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Knowledge and Intellectual Skill KNOWLEDGE AND INTELLECTUAL SKILL by JOSHUE OROZCO A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Philosophy written under the direction of Ernest Sosa and approved by ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey October, 2009 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Knowledge and Intellectual Skill By JOSHUE OROZCO Dissertation Director: Ernest Sosa This dissertation defends the position that knowledge is best understood as a true belief acquired through the manifestation of intellectually virtuous performance. I argue that intellectually virtuous performance requires intellectual responsibility but not a characteristic motivation. I distinguish my view from other conceptions of intellectual virtues; particularly the virtue reliabilism of Ernest Sosa and John Greco and the virtue responsibilism of Linda Zagzebski. I argue that intellectual virtues are best understood along the lines of Aristotelian skills by looking at various puzzles in epistemology and showing how this view can make more progress in solving these puzzles than its competitors. ii Acknowledgements and Dedication There are many people to whom I owe many thanks for their continued support and mentorship. I am particularly grateful for the philosophical guidance and instruction that I received over the last five years from the philosophy faculty at Rutgers University; particularly from Ruth Chang, Alvin Goldman, Jeff McMahan, and Dean Zimmerman. I am especially indebted to Ernest Sosa—my supervisor—for his invaluable training and encouragement, and for his remarkable ability to help develop projects and arguments aimed against his own views. My fellow graduate students, both inside and outside of Rutgers, have had just as big an impact in my growth as a philosopher, providing rich discussion both inside and outside of the seminar room. Geoff Anders, Luvell Anderson, Josh Armstrong, Matthew Benton, Pavel Davydov, Jonathan Ichikawa, Alex Jackson, David Manley, Gary Osmundson, Blake Roeber, Andrew Sepielli, Ryan Wasserman and Stephanie Wykstra have been especially helpful. Finally, I have received special support from friends and family members who without them this would not have been possible. To my parents who have given me tremendous love and resources. And most importantly to my wonderful wife, Mandy, who has been nothing but supportive and has stood behind me even in the dead of New Jersey winters. I dedicate this to her. iii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements and Dedication iii Introduction: Knowledge and Intellectual Skill 1 Chapter 1: Epistemic Rationality and Practical/Moral Considerations: The Need for Intellectual Skill 7 Chapter 2: Luck, Lotteries, and Epistemic Responsibility 40 Chapter 3: The Value of Virtuous Behavior: An Answer the Value Problem of Knowledge 72 Chapter 4: Epistemic Responsibility and Doxastic Control 100 Chapter 5: Testimonial Knowledge in Children: I Can Trust You Now … But Not Later 125 Curriculum Vita 156 iv 1 Introduction: Knowledge and Intellectual Skill Gettier’s 1963 paper brought the traditional analysis of knowledge—as justified true belief—into question. In response much ink was spilled trying to amend the traditional account of justification. And as the 20th century came to a close, some felt an impasse had been reached between competing accounts of justification: in particular between internalist and externalist conceptions of justification. One characteristic feature of the various modified accounts of justification was their focus on the properties of beliefs. Justified beliefs need to be undefeated, safe, sensitive, rationally entailed by one’s evidence, reliably produced, sufficiently coherent, foundationally based, etc. However, in 1980 Ernest Sosa—in “The Raft and the Pyramid”—suggested that focusing on the properties of beliefs was excessive and misplaced, and that we should instead look to the properties of individuals to make epistemic evaluations, in a way suggested by virtue ethics. Sosa proposed that whether a belief qualifies as knowledge depends primarily on the intellectual virtues of the agent. If an agent’s intellectual virtues are sufficiently responsible for a belief’s truth, then the agent has knowledge. The set of theories that fall under the sub-discipline “virtue epistemology” center around the thesis that intellectual agents and their “intellectual virtues” are the primary points of epistemic evaluation, with beliefs receiving a derivative evaluation. However, there is serious dispute within virtue epistemology regarding the nature of one’s intellectual virtues. If one has knowledge only when the truth of one’s belief is credited to one’s intellectually virtuous traits, or virtuous performance, then it is important to understand what it is for a trait, or performance, to be intellectually virtuous. For Sosa an 2 intellectual virtue is a belief forming faculty or process that is reliable at getting at the truth. Things like our perceptual faculties, memory, introspection, and perhaps intuition are considered intellectual virtues. Accordingly, Sosa’s virtue-reliabilism is an externalist theory of knowledge—it is not necessary that the conditions for knowledge be accessible to the believer. In contrast to Sosa, Linda Zagzebski takes intellectual virtues to be perfectly analogous to moral virtues. She argues that one deficiency in the virtue-reliabilist accounts is their inability to accommodate the similarities that epistemology has with ethics. She goes on to defend the view that intellectual virtues are a subspecies of moral virtues. “An intellectual virtue, like a moral virtue,” says Zagzebski “has a motivational component as well as a component of reliable success in reaching the end (if any) of the motivational component. What makes intellectual virtues intellectual is that they (or most of them) include motive dispositions connected with the motive to get truth…”1 Intellectual virtues are character traits like courage, thoroughness, carefulness, humility, etc., and therefore epistemic evaluations should mirror moral evaluations in virtue ethics ultimately being based on what the intellectually virtuous person would do in a given situation. The virtue-reliabilism of Sosa and the moral-analogue version of Zagzebski characterize the two main strands of virtue theories in epistemology, and both versions have many attractive features. The reliabilst framework provides many resources for dealing with skepticism and accommodating Gettier-style worries. The moral-analogue framework can easily accommodate parallels between epistemic and ethical evaluations. Our evaluations of beliefs closely resembles our evaluations of actions, and 1 See Zagzebski’s introduction in her (2001): 5. 3 epistemlogists ongoing concern over epistemic justification is an example of this resemblance. My dissertation is work in virtue epistemology. As such, it follows Sosa’s suggestion that some epistemic evaluations are best analyzed in terms of properties of individuals—namely her intellectual virtues and/or virtuous activity—rather than properties of beliefs. I focus primarily on evaluations of knowledge and epistemic rationality/justification. Chapter Summaries In Chapters 1-4 I argue that the two main conceptions of intellectual virtues have serious drawbacks, and defend an intermediate understanding of intellectual virtues that retains the attractions of both theories but avoids their shortcomings. I follow Zagzebski in taking intellectual virtues to be more analogous to moral virtues than Sosa’s conception. Intellectual virtues are character traits like courage, humility, and open-mindedness that require repeated intentional and virtuous behavior for their development. However, I think Zagzebski pushes the analogy too far. Intellectual virtues are not perfectly analogous to moral virtues. First, intellectual virtues are not structurally motivational; unlike moral virtues they do not require a characteristic motivation. Second, moral virtues are not necessarily reliable at achieving their aim. One can be benevolent, kind, or generous despite continuously failing to bring about one’s intended aim. In contrast, in order for open-mindedness or intellectual courage to be considered intellectual virtues they have to be reliable ways of getting at the truth. Intellectual virtues, on my account, are more akin to Aristotelian skills than to moral virtues. I argue for this intermediate position by looking at some contemporary problems in epistemology. 4 Chapter 1 examines the nature of epistemic rationality/justification and its relation to other domains of normativity; particularly, moral/practical norms and evaluations. I argue that although evaluations of epistemic rationality/justification should be distinguished from moral evaluations, it is plausible that moral and practical considerations are relevant to evaluations of epistemic rationality/justification. I argue that an adequate account of epistemic rationality should make use of the notion of intellectually responsible behavior, and that moral and practical considerations are relevant to whether intellectual behavior is responsible. I then amend this account by arguing that epistemic rationality/justification also requires reliability. I propose that epistemic rationality is best conceived as intellectually skillful behavior.
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