opportunities for extended discussions, various chapters of this book have been presented at conferences and department colloquia in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. I am very grateful to the commentators and audiences who helped me to think through the material on these occasions. I am certain that I have missed people who well deserve a more explicit thanks and acknowledgment, but those who come most easily to mind are the following: Charity Anderson, Dave Anderson, Robert Audi, Heather Battaly, Peter Baumann, Michael Bergmann, Sven Bernecker, Dan Breyer, Adam Carter, Scott Crothers, John Davenport, Keith DeRose, Mylan Engel, Jeremy Fantl, Paul Faulkner, Richard Feldman, Bryan Frances, Robin Gaier, Doug Geivett, Tamar Gendler, Sandy Goldberg, Peter Graham, Adam Green, Stephen Grimm, Bob Hale, Ben Hart, John Heil, David Henderson, Terence Horgan, Mike Jacovides, Dirk Koppelberg, Hilary Kornblith, Mark Lance, Matt McGrath, Anne Meyland, Jennifer Nagel, Ram Neta, Daniel Nolan, Phillip Percival, Michael Potter, John Putz, Philip Quinn, Robert Roberts, Bruce Russell, Ted Sider, Josef Simpson, David Sosa, Jason Stanley, Matthias Steup, Peter Sullivan, John Turri, Fritz Warfield, Dennis Whitcomb, Michael Williams, Jay Wood, and Linda Zagzebski. I am also grateful to a number of anonymous ­referees, whose helpful comments at various stages of the manuscript were ix

x

Preface

responsible for many improvements. I wish that such valuable help could be attributed more specifically to its authors. Finally, a few people deserve special thanks for especially helpful comments and conversations, and in some cases unusual patience: Brit Brogaard, Stew Cohen, Trent Dougherty, Richard Fumerton, John Hawthorne, Jon Kvanvig, Jennifer Lackey, Duncan Pritchard, Wayne Riggs, Joe Salerno, Ernest Sosa, Eleonore Stump, and Timothy Williamson. The chapters that follow draw in several places on earlier published work. Specifically, Chapter 2 is a close relative of “Virtues and Rules in Epistemology,” in Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, eds., Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Chapter 5 draws on material from both “Knowledge and Success from Ability,” Philosophical Studies 142 (2009): 17–26 and “The Nature of Ability and Purpose of Knowledge,” Philosophical Issues 17, The Metaphysics of Epistemology (special issue of Noûs), 2007:  57–69. Chapter 6 is largely from “The Value Problem,” in A. Haddock, A. Millar, and D. H.  Pritchard, eds., The Value of Knowledge, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), and Chapter 7 is largely from “What’s Wrong with Contextualism?,” Philosophical Quarterly 58, 232 (2008): 416–36. Chapter 8 uses material from “Virtue, Luck and the Pyrrhonian Problematic,” Philosophical Studies 130 (2006): 9–34. Chapter 9 draws on material from “Further Thoughts on Agent Reliabilism,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66, 2 (2003): 466–80. Finally, Chapter 11 is adapted from “How to Reid Moore,” Philosophical Quarterly 52, 209 (2002):  544–63. Many thanks to the editors for the use of these materials. I end with a special thanks to Ted Vitali, whose support as chair of the Philosophy Department at Saint Louis University has been invaluable to me.

Pa r t I

Epistemic normativity

ch apter 1

Knowledge as success from ability

1 The centr al thesis The central thesis of this book is that knowledge is a kind of success from ability. Let us suppose, with Aristotle, that the intellectual virtues are abilities. Then knowledge is a kind of success from virtue. This is a thesis about what knowledge is. More specifically, and more importantly, it is a thesis about the sort of normative status that knowledge requires. The thesis, then, is that knowledge is an instance of a more general normative phenomenon  – that of success through ability (or success through ­excellence, or success through virtue).1 Adopting this thesis allows progress on a range of epistemology’s ­problems. Some of these are “problems for everyone.” That is, they are perennial problems of the field that any adequate theory of knowledge must address. Others are “problems for reliabilism.” That is, they are problems that arise for reliabilist theories of knowledge in particular, and that must be addressed if reliabilism is to be a viable approach in epistemology. To that extent, the book can be viewed as an extended defense of reliabilism as a theory of knowledge. In effect, the present approach shows how knowledge can be normative within a reliabilist framework. Knowledge is a kind of success from ability. This is intended as both an account of knowledge and an account of epistemic normativity. Is it This thesis has been defended by a number of authors, most notably Ernest Sosa. For the latest development of Sosa’s view, see his A Virtue Epistemology:  Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, vol. I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), and Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, vol. II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Much earlier than this, Sosa wrote, “knowledge is true belief out of intellectual virtue, belief that turns out right by reason of the virtue and not just by coincidence.” Knowledge in Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 277. As early as 1988 Sosa wrote that, in cases of knowledge, one’s belief must “non-accidentally reflect the truth of P through the exercise of … a virtue.” See his “Beyond Skepticism, to the Best of Our Knowledge,” Mind 97, 386 (1988): 184. In the present book I focus on what I take to be the most powerful idea in Sosa’s early work – that knowledge is a kind of success from ability – and I attempt to display that idea’s explanatory power.

1

3

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intended as an “analysis” of knowledge? Not in any traditional sense. For example, I do not pretend to give a conceptual analysis, where to do so is to analyze some complex concept into more simple conceptual building blocks. Neither do I pretend to give an ontological analysis, where to do so is to analyze some property into ontologically prior parts. As Timothy Williamson has pointed out, these sorts of analysis make little sense outside the context of earlier philosophical projects.2 Do I intend, at least, to give necessary, sufficient and informative conditions? No, because to say that knowledge is a kind of success from ability is not to give sufficient conditions. On the contrary, it is to give a species without giving a difference. Nevertheless, the account is informative in a straightforward sense: it provides insight into what knowledge is by identifying it as an instance of a more general, familiar kind. Again, the central thesis is that knowledge is a kind of success from ability. Put differently, knowledge is a kind of achievement, as opposed to mere lucky success. This locates knowledge within a broader normative arena. Moreover, this is an arena in which we operate with both familiarity and facility. By reflecting on our thinking and practices in this arena, I want to argue, we gain insight and understanding into what knowledge is. 2 T h r e e t h e m e s The central thesis of the book has now been introduced. In the present section I elaborate on some related themes, organized around this central thesis. In Section 3 I provide a brief outline of the discussion to follow. a  Epistemology as a normative discipline When we say that someone knows something we are making a value judgment. We imply, for example, that his or her judgment is preferable to someone else’s mere opinion. But then knowledge attributions and the like have a normative or evaluative dimension. Epistemology is a normative discipline. These claims are hardly controversial  – almost everyone in the field would accept them. But in this book I take them seriously and allow them to focus and organize our inquiry. If knowledge has an evaluative dimension – if epistemology is a normative discipline – then a central task of epistemology is to provide an account of the normativity involved. Timothy Williamson, Knowledge and its Limits (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

2

Knowledge as success from ability

5

We may locate that task in the context of traditional ­epistemological inquiry. Traditionally, the theory of knowledge has been driven by two central questions: What is knowledge? and What do we know? Corresponding to these questions are two very different projects of epistemology. “The project of explanation” corresponds to the first question and is the focus of Plato’s Theaetetus. It asks what knowledge is, and tries to explain the difference between knowing and not knowing. “The project of vindication” corresponds to the second question. It has also been prominent since the early days of epistemology, and is closely related to Pyrrhonian skepticism. It is the project of showing that we have knowledge, in general or in some domain. The first project is concerned to explain what knowledge is and how knowledge is possible, whereas the second is concerned to establish that knowledge exists. Contemporary epistemology has clearly privileged the project of explanation over the project of vindication. Even further, there is an emerging consensus that the project of vindication is somehow flawed or misguided, and that the proper task of epistemology is the project of explanation. I heartily endorse this emerging consensus, and will argue in its favor below.3 But for now I want to stress that this book is a contribution to the project of explanation. The project is to understand what knowledge is, and providing an account of epistemic normativity is an important part of that project. But even here, we can press questions regarding the object of our investigation:  Are we investigating knowledge itself, our concept of knowledge, or the term “knowledge” and its cognates? Are we giving an account of epistemically normative properties, our evaluative concepts, or our language? Different philosophers at different times have understood the project of explanation as directed toward each of these. I want to say that a complete theory of knowledge should have something to say about all of them. That is, it falls within the proper domain of epistemology to investigate what knowledge is, how we think about knowledge, and how the language of epistemic evaluation functions, both semantically and pragmatically. Even more broadly, it makes sense to ask what know­ ledge ascriptions are for and how our practices of evaluation achieve their purposes. Getting answers to any of these questions increases our understanding, which is the proper goal of philosophical investigation in the first place.   See especially Chapters 8 and 11.

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Achieving Knowledge b  Reliabilism

Simple reliabilism is a powerful view. It explains a wide range of our intuitions regarding what does and does not count as knowledge, it provides elegant solutions to a range of difficult skeptical problems, and it gives a straightforward account of the relation between justification and truth. Yet there is widespread dissatisfaction with reliabilism. Why so? Much of that dissatisfaction can be summarized this way: Reliabilism is not sufficiently normative. Knowledge is supposed to be a superior state. There is supposed to be something good or praiseworthy about the person who knows, as opposed to the person who has only opinion. But one’s beliefs can be reliably formed and yet lack this superior sort of status. Reliabilism seems to leave out the normative dimension of knowledge. More generally, it seems to leave out the evaluative part of epistemic evaluation. This sort of complaint comes out in the internalism-externalism debate about the nature of epistemic justification. Epistemologists have meant many things by “epistemic justification,” but suppose this term refers to something like “epistemic normativity,” or “the sort of normative status required for knowledge.” Knowledge is (at least) true justified belief in this sense. But why think that reliably formed belief is equivalent to justified belief? De facto reliability seems insufficient for the sort of justification required for knowledge. Neither does reliability seem necessary for justification. The victim of Descartes’s demon has justified beliefs in some important sense. He seems as justified as we are in believing, for example, that he has a body and that he is sitting by the fire. And yet the victim’s beliefs fail miserably from an external point of view – he is altogether out of touch with reality. Externalism in general, and reliabilism in particular, seem to miss something important about the epistemically normative. Another way that dissatisfaction with reliabilism comes out is in the “Is that all there is?” syndrome. Over the years, externalism about epistemic justification has gained ground, largely because internalist theories seem to entail unacceptable skeptical consequences. More and more, the choice seems to be between (a) externalism and knowledge and (b) internalism and skepticism. Faced with this choice, most epistemologists will embrace externalism. But dissatisfaction persists. If ordinary knowledge is externalist, doesn’t that show that we wanted more than ordinary knowledge? Suppose that reliabilism is right, and that knowledge is (something like) reliably formed true belief. What is so great about that? And is that all there is?

Knowledge as success from ability

7

Some reliabilists have tried to make a virtue out of necessity, embracing “naturalized” epistemology as an alternative to normative epistemology, or at least as a way to downplay the importance of the epistemically normative. Here the reasoning seems to go something like this: If knowledge is robustly normative then something like an internalist theory of that normativity must be right. But that way leads to skepticism, and to an otherwise inadequate account of our ordinary practices and evaluations. Therefore, knowledge is not robustly normative. I think that this reasoning is mistaken, and that the mistake is in the first premise. Knowledge is robustly normative, but that normativity is not internalist. On the contrary, epistemic normativity is of a perfectly familiar externalist sort, and one that is perfectly “natural” in any relevant sense of the term. Again, knowledge is a kind of success from ability. Put another way, knowledge is a kind of achievement, or a kind of success for which the knower deserves credit. And in general, success from ability (i.e. achievement) has special value and deserves a special sort of credit. This is a ubiquitous and perfectly familiar sort of normativity. Thus we credit people for their athletic achievements, for their artistic achievements, and for their moral achievements. We also credit people for their intellectual achievements. Epistemic normativity is an instance of a more general, familiar kind. I have been claiming that knowledge is a kind of success from ability, and that this is a plausible and fruitful idea. But here I want to emphasize something else: that the present account of epistemic normativity is tailor-made for reliabilism. For starters, the account is externalist. It makes knowledge and epistemic normativity depend on the knower’s abilities, and on relations among abilities, environment and success. These are all paradigmatically externalist factors. But there is a straightforward sense in which the account is also reliabilist:  it makes agent reliability an important condition on epistemic normativity. In effect, this book defends an account of knowledge that makes normativity safe for reliabilism. It shows how knowledge can be both reliabilist and robustly normative. c  Knowledge and understanding Finally, a third, related theme recurs in the chapters that follow:  that epistemology benefits from a distinction between knowledge and understanding. One benefit of the distinction is that it points to a richer plurality of epistemic goods. Truth and knowledge have epistemic value, but

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Achieving Knowledge

so do understanding, wisdom and other intellectual goods. It should not be unexpected that the values manifested in this plurality are distinctive, and therefore require distinctive treatment in a complete epistemology. A related benefit of the distinction is that it takes a significant theoretical burden off the concept of knowledge. If the concept of knowledge serves as a catch-all for every sort of epistemic value, then too much will have to be crammed into it. Put differently, leaving anything of value out of the concept will make it seem that something has gone missing. If knowledge is understood as just one intellectual good among others, however, then the concept of knowledge need not do so much work. In particular, it now becomes possible to accommodate deep-seated intuitions motivating internalism, evidentialism and coherentism while rejecting them as intuitions about knowledge per se.4 Likewise, and in related fashion, we get an easy answer to the “Is that all there is?” question. The answer is no – there is understanding, wisdom, and other epistemic goods as well. Granting that a distinction between knowledge and understanding can be useful, what exactly are knowledge and understanding? These are, of course, big questions. I have already said something about knowledge. Details will follow. As far as understanding is concerned, it will be enough to serve the purposes of this book to have a rough and ready understanding of what understanding is. For that we can look to some thoughts by two recent authors, both of whom have called for more focus on the concept of understanding. We can then tie their ideas into a venerable tradition. First, consider what Jonathan Kvanvig says about understanding: The central feature of understanding, it seems to me, is in the neighborhood of what internalist coherence theories say about justification. Understanding requires the grasping of explanatory and other coherence-making relationships in a large and comprehensive body of information. One can know many unrelated pieces of information, but understanding is achieved only when informational items are pieced together by the subject in question.5 … understanding requires … an internal grasping or appreciation of how various elements in a body of information are related to each other in terms of explanatory, logical, probabilistic, and other kinds of relations that coherentists have thought constitutive of justification.6 And to do so without relying on a distinction between animal knowledge and reflective know­ ledge. Hence this is one place where I depart from Sosa, who makes this latter distinction central to his epistemology. 5 Jonathan Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 192. 6 Ibid., pp. 192–3. 4

Knowledge as success from ability

9

Wayne Riggs describes understanding in similar terms. The kind of understanding I have in mind is the appreciation or grasp of order, pattern, and how things “hang together”. Understanding has a multitude of appropriate objects, among them complicated machines, people, subject discip­ lines, mathematical proofs, and so on. Understanding something like this requires a deep appreciation, grasp, or awareness of how its parts fit together, what role each one plays in the context of the whole, and of the role it plays in the larger scheme of things.7

Tradition has it that understanding is intimately related to explanation, and explanation to knowledge of causes. Thus Aristotle identifies episteme, sometimes translated as “scientific understanding,” with knowing the cause of a thing. Commenting on Aristotle’s philosophy of science, R. J. Hankinson writes: To have scientific knowledge, then, is to have explanatory understanding:  not merely to “know” a fact incidentally, to be able to assent to something which is true, but to know why it is a fact. The proper function of science is to provide explanations.8

Here we must take “cause” in a broad sense, to include all of Aristotle’s four causes:  material, formal, efficient and final. To understand, on Aristotle’s view, is to have an explanation in terms of these sorts of causes. Put differently, it is to have an answer to different sorts of “Why” questions, in terms of what a thing is made of, what sort of thing it is, what produced a change, or what end was intended. Putting these various ideas together, a rough and ready notion of understanding emerges: Understanding is knowledge of causes, or something close to it. Understanding involves “grasping,” “appreciating” or knowing causal relations taken in a broad sense: i.e. the sort of relations that ground explanation. This is still rough, but good enough to imply both (a) the obvious value of understanding and (b) a distinction between understanding and knowledge per se. I will end this section by briefly mentioning a related concern. Some epistemologists think of the intellectual virtues very differently than the way I have been suggesting. Namely, they think of them as traits of character akin to the moral virtues. Examples are intellectual courage, openmindedness, and intellectual carefulness. Granted that such character Wayne Riggs, “Understanding ‘Virtue’ and the Virtue of Understanding,” in Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski, eds., Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 217. 8 “Philosophy of Science,” in Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 110. 7

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traits exist and that they are a kind of intellectual excellence or virtue, what is the place of this kind of virtue in epistemology? Some authors have argued that character virtues should have pride of place in an account of knowledge. For example, Linda Zagzebski has argued that knowledge can be understood as virtuous true belief, where the virtues are understood as acquired excellences of character akin to the moral virtues.9 This seems wrong, however, since there are paradigmatic cases of knowledge that seem not to involve that sort of virtue at all. It is a hard sell, for example, that such virtues are always and essentially involved in cases of perceptual knowledge. That is not to say, however, that the character virtues are not important in other ways. For example, it is plausible that such virtues are often needed to make our cognitive abilities reliable. Put differently, it is plausible that such virtues are sometimes needed to turn mere faculties into excellences. This would give character virtues a place in the theory of knowledge, even if not as a necessary or essential condition on knowledge. Perhaps more interestingly, such virtues might have place in a complete epistemology because they are essentially involved in goods other than knowledge, or perhaps because they are valuable in themselves.10 3 Ou t l i n e The chapters in this book are divided into three parts. Part I introduces a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity and defends it against alternatives. A “virtue-theoretic” account of epistemic normativity is one that explains knowledge in terms of person-level excellences. More specifically, it explains the normative dimension of knowledge in terms of person-level excellences. As I said above, I here understand such excellences as intellectual abilities, or intellectual powers. Hence, knowledge is success from intellectual ability. Put differently: In cases of knowledge, S believes the truth because S believes from intellectual ability. Because abilities are reliable dispositions, the account is a version of reliabilism. Because abilities are person-level dispositions, the account is a version of agent reliabilism. Linda Zagzebski, Virtues of the Mind:  An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). This line of argument is developed more fully in my “Two Kinds of Intellectual Virtue,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60, 1 (2000): 179–84. For an interesting position along similar lines, see Jason Baehr, “Character, Reliability and Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophical Quarterly 56 (2006): 161–315.

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Knowledge as success from ability

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On the present account, then, knowledge and epistemic normativity require reliability, where the seat of reliability is the knower herself. This account of epistemic normativity is inconsistent with several approaches currently on offer. In Chapter 2, I argue against deonto­ logical approaches, understood as theories that understand epistemic ­normativity in terms of rules or norms. Such theories are inconsistent with a virtue-theoretic account because they require that knowledge be rule-governed. A virtue-theoretic account requires no such thing, and so the different kinds of theory place different conditions on epistemic normativity. I argue that a virtue-theoretic account has the advantage here. On the one hand, such an account nicely explains why etiology matters in cases of knowledge. That is, it explains why whether a person knows has something to do with how the person formed her belief. On the other hand, a virtue-theoretic account need not say too much about etiology. Specifically, it need not demand that knowledge-producing processes be rule-governed in the sense required by deontological theories. On the contrary, it can view this as an empirical question for cognitive science rather than a normative question for epistemology. Deontological theories are at the level of normative epistemology  – they try to give a substantive account of epistemic normativity in terms of intellectual rules or norms. Internalism about epistemic normativity is one level up: internalist theories place a restriction on any adequate substantive theory. Specifically, internalist theories demand that epistemic normativity must be understood in terms of factors that are ­appropriately “internal” to the knower. We can interpret this as a supervenience thesis: the normative status required by knowledge supervenes entirely on states that are internal to the knower. Different kinds of internalism will differ in their details, but all of them are inconsistent with a ­virtue-theoretic account. That is because a virtue theory understands ­epistemic ­normativity in terms of causal and other modal properties  – properties that are paradigmatically externalist. In Chapter 3 I argue against internalist theories so understood. A variety of considerations are brought to bear, but the central idea is this: We can imagine cases (psychological twin cases, for example) where there are differences in knowledge-relevant normative status, but no differences in internal states. But then knowledge-relevant normative status does not supervene on internal states. Having rejected internalist theories of epistemic normativity, we are well positioned to argue against evidentialist theories. Evidentialist theories, as the label implies, try to explain epistemic normativity in terms of evidence and evidential relations. Such theories can be internalist or

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externalist, depending on what is allowed to count as good evidence. Internalist versions, of course, will place internalist constraints here. In Chapter 4 I argue that internalist versions of evidentialism are false because internalism is false. Moreover, externalist versions of evidentialism are unmotivated. More specifically, once we adopt an externalist understanding of what counts as good evidence, we lose the motivation for saying that all knowledge requires evidence. On the contrary, it becomes plausible that there are other ways of satisfying the normative requirements for knowledge – being based on good evidence is only one way among others. Part I defends a virtue-theoretic account of knowledge and epistemic normativity. Part II shows how the account can be applied to problems for everyone, or problems that any epistemology must say something about. Two of these problems concern the nature and value of knowledge. The “nature problem” asks what knowledge is. The “value problem” asks why knowledge is valuable. More specifically, it asks why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. Chapters 5 and 6 take up these questions respectively. The present account claims that knowledge is a kind of success from ability. Put differently, knowledge is a kind of achievement, as opposed to a merely lucky success. This gives a kind of “framework” for understanding what knowledge is. That is, it gives us a place to start, and to begin to fill in the details. Chapter 5 begins to do so by filling in as follows: S knows that p if and only if 1. p is true; 2. S believes that p; and 3. S believes the truth because S’s belief is produced by intellectual ability.11 The term “because” in clause 3 marks a causal explanation. The idea is that, in cases of knowledge, S’s abilities explain why S has a true belief. S believes the truth because, for example, she saw clearly, or reasoned well, or remembered accurately. Put differently: in cases of knowledge, S’s believing the truth is explained by S’s abilities, as opposed to dumb luck, or blind chance, or something else. Clause 3 makes clauses 1 and 2 redundant. I include the redundancies for the sake of elegance in formulation. The alternative is something more awkward, such as the following: S knows that p if and only if S believes the truth with respect to p because S’s belief that p is produced by intellectual ability.

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Adopting this idea allows us to explain a broad range of cases, including many cases of ordinary knowledge and many standard Gettier cases. The account does less well, or less obviously well, with other cases, however, including the Ginet–Goldman Barn Facade case, some cases of testimonial knowledge, and some cases of innate knowledge. Chapter 5 develops the account of knowledge here offered so as to better handle these cases. Even after elaboration, however, we must admit that the account is still not maximally informative. This is because it depends on both semantic and pragmatic considerations that are not well understood. Specifically, we would like a better understanding of causal explanations and causal explanation language. The account of knowledge defended in Chapter 5 is not maximally informative. It is informative enough, however, to explain why know­ledge is more valuable than true belief. In fact, the solution to the value problem falls out of the solution to the nature problem: Knowledge is a kind of success from ability, and we value success from ability more than we value mere lucky success. Chapter 6 elaborates on this idea and answers some objections that have been raised against it. Some of the questions that are raised by Chapters 5 and 6 concern the relations between knowledge and practical interests. On the face of it, practical interests are relevant to what counts as an appropriate causal explanation. In so far as knowledge attributions involve causal explanations, it would seem that practical interests are relevant to what counts as an appropriate knowledge attribution as well. But how so? Is this merely a matter of appropriate assertion, or can practical interests affect truthconditions as well? And if practical interests can affect ­truth-conditions, whose practical interests matter – those of the knower, those of the speaker, or someone else’s? Chapter 7 tries to get straight on these ­questions, and offers some considerations in favor of a contextualist semantics for ­k nowledge attributions. The main idea is this:  A central role of know­ ledge attributions is to identify information for use in practical reasoning. But then knowledge attributions ought to be sensitive to the different interests in play in different practical reasoning environments. These considerations, it is argued, are enough to motivate a contextualist semantics, since different speaker contexts will be concerned with different practical reasoning environments. A corollary of this line of reasoning, however, is that contextualism cannot be put to its usual anti-skeptical work. That is because considerations about knowledge and practical reasoning are also stabilizing considerations: if knowledge is tied to practical reasoning in plausible ways, then the conditions for knowledge cannot vary widely

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Achieving Knowledge

(or wildly) across speaker contexts. The resources for the standard contextualist reply to skepticism evaporate. Motivated contextualism does not reply to skepticism. No worries, one might think, because reliabilism does. In other places I have argued as much, showing how reliabilism has easy answers to Cartesian, Humean and Pyrrhonian skepticism.12 Some would say, however, that reliabilism’s answers are too easy. This is another manifestation of the “normativity problem” for reliabilism. The skeptic wants something  – the skeptic values something  – that reliabilist theories do not deliver. The fact that knowledge is possible  – even easy  – on reliabilist theories suggests that reliabilism is not really delivering the goods. Or to put things somewhat differently: If reliabilist theories do deliver knowledge, then it was not knowledge that the skeptic was after in the first place. Chapter 8 addresses this sort of concern by focusing on the Pyrrhonian problematic. More specifically, it examines a Pyrrhonian metaphor that likens unreflective true belief to grasping gold in the dark. I argue that, on a virtue-­theoretic account, we can explain why knowledge is a valuable achievement, even in the absence of the sort of reflection that Pyrrhonianism requires. Here I draw analogies to the problem of moral luck, and to an analogous skepticism about the possibility of moral achievement. Part II concerns problems that any epistemology must address. Part III concerns problems for reliabilism in particular. One such problem is “The problem of strange and fleeting processes.” Process reliabilism holds that knowledge and justification are to be understood in terms of reliable processes. Roughly, a belief is justified in the sense required for knowledge just in case it is formed by a reliable cognitive process. A variety of cases, however, show that process reliabilism is too weak. Specifically, there are cases where a cognitive process is indeed reliable, but seems too strange or too fleeting to give rise to knowledge. For example, Alvin Plantinga describes a case where S is the victim of a brain lesion, one effect of which is that it reliably produces the belief that one has a brain lesion. But suppose that S has no evidence for this, or even has evidence that he does not have a brain lesion. It seems wrong to attribute knowledge in the case, even though S’s belief is in fact reliably formed. The present view promises to do better here. Intuitively, S’s belief that he has a brain lesion is not produced by a cognitive ability, even if it is produced by a reliable For example, see Putting Skeptics in their Place: The Nature of Skeptical Arguments and their Role in Philosophical Inquiry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and “Agent Reliabilism,” in James Tomberlin, ed., Philosophical Perspectives vol. XIII, Epistemology (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Press, 1999).

12

Knowledge as success from ability

15

process. In effect, the present view places a restriction on which reliable processes can give rise to knowledge: only those that are grounded in cognitive abilities do. More needs to be said, however, since it is not clear why the dispositions associated with S’s brain lesion do not constitute a cognitive ability. In general, we would like a principled reason that distinguishes reliable dispositions that constitute an ability of the knower from reliable dispositions that do not. Chapter 9 tries to do just this by invoking the notion of cognitive integration. It is argued that this helps resolve the cases involving strange and fleeting processes, and helps with some other tough cases for reliabilism as well. Chapter 10 addresses “The problem of defeating evidence,” a ­problem that has been underappreciated by externalists in epistemology. The problem concerns the way that externalist theories typically approach the concept of defeating evidence, or evidence that counts against one’s beliefs. In short, it is not unusual for externalists to adopt an internalist account of such evidence. For example, it is not uncommon for externalists to think of defeat relations as a priori or quasi-logical, just the way internalists think about evidential relations in general. This is not a happy situation, for now the externalist has given one account of supporting evidence (­perhaps in terms of reliability), and a different account of defeating evidence. This is at best schizophrenic and at worse incoherent. Externalists have to do better, and it is argued that the present account helps. Specifically, we can give a principled account of defeating evidence in terms of person-level cognitive abilities. Finally, Chapter 11 addresses “The problem of easy knowledge.” As was already mentioned above, reliabilism seems to have easy answers to a range of skeptical problems. In fact, some have argued that reliabilism’s answers are too easy. This sort of problem comes out when we ask whether we know that skeptical scenarios are false. For example, do we know that we are not brains in vats, and if so, how do we know such a thing? According to reliabilism, so long as the belief is reliably produced, we do know such a thing. Moreover, if the world is anything like we think it is, the belief would have to be reliably produced, since there are no close worlds, no close situations, where we get this wrong. This sort of problem recalls G. E. Moore’s “Proof of an External World.” Moore was no reliabilist, but he seemed to say that we could know that an external world exists, and easily so – we need only note that here is one hand and here is another. But isn’t that too easy? Many philosophers have thought so, and have accordingly rejected Moore’s general stance.

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Achieving Knowledge

In this final chapter I defend Moore by invoking both epistemological and methodological principles from Thomas Reid. In fact, I argue, Moore is merely following Reid on several points, and rightly so. The upshot is this:  Moore has his tongue in his cheek when he claims to “prove” that an external world exists. On the contrary, the skeptic is misguided to demand a proof in the first place, since that is not how one would know such a thing. By adopting a virtue-theoretic account of knowledge, it becomes perfectly clear, and even intuitive, that one knows that external objects exist by seeing them. The foregoing gives the outline and organization of the book. The chapters have been written so that they are relatively self-contained. Accordingly, it is possible for the reader to follow her preferences and to go directly to one chapter rather than another. The overall argument for the account defended here, however, is given over all of the chapters. That is, the argumentative strategy is to reject alternatives (Part I), and to show how the account allows progress on a range of epistemology’s problems (Parts II and III).

ch apter 2

Against deontology

Virtue theories in ethics are often presented as an alternative to deonto­ logical theories such as Kant’s. One important issue here concerns the existence of moral rules and their relation to moral action. Specifically, it is commonly claimed that it is an advantage of virtue theories that they do not commit us to moral rules. The reason this is an advantage, it is argued, is that it is unclear whether such rules play any important role in our moral lives.1 In this chapter I want to argue in a similar way with respect to theories of knowledge. In particular, I want to argue that a virtue-theoretic account of knowledge holds an advantage over a deontological approach, and precisely because the former need not understand epistemic normativity in terms of rules or norms. A few comments will clarify this thesis. First, William Alston has argued that there are a variety of “epistemic desiderata.”2 In Nicholas Wolterstorff’s terminology, there are a variety of “truth-relevant merits.”3 In this chapter, and throughout this book, I am interested in the sort of “merit” that is required by knowledge. In other words, I am interested in what I have been calling “epistemic ­normativity.” It might be that deontological theories adequately capture some other kind of truth-relevant merit, or some other kind of epistemic desiderata. The thesis here is that deontological theories cannot give an adequate account of epistemic normativity, or the sort of normative status that is required for knowledge.4 For example, see G. E. M. Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosophy 33, 124 (1958): 1–19; Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981); and John McDowell, “Virtue and Reason,” Monist 62, 3 (1980): 331–50. For a valuable discussion of relevant literature see Robert Roberts, “Virtues and Rules,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51, 2 (1991): 325–43. 2 William Alston, “Epistemic Desiderata,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53, 3 (1993): 527–51. 3 Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Epistemology of Religion,” in John Greco and Ernest Sosa, eds., The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999). 4 The sort of normative status I am interested in here is often labeled “epistemic justification.” But as Alston and Wolterstorff both note, that term has been used to name a variety of normative 1

17

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Achieving Knowledge

Second, deontological theories of epistemic normativity are “­rule-based” or “norm-based.” We may think of cognitive rules or norms as conditional statements whose antecedents specify cognitive states of the believer, and whose consequents specify further cognitive states as permitted, required, or prohibited. More exactly, their antecedents specify features of cognitive states, since by nature rules are general: they tell us to behave in certain ways given conditions of certain kinds. John Pollock has argued that cognitive norms are permission-rules, having the form “In conditions X, it is permissible to do Y.”5 Alternatively, one might hold that they are prescription-rules of the form “In X do Y,” or proscription-rules of the form “In X do not do Y.” Or perhaps cognitive rules come in various forms, including all of those just mentioned. Putting such controversies aside, the main idea of deontological theories is that epistemic normativity is a function of correct cognitive rules or norms. More exactly, D.  S’s belief that p has knowledge-relevant normative status if and only if S’s believing p is licensed by correct cognitive rules.

Theories of this kind are modeled on deontological theories in ethics. Thus, for example, Kant held that an action is right just in case it is licensed by a correct “maxim”, or rule of action. In ethics and in epistemology, deontological theories can differ with regard to which rules are correct, why they are correct, how one can know that they are correct, whether one must know that they are correct, and along other dimensions as well. But the main idea of deontological theories is that some relevant merit, moral or epistemic, is a function of whether one’s activity is licensed by some relevant set of rules. Putting all this together, the thesis of this chapter is that rule-based theories of epistemic normativity are false. Most of the chapter will be devoted to establishing this thesis. At the end of the chapter I make some brief suggestions in favor of a different approach, arguing that a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity can avoid the kinds of objection that I bring against deontological theories. In fact, I argue, a virtue-theoretic account becomes especially attractive in light of the kinds of considerations that are here raised against deontological theories.6 properties, including (a) what I am calling “epistemic normativity,” (b) narrower normative properties entailed by epistemic normativity, and (c) normative properties not entailed by knowledge at all. In the interest of clarity, therefore, I have decided to use the term “epistemic normativity” to label my present topic – that is, the full normative status required by knowledge. 5 John Pollock, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1986). 6 Deontological theories are commonly characterized as duty-based or obligation-based, rather than as rule-based or norm-based. However, I prefer to use the present terminology for a number

Against deontology

19

1  W e a k a n d s t rong de on t ol o g ic a l m e r i t The argument against deontological theories must proceed in two parts. This is because there are two major kinds of deontological theory and they must be argued against in different ways. We may understand the division by noting a distinction that is important in Kant’s moral theory. Specifically, we can distinguish between (a) action that is merely in accordance with duty and (b) action that is for the sake of duty. Kant gives an example to illustrate. First, a grocer might decide to give a child correct change because this is what self-interest requires. In other words, it is good business to deal with all of one’s customers honestly. Alternatively, the grocer might give the child correct change because this is what duty requires. In the second case, the rule or maxim behind the grocer’s action is a law of morality rather than a council of prudence, and so Kant says that the action is “for the sake of duty,” or alternatively, “out of reverence for the moral law.” According to Kant, actions that are in accordance with duty are “right” in the sense that they violate no moral law, but only actions that are for the sake of duty have moral worth. Thus in ethics, as in epistemology, we may recognize a variety of desi­ derata or merits. Discussing a different example, Kant writes: To help others where one can is a duty, and besides this there are many spirits of so sympathetic a temper that, without any further motive of vanity or selfinterest, they find an inner pleasure in spreading happiness around them and can take delight in the contentment of others as their own work. Yet I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however right and however amiable it may be, has still no genuinely moral worth … for its maxim lacks moral content, namely, the performance of such actions, not from inclination, but from duty.7 of reasons. First, rule theorists in both ethics and epistemology tend to speak in terms of obligation and duty, and so rule-based theories and duty-based theories in both fields tend to overlap. A case in point is Kant’s moral theory, which I here use as a paradigmatic instance of the kind of theory that I am targeting. Second, I am here influenced by Anscombe’s classic paper, cited above, which argues that the close relationship between rule-based theories and duty-based theories is not accidental. Anscombe argues that in moral philosophy the language of duty and obligation is rooted in a conception of ethics that centers on the notion of moral law. It is only within this theoretical framework, she argues, that such language is really intelligible. Nevertheless, it is important to note that my objections to deontological theories are directed at the notion of cognitive rules of a certain sort, and that therefore any theory that is committed to such rules is vulnerable to the same objections. I want to thank Terence Horgan and Matthias Steup for pressing these points to me. 7 Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H. J. Patton (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. 66.

20

Achieving Knowledge

We may therefore use Kant’s distinction to specify two kinds of deonto­ logical merit. Specifically, weak deontological merit requires that one’s action not violate any relevant rule. Strong deontological merit requires that one’s action be governed by the right rules. Roughly, the stronger condition requires the causal efficacy of the rules in question. One’s action must be the result of following the rules, as opposed to merely being describable by them. Applying these considerations to epistemic merit, we may distinguish two versions of D above. D(W).  S’s belief that p has knowledge-relevant normative status if and only if S’s belief violates no correct cognitive rule. D(S).  S’s belief that p has knowledge-relevant normative status if and only if S’s belief is governed by correct cognitive rules; i.e. S’s belief is the result of following such rules.

Having made this distinction, we are now in a position to argue against both weak and strong deontological theories. Here are the two arguments, briefly stated. The main argument against weak deontological theories is as follows: Where knowledge is concerned, etiology matters. For example, in cases where one’s knowledge depends on evidence, it is required that one believes what one does because of the evidence in question. However, etiology does not matter for weak deontological merit. One’s belief has this sort of merit so long as one does not in fact violate any relevant rule; as with Kant’s weak sense of right action, it does not matter why one does not violate the rule. But then weak deontological merit does not give us an account of epistemic normativity, or the sort of normative status required for knowledge. The main argument against strong deontological theories is this: Strong deontological merit requires that one’s beliefs be governed by correct cognitive rules. But it is possible to have knowledge even if one’s cognition is not rule-governed at all. Therefore, knowledge does not require strong deontological merit. Here is the argument stated more formally, where K is the proposition that one has knowledge and R is the proposition that relevant parts of one’s cognition are rule-governed. 1. D(S) > nec (K > R) 2. poss (K & not-R) Therefore, 3. not-D(S)

Against deontology

21

Below I will present two arguments in favor of the possibility thesis stated in premise 2. The first is due to Thomas Reid and concerns the possibility of immediate knowledge of the world. According to Reid, God could have created human beings with different cognitive faculties than the ones we actually have. For example, God could have created us with an immediate and infallible knowledge of the material world, with no need for sensory input to ground our beliefs. Such knowledge would not be governed by cognitive rules, because it would not work by going from cognitive inputs to cognitive outputs, and therefore would not require cognitive rules to govern such transitions. But it would be knowledge nonetheless. In fact, Reid thought that parts of human perception actually work this way, and recent empirical studies tend to support him on this point. The second argument for premise 2 invokes connectionist models  of cognitive processing. According to this argument, it is an empirical question, concerning a contingent matter of fact, whether various parts of human cognition are governed by cognitive rules. But however such empirical questions are answered, it will still be the case that paradigm instances of human cognition count as knowledge. For example, if ­cognitive science tells us that connectionist models of perception are true, and that perception is in fact not rule-governed, we will not conclude that there is no perceptual knowledge. Therefore, it is possible that knowledge is not rule-governed. These are the main arguments that I will raise against weak and strong deontological theories. The rest of the chapter is details. In Section 2 I develop the argument against weak deontological theories of knowledgerelevant normativity, or theories that endorse D(W). In Section 3 I develop the argument against strong deontological theories of knowledge-relevant normativity, or theories that endorse D(S). In Section  4 I briefly argue that a virtue-theoretic account can avoid the objections raised against both kinds of deontological theory. Again, a virtue-theoretic account becomes especially attractive in the light of the considerations here raised against deontological theories. 2 T h e a rgu m e n t ag a i ns t w e a k de on t ol o g ic a l t h e or i e s The argument against weak deontological theories claims that etiology is important for knowledge. In other words, in cases of knowledge it matters why one believes what one does. One way to see this is to recall the distinction between (a) having good reasons for what one believes,

22

Achieving Knowledge

and  (b)  believing for good reasons. For example, anyone who knows the axioms of arithmetic has good reasons for believing a theorem in the ­system. But unless one puts two and two together, one does not believe the theorem in question on the basis of one’s good reasons. We can imagine, for ­example, that someone believes a true theorem for no reason at all, or even that one believes a true theorem for bad reasons. In either case, the person in question will have good reasons so long as he believes the relevant axioms, but the person will not believe for good reasons.8 The next point is that knowledge requires believing for good reasons, and not just having good reasons. Two examples illustrate this. First, consider a math student who knows all the relevant axioms but does not see how the axioms support a theorem that must be proven in the exam. Eventually he reasons fallaciously to the theorem, and believes it on the basis of his fallacious reasoning. Surely he does not know that the theorem is true. Second, suppose that Charlie is a wishful thinker and believes that he is about to arrive at his destination on time. He has good reasons for believing this, but he does not believe what he does because he has these reasons. Rather, it is his wishful thinking that causes his belief. In both of these cases, the person in question has good reasons for his belief but does not believe for those reasons. To be clear, these are not supposed to be cases of overdetermination of belief. Rather, we are describing persons whose good reasons play no part at all in their believing what they do. But then clearly the people in question do not have knowledge. As we said above, in cases of knowledge it matters why one believes what one does. Moreover, it matters normatively – someone who merely has good reasons does not measure up. Such a person falls short by way of normative requirements on knowledge. And now for the final point in the argument against D(W): Weak deontological merit requires only that one have good reasons for what one believes, and not that one believe for good reasons. Thus, in each of the cases above, the person in question violates no correct cognitive rule in believing as they do. Remember, those rules specify that some belief is permitted, or necessary, or prohibited given antecedent cognitive conditions. But since, by hypothesis, the persons in question have good ­reasons for what they believe, their beliefs will not violate any such rule. The ­people in the examples are like Kant’s self-interested For an extended discussion of this distinction and its importance, see Robert Audi, The Structure of Justification (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), esp. Chapter 7.

8

Against deontology

23

grocer:  they “do the right thing,” but not for the right reasons. But then weak deontological merit is too weak to be an account of epistemic normativity. The kind of normative status required for know­ ledge requires believing for good ­reasons, whereas weak deontological merit does not. At this point someone might raise an objection. Correct cognitive rules, it might be said, require that one believes that one’s beliefs are based on good evidence, or that one’s evidence supports one’s beliefs, or that one’s evidence makes one’s beliefs probable, or the like. Since the people in the examples do not have such beliefs about their evidence, it is false that they do not violate any relevant cognitive rule. One problem with this objection is that we can change the examples so that the people in question do have the relevant beliefs about their evidence. So long as these beliefs about their evidence are not involved in the production of their further beliefs, the people in the revised examples will fail to have knowledge for just the same reason as in the original examples. Specifically, although they have good reasons for what they believe, they do not believe for good reasons.9 We may conclude that weak deontological theories are false. Strong deontological theories of epistemic normativity, however, can accommodate the considerations raised above concerning the etiology of know­ ledge. This is because strong deontological merit requires that one’s beliefs be governed by correct cognitive rules. Put another way, it requires that one follow the rules rather than merely not violate them. This condition on normative status insures that one believes for good reasons in cases of knowledge, since those reasons are involved in the antecedents of the relevant cognitive rules. In cases where one’s belief has deontological merit in the strong sense, one follows the rules of good reasoning, and thereby bases one’s belief on good reasons. Strong deontological theories, therefore, offer a more plausible account of epistemic normativity than weak deontological theories.10 A  different argument is needed to reject this second kind of deonto­ logical theory. Alvin Goldman makes a similar point in “What is Justified Belief?” in George Pappas, ed., Justification and Knowledge (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979). Another problem with the current objection is that it invokes a requirement that would lead to skepticism. See my “Agent Reliabilism”; and Putting Skeptics in their Place, especially Chapter 6. 10 This would explain why I have defended such a theory myself in the past. See my “Internalism and Epistemically Responsible Belief,” Synthese 85 (1990):  245–77; and “Virtues and Vices of Virtue Epistemology,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23 (1993): 413–32. 9

24

Achieving Knowledge 3 T h e a rgu m e n t ag a i ns t s t rong de on t ol o g ic a l t h e or i e s

The argument in Section 2 concluded that weak deontological merit is too weak for knowledge-relevant normative status. The argument in this section will be that strong deontological merit is too strong. The short form of the argument was put as follows:  Strong deontological merit requires that one’s beliefs be governed by correct cognitive rules. But it is possible to have knowledge even if one’s cognition is not rulegoverned at all. Therefore, knowledge does not require strong deontological merit. The key to the argument is clearly premise (2), or the claim regarding the possibility of knowledge that is not rule-governed. The remainder of this section will be devoted to the task of establishing that pos­sibility. What is important to emphasize, however, is that it is only the possibility that needs to be established for the argument to go through. Accordingly, I will not be arguing for the empirical thesis that relevant parts of human cognition are in fact not rule-governed. Rather, I will be taking advantage of the fact that strong deontological theories are philosophical theses, and therefore make a claim that carries necessity. Such theories do not claim that knowledge just happens to be governed by correct cognitive rules. On the contrary, they claim that knowledge must be governed by correct cognitive rules, and that this is a matter of conceptual or perhaps metaphysical necessity. But then if it is possible to have knowledge that is not rule-governed at all, the claim about necessity is false. As noted above, I will present two arguments for the possibility thesis in premise (2): one from Reid concerning the possibility of immediate knowledge, and one from connectionist theory concerning the possibility of non-rule-governed cognitive processing. Before considering these arguments in detail, however, it will be necessary to say more about the nature of cognitive rules, and also more about what it means for cognition to be governed by such rules. The danger in arguing against strong deontological theories is that we build too much into the notion of “being governed by a rule,” thereby scoring only a hollow victory by showing that knowledge need not be rule-governed in that sense. My strategy for avoiding this danger will be to consider several senses of “being governed by a rule,” and to argue that it is possible that know­ ledge is not rule-governed even in the weakest of these senses. I turn to these preliminaries now.

Against deontology

25

a  The nature of cognitive rules Above we said that cognitive rules are conditional statements whose antecedents specify features of cognitive states and whose consequents specify further cognitive states as permitted, required, or prohibited. This characterization raises a question regarding which features of cognitive states figure in cognitive rules. A natural answer is that they are those features that we have beliefs about, for how else could we follow the rules except by believing that their antecedents are fulfilled? It turns out that this answer will not do, however, because it entails an infinite regress of beliefs: If every belief requires a further belief about antecedents being fulfilled, then there will be no end to the beliefs that are required.11 What is needed, then, is a way to follow cognitive rules without first having to have beliefs about their antecedents being fulfilled. Pollock suggests the following solution. Now that we understand how epistemic norms work in guiding our reasoning, it is easy to see that they must be internalist norms … In general, the circumstance­t ypes to which our norms appeal in telling us to do something in circumstances of those types must be directly accessible to our automatic processing systems. The sense in which they must be directly accessible is that our automatic processing system must be able to access them without our first having to make a judgment about whether we are in circumstances of that type.12 It seems clear that directly accessible properties must be in some sense “psychological”, but I doubt that we can say much more than that from the comfort of our armchairs.13

Pollock’s idea is that we can be aware that some features of cognition obtain even if this awareness is not by means of beliefs or judgments about those features. What he has is mind are various aspects of our beliefs and experience that he calls “internal” and “psychological,” but he does not go on to say precisely what these labels mean. One way to interpret “internal” in the present context is “intrinsically conscious.” The idea would be that, by their very nature, various aspects of our cognitive states are at the level of conscious awareness. That we are being appeared to redly, or that a belief has a particular narrow content, would be candidates for such status. On this suggestion we are necessarily conscious of certain aspects of our cognitive states, and it is in that sense that we are aware of them even when we do not make judgments about them. Pollock, Contemporary Theories.   12 Ibid., p. 133.  

11

 Ibid., p. 135.

13

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Achieving Knowledge

This suggestion is too strong for present purposes, however, because not all cognition takes place at the level of consciousness. And if some stretch of cognitive activity is not conscious at all, then it cannot be governed by means of features of it that are conscious. Perhaps we should say that the features of cognition that figure in cognitive rules are “potentially ­conscious,” and be satisfied to leave “potentially” unanalyzed for present purposes. What the rule theorist means to pick out, clearly enough, are the various aspects of our cognitive states that figure in sound reasoning, good judgment, and the like. And these would seem to include ­various syntactic, semantic, and qualitative properties that are at least often at the level of conscious awareness. The current suggestion is full of problems and controversy. Perhaps most importantly, it is not clear what properties of beliefs and experience count as potentially conscious in the relevant sense. But at this point in the argument we should be as generous as possible. Remember, we are trying to characterize strong deontological theories so that they at least get off the ground, and this requires that we have a characterization of cognitive rules that makes being governed by such rules possible. And this, we have seen, requires that we can be aware that the antecedents of such rules are fulfilled in some way other than by making judgments about them. Hence we have Pollock’s notion of directly accessible properties, which I have glossed in terms of potentially conscious properties. Pollock argues that cognitive rules must be stated exclusively in terms of directly accessible properties, but that might be stronger than what is required for present purposes. For it seems that we can solve the above regress problem so long as some cognitive rules can be followed without first having to have beliefs that their antecedents are fulfilled. Accordingly, we can expand the notion of “potentially conscious property” as follows. Some features of things are potentially conscious by their very nature:  for example, various aspects of our beliefs and experiences are. Other features, however, are potentially conscious in the sense that we can be “conscious of” them by having representations of them. If we expand the notion of “potentially conscious property” in this way, then we can understand cognitive rules as operating on features of things that are represented by our cognitive states as well as on features of our cognitive states themselves. For example, it seems perfectly reasonable to count the following as a cognitive rule: “If a reliable authority is telling you that p, then it is permissible to believe that p.” In other words, there is no need to restrict ourselves to, “If you believe that a reliable authority is telling

Against deontology

27

you that p …” Let us adopt this broader notion of “potentially conscious property,” and understand cognitive rules as operating on features of cognitive states that are potentially at the level of consciousness, and also on features of things that our cognitive states are about. Remember, we are trying to make the notion of “being governed by a cognitive rule” as broad as possible, and so we should make our notion of a cognitive rule as broad as possible. Even on this broader characterization, however, someone might object that we are making the notion of a cognitive rule too strong. Why couldn’t properties that are clearly not potentially conscious, even in the broader sense, go into the antecedents of cognitive rules, so long as our cognition is somehow responsive to them? For example, why can’t it be a cognitive rule that, given some pattern of light on the retina (even where we do not have a belief about this), one ought to believe that it is raining? The reply is that we are looking for a sense of “cognitive rule” that is relevant to strong deontological theories of epistemic normativity, and this requires a kind of rule that we can in some sense respect, or take into account, or follow. And this, in turn, requires that we be in some sense cognitively aware that the antecedents of such rules are fulfilled, even if we have expanded our notion of “awareness of X” far beyond the notion of “having beliefs about X.” As we will see below, we can articulate weaker and stronger notions of “being governed by a rule.” But not just any notion will do. For example, we will want to distinguish “being governed by a rule” from “being subject to a causal law.” Consider that any sort of physical thing is subject to causal laws, and in that sense is “responsive” to the fact that the laws’ antecedents are fulfilled. But not any sort of thing follows rules, which implies at least some kind of cognitive awareness. In sum, we want a notion of a cognitive rule that can govern our cognition, and we do not want to stretch the latter notion beyond any sense relevant for deontological merit. b  Senses of “being governed by a rule” This brings us to our next task, which is to articulate some different senses of “being governed by a rule.” As was said above, the strategy will be to determine several senses of “being governed by a rule” that are compa­ tible with strong deontological merit, and to argue that it is possible that knowledge is not rule-governed even in the weakest of these senses. We may turn again to Kant’s moral theory for the strongest possible sense of “being governed by a rule.” As we saw above, Kant requires

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Achieving Knowledge

for moral worth that one’s action be done for the sake of duty, and this requires that one have as the maxim of one’s action some moral law. In several places Kant seems to require that the maxim of one’s action be explicitly represented. Thus we have: Now an action done from duty has to set aside altogether the influence of inclination, and along with inclination every object of the will; so there is nothing left able to determine the will except objectively the law and subjectively pure reverence for this practical law, and therefore the maxim of obeying this law even to the detriment of all my inclinations.14

Presumably one cannot have reverence for a law unless one represents it to oneself, and in fact this is Kant’s view. What I recognize immediately as law for me, I recognize with reverence, which means merely consciousness of the subordination of my will to a law … Immediate determination of the will by the law and consciousness of this determination is called “reverence.”15

The picture we get here is that of a person explicitly considering some rule of action and acting out of reverence for that rule. Whether this is in fact Kant’s considered view, it provides a model for the strongest sense of “being governed by a rule”: that is, conscious consideration of an explicitly represented rule, which then becomes the motive behind one’s action. We may determine weaker senses of “being governed by a rule” by eliminating various elements in this characterization. To do so it will be helpful to make some distinctions. The first is between occurrent and dispositional representations. The second is between conscious and non-conscious representations. To say that one has a representation occurrently is to say that one has it at the moment. To say that one has a representation dispositionally is to say that one has a disposition to have it occurrently in relevant circumstances. A different distinction is between conscious and non-conscious representations. To have a representation consciously is to be presently aware of some representational content. To have a ­representation non-consciously is to somehow have the representation presently, but in a way that one is not presently aware of its content. It is controversial whether there are any non-conscious representations in this sense, but clearly some people think that there are. For example, Freudians claim that some of our beliefs are repressed and yet continue to have effects on our actions. Now they could not mean that we have such beliefs dispositionally, so that the conscious/non-conscious distinction is just the occurrent/dispositional distinction. This is because it is part of 14

Kant, Groundwork, pp. 68–9.  

 Ibid., p. 69n.

15

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the Freudian doctrine that we are not disposed to have repressed beliefs consciously. In fact, the doctrine is that we are disposed not to have them consciously. Whether or not non-conscious representations actually exist, it is clear that our two distinctions cut across each other. Thus we might have occurrent conscious representations, occurrent non-conscious representations, dispositional conscious representations, and dispositional nonconscious representations. With these distinctions in mind we can more clearly specify the strongest sense of “being governed by a rule” attributed to Kant above. Thus we have: RG1.  S’s action A is governed by rule R if and only if S has an occurrent, conscious representation of R, and this representation is causally involved in S’s doing A.

We may specify weaker senses by eliminating various aspects of this ­characterization. Thus we have: RG2.  S’s action A is governed by rule R if and only if S has an occurrent, non-conscious representation of R, and this representation is causally involved in S’s doing A. RG3.  S’s action A is governed by rule R if and only if S has a dispositional representation of R, and this disposition is causally involved in S’s doing A.

An even weaker sense of “being governed by a rule” can be specified by means of a further distinction. We can follow Terence Horgan and John Tienson by distinguishing between (a) having a disposition to represent a rule, and (b) having a disposition to act in a way that the rule specifies, where the latter notion does not involve either occurrent or dispositional representation of the rule. Morphological possession of intentional content M is a matter of the cognitive system’s being disposed, by virtue of its persisting structure rather than by virtue of any occurrent states that are tokens of M, to undergo state transitions that are systematically appropriate to content M  – and to do so, at least much of the time, without generating a token of M during the process. Morphological content differs from occurrent representational content (e.g., occurrent belief) because it involves the cognitive system’s persisting structure, rather than occurrent tokening of M. Morphological content differs from dispositional representational content (e.g., dispositional belief) … because the relevant dispositions associated with morphological content involve tendencies other than the tendency to generate token representations with that content.16 16

Terence Horgan and John Tienson, “Connectionism and the Commitments of Folk Psychology,” in James Tomberlin, ed., Philosophical Perspectives, vol. IX: AI, Connectionism and Philosophical Psychology (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Press, 1995), p. 132.

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Applying the idea of morphological possession to the notion of a rule, we have: RG4.  S’s action A is governed by rule R if and only if S has a disposition to act in the way specified by R, and this disposition is causally involved in S’s doing A.

One qualification at this point is necessary, as it will become important later. Elsewhere Horgan and Tienson argue that a subject follows a cognitive rule only if her transition from input cognitive states to output cognitive states goes through all of the various steps that the rule specifies.17 The idea here is clear enough: If S gets from point A to point B in some way other than the steps that rule R specifies, then S did not get from A to B by following R. RG4 should be read with this understanding in mind. This weakest sense of “being governed by a rule” seems to be the one intended by Pollock when he describes how our beliefs are guided by epistemic norms.18 We know how to reason. That means that under various circumstances we know what to do in reasoning. This can be described equivalently by saying that we know what we should do. Our epistemic norms are just the norms that describe this procedural knowledge … They describe an internalized pattern of behavior that we automatically follow in reasoning, in the same way we automatically follow a pattern in bicycle riding.19

As in RG4, Pollock’s sense of “being governed by a rule” does not require that the rule be represented, even dispositionally. It is this process that I am calling “being guided by the norm without having to think about the norm.” This may be a slightly misleading way of talking, because it suggests that somewhere in our heads there is a mental representation of the norm and that mental representation is doing the guiding. Perhaps it would be less misleading to say that our behavior is being guided by our procedural knowledge and the way in which it is being guided is described by the norm.20 “In order for cognitive processing to ‘conform to PRL rules,’ in the sense intended, it is not enough that the system’s input/output function match the one subserved by the rules; rather, the system must convert inputs to outputs by going through all the steps the rules prescribe.” Terence Horgan and John Tienson, Connectionism and the Philosophy of Psychology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), p. 176, note 14. 18 It is also the sense that I intended in “Internalism and Epistemically Responsible Belief ” and “Virtues and Vices of Virtue Epistemology,” where I largely followed Pollock on this point. 19 Pollock, Contemporary Theories, p. 131. 20 Ibid. 17

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Whereas the strongest sense of “being governed by a rule” required ­conscious, occurrent representation of the rule, our weakest sense requires no representation of the rule at all. Is RG4 thereby rendered too weak for present purposes? In other words, is it too weak for a theory of strong deontological merit, with the latter’s emphasis on following a rule, or respecting a rule, or acting for the sake of a rule? The following considerations suggest that it is too weak. First, consider that various animal behaviors might count as following a rule in the sense of RG4. For example, it has been observed that birds feeding from various sources will eventually conform to an ­a lgorithm for maximizing the intake of food.21 But it seems a stretch to say that the birds are “following a rule” in any sense that is relevant to deontological merit. Since the birds are not even potentially aware of the rule they are “following,” it is only in an extended sense, seemingly irrelevant to any kind of intellectual credit, that their behavior is governed by the rule. A similar point applies to human behavior. Scientists trying to model human cognition have found that simple perceptual tasks such as pattern recognition require algorithms of astounding ­complexity  – far more complexity than the average perceiver could handle in his or her explicit calculations.22 Again, it is therefore a stretch to say that perceivers are “following” the algorithms in any but the most extended sense. A more apt description of both the birds and the humans is that their cognitive activity is governed by causal laws, and that this results in cognitive dispositions that are at most describable by an algorithm; they do not result from anything like using the algorithm, or respecting it, or following it. I believe that this kind of consideration tells against the appropriateness of RG4. In effect, it shows that RG4 is beginning to stretch the notion of “being governed by a rule” beyond any sense relevant for ­deontological merit. I will resist the temptation to strengthen RG4, however, because there are reasons for thinking that knowledge need not be rule-governed even in this very weak sense. If these reasons are sound, then we may conclude that knowledge need not be rule-governed in any allowable sense. A number of relevant studies are discussed in John E. R. Staddon, “Optimality Theory and Behavior,” in John Dupre, ed., The Latest on the Best:  Essays on Evolution and Optimality (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987). 22 J. Hochberg, Perception (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978). 21

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Achieving Knowledge c  Reid’s argument for the possibility of knowledge that is not governed by rules

The purpose of the present section is to establish the possibility of know­ ledge that is not governed by cognitive rules. The first argument for this possibility comes from Thomas Reid. According to Reid, it is a matter of fact that human beings perceive physical objects by means of sensory experience. Given the way human cognition actually works, it is necessary that there be some physical interaction with the object perceived, which interaction gives rise to sensations, which in turn give rise to perceptual beliefs about the object. Although there is no reasoning in perception, yet there are certain means and instruments, which, by the appointment of nature, must intervene between the object and our perception of it; and, by these, our perceptions are limited and regulated. First, if the object is not in contact with the organ of sense, there must be some medium which passes between them. Thus, in vision, the rays of light; in hearing, the vibrations of elastic air; in smelling, the effluvia of the body smelled – must pass from the object to the organ; otherwise we have no perception … The [physical] impression made upon the organ, nerves, and brain is followed by a sensation. And, last of all, this sensation is followed by the perception of the object.23

According to this description, human perception is rule-governed in the sense of RG4. Human perception involves dispositions to go from certain kinds of sensations to certain kinds of beliefs about physical objects, and therefore human perception is governed by the rules describing these dispositions. However, Reid argues, it is merely a contingent fact about human cognition that our perception is governed by such rules. God could have made us so that we perceive physical objects immediately, without need of the sensations that in fact precede our perceptions. We might, perhaps, have been made of such a constitution as to have our present perceptions connected with other sensations. We might, perhaps, have had the perceptions of external objects, without either impressions upon the organs of sense, or sensations. Or, lastly, the perceptions we have, might have been immediately connected with the impressions upon our organs, without any intervention of sensations.24

The last possibility described by Reid is the one that is interesting for our purposes. Reid’s idea is essentially as follows: As a matter of fact, human Thomas Reid, Philosophical Works, ed. H. M. Bracken, 2 vols. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1983), vol. I, p. 186a–b. 24 Ibid., p. 187b. 23

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perception takes place by means of two separate dispositions. The first is a disposition to go from physical “impressions” on the sense organs to mental “sensations” caused by those impressions. The second is to go from these sensations to beliefs about physical objects. What Reid is suggesting is that God could have eliminated the “middleman” in the process. There is no reason why physical impressions on our sense organs could not have led immediately to beliefs about the objects that cause those impressions. If this were the case, then we would have law-governed perception but not rule-governed perception in the sense of RG4. Perception would be law-governed, on Reid’s view, just as any natural activity is governed by the laws of nature. But since these laws would govern the formation of beliefs on the basis of physical impressions on the sense organs, they would not count as cognitive rules in the sense defined in Section 3a and employed in RG4. It will be remembered that cognitive rules must specify “potentially conscious properties” in their antecedents. But physical impressions on the sense organs do not count as potentially conscious properties, even on the very broad sense that was allowed in Section 3a. As defined there, such properties were understood to include (a) various features of our cognitive states that are at least sometimes at the level of conscious awareness, and (b) any properties that are represented by our cognitive states. But physical impressions, such as those that light makes on the retina or sound makes on the eardrum, fall into neither of these categories in the typical case. So even on our weakest notion of “being governed by a rule,” and employing our broadest notion of a “potentially conscious property,” the perception that Reid imagines would not be governed by cognitive rules. And now we need only make explicit what is already implicit in Reid’s discussion – that such perception would nevertheless give rise to know­ ledge. Suppose we come across some class of God’s creatures (human or otherwise) whose perception works in the way that Reid describes. Suppose also that the perception of such creatures is as extensive and as reliable as ours is, or even more so. Such creatures are able to navigate their environment precisely and reliably, are able to accurately identify wide ranges of objects as having wide ranges of properties, and so on. Add also that such creatures reason appropriately from their perceptions, give due consideration to counterevidence, and so on. Clearly we would not judge that they do not have knowledge of their physical environment. Rather, we would say that they acquire knowledge differently than we do. We may conclude, therefore, that knowledge need not be rule-governed in the sense of RG4.

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The creatures we have been discussing are not imaginary on Reid’s view. Rather, Reid thought that certain ranges of human perception work in just the way described. When I see an object, the appearance of which the colour of it makes, may be called the sensation, which suggests to me some external thing as its cause; but it suggests likewise the individual direction and position of this cause with regard to the eye. I know it is precisely in such a direction, and in no other. At the same time, I am not conscious of anything that can be called sensation, but the sensation of colour. The position of the coloured thing is no sensation; but it is by the laws of my constitution presented to the mind along with the colour, without any additional sensation.25

Reid goes on to describe how this might happen. We have reason to believe, that the rays of light make some impression upon the retina; but we are not conscious of this impression … Now, this material impression, made upon a particular point of the retina, by the laws of our constitution, suggests two things to the mind – namely, the colour and the position of some external object … And since there is no necessary connection between these two things suggested by this material impression, it might, if it had so pleased our Creator, have suggested one of them without the other. Let us suppose therefore, since it plainly appears to be possible, that our eyes had been so framed as to suggest to us the position of the object, without suggesting colour, or any other quality: What is the consequence of this supposition? It is evidently this, that the person endued with such an eye, would perceive the visible figure of bodies, without having any sensation or impression made upon his mind.26

Finally, Reid draws his conclusion: If we suppose, last of all, that the eye hath the power restored of perceiving colour, I apprehend that it will be allowed, that now it perceives figure in the very same manner as before, with this difference only, that colour is always joined with it. In answer, therefore, to the question proposed, there seems to be no sensation that is appropriate to visible figure, or whose office it is to suggest it.27

Reid thinks that normal human beings perceive the position and v­ isible figure of objects without the benefit of sensations. I will not argue that Reid is correct on this point of fact, nor is it necessary for me to do so. Rather, I am concerned to establish a possibility, and it does seem to me that Reid has established that much. In other words, he has esta­ blished that perception could work in the way that he describes, whether 25

Ibid., p. 145a.   26 Ibid., p. 146a.  

 Ibid., p. 146a–b.

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or not it does work that way in humans. This is because perception is essentially discrimination: to perceive physical objects as having certain properties is to discriminate the object and the properties from other possibilities. We already assume that human perception is underwritten by physical processes that allow for such discrimination. Whether it is by means of light on the retina, sound on the eardrum, or “the effluvia of the body smelled,” we assume that minute variations in physical events affect our sense organs differently, thereby allowing the various discriminations we make by means of the five senses. As Reid points out, eliminating an intermediate stage in the process would not affect the ability to make those discriminations, so long as the relationships between physical inputs and perceptual outputs remained unaffected. Now suppose that further investigation confirmed that Reid is right – that we do visually perceive position and figure, but not by means of visual sensations. In that case it would be established that such perception is not rule-governed in the sense of RG4. But clearly we would not give up the idea that we can know the positions and figures of physical objects just by looking. It is interesting to note that Reid is not alone in postulating this sort of cognition. On the contrary, in many ways Reid’s discussion anticipates current investigations into blindsight and other forms of non-conscious perception. Blindsight is now a widely documented phenomenon, occurring in subjects with damage to the primary visual cortex. Subjects who are blind in some part of their visual field can nevertheless discriminate size, shape, location and/or orientation of objects in the blind part of the field despite the absence of any conscious visual experience. In typical cases subjects insist that they cannot see the stimuli and therefore cannot answer questions about it. However, in “forced-choice testing” these subjects perform at levels that are better than chance and sometimes remarkably high. Speculation about how blindsight works is also reminiscent of Reid’s discussion. Since damage in blindsighted subjects is to the visual cortex rather than to the eyes themselves, it is hypothesized that information from the eye still reaches the brain, although bypassing the mechanisms normally responsible for conscious visual experience.28 More recently it has been argued that non-conscious perception is a part of normal cognitive functioning.29 This is in fact a controversial issue, but again, whether non-conscious perception actually exists is not See L. Weiskrants, Blindsight: A Case Study and Implications (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). For an informative review of relevant literature, see Paul Lewicki, Thomas Hill, and Maria Czyzewska, “Nonconscious Acquisition of Information,” American Psychologist 47, 6 (1992): 796–801.

28

29

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relevant for present purposes. What is relevant is the possibility, and that seems to be established well enough. Given the way that standard perception actually works, it seems a small stretch that information about the environment could be carried to the brain without sensory awareness – all we need imagine is that the path from physical stimulus to conscious belief does not go through sensory experience. Finally, consider that both the phenomenon of blindsight and Reid’s perception of visible figure are radical versions of non-conscious perception, in that they hold that no sensory awareness at all is involved in the relevant processes. But perception would fail to be rule-governed in the sense of RG4 so long as it is partially a function of non-cognitive inputs. Suppose that perception is a function of (a) initial sensory inputs, (b) existing beliefs in the system with relevant content, and (c) initial non-cognitive inputs such as Reid’s “physical impressions.” If this is the case, then there will be perceptual dispositions that are not specifiable in purely cognitive terms, and therefore perception that is not rule-governed in the sense of RG4. Whether non-conscious perception actually exists seems a matter of contingent fact, to be decided by empirical investigation into the actual workings of human cognition. Now suppose that such perception does exist. Suppose also that people reason appropriately from such perceptions, give due consideration to counterevidence, and do all the other things that we think are required for knowledge. Would we deny that there is knowledge in such cases, simply for lack of preceding conscious experience? It seems to me that we would not. On the contrary, we would say that perceptual knowledge arises differently than we had supposed.30 So far we have been arguing for the possibility of knowledge that is not rule-governed by considering the possibility of cognitive processing with non-cognitive inputs. The basic idea has been that the cognitive processes that determine belief might be describable only by rules that go from non-cognitive physical states to cognitive states, and not by rules that go from cognitive states to cognitive states, as rule-governance in the sense of RG4 would require. Another way that knowledge might not be rulegoverned in the sense of RG4 is that cognitive processing always goes from cognitive inputs to cognitive outputs, but not by means of dispositions that are describable by cognitive rules. Put another way, the transitions from cognitive inputs to cognitive outputs might not be the result I have been making the present argument in terms of perceptual knowledge. Similar arguments could be made regarding the possibility of other kinds of immediate knowledge, for example memory knowledge and intuitive knowledge of simple necessary truths.

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of dispositions that are describable on the cognitive level. Connectionist models of cognitive processing demonstrate this possibility. d  The second argument for the possibility of non-rule-governed knowledge It is now commonplace to think that connectionist models of cognitive processing imply that cognition is not governed by rules. I will begin this section by giving a brief description of such models. Second, I will review some reasons for thinking that the models imply that cognition is not governed by rules, paying special attention to the sense of “governed by rules” stipulated in RG4. The argument for the possibility thesis in premise 2 above will then be as follows: It is an empirical question, concerning a contingent matter of fact, whether connectionist models of human cognition are true. But however this question is decided, we will continue to judge that paradigm cases of cognition, for example simple perceptual judgments, count as cases of knowledge. Therefore, it is possible that knowledge is not governed by rules. Connectionist systems consist of numbers of simple but connected units that can be “activated” or “excited” to some degree. The units are set up so that the activation of each affects the activation of others to which they are immediately connected. In typical systems the inter­action among units affects connection “strengths” or “weights” over time, so that the effect of one unit on another is increased or inhibited on the basis of prior interaction between the two units. Processing takes place in a connectionist system when an initial pattern of activation is supplied to the input units. This original activation sets off activity among the various units of the system until stability in the system is achieved. The pattern of activation over the output units then represents the system’s “answer” to a proposed problem. Thus in connectionist systems the input and output units, or in some cases patterns of activation over these, are given interpretations for the purposes of the task being modeled. In typical cases a system will contain “hidden” units as well. Hidden units need not be interpreted themselves. Rather, their purpose is to effect appropriate transitions from interpreted inputs to interpreted outputs. We may now see why connectionist models have been thought to imply that cognition is not rule-governed. First, it is clear that on such models cognitive processing need not take place by means of explicitly represented rules: although some connectionist models do in fact employ explicitly represented rules, the more interesting models do not. Rather,

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Achieving Knowledge

connectionist processing takes place by means of the interactions among various connected units in the system, and these interactions are governed only by physical laws. Initial activations, together with initial connection strengths, cause a pattern of activity that eventually settles the system into the state of highest entropy.31 Clearly, therefore, on connectionist models cognitive processing need not be rule-governed in the sense of RG1 or RG2, each of which requires an occurrent representation of the rules in question. Neither must processing be rule-governed in the sense of RG3, since there need be no disposition to represent relevant rules either. If cognition must be rule-governed at all on connectionist models, then it will have to be in the weak sense of RG4. I now turn to two arguments from Horgan and Tienson, which establish that not even this is the case. First, recall what it means for cognition to be rule-governed in the sense of RG4. In general, S’s action A is governed by rule R if and only if S has a disposition to act in the way specified by R, and this disposition is causally involved in S’s doing A. In the specific case of cognition, action A refers to a cognitive action and rule R refers to a cognitive rule, where cognitive rules are understood as above. Specifically, cognitive rules specify features of cognitive states in their antecedents, and then specify further cognitive states as permissible, required, or prohibited. Putting all this together, S’s cognition is rule-governed in the sense of RG4 just in case S’s cognition is the result of dispositions to go from earlier cognitive states to later cognitive states in a way specified by some set of cognitive rules. The next thing to note is that on some connectionist models cognition is rule-governed in the sense of RG4. The important point, however, is that this is not so on all connectionist models. The reason for this is that connectionist processing takes place on the sub-representational level. In other words, it takes place by means of the myriad of interactions between individual, directly connected units in the system. But the dispositions produced by sub-representational processing need not mirror any disposition that is describable at the cognitive level. Horgan and Tienson make the point as follows: According to [the present connectionist model], the human cognitive system’s transitions from one total cognitive state to another leap fairly large cognitive gaps in single steps that are not decomposable, via classicist “boxology” … into computationally subservable cognitive “baby steps” (either serial ones, or William Bechtel, “Connectionism and the Philosophy of Mind:  An Overview,” in William Lycan, ed., Mind and Cognition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), p. 254.

31

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simultaneous ones, or both). Although there exist algorithms for computing the system’s cognitive-transition function (because, ex hypothesi, the cognitive transitions are tractably computable), the system itself does not execute any such representation-level algorithm; i.e., the various physical processes in the system do not realize all the distinct symbol-manipulation steps whose collective physical realization would constitute execution of a given algorithm. Even though the system might execute algorithms at one or more subrepresentational levels of description (as does a standard connectionist network), its processing does not conform to PRL rules – i.e., programmable rules that refer solely to those formal/­ mathematical features of representations that play representational roles.32

Horgan and Tienson’s discussion is aimed at classical AI’s assumptions regarding cognitive processing; i.e. that such processing must take place solely by means of operations on the syntactic/formal properties of representations, and in a way that can be implemented in a physical system. However, their argument can be carried over straightforwardly for our purposes. The essential point is that processing that takes place on the ­non-cognitive level of nodes and connections need not be describable by rules stated at the cognitive level. But if this is the case, then the cognitive processing in a connectionist network need not give rise to dispositions that are describable by such rules, and so rule-governed in the sense of RG4. The following example illustrates the present point. Consider standard decision theory, viewed as a putative psychological model of human deliberation and choice, rather than a normative theory. According to this model, a deliberating agent will choose an action with maximum expected utility. The expected utility of an envisioned act is a certain kind of weighted sum:  the sum of respective numerical values the agent assigns to the various envisioned potential outcomes of that act, with each value weighted by the agent’s subjective probability of the given outcome’s resulting from that act. Now, one way such a decision-making system might work would be computational. For instance, it might actually calculate this weighted sum, for each envisioned act, then compare the totals for the acts and calculate which act or acts have maximal expected utility, and then pick an act with maximal expected utility. But there is another possibility, without representation-level computations: There are various beliefs and desires at work in the system, with various strengths. They all enter the hopper at once and interact directly – somewhat in the manner of a complex combination of interacting physical forces in a planetary system, with the various bodies exerting mutual gravitational influence on one another. The way they interact is via a kind of “resolution of forces,” where  Horgan and Tienson, Connectionism and the Philosophy of Psychology, p. 55.

32

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the forces get resolved in such a way that the cognitive system eventually settles on an alternative with maximal expected utility.33

Again, the cognitive activity in the example would be law-governed, although it would not be rule-governed in the sense of RG4. It is also important to realize that connectionist networks could, in principle, subserve non-algorithmic cognitive transitions, even though each node in the network updates its own activation, locally, in accordance with an algorithm. The local updatings of individual nodes need not be parallel baby steps in some algorithm over representations – some set of programmable rules for manipulating and transforming complex representations on the basis of their representation­level structure.34

This first argument from Horgan and Tienson depends on the idea that the non-cognitive rules involved in connectionist processing need not mirror cognitive rules in all their “baby steps.” A second argument they make against rule-governed cognition does not depend on this point. In the passage below Horgan and Tienson are discussing their preferred model of connectionist processing. According to that model, human cognition is not “tractably computable,” meaning that it cannot be ­physically implemented by means of a set of programmable, representation-level rules. In the passage “CTF” stands for “cognitive transition function” and “TCS” stands for “total cognitive state.” What does it mean for a human CTF not to be tractably computable? The CTF itself can be construed as an enormous set of ordered pairs, each of which associates a single TCS with a set of one or more successor TCSs. One way to specify this function would be via a huge (possibly infinite) list, with each ordered pair in the CTF specified by a separate entry. Such a list, even if finite, would be truly gargantuan – far too big to itself constitute a set of programmable rules. Thus, a tractably computable CTF, because of the enormous number of distinct cognitive transitions it includes, would have to be fully specifiable in some way other than via a brute list. What classicism assumes, of course, is that a human CTF is specifiable via some set of general laws over cognitive states; each determinate cognitive transition type is supposedly just a particular instance of one of these laws, and the CTF delineated by the laws is supposedly tractably computable. Thus, if the CTF is not completely specifiable by such general laws, it will not be tractably computable.35

Horgan and Tienson’s point is that the CTF need not be so specifiable if it is implemented by a connectionist network. Precisely because 33

Ibid., p. 56.  

 Ibid., pp. 56–7.  

34

 Ibid., p. 64.

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cognitive transitions in a connectionist network are effected by means of sub-­representational laws, there is no guarantee that those transitions will also be describable by representation-level laws. Of course there will be a cognitive transition function; that is, a function that is specifiable at the level of representations. But this function need not be specifiable in any general way at the representational level. This point is important in the context of Horgan and Tienson’s discussion because they are concerned to reject classical AI’s assumption that cognitive transitions can be physically implemented by means of representation-level rules. If there is no way to specify the cognitive transition function of a system in a general way, then that will not be the case. But their point is important for our purposes as well. Putting the point in terms of cognitive states rather than in terms of representations: If the dispositions of the system need not be describable in a general way at the level of cognitive states, then that amounts to saying that its dispositions need not be describable by cognitive rules. And that means that the activity of the system need not be governed by cognitive rules in the sense of RG4, since “governed by cognitive rules” in that sense just means “describable by cognitive rules.” Horgan and Tienson give several arguments for concluding that their model gives an accurate account of human cognition. But, as I have said above, it is not my purpose here to defend any such empirical thesis. Rather, the relevant point for my purposes is that Horgan and Tienson have described a possible model of human cognition. Now suppose that their possible model is correct and that cognitive science establishes this beyond any doubt. Suppose that paradigm cases of perception, inductive reasoning, memory, and the like arise in accordance with the model and that we all accept that this is the case. For example, we all believe that walking into the room and seeing that there are chairs there is the result of just the kind of connectionist processing that the model describes. Surely we would not judge that therefore no one knows that there are chairs in the room. We would not judge, that is, that we have no perceptual knowledge, no knowledge by induction, and so on. On the contrary, we would judge that we have learned some interesting details about how such knowledge in fact arises. Clearly, then, the concept of knowledge does not require that knowledge be rule-governed. Strong deontological theories of epistemic normativity are false.36 36

Wayne Riggs raises the objection that I have not considered an important kind of deontological theory: namely, one that defines epistemic normativity in terms of rules of conduct rather than in terms of cognitive rules. I believe that there are two decisive considerations against such theories, however. The first is that such theories do not discriminate finely enough between beliefs that

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Achieving Knowledge 4  A v i r t u e -t h e or e t ic ac c ou n t of e pi s t e m ic nor m at i v i t y

A virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity provides an attractive alternative to deontological theories. We have been thinking of deontological theories in epistemology as modeled after Kantian rule-based theories in ethics. By contrast, virtue theories in epistemology are modeled after virtue theories in ethics. This idea is best understood in terms of a thesis about the direction of explanation. Just as virtue theories in ethics try to understand the normative properties of actions in terms of the normative properties of moral agents, virtue theories in epistemology try to understand the normative properties of beliefs in terms of the normative properties of cognitive agents. Hence virtue theories in ethics have been described as person-based rather than act-based, and virtue theories in epistemology have been described as person-based rather than beliefbased.37 What is the nature of the intellectual virtues? As in moral theory, this is a controversial question on which various positions are possible. Thus Kant thought that moral virtue was primarily a function of proper motivation. In a famous passage, Kant writes that “A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes – because of its fitness for attaining some proposed end: it is good through its willing alone – that is, good in itself.” And again, Skill and diligence in work have a market price; wit, lively imagination, and humour have a fancy price; but fidelity to promises and kindness based on principle (not on instinct) have an intrinsic worth. In default of these, nature and art alike contain nothing to put in their place; for their worth consists, not in the effects which result from them, not in the advantage or profit they produce, but in the attitudes of mind – that is, in the maxims of the will – which are ready in this way to manifest themselves in action even if they are not favoured by success.38 have knowledge-relevant normative status and those that do not. For example, one might engage in grossly irresponsible conduct and nevertheless be in a position to have knowledge as a result, for example through perception. This sort of consideration is brought out forcefully by William Alston in “The Deontological Conception of Epistemic Justification,” in James Tomberlin, ed., Philosophical Perspectives, vol. II: Epistemology (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Press, 1988). The second problem with such theories is that they put off the objections raised against strong deontological theories only for a moment. Specifically, the question will arise concerning how one knows that the antecedents of the rules of conduct are satisfied. Depending on how one answers, we will either be off on a regress or we will have to acknowledge the role of cognitive rules as described above. 37 Zagzebski, Virtues of the Mind.   38  Kant, Groundwork, pp. 62 and 102.

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According to Aristotle, however, the moral virtues involve both a motivational component and a reliable success component: a virtuous person is motivated toward the good, but is also successful in achieving it. Hence Aristotle agrees that moral virtue is “concerned with choice,” but also writes, every virtue or excellence both brings into good condition the thing of which it is the excellence and makes the work of that thing be done well.… Therefore, if this is true in every case, the virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well.39

An Aristotelian account of the moral virtues, therefore, combines considerations of both responsibility and reliability. Like Kant’s good will, the morally virtuous person is praiseworthy in that her character displays an appropriate motivational orientation. But on Aristotle’s account, the morally virtuous person is also reliable, in that she reliably achieves the moral goods that she is motivated to pursue. Now it seems to me that the Aristotelian model is the better one for theories of epistemic normativity. This is because, it seems to me, knowledge requires both responsibility in one’s cognitive conduct and reliability in achieving epistemic ends. But however this issue is decided, the main point is that virtue theories define the normative properties of beliefs in terms of the normative properties of persons, i.e. the stable dispositions or character traits that constitute their intellectual virtues, however these are to be understood. Here is an example of how such a definition might be constructed. First, we can define knowledge-relevant responsibility and knowledge-relevant reliability as follows: Resp.  S’s belief that p is epistemically responsible if and only if S’s believing that p is properly motivated; if and only if S’s believing that p results from intellectual dispositions that S manifests when S is motivated to believe the truth. Rel.  S is objectively reliable in believing that p if and only if S’s believing that p results from intellectual dispositions that reliably produce true belief.

We may then define epistemically virtuous belief as follows. EV.  S’s belief that p is epistemically virtuous if and only if both (a) S’s belief that p is epistemically responsible; and (b) S is objectively reliable in believing that p. 39

Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. David Ross (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), Book II, ch. 6.

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Does EV give us an account of epistemic normativity? Not quite, because one dimension of epistemic normativity is still left out. It is a good thing that one’s belief is epistemically responsible, and it is a good thing that one is objectively reliable in forming one’s belief. But it is even better if responsibility and reliability bring success – if one’s belief is true because it is responsibly and reliably formed. This marks the difference between virtuous belief and belief from virtue. Accordingly, we may define epistemic normativity as follows: EN.  S’s belief that p has knowledge-relevant normative status (it has all the normative properties that knowledge requires) if and only if S believes the truth because S’s belief is epistemically virtuous.

One might think, in fact, that knowledge requires no more than this – that a belief amounts to knowledge just in case it has knowledge-­relevant normative status as understood in EN. Indeed, this is the account of knowledge I will defend in Chapter 5. But for now I want to stress the main point of this section: Whether we understand epistemic normativity in terms of motivational orientation, reliable success, or both, a virtue approach is neutral regarding whether knowledge is rule-governed. More specifically, virtue theories are neutral regarding whether the cognitive dispositions that give rise to knowledge are grounded in rule-governed behavior. Here we may follow Sosa by distinguishing between a disposition and the basis for that disposition. Of course one and the same virtue might have several different alternative possible grounds or bases. Thus the disposition to roll down an incline if free at its top with a certain orientation, in a certain environment (gravity, etc.), may be grounded in the sphericity and rigidity of an object, or alternatively it may be grounded in its cylindricality and rigidity. Either way, the conditional will obtain and the object will have the relevant disposition to roll. Similarly, Earthians and Martians may both be endowed with sight, in the sense of having the ability to tell colors and shapes, etc., though the principles of the operation of Earthian sight may differ widely from the principles that apply to Martians, which would or might presumably derive from a difference in the inner structure of the two species of being.40

In a similar manner, we could understand the dispositions involved in proper motivation and reliable success as being themselves grounded in conformance to cognitive rules. If the rules are of the right kind, and   Sosa, Knowledge in Perspective, p. 141.

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if they reliably produce true belief in S’s environment, then S’s beliefs will satisfy the definitions above in virtue of S’s cognitive activity being governed by those rules. Thus a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity is consistent with the hypothesis that knowledge-producing cognition is rule-governed. But a virtue-theoretic account is also consistent with the alternative hypothesis that knowledge-producing cognition is not rule-governed. The definitions above say nothing about how S’s dispositions arise, and so it leaves it open that S’s dispositions might be grounded in cognitive architecture that does not involve cognitive rules. And this is just what we want if the architecture question is an empirical one. Finally, we may note that virtue theories also avoid the objection raised above against weak deontological theories. The problem for weak deontological theories was that they do not discriminate between having good reasons and believing for good reasons. More generally, in cases of ­k nowledge etiology matters: it is required that the knower form her belief in the right way, or at least maintain it in the right way. Virtue theories easily accommodate this consideration, for they require that knowledge be grounded in virtuous character. In cases of inferential knowledge, this will involve dispositions to form one’s beliefs on the basis of reliable evidence. In cases of non-inferential knowledge, this will involve dispositions to form one’s beliefs in other ways that are both responsible and reliable. Hence virtue theories clearly fall into the class of what Goldman calls “genetic theories.”41 What distinguishes virtue theories from other genetic theories is that, as Aristotle says, “the moving principle is in the agent himself.”42 To sum up:  in this chapter I have argued against both weak and strong deontological accounts of epistemic normativity, and I have argued that a virtue-theoretic account can avoid the objections raised against each. The main objection raised against weak deontological theories is that they fail to take into account the causal etiology of belief. The main argument against strong deontological theories is that they say too much about causal etiology. Specifically, such theories require that knowledge be governed by rules, whereas our intuitions about which cases count as knowledge support no such requirement. Therefore, strong deontological theories are too strong. In contrast, Goldman, “What is Justified Belief?”   Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book III, ch. 1.

41

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virtue theories make causal etiology matter, requiring that, in cases of knowledge, belief is the result of virtuous cognitive character. However, virtue theories need not require that knowledge be governed by rules. On the contrary, they can make this an empirical question about the basis of intellectual virtue, rather than a philosophical question about the conditions for knowledge.

ch apter 3

Against internalism

Internalism comes in many varieties, not all of which are relevant to present purposes. In this chapter, I am interested in internalism about epistemic normativity, or the full normative status that is required for knowledge. This is because I am here defending a virtue-theoretic account of such, and internalism about epistemic normativity seems incompatible with that account. A virtue-theoretic account, after all, emphasizes the importance of causal and other modally strong features of belief, and these sorts of features have been treated as paradigmatically externalist. An internalist account, of the sort I am considering here, claims that such features are not relevant, or not centrally relevant, to issues of epistemic normativity.1 In Section 1 I clarify the internalist thesis, arguing that a particular formulation of the thesis is apropos. In Section 2 I present an argument In the early days of the internalism–externalism debate in epistemology, the argument was often over epistemic normativity understood in the present sense. There was general agreement that knowledge is justified true belief, plus something else (perhaps) to handle Gettier problems, and the label “justification” was used to name the normative dimension of knowledge, whatever that might be. Internalists held that the normative status required for knowledge must be understood in internalist terms, and externalists denied this. Present-day internalists often weaken their claim in one of two ways. First, some defend internalism about some dimension of knowledge-relevant normativity. That is, they continue to hold that knowledge requires some particular sort of normative status, and that this sort of status must be understood in an internalist way, but they deny that this sort of status exhausts the normative requirements on knowledge. This is the account of “justification” taken by Earl Conee and Richard Feldman in their Evidentialism:  Essays in Epistomology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), and by Richard Feldman in “Justification is Internal,” in Matthias Steup and Ernest Sosa, eds., Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005). Second, some defend internalism about some particular sort of normative status, but deny that this sort of status is required for knowledge. For example, James Montmarquet defends internalism about “doxastic responsibility,” but denies that this is required for knowledge. See James Montmarquet, Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993). Likewise, Robert Audi defends internalism about justification (roughly, reasonableness), but denies that this sort of justification is required for knowledge. See his “An Internalist Theory of Normative Grounds,” Philosophical Topics 23 (2001): 19–46. In this chapter we return to the debate of earlier days.

1

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against internalism so understood. In Section 3 I consider some ways that an internalist might respond. 1  W h at i s i n t e r n a l i s m ? Let us begin with some stipulative definitions. By “knowledge-relevant normative status” I mean the sort of normative status (whatever it is) that is required for knowledge. For short, we can call this “k-relevant normative status” or simply “k-normative status.” By “internalism” I mean the thesis that, in some important sense, knowledge-relevant normative status is entirely a function of factors internal to the knower. We get varieties of internalism depending on how the notion of “internal to the knower” is understood. For now, I want to consider a version of “Privileged Access Internalism” (I-PA). Still stipulating, let us say that S has “privileged access” to the fact that p just in case S can know that p “by reflection alone.” And let us understand this latter notion as follows: S can know that p “by reflection alone” just in case S can know that p by virtue of introspection, or by a priori intuition, or by reasoning from truths that are known in these ways. “Privileged Access Internalism” about epistemic normativity can now be defined as follows: I-PA.  K-relevant normative status is entirely determined by states of affairs to which S has privileged access.2

I-PA is best understood as a supervenience thesis: K-relevant normative status supervenes on states of affairs to which S has privileged access. That is, k-normative status entirely supervenes on states of affairs to which S has privileged access. Hence, I-PA.  K-relevant normative status entirely supervenes on states of affairs to which S has privileged access.

Alternatively: K-relevant normative status entirely supervenes on states of affairs that S can know to obtain “by reflection alone,” i.e. states of This is analogous to what Alston calls “access internalism.” See William P. Alston, “Concepts of Epistemic Justification,” Monist 68 (1985):  57–89, and “Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology,” Philosophical Topics 14 (1986):  179–221. Both are reprinted in Alston, Epistemic Justification (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989). See also Carl Ginet, Knowledge, Perception and Memory (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1975); Roderick Chisholm, Theory of Knowledge, 2nd edn (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:  Prentice-Hall, 1977); and Alvin Goldman, “The Internalist Conception of Justification,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5 (1980): 27–51.

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affairs that S can know to obtain by virtue of introspection, or by a priori intuition, or by reasoning from truths that are known in these ways. 2 I n t e r n a l i s m r ej e c t e d There are good reasons for rejecting access internalism about epistemic normativity. I have argued at length, for example, that the position entails a widespread skepticism about knowledge.3 Here I will develop a different kind of objection, however  – one that directly challenges Access Internalism’s supervenience thesis. The argument is straightforward. In short, we can think of possible cases that are alike regarding factors to which there is privileged access, but different regarding k-normative status. That is, we can think of cases where we keep the facts about privileged access fixed, but we see differences in the facts about k-normative status. For example, we can imagine two believers who have the same reasons for believing p, but who do not use the same reasons. Likewise, we can imagine two believers who presently share the same psychological states, but who do not share the same psychological histories in arriving at those states. For example, we can imagine that one believer reasoned flawlessly to her present beliefs, whereas the second believer arrived at those same beliefs through carelessness and wishful thinking. But these kinds of etiological differences make for normative differences, and therefore the facts about k-normative status do not supervene on the facts about privileged access facts. The internalist might object that differences in etiology will always entail differences in privileged access. For example, even if our two believers presently share the same psychological states, and are therefore alike regarding privileged access in that respect, the two will differ with respect to privileged access in the past. For example, they will differ regarding their privileged access to facts about carelessness and wishful thinking. We should understand I-PA’s supervenience thesis accordingly, this response goes; that is, it is a thesis about normativity supervening on all the facts to which S has (or had) privileged access, past or present. This response misfires, however, since it is implausible that our two believers ever had privileged access to the facts in question. Facts about etiology, such as whether one’s belief is based on good reasons, or whether one’s belief is produced by wishful thinking, are paradigmatically external For extended arguments to this effect see my “Agent Reliabilism,” Putting Skeptics in their Place, and “Justification is not Internal,” in Steup and Sosa, Contemporary Debates in Epistemology.

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facts – they are facts to which we typically lack privileged access, in the sense of being able to know whether they hold by reflection alone. So whether we restrict the supervenience base to facts to which S presently has privileged access, or we broaden it to include facts to which S once had privileged access, the base will be too narrow to include all the facts that can make a normative difference. The facts about k-normative status do not supervene on the facts about privileged access, even broadly considered. Similar considerations concern other modal facts that are relevant to k-normative status. For example, whether S’s belief that p counts as knowledge depends on whether S’s reasons are a reliable indication that p is true. But facts about reliability are modally strong, and for this reason they are paradigmatically external facts – they are facts to which S typically lacks privileged access. To put the point differently, we can imagine cases where the facts to which S has privileged access stay the same, but modal facts concerning reliability, safety and the like change, and therefore the facts about k-normative status change. If that is right, then, once again, the facts about k-normative status do not supervene on the facts about privileged access. The above considerations suggest the following general argument against I-PA: 1. Some of the necessary conditions for k-normative status are modally strong in nature. For example, such status requires that beliefs are reliably formed, that beliefs are based on their reasons, and that reasons are truth-indicating. 2. But the states of affairs to which S has privileged access are not sufficient to fix the relevant modal facts. There are possible worlds where the facts to which S has pr.ivileged access are the same but the relevant modal facts are different. Therefore, 3. The states of affairs to which S has privileged access are not sufficient to fix the facts about epistemic normativity. K-normative status does not supervene on facts to which S has privileged access. Support for premise 1: Reliability is a necessary condition on know­ ledge – a belief counts as knowledge only if it is reliably formed. Moreover, if S’s belief is not reliably formed, S’s belief falls short of knowledge in a way that is normatively relevant. It is epistemically better that one’s beliefs

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are reliably formed than not. If a belief is not reliably formed, that constitutes a lack from an epistemic point of view. In short, knowledge requires reliability, and this marks one way that knowledge can be better than belief that is not knowledge. In a similar fashion, inferential knowledge requires that S’s belief be causally based on good reasons. Memory knowledge requires that belief issue from real memory rather than apparent memory. Moreover, if S’s belief fails to be knowledge by failing to meet these requirements, S’s belief fails to be knowledge in a way that is normatively relevant. It is better, from an epistemic point of view, that a belief be based on good reasons than not. It is better that one’s belief is caused by a real memory rather than by an apparent memory. Failing to meet these conditions is a way of falling short, of leaving something to be desired from an epistemic point of view. In sum: Various etiological and other modally strong features are necessary for various sorts of knowledge. Moreover, these modally strong features are necessary for meeting normative conditions on knowledge. Therefore, various modally strong features are necessary conditions on k-relevant normative status. Support for premise 2: Here we can describe various pairs of cases with the following three features: (a) in each case in the pair, the facts to which S has privileged access are the same; (b) in each case in the pair, the modal facts are different; and (c) in each pair, the differences in the modal facts ground a difference in the normative facts. Here are several such pairs of cases. Good reasoning vs. wishful thinking Case 1.  Ted loves Mary because she is the only brunette in the class, and is waiting for Mary to enter the room. Ted catches a good enough glimpse of the person entering to see that she is a brunette, but not good enough to see that it is Mary. He then reasons from here that the person who just entered the room is Mary. Case 2.  As in Case 1, except that Ted does not reason to the conclusion that the person who just entered the room is Mary. Rather, he believes this on the basis of wishful thinking. The difference between Case 1 and Case 2 regards the etiology of Ted’s belief. Moreover, this etiological difference grounds a normative difference: Ted’s belief is epistemically better in the first case than in the second case. It is implausible, however, that Ted must always have ­privileged access to the etiological facts in question. On the contrary, this is the sort of thing

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that people often or typically cannot know by reflection alone. Here is a similar pair of cases. Having good reasons vs. using good reasons Case 1.  Marco knows some relevant axioms and understands some relevant inference rules, and on this basis correctly infers a theorem in his math exam. Case 2.  Marco knows some relevant axioms and understands some ­relevant inference rules, but does not use this knowledge to infer the theo­ rem. Rather, he uses an invalid rule to arrive at the same true theorem. Here again, the difference in the cases regards the etiology of belief – this time a difference in reasoning patterns. Also, again, the etiological difference makes a normative difference: Marco is better off epistemically in Case 1 than in Case 2. But is it plausible that people can always discover their reasoning patterns by reflection alone? Surely there is a difference between (a) reasoning according to a rule, and (b) knowing that one has reasoned according to a rule, and surely the two can come apart. Consider now some further pairs. Apparent vs. real memory Case 1.  Sofia believes that the Yankees won the World Series the year she was born, because she remembers that her parents have told her this. Indeed they have told her this, reliably reporting an important fact about her early childhood. Case 2.  Sofia believes that the Yankees won the World Series the year she was born, because she believes she remembers that her parents have told her this. In fact, they have never told her this, although she has a “false memory” that they have. In both cases, we can imagine, the facts that Sofia can know by ­reflection alone are the same. What she cannot know by reflection alone are, once again, certain etiological and other modally strong facts about the sources of her belief. For example, she cannot know by reflection alone that her belief was (or was not) formed on the basis of reliable memory of reliable testimony. Cartesian twins Case 1.  S1 is a normal, embodied human being, who believes all sorts of things on the basis of reliable perception, memory, reasoning, etc. Case 2.  S2 is S1’s Cartesian twin, deceived by an evil demon into thinking that he is a normal, embodied human being, living a life exactly the same as S1’s.

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We can imagine that S1 and S2 are exactly similar in terms of what they can know by reflection alone. They are, after all, Cartesian twins. But they are radically different in terms of their causal and other modal relations to the world. For example, S1’s perceptual beliefs are appropriately caused by dogs and trees and the like, whereas S2’s perceptual beliefs are not. Likewise, S1’s perceptual beliefs, including his belief that he has a physical body, are modally safe. S2’s beliefs are not. The various pairs of cases we have just reviewed establish premise 2 of the argument above. First, the cases show that relevant modal facts do not supervene on facts about privileged access: in each pair of cases, the PA facts are the same but the modal facts are different. Moreover, in each pair of cases, a difference in the modal facts grounds a difference in the epistemically normative facts. In each pair, the believer in Case 1 is in a better or superior position, epistemically speaking, than the believer in Case 2. And therefore the conclusion in 3 follows from premises 1 and 2: The facts about epistemic normativity do not supervene on the facts to which S has privileged access. 3 S om e i n t e r n a l i s t s t r at e g i e s f or r e sp on di ng t o t h e a rgu m e n t The argument against I-PA in Section 2 is sound. I-PA about epistemic normativity is false. How might the internalist respond? a  Change what we mean by “ internal” One strategy for responding to the argument of Section 2 is to change what one means by “internal to the knower.” In other words, the internalist might give up I-PA in favor of a different thesis. Of course, this strategy should include the claim that I-PA mischaracterizes the core internalist thesis anyway. Internalists hold that, in some important sense, epistemic normativity depends on what is entirely internal to the knower. More carefully, the facts about knowledge-relevant normativity supervene entirely on facts that are internal to the knower. The present strategy is to replace I-PA’s understanding of that core thesis with a different one. One example of this strategy is to adopt “mentalism” about what counts as “internal to the knower.”4 According to mentalism, a state of This understanding of “internal” is due to Earl Conee and Richard Feldman. See, for example, their “Internalism Defended,” in Hilary Kornblith, ed., Epistemology: Internalism and Externalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001); and “Evidentialism,” Philosophical Studies 48 (1985): 15–34, both reprinted in their Evidentialism: Essays in Epistemology. See also their “Introduction” in that volume.

4

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affairs F is internal to S just in case F constitutes part of S’s mental life.5 For example, that S has some particular perceptual experience counts as internal on this understanding, since how things appear perceptually to S is part of S’s mental life in the relevant sense. Also, any belief or any representation that S has about how things are would be internal on this understanding, since a person’s beliefs and other representations are also part of her mental life. Using this understanding of “internal,” we may define Mental State Internalism (I-MS) as follows.6 I-MS.  The facts about epistemic normativity supervene on the facts about S’s mental life.

Two dangers for this strategy are immediately apparent. The first is that the internalist has hereby changed the subject – that she is no longer disagreeing with the externalist about what was originally in dispute. Accordingly, the present strategy must include a claim that the new issue really is fundamental, perhaps more fundamental than the issue framed by I-PA. A second danger, related to the first, is that the loses her original motivation for adopting internalism’s core thesis in the first place. One major motivation for adopting internalism is that it makes sense of “The Project of Vindication,” i.e. the project of establishing that there is knowledge in a domain, and doing so in a way that does not beg the question against the skeptic.7 Recall that an early complaint about externalism was that it fails to do just this, in virtue of the externalist claim that knowledge requires de facto reliability (or the like) as opposed to known reliability (or the like). In the context of this dispute, the demands of I-PA make perfect sense: the reason we need privileged access to the facts that determine epistemic normativity, the reason we need to know these facts by reflection alone, is precisely because we need to know them in a way that does not beg the question against the external world skeptic. Now I have never been persuaded by this motivation for internalism. In fact, I have argued elsewhere that the motivation is self-defeating, in that See Conee and Feldman, “Internalism Defended,” (2004), p. 233. It should be noted that Conee and Feldman do not explicitly defend I-MS about epistemic normativity, or the full normative status required for knowledge. This is because, on their view, knowledge (but not epistemic justification) requires being “well founded,” which in turn involves being based on justifying evidence. Insofar as well-foundedness is a normative notion, Conee’s and Feldman’s “epistemic justification” is not intended to capture the full normative status required for knowledge. See, for example, “Evidentialism”; and their “Introduction” to Evidentialism: Essays in Epistemology. 7 See Chapter 1. 5

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once the core commitments of internalism are granted, we have assumptions in place that entail broadly skeptical results.8 I will not rehearse those considerations here, however. The present point is that I-PA makes sense of the core internalist intuition that k-relevant normative status is determined by what is “internal to the knower.” It also makes sense of early and persistent internalist complaints about externalism. It is not at all clear that I-MS does the same. We may safely put these considerations aside, however, since I-MS does not avoid the argument in Section 2 in any case. More exactly, it does not avoid an appropriately revised version of the argument: 1. Some of the necessary conditions for k-normative status are modally strong in nature. 2. But the facts about S’s mental states are not sufficient to fix the relevant modal facts. There are possible worlds where the MS facts are the same but the relevant modal facts are different. Therefore, 3. The facts about S’s mental states are not sufficient to fix the facts about epistemic normativity. K-normative status does not supervene on S’s mental states. The argument against I-MS shares premise 1 with the argument against I-PA. Support for premise 2 proceeds in the same way, by considering the various pairs of cases reviewed above. Since the conclusion in 3 follows from premises 1 and 2, the argument against I-MS is sound. In fact, we may assume that any version of internalism will fall to an argument along these lines. That is because, on any reasonable interpretation of “internal to the knower,” the relevant modal facts will not entirely supervene on facts that are internal to the knower. b  Wed I-PA to content externalism A different strategy for responding to the arguments against internalism is to wed Privileged Access Internalism to content externalism, claiming that we have privileged access to a wider domain of facts than traditionally allowed. The idea would be that, by reflection alone, we can know various facts about the world outside our minds, and not just facts   See my Putting Skeptics in their Place and “Agent Reliabilism.”

8

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about our own mental states, logical relations, and the like.9 This sort of response, however, seems to me to be a dead end. Not because content externalism is false, or even because the domain of privileged access is not wider than traditionally allowed. Rather, the problem is that no plausible version of content externalism will make that domain wide enough. It is not plausible, for example, that we can know by reflection on content that a belief is reliably formed, or that a belief is based on reasons rather than wishes, or that our reasons are truth-indicating. On the contrary, even the most radical versions of content externalism, and the most optimistic epistemologies that go with them, will restrict the domain of privileged access more narrowly than is required. c  Retreat to a thesis about some dimension of epistemic normativity, rather than about epistemic normativity itself We began in Chapter 1 with the idea that knowledge is superior to belief that falls short of knowledge. In Chapters 2 and 3, we have argued that some of the ways in which knowledge is superior essentially involve causal and other modally strong features of knowledge. And therefore, we concluded, the normative status required for knowledge is partly a matter of these modally strong features. Fair enough. But can’t we still be internalists about some dimension of epistemic normativity – one that does not depend on etiological or other modally strong features? The present strategy for responding to the argument of Section 2 is this:  Specify a supervenience base, either in terms of privileged access facts or mental state facts, and show that some dimension or aspect of epistemic normativity supervenes on that. Even if not all knowledgerelevant normative features supervene on facts that are internal to the knower, at least some knowledge-relevant normative feature does. Perhaps the internalist will insist that this is not even a “retreat” – that the best way to understand internalism was along these lines in the first place.10 But what is that normative feature? The problem with the present response is that internalists want to be internalists about something For positions that so broaden the traditional notion of “internal,” see John McDowell, “Singular Thought and the Extent of Inner Space,” in P. Pettit and J. McDowell, eds., Subject, Thought and Context (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986) and “Knowledge and the Internal,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (1995): 877–93; and Ram Neta and Duncan Pritchard, “McDowell and the New Evil Genius,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74, 2 (2007): 381–96. 10 This is the strategy adopted by Conee and Feldman in their Evidentialism, and by Feldman in “Justification is Internal.” 9

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important – they want to be internalists about some normative status that we care about. But after we abstract away from all the various modal factors that are relevant to epistemic normativity, it is unclear whether there is anything much of interest left. For example, there will be nothing that entails reliability, or safety, or some causal relation, or some other modally strong relation to the world. What does that leave? Logical coherence. Blamelessness of a certain sort, perhaps. But the internalist about epistemic normativity wanted something more than that. This does seem like a retreat, and one that is too far to keep internalism interesting.11 But suppose the internalist can specify some important, knowledgerelevant normative property, and can make the case that this property is to be understood along internalist lines. Even in that case, the thesis of the chapter is preserved: Epistemic normativity, understood as the full normative status that is required for knowledge, does not supervene on states that are “internal to the knower.” Put differently, the facts about internal states do not fix the facts about epistemic normativity. Finally, this conclusion is fully in line with a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity, since the facts about virtue and virtuous belief cannot be expected to supervene on facts about internal states. On the contrary, the facts about virtue and virtuous belief will be, in part, fixed by causal and other modally strong relations between the knower and her world. For further discussion along this last line see my “Justification is not Internal,” and Richard Feldman’s rejoinder, “Justification is Internal.”

11

ch apter 4

Against evidentialism

A natural way to think about epistemic normativity is in terms of evidence. It is a good thing, epistemically speaking, to have evidence in favor of one’s beliefs, and a bad thing to have evidence against one’s beliefs. So much is platitudinous. A number of philosophers, however, have thought that the notion of evidence is absolutely central to know­ ledge-relevant normativity. Specifically, they have thought that whether a belief has k-normative status is entirely a function of one’s evidence. Put differently: the facts about k-normative status supervene on the facts about evidence. This sort of approach in epistemology is appropriately labeled “evidentialism.” Keeping in mind that we are interested in knowledge-relevant normativity specifically, let us call this approach to epistemic normativity “k-evidentialism” (or KE). KE.  The facts about k-normative status supervene on the facts about evidence.

Among contemporary philosophers, Earl Conee and Richard Feldman come closest to explicitly endorsing k-evidentialism. First, Conee and Feldman famously endorse evidentialism about “epistemic justification,” where the latter notion marks an important part of the full normative status required for knowledge. Here are some typical passages: As we understand it, evidentialism is a view about the conditions under which a person is epistemically justified in having some doxastic attitude toward a proposition. It holds that this sort of epistemic fact is determined entirely by the person’s evidence. In its fundamental form, then, evidentialism is a supervenience thesis according to which facts about whether or not a person is justified in believing a proposition supervene on facts describing the evidence that the person has.1  Conee and Feldman, Evidentialism: Essays in Epistemology, p. 204.

1

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Again, Our bedrock view is a supervenience thesis. Justification strongly supervenes on evidence. More precisely, a whole body of evidence entirely settles which doxastic attitudes toward which propositions are epistemically justified in any possible circumstances. That is, ES.  The epistemic justification of anyone’s doxastic attitude toward any proposition at any time strongly supervenes on the evidence that the ­person has at the time.2

According to Conee and Feldman, epistemic justification is only one necessary condition on knowledge. Knowledge also requires that one’s belief be “well founded.” Roughly, the idea is that knowledge must be based on one’s evidence as well. Here is what they say about well-foundedness: WF S’s doxastic attitude D at t toward proposition p is well-founded if and only if (i)  having D toward p is justified for S at t; and (ii)  S has D toward p on the basis of some body of evidence e, such that (a)  S has e as evidence at t; (b)  having D toward p fits e; and (c) there is no more inclusive body of evidence e' had by S at t such that ­having D toward p does not fit e'.3

Notice, however, that Conee and Feldman understand the notion of wellfoundedness in terms of “the facts about one’s evidence,” at least broadly construed. On the assumption that justification and well-foundedness are the only normative conditions that Conee and Feldman place on know­ ledge, their position amounts to a version of k-evidentialism. That is, they think that the facts about k-normative status are exhausted by the facts about one’s evidence.4 We may get clearer about evidentialism by getting clearer about the notion of evidence that it employs. What is evidence supposed to be? First, it would seem that evidence must be some sort of representational state. If evidence is to support a belief, if it is to act as a ground for believing, then it must have some appropriate content to do the grounding. Let us characterize this sort of content as weakly as possible Ibid.   3 Ibid., p. 93. Conee and Feldman recognize that an additional condition on knowledge is necessary for addressing Gettier problems, but it is not clear whether this would be a further condition on k-normative status as well. In what follows I will ignore that possibility.

2

4

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and call it “represen­tational” content. Second, evidence must be accessible to the knower in at least the following sense: it must be ­available for use in reasoning and inference. That is, evidence is supposed to play a functional role in our cognitive activity, but to do so it must be available to the knower in some sense appropriate to that functional role. Finally, evidence is an indication of truth. Thus Conee writes, Any epistemic support a person has for a proposition is some sort of indication to the person that the proposition is true. Indications of the truth of a proposition are evidence for it.5 … all evidence for a proposition, however weak, is some indication that the proposition is true. Thus, the sort of justification that is constituted by evidence always bears on the truth of what is justified.6

Accordingly, we can derive the following corollaries from KE: KE-1.  S’s belief that p has k-normative status at t only if S’s evidence at t sufficiently supports p. KE-2.  S’s belief that p has k-normative status at t only if S’s evidence at t is a sufficient indication that p is true.

And since knowledge requires k-normative status, we can derive the following corollaries about knowledge specifically: KE-3.  S knows p at t only if S’s evidence at t sufficiently supports p. KE-4.  S knows p at t only if S’s evidence at t is a sufficient indication that p is true.

Let us stipulate that KE through KE-4 are defining theses of k-evidentialism, or evidentialism about k-normative status. In the remainder of this chapter I will argue that k-evidentialism is false. That is, I will argue that all of KE through KE-4 are false. In the next section I raise two initial problems for the position. The remainder of the chapter puts forward a dilemma for evidentialism about knowledge. Specifically, any version of evidentialism must be either internalist or externalist about what counts as good evidence. But internalist versions of evidentialism are false and externalist versions are unmotivated. More exactly, once we adopt externalism about what counts as good evidence, we lose any motivation for thinking that all knowledge requires evidence. On the contrary, it seems that basing one’s beliefs on good evidence is just one way to acquire knowledge among many. Ibid., p. 252.  

5

 Ibid., p. 253.

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Against evidentialism

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1 Two probl e m s f or e v i de n t i a l i s m a b ou t k now l e d g e First, the position suffers from a psychological plausibility problem. Even if some cases of knowledge seem to fit the evidentialist model well, it is a stretch to extend the position to other cases, such as cases involving memory knowledge. What is my evidence, for example, that I ate eggs for breakfast, or that my car is parked in the driveway? There might be some vague phenomenology involved in remembering these things. My memory beliefs might be accompanied by a characteristic sort of feeling – a kind of confidence, or perhaps a kind of attraction. But it is a stretch to think that these states are evidence – to think that these states “support” my memory beliefs, or that my beliefs are evidentially based on such states.7 Neither should we think about my evidence here in terms of meta-beliefs; for example, beliefs about my memory beliefs and about their source in reliable memory. Again, it is psychologically implausible that all memory knowledge has its basis in this sort of evidence.8 Similar points apply to introspective beliefs and to beliefs about simple a priori truths. No doubt I have abilities to know such truths. But it is implausible to think of such abilities as involving reasons or evidence in the sense intended here. A second problem for evidentialism is that the position is undermined by contemporary cognitive science. As we saw in Chapter 2, recent empirical studies make it doubtful that paradigm cases of knowledge, such as perceptual knowledge, memory knowledge, and inductive knowledge, can be understood entirely in terms of person-level representational states, as evidence is understood to be. First, the reliability of perception might very well depend on sub-personal inputs that cannot be appropriately understood as evidence. Blindsight and other kinds of “non-conscious” perception offer examples of this possibility. The relevant thought is that such perceptual faculties are reliable, but that their reliability is not entirely a function of person-level representations, such as perceptual appearances or “seemings.” Rather, reliability here depends on sub-personal inputs, so that no person-level representation, and therefore nothing counting as evidence, is itself “a sufficient indication that p is true.” For an argument along these lines, see Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 57–64. 8 For an extended argument to this conclusion, see my “How to Preserve Your Virtue while Losing Your Perspective,” in John Greco, ed., Sosa and his Critics (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004). 7

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Second, the reliability of cognition might very well depend on processing that operates on a sub-personal or even non-representational level. Various connectionist models illustrate these possibilities. The relevant thought here is that such processing is reliable, but that its reliability is not entirely a function of operations on person-level representational contents, such as evidence and inference rules are understood to involve. If this is the case, then the reliability of such processing cannot be understood in evidentialist terms, such as evidential “fit” and “support.” In any case, these are empirical questions, depending on contingent facts about human cognition. But then evidentialism is in trouble as a theory about knowledge and knowledge-relevant normativity. According to evidentialism, the facts about k-normative status entirely depend on the facts about evidence. According to our best cognitive science, the reliability of our cognitive systems might not depend just on the facts about evidence. But then evidentialism is inadequate to capture an important dimension of k-normative status. To be clear, the point is not that some non-evaluative or non-normative dimension of knowledge cannot be understood in evidentialist terms. For example, the point is not merely that some of the causal mechanisms involved in knowledge-producing cognition cannot be captured in evidentialist terms. That much is obvious, and no evidentialist would deny it. The relevant point, rather, is that evidentialism fails as a theory of knowledge-relevant normativity. That is, evidentialism fails to capture normative differences between knowing and not knowing. The reasoning here can be summarized as follows. 1. One’s belief that p has k-normative status only if one’s belief that p is reliably formed. Put differently, the facts about k-normative status partly supervene on the facts about reliability. 2. Whether one’s belief is reliably formed is not entirely a function of one’s relevant evidence and/or relevant evidential relations. Put differently, the facts about reliability do not (entirely) supervene on the facts about evidence. Therefore, 3. K-normative status is not entirely a function of one’s relevant evidence and/or evidential relations. The facts about k-normative status do not (entirely) supervene on the facts about evidence. I take it that premise 1 is relatively uncontroversial. That premise is not about subjective justification, or epistemic responsibility, or some other epistemic merit or value falling short of k-normative status. Rather, it is

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about the full normative status required for knowledge, and it is relatively uncontroversial that (a) knowledge requires reliability and (b) reliability is normative. That is, it is epistemically better that one’s beliefs be reliably formed than not. A failure by way of reliability constitutes an epistemic lack or flaw, and is therefore one way that a belief can fall short of the full normative status required for knowledge. Premise 2 is supported by the references to cognitive science above, which demonstrate (at least) the possibility that reliability in human cognition is not a function of evidence and evidential relations such as “fit” and “support.” But then evidentialism about k-normative status is false. The facts about k-normative status do not supervene on the facts about evidence. 2 A di l e m m a f or k-e v i de n t i a l i s m In the remainder of the chapter I will develop a different argument against k-evidentialism. The argument takes the form of a dilemma: Any version of evidentialism must be either internalist or externalist about ­k-normative status. But internalist versions of k-evidentialism are false and externalist versions of k-evidentialism are unmotivated. More exactly, once we adopt externalism about k-normative status, we lose our motivation for thinking that all knowledge requires evidence. On the contrary, it seems that basing one’s beliefs on good evidence is just one way to acquire know­ ledge among many. a  Internalism and evidentialism As in Chapter 3, we may define internalism about knowledge-relevant normative status as follow: KI.  Knowledge-relevant normative status is entirely a function of factors internal to the knower. Alternatively: The facts about knowledge-relevant normative status supervene on facts that are internal to the knower.

We get varieties of KI depending on how the notion of “internal to the knower” is understood. Thus one important version of KI is Privileged Access Internalism: I-PA.  The facts about k-relevant normativity supervene on states of affairs to which S has privileged access.

Another version of KI is Mental State Internalism: I-MS.  The facts about k-relevant normativity supervene on the facts about S’s mental life.

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We have already seen in Chapter 3 that KI is implausible. The reason for this is that k-normative status partly supervenes on modally strong facts, such as facts about reliability or other facts about the etiology of belief. But these modally strong facts do not entirely supervene on facts that are “internal to the knower” in any relevant sense. For example, they do not entirely supervene on facts to which the knower has privileged access, or on facts about the knower’s mental states. But then the facts about knowledge-relevant normative status do not entirely supervene on facts that are “internal to the knower.” Internalism about k-normative status is false. Another way to make the point is to note an important difference between k-evidentialism and the sort of internalism being defined here. Both involve supervenience theses:  KE says that k-normative status entirely supervenes on the facts about one’s evidence, broadly construed, whereas KI says that k-normative status entirely supervenes on facts that are internal to the knower. But notice that the supervenience base specified by KE is much broader than that specified by KI – the facts about one’s evidence, broadly construed, go beyond the facts that are internal to the knower. Presumably, the former will include facts about how one’s evidence is related to the world, thereby making KE a far more plausible thesis than KI. Evidentialism wedded to internalism about k-normative status is implausible, because internalism about k-normative status is implausible. But now we may ask: What happens when evidentialism is wedded to externalism about k-normative status? Here I want to argue that evidentialism loses its motivation. Once we adopt externalism about k-normative status, we lose any motivation for thinking that all knowledge requires evidence. That will be the argument of the next section. b  Externalism and evidentialism We have seen that internalism about k-normative status is implausible. Why so? Because it is clear that knowledge requires some modally strong relation to the world, and that this relation itself falls within the epistemically normative domain. If a belief fails to be so related to the world, we think that this constitutes an epistemic lack, i.e. a lack which makes the belief fall short of knowledge, even if true. It is important to note here that an evidentialist about k-normative status can agree with this much. That is, the evidentialist can agree that k-normative status involves some modally strong relation to the world, but she will think that good evidence grounds exactly that relation. For example, one might be an

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evidentialist about knowledge and a reliabilist about what makes for knowledge-­producing evidence. One’s position would then be that know­ ledge requires good evidence, and that good evidence is reliable evidence. Basing one’s belief on good evidence thereby insures the modal relation that knowledge requires. Alternatively, one might be a safety theorist or a sensitivity theorist about evidence: good evidence is safe (or sensitive) evidence, and basing one’s belief on such insures the relevant modally strong relation to the world. But now consider: If one is a reliabilist (or a safety theorist, or a sensitivity theorist) about evidence, why should evidence itself be so important? The natural thought is that reliability (or safety, or sensitivity) is important, and that evidence is merely a means for achieving the relevant relation. If one’s belief could be made reliable (or safe or sensitive) in some other way, this would serve the relevant normative demands of knowledge just as well. Again, once we adopt externalism about knowledge-relevant normative status – once we are reliabilists, or causal theorists, or safety theorists about such status – it is hard to see why evidence itself should be so important. At most, it would seem, evidence is required for knowledge because it is required for reliability, or safety, or some other modally strong relation to the world. But why think even that is the case? Certainly it is not a necessary truth that, for example, reliable cognition must employ reliable evidence. We can imagine cognition that reliably relates belief to the world, but not by means of reliable evidence. At best, it is a contingent fact about human cognition that reliable cognition always employs reliable evidence. But the contingent facts here are dubious, and in any case are insufficient to ground a theory of epistemic normativity. The ­evidentialist about knowledge wants to say that necessarily all knowledge requires ­truth-indicating evidence. KE through KE-4 are intended to have the sort of modal strength that is ­appropriate to a philosophical theory, and so a merely contingent requirement on knowledge will not serve evidentialist purposes. 3 A di f f e r e n t mo t i vat ion f or k-e v i de n t i a l i s m ? Evidentialism about knowledge is not well motivated by an externalist theory of knowledge-relevant normative status. Might there be some other sound motivation? Two possibilities come to mind. The first is that evidentialism is required for a “satisfying” reply to skepticism. The second is that evidentialism is motivated by the role played by knowledge in social discourse.

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Achieving Knowledge a  Replying to skepticism

What would it take to have a “satisfying” reply to skepticism? One might think that it would take having a satisfying answer to the skeptical question, “How do you know?,” where this in turn would require having adequate reasons for one’s belief in every instance. That is, one might think that having a reply to skepticism requires always being able to give good reasons for one’s belief, and that this entails an evidentialist condition on knowledge. But can we be externalists about good evidence and still hope to give a satisfying reply to skepticism? The skeptic in our imagined dialectic, of course, will demand not only that we show reasons, but that we show that our reasons are good ones. For example, the skeptic will demand that we show that our reasons are reliable. And this, in turn, will give rise to Humean and Pyrrhonian problems that are all too familiar. I will not rehearse those problems now.9 Suffice it to say that externalists escape the problems by rejecting the demands straightaway. Internalists typically hold out hope for meeting the demands, but that is irrelevant in the present context. For here we are working within an externalist framework, where the prospects for a “satisfying” reply to skepticism have already been given up. That is, we are operating in a context where the skeptic’s completely general demands to show good reasons are rejected from the start. The need to satisfy such demands, then, cannot here generate a motivation for evidentialism. b  The social function of knowledge A number of contemporary epistemologists endorse a broadly Sellarsian theme:  that knowledge properly so-called involves abilities to articulate and give one’s reasons, and to defend one’s knowledge and reasons against relevant objections.10 Here the concern is not primarily with skepticism. Rather, the idea is that knowledge has a role in science and in practical reasoning, and that this role requires social abilities involving articulation, reason-giving, and defense against objections that appropriately arise in relevant contexts. Hence knowledge must be grounded on available reasons, as evidentialism requires.11 See my “Agent Reliabilism” and Putting Skeptics in their Place. For example, see Keith Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge, 2nd edn (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000). 11 This is not a line of argument that would be endorsed by Conee and Feldman, who explicitly reject the idea that evidence must be publicly available. (See, for example, Evidentialism, pp. 2–3.) 9

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Thus Keith Lehrer writes: It is fundamental to … human knowledge … that it is inextricably woven into reasoning, justification, confirmation, and refutation. It is required both for the ratiocination of theoretical speculation in science and practical sagacity in everyday life. To do science – to engage in experimental inquiry and scientific ratio­cination  – one must be able to tell whether one has correct information or not … Engaging in law or commerce requires the same sort of knowledge, which may be used as the premises of critical reflection or claimed as the prizes of informed reasoning.12

This all sounds reasonable enough, but it again raises a question about psychological plausibility. Namely, is it plausible that we typically have the sort of evidence that Lehrer requires? That is, do we always have it, in every case of knowledge? Lehrer’s answer to this concern is to understand the relevant evidence in terms of acceptances, and to understand acceptances in terms of their functional role in reasoning, confirmation, etc.13 Hence, for S to accept that p does not require that S explicitly judges that p. Rather, it requires only that S act in certain ways when in certain circumstances. Lehrer writes: a person may be said to have information he cannot easily describe and to employ such information in various ways. For example, suppose I know the shortest route from Rochester to Buffalo, though I cannot tell you the name of the highway. Moreover, imagine that I am not very good at giving directions, so I cannot tell you how to get from Rochester to Buffalo … That I make the trip successfully on many occasions shows that I have the required information, which I might find difficult to articulate, about the route from Rochester to Buffalo. Similarly, my reliability in accepting that I see when I do, or even in accepting that I feel or think when I do, depends on my ability to employ information, which I might find difficult to articulate, about seeing, feeling, and thinking.14

The problem is now this:  The present motivation for evidentialism is that knowledge requires evidence for the purposes of reasoning, justification, confirmation, and refutation, where these are understood as social activities played out among our epistemic peers. But now, it turns out, the evidence that supposedly grounds knowledge need only be implicit and inarticulate, and therefore need not be available for use in these social activities. Sellarsian themes regarding the role of knowledge Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge, p. 6. See Lehrer’s “Replies,” in John Bender, ed., The Current State of the Coherence Theory (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989); and Theory of Knowledge, especially pp. 39–40. 14 Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge, pp. 74–5. 12 13

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in social discourse do not motivate an evidentialist ­condition on ­k nowledge after all. What about “internal discourse” rather than social discourse? Might knowledge require evidence because knowledge requires reason-giving and the like in foro interno? Perhaps this is the better way to interpret Lehrer’s thought that reasons are required for “science and practical sagacity.” But here we depend on an analogy between giving reasons to others in a social context and using reasons oneself in one’s own thinking. Insofar as one’s “reasons” are only implicit and unarticulated, however, the analogy breaks down and so the requirement for reasons (or evidence) properly so-called is undermined. The close connection between know­ ledge and giving reasons, whether in social contexts or in foro interno, does not generate a general evidentialist requirement. 4  C onc l us ion In conclusion, the prospects for evidentialism about knowledge look bleak. First, both introspection and cognitive science suggest that not all knowledge fits well into an evidentialist model. Second, the evidentialist faces a dilemma regarding the nature of knowledge-relevant normative status: internalist versions of evidentialism are false because internalism is false, and externalist versions of evidentialism are unmotivated. Finally, neither concerns about answering skepticism nor the close connection between knowledge and reason-giving motivate a general evidentialist requirement on knowledge.

Pa r t II

Problems for everyone

ch apter 5

The nature of knowledge

Part I introduced an account of epistemic normativity and defended it by arguing against some alternatives. Parts II and III continue to defend the account, now by showing how it allows progress on a variety of problems in epistemology. Part II considers “problems for everyone” – perennial problems that any theory of knowledge must say something about. Part III turns to “problems for reliabilism” in particular. Two perennial problems in epistemology concern the nature and value of knowledge. We want to know both what knowledge is and why knowledge is valuable. As Jonathan Kvanvig has recently argued, the two questions are not independent: a good account of what knowledge is ought also to explain why knowledge is valuable.1 The present chapter focuses on the nature question. The next chapter turns to the value question. 1 K now l e d g e a s ac h i e v e m e n t I have been arguing that knowledge is a kind of success from ability, intending this as a thesis about the nature of epistemic normativity. I now want to suggest that this same idea gives us a framework for understanding what knowledge is. In short, KSA.  S knows that p if and only if S believes the truth (with respect to p) because S’s belief that p is produced by intellectual ability.

The term “because” is here intended to mark a causal explanation. The idea is that, in cases of knowledge, the fact that S has a true belief is explained by the fact that S believes from ability. A number of philo­ sophers, including myself, have recently defended the KSA account.   Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding.

1

71

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Achieving Knowledge Here are some characteristic statements of the position:

We have reached the view that knowledge is true belief out of intellectual virtue, belief that turns out right by reason of the virtue and not just by coincidence.2 [In cases of knowledge] the person derives epistemic credit … that she would not be due had she only accidentally happened upon a true belief … The difference … here is the variation in the degree to which a person’s abilities, powers, and skills are causally responsible for the outcome, believing truly that p.3 When we say that S knows p, we imply that it is not just an accident that S believes the truth with respect to p. On the contrary, we mean to say that S gets things right with respect to p because S has reasoned in an appropriate way, or perceived things accurately, or remembered things well, etc. We mean to say that getting it right can be put down to S’s own abilities, rather than to dumb luck, or blind chance, or something else.4

In the present chapter I continue to defend the KSA account of know­ ledge, but in the context of three ideas that have been prominent in the recent literature. The first is that knowledge attributions are somehow “context sensitive.” For example, we are more likely to attribute knowledge in low-stakes situations, where the cost of being wrong is minimal, than in high-stakes situations, where the cost of being wrong is considerable. How we should understand this phenomenon is a controversial issue. Thus some philosophers have argued that it is merely pragmatic, while others have argued that it is semantic. And there are variations on both positions. I take it, however, that the phenomenon itself is not ­controversial: our dispositions for making and accepting knowledge attributions are, as a matter of fact, influenced by features of practical context.5 A second idea in the recent literature, related to the first, is that know­ ledge is intimately related to practical reasoning. Again, the details concerning how we should understand this are controversial. Thus some philosophers have argued that knowledge is “the norm of practical ­reasoning,” while others have argued against this. And again, there are ­variations on the theme. But also again, the idea itself is not controversial. Sosa, Knowledge in Perspective, p. 277. Wayne Riggs, “Reliability and the Value of Knowledge,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (2002), pp. 93–4. 4 John Greco, “Knowledge as Credit for True Belief,” in Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski, eds., Intellectual Virtue:  Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) p. 116. 5 For example, see Stewart Cohen, “How to Be a Fallibilist,” Philosophical Perspectives 2 (1988):  91–123; Keith DeRose, “Solving the Skeptical Problem,” Philosophical Review 104 (1995): 1–52; and David Lewis, “Elusive Knowledge,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74 (1996): 549–67. 2 3

The nature of knowledge

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Somehow and someway, knowledge and action are closely related. Perhaps we can say that knowledge is “something like” or “something close to” a norm of practical reasoning.6 Finally, I want to take seriously an idea from Edward Craig that is not uncontroversial, but I think very plausible. Specifically, that one purpose of the concept of knowledge is to flag good sources of information. Craig’s idea is that we are highly dependent, information-sharing beings, and as such we have significant needs for identifying reliable informants. We gain insight into the concept of knowledge, Craig argues, if we understand it as serving such needs.7 These three ideas will inform the discussion that follows. Section 2 shows how KSA nicely explains a wide range of standard Gettier problems. Section 3 looks at barn facade cases, which require a different kind of treatment. Sections 4 and 5 discuss testimonial knowledge and innate knowledge, and defend KSA against the charge that it poorly explains at least some cases of such. Finally, Sections 6 and 7 discuss some further problem cases for the account. 2 G e t t i e r probl e m s Elsewhere I have argued that KSA explains a wide range of standard Gettier cases.8 Here are two such cases. Lehrer’s Nogot Case. On the basis of excellent reasons, S believes that her co-worker Mr. Nogot owns a Ford: Nogot testifies that he owns a Ford, and this is confirmed by S’s own relevant observations. From this S infers that someone in her office owns a Ford. As it turns out, S’s evidence is misleading and Nogot does not in fact own a Ford. However, another person in S’s office, Mr. Havit, does own a Ford, although S has no reason for believing this.9 Chisholm’s Sheep Case.  A man takes there to be a sheep in the field and does so under conditions which are such that, when a man does thus take there to be a sheep in the field, then it is evident to him that there is a For example, see Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath, “Evidence, Pragmatics, and Justification,” Philosophical Review 111 (2002): 6–94; John Hawthorne, Knowledge and Lotteries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); and Jason Stanley, Knowledge and Practical Interests (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 7 Edward Craig, Knowledge and the State of Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). 8 See Greco, “Knowledge as Credit for True Belief,” and “Virtues in Epistemology,” in Paul Moser, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 9 The example is taken from Keith Lehrer, “Knowledge, Truth and Evidence,” Analysis 25 (1965): 168–75. 6

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Achieving Knowledge sheep in the field. The man, however, has mistaken a dog for a sheep and so what he sees is not a sheep at all. Nevertheless, unsuspected by the man, there is a sheep in another part of the field.10

The proposal is this: In case of knowledge, S believes the truth because S believes from an intellectual ability or power. In Gettier cases, S believes the truth, and S believes from an ability, but S does not believe the truth because S believes from an ability. As I said above, the “because” is here intended to mark a causal explanation. We may therefore rephrase the proposal as follows: In cases of knowledge, the fact that S believes from an intellectual ability explains why S has a true belief. In Gettier cases, S believes from an ability and S has a true belief, but the fact that S believes from an ability does not explain why S has a true belief. Next we need a principled rationale for dividing the cases this way. The rationale I have provided before exploits the pragmatics of causal explanation language.11 First, consider that our causal explanations typically cite only one part of a broader causal condition. For example, when we say that poor lending practices caused the current crisis in the housing market, our explanation cites only one part of a complicated causal story. More specifically, our causal explanations intend to pick out an important or salient part of the causal story. But what are the mechanisms governing explanatory salience? What factors make it appropriate or correct to cite one partial cause rather than another in a causal explanation? This is a complicated matter that is poorly understood. However, the present proposal for treating Gettier problems exploits two fairly uncontroversial points. The first is that explanatory salience is partially a function of our interests and purposes. For example, we will often cite partial causes that can be manipulated to good or bad effect, as when we cite a botched defensive play as the reason for losing the game. Clearly, a single play is only one of many factors in losing a game. But the thought is that defensive play is something that we can partially control. For example, we can work to improve it in future games. Another example is when we cite drunk driving as the cause of a car crash. Again, any crash will be the result of numerous contributing factors, but our interests and purposes will often make it appropriate to focus on the intoxicated driver. The second point we want is that explanatory salience is partially a function of what is normal or usual. For example, we will not cite sparks Quoted from Chisholm, Theory of Knowledge, p. 105.   See especially Greco, “Knowledge as Credit for True Belief.”

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as the cause of a fire in a welding shop, where sparks are flying all the time. Rather, we will want to find something unusual in the case, such as the presence of flammable material in a restricted area. An important category of this phenomenon – important, that is, for present purposes – is the abnormality manifested in deviant causal chains. Suppose you fire an arrow, which results in hitting your target. But suppose also that this results from countervailing winds, the first of which blows your arrow badly off course, the second of which blows it back to the target. We will not cite your skill as the cause of the bull’s eye, although clearly a manifestation of skill was involved. In the case of a deviant causal chain, salience goes to what is deviant, and away from what is normal or usual. Putting these two points together, we have the resources for explaining a wide range of Gettier cases. Given our interests and purposes as information-sharing beings, our intellectual abilities have a default salience in explanations of true belief. In Gettier cases, this default salience is trumped by something abnormal in the way that S gets a true belief. In effect, Gettier cases involve something akin to a deviant causal chain. To summarize: In cases of knowledge, S believes the truth because S believes from intellectual ability  – S’s believing the truth is explained by S’s believing from ability. But the success of this explanation requires more than that ability is involved. It requires that S’s ability has an appropriate level of explanatory salience. Such salience is there by default in normal cases, owing to our interests and purposes as information-sharing beings in need of reliable informants. But default salience is trumped by abnormality in Gettier cases. Specifically, it is trumped by the abnormality manifested in the way that S ends up with a true belief. This is by no means intended to be a fully informative analysis of the cases. For one, I have stayed clear of any close detail regarding either the nature of causal explanations or the pragmatics of causal explanation language. What is more, I have admitted that these are poorly and only partially understood. The claim I am making is that the present resources, meager as they are, go a long way toward explaining a range of Gettier cases.12 Hence I concede a point made recently by Robert Shope, that aspects of KSA leave it unclear how the account adjudicates certain kinds of case. Shope is especially concerned here with problems regarding how to distribute explanatory salience. See Robert Shope, “Abnormality, Cognitive Virtues and Knowledge,” Synthese 163, 1 (2008): 99–118.

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Achieving Knowledge 3 B a r n fac a de c a s e s

Consider now a case by Carl Ginet, cited by Alvin Goldman. Fake Barn Country. Henry is driving in the countryside and sees a barn ahead in clear view. On this basis he believes that the object he sees is a barn. Unknown to Henry, however, the area is dotted with barn facades that are indistinguishable from real barns from the road. However, Henry happens to be looking at the one real barn in the area.13

The approach to standard Gettier cases that we saw in Section 2 will not handle this case. Here we seem to have a different kind of problem – one that cannot be usefully understood as a “deviant causal chain” between ability and true belief. On the contrary, the process by which Henry comes to perceive a barn seems perfectly normal, even if the environment Henry is in is not. A different strategy for explaining the case is required. Here is an alternative explanation. First, we note that abilities in general are always relative to environments. For example, Derek Jeter has the ability to hit fastballs relative to normal environments for playing baseball. He does not have that ability relative to an active war zone, where he would be too distracted to focus on the ball. In general, when we attribute an ability we have in mind some relevant environment, as well as relevant conditions, etc. Second, we may now claim that Henry does not have the ability to tell barns from non-barns relative to the environment he is in. Relative to normal environments, we may assume that Henry can perfectly well discriminate between barns and non-barns. Relative to Fake Barn Country, however, Henry does not have that ability. This reply to the Ginet–Goldman case is not ad hoc, since we already think of abilities in general in just this way. However, the reply does raise a different problem. Specifically, the reply raises a generality problem. For what gives us the right to say that Henry does not have an ability to tell barns from non-barns, relative to the environment he is in? That reply seems plausible only because we are thinking of Henry’s environment in a particular way – as specified by an area including the many troublesome barn facades. But suppose we specify his environment more narrowly, to include only the particular farm he is on, where no barn facades are placed. Or suppose we specify his environment very widely, to include the entire face of the earth, where all in all few barn facades are to be found. Depending on how narrowly or how widely we specify S’s environment E, The example is from Alvin Goldman, “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge,” Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976): 771–91.

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we get very different results regarding whether S has the relevant ability relative to E. Hence we have a generality problem. Which way to specify the environment is the right way, and how do we know that the right way will adjudicate cases as the account requires? In fact, the problem is a bit worse than this, since KSA makes knowledge depend on a number of different parameters. Accordingly, KSA faces a version of the generality problem that arises for any reliabilist theory.14 To see this more clearly, consider the following. First, abilities are tied to conditions as well as environments. For example, when we say that Jeter has the ability to hit fastballs, we imply that he is reliable in conditions appropriate for playing baseball. It does not count against Jeter’s ability, for example, that he cannot hit baseballs in the dark, or with sand in his eyes. Notice that the ideas of “conditions” and “environment” overlap – some states of affairs might be included in the description of either. For present purposes, we can think of “environments” as sets of relatively stable circumstances and “conditions” as sets of shifting circumstances within an environment. Second, to say that someone has an ability implies that he is reliable in some range of success relevant to the ability in question. So, for example, we can attribute to Jeter an ability to hit fastballs, to hit fastballs or curveballs, to hit most major league pitchers, etc. Likewise, we can attribute to Henry an ability to perceive barns, to discriminate barns from non-barns, to classify large buildings, etc. Finally, to say that someone has an ability to achieve some result is to say both more and less than that they have a good track record with respect to achieving that result. This is because abilities are dispositional properties: to say that S has the ability to achieve result R is to say that S has a disposition or tendency to achieve R across some range of relevantly close worlds. Actual track records can be the result of good luck rather than ability. Likewise, actual track records can be the result of bad luck rather than lack of ability. Again, to say that S has an ability is to say that S has a high rate of success across relevantly close possible worlds. Putting these points together, we may conclude that abilities have the following structure. S has an ability A(R/C) relative to environment E = Across the set of relevantly close worlds W where S is in C and in E, S has a high rate of ­success in achieving R. 14

Shope points out that several cases can be interpreted as raising generality problems for the account. See Shope, “Abnormality, Cognitive Virtues and Knowledge.”

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And now it becomes apparent why KSA faces the same kind of generality problem as do reliabilist theories in general. Depending on how we specify the relevant W, C, R and E, we will get variable success rates with respect to S’s believing the relevant sort of truth. How are we to specify the relevant parameters so as to pick out the disposition that is relevant for evaluating S’s belief? I suggest that we can solve this problem by making use of an idea that we invoked above: that the concept of knowledge serves the purposes of practical reasoning. Specifically, that the concept of knowledge is used to flag good information and good sources of information for use in practical reasoning. If this is right, then we have an answer to the generality problem: relevant parameters should be specified according to the interests and purposes of relevant practical reasoning. Once again, this idea is fully in line with the way we think of abilities in general. For example, when I say that S has the ability to hit baseballs, the practical reasoning context helps to determine what I am claiming here. If I am a baseball executive in a discussion about whether to trade for Jeter, I will be claiming something very different than if I am a Little League coach trying to decide where to put the new seven-year-old in the line-up. For example, what conditions are relevant and what counts as the relevant environment will change dramatically. In general, such considerations will be determined by both (a) the nature of the ability in question, and also (b) the nature of the practical reasoning environment in which the question is relevant. The present solution to the generality problem is closely related to the one defended by Mark Heller.15 According to Heller, reliabilists make a mistake when they accept the challenge posed by the generality problem: i.e. to articulate a principled rule for specifying relevant levels of generality. The reason this is a mistake, Heller argues, is that relevant levels of generality are determined by context. “Reliable” is a perfectly ordinary word that in perfectly ordinary situations is applied to tokens which are instances of several types, where those types have different degrees of reliability. Yet we somehow manage to use this word without difficulty in ordinary discourse. Just as our use of the term in ordinary discourse is context relative, reflecting the different concerns of different speakers on different occasions of use, “reliable” is also context dependent in epistemological discourse. Once this unsurprising fact is recognized, we should see that the problem of generality only arises because of unreasonable demands placed upon the   Mark Heller, “The Simple Solution to the Generality Problem,” Noûs 29, 4 (1995): 501–15.

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reliabilist. It is unreasonable to demand a fixed principle for selecting the correct level of generality if what counts as correct varies from context to context.16

Heller presents his view as a version of attributor contextualism: “‘Reliable’ is richly sensitive to the evaluator’s context.”17 It is worth noting, however, that this is not an essential aspect of Heller’s solution to the generality problem. To see this, we need only make the familiar distinction between attributor (or evaluator) context and subject context. What is doing the work in Heller’s solution to the generality problem is that specifications of generality are context-dependent. We get attributor contextualism if they are dependent on the context of the attributor, as in Heller’s view. But “subject-sensitive invariantists” such as Hawthorne and Stanley can adopt a similar strategy, making specifications of generality depend on the interests and purposes of the subject context. So long as interests and purposes vary across different subject contexts, the relevant mechanics of Heller’s solution are preserved. The version of Heller’s solution that I want to defend is technically a version of attributor contextualism, although it is neither the subject context nor the attributor context as such that is important for specifying relevant levels of generality. Rather, it is the relevant practical reasoning context, which may be that of the subject, the attributor, or some third party. Specifically, the relevant parameters are set by the interests and purposes that are operative in the relevant practical reasoning context. So, for example, if we are trying to decide what we should do, the parameters are set by our practical reasoning concerns. If we are trying to decide what S should do, the parameters are set by her practical reasoning concerns, etc. We will see in Chapter 7 that the resulting view nicely handles tough cases for both attributor contextualism and subject-sensitive invariantism. The present point, however, is that we now have a plausible solution to the generality problem. If the present approach to the generality problem is correct, then the examples and counterexamples that are employed in contemporary epistemology are, in the typical case, badly underdescribed. This is because those examples typically fail to specify a relevant practical reasoning context, which is precisely what is needed to determine whether a ­k nowledge ­attribution is appropriate. The present approach, then, should bring with it a requisite shift in methodology. When adjudicating cases to test a proposed account of knowledge, we should be careful to specify a relevant 16

Ibid., pp. 502–3.  

17

 Ibid., p. 503.

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practical reasoning context. If we do not specify such a context explicitly, then we can hardly assume that we are considering a common case, or attending to all the features of the case that are relevant. With these considerations in mind, we may return to the Ginet– Goldman barn facade case, but this time being careful to specify a practical reasoning context. To that end, suppose that we are government employees, charged with counting barns in the area for the purposes of determining property taxes. Suppose also that barn facades are not taxed in the same way that working barns are. However, Henry is a new employee who does not realize that the area is populated with fake barns, and who has not yet received the special training needed to distinguish barns from barn facades. In this context, Henry sees a barn from a hundred yards and pulls out his log to record this. Clearly, it would be wrong to say that Henry knows in this case. Put differently, if Henry were in this context to say, “I know there is a barn over there,” we would not view his claim as true. But now consider a different practical reasoning context. Still in Fake Barn Country, we are working on a farm where we know that there are no barn facades. In fact, we know that there is only one structure on the property – a working barn. We and Henry are charged with getting a cow back to the barn. In this context, Henry sees a barn from a hundred yards and starts walking the cow in that direction. Now it seems right to say that Henry knows. Put differently, if Henry were in this context to say, “I know there is a barn over there,” we most likely would view his claim as true. Finally, here is a plausible explanation of these cases. Relative to the purposes at play in the first practical reasoning context, Henry is not a good source of information about there being a barn yonder, and information from him to that effect would not be actionable. But relative to the purposes at play in the second practical reasoning context, Henry is a good source of information about there being a barn yonder, and information from him to that effect would be actionable. 4  T e s t i mon i a l k now l e d g e Next consider the following case from Jennifer Lackey. Having just arrived at the train station in Chicago, Morris wishes to obtain directions to the Sears Tower. He looks around, randomly approaches the first passerby that he sees, and asks how to get to his desired destination. The passerby,

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who happens to be a Chicago resident who knows the city extraordinarily well, provides Morris with impeccable directions to the Sears Tower.18

Lackey writes, What explains why Morris got things right has nearly nothing of epistemic interest to do with him and nearly everything of epistemic interest to do with the passerby. In particular, it is the passerby’s experience with and knowledge of the city of Chicago that explains why Morris ended up with a true belief rather than a false belief … Thus, though it is plausible to say that Morris acquired knowledge from the passerby, there seems to be no substantive sense in which Morris deserves credit for holding the true belief that he does.19

Often theories of testimonial knowledge are divided into two camps. On the first kind of theory, what is important for testimonial knowledge is that the source of testimony is in fact reliable. On the second kind of theory, it is also important that the believer knows, or at least justifiably believes, that the source is reliable. From a virtue-theoretic perspective, however, a third kind of theory comes into view. Namely, testimonial knowledge requires that the believer is a reliable receiver of testimony. That is, what is important is not so much that the testifier is reliable, or that the believer knows that he is, but that the believer herself is reliable in the way that she receives and evaluates testimony. This will plausibly involve reliable capacities for discriminating reliable sources of testimony from unreliable sources. Suppose that this approach to testimonial knowledge is correct. Then we have to divide Lackey’s example into two cases: one where Morris is a reliable receiver of testimony and one where he is not. From the perspective of a virtue theory, it is only in the first sort of case that Morris knows the location of his destination. But in that sort of case, it is also to Morris’s credit that he forms a true belief to that effect. That is, his success is grounded in his ability to discriminate good from bad testimony and is therefore attributable to him. But more needs to be said here. For as Lackey puts her objection, the credit for success seems due to the testifier rather than to Morris. Lackey writes, “What explains why Morris got things right has nearly nothing of epistemic interest to do with him and nearly everything of epistemic interest to do with the passerby.”20 From the present perspective, what Lackey Jennifer Lackey, Review of Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski, eds., Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Notre Dame Philosophical Review (2004), available at: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=1462. 19 Ibid.   20 Ibid. 18

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says here is not quite right. For in the first sort of case, what explains why Morris got things right does have something of epistemic interest to do with him:  namely, his ability to discriminate good testimony from bad. This is the important difference between the first sort of case, where Morris knows, and the second sort of case, where Morris does not know. But perhaps Lackey’s thinking is this:  Morris has relatively little to do with his success. So little, this thinking goes, that the importance of the testifier’s contribution swamps the importance of Morris’s contribution. This line of objection is strengthened if we consider cases of expert testimony. For example, recall the case of the brilliant mathematician. She proves a difficult theorem and then informs me of her result. Plausibly, I can know that the theorem is true on that basis. According to the present line of objection, however, I do not deserve any credit at all for my believing the truth in this case. The mathematician has done all the work. Or to put the objection more carefully, I do not deserve “enough” credit, since my own abilities are not “important enough” in the explanation why I believe the truth here. One thing we could do here is dig in. That is, we could insist that my contribution is importantly enough involved here, just insofar as I am a reliable receiver of testimony. Consider: if I would believe just anyone about the truth of difficult mathematical theorems, then I would not know even in the case where I happen to receive testimony from a reliable source. This sort of standoff would be unsatisfying, however, and Lackey raises a legitimate worry about it. Namely, that we are now letting our intuitions about whether S’s contribution is “important enough” be governed by our intuitions about whether S knows. That is, we are first deciding whether S knows, and then deciding (on that basis) whether S’s contribution is “important enough” in the case in question. And if that is the case, then the account loses much of its explanatory power. Specifically, it loses the power to explain the difference between knowing and not knowing in a broad range of cases. So what can we do to avoid a standoff and to allay this worry? One thing we can do is draw analogies to non-epistemic cases where our intuitions are both firm and uncontroversial. The second thing we can do is give a principled account of the analogies. First, consider an uncontroversial case of credit for success: Playing in a soccer game, Ted receives a brilliant, almost impossible pass, and then scores an easy goal as a result. In the case we are imagining, it is the athletic abilities of the passer that stand out. The pass was brilliant, its reception easy. Nevertheless, Ted deserves credit for the goal. Whatever

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help Ted got, he is the one who put the ball in the net. Now that is not to say that the passer does not deserve credit for the goal, or even that he does not deserve more credit than Ted. It is to say, however, that Ted was involved in the right sort of way so as to get credit. Compare this case with another: Ted is playing in a soccer game, but not paying attention. Never seeing the ball, a brilliant pass bounces off his head and into the goal. Here Ted does not deserve credit for the goal. He was involved in a way, but not in the right sort of way. My claim here, of course, is that the first case is relevantly analogous to knowledge by expert testimony. The principled explanation is this: credit for success, gained in cooperation with others, is not swamped by the able performance of others. It is not even swamped by the outstanding performance of others. So long as one’s own efforts and abilities are appropriately involved, one deserves credit for the success in question. This explanation of the cases can be deepened by returning to an idea we have already invoked above: that our concept of knowledge serves the purposes of practical reasoning. In effect, we can use this idea to give an explanation why credit is not swamped in cases of knowledge from expert testimony, or in cases of knowledge from testimony in general. Put briefly: the purposes of practical reasoning are well served by the reliable reception of testimony and expert testimony. That is, in cases of testimonial knowledge, S has the right sort of ability, and employs it in the right sort of way, so as to serve the purposes of practical reasoning, i.e. those of S and those of the group that needs to depend on S as a source of good information. We can say something analogous to explain why Ted gets credit for scoring an easy goal:  the purposes of soccer playing are well served by the reliable execution of easy goals. That is, in the soccer case Ted has the right sort of ability, and employs it in the right sort of way, so as to serve the purposes of soccer playing, i.e. those of Ted himself and those of the team that needs to depend on Ted to receive passes (easy or not) and score goals. Nevertheless, a concession is in order. Namely, in these cases and others we must rely on our intuitions about when S’s abilities are “importantly enough” involved in an explanation of success. In other words, we have no precise or systematic understanding of the rules governing explanatory salience. And therefore the KSA account of knowledge is not maximally specific. Neither is the account maximally informative. In so far as the rules governing explanatory salience are poorly understood, this deficit is inherited by our understanding of what knowledge is. On the positive side, the present account does not adjudicate cases in a way that is clearly

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wrong. There are no clear counterexamples. Second, intuitions about whether S knows tend to sway with intuitions about explanatory salience. That is, in cases where it seems that S knows, it seems that it is the case that S’s cognitive abilities are important in an explanation why S believes the truth. And in cases where it seems that S does not know, it seems that S’s abilities are less important in such an explanation. This would indicate that the KSA account is correct, even if it is neither maximally specific nor maximally informative. 5 I n n at e k now l e d g e Lackey has criticized KSA as failing to give an adequate account of testimonial knowledge. She has also criticized KSA for failing to give an adequate account of innate knowledge.21 In short, the objection goes, it seems wrong to understand innate knowledge as an achievement. Alternatively, it seems wrong to think that innate knowledge is something for which the knower deserves credit. First, the present problem does not seem to arise for all kinds of innate knowledge. Specifically, it is natural to think of some cases of innate knowledge as arising from the exercise of innate ability. For example, one comes to believe, and thereby know, that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Call this “weakly innate knowledge.” More problematically, however, some innate knowledge seems poorly understood in terms of exercising an ability. For example, suppose that one knows that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but one never comes to believe this for the first time. Rather, one believes it from the start. Call this “strongly innate knowledge,” understood as knowledge that is originally stative. It is not implausible that some human knowledge is like this. But putting aside the question whether strongly innate knowledge is actual, it seems plausible that such knowledge is possible. For example, consider the case of Swampman, a molecule for molecule duplicate of Donald Davidson who comes into the world whole cloth as the result of a fortuitous strike of lightning. Lore has it that Swampman comes into the world knowing everything that Davidson knows, although Swampman does not come to believe anything. If Swampman knows, then all his knowledge is strongly innate knowledge.22 21

  John Hawthorne has raised a similar objection in conversation. This is Hawthorne’s suggestion.

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Here is a proposal for dealing with this sort of case. Knowledge is a kind of success from ability, we continue to say, but this can be taken in two ways. In the standard case, knowledge is true belief resulting from the exercise of one’s intellectual abilities. In the limit case, knowledge is true belief that (partly) constitutes one’s intellectual abilities. The idea is that human beings might very well have some of their cognitive faculties structured by information that is hard-wired. Taking an idea from Kant, our spatial reasoning might be structured by innate knowledge of certain spatial relations.23 Taking an idea from Reid, our sensory perception might be structured by innate knowledge of certain cause and effect relations.24 Swampman would be an extreme case of the same thing: in his case, he comes into the world with cognitive abilities (for example, memory, reasoning) that are largely constituted by hard-wired information, in the same way that our cognitive abilities are (plausibly) constituted by less of the same. Such information would be stative in the relevant sense, but still “from ability” in a relevant sense as well. 6 Mor e obj e c t ions t o t h e KSA ac c ou n t In this section I consider two further objections to the KSA account of knowledge. The two objections have a similar structure. Specifically, they compare (a) clear cases of non-intellectual achievement with (b) clear cases where a believer fails to have knowledge. It is then argued that the cases are analogous in all relevant respects. Therefore, the objections conclude, knowledge cannot be fruitfully understood as intellectual or cognitive achievement. In effect, the claim is that KSA fails to specify a sense of “intellectual achievement” that explains how knowledge is analogous to other kinds of achievement. a  Whitcomb’s hoodlums case Dennis Whitcomb asks us to consider the following example. Hoodlums at the shooting range put weights in most of the arrows’ tips. Champion archers shoot, and due to the weights they miss. I too go to shoot, See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp (London: Macmillan, 1963), especially the “Transcendental Aesthetic.” “Now, there are three ways in which the mind passes from appearance of a natural sign to the conception and belief of the thing signified  – by original principles of our constitution, by custom, and by reasoning.” Thomas Reid, Inquiry into the Human Mind, in Philosophical Works, Chapter VI, section XXI.

23

24

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and by luck I get the one quiver of unweighted arrows. Through skills that almost always bring target-hits, I make those hits. My shots are successful and, moreover, they are successful through virtue.25

Now consider a second example. Hoodlums also work at the newspaper, and just before the presses start they replace one of the paper’s truths p with the falsehood not-p. When the printing is almost done the editors catch the mistake, and they print a few corrected copies. By luck I read a corrected copy. In reading it I come to believe that p, but I don’t come to know that p.

The two cases show, Whitcomb argues, that knowledge is not fruitfully understood in terms of success through virtue. He writes, The two cases are exactly analogous, so whatever sense in which virtue is at work in the first of them is a sense in which it is also at work in the second. Since in the second case I do not know, then, true belief is not through virtue turned into knowledge, at least not in the sense of virtue in which success in other domains is turned into success-through-virtue in those domains.

In order to meet this objection, we should challenge the first claim of this last passage: that the two cases are exactly analogous. Specifically, a closer look at the nature of abilities shows why the first case is an instance of success through ability (or virtue) whereas the second case is not. That is the important difference between the two cases, and what explains our failure to attribute knowledge in the second. Recall the claim, defended above, that abilities in general have the ­following structure: S has an ability A(R/C) relative to environment E = Across the set of ­relevantly close worlds W where S is in C and in E, S has a high rate of success in achieving R.

The way this structure is to be filled in, we noted, depends on the ability in question. So, for example, different abilities will specify a different R as the relevant kind of success attaching to the ability in question. Likewise, different abilities will specify different conditions relevant for exercising the ability in question. The conditions under which a good hitter is expected to hit baseballs, for example, differ from the conditions under which a good singer is expected to hit notes. Specifying the relevant values for R, C and E further depend on 25

 Dennis Whitcomb, “Knowledge, Virtue and Truth,” unpublished typescript.

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context, we noted: when I say that Jeter is a good hitter, I do not mean quite the same thing as when I say that my nine-year-old son is a good hitter (which he is, by the way). We may now apply these considerations to Whitcomb’s two examples as follows: The ability to hit a target, like any ability, is defined relative to conditions that are appropriate for that sort of ability. In particular, we do not require that an archer is reliable (relative to an environment) in conditions involving arrow-weighting hoodlums. Accordingly, worlds where meddling hoodlums affect performance are not deemed relevant for determining whether S has the ability in question, even if meddling hoodlums are in S’s actual environment and even if worlds where they affect S’s performance are “close” on some other ordering. This is similar to Jeter’s ability to hit baseballs in Yankee Stadium – it does not matter whether there is some trickster in the stadium who could easily shut off the lights. The situation is different in Whitcomb’s second case, however. Here it does matter that S’s performance would be affected by informationtampering hoodlums in the environment. Given the nature and purpose of our knowledge-related abilities, it is centrally relevant whether S can reliably negotiate such aspects of her environment. That is why in the newspaper case we can say that S does not believe the truth from an ability. Relative to the environment she is in, S does not have an ability to form true beliefs of the relevant sort in the relevant way. Or putting things more carefully: Relative to the environment she is in, as specified by the practical reasoning contexts that most easily come to mind, S does not have an ability to form true beliefs of the relevant sort in the relevant way. The difference between the two cases, then, amounts to this: S’s ability to hit the target is not defined in terms of performance with defective equipment. But the ability to form true beliefs is defined in terms of performance with misleading sources in the environment. That is, our concern with intellectual abilities is precisely a concern about good sources of information: we are interested in who among us is a reliable informant in a relevant domain, relative to the environment that our informants are actually in. And being a good source of information entails abilities to filter misinformation and the like. We may conclude, therefore, that S does not believe from an ability in the newspaper case. Or, more carefully, S does not believe from an ability, relative to the environments specified by likely practical reasoning contexts.

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Duncan Pritchard has also objected to the KSA thesis, arguing that there can be cognitive achievement without knowledge.26 His argument employs the case of an archer, who “selects a target at random, skillfully fires at this target and successfully hits it because of his skill.” But suppose that, unknown to Archie, there are force-fields around each of the other targets such that, if he had selected any of them, the force-fields would have caused him to miss. Pritchard argues that we still have an example of genuine achievement in the case. But then we must also consider the Ginet–Goldman barn facade case to involve genuine achievement, since that case is structurally analogous to the Archie case. Pritchard’s argument can be reconstructed as follows. 1. The Archie case (involving force-fields around archery targets) is ana­logous to the Ginet–Goldman barn facade case in all relevant respects. 2. The Archie case is a case of success from ability. Therefore, 3. The barn facade case is a case of success from ability. 4. There is no knowledge in the barn facade case. Therefore, 5. The barn facade case is a case of success from ability (i.e. cognitive achievement) without knowledge. The proper response is to deny premise 1:  The cases are not analogous because S lacks the relevant ability in the barn facade case, and therefore it is not a case of success from ability. Keeping in mind that abilities must be relativized to environments, it becomes evident that S lacks the ability to discriminate barns from barn facades when in barn facade country. Accordingly, the barn facade case is not a case of success from ability. Notice that we would not say the same about Pritchard’s Archie, who aims at and hits the one target that is not protected by a force-field. Again, this is because abilities are defined in accordance with the interests and purposes that are served by the ability in question. Accordingly, we may say that Archie manifests archery-relevant abilities when he hits this See Duncan Pritchard, “The Value of Knowledge,” in Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 edn), available at:  http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ fall2008/entries/knowledge-value/; and “The Value of Knowledge,” unpublished typescript.

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target, even if S does not manifest knowledge-relevant abilities when he forms his true belief about the barn. Consider now the two cases and a third. HENRY: If Henry cannot discriminate between barns and barn facades in the area, then he does not have the sort of ability (or the sort of reliability) that we are interested in when we are evaluating for knowledge. Suppose Henry were to say “I can tell a barn when I see one.” We might properly say, “Not around here you can’t.” The “can” here is the can of ability. Suppose Henry were to say, “I know a barn when I see one.” We might properly say, “Not around here you don’t.” ARCHIE: Even if one cannot discriminate between good targets and bad targets (targets with force-fields around them) in the area, one still might have the sort of ability (and the sort of reliability) we are interested in when we are evaluating for archery skills and archery success. Compare Jeter’s ability to hit baseballs during a night game, even when there is a trickster who could easily have killed the lights before his swing. This danger does not take away from his ability to hit baseballs, or his credit for the line drive hit. MODIFIED ARCHER CASE: Imagine a sport called Archery*, where the goal of the contest is to first identify a good target and then shoot it. Suppose Archie lacks the first ability but picks out a good target by luck and shoots it with skill. In this case we might not credit him with an achievement, and precisely because he lacks the sort of ability we are interested in when evaluating for Archery* success. Or suppose he is properly skilled but running out of time. He randomly picks out a target, which lucky for him is a good one, and shoots it. Again, in this case we might properly withhold credit for an achievement, and precisely because he has not manifested the right sort of ability. 7 K va n v ig’s G r a bbi t c a s e I will end by considering one more kind of case. Consider a Tom Grabbit case where S sees Tom steal a book from the library.27 In this version of the case, Tom has no twin brother but has a crazy mother who claims that he does. The mother’s story is well known to police, who also know she is crazy and that Tom has no twin. This is analogous to a newspaper case where there are only a few misleading papers out there and everyone This case is raised by Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge, as a counterexample to a virtue-theoretic account.

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else knows about them and knows the real story that p. S reads a good newspaper and believes truly that p on that basis. The literature suggests that there is a tendency to grant knowledge in this type of case. In other words, we more easily grant knowledge in cases where the potentially misleading evidence is well known to others. Here is an explanation for this, once again exploiting the idea that knowledge attributions are used to (a) flag good information and (b) flag good sources of information. Insofar as our focus is on purpose (b), we tend to be strict and to pay attention to how S would perform in the relevant environment. Insofar as our focus is on (a), we tend to loosen up when p is already “in the flow” of good information. In other words, we more easily attribute knowledge to S when the item of information in question is already well known. The same considerations explain why in some cases we easily attribute knowledge to people replying to questions with known answers (for example, in a test situation). When a child answers that Providence is the capital of Rhode Island, we are often happy to say that he knows. But suppose that our focus is on the child’s abilities rather than on whether he gives the correct answer. Now we are less likely to say he knows – now we want to know whether he was guessing.

ch apter 6

The value of knowledge

In Plato’s Meno, Socrates raises a question about the value of know­ ledge. Why is knowledge valuable? Or perhaps better, What is it that makes knowledge valuable? Jonathan Kvanvig argues that this question is as important to epistemology as Socrates’ question about the nature of knowledge, or what knowledge is. Any adequate epistemology must answer both the nature question and the value question. In fact, Kvanvig argues, the two questions interact: If a theory of knowledge does a poor job answering the value question, then that counts against its answer to the nature question. Likewise, if a theory does a good job explaining the value of knowledge, that counts in favor of its answer to the nature question.1 This seems exactly right. Put another way, the value question is at the heart of the project of explanation. The task of explaining what knowledge is involves the task of explaining why knowledge is valuable. Before looking more closely at Plato’s question in the Meno, however, we should distinguish it from a different question that we have already answered: Why is the concept of knowledge valuable? Our answer to that question was that the concept plays valuable roles in the lives of information-using, information-sharing beings such as ourselves.2 The human form of life demands good information and the reliable flow of that information. The concept of knowledge, along with related concepts, serves those needs. That is not yet to say, however, why knowledge is valuable. We may put things this way:  The concept of knowledge is valuable because it allows us to identify and share reliable information. But why is knowledge valuable? That question remains to be answered. Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge.   This is the answer defended by Craig in Knowledge and the State of Nature.

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2

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Achieving Knowledge 1  W h y i s t h e r e a probl e m ?

We have seen that Socrates raises a question, but why is answering the question a problem? Why can’t we say, for example, that knowledge is a kind of information, and that knowledge is valuable because information is valuable? Here I am understanding the concept of information to be “factive”:  to be information is to be true information. The present suggestion, then, is that knowledge is valuable because true information is valuable. For example, true information has practical value – it helps us to get things that we want. Socrates rejects this kind of answer because we think that knowledge is more valuable than mere true information, or true information that is not knowledge. In an often cited passage from the Meno, Socrates points out that mere true belief seems to have the same practical value as know­ ledge – the man who truly believes that the road leads to Larissa is as well served as the man who knows that it does. The problem then is this: We think that knowledge has value over and above its practical value as useful information. How do we explain that extra value? This is something that a good theory of knowledge should do. 2 A spe c i a l probl e m f or r e l i a bi l i s m ? The value question is ancient, and, as we have described it, is a problem for any theory of knowledge whatsoever. Recently, however, Linda Zagzebski has argued that the problem is especially difficult for reliabilism.3 In her terminology, reliabilism cannot explain the added value that knowledge has over true belief. This is because reliabilists conceive the difference between true belief that is knowledge and true belief that falls short of knowledge as a difference in the reliability of the source. But the reliability of a source, Zagzebski argues, cannot add value to its product. To make the point she draws an analogy to good espresso. The value of a good cup of espresso is not increased by the fact that it was made by a reliable espresso machine. Good espresso is valuable, and reliable espresso machines are valuable. But the value of the espresso is not increased by the value of its source. Consider: a cup of espresso with the same intrinsic qualities, but made by an unreliable machine, would have exactly the See Zagzebski, Virtues of the Mind, and “From Reliabilism to Virtue Epistemology,” in Richard Cobb-Stevens, ed., Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, vol. V. Epistemology (Bowling Green, KY:  Philosophy Documentation Center, 1999). Reprinted in Guy Axtell, ed., Knowledge, Belief and Character (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000).

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same value. The conclusion that Zagzebski draws is that simple ­reliabilism cannot solve the value problem for knowledge. If knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief, its value must be explained in some other way. 3 A probl e m f or e v e r yon e Kvanvig, however, argues that the value problem is even more intractable. According to Kvanvig, “We are left … with no decent answer to the question of the value of knowledge … [T]here is no good answer to the problem of the Meno.”4 Kvanvig’s conclusion, it should be noted, depends on particular ways in which he conceives the problem. We have already seen that the question of the value of knowledge has a tendency to shift. For example, it shifts in Plato’s discussion from “Why is knowledge valuable?” to “Why is knowledge more valuable than mere true belief?” We will see that the question shifts again, and a number of times, in Kvanvig’s ­discussion as well. For example, at times Kvanvig wants an explanation of why knowledge is more valuable than any of it proper parts. Even more strongly, he sometimes asks why knowledge is more valuable than the sum of its parts. Clearly, each question in this series requires an increasingly demanding solution to the value problem. In this chapter I will defend two theses. The first is that some of Kvanvig’s formulations of the value problem are too demanding. That is, we should not expect an answer to each of his questions, since we should not expect that knowledge really is valuable in the ways that his questions suppose. For example, and most obviously, there is no pre-theoretic reason for thinking that knowledge is more valuable than the sum of its parts. The second thesis I will defend is that, nevertheless, a ­virtue-theoretic account of knowledge answers all of Kvanvig’s questions. In other words, a virtue-theoretic account solves each of his formulations of the value problem. Putting these two theses together, we get the following result: A virtue theory gives us a better answer to the value problem than anyone should expect! 4  S h i f t i ng qu e s t ions Consider again Kvanvig’s two criteria for an adequate theory of know­ ledge: any such theory, he says, ought to give an account of both the nature of knowledge and the value of knowledge. Suppose that the question   Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge, p. 184.

4

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about the value of knowledge is the very general one: Why is knowledge valuable? The idea that a theory of knowledge ought to answer this question seems right, and precisely because we are confident that knowledge is indeed valuable. It is a reasonable criterion of success, therefore, that a theory preserves this pre-theoretical data and explains it. As Kvanvig notes, however, Socrates’ question soon shifts to a more specific one: Why is knowledge more valuable than true opinion? But, once again, the demand for an answer seems appropriate. And once again, this is because we are pre-theoretically confident that knowledge has such a value. As Kvanvig writes: part of the challenge of explaining the value of knowledge is in explaining how it has more value than other things, one of these other things being true ­opinion – as Meno claims after acquiescing to Socrates’ point that true belief is every bit as useful as knowledge … Meno expresses here a common presupposition about knowledge, one that is widely, if not universally, shared. Given this presupposition, an account of the value of knowledge must explain more than how know­ ledge is valuable. It must also explain why the value of knowledge is superior to the value of true opinion.5

But now consider a second shift in Kvanvig’s question about the value of knowledge. At another point in the book Kvanvig writes, To explain the value of knowledge in a way that satisfies the constraints of the Meno requires showing that knowledge is more valuable than any proper subset of its constituents.6

This new and stronger demand is illustrated by what Kvanvig says about a widespread position in epistemology – that knowledge is composed of justified true belief, plus some further condition to handle Gettier cases: An adequate account of the value of knowledge must explain why it is more valuable than any subset of its constituents. If we assume that there is some property like justification that distinguishes knowledge from true belief, then an adequate explanation of the value of knowledge could be achieved by giving an adequate account of the value of justification. Because knowledge is more than justified true belief, such an explanation is only one part of a complete explanation. In addition, what is needed is an explanation of why knowledge is more valuable than justified true belief.7

Finally, consider one more passage along the same lines: The conclusion to which our investigation seems to be pointing is that ordinary thinking about knowledge is mistaken, that knowledge does not have the kind Ibid., pp. 3–4.   6 Ibid., p. 107.   7 Ibid., p. 112.

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of value it is ordinarily thought to have. In particular, we seem to be heading for the conclusion that knowledge does not have a value that exceeds that of subsets of its constituents.8

Is it true what Kvanvig is implying here? In other words, is it true that “ordinary thinking” assumes that knowledge is more valuable than any subset of its constituents? That is far from clear. To illustrate, suppose that some JTB+ account of knowledge is correct – that knowledge is justified true belief plus something further to handle Gettier problems. Suppose also that the “plus” part amounts to some minor, technical adjustment to the traditional idea that knowledge is justified true belief, and that this further condition adds no further value to knowledge over justified true belief. Would these suppositions conflict with ordinary thought? Would this show “that knowledge does not have the kind of value it is ordinarily thought to have”? It is hard to see how that could be the case. Most people are not at all aware of Gettier problems, and we can suppose that almost no one was before 1963. But then how could ordinary thought include the idea that knowledge is more valuable than justified true belief? Kvanvig might reply that ordinary thinking does include the idea implicitly. For once ordinary thinkers are exposed to Gettier problems, they quickly agree that knowledge is not equivalent to justified true belief. But that reply does not address the issue at hand, which is whether ordinary thinkers assume that knowledge is more valuable than justified true belief. Put more generally, the issue is whether ordinary thinkers assume that knowledge is more valuable than any subset of its constituents, whether this is understood in terms of the JTB+ account or in terms of some other account. And this is what I am saying is dubious. Ordinary thinking, I am suggesting, contains no convictions about that issue. And now the point is this: If there is no pre-theoretical conviction that knowledge is more valuable than any subset of its constituents, then Kvanvig has placed an inappropriate demand on a solution to the value problem. The original demand to explain the value of knowledge was grounded in an ordinary and widespread conviction that knowledge is indeed valuable. That is why we accepted it as an appropriate criterion for an adequate account of knowledge. When the question about value shifts in the way that it has by this point in Kvanvig’s discussion, the stronger demand on an explanation that emerges is not so grounded. To sum up, there is no pre-theoretical conviction that knowledge is more valuable than any subset of its constituents, and therefore it is not  Ibid., p. 157.

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appropriate to require that a theory of knowledge explain why knowledge has that sort of value. Kvanvig’s criterion for an adequate solution to the value problem is too strong. That being said, in some places Kvanvig seems to place even stronger demands on a solution to the value problem. Specifically, he seems to demand that a solution explain how the value of knowledge exceeds the value of all its parts together. Consider the following passages. … a satisfactory answer to the question of the value of knowledge will need to explain why knowledge is, by its very nature, more valuable than its parts.9 Thus, I will be arguing that knowledge is valuable, but that it fails to have a value exceeding that of its parts, thereby leaving us with no adequate answer to the problem of the value of knowledge first posed by Plato in the Meno.10 On the assumption we have been making in the past several chapters (that the value of knowledge is in some way a function of the value of its parts), the need to account for both the nature and value of knowledge requires that we identify a fourth condition that not only yields a counterexample-free account of knowledge but also provides some basis for explaining the value of knowledge over the value of its constituents.11

There are aspects of Kvanvig’s discussion that suggest that these latest passages are slips – that his considered position is to require only an explanation of why knowledge is more valuable than its proper parts. Nevertheless, it will be useful to explore the cogency of this newest demand on a solution to the value problem. Someone might think that the demand is not even coherent. Consider, for example, an account of bachelorhood. Let us say that a bachelor is an unmarried male who is eligible for marriage. Now suppose we wanted a solution to “the value problem for bachelorhood.” That is, suppose we want an account of why bachelorhood is valuable. Is it appropriate to demand that such an account explain why the value of bachelorhood exceeds the value of all its parts together? It can seem that this demand is not even coherent, for being a bachelor just is being an unmarried male who is eligible for marriage. But then how could the value of the former exceed the value of the latter? We can take the question another way, however. For we can ask whether the value of being a bachelor exceeds the sum of the value of the parts. That is, we can ask whether the value of bachelorhood exceeds the value of being unmarried plus the value of being male plus the value of being Ibid., p. xiv.  

9

10

 Ibid., pp. xv–xvi.   11 Ibid., p. 116.

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eligible for marriage. We might answer in the negative, but the question is at least coherent. That is, at least sometimes the whole is worth more than the parts taken separately. That is the way that we should understand the latest formulation of the value problem. It asks whether the value of knowledge exceeds the value of each of its parts taken alone. This might be the case if knowledge were some sort of organic whole, in the sense that its parts are organized in a particular way. Perhaps some relation among the parts adds value beyond that which the parts have of themselves. The question is coherent, I take it, but there is no pre-theoretical reason for thinking that it should get a positive answer. And, as such, it would be inappropriate to place such a demand on a solution to the value problem. Put another way, there is no pre-theoretical reason to think that knowledge is more valuable than its parts taken separately, and therefore no reason to expect that a solution to the value problem will explain why it is. 5  A s olu t ion t o t h e va lu e probl e m There is no reason to expect such an explanation. However, I want to argue, a virtue-theoretic approach to the value problem gives us one. In this section, I will articulate a solution to the value problem that is consistent with the account of knowledge that I have been defending so far. In fact, we will see, the solution falls out of the account straightforwardly. In the next section I will argue that the account satisfies all of Kvanvig’s demands for an adequate solution – even the ones that are unreasonable. We have been working with the idea that knowledge is a kind of success from ability. Put another way, knowledge is a kind of success through virtuous (or able) agency. This sort of success can be juxtaposed to mere lucky success: When S has knowledge, S gets things right as the result of her own abilities, as opposed to getting things right as the result of blind chance or dumb luck, or something else. Put yet another way, in cases of knowledge S gets things right because she is intellectually able and because she has exercised her abilities. But now an answer to the value problem falls out of this account straightaway. In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle makes a distinction between (a) achieving some end by luck or accident, and (b) achieving the end through the exercise of one’s abilities (or virtues). It is only the latter kind of action, Aristotle argues, that is both intrinsically valuable and

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constitutive of human flourishing.12 “Human good,” he writes, “turns out to be activity of soul exhibiting excellence.”13 In this discussion Aristotle is clearly concerned with intellectual virtue as well as moral virtue:  his position is that the successful exercise of one’s intellectual virtues is both intrinsically good and constitutive of human flourishing. If this is correct then there is a clear difference in value between knowledge and mere true belief. In cases of knowledge, we achieve the truth through the exercise of our own intellectual abilities, which are a kind of intellectual virtue. Moreover, we can extend the point to include other kinds of intellectual virtue as well. It is plausible, for example, that the successful exercise of intellectual courage is also intrinsically good, and also constitutive of the best intellectual life. And of course there is a long tradition that says the same about wisdom and the same about understanding. On the view that results, there is a plurality of intellectual virtues, and their successful exercise gives rise to a plurality of epistemic goods. The best intellectual life – intellectual flourishing, so to speak – is rich with all of these. 6 K va n v ig de m a n d s We saw that Kvanvig places a series of increasing demands on an adequate solution to the value problem. These demands can be understood in terms of the series of questions articulated above. In effect, each demand is a requirement that one of the following questions be answered:  A. Why is knowledge valuable?  B. Why is knowledge more valuable than true belief? C. Why is knowledge more valuable than any subset of its constituents? D. Why is knowledge more valuable than the value of all its parts taken separately? Let us stipulate that a thing has “intrinsic” value just in case it has its value independently of its external relations to other things. Intrinsic value is thus juxtaposed to extrinsic or relational value. Let us stipulate that a thing has “final” value just in case it is valuable as an end, and not merely as a means. Final value is thus juxtaposed to instrumental value. Here my thesis is that success from ability is a complex state of affairs that has intrinsic value – it is “valuable in itself,” independently of its external relations to something else. Moreover, I follow Aristotle in holding that success from ability is constitutive of human flourishing, which has final value. Finally, success from ability itself has final value, in that it is itself valuable as an end, independently of any instrumental value that it might have. I want to thank Adam Carter, Anne Meyland, and Duncan Pritchard for helping me to get these distinctions clear. 13 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I.7. 12

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We may note that each question in the series, and each ­requirement that the question be answered, involves a supposition: that knowledge is valuable in the way to be explained. We may now see that the solution proposed respects all the suppositions and answers all the questions. The answer to questions A and B is straightforward: knowledge is a kind of success from ability, and in general success from ability is both intrinsically valuable and constitutive of human flourishing, which is also intrinsically valuable. Moreover, both success from ability and human flourishing have “final” value, or value as ends in themselves, independently of any instrumental value that they might also have. Therefore, knowledge has value over and above the practical value of true belief. The proposed solution answers question C as well. Knowledge is a kind of success from ability. And, in general, success from ability is more valuable than either success without ability or ability without success. In particular, virtuously produced true belief is more valuable than both true belief that is not virtuous and virtuous belief that is not true. Neither subset is intrinsically valuable, or constitutive of what has intrinsic or final value, in just the way that knowledge is. Finally, the proposed solution answers even question D, respecting the supposition that knowledge is more valuable than all of its parts taken together. This is because success from ability is more valuable than an act that is both successful and from ability, but not successful because from ability. Suppose, for example, that an athlete runs a race in a way that is clearly an exercise of her athletic excellence. Suppose also that she wins, but only because the other runners, some of whom are equally excellent, get sick before the race. Or suppose that she wins, but only because the other runners were bribed. Clearly, neither sort of win is as valuable as it could be. What one really values as an athlete is to win as the result of ability. Likewise in the case of intellectual ability. One’s belief can be from ability and true, but not true because from ability. As we saw in Chapter 5, this is just the structure of Gettier cases, where true and able belief falls short of knowledge. It is apparent, then, that the present approach to the value problem meets all the demands that Kvanvig requires of an adequate solution. So why is Kvanvig dissatisfied with this kind of answer? I can only speculate that it is because he misses the force of the proposal. For example, when he first introduces the virtue-theoretic approach he writes,

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Recently, several epistemologists have proposed such an idea, to the effect that credit accrues to the agent who has intellectually virtuous beliefs … All three share a common theme about the value of the virtues, for they think of this value in terms of some kind of credit due to the agent whose belief is virtue-based.14 Just as actions that result from virtues yield credit for the actor, beliefs resulting from faculties that count as virtues generate credit for the believer.15

Notice that there is no mention here of success through virtue. The central idea of the proposal, which is that knowledge is valuable because it is a kind of success from ability or virtue, is entirely absent. Even when Kvanvig talks about true virtuous belief, he seems to miss the distinction between (a) a belief’s being true and virtuously formed, and (b) a belief’s being true because virtuously formed. At places Kvanvig does seem aware of the distinction. For example, he quotes Sosa as follows: The grasping of the truth central to truth-connected reliabilist epistemology is not just the truth that may be visited upon our beliefs by happenstance or external agency. We desire rather truth gained through our own performances, and this seems a reflectively defensible desire for a good preferable not just extrinsically but intrinsically. What we prefer is the deed of true believing, where not only the believing but also its truth is attributable to the agent as his or her own doing.16

But when Kvanvig describes the view in question, he says this: The basic idea of a virtue approach to the value of knowledge over that of its subparts is that there is a special value for beliefs that arise out of intellectual virtue. When true belief is a product of the virtues, the claim is that there is epistemic credit due to the agent in question and hence that virtuous true belief is more valuable than true belief.17

In the first sentence he refers to the special value of “beliefs that arise out of intellectual virtue,” whereas in the second sentence he says that credit is due when “true belief is a product of the virtues.” It is not clear that he sees the importance of the distinction, and so it is not clear whether the phrase “virtuous true belief ” in the second sentence means (a) belief that is both true and virtuous, or (b) belief that is true because virtuous. Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge, p. 81.   15 Ibid., p. 82. Ibid., p. 95, quoting Ernest Sosa, “The Place of Truth in Epistemology,” in DePaul and Zagzebski, Intellectual Virtue. 17 Ibid., p. 106. 14 16

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In the following passage, however, it seems clear that Kvanvig is missing the distinction. It is equally true, however, that knowledge is more than intellectually true virtuous belief. Goldman’s fake barn case discussed earlier is a well-known example that reveals a difference between knowledge and such virtuous belief, for impressive perceptual abilities count as intellectual virtues and could be displayed in the fake barn case. The reason the display of such virtues falls short of knowledge is that perception can be an impressive ability and still be unable to distinguish real barns from well-designed fake ones, and so a true belief could result that still was only accidentally true.18

Kvanvig’s claim in the last sentence is problematic for independent reasons. Specifically, it is unclear how perception can count as an ability relative to S’s environment and yet be unable to distinguish real barns from fake ones. But suppose we agree for the sake of argument that S’s belief is not only true but also from ability. Still, the belief is not true because it is from ability. Put more carefully, the belief’s being so formed does not explain why S has a true belief rather than a false belief. On the contrary, S believes the truth because she happens (luckily) to be looking at the one real barn in the area. If she had been looking anywhere else nearby, excellent perception or no, she would have a false belief. The fake barn case looks to be a counterexample, then, only if we ignore the distinction between (a) belief that is true and virtuous, and (b) belief that is true because virtuous. But, as we have seen, it is just this distinction that is crucial to the proposed solution.  Ibid., p. 107.

18

chapter 7

Knowledge and context

I begin by making two clarifications regarding the topic of this chapter. First, a number of positions in epistemology go by the name “contextualism.” One important kind of contextualism is “attributor contextualism,” or the thesis that the truth-value of a knowledge claim can vary across attributor contexts.1 Put differently: the truth-value of a knowledge claim is relative to the context of attribution. Understood this way, contextualism is a semantic thesis about the word “knows” and related language, rather than a thesis about how one ought to respond to some traditional epistemological problem, such as the problem of skepticism. Here my primary concern is with contextualism as a semantic thesis. Contextualism in epistemology first gained interest as a response to skepticism and then to other traditional problems in epistemology. Nevertheless, questions about the semantics of epistemological discourse have become interesting in their own right, and in any case serve as a preliminary for the application of semantics to traditional problems. Second, I will be addressing contextualism in moral theory as well as contextualism in epistemology. In particular, I want to explore some moral analogues of attributor contextualism in epistemology. In Part One of the chapter I try to clarify what attributor contextualism is and what its moral analogues look like. In Part Two I address two worries that might be raised about contextualism in epistemology and that carry over to its moral analogues: that contextualism robs epistemology (and moral theory) of a proper subject matter, and that contextualism robs knowledge claims (and moral claims) of their objectivity. Here I defend two theses: (1) that these worries are appropriately directed at interest-dependent theories in general rather than at contextualism in particular, and (2) that the two worries are overstated in any case. Even if our epistemological See, for example, Cohen, “How to Be a Fallibilist,” DeRose, “Solving the Skeptical Problem,” and Lewis, “Elusive Knowledge.”

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and moral discourse is interest-dependent in the way that contextualism implies, epistemology and moral theory retain their subject matter, and epistemological and moral discourse retain the sort of objectivity we think they have. In Part Three of the chapter I offer some considerations in favor of attributor contextualism over “subject-sensitive invariantism,” both in epistemology and in moral theory. I by no means claim to settle the issue here. Rather, I point to some methodological considerations that might help to do so. Here I note an interesting result: The very considerations that support contextualism as a semantic thesis threaten to rob that position of its anti-skeptical force. Pa r t On e . W h at i s c on t e x t ua l i s m ? 1  Contextualism in epistemology As I said above, a number of positions in epistemology go by the name “contextualism.” One important kind of contextualism is “attributor contextualism.” Here is a fairly straightforward articulation of that position. AC.  The truth-value of sentences of the form “S knows that p” (and the like) varies with the context of the speaker of the sentence. That is, for the very same S and p, at the very same time, a sentence of the form “S knows that p” can be true relative to one speaker context and false relative to a ­different speaker context.

Notice that the thesis is meta-linguistic. More specifically, it is a thesis about the truth-values of sentences of a particular kind. The sentences in question are sentences that use epistemic predicates to attribute or deny epistemic properties. The paradigmatic case is that in which the speaker uses a sentence of the form “S knows that p” to attribute knowledge. Hence the label “attributor contextualism.” 2  Two kinds of attributor contextualism a  Standards contextualism The “standard” kind of attributor contextualism in epistemology is “standards” contextualism. That is, the standard position is that the truth-values of knowledge attributions vary with attributor context because the standards for “knows” vary with attributor context. For example, consider the following “low-stakes” situation:  Keith’s uncle wants to find out whether the bank is open on Saturday because

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he would like to deposit his paycheck sooner rather than later. Nothing much depends on whether the bank is open. The only cost of being wrong about this is that he will have wasted a trip to the bank on Saturday if it is closed. In this context, Keith’s uncle calls him on the phone and Keith says “I know that the bank is open,” basing his claim on the grounds that he was at the bank two weeks ago on a Saturday and found that it was open until noon. Intuitively, Keith’s claim that he “knows” is true. Now consider the following “high-stakes” situation:  Keith’s cousin wants to find out whether the bank is open on Saturday because he has just written a large and important check that will bounce if he does not make a deposit before Monday. If the check bounces, he will be in a very bad situation. In this context, Keith’s cousin calls him on the phone and Keith says “I know that the bank is open,” basing his claim on the grounds that he was at the bank two weeks ago on a Saturday and found that it was open until noon. Intuitively, Keith’s cousin should not accept Keith’s claim that he “knows.” Suppose that Keith’s cousin challenges his claim, pointing out that banks sometimes change their hours and that if Keith is wrong there will be overwhelming costs. Intuitively, he is right to say that Keith does not “know.” Standards contextualism diagnoses these intuitions in a plausible way: In low-stakes situations the standards for “knows” are relatively low, and accordingly knowledge attributions come out true more easily. In high-stakes situations the standards for “knows” are relatively high, and accordingly knowledge attributions come out true less easily. For example, Keith’s evidence is good enough to make his knowledge claim true relative to his uncle’s low-stakes situation, but not good enough to make his knowledge claim true relative to his cousin’s high-stakes situation. b  A different sort of (attributor) contextualism Again, standards contextualism is the standard kind of attributor contextualism in epistemology. However, in Chapter 5 I defended the posi­ tion that knowledge attributions are context-sensitive in a ­different way.2 The position begins with the idea that knowledge is a kind of ­success through ability. In cases of knowledge, one believes the truth as the result of one’s own efforts and abilities, as opposed to believing the truth as the result of good luck or happy accident. However, in cases of knowledge See also my “Knowledge as Credit for True Belief,” and “A Different Sort of Contextualism,” Erkenntnis 61 (2004): 383–400.

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one does not believe the truth solely as the result of one’s efforts and abilities. As in other cases of success through ability, the world must cooperate. For example, suppose that S sees clearly that a sheep is in the field. In that case, S forms a true belief as the result of S’s excellent vision, but only because conditions were favorable to the exercise of that ability. If the light had been bad, or if sheep did not reflect light, S would not have seen the sheep. In fact, in all cases of success through ability, one’s abilities will be a necessary but not sufficient ­condition for the ­success in question. Now consider a further complication: Not all success resulting from ability is creditable to the agent, because in some cases the ability is not involved in the right way. For example, suppose that S sees clearly that there is an animal in the field, and on that basis forms a true belief that there is a sheep. But in this case S mistakes a dog for a sheep. S’s belief is true, but that is because there is a sheep in a different part of the field, hidden from view. In this case there is success (a true belief) and there is ability (excellent vision), but the success is not related to the ability in the right way. In this sort of case, S’s true belief cannot be credited to her. Certainly, S does not know that there is a sheep in the field. In both cases above, S’s ability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. That is, in both cases, S’s excellent vision is a necessary but not sufficient condition for true belief. So what is the difference between the two cases? The difference, I want to suggest, is that of explanatory ­salience. In the first case, but not the second, S’s excellent vision is a salient (or important) factor in the explanation why S has a true belief. We may generalize this suggestion, first with respect to knowledge and second with respect to creditable success more broadly. In cases of knowledge, S’s intellectual abilities will be a salient factor in an explanation of why S believes the truth. More exactly, an exercise of S’s abilities will be important in such an explanation. For example, in cases of knowledge S believes the truth because S saw clearly, or remembered accurately, or reasoned properly, where “because” serves to mark an explanation. Even more broadly, in all cases of creditable success, S’s agency will be salient in an explanation regarding how the success came about. For example, it will be right to say that S saved the child because S acted bravely, or that S won the race because she ran well. In cases of knowledge, as in cases of creditable success in general, ability explains success. What does all this have to do with contextualism? In short, the present thesis is that knowledge attributions are a kind of credit attribution, and that credit attributions in general involve causal explanations: To say that

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a person S is creditable for some state of affairs A, is to say that S’s agency is salient in an explanation regarding how or why A came about. Now add a further, plausible thesis:  that the semantics of causal explanation language requires a contextualist treatment. Consider, for example, the cause of a car crash at a major intersection. The police at the scene deem that the crash was caused by excessive speed, and accordingly they issue the driver a summons. Later in the year, city planners consider the crash along with several others that occurred at the same location. They determine that the crash was caused by difficult traffic patterns and recommend changes to the Board of Transportation. Who is right, the police or the planners? One wants to say, of course, that they are both right. To say that excessive speed caused the crash is to pick out one necessary part of a much broader set of causal conditions. To say that difficult traffic patterns caused the crash is to do the same. Plausibly, the different interests and purposes governing traffic enforcement and traffic planning make different explanations appropriate. City police, in their capacity, appropriately blame the crash on excessive speed, considering the difficult traffic patterns to be part of the normal background. City planners, in their capacity, appropriately blame the crash on difficult traffic patterns, considering speeding drivers to be part of the normal background. What counts as “the explanation” or “the cause” of the crash is relative to these different contexts. Putting all this together, we get the result that knowledge attributions are sensitive to context because they involve causal explanations, and causal explanations are sensitive to context. Knowledge attributions inherit the context-sensitivity of causal explanations. If this is right, then there should be cases where the truth-value of a knowledge attribution seems to vary with context, and where the variation in truth-value seems to sway with the salience of S’s abilities in explaining how S came to have the true belief in question. Here is a pair of cases I have proposed elsewhere. Case 1: The gambler and his wife G a m bl e r : I knew that horse would win! W i f e : You knew no such thing, you idiot! That horse could have lost  – you nearly threw away our rent money again! G a m bl e r : No  – I knew she would win! I’ve been watching that horse for months now, and I knew that she would run great in these conditions. W i f e : You son-of-a-bitch.

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Case 2: The gambler and his buddies F i r s t G a m bl e r :How did you know that horse was going to win? S e c on d G a m bl e r : Are you kidding? I’ve seen her run in mud before, and the only horse in the race that could touch her was pulled just before post time. When I saw that, I ran to the betting window. F i r s t G a m bl e r : You son-of-a-bitch.

Here is a plausible explanation of the two cases (so say I). In the first context, the wife rightly rejects the gambler’s knowledge claim. Their financial situation and his gambling history make salient the role of luck in picking winning horses, while at the same time undermining the salience of the gambler’s abilities. The gambler’s knowledge claim is therefore false relative to that context. In the second context the knowledge claim is accepted by all involved. Here the role of luck is taken for granted, and salience attaches to the relevant abilities of the gambling buddies. Relative to that context, the gambler’s knowledge claim is true, or at least more plausibly true. When I say “or at least more plausibly true,” obviously I am hedging. Perhaps a gambler’s abilities are never salient enough, or perhaps never good enough, to count as “the cause” of a true belief. Nevertheless, the cases illustrate how levels of explanatory salience can shift relative to different contexts, and how this can include shifts in the salience of intellectual ability. Moreover, this second sort of contextualism is made independently plausible by the line of reasoning we saw above: 1. Knowledge attributions involve causal explanations. 2. Causal explanations require a contextualist semantics. Therefore, 3. Knowledge attributions require a contextualist semantics. 3  Moral analogues to contextualism in epistemology We have now seen two kinds of attributor contextualism in epistemology: standards contextualism and (for lack of a better name) “explanatory salience contextualism.” Clearly, moral analogues to these positions are possible. First, one might think that the truth-values of sentences making moral claims vary across attributor context, according to different moral standards in play in those contexts. Such a position entails moral relativism, understood as the thesis that moral claims are not true absolutely, but

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only relative to varying moral standards. In the remainder of this paper, however, I want to focus on the second sort of attributor contextualism and its moral analogue. The moral analogue says that some moral claims function as credit attributions (or discredit attributions). That is, some moral claims attribute moral credit (or discredit) to a moral agent, thereby inheriting the semantics of credit attributions and causal explanation language in general. Just as knowledge attributions imply that the efforts and abilities of some knower are salient in the explanation of an intellectual success, some moral claims imply that the efforts and abilities of a moral agent are salient in the explanation of some moral success or failure. The most obvious candidates are attributions of moral responsibility, and this is the position I will consider. The position, then, is that attributions of moral responsibility imply a causal explanation for the moral success or failure in question, thereby inheriting the contextualist semantics of causal explanation language in general. For example, to say that S is morally to blame for the fire is to say that the fire occurred as a result of S’s agency. But of course it cannot be that S’s agency was involved in just any way – the claim implies that S’s agency is important or salient in an explanation regarding why the fire occurred. And that sort of explanatory salience, the position claims, is relative to the interests and purposes at play in the attributor’s context.3 Pa r t Two. W h at ’s w rong w i t h c on t e x t ua l i s m ? 1  Two worries about attributor contextualism The merits of attributor contextualism are now hotly debated in epistemology. Early disputes tended to focus on the adequacy of contextualist responses to skepticism. More recently, controversy has focused on contextualism proper, or contextualism considered as a semantic thesis about “knows” and other epistemic language. Central here is work by “invariantists” such as John Hawthorne and Jason Stanley, who argue that linguistic intuitions and considerations about linguistic usage do not support a contextualist semantics for our epistemic discourse.4 I will not enter into this This is how I read Joel Feinberg’s account of moral responsibility. See especially his “Problematic Responsibility in Law and Morals,” “Action and Responsibility,” and “Causing Voluntary Actions,” all in Doing and Deserving: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970). 4 See Hawthorne, Knowledge and Lotteries, and Stanley, Knowledge and Practical Interests. See also Fantl and McGrath, “Evidence, Pragmatics, and Justification.” 3

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latter dispute here. That is, I will not consider arguments that challenge the linguistic data, or challenge whether that data supports one semantic theory or another. Rather, I want to look at two other worries that might be raised about contextualism in epistemology, and that might carry over to contextualism in moral theory as well. The first worry is that contextualism robs epistemology of a proper subject matter. If “knows” picks out different properties in different contexts, for example, then there is no such thing as knowledge proper, or the property of knowledge proper. Rather, there is only knowledge language, which refers to any number of properties in different contexts. Or suppose that “knows” does not pick out different properties in different contexts, but that truth-conditions for sentences of the form “S knows that p” nevertheless vary wildly across contexts. If that is the case then the subject matter of epistemology still loses its discipline. Put another way: our epistemological language fails to pick out a class of phenomena that admits of theoretical study. The second worry is that contextualism robs knowledge claims of their objectivity. More specifically, contextualism makes the truth of knowledge claims interest-dependent in a way that robs them of their objectivity. It should not be the case, for example, that the truth of Jack’s claim “I know there is water in the well” depends on whether Jill cares. Both worries carry over to the moral analogues of contextualism in epistemology. In fact, one might think, the worries are even more pressing in moral theory than in epistemology. Hence one might worry that moral contextualism robs normative ethics of a proper subject matter, and might find this more disturbing than a similar lack in epistemology. Likewise, I have already suggested that the moral analogue of standards contextualism entails a kind of moral relativism, and one might be no less worried about the moral analogue of “explanatory salience contextualism.” It should not be the case, for example, that Jack’s claim “Jill is blameworthy for pushing me down the hill” depends on whether Jill cares. 2  Two theses In the remainder of this part of the chapter I will defend two theses: That the two worries raised above are best directed at interest-dependent theories in general rather than contextualism in particular, and that the two worries are overstated in any case. But in order to state the theses clearly we first need two distinctions.

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The first distinction is between attributor contextualism and invariantism. As we saw above, attributor contextualism is the thesis that the truth-value of knowledge claims is variable across attributor contexts, so that a sentence of the form “S knows that p” can be true in one attributor’s mouth while false in another’s. Invariantism is simply the denial of attributor contextualism. The second distinction we need is between interest-dependent theories and interest-independent theories. Interest-dependent theories hold that the truth-value of knowledge claims depends on the interests and purposes of some person or group. Standards contextualism and explanatory salience contextualism are both interest-dependent theories. Interest-independent theories simply deny this claim about the relevance of interests to the truth-value of knowledge claims. Hawthorne and Stanley, among others, have emphasized that the two distinctions cut across each other. Most ­importantly, invariantism is consistent with interest-dependence.5 In fact, both Hawthorne and Stanley defend interest-dependent versions of invariantism about knowledge language. On their views, the truth-value of knowledge claims is dependent on the interests and purposes of the subject. As a result, the truth-value of a knowledge attribution is invariant across different attributor contexts. Here is Hawthorne. For suppose instead that the kinds of factors that the contextualist adverts to as making for ascriber-dependence – attention, interests, stakes, and so on – had bearing on the truth of knowledge claims only insofar as they were the attention, interests, stakes, and so on of the subject. Then the relevance of attention, interests, and stakes to the truth of knowledge ascriptions would not, in itself, force the thesis of semantic context-dependence. Here is the picture. Restricting ourselves to extensional matters, the verb “know” picks out the same ordered triples of subject, time, and proposition in the mouths of any ascriber. However, whether a particular subject-time-proposition triple is included in the extension of “know” depends not merely upon the kinds of factor traditionally adverted to in accounts of knowledge – whether the subject believes the proposition, whether the proposition is true, whether the subject has good evidence, whether the subject is using a reliable method, and so on – but also upon the kinds of factors that in the contextualist’s hands make for ascriberdependence. These factors will thus include (some or all of) the attention, interests, and stakes of the subject at that time.6

Accordingly, we get the possible positions shown in Table 7.1. See the previous note for references.  Hawthorne, Knowledge and Lotteries, pp. 157–8.

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Table 7.1 Invariantism

Variantism (Attributor contextualism)

Interest-dependent theories

“Subject-sensitive ­invariantism” (Hawthorne, Stanley)

Interest-dependent ­contextualism (Cohen, DeRose, Lewis)

Interest-independent theories

Absolutism (traditional views)

Interest-independent contextualism (no takers)

  The Hawthorne–Stanley view has come to be known as “­subject-sensitive invariantism.” I do not like this label for the position, however, because it tends to obscure from view a possible version of attributor contextualism, i.e. one that allows the attributor context to be sensitive to the interests and purposes of the subject. Suppose that the interests and purposes operative in the attributor context are allowed to include those operative in the subject context. For example, suppose we are considering whether a third party claims that he “knows” that the bank is open on Saturday, based on the evidence that he was at the bank two weeks ago and it was open on Saturday then. Suppose also that nothing much depends on his being right for us but a lot depends on it for him. Intuitively, the third party’s claim is false. Hawthorne and Stanley argue that this sort of case makes trouble for attributor contextualism, since it is the interests of the subject that seem to be governing standards for “knowledge” here, rather than the interests of the attributor.7 But the case spells trouble only if attributor context cannot be sensitive to (cannot incorporate) the interests operative in the subject context. But why should that be the case? Suppose that Hawthorne is right that knowledge is the norm of practical reasoning, so that, other things equal, one should act only on what one knows. If we are considering whether we should go to the bank sooner rather than later, then it makes sense to consider what S knows relative to our interests and purposes. But if we are considering whether S should go to the bank sooner rather than later, then it makes sense to consider whether S knows relative to his interests and purposes. Such a position would remain a version of attributor contextualism, since the truth-­values   For example, see Stanley, Knowledge and Practical Interests, p. 24.

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Table 7.2

Interest-dependent theories

Invariantism

Variantism (Attributor contextualism)

Interest-dependent invariantism

Interest-dependent ­subject-insensitive contextualism Interest-dependent ­subject-sensitive contextualism

Interest-independent theories

Absolutism

Interest-independent contextualism

for knowledge attributions would continue to vary across attributor contexts. Nevertheless, some attributor contexts would be partly defined by subject interests. This suggests that attributor contextualism can either be “subject insensitive” or “subjective sensitive.”8 Accordingly, we get the possible positions shown in Table 7.2. We are now in a position to state the two theses of Part Two of the chapter. The first thesis is that the two worries raised above against contextualism (that epistemology loses its subject matter and that knowledge claims lose their objectivity) are really worries about interest-dependent theories in general rather than contextualism in particular. Accordingly, the recent dispute between interest-dependent invariantism and attributor contextualism is largely irrelevant in relation to these worries. The second thesis is that the two worries about interest-dependent theories are misguided. The ways in which knowledge claims are interest-dependent threatens neither the subject matter of epistemology nor the objectivity of knowledge claims. The same goes for interest-dependence regarding moral claims:  Both moral contextualism and interest-dependent invariantism make moral claims interest-dependent, but need not do so in ways that are inconsistent with the sort of discipline and objectivity that we think moral claims have. In Part Three of the chapter I will raise some considerations in favor of contextualism over invariantism. DeRose and Cohen both allow that attributor contexts can be sensitive to subject interests, or perhaps other features of the subject or the subject’s practical environment. Hawthorne also briefly considers such a position, suggested to him by Ernest Sosa and Jonathan Schaffer. See Hawthorne, Knowledge and Lotteries, pp. 58–9 and 188, note 53.

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3  Thesis 1: The two worries pertain to interest-dependent theories in general rather than contextualism in particular Take the second worry first: that contextualism robs knowledge claims of their objectivity by making their truth-value interest-dependent. Clearly enough, interest-dependent invariantism also makes the truth-value of knowledge claims interest-dependent, now on the interests of the subject as opposed to the interests operative in the attributor context. And both sorts of dependence threaten to undermine objectivity. For example, it does seem initially odd (and perhaps worrisome) that the truth of S’s knowledge claim depends on whether we need to get to the bank before Monday. But so is it odd (and perhaps worrisome) that the truth of S’s knowledge claim depends on whether S needs to get to the bank before Monday. Likewise, it is initially odd or worrisome that the truth of Jack’s moral claim about Jill depends on whether Jack cares, but so is it odd or worrisome that the truth of Jack’s claim depends on whether Jill cares. In the end, of course, much will depend on how interests and purposes are supposed to affect the value of our knowledge claims and our moral claims. But as we will see below, options for a benign sort of interestdependence are available to both contextualism and interest-dependent invariantism. What about the second worry, that contextualism robs epistemology of a proper subject matter? One way to put the worry is in terms of the property of knowledge. The problem is then this: If the word “know­ ledge” picks out different properties in different contexts, then there is no property of knowledge proper. Rather, there is only knowledge language, which picks out any number of properties in different contexts. One might develop this worry as follows: If the term “knowledge” is allowed to pick out different properties with different uses, then there is no guarantee that the various properties picked out will be interestingly related, or related in ways that satisfy theoretical purposes. Consider, for example, the term “tall,” as it occurs in the phrases “tall basketball player,” “tall building,” “tall drink of water,” and “tall order.” Presumably the meanings of “tall” in these phrases are related, so we do not have straightforward lexical ambiguity. Nevertheless, we would not expect a theory of tallness that covers all of the properties picked out in these cases. There is a sense, however, in which attributor contextualism need not hold that “knowledge” refers to different properties in different contexts. Specifically, it is open to the contextualist to hold that “knows” always picks out the same n-place relation, with at least one of the relata being

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fixed by attributor context.9 For example, the contextualist can hold that “knows” picks out a three-place relation between a person, a proposition, and an evidential standard, with attributor context determining the value of the standard place. In that case “knows” picks out the same relation, and in that sense the same property, across all attributor contexts. It is that relation (that n-place property) that would be the subject matter of epistemology. Nevertheless, the present worry can be pressed. Suppose that the term “knowledge” is univocal, in the sense that it picks out the same manyplace relation across all attributor contexts, but that truth-conditions for sentences of the form “S knows that p” nevertheless vary widely. In some ways this will be unproblematic. For example, different sentences of the form “S knows that p” will pick out different subjects and different propositions. But suppose that the truth-conditions of knowledge claims also vary in ways that contextualism suggests. For example, suppose that evidential standards vary widely (and wildly), so that it is very easy for a sentence of the form “S knows that p” to come out true in some contexts, but almost impossible that it do so in others. Suppose that various other truth-conditions for “S knows that p” vary with practical interests as well. Call these “interest-dependent truth-conditions.” The current worry is then something like this: If the truth-conditions for sentences of the form “S knows that p” vary wildly across attributor contexts, then our know­ ledge language might not pick out any coherent or well-disciplined category of phenomena. And that means that epistemology will not have the sort of subject matter that admits of proper theorizing – it will not have a subject matter that allows of useful and informative generalizations. Once again, the worry is that epistemology as theory of knowledge becomes impossible. It would seem, however, that attributor contextualism and interest­dependent invariantism are once again on a par. For if interest-dependent invariantism is true, then there will be interest-dependent truth-conditions for knowledge attributions, and they will likewise be variable with different uses. Of course, truth-conditions for the same knowledge attribution will be invariant across attributor contexts – that is what makes interestdependent invariantism a form of invariantism! Nevertheless, ­different knowledge attributions will still have different ­interest-dependent truthconditions, depending on the different interests and purposes operative Cohen raised this possibility with me in correspondence. Jason Stanley points out this possibility for contextualism at Stanley, Knowledge and Practical Interests, pp. 16–17.

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in their subject’s practical environment. For example, the standards of ­evidence picked out by “knows” will vary with the different practical environments of different subjects. And that, presumably, was the real worry all along; i.e. that our knowledge language will fail to pick out the same (or same enough) phenomena in its different uses. If attributor contextualism threatens to make a theory of knowledge impossible in this way, then so does interest-dependent invariantism. 4  Thesis 2: The two worries are overstated a  Even if the truth-conditions for knowledge claims vary with practical interests, epistemology retains a proper subject matter. Likewise for moral claims and normative ethics Suppose that evidential standards for sentences of the form “S knows that p” vary relative to different practical environments (either subject environments or attributor environments). It does not follow from this that the phenomena picked out by our knowledge language will therefore lack the sort of discipline that admits of useful and informative theorizing. What does such discipline consist in? In other words, what would the phenomena picked out by “knows” have to be like in order to admit of useful and informative theorizing? First, the semantic value of “knows” cannot be so variable as to pick out wildly different and unrelated properties. For example, “knows” could not be like “bank,” with referents as diverse as riverbanks and lending institutions. But of course there is no reason to think that “knows” does this. On the contrary, it is plausible that all cases picked out by “knows” display similar structures along familiar dimensions. Thus Ernest Sosa writes as follows. Our concept of knowledge involves various dimensions each admitting of a threshold:  (a) “belief”:  how sure must one be? (b) “justification”:  how much rational support is required for belief? (c) “reliability”: how reliable are one’s ope­ rative sources or faculties? (d) “safety”: how easily might one have been wrong; how remote is any possible belief/fact mismatch? … the more important ­questions in epistemology concern … the identity and nature of the relevant dimensions within which the thresholds must be set.10

Moreover, there is reason to think that the situation is even better than this. Here I want to reintroduce two ideas that were invoked in Chapter 5. The first is that knowledge is intimately related to practical reasoning. 10

 Ernest Sosa, “Skepticism and Contextualism,” Philosophical Issues 10 (2000): 1–18.

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Other things equal, we ought to act on what we know. The second is that a primary function of our knowledge language is to flag good information and good sources of information. Putting the two ideas together, we get the following plausible claim: that a primary function of our know­ ledge language is to flag information for use in practical reasoning. Let us assume for the sake of argument that this claim is not merely ­plausible – it is a fact about the nature and function of our knowledge language. This fact, I want to argue, creates considerable pressure toward stability regarding the truth-conditions of our knowledge claims. That is, even if the interest-dependent truth-conditions of knowledge claims vary across practical environments, the social function of those claims will severely restrict the ranges and kinds of variability that are allowed. For one, if knowledge is for the purpose of practical reasoning, this requires that knowledge be widely attainable, and this puts pressure on the standards for knowledge in a downward direction. The argument here is straightforward: Knowledge is required for practical reasoning, and practical reasoning is widely necessary. Therefore, knowledge must be widely available to serve its purpose. Therefore, the standards required for know­ ledge cannot be so high as to make knowledge less than widely available. That is, the standards cannot be so high if knowledge is to have the role that it does in our practical activities. Likewise, the demands of practical reasoning require that knowledge be imported across various practical environments, and this puts pressure on the standards for knowledge in an upward direction. Suppose that I need to know whether p, and that in a different context S claims, “I know that p.” For S to be a useful informant, for her to be a source of knowledge to be used in my practical reasoning, I have to be confident that the standards by which S counts as knowing in her context are at least as high as my practical reasoning requires. Again, the information-sharing function of our knowledge language puts pressure on the standards for knowledge in an upward direction. The standards for knowledge cannot be so low as to make knowledge widely unusable. The upshot is this:  even if the standards for knowledge vary across practical environments, they will not vary widely (or wildly) across those environments, and this is insured by the functions that knowledge and knowledge language play in our practical and social activities. This point was made regarding the standards for knowledge, but the same point can be made regarding other interest-dependent conditions as well. For example, I said that in cases of knowledge, S’s believing the truth is explained by an exercise of S’s intellectual ability. That is, S’s ­intellectual

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ability will be salient in an explanation of why S believes the truth, where ­salience is at least partly a function of relevant interests and purposes. Which interests and purposes are relevant? On the present view, they will be the interests and purposes of practical reasoning, either in the subject’s practical reasoning environment or in the attributor’s practical reasoning environment, depending on the version of the view in ­question. It is plausible, however, that the practical interests and purposes of human individuals and groups are largely overlapping. We all share needs related to individual health, for example, as well as needs related to social well being. And to that extent, interests and purposes will be stable across different contexts of practical reasoning. Likewise, as we saw in the case of standards for knowledge, the need for sharing knowledge across different practical environments creates pressure toward stability. Given the information-sharing function of our knowledge language, we can expect that the mechanisms by which explanatory salience is distributed will be largely stable across practical contexts. In conclusion, we can expect that the phenomena picked out by our knowledge language will be disciplined and stable rather than undisciplined and chaotic. Interest-relativity, at least of the sort suggested by contextualism and interest-dependent invariantism, does not threaten to rob the theory of knowledge of a proper subject matter. What about moral language and moral theory? Presumably similar points can be made here, taking into consideration the importance of moral claims for practical reasoning. I will not try to do that in any detail here. However, some of what I say in Part Three of the chapter will be relevant to this issue. b  Even if the truth-value of knowledge claims is interest-dependent, knowledge claims are not robbed of the sort of objectivity that we think they have. Likewise for moral claims Certainly it would be odd or disturbing (or ugly, or we just would not like it) if the truth-value of knowledge claims and/or moral claims were interest-dependent in just any way. For example, suppose that S believes that the next plane will reach Chicago by 5 p.m., basing her belief on a published schedule. It seems wrong that her claim to know is false so long as her life depends on it, but then becomes true when that is no longer the case. Likewise for moral claims. It seems wrong that the truth-value of “Jill is to blame for pushing Jack down the hill” can change back and forth, depending on whether we care about Jack’s well being.

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The answer to this sort of worry, of course, is that interest-dependent theories are not committed to any such thing. That is, such theories are not committed to the claim that interests can affect truth-values in just any way. On the contrary, the most plausible interest-dependent theories will severely restrict the ways in which interests affect the truth-values of the moral and/or epistemic claims in question. Here two distinctions are especially important. First, we need to make a distinction between perceived interests and actual interests. Some contextualists, for example, write as if attributor context is a function of the perceived interests of the attributor, as opposed to the attributor’s actual interests, whether or not perceived to be such. Second, we need to make a distinction between the interests of the individual and the interests of the group. Again, interest-dependent theorists often write as if it is the interests of some individual alone (the attributor or the subject) that constitute the relevant practical environment. But in both cases the alternative option is more plausible. For example, it seems downright implausible that the truth-value of moral claims depends on the perceived interests of some individual. By contrast, it is not at all implausible that the truth-value of moral claims depends on the actual interests of some group. In fact, it seems downright implausible that this is not the case. For example, it seems implausible that whether some action is wrong, or whether some state of affairs is blameworthy, is entirely independent of human interests and purposes. Different theories will make different claims about how the truth-values of moral claims are dependent on human interests and purposes, but that they are seems plausible, if not obvious. Something similar can be said of knowledge claims. At least the ­following seems right: It is more plausible that the truth-values of knowledge claims depend on the actual interests of some relevant group, than it is that they depend on the perceived interest of some individual. The most plausible interest-dependent theories will be formulated accordingly. Pa r t T h r e e . C on t e x t ua l i s m v s. i n t e r e s t-de pe n de n t i n va r i a n t i s m In this last part of the chapter I want to raise some considerations in favor of attributor contextualism over interest-dependent invariantism. As I said above, I do not pretend to have any knockdown arguments here. Rather, I want to raise, in a preliminary way, some methodological considerations about how we ought to decide the case. Second, I want to argue that these

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considerations at least point us in the direction of attributor contextualism for knowledge claims and moral responsibility claims. 1  Contextualism regarding knowledge attributions The usual methodology for adjudicating between contextualism and interest-dependent invariantism in epistemology is two-fold: consult our intuitions about possible cases, and consult the linguistic data regarding actual language use. We may include in the latter descriptions about how certain grammatical kinds in our language in fact behave. So, for example, it is common to describe the ways that indexicals behave, and to describe analogies or disanalogies with “knows.” This methodology invites different ways to explain the relevant data. For example, contextualists and invariantists will offer competing explanations for why a knowledge claim seems true or seems false in a possible case, with one side explaining the intuition in terms of semantic competence, the other in terms of pragmatics, perhaps together with “semantic blindness.” This sort of methodology has made for a number of interesting arguments and important insights. Moreover, it would seem that the methodology is absolutely essential for adjudicating the dispute at hand. Nevertheless, I think we can supplement this two-fold methodology in a fruitful way. Specifically, we can ask what our concept of knowledge and our knowledge language are for. We can ask what roles they play in our conceptual economy and our linguistic practices. By doing so, I suggest, we gain further insight about how our concepts and language can be expected to behave. This same methodology has recently been defended by Edward Craig. There seems to be no known language in which sentences using “know” do not find a comfortable and colloquial equivalent. The implication is that it answers to some very general needs of human life and thought, and it would surely be interesting to know which and how … Instead of beginning with ordinary usage, we begin with an ordinary situation. We take some prima facie plausible hypothesis about what the concept of know­ ledge does for us, what its role in our life might be, and then ask what a concept having that role would be like, what conditions would govern its application.11

What might such a “prima facie plausible hypothesis” be? We have already seen some suggestions in this direction. Specifically, we have already considered two ideas that I would like to reintroduce now: that knowledge is  Craig, Knowledge and the State of Nature, p. 2.

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the norm of practical reasoning, and that an important function of our knowledge language is to flag good information and good sources of information. This latter idea has been defended in detail by Craig: Human beings need true beliefs about their environment, beliefs that can serve to guide their actions to a successful outcome. That being so, they need sources of information that will lead them to believe truths … So any community may be presumed to have an interest in evaluating sources of information; and in connection with that interest certain concepts will be in use. The hypothesis I wish to try out is that the concept of knowledge is one of them. To put it briefly and roughly, the concept of knowledge is used to flag approved sources of information.12

Putting the two ideas together, we get the following plausible thesis: that an important function of our concept of knowledge and our knowledge language, perhaps its primary function, is to flag information and sources of information for use in practical reasoning. Now suppose this is right. Does that speak in favor of attributor contextualism or interest-dependent invariantism? To my mind, it speaks in favor of attributor contextualism. More specifically, it speaks in favor of a version of attributor contextualism that allows the attributor context to be sensitive to the interests and purposes operative in the subject’s practical environment. My thinking is this: if the function of knowledge is to serve practical reasoning, it should be tied to the interests and purposes that are relevant to the practical reasoner at issue. To make the point more clearly we may use Hawthorne’s notion of a “practical environment.” One’s practical environment is constituted by those aspects of one’s environment that are relevant to practical reasoning. Often enough, the practical reasoner with whom we are concerned will be in the attributor’s practical environment. Often enough, that is, one attributes knowledge for the purpose of practical reasoning in one’s own practical environment. But sometimes the practical reasoner will be outside the attributor’s practical environment. For example, sometimes we attribute knowledge for the purpose of practical reasoning in the subject’s practical environment. In that case, it would seem, it is the interests and purposes operative in the subject’s practical environment that are relevant. These considerations suggest the following general rule:  the truthvalue of knowledge attributions (and the like) depends on the interests and purposes operative in the relevant practical reasoning environment. Sometimes this will be the practical environment of the attributor,  Ibid., p. 11.

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sometimes that of the subject, and sometimes that of some third party. The position that results, however, will be a version of attributor contextualism, since it entails that the truth-value of knowledge claims is variable over attributor contexts. More exactly, the position is a version of interestdependent, subject-sensitive contextualism. As I said above, these remarks are at best suggestive. I do not pretend to have established the present version of contextualism over its competitors. It is worth noting, however, that the proposed view does very well in relation to Hawthorne’s scorecard for evaluating contextualist and invariantist positions. In fact, it does better than any position that Hawthorne considers. Not pretending to have argued for these claims, I will simply assert the following: subject-sensitive contextualism respects the Moorean constraint that most of our knowledge claims are true, respects plausible closure principles, preserves the intuitive connections between knowledge, assertion and practical reasoning, and can (near enough) respect disquotational schemas for “knows.” We get this last result because all knowledge attributions must satisfy fairly high minimal standards, and so a knowl­ edge claim in one practical reasoning context can normally be imported into another. I say “near enough” because there will be exceptions to this general rule. Specifically, we cannot disquote into contexts where stakes drive relevant standards unusually high. That there are such exceptions, however, seems correct. That is, we do not expect disquotation to go in that direction.13 Finally, the proposed view deals nicely with the sort of counterexample that we saw proposed against contextualism above. So long as attributor contexts can be sensitive to the practical reasoning demands of the subject, we get the intuitively right result concerning attributions of knowledge to a high-stakes subject context from a low-stakes attributor context. For example, consider the case where we are considering whether S “knows” that the bank will be open on Saturday, based on the evidence that he was at the bank two weeks ago and it was open on Saturday then. Nothing much depends on his being right for us but a lot depends on it for him. Intuitively, we should judge that S’s claim to “know” is false, even though we are evaluating his claim from a low-stakes context. As Hawthorne and Stanley point out, it seems that it is the interests and purposes operative in the subject’s practical environment that should govern the standards for Hawthorne correctly notes that no anti-skeptical view can respect both the “Epistemic Possibility Constraint” (If the probability for S that p is not zero, then S does not know that not-p) and the “Objective Chance Principle” (that epistemic probability follows knowledge of objective probability) (Hawthorne, Knowledge and Lotteries, p. 94).

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“knowledge” here. But so long as the attributor context can be properly sensitive to the interests operative in the subject’s practical environment, attributor contextualism can accommodate this point. More specifically, insofar as it is the practical reasoning of the subject that is at issue in the case, the present view rules that it is the interests and purposes operative in the subject’s practical environment that ought to govern our evaluation of the knowledge claim. On the other hand, if the knowledge claim is being evaluated for use in our own practical reasoning, then it is the interest and purposes operative in our own practical environment that should govern. All that seems intuitively correct. The considerations raised in this section, therefore, count in favor of a version of attributor contextualism. Notice, however, that these same considerations threaten to rob contextualism of its anti-skeptical force. We said that the role of knowledge in practical reasoning insures that the standards for knowledge will not vary widely or wildly – there will be a kind of stabilizing effect on the ways that contexts can shift standards. But then the standard contextualist response to skepticism is unavailable. That response says that standards rise unusually high in contexts where skeptical considerations are in play, thereby insuring that knowledge attributions come out false relative to those standards. In this way the contextualist explains the pull of skeptical arguments while saving the truth of ordinary knowledge attributions, made in contexts where standards are ordinary and low. If the arguments of this section are correct, however, then this characteristic contextualist move is unavailable. 2  Contextualism regarding moral responsibility attributions The above considerations, though somewhat speculative, point in the direction of attributor (or semantic) contextualism in epistemology. I will end with some considerations, perhaps even more speculative, in favor of attributor contextualism regarding attributions of moral responsibility. Following the methodology suggested above, we ought first to ask what moral responsibility attributions are for. Obviously enough, a primary function of moral responsibility attributions is to attribute moral responsibility. But we can ask: Why do we make attributions of moral responsibility? One important function of such attributions is to express moral praise or moral blame for some event or state of affairs. Another is to assign rewards or punishments. We now may ask: Why do we express moral praise and moral blame, and why do we assign rewards and punishments? And a plausible answer to this question is that we do so for all sorts

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of reasons. This suggests that moral responsibility attributions serve different interests and purposes in different contexts of attributions, further suggesting some kind of attributor contextualism for our moral responsibility language. For example, suppose that a teenage boy, after enduring years of various hardships and horrors, kills one of his two abusive parents. Let us say it is the father. Is the boy morally responsible for the father’s death? Typically, the events leading up to this sort of thing will be varied and complex. They will include, among many other things, abuse by the parents, willful ignorance by family and friends, failures by the school and social service systems, some more immediate precipitating event, and finally decisions and actions by the boy within this broader context. Now consider: According to a plausible account of moral responsibility, the boy is morally responsible for his father’s death only if he is causally responsible for his father’s death. And according to a plausible account of causal responsibility, the boy is causally responsible for the death only if his own agency is sufficiently salient in an explanation why the death occurred. But remember that explanatory salience is context-dependent. More specifically, the explanatory salience that a causal contributor has depends (in part) on the interests and purposes operative in the context of explanation. Finally, consider that the interests and purposes operative in relevant contexts will be varied. Citing only a few such interest sets, we have: those operative for the police at the scene of the crime; those operative for the judge during the trial; those operative for the judge during sentencing; those operative in the evaluation of the social service agencies involved; those operative for the social workers and psychologists charged with devising a treatment plan for the boy; those operative for the boy’s priest during the boy’s confession; etc. Plausibly, the truth-value of causal responsibility claims, and therefore the truth-value of moral responsibility claims, will be variable across these different contexts. Consider the following two claims. A.  “The boy is (causally) responsible for his father’s death.” B.  “The boy is (morally) responsible for his father’s death.” Plausibly, the truth-value of claim B depends on the truth-value of claim A. But since the truth-value of A is variable across different contexts of explanation, the truth-value of B is as well. In conclusion, I have argued here for two theses. The first is that two worries that might be raised against attributor contextualism are appropriately directed at interest-dependent theories in general rather than

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contextualist theories in particular. The second is that the two worries are misguided: interest-dependent theories need not rob epistemology or moral theory of a proper subject matter, and they need not rob our epistemological and moral claims of the sort of objectivity that we think they have. Finally, I have raised some considerations in favor of contextualism over interest-dependent invariantism, both for knowledge attributions and moral responsibility attributions. In particular, I have argued in favor of “subject-sensitive contextualism,” or a version of attributor contextualism that allows attributor context to be sensitive to the interests and purposes operative in the subject’s (or some other relevant) practical environment.

chapter 8

The Pyrrhonian problematic

1 Ag r i ppa’s t r i-l e m m a Consider a familiar skeptical problem. According to the skeptic, all know­ ledge must be grounded in good reasons. But not any reason is a good ­reason – one must have reasons for believing that one’s reasons are true. But then this insures that any attempt to ground knowledge in good reasons must be inadequate. For either (a) one’s reasons will go on in an infinite regress, (b) they will come back in a circle, or (c) they will end arbitrarily. But none of these outcomes is satisfactory  – none provides knowledge with grounding in good reasons. And therefore, the skeptic concludes, knowledge is impossible. Externalism in general, and reliabilism in particular, has an easy answer to the problem. In fact, many would say, the answer is too easy. Let us first review what the answer is, and then consider why some have thought that the answer is too easy. 2 T h e r e l i a bi l i s t ’s r e ply According to reliabilism, knowledge is true belief resulting from a reliable process, details aside. The details might include a clause to handle Gettier problems, and perhaps a clause restricting what sort of reliable process can ground knowledge. But none of these details will affect the essentials of the reliabilist account: knowledge is (essentially) true belief resulting from a reliable process. But then reliabilism has an easy answer to the skeptical reasoning reviewed above. Namely, the reliabilist can deny the first assumption of that reasoning – that all knowledge must be grounded in good reasons. Some reliable processes involve grounding in good reasons. But not all reliable processes do. Perception, for example, might be highly reliable, but involve nothing by way of inference from good ­reasons. Introspection is plausibly like that as well, as is logical intuition and memory. And 125

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perhaps there are other kinds of reliable, non-inferential processes besides. The picture of knowledge that results is foundationalist in structure:  A foundation of non-inferential knowledge, produced by non-inferential but reliable processes, provides the basis for further knowledge, produced by reliable inferences from the foundations. On this account, the skeptic is just wrong to think that all knowledge must be grounded in good reasons. Put another way, the skeptic is just wrong to think that all knowledgeproducing processes are reasoning processes. 3 A P y r r hon i a n r ejoi n de r Apparently, some people are not satisfied. Here is Laurence BonJour: [A]lthough the foregoing dialectical motive for externalism is abundantly clear, it is nevertheless far from obvious that what results is a plausible account of epistemic justification … and indeed such views may well be suspected of being merely ad hoc in relation to the difficulties arising from the epistemic regress problem … How can the fact that a belief is reliably produced (or indeed any sort of fact that makes a belief likely to be true) make my acceptance of that belief rational and responsible when that fact itself is entirely unavailable to me?1

Keith Lehrer is also dissatisfied with the reliabilist answer to the regress problem, and for similar reasons. Lehrer raises his “Opacity Objection” against just this sort of position. There is, however, a general objection to all externalist theories that is as simple to state as it is fundamental: the external relationship might be opaque to the subject, who has no idea that her beliefs are produced, caused, or causally sustained by a reliable belief-forming process or properly functioning cognitive faculty … All externalist theories share a common defect, to wit, that they provide accounts of the possession of information, which may be opaque to the subject, rather than of the attainment of transparent knowledge.2

Finally, Ernest Sosa agrees with BonJour and Lehrer that knowledge requires more than de facto reliability. Thus Sosa endorses the following passage from Sextus. Let us imagine that some people are looking for gold in a dark room full of treasures … [N]one of them will be persuaded that he has hit upon gold even Laurence BonJour, “A Version of Internalist Foundationalism,” in Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa, Epistemic Justification: Internalism vs Externalism, Foundations vs. Virtues (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 26–7. 2 Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge, p. 185. 1

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if he has in fact hit upon it. In the same way, the crowd of philosophers has come into the world, as into a vast house, in search of truth. But it is reasonable that the man who grasps the truth should doubt whether he has been successful.3

Sosa comments: Most would not disdain the good fortune of those who strike it rich in the dark, but it is no doubt a lesser state than that of finding gold guided by good eyesight in clear light. Enlightened discovery is more admirable than is any comparable luck that may reward groping in the dark. For one thing, enlightened discovery is success attributable to the agent; luck in the dark is not.4

According to Sosa, enlightened discovery requires a perspective on the reliability of one’s cognitive faculties. Real knowledge requires that one’s belief be reliably produced, but also that one see that one’s belief is reliably produced. What favors reflective over unreflective knowledge? Recall that reflective acquisition of knowledge is like acquisition of gold in the light, whereas unreflective acquisition of knowledge is like acquisition of gold in the dark. In each case the former is distinguished from the latter in being a more admirable occurrence, and one that so far might be ascribed admiringly to the protagonist, as his doing.5 The Pyrrhonists reject … externalism because it dignifies mere “groping in the dark” with the title of knowledge. The Pyrrhonists highlight enlightened know­ ledge, acquired and sustained in awareness of one’s epistemic doings. Only this is “knowledge” worthy of the title.6

BonJour, Lehrer and Sosa are no skeptics. Rather, they think that the sort of perspective that is needed to dispel the darkness can be provided. In other words, all of our philosophers agree that one needs a perspective to dispel the darkness. The skeptic thinks that this need cannot be satisfied, whereas our non-skeptics think that it can be. More specifically, the skeptic thinks that any attempt to provide the needed perspective will fall into vicious circularity, arbitrary assumption or infinite regress, hence being impaled on some horn of the tri-lemma. Our non-skeptics think otherwise:  they believe one can achieve the perspective while avoiding impalement. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians, VII, 259. Quoted by Ernest Sosa in “How to Resolve the Pyrrhonian Problematic: A Lesson from Descartes,” Philosophical Studies 85 (1997): 231; and A Virtue Epistemology, p. 129. 4 Sosa, “How to Resolve the Pyrrhonian Problematic,” p. 231. 5 Ibid., p. 241.   6 Ibid., p. 242. 3

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This dispute is an interesting one, raising difficult issues about the nature of our epistemic condition. The most interesting of these issues concern the sorts of circularity that our epistemic condition involves, and whether such circularity is vicious or virtuous, or at least benign. One prominent issue is whether epistemic circularity (of the sort we are stuck with) is compatible with knowledge. Another issue is whether such circularity is compatible with a “satisfying” understanding of our knowledge. Hence Barry Stroud writes, If I ask of my own knowledge of the world around me how it is possible, I can explain it along “externalist” lines by showing that it is a set of beliefs I have acquired through perception by means of belief-forming mechanisms which are reliable … As a good externalist … I think I do know or have good reasons to believe my theory; I believe that I fulfill the conditions which that very theory says are sufficient for knowing or having good reason to believe it. Do I now have a satisfactory understanding of my knowledge of the world? Have I answered to my own satisfaction the philosophical question of how my knowledge of the world is possible? I want to say No.7

In this chapter I want to focus on a point of agreement among these various philosophers rather than on any point in dispute. In particular, all of our philosophers endorse something like the following reasoning. The Pyrrhonist’s Reasoning 1. Knowledge is success for which the agent deserves credit. 2. True belief without a perspective is relevantly like grasping gold in the dark: it is mere lucky success, and therefore success for which the agent does not deserve credit. Therefore, 3. True belief without a perspective does not qualify as knowledge.8 I agree with premise 1 of this reasoning, but I want to reject premise 2. In other words, I want to reject the idea that knowledge requires a pers­ pective on one’s reliability. In effect, the question here is whether the Pyrrhonian metaphor is apt: Is reliably produced true belief, without a perspective on that reliability, relevantly like grasping gold in the dark? I want to say no. Barry Stroud, “Scepticism, ‘Externalism,’ and the Goal of Epistemology,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (supplementary vol.) 68 (1994): 300–1. 8 Something like this is endorsed by Sosa and Stroud, although both would insist on qualifications. It would seem that BonJour and Lehrer endorse the present line without qualification, as would our skeptics. 7

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If the metaphor is apt, then the skeptic is right to conclude that belief without a perspective does not amount to knowledge. The point of the metaphor is that the person who grasps gold in the dark is lucky, and that this sort of luck is incompatible with credit for the success. As Sosa writes, “Enlightened discovery is more admirable than is any comparable luck that may reward groping in the dark … enlightened discovery is success attributable to the agent; luck in the dark is not.” As BonJour writes, “No doubt I am quite fortunate if my perceptual and introspective beliefs happen to be [reliably produced] … But none of this has any clear bearing on the issue of epistemic justification, which has to do, it will be argued, with the rationality or irrationality of one’s beliefs, rather than with what appears to be, from the standpoint of the believer, mere cognitive luck.”9 4 A s t r at e g y f or a dj u dic at i ng t h e di s pu t e be t w e e n P y r r hon i s t s a n d r e l i a bi l i s t s Our question thus crystallizes to this: Is premise 2 of the above reasoning correct? Is true belief without a perspective, like grasping gold in the dark, mere lucky success, and therefore success for which the agent does not deserve credit? That depends on difficult issues concerning what it means for a success to be lucky, and concerning the relation between luck and credit for success. So long as these issues remain unresolved, there will be unresolved disagreements regarding whether the Pyrrhonian metaphor is apt. Skeptics and their sympathizers will view the metaphor as apt indeed, and will either insist on the skeptical conclusion or take great pains to avoid it. Reliabilists will not see the metaphor as apt. They will agree that knowledge is incompatible with luck in some sense, but will insist that reliably produced belief is not lucky in the relevant sense. They might continue to wonder what all the fuss is about, and why some people are never satisfied. Let us use the label “Pyrrhonists” to denote both skeptics and their sympathizers. In other words, we will use the label to denote anyone who thinks that the Pyrrhonist metaphor is apt – that unreflective true belief does not amount to knowledge because it is too much like grasping gold in the dark. How are we to resolve the dispute between Pyrrhonists and reliabilists, the latter of whom do not think that the metaphor is apt? I propose that we can make progress by looking at a related problem in moral theory. In particular, I want to look at the problem of moral luck,   BonJour, “A Version of Internalist Foundationalism,” p. 27.

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where issues about luck and credit take center stage. My suggestion is that the skeptical problem we have been reviewing shares a common structure with the problem of moral luck and that, as such, the two problems share a common solution. Here is a quick sketch of the common structure. First, something is a matter of luck in relation to some agent just in case it is not the agent’s doing. Put differently, something is a matter of luck just in case it is external to the agent’s own thinking, choosing and acting. Second, judgments that attribute moral responsibility, like judgments that attribute knowledge, essentially involve agent evaluations. To morally praise someone for some event, for example, is to make an evaluation concerning that person’s moral standing: it is to say that he or she deserves moral credit for the success in question. Likewise, to attribute knowledge to someone is to make an evaluation concerning that person’s epistemic standing: it is to say that he or she deserves epistemic (or intellectual) credit for the success in question. And now problems arise. For how can agent evaluations depend, as they certainly seem to depend, on factors that are external to agency? In other words, how can agent evaluations depend on luck, or what is external to the agent’s own thinking, choosing and acting? The problem of moral luck is illustrated by comparing two drunk ­drivers. Suppose that someone gets drunk at a party and decides to drive home drunk. On the way home, he loses control of his car, swerves up on the sidewalk, and kills a pedestrian. Now consider a second driver, who also gets drunk at a party and decides to drive home drunk. On the way home, the second loses control of his car, swerves up on the sidewalk, but kills no one because no one is there to kill. This second driver then regains control of his car and drives home safely. On the one hand, we want to evaluate the first and second drivers differently – we want to say that the first driver is morally blameworthy for killing someone, and that this affects his standing as a moral agent. On the other hand, the only difference between the first driver and the second with respect to killing a pedestrian lies outside both persons’ agency: namely, there was a pedestrian where the first driver swerved, but no pedestrian where the second driver did. So how can the two deserve different agent evaluations? It seems wrong to think that they do. Now consider a reliable perceiver, but one lacking an epistemic ­perspective on her reliability, and compare this person with Lehrer’s Mr.  Truetemp, who also fails to know that he is reliable. Suppose the unreflective perceiver looks at a functioning thermometer and on this basis forms the belief that the temperature is 104 degrees. Suppose

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Mr. Truetemp forms the same belief, but on the basis of the computemp implanted in his brain. On the one hand, we want to evaluate the perceiver and Mr. Truetemp differently – we want to say that the perceiver knows that the temperature is 104 degrees, whereas Mr. Truetemp does not. On the other hand, the only difference between the unreflective perceiver and Mr. Truetemp with respect to grasping this truth lies outside both persons’ agency: namely, the perceiver is fitted (unknowingly) with ­reliable perception, whereas Truetemp is fitted (unknowingly) with a ­reliable comp­utemp. So how can the unreflective perceiver and Truetemp deserve different agent evaluations? It seems wrong to think that they do. The point of the Pyrrhonian metaphor is to drive this last intuition home. The only difference between the person who grasps gold and the person who grasps granite is external to agency – that is, external to anything that the person does, or chooses or thinks. And so (obviously!) the person who grasps valuable gold deserves no more credit for his success than the person who grasps worthless granite. We may see that each of these cases shares the following structure, where S1, S2 and X are bound under universal quantifiers in premise 1, open elsewhere: Schema 1 1. If persons S1 and S2 are exactly alike with respect to some event X, except regarding factors that are external to each person’s agency, then S1 and S2 deserve equal agent evaluations in relation to X. 2. S1 and S2 are exactly alike with respect to event X, except regarding factors that are external to each person’s agency. 3. S2 clearly does not deserve credit (or blame) for X. Therefore, 4. S1 does not deserve credit (or blame) for X. (1, 2, 3) In each instance of the schema, we have a problem insofar as we want to resist the conclusion that S1 does not deserve credit (or blame) of the relevant sort. Hence the “problem” of moral luck is a problem insofar as we want to say that the first driver is to blame for killing a pedestrian. We have an analogous problem of epistemic luck insofar as we want to say that ordinary perceivers can have perceptual knowledge. A number of authors have suggested that a virtue-theoretic approach to moral evaluation explains how moral luck is possible. In other words, it explains how moral evaluations of agents can be appropriate even in the context of luck. I want to develop and defend this suggestion, and to argue

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that the same approach works in epistemology as well. A virtue-theoretic account explains how epistemic evaluations of agents can be appropriate in the context of luck. The result will be that the Pyrrhonian metaphor is not apt after all. Put another way, premise 2 of The Pyrrhonist’s Reasoning is false. This line of argument will take some time to develop. In particular, it will be necessary to take a close look at the problem of moral luck in its own right. This will be the task of Section 5. In Section 6 I will show how the problem of moral luck can be generalized, and how various problems in epistemology, including our skeptical problem, are related to this general problem. In Section 7 I propose a solution to the problem of moral luck, and in Section 8 I show how that solution can be applied in epistemology. This will put us in a position, finally, to see why the Pyrrhonian metaphor is not apt and why premise 2 of The Pyrrhonist’s Reasoning is false. 5 T h e probl e m of mor a l luc k The problem of moral luck arises because it seems that agents who are alike in certain respects ought to receive like moral evaluations. In partic­ ular, it seems that agents who are alike except for matters that are not in their control ought to receive like evaluations of moral praise and moral blame. In order to make the problem more explicit, recall the example of the drunk drivers. The first driver (call him D1) goes to a party and gets drunk, decides to drive home anyway, and proceeds to drive drunk. On the way home he loses control of his car, swerves on to the sidewalk and kills a pedestrian. The second driver (call him D2), goes to a party and gets drunk, decides to drive home anyway and proceeds to drive drunk. On the way home D2 loses control of his car and swerves on to the sidewalk, but kills no one because no one is there to be killed. D2 regains control of his car and reaches home safely. On the one hand, we have the intuition that D1 and D2 deserve different moral evaluations. In particular, we want to say that D1 is morally to blame for killing a pedestrian, whereas D2, of course, is not. On the other hand, it seems that luck ought not to affect moral responsibility, and that it is just a matter of luck that there was a pedestrian on the sidewalk where D1 lost control of his car, and no pedestrian on the sidewalk where D2 lost control of his. But then D1 cannot be more blameworthy than D2 for killing a pedestrian. To press the point, it seems wrong to say that D1 is a worse person than D2 for having killed a pedestrian. For once again, the only difference between them was a matter of luck.

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But now we have a problem: D2 is obviously not blameworthy for killing a pedestrian, since D2 did not kill anyone! And therefore, it seems, D1 is not responsible for killing a pedestrian either. We can state the problem more formally as follows. Argument 1 1. If S1 and S2 are exactly alike with respect to some event X, except regarding factors that are not within either person’s control, then S1 and S2 are equally morally responsible in relation to X. 2. D1 and D2 are exactly alike with respect to killing a pedestrian, except regarding factors that are not within either person’s control. 3. D2 does not deserve blame for killing a pedestrian. Therefore, 4. D1 does not deserve blame for killing a pedestrian. (1, 2, 3) So far we have not reached any general conclusions about moral responsibility. All that Argument 1 shows, if it shows anything at all, is that D1 is not to blame for killing a pedestrian. But then one might not find that conclusion unacceptable. Substantial blame, it might be suggested, is to be located in a person’s actions rather than in the consequences of their actions. What we ought to conclude from the two cases, this suggestion goes, is that both D1 and D2 are substantially to blame for drinking and driving.10 But consider the case of D3. D3 goes to a party, gets drunk, decides to drive home anyway, but passes out before he can get his car in gear. Now we cannot blame D3 for drinking and driving, since he did not drink and drive. But it might be only a matter of luck that D3 passed out before drinking and driving while D1 and D2 did not. We might suppose that all three drank equal amounts, but that D3 (unknowingly) suffers from a virus that lowers his tolerance for alcohol. How then can we support the claim that D1 and D2 are more to blame than D3? It in fact seems wrong to say that D3 is a better person than either D1 or D2 by virtue of the fact that D3 did not drink and drive. Substantial blame, it would seem, will have to be located elsewhere. The next place to look is obvious, for although D3 did not drink and drive, he decided to drink and drive. But now consider a fourth person. 10

The distinction between substantial and insubstantial blame is taken from Michael Zimmerman, An Essay on Moral Responsibility (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1988). According to Zimmerman, substantial blame is the only blame that “counts” against a person’s moral standing.

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D4 did not even decide to drink and drive, but only because he was scheduled to work that night. We can imagine that if D4 was not scheduled to work, he would have gone to the party and would have freely decided to drink and drive. Suppose that D4 decides to drink and drive all the time, and that he would have done just that on this night had he been given the opportunity to do so. Is D4 morally superior to D1, D2 or D3 for not having decided to drink and drive? The answer would seem to be no, and yet it might be only a matter of luck that D4 was scheduled to work the night of the party, and only a matter of luck that D1, D2 and D3 were not scheduled to work. Finally, consider a fifth person, D5. D5 is not even the kind of person who would decide to drink and drive if given the opportunity, but only because (unluckily) he lost a close friend to drunk driving and has thereby been sensitized to the dangers involved in such behavior. And we can imagine that D1, D2, D3, and D4 are all such that, if they had lost a close friend to drunk driving, they too would have become people who would not freely decide to drink and drive. Once again, the only thing that separates D5 from the other persons is just a matter of luck. But then if D5 is not to blame for being the kind of person who would decide to drink and drive if given the opportunity, how can the others be to blame for being that way? The series of cases just reviewed suggests the following general principle: For any S and X such that S might be morally to blame for X, we can describe another person S' such that (a) there is no difference between S and S' with respect to X except for factors not within either person’s control, and (b) S' is clearly not to blame for X. Putting this principle together with premise 1 of Argument 1, we get the following argument. Argument 2 1. If S1 and S2 are exactly alike with respect to some event X, except regarding factors that are not within either person’s control, then S1 and S2 are equally morally responsible in relation to X. 2. For any S and X such that S might be morally to blame for X, we can describe another person S' such that; (a) there is no difference between S and S' with respect to X except for factors not within either person’s control, and (b) S' is not to blame for X. Therefore, 3. No event is such that anyone is morally to blame for its occurring. No one is morally to blame for anything. (1, 2)

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6 T h e probl e m g e n e r a l i z e d The problem of moral luck expressed in Argument 2 is articulated in terms of moral responsibility and control. That is, luck is understood as that which is not within the agent’s control, and luck in this sense is said to be incompatible with moral responsibility. We can generalize the argument by broadening the notion of responsibility and narrowing the notion of luck. First, we can replace the notion of moral responsibility for an event with a more general notion of responsibility (moral or otherwise) for an event. In this way, we expand the scope of the argument to include intellectual credit for true belief. Second, we may narrow the notion of luck by expanding the notion of agency. In the problem of moral luck, luck is opposed to agency and agency is understood in terms of control. A broader notion of agency includes all of the agent’s activities, and not just those activities that are, in a sense relevant to moral evaluation, under the agent’s control. In this broader sense, something is internal to agency just in case it is the agent’s own doing, but now in a broad sense of “doing,” including all of the agent’s thinking, as well as her choosing and acting. Expanding the notion of agency this way continues to identify luck with that which is external to agency, but now includes the agent’s cognitive activities as internal to agency. Having revised the notions of responsibility, agency and luck in this way, we can now articulate a more general problem of responsibility and luck, of which the problem of moral luck is one instance. The moral general problem invokes the following principle about luck and responsibility: LR. If S1 and S2 are exactly alike with respect to some event X, except regarding factors that are external to each person’s agency, then S1 and S2 are equally responsible in relation to X.

For example, if D1 and D2 are so alike with respect to killing a pedestrian, then each is equally to blame with respect to killing a pedestrian. If an ordinary perceiver and Mr. Truetemp are so alike with respect to believing that the temperature is 104 degrees, then each is equally creditable for believing that truth. The second part of the general problem is that one of the two is clearly not responsible for the event in question. Thus D2 clearly does not deserve blame for killing a pedestrian, since he killed no pedestrian. Truetemp clearly does not deserve credit for believing the truth about the temperature, since his belief is caused by the computemp implanted in his brain.11 Other problems in epistemology share this structure as well. For example, Descartes’s demon victim and a reliable perceiver are exactly alike regarding their beliefs about the world, except

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One motivation for LR, we have seen, is that judgments about responsibility for an event are a kind of agent evaluation. And, in general, it seems wrong that differences external to agency should ground differences in agent evaluation. (Let us call this principle LA.) Hence one motivation for LR is the principle we saw earlier about the relation between luck and agent evaluation in general. Once again, then, we see that all of our problems share the following structure: Schema 2 1. LA. If S1 and S2 are exactly alike with respect to some event X, except regarding factors that are external to each person’s agency, then S1 and S2 deserve equal agent evaluations in relation to X. Therefore, 2. LR. If S1 and S2 are exactly alike with respect to some event X, except regarding factors that are external to each person’s agency, then S1 and S2 are equally responsible in relation to X. (1) 3. S1 and S2 are exactly alike with respect to event X, except regarding ­factors that are external to each person’s agency. 4. S2 does not deserve credit (or blame) for X. Therefore, 5. S1 does not deserve credit (or blame) for X. (2, 3, 4) 7  A s olu t ion t o t h e probl e m of mor a l l uc k We may now return to Argument 2, which articulates the problem of moral luck. As we have seen, Premise 1 of that argument is motivated by several examples involving drunk drivers and would-be drunk drivers. It is also motivated by more general principles about luck, responsibility and agent evaluation (LA and LR). Premise 1 is false, however, as are the more general principles that have been motivating it. Why do premise 1 and the two principles seem plausible? I suggest that it is because discussions about luck and responsibility tend to conflate for factors that are external to agency. Since the victim clearly deserves no credit for true beliefs about her environment (she has none), the embodied perceiver deserves no credit either. Standard Gettier problems also share this structure. For example, S has a true belief that someone in her office owns a Ford. But S is in exactly the same position with respect to this belief, except for matters external to S’s agency, as is someone who believes the same thing on the same evidence, but where no one in the office owns a Ford. Since this second person cannot be credited for her true belief (she has none), S deserves no credit either.

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two sorts of agent evaluation: (a) evaluations concerning agent responsibility (or record) and (b) evaluations concerning agent worth (or virtue). Evaluations concerning agent record are judgments about what the agent is responsible for: that she can be praised or credited for some success, or blamed for some failure. Evaluations concerning agent worth are judgments about what sort of person the agent is: that she is virtuous or vicious, or better or worse than someone else. Discussions about luck and responsibility tend to conflate these two issues. At the very least, they tend to understand agent worth as closely related to (perhaps entirely determined by) agent record.12 This same view is involved in the way we interpreted the examples of the drunk drivers. In all of those examples, we compared two persons with respect to some event, and judged that one person was not morally better or worse than the other in virtue of that event. This judgment was then used to support a conclusion that the two were equal in responsibility with respect to that event. For example, we judged that D1 is no worse a person than D2 for having killed a pedestrian, and therefore that D1 is not to blame for killing a pedestrian, since D2 is not. Once clearly stated, however, this view of the relation between agent record and agent worth seems clearly false. For agent record depends on what the agent actually does, whereas agent worth (virtue or vice) depends on what the agent is disposed to do. Put another way, agent record is a function of what happens in the actual world, whereas agent worth is a function of what happens in the actual world and across relevant possible worlds. This accords with the idea that agent worth concerns agent character, and that character concerns what one is disposed to do, as opposed to (merely) what one actually does. On the present view, moral worth remains insulated from moral luck, at least to some degree. This is because moral worth is determined not only by what one actually does in the circumstances that one actually inhabits, but by what one would do in a range of circumstances, most of which are Thus Nagel writes, “when we blame someone for his actions we are not merely saying it is bad that they happened, or bad that he exists: we are judging him, saying he is bad, which is different from his being a bad thing.” Thomas Nagel, “Moral Luck,” in Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 25. Zimmerman follows Nagel when he writes, “In this sense of ‘responsibility,’ if someone is responsible for some event, then he is worthy of praise or blame for that event … [S]uch praise and blame are … judgments about a person’s moral standing or moral worth in light of the event in question.” Michael Zimmerman, “Luck and Moral Responsibility,” Ethics 97 (1987): 375. Thomson defines blameworthiness in terms of agent worth: “A person P is to greater or lesser blame for doing (or being) such and such … just in case his doing (or being) the such and such is stronger or weaker reason to think P a bad person.” Judith Jarvis Thomson, “Morality and Bad Luck,” Metaphilosophy 20 (1989): 210.

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not actual. This preserves our intuition that D1 is not a worse person than D2 for having killed a pedestrian, since we can now say that D2 would have killed a pedestrian in D1’s circumstances, and D1 would not have killed a pedestrian in D2’s circumstances. The two drivers’ dispositions are the same in this respect, and to that extent they share the same moral worth. And of course the same goes for the other persons in the examples. The way the examples were described, all five of our drunk drivers and would-be drunk drivers share the same moral worth insofar as all five share the same dispositions. Once these distinctions are clearly in mind, moreover, our examples no longer motivate problematic conclusions about moral responsibility. That is, once we clearly distinguish between moral record and moral worth, and give up the idea that worth is entirely determined by record, we are no longer motivated to say that D1 is not blameworthy for killing a pedestrian. The fact that D1 is no worse a person than D2 for having killed a pedestrian no longer motivates the conclusion that D1 is not blameworthy for having killed a pedestrian. Likewise, the fact that D3 is no worse than D4 for having decided to drive drunk no longer motivates the conclusion that D3 is not to blame for deciding to drive drunk. Those conclusions were motivated only insofar as we were thinking that sameness in moral worth must imply sameness in moral responsibility. Once relieved of that assumption, it is no longer counterintuitive to think that luck affects moral record, or what one is morally responsible for. In fact, the present position allows us to preserve all of the intuitions that we want to preserve. Hence we are allowed to say both (a) that people can be praiseworthy and blameworthy for what they actually decide and do, and (b) that people who act very differently might nevertheless share the same moral worth. In fact, these can now be endorsed as the platitudes that they are, insofar as moral record is a matter of what one does, whereas moral character is a matter of what one is like. The same considerations show why the more general principles ­motivating premise 1 are also false. Those principles were as follows: LA. If S1 and S2 are exactly alike with respect to some event X, except regarding factors that are external to each person’s agency, then S1 and S2 deserve equal agent evaluations in relation to X. LR. If S1 and S2 are exactly alike with respect to some event X, except regarding factors that are external to each person’s agency, then S1 and S2 are equally responsible in relation to X.

Again, making a clear distinction between agent record and agent worth, and giving up the idea that worth is entirely determined by record,

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undermines the plausibility of both principles. We now recognize two kinds of agent evaluation. LA remains plausible as a principle about evaluations of agent worth, but it is no longer plausible as a principle about evaluations of agent record. For the same reasons, LR is no longer plausible at all. We should pause to consider an objection to the present account. It might be thought that we have solved one problem of moral luck only to make way for another. This is because the account makes agent worth a function of one’s dispositions, but what dispositions one has is also partly a matter of luck. Therefore, the account makes agent worth to be a matter of luck, and this itself is counterintuitive. The answer to this objection is as follows: It is true that the present account makes moral worth partly a matter of luck, but not in a way that is counterintuitive – not in a way that gives rise to a problem of moral luck. Clearly, one’s actual character is partly determined by luck, since it is partly determined by the accidents of one’s history. Moreover, there are restrictions on personal identity which make it impossible for the same person to be in just any counterfactual situation. I cannot coherently imagine myself in any circumstances whatsoever, for if the changes I imagine are sufficiently radical, it will not be me that I am imagining. Therefore, different people face different choices (actually and possibly), and have the opportunity for different actions (actually and possibly). But this by itself is a truism. Certainly it does not follow from this that there is no such thing as moral worth, or that no one has moral worth, or that everyone has the same moral worth. In sum, the present position sufficiently isolates moral worth from luck so as to prevent any paradoxes or problems from arising. And so it does not solve one problem only by making way for another.13 8 A ppl ic at ion t o k now l e d g e at t r i bu t ions We turned to the problem of moral luck because we wanted to understand better the relation between luck and responsibility for success. That relation seemed problematic because evaluations of agent responsibility seemed in certain ways incompatible with the influence of luck. In particular, it seemed that two agents equal in all respects internal to agency must deserve equal agent evaluations. We resolved this problem by making a distinction between two kinds of agent evaluation: evaluations of agent I first defended this solution to the problem of moral luck in “A Second Paradox Concerning Responsibility and Luck,” Metaphilosophy 26 (1995): 81–96. See that paper for a more detailed presentation of the account, and for further replies to objections.

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responsibility (or record) and evaluations of agent worth (or virtue). This allowed us to say that luck can influence responsibility, while preserving the intuition that agent worth, at least in important respects, is immune to the influences of luck. I now want to clarify the proposed solution and to relate it more precisely to a virtue-theoretic account of knowledge and epistemic normativity. This involves explaining more clearly how, on a virtue-theoretic account, knowledge attributions involve evaluations of agent ­responsibility or record. Having explained this, we can see more clearly how such an account makes certain kinds of luck to be compatible with knowledge. According to the account I have been defending, knowledge is true belief grounded in the cognitive abilities (or virtues) of the believer. More exactly: in cases of knowledge, S believes the truth because S believes from ability. Likewise, in cases of knowledge S deserves credit for believing the truth. This is because, necessarily, a special sort of credit accrues to success from ability. And on the present account, knowledge is an instance of success from ability. In cases of knowledge, then, S deserves credit for believing the truth, since S’s believing the truth is the result of intellectual virtue or ability. Nevertheless, true belief is never the result of ability alone. Rather, it is always the result of ability together with cooperation from the world. This, moreover, is a completely general truth about ability and success. Whether intellectual, athletic, moral or otherwise, success from ability is never the result of ability alone, but always the result of ability and enabling circumstances. Hence the morally courageous fireman rescues no one if the floor caves in during his rescue attempt. Likewise, the skillful basketball player wins nothing if a fire breaks out before he gets off the winning shot. If we define luck as that which is external to agency, then this is equivalent to saying that success always requires luck. That is, even success from ability requires enabling circumstances. Even this sort of success requires that the world cooperate. That sort of luck need not undermine responsibility, however. On the contrary, if one is blessed with athletic abilities, and with the opportunity to display them successfully, one deserves credit for that display. Likewise, if one is blessed with intellectual or moral virtues, and the opportunity to display them successfully, one deserves credit for that display. That is not to say that responsibility is consistent with any luck whatsoever. In general, agent responsibility is inconsistent with the sort of luck that takes away agency. In particular, the special sort of credit due to success from ability is inconsistent with the sort of luck that takes

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away able (or virtuous) agency. Both are consistent, however, with the sort of luck that enables virtuous agency. That is, they are consistent with those circumstances external to agency that enable success from ability. 9 I s t h e P y r r hon i a n m e ta phor a p t ? Is reliably produced true belief, like grasping gold in the dark, too lucky to count as success that can be credited to the believer? We are now in a position to say “no.” In general, success through virtue deserves credit of a special sort. In particular, believing the truth through intellectual virtue deserves credit of that sort. Accordingly, true belief produced by ­reliable perception is not mere lucky success. Importantly, it is not “lucky” in any sense that undermines credit for the success. And now we can explain why the Pyrrhonian metaphor is not apt: the person who grasps gold in the dark does not do so reliably. More precisely, he does not grasp gold through ability. But this is just the sense in which his grasping is too lucky to count as a success to his credit – it is too much the result of external circumstances, and not enough the result of an ability on his part. Consider now a person who grasps gold in the dark, but reliably, and through an ability to do so. Perhaps he can smell gold, or can feel its special weight. Should that be considered “mere lucky success”? Not at all, and precisely because it is success through ability. Suppose the person cannot explain how he reliably finds gold in the dark. Or suppose he has no beliefs about his reliability (perhaps he is too modest, or confused, or just unreflective about such things). That does not count against his having the ability in the first place, or against credit for success through that ability, no more than it counts against credit for the excellent athlete, when she is modest, or confused, or unreflective about her abilities. Likewise, success through intellectual ability is creditable to the believer, and independently of the believer’s perspective on those abilities. These same considerations explain why Mr. Truetemp does not know, even though his beliefs about the temperature are reliably produced. Namely, Truetemp does not believe through ability. On the contrary, it is the computemp that is responsible for Truetemp’s success, and in a way that makes the success not creditable to him. This also explains why a perspective on his belief would, in this case, give Truetemp knowledge for the first time. Such a perspective is just what is needed to make the reliable mechanism and its working internal to agency, and therefore just what is

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needed to make Truetemp’s success creditable to him.14 It would be a mistake, however, to think that such a perspective is always needed to make reliability and success internal to agency. In general, one’s abilities or powers are appropriately one’s own, independently of any perspective on those abilities or powers. In particular, one’s intellectual abilities are appropriately one’s own, independently of any perspective on one’s abilities. What should we say about BonJour’s clairvoyant? Again, whether the clairvoyant knows depends on whether he deserves credit for his true belief. And this, in turn, depends on whether his believing the truth is the result of virtuous agency. Is it? That depends on the details of the case. If the clairvoyant has good evidence against his belief – evidence that by his own lights requires that he withhold judgment, or even that he believe otherwise – then relying on clairvoyance alone does not constitute virtuous agency. On the other hand, we can imagine cases where clairvoyant belief coheres well with one’s other beliefs, and where reliable clairvoyance is well integrated with one’s other cognitive powers. In that sort of case, the cognitive agent is very different from ourselves, and fitted with very different cognitive powers. Yet these might be virtues nonetheless. And in that sort of case, I suggest, it is no longer counterintuitive that one can know through clairvoyance.15 10  I s t h e r e mor e h e r e t h a n m e ta phor ? One might object that the Pyrrhonist relies on more than metaphor in the present dispute with the reliabilist over the need for an epistemic perspective. Hence Sosa gives an argument for the following “principle of the criterion,” from which the need for a perspective on one’s knowledge follows straightaway. PC. One knows that p and grasps (understands) the proposition that one knows that p, only if one is justified in believing that the sources of one’s belief that p are minimally reliable (i.e. not extremely unreliable).

Sosa’s argument for PC relies on a principle of “epistemic assent”: EA. If one knows that p, and one also grasps (understands) the proposition that one knows that p, then one must be justified in believing that one knows that p (in believing it at least implicitly, in that if one were to ask oneself whether one knows that p, one would assent). Here I am indebted to Daniel Breyer. See also Christine McKinnon, “Agent Reliabilism, Subjective Justification, and Epistemic Credit,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 44, 3 (2006): 489–508. 15 Clairvoyance cases are addressed in more detail in Chapter 9. 14

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Sosa gives us two considerations in favor of EA. Let us look at each in turn. First, he argues that being “reflectively right” concerning some subject matter is preferable to being unreflectively right. Suppose that, concerning a certain subject matter, you ask yourself whether you know, and you have to answer “Definitely not,” or “Who knows?” In that case, is there not some straightforward and widely shared sense in which you do not really know? … That all may amount to nothing more than this: It is better to believe and to act in ways that are reflectively right than in ways that happen to be right but unreflectively so.16

Fair enough – let us grant both points for the sake of argument. But neither point yields EA. Even if it is better to be right reflectively than to be right unreflectively, it does not follow that knowledge requires being right reflectively. Likewise, even if there is some sense in which one does not really know without being right reflectively, it does not follow that knowledge per se requires that, or that knowledge in any ordinary sense requires that. Turn now to Sosa’s second consideration in favor of EA. Sosa writes: Let us now focus on reflective knowledge or justification, knowledge or justification that is, as suggested by Sextus’s simile, “enlightened.” If one knows (reflectively), then one must believe one knows, at least implicitly, in that if one faced the question consciously, one would assent. But there is more: surely this belief, the belief that one knows, could hardly buttress one’s being in the high-grade state of reflective knowledge if it were either (a) false, or (b) arbitrary or irrational, or (c) otherwise unjustified or of low epistemic quality. Surely this belief must itself be justified. We arrive thus at [EA].17

But again, suppose we grant that reflective knowledge requires that sort of reflection. Let us suppose, even, that this is true by definition. Still, it does not follow that knowledge per se requires that sort of reflection, and that is what EA says. Similarly, PC, which EA is supposed to support, is put forward as a principle about knowledge per se rather than about knowledge of some special “high-grade” sort. That is as it should be, since the skeptical conclusion is not interesting if it concerns only knowledge of some special sort. On the contrary, the skeptical conclusion is supposed to be about knowledge “worthy of the title,” and that is what makes it interesting. 16

  Sosa, “How to Resolve the Pyrrhonian Problematic,” pp. 231–2. Ibid., p. 232.

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We may conclude, then, that the Pyrrhonist gives us no independent argument in favor of the requirement for a perspective on knowledge per se. Neither does he give us any argument that knowledge in some ordinary sense requires a perspective. All we have is a metaphor, and a question regarding whether that metaphor is apt. 1 1  A n ac c om modat ion i s t s t r at e g y Still, one should admit, it does seem better to be right reflectively than to be right unreflectively. It seems better to have knowledge of a “high-grade” sort than of a “low-grade” sort. I end by considering a different strategy for addressing Pyrrhonian concerns – one that emphasizes the value of understanding over mere knowledge. This strategy is implicit in Sosa’s earlier work, but comes to the fore in his more recent discussions.18 First, recall Sosa’s distinction between two kinds of knowledge. “Animal knowledge,” he tells us, can be defined by minimal conditions regarding de facto reliability or something in the neighborhood. “Reflective know­ ledge” is of a higher grade, requiring the sort of perspective on reliability that coherentism holds dear. Endorsing this distinction, Sosa notes, does not commit one to the position that our ordinary knowledge language is ambiguous. Rather, the point is to acknowledge a class of knowledge that is of especially high quality and value, whether ordinary language recognizes the kind or not. With that distinction in hand, we can then interpret the demand for an epistemic perspective as a demand on high-quality, reflective knowledge. That cannot be the whole story, however, since Pyrrhonian concerns about a regress will now apply to reflective knowledge. So long as the demand for a perspective is fully general, the Pyrrhonian’s skeptical reasoning will apply, no matter what label we put on the desirable epistemic state. This leads us to a second important element of Sosa’s accommodationist strategy:  to conceive higher-quality knowledge as a matter of degree. The Pyrrhonian reasoning takes hold precisely because the requirement for a perspective is conceived as fully general. It is that fully general requirement that issues in a regress or circle. But we can acknowledge the value of an epistemic perspective, Sosa argues, even when that perspective is not fully general. That value lies, at least in part, in the coherence that The position that follows is reconstructed from ibid.; Ernest Sosa, “Replies,” in John Greco, ed., Sosa and his Critics (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), especially pp. 290–304 and 309–15; and A Virtue Epistemology, Chapter 6.

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such a perspective confers, and on attendant understanding. But coherence and understanding come in degrees. More is better than less, and some is better than none at all.19 Sosa’s strategy for accommodating the Pyrrhonian intuition is now in place: acknowledge the value of an epistemic perspective, i.e. a perspective on the sources of one’s beliefs, and on the reliability of those sources. But acknowledge that value in the context of a more general value: that of explanatory coherence and the understanding that such coherence brings with it. In this way we avoid any requirement on knowledge, or even on reflective knowledge, that issues in a general skepticism. At the same time, we give the skeptic his due: we acknowledge the superiority of knowledge with understanding over knowledge without understanding. Or, what is the same, we acknowledge the inferiority of the latter in comparison with the former. However, one question remains: Why should the special kind of understanding involved in an epistemic perspective constitute a distinctive epistemic value? Granting that understanding is a distinctive epistemic value over and above knowledge per se, and granting that a coherent perspective contributes to that distinctive value, why should the particular sort of understanding involved in an epistemic perspective constitute a distinctive epistemic value all of its own? We saw in Chapter 1 that understanding has traditionally been understood in terms of knowledge of causes. Thus understanding involves knowledge of why things exist, how changes occur, and how things are related. This is why it is plausible that a coherent perspective contributes to understanding: coherence in general, and especially explanatory coherence, contributes to a grasp of exactly these matters. But then why should reflective knowledge, or understanding regarding the sources of one’s first-order beliefs, be considered a distinctive kind of understanding, with its own distinctive epistemic value? Why should it be different from understanding about how humans came to exist, or what causes plants to grow, or how the mind is related to the body? Obviously, reflective knowledge is distinctive by 19

These last considerations apply as well to the complaint voiced by Stroud above:  that reliabilism does not allow a satisfactory understanding of our knowledge. See Stroud, “Scepticism, ‘Externalism,’ and the Goal of Epistemology.” Sosa’s reply:  A fully general (yet non-circular) understanding of our knowledge is indeed impossible. That goal, in fact, might very well be incoherent. But one can nevertheless admit the value of more understanding over less. And even full generality is in principle possible, so long as one does not also eschew circularity. See Ernest Sosa, “Philosophical Skepticism and Epistemic Circularity,”Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Supplementary vol.) 68 (1994): 263–90.

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virtue of its subject matter – it concerns one’s first-order beliefs and their source in reliable cognitive faculties. But the relevant question concerns why reflective knowledge is distinctive epistemically: Why should reflective knowledge be of a different epistemic kind than coherent understanding regarding other things? It seems to me that there is no good answer to this question. On the contrary, the above considerations show that reflective knowledge is not a distinctive epistemic kind at all. The important distinction is not between animal knowledge and reflective knowledge, but between knowledge per se and understanding per se.

Part III

Problems for reliabilism

chapter 9

The problem of strange and fleeting processes

In Part II of the book we looked at “problems for everyone.” That is, we looked at some of the perennial problems in epistemology  – problems that any adequate theory of knowledge should say something about. The argument developed there was that the present account of epistemic normativity helps us to make progress on those problems. In Part III of the book we turn to “problems for reliabilism.” These are problems that have persistently dogged reliabilist theories of knowledge despite the obvious advantages of those views. Here I will argue that, once again, the present account of epistemic normativity can help. Hence this third part of the book develops one of the major themes from Chapter 1: that a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity is tailor-made for reliabilism. 1 T h e probl e m of s t r a ng e a n d f l e e t i ng pro c e s s e s Reliabilist theories have long been plagued by counterexamples ­involving strange and fleeting cognitive processes. The idea is that if a cognitive pro­ cess is either strange enough or fleeting enough, then it will not give rise to knowledge even if it is reliable. For an example of a strange cognitive pro­ cess, consider the case of the Serendipitous Brain Lesion. Suppose that S has a rare brain lesion, one effect of which is to reliably cause the true belief that one has a brain lesion. Even if the process is perfectly ­reliable, it seems wrong that one can come to have knowledge that one has a brain lesion on this basis. For an example of a fleeting process, consider the case of the Careless Math Student. Suppose that S is taking a math test and adopts a correct algorithm for solving a problem. But suppose that S has no understanding that the algorithm is the correct one to use for this problem. Rather, S chooses it on a whim, but could just as well have chosen one that is incorrect. By hypothesis, the algorithm is the right one, and so using it to solve the problem constitutes a reliable process. It seems wrong to say that S thereby knows the answer to the problem, however. 149

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Cases of strange and fleeting processes show that simple reliabilism is too weak. Put another way, the cases show that not just any reliable process can give rise to knowledge  – there must be some restriction placed on the reliable processes that do. Elsewhere, I have argued that a virtue­theoretic account solves exactly this problem. This is because a virtue theory restricts reliable processes to those that are grounded in the knower’s cognitive virtues (or abilities, or excellences). This is just what is needed, the reasoning goes, because virtues cannot be strange or fleeting, at least not in the relevant sense. Why not? Cognitive virtues cannot be strange because virtues are part of character, and character is constitutive of the agent. Of course there can be strange characters, as in “a strange sort of character.” But character cannot be strange relevant to the agent whose character it is. Put another way, one’s character is always “in character.” This point is not refuted by the fact that character can change, for when it does, then what is “in character” changes with it. Neither can cognitive virtues be fleeting, for virtues are by nature­­s­table. More exactly, virtues must be stable across close possible worlds, and so get just the sort of modal analysis that is needed to address counterexamples involving fleeting processes. Consider once again the case of the Careless Math Student. Plausibly, the student does not have knowledge precisely because there are nearby worlds where he does not use the correct algorithm. The problem is not that the algorithm is unreliable – it is perfectly reliable. The problem, rather, is that the student is not reliable – his use of the algorithm is not grounded in a cognitive ability, and so there are close possible worlds where he chooses the wrong algorithm instead of the right one. These considerations find a comfortable home in the view that know­ ledge is a kind of success from ability. We have seen that there is a special sort of credit due to successes from ability. For example, a special sort of moral credit attaches to successes that are grounded in morally virtuous character, and a special sort of athletic credit attaches to successes that are grounded in athletic abilities or excellences. According to the present approach, similar considerations hold in the intellectual realm. When someone believes the truth as a result of his cognitive abilities (e.g. good eyesight, good memory, sound reasoning), a different sort of credit is forthcoming than when his believing the truth is more a matter of luck. Knowledge attributions, I have argued, involve just this sort of credit attribution. That is why we are not willing to say that either the careless math student or the man with the brain lesion knows. In both cases they believe

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the truth, but in neither case is their believing the truth grounded in their cognitive abilities. More needs to be said in this context, however. As a number of critics have pointed out, it is not clear why the man with the brain lesion does not have a cognitive ability, and therefore not clear how the present account addresses the case. Put another way, it is not clear why the process associated with the brain lesion is not part of reliable cognitive character. Thus we can imagine that the lesion has been there since birth, and that the associated process is both stable and reliable in the relevant senses. Again, more needs to be said.1 The way that Alvin Plantinga addresses the counterexample is to place a “proper function” requirement on knowledge. On his view, a cognitive faculty can give rise to knowledge only if it is functioning properly, or functioning as it was designed to function. This effectively rules out knowledge in the brain lesion case, since that case does not involve proper function and design. Interestingly, a related idea is suggested by Joel Feinberg in a context where he is discussing moral credit. According to Feinberg, we do not ascribe moral credit for a person’s action unless we consider the action to be appropriately his, and we do not consider the action to be his unless it is appropriately grounded in psychologically normal and healthy character. If we continue to think of knowledge as entailing a kind of intellectual credit, then there is a common idea here: that moral and intellectual credit (at least of a certain sort) require that the credited action is grounded in healthy and normal character. I think this idea is on the right track and, as noted, it would effectively rule out knowledge in the brain lesion case. The idea is not quite right, however. For there are cases of improper function that actually increase a person’s capacity to know. For example, the neurologist Oliver Sacks writes of several cases where abnormality and dysfunction increase the victim’s cognitive abilities along certain dimensions and, as a result, increase the person’s capacity for relevant sorts of knowledge. An obvious example is the story of autistic twins, who enjoyed incredible mathematical abilities associated with their autism. In another example, Sacks writes of a man whose illness resulted in an increase in detail and vividness regarding childhood memory. These memories were put to use in accurate and detailed paintings of the man’s hometown in For objections along these lines, see Stewart Cohen, “Greco’s Agent Reliabilism”; Jonathan Kvanvig, “Simple Reliabilism and Agent Reliabilism”; and Reza Lahroodi and Frederick Schmitt, “Comment on John Greco’s Putting Skeptics in their Place,” all in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66, 2 (2003). See also Sven Bernecker, “Agent Reliabilism and the Problem of Clairvoyance,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 76, 1 (2008): 164–72.

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Italy. As a result of these astonishing paintings, the man came to be considered an expert on the layout and appearance of that town, even though he had not visited there in decades. In other words, there was consensus that his dysfunction gave rise to knowledge.2 On the other hand, there are cases where dysfunctional belief does not qualify as knowledge, as in Plantinga’s brain lesion case. So what is going on here? I want to suggest that in the brain lesion case, the problem is not so much a lack of health as it is a lack of cognitive integration. That is, the cognitive processes associated with the brain lesion are not sufficiently integrated with other of the person’s cognitive dispositions so as to count as being part of cognitive character. A lack of health often signals a lack of integration, but this is not always the case. The present idea is that a disposition is part of cognitive character only if it is both (a) stable in the relevant sense, and (b) well integrated with other of the person’s cognitive dispositions. One aspect of cognitive integration concerns the range of outputs – if the products of a disposition are few and far between, and if they have little relation to other beliefs in the system, then the disposition is less well integrated on that account. Another aspect of cognitive integration is sensitivity to counterevidence, or to defeating evidence. If the beliefs in question are insensitive to reasons that count against them, then this too speaks against cognitive integration. In general, it would seem, cognitive integration is a function of cooperation and interaction, or cooperative interaction, with other aspects of the cognitive system. On this account, the person with the brain lesion fails to have knowledge just because the cognitive process associated with the lesion is not well integrated with other aspects of the person’s cognition. The process produces only a single belief, for example, and it is unrelated and insensitive to other dispositions governing the formation and evaluation of belief. The abnormal memory of Sack’s painter, however, is well integrated with the remainder of the painter’s cognition, and therefore does not fail to ground relevant knowledge. The same idea suggests applications to other hard cases. For example, people’s intuitions about ESP and clairvoyance cases often conflict, and these intuitions even waver in the same person. A plausible explanation for this, along the lines above, is that such cases are usually underdescribed with respect to cognitive integration. The present account suggests that, Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat (New York: HarperCollins, 1970), and An Anthropologist on Mars (New York: Vintage, 1995).

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to the degree that the odd cognitive power is well integrated with other of the believer’s cognitive dispositions, there is a tendency to judge that the person has knowledge. To the extent that the odd power is not well integrated, there is a tendency to judge that the person does not have know­ ledge. I will pursue this idea in the next section. 2 T h e probl e m of c l a i r voy a nc e Consider BonJour’s now infamous case of Norman the clairvoyant, originally formulated as a counterexample against reliabilism. Norman, under certain conditions that usually obtain, is a completely reliable clairvoyant with respect to certain kinds of subject matter. He possesses no ­evidence or reasons of any kind for or against the general possibility of such a cognitive power, or for or against the thesis that he possesses it. One day Norman comes to believe that the President is in New York City, though he has no evidence either for or against this belief. In fact the belief is true and results from his clairvoyant power, under circumstances in which it is completely reliable.3

Intuitively, Norman does not know that the President is in New York City, even if his belief that this is so is caused by his reliable clairvoyant power. The present complaint is that it is not clear why the present account rules that there is no knowledge in the case. In fact, it seems that the account implies that there is knowledge in the case. The problem is that clairvoyance would seem to be a reliable cognitive ability, and therefore true belief produced by clairvoyance should count as success from ability. As I have already suggested, some of the considerations put forth in the previous section apply to clairvoyance cases. That is, to evaluate how the present account rules on clairvoyance cases, we have to make sure that the cases are not underdescribed regarding the issue of cognitive integration. If the power of clairvoyance is not well integrated with the remainder of S’s cognition, then it will not count as cognitive character and will therefore not count as one of S’s abilities. As we have noted, one aspect of cognitive integration concerns the range of outputs – if the clairvoyant beliefs are few and far between, and if they have little relation to other beliefs in the system, then the power of clairvoyance is less well integrated on that account. Another aspect of integration that we noted is sensitivity to counterevidence. If clairvoyant beliefs are insensitive to reasons that count against them, then this too speaks against cognitive integration. Laurence BonJour, “Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5 (1980): 62.

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These considerations suggest that we must divide clairvoyance cases among those that involve good cognitive integration and those that do not. The present account of knowledge can then handle the latter in the same way that it handles the brain lesion case. It remains to be seen, however, how the account can handle the former. It seems clear that clairvoyance could be well integrated with other aspects of the clairvoyant’s cognition; that is, it seems that there could be a high degree of cooperative interaction with other aspects of the cognitive system. However, these sorts of cases must be divided into two further categories: those in which the belief is epistemically responsible (or subjectively justified) and those in which it is not. First, when we imagine the clairvoyant it is natural to imagine that he has a defeater system much like our own, both in terms of its contents and in terms of its operative dispositions. But, in that case, it will turn out that a clairvoyant belief is not ­epistemically responsible, since the agent’s own best thinking counts against it. Suppose we think of epistemic responsibility along the lines suggested in Chapter 2: S’s belief that p is epistemically responsible if and only if S’s believing that p results from intellectual dispositions that S manifests when S is motivated to believe the truth. If the clairvoyant’s defeater system is similar to ours, then there will be dispositions governing counterevidence that disallow his clairvoyant belief. For that reason, the belief will not be epistemically responsible and therefore will not count as knowledge. Nevertheless, we can imagine clairvoyants who lack defeater systems similar to our own. Remember, the relevant case here is the one where the power of clairvoyance is well integrated with other aspects of the ­clairvoyant’s cognitive system, but where that cognitive system is different from our own. In particular, it is different in the way that it works regarding defeaters to clairvoyant belief. But now, I suggest, it is not clear that this sort of clairvoyant lacks knowledge. Once we fill out the details of the case in this way, it is plausible that the clairvoyant does have knowledge. It is plausible that we have described a cognitive agent very different from ourselves, and one with a different faculty of knowledge.4 At least that is my intuition. For those who think that knowledge by clairvoyance remains counterintuitive, I will make two further points. First, the cases where clairvoyant knowledge seems most counterintuitive For more on the idea of cognitive integration and its importance for agent evaluations, see Daniel Breyer and John Greco, “Response to Bernecker,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 76, 1 (2008): 173–84.

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are ruled out by the considerations above regarding cognitive integration and defeat. Relatedly, the remaining cases, where I claim that ­clairvoyant knowledge exists, involve cognitive agents who are very different from ourselves, and so our intuitions about such agents, whether negative or positive, should not be accorded overwhelming weight. Second, there is a tendency among philosophers to want a vindication of reliability (from the perspective of the knower) before allowing a source to ground knowledge. It is clear, however, that a general requirement of this sort leads to skepticism, as considerations from Chapter 8 have shown.5 It is therefore necessary to resist such a requirement in the case of clairvoyant knowledge. The present line of reasoning goes like this: There is no special reason to require a perspective on the reliability of clairvoyance before allowing clairvoyant knowledge. Therefore, if the requirement is appropriate for clairvoyant knowledge, then it is appropriate for other sorts of knowledge as well. But such a requirement on all sorts of knowledge makes knowledge impossible, and is therefore not appropriate. Therefore, such a requirement for clairvoyant knowledge is not appropriate. See also my “Agent Reliabilism,” Putting Skeptics in their Place, and “Justification is not Internal.”

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chapter 10

The problem of defeating evidence

In this chapter I address an underappreciated problem for reliabilism. The problem concerns how a reliabilist approach in epistemology ought to understand defeating evidence. In more colloquial language: How should reliabilism understand the notion of counterevidence, or evidence against one’s beliefs? The problem arises because we have certain ­pre-theoretical intuitions about counterevidence, and a reliabilist approach in ­epistemology seems inconsistent with these intuitions. 1 T h e probl e m Here is a quick statement of the problem. Suppose that S believes that p and that S’s believing that p is the result of a highly reliable process. But suppose also that S has a lot of misleading evidence against p, even evidence that entails not-p. In such a case, it would seem, any positive epistemic status that S has for her belief is defeated by this counterevidence. But how can reliabilism account for this? What should matter for knowledge on a reliabilist account is that S’s believing that p results from a reliable process. It should not matter that other things S believes count against p. After all, reliabilism is a form of externalism. What makes for knowledge on a reliabilist account are the facts about the genesis of S’s belief. And in the case under consideration, S’s belief is in fact reliably formed. We may illustrate this general problem with some particular cases. Consider two of BonJour’s clairvoyants, first offered as counterexamples to externalist theories in general. Case 1. Samantha believes herself to have the power of clairvoyance, though she has no reasons for or against this belief. One day she comes to believe, for no apparent reason, that the President is in New York City. She maintains this belief, appealing to her alleged clairvoyant power, even though she is at the same time aware of a massive amount of apparently cogent evidence, consisting of news reports, press releases, allegedly live television 156

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pictures, etc., indicating that the President is at that time in Washington, DC. Now the President is in fact in New York City, the evidence to the contrary being part of a massive official hoax in the face of an assassination threat. Moreover, Samantha does in fact have completely reliable clairvoyant power, under the conditions that were then satisfied, and her belief about the President did result from the operation of that power.1 Case 2. Maud believes herself to have the power of clairvoyance, though she has no reason for this belief. She maintains her belief despite being inundated by her embarrassed friends and relatives with massive quantities of apparently cogent scientific evidence that no such power is possible. One day Maud comes to believe, for no apparent reason, that the President is in New York City, and she maintains this belief, despite the lack of any independent evidence, appealing to her alleged clairvoyant power. Now in fact the President is in New York City, and Maud does, under the conditions then satisfied, have completely reliable clairvoyant power. Moreover, her belief about the President did result from the operation of that power.2

A common response by reliabilists to these examples has been to add a “no defeater” condition to the reliabilist account of knowledge. The general idea behind this strategy is to concede that Samantha’s and Maud’s beliefs do not have knowledge-relevant normative status. The explanation for this is that any such prima facie status is “defeated” by the counterevidence they possess. In Samantha’s case, she has evidence that counts directly against the belief that the President is in New York City. In Maud’s case, she has evidence against her belief that she has reliable clairvoyance, and so indirect evidence against her belief about the President. However, the “no-defeater strategy” faces a dilemma. Specifically, the reliabilist must now understand defeating evidence in either an externalist way or an internalist way. Suppose that defeating evidence is understood in an externalist way. In that case, the reliabilist will still be faced with worrisome intuitions about counterevidence. Return to BonJour’s Case 1 above, but add that the misleading news reports are not a reliable indication that the President is in New York City. (We can imagine that, unknown to Samantha, the relevant reports in the relevant conditions are highly unreliable.) On reliabilist accounts of evidence, such beliefs should not count as evidence against Samantha’s belief that the President is in New York City. A similar point can be made with respect to Case 2. Suppose that the testimony denying the existence of clairvoyance is not reliable. Then on reliabilist accounts of evidence, those beliefs should not count as evidence   BonJour, “Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge,” pp. 59–60. Ibid., p. 61.

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against her belief that clairvoyance does exist. But of course all this goes against our intuitions concerning defeating evidence. Our intuition is that Samantha and Maud have defeating evidence against their respective beliefs that the President is in New York City. And this is so whether or not their evidence is in fact a reliable indication of the contrary. The more common version of the no-defeater strategy is for reliabilists to “go internalist,” understanding defeat along internalist lines. This version of the strategy is so common, in fact, that Michael Bergmann has argued that the internalism–externalism debate ought to be characterized in terms of it. As Bergmann notes, several externalists add a condition on k-relevant normative status (Bergmann prefers the term “warrant”) to the effect that S not believe that her belief is defeated by other things that S believes.3 Bergmann draws the moral that the internalism–externalism debate is really a debate over conditions on knowledge other than such a no-defeater condition. Here is Bergmann: Let us call this condition the no-defeater condition (NDC) and define it roughly as follows: NDC is satisfied by S’s belief that p if and only if S does not believe (and would not upon reflection) that her belief that p is defeated. … externalism should be defined as moderate externalism with respect to warrant (externalismmw) where … Externalismmw is the view that there is no internal condition other than NDC that is included among those severally necessary and jointly sufficient for warrant.4

But when reliabilists go internalist regarding defeaters, this must result in a schizophrenic approach to knowledge and evidence. After all, reliabilism insists on a reliabilist account of evidence in favor of a belief. But then how can the same theory plausibly understand evidence against belief Michael Bergmann, “Internalism, Externalism and the No-Defeater Condition,” Synthese 110, 3 (1997): 399–417. Bergmann cites Goldman, Nozick and Plantinga as examples. “Goldman argues that a necessary condition of warrant for S’s belief that p is that S not believe that p is undermined. Nozick mentions that a necessary condition of warrant for S’s belief that p is that S not believe that p does not track the truth. Plantinga says that a necessary condition of warrant for S’s belief that p is that S’s defeater system … is functioning properly in an appropriate environment. And it follows from Plantinga’s view of how our defeater systems work that a necessary condition of warrant for S’s belief that p is that S not believe that her belief that p is defeated.” Bergmann, “Internalism,” pp. 405–6. See Goldman, “What is Justified Belief?”; Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981); and Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function. 4 Bergmann, “Internalism,” p. 407. Notice that the present position makes the conditions for defeating evidence internalist. As Bergmann writes, “whether or not a condition of this sort is satisfied by S’s belief that p is something to which S has special epistemic access” (p. 406). 3

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differently? Such a strategy seems at best ad hoc. At worst, it is theoretically incoherent. Again, the reliabilist seems faced with a dilemma: The reliabilist must understand defeating evidence in an externalist way or an internalist way. An externalist account of defeating evidence seems inadequate to ­handle BonJour’s counterexamples, or modifications thereof. An internalist account seems ad hoc and schizophrenic. 2 K va n v ig’s a rgu m e n t So far we have been relying heavily on intuitions about counterexamples. Jonathan Kvanvig offers a seemingly more principled argument to the conclusion that reliabilism cannot give a plausible account of defeating evidence.5 Here is what Kvanvig says: The concept of defeating information is, intuitively, one concerning the epistemic relationships between semantic contents, and the hope of any version of reliabilism is to mimic these relationships by appeal to the right kinds of mechanisms or character traits … [But] it is highly unlikely that any disposition-based proposal can yield an adequate response to the counterexamples to simple reliabilism. Dispositions, by their very nature, can be overly general, and hence will be able to be displayed while failing to take into account the presence of defeating information.6

Kvanvig’s reasoning can be reconstructed as follows. First, it seems that defeat relations are a function of relations among propositional (Kvanvig says “semantic”) contents of the beliefs involved. Reliabilism, however, must understand all evidence relations (including defeat relations) in terms of the believer’s dispositions to formulate and revise her beliefs. Reliabilism tries to specify the relevant dispositions so as to mimic the evidential relations among propositional contents. But this is in fact hopeless, because dispositions are by nature “overly general.” In other words, one might display a reliable disposition to believe that p even in cases where S has evidence that counts against p. Kvanvig thinks that BonJour’s clairvoyant examples are cases in point. In BonJour’s examples, S reliably forms a belief that the President is in New York City, although S has evidence that counts against that belief. Kvanvig, “Simple Reliabilism and Agent Reliabilism.” See also Kvanvig, “Two Approaches to Epistemic Defeat,” in Deane-Peter Baker, ed., Alvin Plantinga: Contemporary Philosophy in Focus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) for an excellent discussion of related issues. 6 Ibid., pp. 455–6. 5

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Here is the reasoning presented more formally, with some suppressed premises supplied as needed. 1. Defeat relations are entirely a function of relations among the propositional contents of the beliefs involved. 2. Reliabilism must understand all evidence relations, including defeat relations, in terms of S’s dispositions for forming and revising beliefs. Therefore, 3. Reliabilism can give an adequate account of defeat relations only if it can characterize the relevant belief-forming dispositions in a way that mimics the relevant relations among propositional contents. (1, 2) 4. But this is impossible, because the relevant dispositions can be displayed independently of the relevant relations. Therefore, 5. Reliabilism cannot give an adequate account of defeat relations. (3, 4) As the argument stands, however, premise 1 begs the question against a reliabilist account of defeating evidence. A reliabilist should not agree that defeat relations are entirely determined by relations among the propositional contents of S’s beliefs. Clearly, the way S’s beliefs are formed should have something to do with it. Kvanvig’s argument can be revised, however, and in a way that does not presuppose internalism about evidence and counterevidence.7 In fact, a number of externalists seem to accept all of the revised argument’s premises. The argument runs on two plausible ideas. The first is that, at least sometimes, defeat relations supervene on relations among propositional contents. That is, there are at least some relations such that, when such a relation exists, q counts as counterevidence for p no matter what else is the case. It does not matter whether S’s belief that p is reliably formed, or whether q is misleading in the present context, or any other such thing. Specifically, this idea goes, defeat relations can supervene on probability relations. Here is the first idea cleaned up a bit: Let p and q range over propositional contents of S’s beliefs and let r range over the set of S’s relevant evidence. If the probability of p on q is low, and if there is no further relevant evidence r such that adding that evidence to q makes the probability of p  It is not clear that Kvanvig would accept the revisions that follow.

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high, then q defeats any k-relevant normative status attaching to S’s belief that p.8 More formally: D.  (p)(q)[{P(p/q) < .5} & ~ ∃(r){P(p/q&r) > .5} => qDp]

Principle D would explain the intuitive appeal of BonJour’s two counterexamples, and why so many externalists agree that Samantha and Maud do not know in the examples. In Samantha’s case, she has good evidence that the President is in Washington, DC, and the latter entails that he is not in New York City. Maud has no direct evidence against her belief about the President. But her belief about the President is based on her belief that she is clairvoyant, and she has evidence that makes the latter belief improbable. According to principle D, then, Maud’s belief about the President is based on a belief whose k-relevant normative status is defeated.9 The second idea is that at least some probability relations are necessary relations. For example, if q entails the negation of p, then the logical probability of p on q is low and q counts as counterevidence for p. Likewise, if there is some weaker relation between q and p, such that, necessarily, p is improbable on q, then q is counterevidence for p. (We can think of ­logical probability here, or perhaps epistemic probability, where the latter is understood as a synthetic a priori relation.) If this second idea is right, then there is good reason to believe that S’s dispositions cannot be specified so that they mimic all defeat relations. The reason is as follows. On the one hand, at least some of those relations will be necessary; for example, where q entails not-p, it is a necessary truth that the probability of p on q is low. On the other hand, S’s dispositions for forming and revising beliefs are merely contingent. But then this guarantees that S’s dispositions for forming and revising beliefs cannot be made to mimic all relevant defeat relations. There will be possible worlds where S reliably believes that p in the presence of defeating evidence. Consider: Whether S reliably believes that p, believes that q, and fails to believe some r, are each contingent matters. Therefore, on the assumption that these are (at least sometimes) The notion of “relevant evidence” is doing some work here, since r must be restricted in certain ways so as to make D plausible. For example, the probability of any proposition on a contradiction is 1, and so there must be some restriction on S’s relevant evidence so as to disallow contradictory evidence counting in favor of p. A similar issue concerns the problem of circular or otherwise question-begging evidence. I will assume that these issues can be adequately addressed for the defender of D. If they cannot, we have a reason for rejecting D in addition to those I will offer below. 9 The principle also explains the plausibility of a Bergmann-type “no-defeater condition” on warrant. Consider: If S believes that her belief that p is defeated by her evidence E, then S believes (or would on reflection) that the probability of p on E is low. Assuming that this meta-belief is itself a part of S’s total evidence, then S’s total evidence includes both E and her belief that P(p/E) < .5. And this, plausibly, guarantees that D is satisfied. 8

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logically independent events, there will be possible worlds where all three events are actual. But on the present proposal, q is a defeater for p in all such worlds, and so there will be worlds where S’s belief that p is reliably formed, but S believes that p in the presence of defeating evidence q. Putting all this together, we get the following revision of Kvanvig’s argument. RA. 1. At least sometimes, defeat relations supervene on probability relations among the propositional contents of the beliefs involved. More specifically:

Principle D. (p)(q)[{P(p/q) < .5} & ~ ∃(r){P(p/q&r) > .5} => qDp]

2. Reliabilism must understand all evidence relations, including defeat relations, in terms of S’s dispositions for forming and revising beliefs. Therefore, 3. Reliabilism can give an adequate account of defeat relations only if it can characterize the relevant belief-forming dispositions in a way that mimics the relevant relations among propositional contents. (1, 2) 4. But this is impossible, because the dispositions are always contingent whereas defeat relations are (at least sometimes) necessary. Therefore, 5. Reliabilism cannot give an adequate account of defeat relations. (3, 4) It seems to me that reliabilists have not fully appreciated the force of this line of argument. The most common response, in effect, is to deny premise 2: i.e. that reliabilism must understand all defeat relations in terms of the contingent dispositions of believers. This response is represented by reliabilists who “go internalist” by understanding defeating evidence along internalist lines. But as I suggested above, this strategy is at best ad hoc and at worst incoherent. Moreover, there is a better way for reliabilists to respond. Namely, premise 1 of RA is false, and reliabilists ought to hold that it is false. In the remainder of the chapter I will argue that reliabilism ought to understand all evidence in terms of the contingent belief-forming dispositions of cognitive agents. This is, in my opinion, one of the most important insights of reliabilism. But since defeat relations are evidential relations, it follows that reliabilism should understand defeat relations in the same way. Put negatively, defeat relations are not to be understood as relations among the propositional (or semantic) contents of beliefs. Premise 1 of RA is false.

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This approach does not amount to a standoff between externalist and internalist intuitions, however. First, the revised argument against reliabilism does not depend on internalism. I will argue below that, in fact, there is no version of RA that internalists can accept. Second, there are good reasons for thinking that any adequate epistemology must reject premise 1 of RA, and must understand defeat relations along reliabilist lines: namely, the alternative entails an untenable skepticism. If this is right, then a major motivation for accepting reliabilism in general is also a major motivation for accepting a reliabilist account of defeating evidence: namely, non-reliabilist accounts of defeating evidence entail unacceptable skeptical results. 3 I n t e r n a l i s m a n d pr i nc i pl e D I claimed above that no version of RA is acceptable to internalism about epistemic normativity. The problem is principle D:  although D looks friendly to internalism at first blush, there is no version of D that an internalist can accept. First, principle D is consistent with internalism only if the probability relations it specifies are understood to be necessary relations. This is because internalism holds that all conditions for k-normative status must be internally accessible to the believer, and this entails that whether S has a defeater must be so accessible. If defeat relations supervene on necessary relations, then this explains the accessibility of defeaters. That is, so long as defeat relations supervene on necessary relations (for example, logical probability relations or synthetic a priori relations) the internalist has a story to tell regarding how S has access to the presence or absence of defeaters via some sort of a priori intuition. Suppose, on the other hand, that at least some defeat relations are contingent. In that case, it is not at all clear how they could be internally accessible. But even this understanding of principle D is not enough to give the internalist what he needs. This is because D states only a sufficient condition for defeating evidence, and the internalist must hold that all defeat relations are internally accessible. Therefore, the internalist is motivated to endorse D only insofar as he is motivated to endorse the following principle, which states both necessary and sufficient conditions for defeating evidence. Here ‘PN’ designates any sort of necessary probability relation, such as logical probability. D′. (p)(q)[{PN(p/q)< .5} & ~ ∃(r){PN(p/q&r) > .5} qDp]

In sum, it is really D′ that must be behind any internalist version of the revised argument against reliabilism. If D′ is false, then there is no version of RA that the internalist can accept.

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It is fairly clear, however, that D′ is false when read from right to left: necessary probability relations are not necessary to make q a defeater for p. First, consider the belief that one is facing a tree at a time where one’s visual experience is as if one is facing a bare landscape. Intuitively, the visual experience is counterevidence for the belief, tending to defeat the belief’s k-normative status. But if Hume is right (and he is) that there is no necessary relation between sensory appearances and perceptual beliefs about the world, then there is no such relation here either. Therefore, there can be defeat relations where there are no necessary relations. Consider next a case where one has inductive defeating evidence for a belief about some unobserved matter of fact. For example, imagine that you have the usual sort of evidence against there being flying cats in the yard next door. If Hume is right (and he is) that there are no necessary inductive relations between past observations and our beliefs about unobserved matters of fact, then there is no such relation here either. In short, Hume’s skeptical arguments teach us a general lesson about evidence relations: that there is no necessary relation between our empirical beliefs and the evidence that supports those beliefs, and that therefore we must understand evidential support to be (at least sometimes) a contingent relation.10 The present point is that, for the same Humean reasons, there need be no necessary relation between our empirical beliefs and the evidence that counts against those beliefs, and therefore we must understand defeat to be (at least sometimes) a contingent relation. As already noted, RA needs only D and not the stronger D′. Never­ theless, we saw that an internalist version of RA is committed to D′. The present considerations show that D′ is false, and so there is no version of RA that is consistent with internalism. 4  Ag a i ns t pr i nc i pl e D I want now to argue directly against principle D, or premise 1 of the revised argument against reliabilism. In short, principle D is false because there are relevant probability relations where there are no defeat relations. In other words, there are cases where the antecedent of principle D is satisfied 10

That is why we need a reliabilist account of evidence to avoid skepticism: (a) knowledge requires that knowledge-producing evidence be reliable, and (b) Hume’s arguments show that our evidence for our empirical beliefs is not necessarily reliable. But then S has empirical knowledge only if S’s evidence is contingently reliable, and that amounts to reliabilism about empirical evidence. For extended arguments to this effect see my “Agent Reliabilism,” and Putting Skeptics in their Place, especially Chapters 6 and 7.

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and yet the target belief’s k-relevant normative status is not defeated. Each of the following cases illustrates the point. Case A. Jim can find nothing wrong with an argument associated with Zeno’s Paradox, and even believes that each of the premises is true and that the reasoning is valid. Nevertheless, Jim knows that the car he is driving is moving. Case B. Frank is impressed by Berkeley’s arguments for idealism, and therefore believes that he has a proof that nothing exists when it is not perceived. Nevertheless, Frank knows that he has two hands, although presently he does not perceive them. Case C. Bob believes that determinism is true and that if determinism is true then he cannot do otherwise than he does. Nevertheless, Bob knows that he could have stayed longer at the party.

In each of these cases, S has beliefs that count strongly against the target belief in question. In fact, in each case S has beliefs that entail that the target belief is false. For example, Jim believes that each of Zeno’s premises is true and that Zeno’s argument is valid. And yet we should not say that there is no knowledge in these cases. On the contrary, Jim knows that his car is moving, Frank knows that he has hands, and Bob knows that he could have stayed longer at the party. Consider the alternatives. If Jim does not know, then scores of people who believe the premises of standard paradoxes do not know that things move, that things change, that some people are bald, etc. If Frank does not know, then classrooms full of students in Philosophy 101 do not know that they have hands when they are first impressed by anti-realist arguments. If Bob does not know, countless people never know that they can do other than they do. But it seems clear that these people do know these things. It is highly counterintuitive to think otherwise. One might think that there is an easy reply to this line of reasoning:  namely, that the beliefs that are supposed to act as defeaters here cannot actually do so because those beliefs do not themselves enjoy knowledge-relevant normative status, and are therefore not qualified to play the role of defeaters. But this sort of reply would be a mistake. For there is strong intuitive pull that beliefs can act as defeaters even if they lack the sort of normative status required for knowledge. Suppose that you believe, irrationally, that your co-worker is a kleptomaniac. One day you are at your desk, notice that your prized pen is missing, and form the true belief that someone has taken it by accident. Intuitively, you do not know that your pen was taken by accident, and precisely because you believe

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that your co-worker is a kleptomaniac, and so might very well have taken it on purpose. Let us focus on the issue at hand: If principle D is true, then the characters in cases A through C, and countless people like them, do not have knowledge. Some philosophers might find some of these skeptical results acceptable. For example, it is now fashionable to say that people do not know that they have hands in certain “philosophical” contexts.11 But no one should find all of these results acceptable. We should conclude that principle D is false. But how can someone know that p, even if other things the person believes make p improbable, or even entail that p is false? Here is an explanation. Suppose that our cognitive systems are modular in the following sense: beliefs produced by some parts of the system tend to be insensitive to beliefs produced by other parts of the system. For example, suppose (as seems to be the case) that our perceptual beliefs tend to be insensitive to beliefs produced by highly theoretical reasoning, for example philosophical reasoning. Suppose also that our perceptual faculties are highly reliable, and that our theoretical reasoning faculties are much less reliable, so that the sort of insensitivity described actually contributes to the overall reliability of the cognitive system. If that is the case, then it seems right to say that one ought to ignore highly theoretical beliefs that count against one’s perceptual beliefs, in some relevant sense of “ought.” It seems right to say that doing so is perfectly appropriate from an epistemic point of view, and might even ground knowledge. Of course, there is something less than ideal about being in this sort of cognitive condition – it would be better not to have this sort of tension in one’s overall cognitive system. But knowledge can survive a less than ideal overall cognitive system. NB: The claim is not that our perceptual faculties are (or ought to be) completely insensitive to contrary beliefs from our less reliable theoretical reasoning faculties. The claim is that they are (and ought to be) insensitive to some of those beliefs, some of the time. If that is right, then principle D is false: the probability relations specified in D can exist where no corresponding defeat relation exists. 5  T h e n e e d f or s u bj e c t i v e j us t i f ic at ion On the one hand, the considerations above show that the argument against reliabilism is unsound. In particular, premise 1 of the argument is false. On For example see Cohen, “How to be a Fallibilist,” and DeRose, “Solving the Skeptical Problem.”

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the other hand, we still have BonJour’s nasty examples to contend with. That is, there are clairvoyant cases where S’s belief that p is reliably formed, but where it seems that S’s belief lacks positive epistemic status. Moreover, we saw that these examples cannot be addressed by understanding defeating evidence along reliabilist lines. We can construct examples where S’s belief that p is reliably produced, S does not have reliable counter­evidence against her belief that p, but where S’s belief that p lacks positive epistemic status nonetheless. So how can BonJour’s examples be accommodated within a reliabilist framework? The correct approach, I believe, is to add a subjective justification condition to reliabilist conditions for k-normative status and knowledge. According to this strategy, S does not know that p in BonJour’s examples because S is not subjectively justified in believing that p. In Chapter 2 I proposed the following account of epistemic responsibility, and argued that epistemic responsibility so conceived constitutes one dimension of the full normative status required for knowledge. Resp.  S’s belief that p is epistemically responsible if and only if S’s believing that p is properly motivated; if and only if S’s believing that p results from intellectual dispositions that S manifests when S is motivated to believe the truth.

The present suggestion is that Resp specifies a kind of subjective justification: S is subjectively justified in believing that p just in case S is epistemically responsible in believing that p. We may also define a defeater of subjective justification. Roughly, a belief that q defeats S’s justification for believing that p just in case, were S properly motivated, S would be disposed to give up her belief that p upon believing that q. More exactly, S’s belief that q is a defeater of S’s subjective justification for believing that p if and only if (i) S believes that q, (ii) prior to believing that q, S was subjectively justified in believing that p, and (iii) when S is properly motivated in present conditions, S has a disposition to give up believing that p upon believing that q.

On this approach, what counts as defeating evidence is not independent of the believer’s de facto cognitive dispositions. On the contrary, what counts as evidence and counterevidence alike is partly a function of the contingent facts about believers and their cognitive character. Finally, we may now use the above considerations to explain why S does not know in BonJour’s clairvoyant cases, but does know in cases A

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through C. In the clairvoyant cases we are as a matter of fact disposed to give up beliefs of the relevant sort in the face of reasons of the relevant sort (when properly motivated), whereas in cases A through C we are as a matter of fact disposed not to give up beliefs of the relevant sort in the face of reasons of the relevant sort (even when properly motivated). In other words, the difference between BonJour-type cases (where S does not know) and cases A through C (where S does know) is that only the beliefs in the latter cases accord with the dispositions of virtuous cognitive agents, and are in that sense subjectively justified. Of course, I am here assuming that the clairvoyants in BonJour’s cases are similarly disposed as ourselves in the ways they react to counterevidence when properly motivated. Suppose they are not. That is, suppose that their cognitive character is very different from ours, so that they are disposed to preserve clairvoyant belief in the face of opposing beliefs from other sources, and that this constitutes a reliable disposition on their part. Here I suggest, as in Chapter 9, that clairvoyants so understood do enjoy justified belief and knowledge. The present approach accommodates and extends an important lesson from Gilbert Harman: that logical relations cannot by themselves serve as evidential norms. Whenever we have two logically incompatible propositions, there must be some additional factor that determines which we ought to accept and which we ought to reject. The same point holds with respect to other semantic relations: where q makes p improbable, this fact cannot by itself determine whether we ought to give up q, give up p, or continue to hold both. The additional factor, according to a virtue-­theoretic account of epistemic normativity, must regard the contingent dispositions that make up virtuous cognitive character. 6 L i v e s k e p t ic i s m I will end the chapter by showing how the present account of defeating evidence throws light on two issues in the recent literature. The first is Bryan Frances’s argument for an interesting sort of skepticism. The second is Alvin Plantinga’s argument that naturalism is self-defeating. Frances has recently presented powerful arguments for an interesting version of skepticism:12 roughly put, we don’t know that fire engines are red, we don’t know that we sometimes have pains in our lower backs, we don’t know that John Rawls was See Bryan Frances, “When a Skeptical Hypothesis is Live,” Noûs 39, 4 (2005):  559–95; and Skepticism Comes Alive (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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kind, and we don’t even know that we believe any of those truths. However, people unfamiliar with philosophy and cognitive science do know all those things.13

The skeptical argument for this strange result is traditional in form, but with a twist. The form of the argument is the familiar one claiming that, in order to know some proposition p, one must be able to rule out alternative skeptical hypotheses. But you cannot rule the hypotheses out, and so you do not know that p. The twist is that the skeptical hypotheses in question are “live.” Roughly, this means that the hypotheses are philosophical or scientific hypotheses that are thought to be true by at least some of the experts in the relevant field. The skeptical thought is that the rank and file of the field are in no position to know that the experts are wrong. And so the rank and file do not know that they sometimes have backaches, that ordinary physical objects are colored, or even that they have beliefs. As Frances points out, the argument does not imply that people unfamiliar with the views of the experts do not know these things. Roughly put, the idea is that the uninitiated do not have the same defeating evidence, and so their knowledge of these truths is unproblematic in this respect. The argument is a powerful one in the sense that it is not at all obvious where it goes wrong. Moreover, as Frances points out, many of the considerations typically put forward against external world skepticism will not work here. For example, we can hardly say that a hypothesis is irrelevant when many experts in the relevant field think it is true. For similar reasons, the argument does not lend itself to easy dismissals. We cannot say, for example, that no one could believe its conclusion, or that no one can act on it. On the contrary, this argument forces us to say something quite substantive about the nature of knowledge and evidence. On this point Frances seems to have things exactly right: the Live Skeptic’s argument presents us with a new paradox of a traditional form: a group of claims that are jointly inconsistent but individually highly plausible … As far as I can see, any realist response to the argument (one that denies the skeptical conclusion) has far-reaching consequences for the nature of know­ ledge and warrant.14

So what are the claims of the argument and what are their consequences? According to Frances, the Live Skeptic makes three key claims: The Modesty Principle: if S is a mere mortal with respect to live hypothesis H … then H isn’t ruled out with respect to S. Ibid., p. 559.  

13

14

 Ibid., pp. 563–4.

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The Live Hypothesis Principle: if S knows that P entails not-H and is as aware as just about anyone that H is live (so H really is live), then if H isn’t ruled out with respect to S, S doesn’t know P. The Liveness-Mortality Premise: in the actual world or a very close possible world many members of our actual intellectual community of contemporary analytic philosophers and cognitive scientists are mere mortals with respect to each of the following live hypotheses … Belief Error Theory: no one believes anything … Pain Error Theory: pain is only in the brain … Color Error Theory: no ordinary physical objects are colored … Trait Error Theory: no one has any character traits …15

It follows from these assumptions that “in either this world or some very close possible worlds many of us don’t know that fire engines are red, we don’t know that we sometimes have pains in our lower backs, we don’t know that John Rawls was kind, and we don’t even know that we believe any of those truths.”16 So what is wrong with this argument? Frances recognizes that some externalists will want to challenge the Modesty Principle. In particular, reliabilists can hold that we can know the relevant truths, and that the relevant hypotheses are false, because our cognitive faculties are highly reliable in the right ways. For example, normal perceivers are highly reliable with respect to judging the color of fire engines, and therefore know by perception that fire engines are red. Frances’s reply to this line of reasoning is important for our purposes. I’ll grant that these reliability facts suffice to place a significant amount of positive epistemic warrant on our … beliefs. Even so, only an exceedingly strong form of reliabilism can back up a neutralization of the eliminativist hypothesis. No reliabilist I know of has endorsed such a version of reliabilism. Everyone has admitted that factors like the recognition of expert counter-opinion, liveness, independent contrary evidence, and whatnot can defeat a reliably formed belief – even highly reliable ones.17

It seems to me that Frances is right about this. That is, a reliabilist theory can solve the problem only if it can deny that the counterevidence in question defeats knowledge in the relevant cases. In fact, as far as I can see, this is the only way that any theory (reliabilist or not) can plausibly respond to Frances’s argument.  Ibid., pp. 562–3.   16 Ibid., p. 563.   17 Ibid., p. 589.

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Before leaving this section I want to consider one more case from Frances.18 You see a sock in the usual excellent viewing conditions. It looks, and is, blue. But it’s your colleague’s sock, and his wife is a color scientist and he insists that he is wearing some of her “trick” socks she uses in her experiments, in that although they look blue and normal, they’re actually very weird and really green  … Suppose his wife comes in and says “Well, there are those trick socks! We were looking for them all morning in the lab. What are you doing with them on?” Other people concur with her (her lab assistants and children say). She and other color theorists have created various other strange objects, strange in ways having to do with their color appearances. You are somewhat aware of these objects, involving rotating disks, unusual materials, and the like. So you know of the existence of such objects.19

Frances comments: Your blue socks belief is true and reliably produced in the entirely ordinary way, but does this belief constitute knowledge once you’ve encountered the ­weird-green-socks story, especially given that you’ve heard and understood loads of intelligent, sincere, and honest experts saying that the socks are really green – not just his wife, but her assistants, other professors, etc.? … I think you would be in violation of some significant epistemic duties if you retained your belief.20

That seems right. But then how can S have knowledge in Frances’s other cases above but not in the blue socks case? Again, it is hard to see how the cases differ except for the following: as a matter of fact, we are disposed to be moved by considerations of the sort presented in the trick socks case, and as a matter of fact we are disposed not to be moved by theoretical considerations that contradict common sense. But then S’s belief lacks ­k-normative status in the trick socks case, precisely because S has a defeater for his belief that his colleague’s socks are blue. S has no such defeater in A through C or in Frances’s other cases, since S is not disposed to give up her belief in the face of those sorts of reasons, even when properly motivated. 7 N at u r a l i s m a n d de f e at Plantinga has argued that metaphysical naturalism is self-defeating. The argument begins with the claim that, given naturalism (N) and attendant evolutionary theory (E), the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable (R) is either low or inscrutable. But if that is so, Plantinga continues, Frances, “When a Skeptical Hypothesis is Live.” See also Skepticism Comes Alive. Frances, “When a Skeptical Hypothesis is Live,” p. 581.   20 Ibid.

18

19

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then the naturalist has a defeater for the belief that our ­cognitive faculties are reliable. And this, in turn, gives her a defeater for any other belief she might hold, including her belief that naturalism is true. Hence, naturalism is self-defeating. Here is Plantinga: Darwin’s Doubt can be taken as the claim that the probability of R on N&E&C is fairly low; as I have argued, that is plausible … Still more plausible is the disjunction of these two claims: either the rational attitude to take toward this probability is the judgment that it is low, or the rational attitude is agnosticism with respect to it. But then the devotee of N&E has a defeater for any belief B that he holds. Now the next thing to note is that B might be N&E itself; our devotee of N&E has an undercutting defeater for N&E, a reason to doubt it, a reason to be agnostic with respect to it … If he has no defeater for this defeater and no independent evidence – if his reason for doubting N&E remains undefeated – then the rational course would be to reject belief in N&E.21 Hence the devotee of N&E has a defeater D for N&E – a defeater, furthermore, that can’t ultimately be defeated; for obviously D attaches to any consideration one might bring forward by way of attempting to defeat it. If you accept N&E, you have an ultimately undefeated reason for rejecting N&E. If, furthermore, one also accepts the conditional if N is true, then so is E, one has an ultimately undefeated defeater for N.22

There is by now an ample literature devoted to reconstructing Plantinga’s argument and examining its soundness. I will not try to reconstruct the argument in detail, but it seems to me to depend on some such premise as this: If the probability of p on q is low or inscrutable, and if S has no additional evidence such that adding that evidence to q makes the probability of p high, then q defeats S’s warrant for believing that p.

Letting p, q and r range over propositional contents of S’s beliefs, we get: PD.  (p)(q)[P(p/q) is low or inscrutable & ~ ∃(r){P(p/q&r) is high} => qDp]

If Plantinga’s argument does depend on PD, then the considerations above show that his argument is unsound. This is because PD is stronger than D, and so if D is false then PD must be false as well. Notice that both D and PD state sufficient conditions for defeating evidence. PD states weaker conditions than does D, however. Specifically, PD allows that the conditional probability of p on q can be low or inscrutable, whereas D 21

Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function, p. 231.  

22

 Ibid., p. 235.

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requires that it be low. Therefore, if D fails to state sufficient conditions for defeating evidence, then PD must fail to do so as well. All this is as it should be from the point of view of reliabilism. In fact, it is as it should be from the point of view of Plantinga’s own proper function theory.23 For on either account, whether a belief has k-normative status is a function of contingent facts about the believer and her relation to the environment. And on either account, those conditions can be satisfied with respect to some belief that p even when, in addition to this, the conditional probability of p on other things S believes is low. See Ibid., e.g. p. 237: “I have argued that the best way to construe warrant is in terms of proper function: a belief has warrant, for a person, if it is produced by her cognitive faculties functioning properly in a congenial epistemic environment according to a design plan successfully aimed at the production of true or verisimilitudinous belief.”

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chapter 11

The problem of easy knowledge

Some years ago, G. E. Moore held up one hand and then another, and claimed to have thereby proved that external things exist. Moore’s sub­ sequent paper, “Proof of an External World,” has since evoked a variety of responses from philosophers, including bafflement, indignation, and sympathetic reconstruction.1 Philosophers have disagreed not only about the success of Moore’s alleged proof, but also over what Moore was trying to do in the first place. For example, some have interpreted Moore as an ordinary language philosopher. According to Norman Malcolm, “The essence of Moore’s technique of refuting philosophical statements consists in pointing out that these statements go against ordinary language.”2 Alice Ambrose took a similar view: It is clear that Moore is in effect insisting on retaining conventions already established in the language about the usage of the words “know” and “believe,” and that the consequence of what he says is the preservation of the linguistic status quo.3

As Barry Stroud points out, however, Moore effectively repudiates any such interpretation. In Moore’s reply to Ambrose, he says flatly: “I could not have supposed that the fact that I have a hand proved anything as to how the expression ‘external objects’ ought to be used.”4 Stroud’s interpretation of Moore’s proof seems no more plausible, however. According to him, the question as to whether we know anything about the external world can be taken in an internal or an G. E. Moore, “Proof of an External World,” presented on November 22, 1939 and published in Proceedings of the British Academy 25 (1939):  273–300. Reprinted in G. E. Moore, Philosophical Papers (New York: Collier Books, 1962). Subsequent page references to “Proof of an External World” will correspond to the latter. 2 In Paul A. Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of G.E. Moore (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1942), p. 349. Malcolm’s emphasis. 3 In Schilpp, The Philosophy of G.E. Moore, p. 415.   4 Ibid., p. 674. 1

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external sense. In the internal sense, the question can be answered from “within” one’s current knowledge – hence one can answer it by pointing out some things that one knows, such as that here is a hand. In the external sense, however, the question is put in a “detached” and “philosophical” way. If we have the feeling that Moore nevertheless fails to answer the philosophical question about our knowledge of external things, as we do, it is because we understand that question as requiring a certain withdrawal or detachment from the whole body of our knowledge of the world. We recognize that when I ask in that detached philosophical way whether I know that there are external things, I am not supposed to be allowed to appeal to other things I think I know about external things in order to help me settle the question.5

According to Stroud, Moore’s proof is a perfectly good one in response to the internal question, but fails miserably in response to the external or “philosophical” question. In fact, Stroud argues, Moore’s failure to respond to the philosophical question is so obvious that it cries out for an explanation  – hence Malcolm’s and Ambroses’s ordinary language interpretations. Stroud offers a different explanation for Moore’s failure to address the philosophical question:  “He [i.e. Moore] resists, or more probably does not even feel, the pressure towards the philosophical project as it is understood by the philosophers he discusses.”6 Or again, “we are left with the conclusion that Moore really did not understand the philosopher’s assertions in any way other than the everyday ‘internal’ way he seems to have understood them.”7 The problem with this interpretation, of course, is that it makes Moore out to be an idiot. Is it really possible that Moore, the great Cambridge philosopher, did not understand that other philosophers were raising a philosophical question? I will opt for a more straightforward and more generous interpretation of what Moore is doing in his “Proof of an External World”  – one on which it does not matter that Moore fails to answer the skeptic’s external question, or that Moore otherwise fails to answer the skeptic in a non-question-begging way. Namely, I will argue that Moore is following Thomas Reid on a variety of points, both epistemological and methodological. Moreover, I will argue that Moore and Reid are exactly right on all of these points. Hence I will be offering not only an interpretation of Moore’s paper, but a defense of it as well. Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 117–18. 6 Ibid., p. 119.   7 Ibid., p. 125. 5

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My evidence for the proposed interpretation is, first, that we know that Moore was familiar with and admired Reid.8 Second, interpreting Moore as following Reid makes otherwise puzzling and dubious aspects of “Proof of an External World” both clearly intelligible and eminently plausible. Finally, the proposed interpretation shows how Moore’s “Proof of an External World” is related to other of Moore’s works, by showing how all of these fit into the context of a broader philosophical project. I will argue for my substantive thesis – that the Reid–Moore position is correct – largely by letting Reid speak for himself. But I will also add my own two cents where appropriate, and at the end of the chapter I will show how the position nicely addresses a problem for reliabilism. Specifically, lessons learned from the Reid–Moore position can be fruitfully applied to “the problem of easy knowledge.”9 Here is the interpretation of Moore in a nutshell: In giving his proof, Moore knows full well that the skeptic will not be satisfied with it. Moore is not trying to give the skeptic something that he will be satisfied with. Moore’s point, rather, is that we do not know that external things exist by proving it. On the contrary, we know that external things exist by perceiving them, and therefore the skeptic is misguided in wanting a proof in the first place. When Moore gives his proof, therefore, his tongue is in his cheek.10 It is not that he does not understand the skeptic’s question, or that he does not understand what the skeptic wants when he requests a proof that external things exist – he understands perfectly well what the skeptic is requesting, and he is challenging a variety of assumptions behind that request. In Section 1 I go over some salient aspects of Moore’s “Proof of an External World,” including some remarks regarding what he intends to be proving, the proofs themselves, and some remarks that Moore makes in Cf. Keith Lehrer, “Reid’s Influence on Contemporary American and British Philosophy,” in Stephen F. Barker and Tom L. Beauchamp, eds., Thomas Reid:  Critical Interpretations (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1976); and John Haldane, “Thomas Reid: Life and Work,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 74, 3 (2000): 317–25. As Lehrer notes, one of Moore’s early papers contains frequent references to Reid. See G. E. Moore, “The Nature and Reality of Objects of Perception,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 6 (1905–6):  68–127. Reprinted in G. E. Moore, Philosophical Studies (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1922).  9 The problem is raised by Stewart Cohen in “Basic Knowledge and the Problem of Easy Knowledge,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2002): 309–29. See also Keith DeRose, “How Can We Know that We’re Not Brains in Vats?” Southern Journal of Philosophy 38 (2000) Supplement: 121–48. 10 There is a common sort of joke among analytic philosophers, and it is very British as well: that is, to give someone what they literally asked for, even though you know that it is not what they want.  8

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response to anticipated objections. In Section 2 I discuss some epistemological principles from Reid, and in Section 3 I discuss some methodological principles. In Section 4, I look at some objections to what I have said so far. In Section 5, I show how lessons learned from Reid and Moore can be applied to the problem of easy knowledge. 1 Mo or e’s “Pro of of a n E x t e r n a l Wor l d” Moore tells us that he is able to prove that external things exist, and that, in fact, he can give us many such proofs. But what is meant by “external things”? By way of explanation, Moore tells us that “external things” means “things external to our minds,” as opposed to “external to our bodies.”11 Thus external things are “things which are to be met with in space,” our bodies included.12 Examples of such things would be “the bodies of men and of animals, plants, stars, houses, chairs, and shadows.”13 If you can prove that any two such things exist, Moore says, you will ipso facto have proved that there are external things in the relevant sense. Well, Moore thinks, that’s easy! I can prove now, for instance, that two human hands exist. How? By holding up my two hands, and saying, as I make a certain gesture with the right hand, “Here is one hand,” and adding, as I make a certain gesture with the left, “and here is another.” And if, by doing this, I have proved ipso facto the existence of external things, you will all see that I can also do it now in numbers of other ways: there is no need to multiply examples.14

Moore thinks he can also prove that external things have existed in the past. Here is one proof. I can say: “I held up two hands above this desk not very long ago; therefore two hands existed not very long ago; therefore at least two external objects have existed some time in the past, Q.E.D.”15

Let us now look at some remarks that Moore makes by way of elaboration, and by way of answering some anticipated objections to his proofs. All of these remarks, I will argue, tie into points that we can find in Reid. First, he insists that the first proof he gave is a “perfectly rigorous one.” And indeed, “that it is perhaps impossible to give a better or more rigorous proof of anything whatever.”16 One thing that a proof requires is that Moore, “Proof of an External World,” p. 128.   12 Ibid., p. 129. Ibid., p. 136.   14 Ibid., p. 144.   15 Ibid., p. 146.   16 Ibid., p. 144.

11

13

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one  knows one’s premises. But he certainly did know that here is one hand and here is another, Moore insists: “How absurd it would be to suggest that I did not know it.” He says similar things regarding his second proof: “This is a perfectly good proof, provided I know what is asserted in the premiss. But I do know that I held up my two hands above this desk not very long ago. As a matter of fact, in this case you all know it too. There’s no doubt whatever that I did.”17 Next, consider how Moore responds to philosophers who he “is perfectly well aware” will not be satisfied with his proofs. One reason some will not be satisfied, Moore says, is because they want Moore to prove his premises; i.e. they want a proof that “Here’s one hand and here’s another.” Moore’s reply to this sort of dissatisfaction is important for the proposed interpretation. First, Moore admits that he has not given any such proof. Second, he says that he does not think that any such proof can be given. Here are Moore’s reasons for why such a proof is not possible. How am I to prove now that “Here’s one hand, and here’s another”? I do not believe I can do it. In order to do it, I should need to prove for one thing, as Descartes pointed out, that I am not now dreaming. But how can I prove that I am not?18

Moore’s next comments are especially interesting. I have, no doubt, conclusive reasons for asserting that I am not now dreaming; I have conclusive evidence that I am awake: but that is a very different thing from being able to prove it. I could not tell you what all my evidence is; and I should require to do this at least, in order to give you a proof.19

Finally, Moore considers one more source of dissatisfaction with his proofs: Some will think that if he has not proved his premises, then he does not know them at all. This is a common view among philosophers, Moore thinks, but one that is clearly wrong: “I can know things, which I cannot prove; and among things which I certainly did know, even if (as I think) I could not prove them, were the premises of my two proofs.”20 Now it seems to me that everything Moore says in these passages is exactly right. Moreover, we can better see that he is right by turning to various observations and arguments by Thomas Reid. Ibid., p. 146, Moore’s emphasis.   Ibid.   20 Ibid.

17 19

 Ibid., p. 148.

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2 E pi s t e mol o g ic a l pr i nc i pl e s i n R e i d I have elsewhere described Reid as defending a moderate and broad foundationalism.21 His foundationalism is “moderate” in the sense that he does not require infallibility for knowledge. Neither does he require indefeasibility or irrevisability, or some other high-powered epistemic status. It is “broad” in the sense that Reid allows a wide variety of sources of both foundational and non-foundational knowledge. For Reid, introspective consciousness, perception, memory, testimony, deductive reasoning, and inductive reasoning are all possible sources of knowledge. For present purposes, we may emphasize Reid’s point that demonstrative reasoning (or proving) is only one source of knowledge among many. Here, then, is the first principle on which Moore follows Reid. E1. Not everything we know is known by proof.

Reasoning in general is defined by Reid as follows. Reasoning is the process by which we pass from one judgment to another, which is the consequence of it … In all reasoning, therefore, there must be a proposition inferred, and one or more from which it is inferred. And this power of inferring, or drawing a conclusion, is only another name for reasoning; the proposition inferred being called the conclusion, and the proposition or propositions from which it is inferred, the premises.22

There are many kinds of reasoning, but the most important distinction, Reid thinks, is that between demonstrative and probable.23 A proof, then, would require demonstrative reasoning. But not everything that we know is known by proof, Reid insists. In fact, not everything we know is known by reasoning in general, nor could it be. Rather, reasoning in general “is like a telescope, which may help a man to see farther, who hath eyes; but, without eyes, a telescope shews nothing at all.” In other words, reasoning in general, and demonstration in particular, needs premises. Hence reasoning can extend knowledge, but we must admit other sources of knowledge as well. The second epistemological principle on which Moore follows Reid is this: E2. External objects are known by perception, not by proof. See Greco, “Reid’s Critique of Berkeley and Hume: What’s the Big Idea?,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55, 2 (1995): 279–96. 22 Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, in his Philosophical Works (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1983), p. 475. 23 Ibid., p. 476. 21

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First, perception gives us knowledge of external objects, or objects that exist even when no one is perceiving them. Ideas are said to be things internal and present, which have no existence but during the moment they are in the mind. The objects of sense are things external, which have a continued existence.24

Second, perception does not involve proving, nor any kind of reasoning at all. If, therefore, we attend to that act of our mind which we call the perception of an external object of sense, we shall find in it these three things: – First, Some conception or notion of the object perceived; Secondly, A strong and irresistible conviction and belief of its present existence; and, Thirdly, That this conviction and belief are immediate, and not the effect of reasoning.25 [I]t is not by a train of reasoning and argumentation that we come to be convinced of the existence of what we perceive; we ask no argument for the existence of the object, but that we perceive it; perception commands our belief upon its own authority, and disdains to rest its authority upon any reasoning whatsoever.26

That is not to say that the perception of objects is never learned or acquired. Most perception, Reid thinks, is acquired perception.27 But even acquired perception is devoid of reasoning. This power which we acquire of perceiving things by our senses, which originally we should not have perceived, is not the effect of any reasoning on our part: it is the result of our constitution, and of the situations in which we happen to be placed.28

Perception does not involve reasoning, because reasoning is grounded on prior beliefs acting as premises. But perception is grounded in sensory experience, which produces a belief in the external object either by nature or by acquired habit. When I grasp an ivory ball in my hand, I feel a certain sensation of touch. In the sensation there is nothing external, nothing corporeal. The sensation is neither round nor hard; it is an act of feeling of the mind, from which I cannot, by reasoning, infer the existence of any body. But, by the constitution of my nature, the sensation carries along with it the conception and belief of a round hard body really existing in my hand.29 Ibid., p. 358.   25 Ibid., p. 258.   26 Ibid., p. 259. Thomas Reid, An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, in Philosophical Works, p. 185. 28 Reid, Essays, p. 332.   29 Ibid., p. 450. 24 27

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In acquired perception, the sign may be either a sensation, or something originally perceived. The thing signified, is something which, by experience, has been found connected with that sign.30

Perceptual signs, Reid observes, become the grounds for belief without becoming objects of beliefs themselves. For example, sensations are able to act as signs for external objects, even though the sensations themselves are not noticed at all. There is, no doubt, a sensation by which we perceive a body to be hard or soft … We are so accustomed to use the sensation as a sign, and to pass ­i mmediately to the thing signified, that, as far as appears, it was never made an object of thought, either by the vulgar or by philosophers; nor has it a name in any language. There is no sensation more distinct, or more frequent; yet it is never attended to, but passes through the mind instantaneously, and serves only to introduce that quality in bodies, which, by a law of our constitution, it suggests.31

But if we do not even think about sensations in the typical case, then we do not typically have beliefs about them, and they do not act as premises in our reasoning. In other words, perception is not a kind of reasoning. The third epistemological principle on which Moore follows Reid is this: E3.  The evidence of sense is no less reasonable than that of demon­ stration.32

In other words, the evidence of reasoning (or demonstration, or proof ) should not be privileged over the evidence of perception.33 Here Reid finds the skeptic about perception to be inconsistent. Reason, says the sceptic, is the only judge of truth, and you ought to throw off every opinion and every belief that is not grounded on reason. Why, sir, should I believe the faculty of reason more than that of perception?  – they came both out of the same shop, and were made by the same artist; and if he puts one piece of false ware into my hands, what should hinder him from putting another?34

In fact, Reid observes, reason and perception are in the same boat with respect to their trustworthiness. Ibid., p. 332.   31 Reid, Inquiry, p. 120.   32 Reid, Essays, p. 328. Reid is not entirely consistent on this point. See Essays, p. 330, where he says, “the evidence of reasoning, and that of some necessary and self-evident truths, seems to be the least mysterious, and the most perfectly comprehended.” 34 Reid, Inquiry, p. 183. 30 33

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The imagination, the memory, the judging and reasoning powers, are all liable to be hurt, or even destroyed, by disorders of the body, as well as our powers of perception; but we do not on this account call them fallacious.35 They are all limited and imperfect … We are liable to error and wrong judgment in the use of them all; but as little in the informations of sense as in the deductions of reasoning.36

Recall now Moore’s insisting that he knows the premises of his proof; i.e. that here is one hand and here is another. Recall also that he claims to know this as well as anything: “I certainly did at the moment know that which I expressed by the combination of certain gestures with saying the words ‘There is one hand and here is another.’ … How absurd it would be to suggest that I did not know it, but only believed it, and that perhaps it was not the case!”37 Here Moore is simply following Reid’s E3 above: That the evidence of perception is perfectly good evidence, and not less than the evidence of, for example, mathematical demonstration. Hence Moore’s reasoning from his perceptual knowledge is “perfectly rigorous” and “it is perhaps impossible to give a better or more rigorous proof of anything whatsoever.”38 The present interpretation also helps us to understand Moore’s comments regarding dreaming. Consider again the following passage. I have, no doubt, conclusive reasons for asserting that I am not now dreaming; I have conclusive evidence that I am awake: but that is a very different thing from being able to prove it. I could not tell you what all my evidence is; and I should require to do this at least, in order to give you a proof.39

The passage may be read like this: “I certainly know that I am not dreaming, because I can see that I am awake. My conclusive evidence for my belief that I am awake and not dreaming is my sensory experience. But I cannot give you that evidence – it is not propositional evidence, and so I cannot cite it as premises from which I can demonstrate that I am not dreaming, as I would have to do in order to prove it.” Reid does not say exactly the same thing. In one place Reid claims to know that he is not dreaming, but confesses that he does not know how he knows.40 But the present position on how one knows that one is not dreaming, or how one knows that one is awake, is perfectly consistent with everything Reid does say. Reid, Essays, p. 335.   36 Ibid., p. 339. Moore, “Proof of an External World,” p. 145, Moore’s emphasis. 38 Ibid., p. 144.   39 Ibid., p. 148.   40 Reid, Inquiry, p. 107. 35

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In sum, Moore’s remarks in “Proof of an External World” are both intelligible and plausible in light of Reid’s three epistemological principles above. All of those principles are perfectly correct in my view, and Moore’s remarks follow from them straightforwardly. But Moore does not follow Reid only on epistemological points. He also follows him on some important methodological points as well. 3 M e t hod ol o g ic a l pr i nc i pl e s i n R e i d Reid’s methodological principles concern how one should proceed in doing epistemology, and, in particular, how one should proceed in addressing the skeptic. The first methodological principle I want to discuss is this: M1. One should not try to prove what is not known by proof.

Reid gives us several reasons for adopting this principle. First, reason is most open to error when in this sort of employment: “One is never in greater danger of transgressing against the rules of logic than in attempting to prove what needs no proof.”41 In particular, Reid thinks, attempts by philosophers to prove the existence of external things have gone terribly wrong. “Des Cartes, Malebranche, and Locke, have all employed their genius and skill to prove the existence of a material world; and with very bad success.”42 Second, when one sees the fallacy of such arguments, one is apt to doubt that which was to be proved. When men attempt to deduce such self-evident principles from others more evident, they always fall into inconclusive reasoning: and the consequence of this has been, that others, such as Berkeley and Hume, finding the arguments brought to prove such first principles to be weak and inconclusive, have been tempted first to doubt of them, and afterwards to deny them.43

The last reason that we should not try to prove what is not known by proof is that people who deny first principles are not fit to be reasoned with, and therefore reasoning is no remedy for the problem. For example, by my senses, I perceive figure, colour, hardness, softness, motion, resistance, and such like things … If any man should think fit to deny that these things are qualities, or that they require any subject, I leave him to enjoy his opinion as a man who denies first principles, and is not fit to be reasoned with.44

Reid, Essays, p. 496.   Ibid., p. 232.

41

44

42

 Reid, Inquiry, p. 100.  

43

 Reid, Essays, p. 231.

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One should not try to prove that which is not known by proof. But there are other strategies for responding to philosophers who deny first principles. First, such principles can be “illustrated,” or can “be placed in a proper point of view.”45 Second, the denial of first principles is not only false, but absurd. And this allows another strategy for responding to their denial. [T]o discountenance absurdity, Nature hath given us a particular emotion – to wit, that of ridicule – which seems intended for this very purpose of putting out of countenance what is absurd, either in opinion or practice. This weapon, when properly applied, cuts with as keen an edge as argument. Nature hath furnished us with the first to expose absurdity; as with the last to refute error. Both are well fitted for their several offices, and are equally friendly to truth when properly used.46

Notice that Moore employs both strategies. Hence he holds up his hands for all to see, placing two external objects “in a proper point of view.” And he insists, “How absurd it would be to suggest that I did not know [that here is a hand], but only believed it, and that perhaps it was not the case!” Moore goes on: “You might as well suggest that I do not know that I am now standing up and talking – that perhaps after all I’m not, and that it’s not quite certain that I am!” Of course, the skeptic would insist on just that, and Moore very well knows it. He is ridiculing his skeptical opponents, as he was when he gave his proofs in the first place. A second methodological principle that Moore adopts from Reid is this: M2. Rather than trying to prove that external things exist, or that we know that external things exist, one should take a close look at the skeptic’s reasons for saying that we do not know.

Reid and Moore have each been understood as simply insisting that we know what the skeptic denies that we know. But neither does this. Rather, each is a brilliant critic of skeptical arguments. Thus Reid takes a careful look at numerous arguments from Berkeley, Hume and other skeptical ­philosophers, and offers sharp analyses of where they go wrong. Moore does a little of this at the end of “Proof of an External World,” but much more so in “Four Forms of Scepticism.” In the latter paper, Moore offers devastating criticisms of several skeptical arguments from Bertrand Russell, by first disambiguating Russell’s claims, and then showing how each of Russell’s arguments rests on either (a) an assumption that 45

Ibid., p. 231.  

46

 Ibid., p. 438.

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is implausible, (b) an assumption that is clearly false, or (c) a fallacy in reasoning.47 Of course there is no guarantee that one will always be able to identify a mistake in the skeptic’s reasoning. One must analyze skeptical arguments one at a time, and there is no guarantee that the next one will not be better than the last. However, adopting Reid’s methodology turns the tables on the skeptic in a way that is absolutely essential in mounting a successful response to skepticism. For the consequence of M1 is that one gives up the impossible task of proving what is not known by proof. The consequence of M2 is that one replaces that task with something that is more ­promising. There is still no guarantee that one wins this game, but at least there is no guarantee that one loses it. Finally, Reid thinks that success at this new game is more than just promising. For once the tables have been turned in this way, the skeptic incurs a heavy burden of proof. This is directly related to the third methodological principle on which Moore follows Reid. M3. Common sense has defeasible authority over philosophical theory.

Common sense, according to Reid, is a gift of nature. It concerns that which we know immediately, by the natural operation of our cognitive powers, as opposed to that which is known only by special training or by reasoning. Hence the knowledge of common sense is found universally among healthy human beings, and occurs at an early age. In fact, Reid thinks, it is reflected in the structure of all human languages.48 For present purposes, it is important to note that Reid closely associates common sense with the knowledge of first principles. We ascribe to reason two offices, or two degrees. The first is to judge of things self-evident; the second to draw conclusions that are not self-evident from those that are. The first of these is the province, and the sole province, of common sense.49 Such original and natural judgments are … a part of our constitution; and all the discoveries of our reason are grounded upon them. They make up what is called the common sense of mankind; and, what is manifestly contrary to any of those first principles, is what we call absurd.50

The first principles of common sense have a great authority. Specifically, they have authority over speculation and theory, both in general and in Moore, “Four Forms of Scepticism,” in Philosophical Papers (New York: Collier Books, 1962). Reid, Essays, p. 440.   49 Ibid., p. 425. 50 Reid, Inquiry, p. 209, Reid’s emphases. 47 48

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philosophy in particular. This is partly because speculation and theory are unreliable, as is demonstrated by the history of science. “[Scientific] discoveries have always tended to refute, but not to confirm, the theories and hypotheses which ingenious men have invented.”51 In philosophy, too, however, we should be wary of conjectures that contradict common sense. For example, Reid finds that Berkeley’s arguments against a material world rest on the following dubious assumption:  that we can have no conception of anything unless there is some sensation in our minds that resembles it. Reid observes that this hypothesis has wide currency among philosophers, “but it is neither self-evident, nor hath it been clearly proved.” And therefore it is “more reasonable to call in question this doctrine of philosophers, than to discard the material world.”52 For this reason, Reid thinks, it is legitimate to argue against a philosophical theory by invoking common sense. In fact, in one place Reid uses arguments against Hume that are reminiscent of Moore’s proofs. Here the target is Hume’s thesis that the immediate object of thought is never an external object, but always some image or perception in the mind. I beg leave to dissent from philosophy till she gives me reason for what she teaches. For, though common sense and external senses demand my assent to their dictates upon their own authority, yet philosophy is not entitled to this privilege. But, that I may not dissent from [Hume’s thesis] without giving a reason of my dissent: – I see the sun when he shines; I remember the battle of Culloden; and neither of these objects is an image or perception.53

Reid does not think that common sense is infallible or that its first principles are indefeasible. On the contrary, it is possible to be mistaken regarding first principles.54 The point is rather that one needs a good reason for rejecting common sense in favor of a philosophical position. Hence it is “more reasonable” to question Berkeley’s unsupported principle than to accept skepticism about the material world. Moore makes a similar point at the end of “Four Forms of Scepticism.” What I want, however, finally to emphasize is this: Russell’s view that I do not know for certain that this is a pencil or that you are conscious rests, if I am right, on no less than four distinct assumptions … And what I can’t help asking myself is this: Is it, in fact, as certain that all these four assumptions are true, as that I do know that this is a pencil and that you are conscious? I cannot help answering: It Reid, Essays, p. 235.   52 Reid, Inquiry, p. 132.   53 Reid, Essays, pp. 302–3. Perhaps we should say, more precisely, that it is possible to be mistaken regarding what counts as a first principle. This is because, by definition, first principles are true. Nevertheless, Reid thinks we can err with regard to what really is a first principle and what is not. For example, see Essays, p. 231.

51

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seems to me more certain that I do know that this is a pencil and that you are conscious, than that any single one of these four assumptions is true, let alone all four.55

Common sense has defeasible authority over philosophical theory. To think the contrary is only philosophical arrogance, which is both misplaced and ill-advised. Let us return now to Stroud’s interpretation of “Proof of an External World.” According to Stroud, the question whether external things exist can be raised in an ordinary and “internal” sense, or in a philosophical and “external” sense. However, Stroud thinks, Moore “resists, or probably does not even feel” the external sense that philosophers intend. Our interpretation allows the following reply on behalf of Moore. Remember, Moore’s paper is a response to Kant’s and other philosophers’ request for a proof that external things exist. If we take that request in an internal sense, in which we are allowed to proceed from things that we know, then Moore agrees with Stroud that (a) such a proof is easy, and (b) this is of no consequence; i.e. it is of no importance philosophically. The reason that it is of no consequence, Moore thinks, is that we do not know external things by proving their existence, but by perceiving them. If we take the request for a proof in the external sense, in which we are required to prove the thing in question without relying on any knowledge of the external world, then again Moore agrees with Stroud that (a) such a proof is impossible. However, Moore insists that (b) this is still of no consequence. And the reason it is of no consequence is the same as before: we do not know external things by proving their existence, but by perceiving them. A failure to answer Stroud’s external question amounts to this: that we cannot prove the existence of external things from a set of premises restricted in a certain way. But this is of no more consequence than that we cannot prove Euclid’s theorems from a set of axioms restricted in a certain way. Nor can we know mathematical truths by perception, nor truths about the present by memory. Nothing follows from this, except that these are not the ways that we know such things. 4  S om e obj e c t ions In this section I want to consider two objections to what I have said so far. The first is an objection to my claim that Moore is following Reid. The   Moore, “Four Forms of Scepticism,” p. 222, Moore’s emphasis.

55

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second is an objection to the position that I have attributed to both Reid and Moore. One might object to my interpretation of Moore as follows: “You claim that in his response to skepticism, Moore is following Reid. However, central to Reid’s rejection of skepticism is his rejection of the theory of ideas. Reid thought, in fact, that the theory of ideas was sufficient to ground all of Berkeley’s and Hume’s skeptical conclusions. But Moore accepts a sense-data theory about the perception of external things, and the sensedata theory is a version of the theory of ideas. Therefore, Moore’s response to skepticism cannot follow Reid.” The problem with this objection is that it associates Moore’s sensedata theory of perception too closely with Reid’s theory of ideas. When Reid talks about the theory of ideas, what he has in mind is a particularly strong version of representationalism. According to that theory, external objects are not perceived directly, but only indirectly by means of ideas in the mind that resemble them. This account of perception, Reid thinks, is sufficient to entail skepticism about external things.56 It is not clear, however, that Moore’s commitment to sense-data commits him to this kind of representationalism about external things. On the contrary, what Moore means by sense-data is “whatever are the direct objects of perception,” and he leaves it open as to whether such things are ideas or images in the mind, or the surfaces of external objects.57 So even though Moore thinks that we do not perceive entire hands directly, he thinks we might perceive the surfaces of hands directly, and the surfaces of hands are external objects on Moore’s view. But even if Moore’s sense-data theory did commit him to representationalism about external things, it would still not commit him to the theory of ideas in the sense that Reid thinks is sufficient for skepticism. For the theory of ideas constitutes a particularly strong version of representationalism – one where the representatives of external things must be I discuss relationships among the theory of ideas, representationalism, and skepticism in “Reid’s Critique” and in Putting Skeptics in their Place, especially Chapter 4. See, for example, G. E. Moore, “A Defense of Common Sense,” reprinted in Moore, Philosophical Papers, esp. pp. 53–6. See also “A Reply to my Critics,” in Schilpp, The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, esp. p. 643. As Lehrer notes, Moore’s earlier work is unambiguous regarding the pos­ sibility of perceiving material objects directly. In a paper first published in 1903 Moore writes, “I am as directly aware of the existence of material things in space as of my own sensations, and what I am aware of with regard to each is exactly the same – namely, that in one case the material thing, and in the other case my sensation does really exist.” See G. E. Moore, “The Refutation of Idealism,” Mind 12 (1903): 433–53. Reprinted in Philosophical Studies. Quoted by Lehrer, “Reid’s Influence,” p. 4.

56

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resemblances, or images, or pictures of them. And it is this stronger commitment, Reid thinks, that is essential to Berkeley’s and Hume’s skeptical arguments. Bishop Berkeley … concludes, that we can have no conception of an inanimate substance, such as matter is conceived to be, or of any of its qualities; and that there is the strongest ground to believe that there is no existence in nature but minds, sensations, and ideas … But how does this follow? Why, thus; We can have no conception of anything but what resembles some sensation or idea in our minds; but the sensations and ideas in our minds can resemble nothing but the sensations and ideas in other minds; therefore, the conclusion is evident.58

This argument can be reconstructed as follows. 1. The only immediate objects of thought are ideas and sensations. 2. All thought of other (mediate) objects must be by means of ideas or sensations which represent them. 3. In the case of external objects, the ideas or sensations which mediate our thought must be images or resemblances of those objects. 4. No idea or sensation resembles any external object. Therefore, 5. There is no thought or perception of external objects. Since Moore is not committed to either premise (3) or premise (4) of the above argument, he can reject the argument as well as Reid. Reid thinks that there is another route by which the theory of ideas leads to skepticism, however, and we should see how Moore can respond to this one. When it is maintained that all we immediately perceive is only ideas or phantasms, how can we, from the existence of those phantasms, conclude the existence of an external world corresponding to them? This difficult question seemed not to have occurred to the Peripatetics. Des Cartes saw the difficulty, and endeavoured to find out arguments by which, from the existence of our phantasms or ideas, we might infer the existence of external objects. The same course was followed by Malebranche, Arnauld, and Locke; But Berkeley and Hume easily refuted all their arguments, and demonstrated that there is no strength in them.59 Reid, Inquiry, pp. 131–2.  

58

59

 Reid, Essays, pp. 357–8.

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This argument can be reconstructed as follows. 1. All knowledge is either non-inferential, or by means of an adequate inference from knowledge that is non-inferential. 2. All non-inferential knowledge is about our ideas or sensations. Therefore, 3. If we are to have knowledge of external objects, it must be by means of an adequate inference from knowledge of our sensations. 4. But there is no adequate inference from knowledge of our sensations to our beliefs about external objects. Therefore, 5. We can have no knowledge of external objects. Again, if sense-data can be the external surfaces of external objects, then Moore need not be committed to premise (2). But even if sense-data are mental objects, Moore still does not have to accept premise (2). For the thesis that external objects must be represented by mental objects does not commit one to the thesis that external objects must be inferred from mental objects. In other words, representationalism does not commit one to an inferential theory of perception.60 It is true that Moore sometimes talks as if he thinks there is an inference from sense-data to the existence of external things. For example, in “Four Forms of Skepticism” he says, “But I cannot help agreeing with Russell that I never know immediately such a thing as ‘That person is conscious’ or ‘This is a pencil.’ ”61 But Moore speaks very carefully about this issue, and it is important to pay attention to his hedges and qualifications. For example, he says he agrees that if he does not know external things immediately, then his knowledge of them must be “in some sense” based on an inductive argument.62 And he says of that conditional proposition, that “this must be true in some sense or other, though it seems to me terribly difficult to say exactly what that sense is.”63 Nothing here commits Moore to the position that perception involves “reasoning” in the sense that Reid understands that term. In other words, nothing here commits Moore to the thesis that perception involves a “process by which we pass from one judgment to another, which is the consequence of it,” or that it involves Moore is aware of the point. See Moore, Some Main Problems of Philosophy (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1953), p. 125. 61 Moore, “Four Forms of Scepticism,” p. 221. 62 Ibid., p. 222.   63 Ibid. 60

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“a proposition inferred, and one or more from which it is inferred.” On the contrary, it seems to me that what Moore says here and elsewhere is perfectly compatible with what Reid says in the following passage. Let a man press his hand against the table  – he feels it hard. But what is the meaning of this? – The meaning undoubtedly is, that he hath a certain feeling of touch, from which he concludes, without any reasoning, or comparing ideas, that there is something external really existing, whose parts stick so firmly together, that they cannot be displaced without considerable force. There is here a feeling, and a conclusion drawn from it, or some way suggested by it …64

In short, perception involves a movement in thought from sensation to object. But we need not conceive all movements in thought as involving an inference from one proposition to another, as in reasoning proper. Hence Reid says that the sensation “suggests” an external object: “I beg leave to make use of the word suggestion, because I know not one more proper, to express a power of the mind, which seems entirely to have escaped the notice of philosophers.”65 The next objection I want to consider regards the adequacy of the position that I am attributing to both Reid and Moore. Specifically, Reid and Moore agree that we know external things through perception rather than reasoning. In Reid’s terminology, our knowledge that external things exist is a first principle, and therefore does not admit of proof.66 The objection, in short, is that this position is dogmatic. But what does it mean to say that a position is “dogmatic,” or that it is “held dogmatically”? One thing that this might mean is that the person who holds the position is not willing to consider arguments against it. However, we have seen that both Reid and Moore do consider skeptical arguments against their position – they consider skeptical arguments very carefully, and find them wanting. Another thing that the charge could mean is that the position is held to be indefeasible: thus although one is willing to consider arguments against the position, one insists that no such argument could overturn it. However, we have seen that Reid thinks that his position is not indefeasible. Specifically, what one takes to be a first principle might turn out not to be, and philosophers must be open to this possibility. 64

Reid, Inquiry, p. 125.   65 Ibid., p. 111. More exactly, such things do not admit of direct proof. Reid thinks that first principles can sometimes be proven indirectly, by reductio ad absurdum (Essays, p. 439).

66

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Upon the whole, I acknowledge that we ought to be cautious that we do not adopt opinions as first principles which are not entitled to that character … We do not pretend that those things that are laid down as first principles may not be examined, and that we ought not to have our ears open to what may be pleaded against their being admitted as such.67

I see nothing in Moore that contradicts this attitude in Reid. Finally, the charge of dogmatism might mean that one is not willing to give reasons for one’s view. But if this charge is directed against Moore’s belief that here is a hand, then it begs the question against the Reid–Moore position, which is that some things can be known without being based on reasons. If the charge is directed against the Reid–Moore position itself, i.e. that some things can be known without reasons, then the charge is false. Reid gives many reasons for thinking that some things can be known without reasons, as does Moore. 5 T h e probl e m of e a s y k now l e d g e Suppose, with Reid and Moore, that I can know that here is a hand without first having to prove it. For example, to know that here is a hand, it is not necessary to first prove that my perceptual faculties are reliable. Any such position is potentially open to the following problem: It now seems too easy to know all sorts of things. For example, from my knowledge that here is hand, I can easily infer that external things exist. Likewise, I can easily infer that I am not a disembodied spirit or a brain in a vat (BIV), who is merely deceived into thinking that here is a hand. The problem in such cases is that it seems wrong that I can come to know such things by such inferences. And this suggests either (a) that I did not know that here is a hand in the first place, or (b) that I did know it, but I also knew other things, such as that my perceptual faculties are reliable, and this additional knowledge is part of my grounds for the inferences I actually make.68 A somewhat similar problem arises for a variety of contextualist ­t heories. As Keith DeRose notes, many contextualist positions entail the result that, at least by normal standards, one knows that one is not a brain in a vat without any evidence at all.69 On DeRose’s own view, Reid, Essays, p. 234. The problem is framed this way by Stewart Cohen in “Basic Knowledge.” DeRose, “How Can We Know?,” p. 135. DeRose notes that the same result is defended by Gail Stine, “Skepticism, Relevant Alternatives, and Deductive Closure,” Philosophical Studies 29 (1976): 258; Cohen, “How to be a Fallibilist,” pp. 112–15; and Lewis, “Elusive Knowledge,” pp. 561–2.

67 68

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for example, we know because “We’re naturally disposed to reject such hypotheses as that we’re BIVs, and to thereby come to believe and to know (with a high degree of warrant) that these hypotheses are false, upon coming to consider them.”70 Now some might think that this is a problematic position, and for a similar reason as above. That is, just as it seems that I cannot know that I am not a brain in a vat by inferring it from “Here is a hand,” it seems that I cannot know such a thing on no evidence at all. How does the Reid–Moore position defended above fare on this issue? Here I want to defend two claims. First, it is consistent with that position that I know that I am not a brain in a vat, and that I know this neither by an easy inference nor by no evidence at all. Second, once we give up the theoretical background that the Reid–Moore position effectively refutes, it is no longer a philosophically interesting question whether one knows such a thing without evidence, or by an easy inference, or in some other way. Rather, this becomes an empirical question about how our cognition actually works. So how does one know that one is not a brain in a vat, or that one is not deceived by an evil demon? Moore and Reid are for the most part silent on this issue. But a natural extension of their view is that one knows it by perceiving it. In other words, I know that I am not a brain in a vat because I can see that I am not. Of course, this position is a non-starter if one thinks that, on the basis of one’s sensory experience, one must reason to the conclusion that one is not a brain in a vat in order to know it. But once we have given up on the idea that perception is a kind of reasoning from experience, it becomes much more plausible that one could perceive such a thing. Just as I can perceive that some animal is not a dog, one might think, I can perceive that I am not a brain in a vat. Similar considerations can be applied to other cases that Cohen discusses under “the problem of easy knowledge.” For example, how does one know that the animal in the zebra exhibit is not a cleverly painted mule?71 Not by inferring it from one’s knowledge that it is a zebra, and certainly not without any evidence at all. Rather, one can see that it is not a cleverly painted mule. My perception is not infallible, of course. Nevertheless, in DeRose, “How Can We Know?,” p. 136, his emphasis. Of course, some philosophers would say that I do not know this, as they would say that I do not know that I am not a BIV. For example, see Fred Dretske, “Epistemic Operators,” Journal of Philosophy 67 (1970): 1007–23; and Nozick, Philosophical Explanations. But I think with Cohen and others that I do know such things.

70 71

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normal circumstances it allows me to see many things, including both that the animal is a zebra and that it is not a cleverly painted mule. Similarly, in normal circumstances I can see both that a table is red and that it is not white and illuminated by red lights. Again, my perception of such things is not infallible, nor could I prove such things on the basis of my sensory experience. But these are no longer issues once we give up certain assumptions about perceptual knowledge. I have been defending the claim that the Reid–Moore position can give a plausible account of our knowledge in some problematic cases. In particular, it allows us to say that certain cases of knowledge are neither known without evidence nor got by easy inference from other things that we know. My second claim is that, once we give up the theoretical background that the Reid–Moore position effectively refutes, it is no longer a philosophically interesting question how we know such things: that is, it is no longer philosophically interesting whether we know them without evidence, or by an easy inference, or by perception. First, the theoretical background that the skeptic employs, and that Reid and Moore refute, is broadly rationalist. In particular, it involves the idea that all evidential relations must be logical or quasi-logical. Put another way, it involves the idea that our evidence must have some necessary relation (either logical or probabilistic) to the beliefs that it makes evident. This background makes it plausible that our knowledge of external things, which has sensory experience as its evidence, must proceed by some sort of inference or reasoning from experience. The alternative to this broadly rationalist view must be broadly reliabilist. That is, if our evidence does not indicate the truth of our beliefs by virtue of some necessary ­relation, then it must do so by virtue of some contingent relation. And this, of course, is exactly what reliabilism says. In short, the rejection of rationalism about evidence leads naturally to reliabilism about evidence. And now the point is this: Once we are reliabilists about evidence, inference or reasoning is not so special any more. In fact, once we are reliabilists about evidence, evidence is not so special anymore. What matters is that, however we form our beliefs, they are formed in ways that are reliable. Some of these ways might involve reasoning from evidence, some might involve evidence without reasoning, and some might involve no evidence at all.72 72

The present line of argument is defended in greater detail in Chapter 4. See also my “Agent Reliabilism” and Putting Skeptics in their Place, esp. Chapter 7.

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We can see that this is exactly what happens in Reid’s epistemology. According to Reid, some knowledge results from our reasoning faculties and some results from the faculties that give us first principles. Among knowledge of first principles, some is grounded in experience and some is not grounded in experience. For example, Reid thinks that it is a first principle that like causes will have like effects, and that this is known neither by reasoning nor by experience.73 Similarly, he thinks that it is a first principle that our natural faculties are not fallacious, and that this too is known neither by reasoning nor by experience.74 Moreover, all such knowledge is equally good, being equally the product of our natural constitution: “The first principles of every kind of reasoning are given us by Nature, and are of equal authority with the faculty of reason itself, which is also a gift of Nature.”75 Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish first principles from products of reasoning: there are some propositions which lie so near to axioms, that it is difficult to say whether they ought to be held as axioms, or demonstrated as propositions. The same thing holds with regard to perception, and the conclusions drawn from it. Some of these conclusions follow our perceptions so easily, and are so immediately connected with them, that it is difficult to fix the limit which divides the one from the other.76

Moreover, whether a given belief is the result of perception or easy inference becomes unimportant. This is because, whatever you call it, the thing is the result of our natural and non-fallacious cognitive faculties. And as such, it has positive epistemic status. Similar things can be said regarding my belief that I am not a brain in a vat.77 Is such a belief “hard-wired,” so to speak, like the principle that like causes have like effects, or the principle that my natural faculties are not fallacious? Or do I perceive that I am not a brain in a vat, or do I infer it from what I perceive? I have suggested that I perceive it. It is certainly possible, however, that we do not perceive such things, but infer them from other things we do perceive. It is also possible that the belief, or something very much like it, is hard-wired. The point is, Reid, Essays, p. 451.   74 Ibid., pp. 447–8. Reid, Inquiry, p. 185.   76 Ibid. 77 And about bootstrapping, another problem that Cohen places under “the Problem of Easy Knowledge.” Of course there is no question whether we perceive that perception is reliable. Nevertheless, one might think that this is a first principle, as Reid does, or that it is knowledge gained by a track record argument, or by some other kind of argument. 73 75

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it really does not matter much from the present perspective. For if my belief arises in any of these ways, then it results from reliable cognitive character, and therefore has its status as knowledge. The questions that remain are empirical questions, regarding how human beings are in fact built, and how our cognitive abilities or powers (our intellectual virtues) in fact operate.

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Index

ability, 3 abnormal, 151–3 and credit, 141–2 the nature of, 76–80, 140–1 agent record vs. agent worth, 136–9 Agrippa’s tri-lemma, 125 Alston, William, 17 Ambrose, Alice, 174 archie case, see force-fields case Aristotle, 3, 9, 43, 97 attributor contextualism, see contextualism Barn facade cases, 76–80, 88–9, 101 Bergmann, Michael, 157–9 blindsight, 35, 61 BonJour, Laurence, 126, 142, 153–5, 156 bootstrapping, 195 Careless Math Student, case of the, 149, 150 causal explanation, 74–5, 105–6 and understanding clairvoyance, Problem of, 142, 153–5, 159–63 and epistemic defeat, 156–63 closure, 156–73 cognitive integration, 151–5 and defeaters, 154–5 cognitive rules, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23 common sense, 185–7 Conee, Earl, 53–5, 58–60 connectionism, 21, 37–41 contextualism, 102–24, 192 and explanatory salience, 107–8 and invariantism, 118–24 epistemic, 103–4 moral, 107–8, 115–18, 122–4 objections to, 108–9 Craig, Edward, 73, 119–20 credit, 140–1, 151, see also knowledge Davidson, Donald, 84 defeating evidence, problem of, 154–5, 156–73

deontology, 17 DeRose, Keith, 192 dogmatism, 191–2 duty, 19 epistemic circularity, 127–8, 142–6 epistemic desiderata, 17 epistemic justification, 6, 126–8 epistemic luck, 128–32 epistemic normativity, 3, 4 virtue theoretic account of, 42 epistemic value, see value problem, the epistemic responsibility, 166–8 evidentialism, 11–12, 58–68 and externalism, 64–5 and skepticism, 66 incompatible with cognitive science, 61–3 problem of psychological plausibility, 61 evolutionary argument against naturalism, the, 171–3 explanatory salience, 74–5, 105–6, 122–4 externalism, 6, 53–5 and evidentialism, 64–5 and skepticism, 125–8 and the problem of defeating evidence, 156–73 content, 55–6 Feinberg, Joel, 151 Feldman, Richard, 53–5, 58–60 final value, 98 force-fields case, 88–9 foundationalism, 125–6 Frances, Bryan, 168–71 generality problem, 76–80 Gettier cases, 73–5, 94–5 Ginet, Carl, 76 Goldman, Alvin, 76 Grabbit case, 89–90

203

204

Index

Hankinson, R. J., 9 Harman, Gilbert, 168 Hawthorne, John, 79, 108, 109–12, 121 Heller, Mark, 78–9 hoodlums case, 85–7 Horgan, Terence, 29–30, 37–41 intellectual virtues, 9–10, 97 interest-dependence vs. interest-independence, 109–12, 113–15 interests perceived vs. actual, 117–18 internalism, 6, 11, 47–57 and evidentialism, 63–4 and skepticism, 163–6 and the problem of defeating evidence, 156–73 as inconsistent with principle D, 163–6 invariantism, 102–24, 109–12, 113–15 Kant, Immanuel, 18, 19, 27, 42 knowledge, 3 and credit, 80–5, 128–32, 129–39, 140 and practical interests, 113–15 and practical reason, 119–22 and practical reasoning, 78, 83, 115–17 as an achievement, 71–3 innate, 84–5 social function of, 66–8 Kvanvig, Jonathan, 8, 89–90, 91–101 and the problem of defeating evidence, 159–63 Lackey, Jennifer, 80–2 Lehrer, Keith, 66–8 luck, 97–8 and credit, 140–2 moral, 129–39 Malcolm, Norman, 174 mentalism, 53–5 Moore, G. E., 174–96 moral luck, 129–39 moral responsibility, 108, 122–4, 129–39 Nagel, Thomas, 137 naturalized epistemology, 7 no defeater condition, the, 157–9 normativity epistemic and ethical compared, 17 perception, 34–6 as non-inferential, 179–83 non-conscious, 35–6

Reid’s theory of, 34–6, 179–83 Plantinga, Alvin, 151–2, 171–3 Plato, 91–4 Pollock, John, 18, 25–7, 30–1 practical environment, 120 principle D, 159–63 principle of the criterion, 142–4 Pritchard, Duncan, 88–9 privileged access, 47–57 problem of easy knowledge, the, 174–96 project of explanation, 5, 91, 183–7 project of vindication, 5, 54, 66, 183–7 proper function, 151–2 Pyrrhonian problematic, the, 125–46 reflective knowledge vs. animal knowledge, 142–6 Reid, Thomas, 21, 174–96 and cognitive rules, 32–7 and perception, 34–6 philosophical method, 183–7 reliabilism, 6–7 and skepticism, 125–46 and the value problem, 92–3 simple, 6 representation conscious, unconscious, and dispositional, 28–9 representationalism, 188–91 Riggs, Wayne, 9, 41 Russell, Bertrand, 184 Sacks, Oliver, 151–3 sense-data theory, 188–91 Serendipitous Brain Lesion, case of the, 149 Sextus Empiricus, 126 Shope, Robert, 75 skepticism, 66, 122, 125–46, 174–96, 187–92 concerning the external world, 177–8 live, 168–71 Sosa, Ernest, 44, 100, 115, 126–7, 142–6 Stanley, Jason, 79, 108, 109–12 strange and fleeting processes, the problem of, 149–55 Stroud, Barry, 128, 174, 187 subjective justification, 166–8 subject-sensitive invariantism, 79 Swampman, 84 testimony, 80–5 theory of ideas, the, 188–91

Index Thomson, Judith Jarvis, 137 Tienson, John, 29–30, 37–41 Truetemp case, 130–1, 135, 141

value problem, the, 91–101

understanding, 7–10, 144–6 and explanation, 9

Whitcomb, Dennis, 85–7 Williamson, Timothy, 4 Wolterstorff, Nicholas, 17

value intrinsic vs. final, 98

Zagzebski, Linda, 10, 92–3 Zimmerman, Michael, 137

205