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AN ACCOUNT OF THE JUSTIHCATION OF TESTIMONIAL BELIEFS:

A RELIABILIST APPROACH

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in

the Graduate School of the The Ohio State University

By

David Ena. M.A.

The Ohio State University

2000

Dissertation Committee Approved by

Professor Marshall Swain. Adviser

Professor George Pappas Adviser

Professor Diana Raffman Philosophy Program UMI Number: 9994859

Copyright 2000 by Eng, David

All rights reserved.

UMI

UMI Microform 9994859 Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

Bell & Howell Information and Leaming Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by David Eiif> 2000 ABSTRACT

I defend a novel account of the justification of testimonial beliefs within a general

reliabilist framework. I argue that an agent's testimonial belief is justified only if the agent

is discriminative about testimonial reports. To be discriminative about a testimonial report

requires that an agent not form a testimonial belief, had the testimonial report been different

in relevant ways. In developing this account. I provide a way of determining the relevant

testimonial reports an agent must be capable of discriminating that appeals to the evidence

available to the agent, and I discuss the different mechanisms that allow agents to be

discriminative about testimonial reports.

My account treads a middle ground between two prominent accounts. Weak

Individualism and the Blind-Trust account. .According to Weak Individualism, the justification of a testimonial belief must be grounded in non-testimonial evidence, while

according to the Blind-Trust account, a testimonial belief is justified if it is formed on the

basis of a disposition to blindly believe others. I show that Humean Weak Individualism

leads to skepticism, and the Blind-Trust account licenses gullibility. On my account, since

an agent has to be discriminative about testimonial reports and since an agent can be

discriminative without possessing the non-testimonial evidence required by Weak

Individualism, my account avoids both of these consequences.

Because I adopt a general reliabilist framework. I also provide solutions to two

serious problems raised for reliabilism. the Generality Problem and the New Evil Demon

problem. I offer a solution to the Generality Problem, the problem of identifying the unique

process that produces epistemic results in accordance with our intuitions. If the reliabilist appeals to the process that reflects the actual dynamics of belief formation, the account will produce the correct epistemic results. I also develop a solution to the New Evil Demon problem, a problem involving cases in which agents form justified beliefs that are produced by unreliable processes. I argue that if the reliability of a process is evaluated in worlds that are fixed by the evidence that is available to agents, a reliabilist account will capture our intuitions in these cases.

Ill ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank many of the faculty, graduate students, and staff at The Ohio

State University for their part in helping me complete this dissertation. In particular. I would like to thank Diana Raffman for many helpful discussions, and for showing me how enjoyable philosophy can be. I am also deeply indebted to George Pappas for his comments and discussions on earlier drafts, and for his role in my development as a philosopher. I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor. Marshall Swain, for his patience, help, guidance, and encouragement through many earlier drafts. Finally. I would like to thank my wife. Sondra Bacharach. Without her patience and help, this dissertation would have never been completed.

IV VITA

M ay 18. 1966 ...... Bom - Grand'Mere. Quebec

1993 ...... M.A. Philosophy. McGill University

1990-1993 ...... Graduate Teaching Associate. McGill University. Montreal. Quebec

1993-2000 ...... Lecturer The Ohio State University

2000-present ...... Lecturer California State University. Bakersfield

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Philosophy TABLE OF CONTENTS

A bstract ...... ii

Acknowledgements...... iv

V ita...... V

Table of Contents ...... vi

Chapters:

Introduction ...... I

1. The Nature of Testimony and Testimonial Beliefs ...... 7

1.1 The Role and Importance of Testimony ...... 8 1.2 The Nature of Testim ony ...... 10 1.3 Coady's Account of Testifying ...... 21 1.4 Graham’s Account of Testifying ...... 27 1.5 Testim onial Beliefs ...... 29

A Critique of Individualism ...... 39

2.1 Individualism ...... 40 2.2 Strong Individualism ...... 41 2.3 Weak Individualism ...... 47 2.4 Varieties of Weak Individualism ...... 53

3. A Critique .of the Blind Trust Account ...... 67

3.1 Varieties of Trust...... 68 3.2 The A Priori Justification of Testimonial Beliefs ...... 72 3.2.1 The Argument from Inconsistency ...... 72 3.2.2 The Argument from Rationality ...... 77 3.2.3 The Argument from Content ...... 87 3.3 A Reliabilist Defense of Blind-Trust ...... 91

4. A Defense ...... of Reliabilism ...... 99

4.1 A Solution to the Generality Problem ...... 101

vi 4.1.1 The Generality Problem ...... 101 4.1.2 Psychological Realism ...... 105 4.1.3 Psychological Realism versus Causal Operativeness ...... 109 4.1.4 Solving the Generality Problem ...... 115 4.1.5 The No Distinction Problem ...... 122 4.2 A Solution the New Evil Demon Problem ...... 127 4.2.1 The New Evil Demon Problem ...... 128 4.2.2 Multiplying Concepts of Epistemic Justification ...... 129 4.2.3 Reliability and Relativizing ...... 133 4.2.4 Responsibility. Reliability, and Available Evidence ...... 139 4.2.5 Availabilitv ...... 153

5. Discrimination. Justification, and Testimony ...... 166

5.1 Being Discriminative about Testimonial Reports ...... 167 5.2 Why be Discriminative about Testimony ...... 168 5.3 How to be Discriminative ...... 184 5.4 Discrimination. Autonomv. and Individualism ...... 198

Bibliography ...... 205

vu INTRODUCTION

In recent years, there has been a growing literature in epistemology on issues regarding testimony. Much of this literature has focused on specifying the conditions under which an agent is justified in forming a belief on the basis of a testimonial report.

Given that testimony plays an extensive role in our everyday lives (e.g.. our education system, what we read in newspapers, magazines, books, and what we hear on the radio and television), it is surprising that epistemologists have only recently turned their attention toward this issue. My goal in this dissertation is to provide a novel account of the justification of testimonial beliefs.

The accounts that have been offered so far occupy opposite ends of an extreme in regard to the extent and the kind of evidence that agents have to possess about the reliability of different kinds of testimonial reports. At one end. there is the Weak Individualist account, according to which an agent’s testimonial belief is justified only if the agent possesses sufficient non-testimonial evidence for believing that the testimonial report is an instance of a kind of testimonial report that is reliable. .At the opposite end. there is the

Blind Trust account, according to which an agent does not have to possess any evidence about the reliability of testimonial reports. Both of these accounts lead to serious problems.

Since agents rarely possess the extensive non-testimonial evidence that Weak Individualism requires, this view leads to skepticism. In contrast, because the Blind-Trust account does not require that agents possess any evidence about the reliability of different kinds of testimonial reports, this view has the problematic consequence of licensing gullibility. My account of the justification of testimonial beliefs treads a middle ground between these two extremes. I argue that in order for an agent to form a Justified testimonial belief, the agent must be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports. To be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports means that an agent must not form a belief on the basis of certain kinds of testimonial reports. My account avoids the skeptical consequence that many of our testimonial beliefs are unjustified since an agent can be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports without possessing the extensive non-testimonial evidence that Weak Individualism demands. An agent can rely on testimonial evidence in being discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports.

My account also avoids licensing gullibility because if an agent is discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports, then this means that the agent is not forming a belief in a gullible way. In developing this account. 1 propose two different constraints on the kinds of testimonial reports that an agent must be capable of discriminating. First, the testimonial reports must be objectively likely in the sense that it must be likely that the agent could have been presented with these reports. Second and perhaps most importantly, there must be evidence available to the agent, which if possessed by the agent, would lead the agent to believe that the kind of testimonial report is unreliable.

This account of the justification of testimonial beliefs is intended to be part of a general reliabilist account of justification. The requirement that agents have to be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports is essentially a requirement that agents track the reliability of different kinds of testimonial reports. Because this account adopts a reliabilist approach in developing an account of the justification of testimonial beliefs. I devote a portion of the dissertation toward defending reliabilism as a general account of justification. In particular. I offer solutions to two of the most serious problems facing reliabilist accounts of justification, the Generality Problem and the New Evil Demon

Problem. The challenge posed by the Generality Problem is that according to a reliabilist account of justification, the justificatory status of a belief depends on the reliability of the process that produces it. But any belief that is produced by a process token is an instance of a number of different process types, each possessing a different degree of reliability.

Depending on which process type is chosen, a reliabilist account will produce a different result in regard to the justificatory status of the belief. The challenge for the reliabilist is to identify in a non ad hoc way the relevant process type that produces the result that accords with our intuitions.

My solution to this problem adopts a way of identifying a process type that has been suggested by Alston. .According to .Alston, the reliabilist can identify a unique process type by identifying the psychologically real one. the process that reflects the actual dynamics of belief formation. As a solution to the Generality Problem. .Alston's proposal has been criticized on several grounds. First, it has been suggested that identifying the psychologically real process will not identify a unique process, because there are a number of processes that are psychologically real. Second, it has been argued that even if there is a unique psychologically real type, a reliabilist account that appeals to this type will produce counter-intuitive results. In response to these criticisms. I argue that there must be a unique psychologically real process, and that this process type produces results that accord with our epistemic intuitions.

The challenge posed by the New Evil Demon problem involves considering whether processes that are assumed to be reliable in the actual world would produce justified beliefs

in a demon world. These cases pose a problem for the reliabilist since the agent's beliefs are justified even though the processes are unreliable. I interpret these cases as showing that an

agent can do her epistemic best and form a belief in an epistemically responsible way

without the belief-forming process being reliable. I argue that a reliabilist account, that

relativizes the reliability assessments to worlds that might not include the actual world, can capture our intuitions in these cases. The challenge for such a solution is to identify which worlds are relevant in assessing the reliability of a belief forming process. 1 propose that we appeal to the evidence that is available to an agent in identifying these worlds. If there is available evidence, which if possessed by the agent, would prevent the agent from forming a false belief in a particular circumstance, then this circumstance should be included in the worlds in which the reliability of the process is assessed.

In Chapter 1, I begin by exploring what testimony and testimonial beliefs are, and what is involved in an act of testifying. I argue that in testifying, an agent makes a commitment toward a proposition, one that involves an intention to provide evidence for the truth of p and one that involves recognizing that one can be held responsible for deliberately

leading others astray. I distinguish two conceptions of what a testimonial belief is. On a

narrow conception, a testimonial belief that p is a belief that is formed on the basis of

interpreting someone as having testified that p. On a broader conception, a testimonial

belief is a belief that is formed on the basis of interpreting someone as having made an assertion.

In Chapter 2, I consider and raise criticisms of an individualist approach for developing an account of the justification of testimonial beliefs. I discuss and raise criticisms for the Strong Individualist account, according to which none of our testimonial

beliefs are justified. This view leads to the further counterintuitive result that even many of

our non-testimonial beliefs are unjustified (e.g„ those that are based on an inductive

inference). I then consider a more plausible form of Individualism, Weak Individualism

according to which the justification of a testimonial belief has to be grounded in non­

testimonial reasons or evidence. The main problem for this account is that a layperson

could never acquire sufficient non-testimonial evidence to infer that an expert-testifier is

reliable about a subject matter, A layperson could never acquire a justified belief from an

expert In Chapter 3 .1 consider and raise criticisms for the Blind Trust account. According to this account, the mere fact that someone testifies that p is sufficient to justify an agent's testimonial belief that p. I consider arguments that appeal to considerations concerning rationality and content which purport to show that the mere intelligibility of an utterance is sufficient to provide an agent with a justified testimonial belief. I also consider arguments that purport to show that a disposition to blindly believe others is reliable, and I argue that all of these arguments fail.

In Chapter 4. I defend reliabilism as a general theory of justification by providing solutions to the Generality Problem and the New Evil Demon problem, as described atxive.

In the first part of my discussion on the Generality Problem. I consider what it means for a process to be psychologically real and how it is to be distinguished from what Goldman calls the 'narrrowest causally operative type'. In the second part of the discussion on the

Generality Problem. I argue that while a psychologically real type could produce beliefs with different justificatory status, it will not in the kinds of cases that would pose a problem for the reliabilist. In the discussion on the New Evil Demon problem. I begin by considering a strategy of responding to the New Evil Demon that involves multiplying concepts of justification. I argue that this kind of solution will either not be able to respond to all variations of the New Evil Demon problem or it will lead to the consequence that the reliability requirement on an account of justification becomes unnecessary. I then consider a variety of solutions that involve relativizing reliability assessments to worlds other than the actual one. and I argue that the best solution involves relativizing reliability assessments to worlds that are fixed by the evidence that is available to the agent.

In Chapter 5. I present my account of the justification of testimonial beliefs, as sketched previously. I begin by describing what it means to be discriminative in general, and I then motivate my account by discussing cases in which an agent could be described as being gullible. I argue that an account that avoids licensing gullibility must have the following requirement: roughly, if there exists available evidence to the agent for believing that the report is an instance of a kind of report that is unreliable, then the agent must not form a belief on the basis of the report. I then discuss the different ways in which an agent can be discriminative. CHAPTER 1

THE NATURE OF TESTIMONY AND TESTIMONIAL BELIEFS

The primary goal of this chapter is to lay some groundwork for the discussion that follows. In order to discuss the epistemic issues concerning testimony, testimonial utterances, testifying, and testimonial beliefs, we need an account of these notions. In the case of a piece of testimony. I shall define a piece of testimony as what is produced when someone performs an act of testifying. I will state more clearly what it means for a piece of testimony to be produced an by act of testifying, and I will then focus on developing an account of the act of testifying. I shall argue that S testifies by making a statement p just in case S intends to make an epistemic commitment toward the truth of p. To say that the commitment is an epistemic one is to say that the speaker must intend the utterance that p be taken as evidence for the truth of p. This commitment also involves the speaker being responsible to those who might form a false belief on the basis of the utterance. In defending this account. I contrast it with other accounts of testifying that have been offered, most notably those of Coady' and Graham.- While their accounts are similar to mine, they include and argue for conditions beyond those suggested above. I argue that these additional conditions make their accounts too strong.

In order to prime our intuitions about the different concepts associated with testimony. I begin in Section 1.1 by exploring different kinds of testimony and the role that they play in our epistemic lives. In Section 1.2.1 define the notion of a "piece of testimony'

' C..A.J. Coady. Testimony: .A Philosophical Studv (O.xtbrd: Clarendon. 1992) ch.2.

- Peter Graham. "What is Testimony?" The Philosophical Quarterly 47 ( 1997): 228-232. through defining what is involved in an act of testifying. In Sections 1.3 and 1.4, I consider

Coady's and Graham’s accounts, respectively, and I aigue that their accounts are too strong. In Section 1.5.1 turn toward offering an account of testimonial beliefs by providing an account of what a testimonial belief forming process is. I argue that a testimonial belief

forming process is one that involves forming a belief on the basis of interpreting the testifier

as having a complex set of intentions, those that generally underlie linguistic communication

in addition to the specific intentions that are related to testifying.

1.1: The Role and Importance of Testimony

I will begin to develop a sense of the notion of a "p'^^e of testimony' by considering first how testimony plays a role in our epistemic lives. As Hume once pointed out.

We may observe that there is no species of reasoning mure common, more useful, and even necessary to human life, than that which is denved from the testimony of men. and the reports o f eye-witnesses and spectators. ’

That we rely extensively on testimony, or on the word of others, seems clear. Throughout

much of our lives, we believe a statement that p on the basis of someone having made a

statement that p. This is not to say that there are not other factors that contribute to why we

form the belief. I will say may more about the factors that contribute in forming a testimonial belief, but, for the moment, it seems clear that we form beliefs about matters

because people say that it is so. From early childhood, much of what we believe and know

results from what our parents, educators, and others tell us, what we read in books and

newspapers, and what we see and hear via the news media. We rely extensively on the word of others for much of our knowledge of history, geography, science, current affairs, other

people, and even ourselves (e.g.. the day we were bom).

^David Hume. .An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding ed.s. L..-\. Selby-Bigge and P H. N'idditch (Oxford: Clarendon. 1992) 74. Although testimony often serves as a source of belief, we also rely on testimony in order to confirm or disconfirm our beliefs. Such testimony serves as additional evidence for our existing beliefs. I will call these latter cases instances of corroborating testimony' or ’uncorroborating testimony', and the former cases instances of "source testimony'.

In the simplest case of acquiring a testimonial belief, the testimony that we receive from an agent. T. is information that T. himself, has not acquired via testimony. In these cases, the testimony is what I shall call "direct testimony'. By contrast, the testimony that we sometimes receive involves a testimonial chain in which information is passed from one testifier to the next. I will call this "indirect testimony'.

We rely on testimony because it is both practical and indispensable. In some instances (e.g.. when we want to know what the weather is somewhere), it is easier to rely on what others say than to discover it for ourselves. But in other cases, we rely on testimony because we could not acquire knowledge in any other way. Our perceptual, inferential, and memory capacities have clear limitations. By relying on testimony, we can acquire knowledge about matters that we could not perceive, understand, or remember on our own.

For example, we are able to extend our capacity to remember matters and to confirm or disconfirm our own beliefs by testifying to ourselves through journals, diaries, and agendas.

We are able to extend our capacities to perceive certain events by relying on the testimony of others who may have perceived events at different times and places. Finally, we extend our intellectual capacities by relying on the testimony of experts, those who have a great deal of knowledge about a subject matter or a special ability to acquire knowledge in that subject matter.

There is still another important way in which testimony plays an indispensable role in our acquisition of knowledge. Although I have suggested that testimony plays in an indispensable role in allowing the layperson to acquire knowledge from experts, it is also the case that testimony an indispensable role in how experts acquire their knowledge. As Hardwig-^ notes, scientists not only rely on testimony in acquiring knowledge in their training to become experts in their field, but most novel research also involves collaboration which relies extensively on communicating via testimony. The trend toward collaboration in novel research is driven by the same kinds of considerations that drive the layperson to rely on the testimony of others. It is practical since it saves an enormous amount of time and effort, and it is indispensable since individual researchers do not possess the vast knowledge necessary to conduct complex research. Hardwig illustrates this point with the following example.

This experiment, which recorded charm events and measured the lifespan of the charmed particles, was one o f a series o f experiments costing perhaps $10 million. .After it was funded, about 50 man/years were spent making the needed equipment and the necessary improvements in the Stanford Linear .Accelerator. Then approximately 50 physicists worked perhaps 50 man/years collecting the data for the experiment. When the data were in, the experimenters divided into five geographic groups to analyze the data, a process which involved looking at 2 1/2 million pictures, making measurements on 300.000 interesting events, and running the results through computers in order to isolate and measure 47 charm events. The "West Coast group" that analyzed about a third of the data included 40 physicists and technicians who spent about 60 man/years on their analysis.^

Without testimonial collaboration and exchange among those working in the scientific community, much of our scientific knowledge could not have been acquired.

This brief discussion establishes that testimony plays an indispensable role in our epistemic lives. Because of this, it is vital that we understand what testimony is and how we can acquire justified beliefs and knowledge on the basis of testimony.

1.2: The Nature of Testimony

Let us turn to the issue of defining the notions that are related to testimony: "a piece of testimony', 'a testimonial utterance", ‘an act of testifying', and a ‘testimonial belief.

Before beginning, I should note that for some of these terms, our intuitions are too vague so

as to provide a strict definition that appeals to these intuitions. However, so that we can have

■* John Hardwig, “Epistemic Dependence," The Journal of Philosophy 82 ( 1985 ): 335-349. and "The Role of Trust in Knowledge," The Journal of Philosophy 88 ( 1991): 693-708.

^ John Hardwig. "Epistemic Dependence," The Journal of Philosophy 82 ( 1985): 347.

10 a clear understanding of how we are using these terms in the discussion that follows, I will provide a stipulative definition of these terms in some cases.

Let us begin first with a testimonial utterance. A testimonial utterance is a kind of meaningful utterance. In other words, it is kind of utterance (i.e., a vocal string of sounds) that has meaning. What gives the utterance meaning is a very large issue, but I take it that it has something to do with the speaker's intentions in making the utterance, and the conventions that are associated with how the utterance should be understood. What are the relevant intentions here? Following a Gricean^* kind of account, I shall assume that the agent must, roughly, intend to produce a certain effect in an audience by making the utterance. There are of course many different kinds of meaningful utterances. For example, one can make a meaningful utterance by asking a question, making a command, making an assertion, etc. In each of these different cases, we can associate different kinds of acts, acts which Austin' calls ‘illocutionary acts’: questioning, commanding, asserting, etc. And for each of these acts, we can identify further intentions, in addition to the intention associated with making a meaningful utterance, that are associated with each kind of act. I will have more to say about this later, but for the moment, we can say that a testimonial utterance is a kind of utterance that is made with certain intentions, the intentions that are necessary for the utterance to have meaning and the intentions that are specific to testifying. If a vocal string of sounds or an utterance were made without these intentions, it would not be a testimonial utterance.

I take the term 'a piece of testimony' to be very similar to 'a testimonial utterance' in the following way. The term ‘testimonial utterance' seems narrower than the term *a piece of testimony'. In order for something to be a testimonial utterance, it seems that it has

^ Paul Grice, “Utterer's Meaning and Intentions." Studies in the Wav of Words (Cambridge. Harvard University Press. I9S9).

^J.L. .Austin. How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962) 98.

II to be produced in a verbal way.* On the other hand, it seems that a piece of testimony can be non-verbal. An agent can produce a piece of testimony, but not a testimonial utterance, if one testifies by writing something down. Like a testimonial utterance, what transforms a string of symbols on a piece of paper into a piece of testimony is if it is produced with the intentions that are associated with testifying and the intentions that we associate with making a meaningful utterance. There may of course be other ways in which one might testify without either using verbal and written language. For example, one might testify by making some body movement. These body movements would still be instances of a piece of testimony if they were produced with the appropriate intentions.

There is some ambiguity in regard to the relationship between a piece of testimony and an act of testifying. So far, I have stated that a piece of testimony can be a string of sounds or a string of symbols on a piece of paper that are produced with certain intentions, intentions that impart the symbols with meaning and that are specific to the act of testifying.

But what is involved in an act of testifying and what is its relationship to a piece of testimony? An act of testifying requires possessing more than simply a set of intentions that are specific to testifying. An act of testifying includes a sequence of events beginning with the intentions involved in making a meaningful utterance and ending with a string of vocal sounds. Thought of in this way, I propose that we think of a piece of testimony as the final product of an act of testifying.'’ It is the string of sounds that someone might utter or the string of symbols that we find on a piece of a paper. This is not to say that any string of sounds or symbols can be a piece of testimony; in order for a string of symbols or sounds to be a piece of testimony, it must be the result of an act of testifying.

* If one does not share my intuitions on this matter, I am willing to use the terms a piece of testimony' and a ‘testimonial utterance' in the same way.

Rather than thinking of a piece o f testimony in this way. one might think that ‘a piece of testimony' refers to the fact that one has performed an act o f testifying. 1 do not think that our intuitions on this matter are clear, so 1 propose that we understand the relationship between a piece o f testimony and an act o f testifying in the way that 1 have suggested.

12 In saying that a piece of testimony is the result of an act of testifying, I am not endorsing the claim that anything that is produced by an act of testifying can be a piece of testimony. An upset stomach that is a causal by-product of an act of testifying is not a piece of testimony. In order for something to be a verbal utterance or its non-verbal counterpart, let alone a piece of testimony, the agent must intend that the string of sounds or symbols produce a certain effect in an audience. E.xactly what effect the agent intends to produce, as we will see, will allow us to distinguish different kinds of acts (e.g., asserting, questioning, testifying, etc.) that can produce meaningful utterances.

In specifying what we mean by a 'piece of testimony', we can turn our attention toward what is involved in performing an act of testifying. As I alluded to above, I take testifying to be a kind of illocutionary act. to use Austin's terminology. What is an illocutionary act'? .As .Austin noted, we do different things with linguistic utterances. For e.xample. we use linguistic utterances to ask questions, make commands, describe states of affairs, etc. The kind of act that we perform depends on two factors: what we intend to do with the utterance and the conditions that determine the appropriate performance of the act.

Consider the utterance. "There is a bull in the field." We can imagine that this utterance could be used to perform different acts. If on the one hand, an agent makes the utterance with the intention to warn someone of a danger in the field, the agent has performed an act of warning. If on the other hand, the agent makes the utterance with the intention to describe a state of affairs, the agent has performed an act of describing and not an act of warning. What an agent intends to do with the utterance is what Austin calls the

'illocutionary force' of an illocutionary act. For the act of commanding someone to do the illocutionary force roughly would be the intention to get someone to do x in response to the utterance. In contrast, in the case of an act promising to do x. the illocutionary force would be the intention to incur an obligation to do x.

13 According to Austin, the illocutionary force is only one factor that determines the nature of an illocutionary act. Suppose that an agent utters the statement "I bet that

Spectacular Bid will win the race" with the intention to make a wager on the race.

Unbeknownst to the agent, however, the race has already happened. Others, who have already placed their bets, have either collected or lost their money. According to .Austin, the agent has not performed an act of betting in making the utterance even though the agent has made the relevant utterance with the appropriate intention.'" In a similar way. suppose that someone utters the statement "I do" with the intent to marry someone, but it happens that the person is already married to some other person. Although the agent has the intention that is associated with making a promise of marriage, the agent has not succeeded in performing the act. There are certain conditions that must hold in order for the act to be performed, conditions that are determined by conventions that govern the appropriate performance of these acts. For example, a bet about some event typically requires that the outcome of the event not be already determined and not be common knowledge.

Since the nature of a particular illocutionary act is defined in terms of the illocutionary force of the act and the conventions that guide the appropriate performance of the act, we can use this framework in providing an account of the act of testifying.

Let us begin by identifying the illocutionary force in the act of testifying. Coady offers the following suggestion:

.Asserting, testifying, objecting, and arguing all have the same or similar illocutionary points-roughly. to inform an audience that something is the case "

In regard to showing that there are certain conventions associated with different illocutionary acts and which must be followed in performing an act, this is clearest example that Austin uses in his discussion. .Although I tend to share .Austin's intuition that the agent has not made a bet, George Pappas has rightly pointed out that our intuitions here are not that clear. In regard to the account of testifying that I will be defending as opposed to Coady's. the claim that there are certain conventions associated with different illocutionary acts is not crucial. .Although Coady argues that there are certain conventions associated with testifying, the account of testifying that I defend only makes reference to the intentions and commitments of the agent.

" C..A.J. Coady. Testimony: A Philosophical Studv (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992) 43.

14 There are two ways of reading this claim. On one interpretation, it can be interpreted as saying that if S testifies that p. S informs an audience that p is the case. This is problematic as a condition of testifying, since to inform an audience that p implies that p is true.

However, one can testify, assert, or argue that p without p being true. Someone who is unaware that p is false could still testify or assert p.

Another interpretation of Coady's claim is this. If S testifies that p. S has the iiitention to inform an audience that p is the case. Since S only has to intend to inform an audience that p is true, but might not know that p is false, this allows for the possibility that one can testify that p without p being true. But there is a problem with this claim. If S intends to inform an audience that p. this implies that S accepts or believes that p is true.

However, this is problematic for it seems that S can testify that p even though S believes p is false.

Perhaps, the claim that S can testify insincerely that p (i.e.. while believing that p is false) is not obvious. For instance. Sosa'- offers the following account of testifying: an agent testifies that p if and only if the agent states her belief that p. This obviously implies that if an agent testifies that p. the agent must believe p. Why would anyone think that in testifying that p. an agent must believe p? The intuition. I take it. is driven by two assumptions. First, it is common to think of acts of asserting and testifying as being similar. Second, it seems plausible that in order for S to assert p. S must believe p. An act of assertion involves an expression of a belief. Someone who pretends to be the President is not in fact the President. Similarly, someone who lies is someone who only p retends to make an assertion but does not actually do so.

It is correct that there is some similarity between an act of asserting and testifying.

Austin classifies both as an expositive, an act involving "the expounding of views, the

Ernest Sosa. Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essavs in Epistemologv (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1991) 219.

15 conducting of arguments, and the clarifying of usages and of references." But, as Austin goes on to note, there is an important dissimilarity between the two acts. We tend to think of testifying along with promising and swearing, but not asserting, as a kind of commissive act. They are acts that involve making a kind of commitment. The reason why we tend to think of testifying as a kind of commissive act. I suspect, is because we tend to associate testifying with legal contexts in which agents are sw oni to tell the truth under oath.

It is in virtue of the fact that testifying is a kind of commissive act that explains how it is possible for someone to testify insincerely. Consider tlrst how someone can make an insincere promise. Notice that if an agent makes an insincere promise (i.e., without the intent to follow through with the promise), the agent has still made a promise. It would be inappropriate to say that the agent has only pretended to make a promise. If you make a promise to pay me ten dollars next week, you are still obligated to pay me the ten dollars even if the promise is made insincerely. This obligation still exists because we think that you have still made a promise.

In the same way, when we think of someone testifying insincerely, we think that the agent has still made a commitment. I will try to describe the nature of this commitment in a moment. The point here is that if testifying is analogous to promising in that both involve making a commitment, then someone who testifies insincerely cannot simply say that they only pretended to testify. The fact that the legal system takes instances of perjury to be instances of testifying strongly suggests that when someone commits peijury, they are not pretending to testify. In contrast, if someone were to make an insincere assertion, it would seem appropriate to describe the agent as only having pretended to make an assertion. This is because, unlike acts of promising and testifying, acts of asserting do not involve making a commitment. It is this difference that explains why someone can testify insincerely, but not make an insincere assertion.

J.L. Austin. How to Do Things with Words (Oxford; Clarendon, 1962) 161-162.

16 Let us turn to explaining the nature of the commitment involved in acts of testifying.

In the case of promising to do x. the commitment involves a commitment to do x. Unlike the commitment involved in making a promise, the kind of commitment involved in testifying is an epistemic one. An agent who testifies by making some statement is making a commitment to the truth of a proposition. Before saying more about what is involved in making this commitment, it is worth noting a contrast between promising and testifying.

It is typically thought that when an agent makes a promise to do x. the agent incurs an obligation to do x. The commitment leads to the agent acquiring an obligation.

Moreover, the obligation that an agent incurs lead to the further fact that the agent can be held responsible for having failed to do x (i.e.. the agent can be blamed for having failed to do x). To what extent can an agent be held responsible for having failed to do x? The hearer. I take it. would be licensed in taking a reactive attitude to the promiser. For example, the hearer might be licensed in feeling resentment to the promiser or the hearer might be licensed in no longer trusting the testifier. I should note that I am not claiming that an agent should be blamed for having failed to do x under any circumstance. An agent might fail to do X through no fault of their own. Nevertheless, it seems clear that there are cases in which an agent can be blamed or held responsible for having failed to do x. Perhaps, it is if an agent is capable of doing x and fails to do x because the agent has made an insincere promise, then the agent should be held responsible for having failed to do x.

It is worth noting that testifying seems to be slightly different from promising in the following way. Although in testifying, one is making a commitment to the truth of a proposition, it is not clear that an agent is incurring an obligation in testifying.It is not clear to me what this obligation would be. This, however, does not mean that an agent cannot therefore be held responsible or blamed in testifying. If an agent makes a public

'•* There is perhaps an obligation here that I am not seeing, but at any rate, nothing that follows hangs on this difference.

17 commitment to the truth of a proposition, then the agent can be held responsible for having led people astray. In formal contexts, the agent can be convicted of perjury. However, in less formal contexts, the sense in which an agent can be held responsible for leading hearers is through the fact that a hearer would be thereby licensed in having a reactive attitude. Like promising, a hearer might be licensed in feeling resentment to the testifier or be licensed in no longer trusting the testifier. .Again, I am not claiming that in all cases an agent should be blamed or held responsible for leading people to form false beliefs. The testifier might be offering testimony that she takes to be true or the hearer might be at fault in forming the belief (e.g.. the hearer might read more into what the testifier actually said). Like promising, it would seem that a testifier should be blamed only if the testifier deliberately leads others into forming a false belief by testifying insincerely (i.e., testifying that p when the testifier believes that p is false).

The commitment in testifying has two components. The first involves an intention that the utterance be taken as evidence for believing p. This component explains how the commitment is an epistemic one. It does not really illustrate however exactly how a com m itm ent is involved. The second component is that an agent has to recognize that he can be held responsible, in the sense above, for deliberately leading people astray. It is this second component that captures the idea that there is a commitment involved in testifying.

To motivate each of these two constraints, consider the following examples.

Suppose that at a party Mark, a professor in political science, is asked for his opinion about the upcoming election. Mark makes an utterance that appears to be a serious statement, but which is intended as a Joke. .A colleague however takes him to have made a serious remark.

Intuitively, Mark has not testified since he did not intend his utterance that p to be taken as evidence that p.

IS To motivate the second component, suppose that Mark believes that he is taking part in a casual conversation. He is unaware of the fact that he is talking to a reporter, and that his statements will be published in tomorrow's paper. Had he known that the person was a reporter, he would have been more careful about what he had said. In such a case, intuitively it would seem that Mark's utterances are not instances of testifying, and intuitively the explanation is that Mark fails to recognize that he can be held responsible or accountable for what he says. It would seem inappropriate for someone to blame Mark for leading others astray.

If testifying involves making a kind of commitment, how exactly can an agent testify insincerely? In testifying insincerely, an agent’s intent is to have others form a belief that p on the basis of their utterance that p. when they realize that p is false. But since an agent must recognize that they can be held responsible or accountable for deliberately misleading others, any agent who testifies insincerely is knowingly taking a risk.

I suggested that an agent must have the intention that their utterance be taken as evidence for p in order to testify that p. Are there instances in which an agent testifies that p. but the intention is not to provide evidence for the truth of p? Prima facie, the following case suggests that it is possible. Suppose that a murderer is called to testify about whether he has committed a crime. The purpose of calling the murderer to testify is to determine the sentence that he ought to receive and not to establish whether he committed the crime. He has already been convicted of the crime. The judge does not need any more evidence about whether he has committed the crime. In this case, it would seem that the murderer’s utterance that p is not offered as evidence toward establishing the truth of p. but the murderer is still testifying.

.Although prima facie it seems that the agent is not intending that the utterance "I testify that p" be taken as evidence for p. there is a way of understanding the above case in which the agent is doing so. Austin notes that we often implicitly perform illocutionary acts.

19 For example, we often make statements (i.e., perform the illocutionary act of stating that p) without saying, "I state that p." If an agent’s intention is to provide evidence for whether the testifier is willing to testify to p by making the utterance "I testify that p", it seems plausible that the agent is implicitly saying, "I testify that I am willing to testify that p."

I have tried to identify what I take to be the illocutionary force in the act of testifying,

S testifies by making some statement p only if S intends the utterance to be taken as evidence for the truth of p, and S recognizes that by testifying S car, be held accountable or responsible for deliberately leading others astray.

As I noted earlier, the illocutionary force of an act often only partially defines an illocutionary act. An illocutionary act will also be defined by the conventions that guide the appropriate performance of the act. Are there any conventions that are associated with the act of testifying?

Within legal contexts, there are many conventions associated with the act of testifying. An act of (formal) testifying requires that the testifier swear to an oath prior to testifying. Furthermore, in some contexts, an agent cannot testify if the utterance is only based on hearsay.'^ Outside of these legal contexts, it seems plausible that these conventions do not apply. They would make the account unnecessarily restrictive. Let us consider some other possibilities by considering Coady and Graham’s accounts of testifying.

I will begin by considering Coady’s account of testifying, and I will raise counter­ examples for his account. These counter-examples motivate an account that has been defended by Graham. In the next section, I will argue that Graham’s account fall prey to other counter-examples.

'^For an interesting discussion on the restrictions on hearsay, see C..-X.J. Coady, Testimony: Philosophical Studv (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992) Ch.2.

20 1.3: Coady’s Account of Testifying

According to Coady.'*’

S testifies by making some statement p if and only if

C l: S's stating that p is offered as evidence that p C2: S has the relevant competence, authority, or credentials to state truly that p C3: S's statement that p is relevant to some disputed or unresolved question (which may or may not be p) and is directed to those who are in need of evidence on the matter.

Notice that Cl is the same as the first part of my account. But it is weafter than my account since it does not state that agents can be held responsible for deliberately leading others astray. Setting this difference aside however, let us focus on the plausibility of C2 and C3 as additional requirements on testifying.

According to C2. a testifier must have the relevant competence, authority, and credentials to state truly that p. Coady motivates this condition with the following e.xample.

Consider the case of Jones whom we know to have been hypnotized by a master criminal. The criminal has programmed the unsuspecting Jones to state that the criminal's arch­ rival is hiding out at a certain address and to do so w ith conviction in the e.xpectation that his word will be believed. When Jones blurts out the information, it is reasonable for us to take it as evidence for the arch-rival’s hiding-place because we know of the hypnotism and of the master-criminal's interest in having the information made available to us. But Jones is not testifying because condition (2) is not satisfied. He has no authority himself to vouch for p. as will become apparent if he is asked how he knows it.''

According to Coady. Jones is not testifying because he is not an authority. While I agree with Coady that Jones is not testifying. I disagree with Coady's claim that it is because

Jones is not an authority. There is a much more obvious explanation. If Jones is program med to make the utterance or that he blurts out the information, then it seems

'**C..-\.J. Coady. Testimonv: .-X Philosophical Studv (Oxford: Clarendon. 1992) 42. This formulation of Coady's account is different from the way he presents it. In his formulation. C l also requires that S's stating that p be evidence for p. I have left this condition out for as Coady notes, what he means by this condition is elucidated and amplified by C2 and C3. In particular. C2 illustrates that Coady adopts a concept of evidence that corresponds to a notion of potential evidence that is developed by .-Xchinstein (Peter .Achinstein. “Concepts of Evidence." Mind S6 ( 1978): 145-174) according to which e is evidence for h just in case there is an explanatory connection between e and h. That he sees C3 to be an elucidation on what it means for something to be a piece of evidence shows that he sees the concept of evidence to be a pragmatic one. In order for something to be a piece of evidence, it has to be needed insofar as it has to be relevant to some matter under dispute.

C..A.J. Coady. Testimonv: .A Philosophical Studv (Oxford: Clarendon. 1992) 45-46.

21 implausible that Jones is even a performing an illocutionary act, let alone an act of testifying.

This is because he does not have the appropriate intention that would make his utterance a meaningful one.

If Coady were correct in claiming that Jones is not testifying because he is not an authority, then the following should be true. If we consider a variation on the example such that Jones has the relevant intentions to testify but is not an authority, then we ought to say that he has not testified. Suppose that Jones is programmed to have the intention to state the archrival's hiding place. Jones is not merely blurting out the information; he has the intention to make a statement that is to be taken as evidence for the truth of p. He is still not however an authority. Jones does not know why he has this intention, and it may be that

Jones is unaware of how he knows where Jones's hiding place is. The example is admittedly odd, since we need to suppose that an intention simply pops into Jones's head.

Notice, however, that it seems plausible that Jones is testifying.

In order to determine the plausibility of C2, we need to understand what it means for someone to have the relevant competence, authority, or credentials to state truly that p. In his discussion, Coady takes these three terms to be synonymous, and he states the following.

Credentials for testimony appear to include at some point some kind of direct acquaintance or observation, though this requirement will look very different in different circumstances; for example, someone's testimony that they saw .A doing something will contrast with expert testimony that the odds against someone's dying from a certain disease are such and such, where the latter is based upon acquaintance or, rather, thoroughgoing familiarity with some area o f medicine and, perhaps, statistics. With this must go certain skills, abilities, or expertise which are required for or involved in the relevant acquaintance. Most of us most of the time have the relevant abilities for the majority of situations in which anyone is likely to require our testimony, but it is obvious enough how testimony can be destroyed by the demonstration of the witness's poor eyesight or deafness or by proof that the object reported was too far away for someone with only normal eyesight to see clearly. ' *

In ordinary (non-formal) contexts anyone who learns that p from a reliable witness is thereby equipped with the credentials to carry forward the process of witnessing to the

Ibid. 35.

~in truth ü f p. Moreover, if someone teams that p from several reliable and independently primary witnesses he surely can become even more authoritative on the proposition than any one of them

The second passage suggests that if an agent were to form a belief that p on the basis of an unreliable witness, the agent would not be an authority on matters related to p. It is unclear what feature is shared in all of the above cases beyond the fact that the agents possess good reasons for believing p. Thus, henceforth I will assume that what Coady means by possessing the relevant competence, authority, or credentials concerning p is to possess good reasons for believing p.

But if we understand possessing the relevant competence or authority in this way, the requirement that an agent has to be an authority in order to testify seems too strong.

Graham raises the following counter-example.

the Millionaire is a normal adult human being, stranded with the Movie Star, the Professor, et al., on a remote island. One day a cask of wine bottles without labels washes up. Only the Millionaire ever really knew anything about wine. He asserts that he can tell by tasting what the different wines are. Unfortunately, he has unknowingly lost his discriminating palate.-'’

Even though the Millionaire is not an authority, intuitively it would seem that he is still testifying. I should note that in this case, although Millionaire is not an authority, the

Millionaire intends that others believe that he is an authority. As we will see in a moment, this is a constraint that Graham places on testifying.

But before we look at Graham's account, here is another counter-example for C2.

Suppose that Noel tells Karrie that Plato was a reliabilist. Noel is not reliable about matters concerning epistemology. However Karrie justifiably believes that he is, and so she believes that her belief is based on good reasons. Intuitively, Karrie would be testifying if she were to state with the appropriate intention that Plato was a reliabilist. This would be true even if she were not an authority.

Ibid. 31.

Peter Graham, "What is Testimony?" The Philosophical Ouarterlv 47 ( 1997); 22S.

23 The general problem with C2 is that it precludes the possibility that one could testify

while possessing bad testimonial evidence, and given the above examples, it seems

implausible that one could. Agents, who believe that they are authorities, but who are not.

could still testify.

Let us now consider C3. There are two parts to C3. The first part states that an

agent testifies that p. only if the utterance is relevant to some matter that is unresolved or

under dispute. Graham raises the following counter-example.

There is no intelligent life upon Mars, and a fortiori Martians do not exist or tly spaceships routinely to the Earth. Tana, an oddball, states to a group o f reasonably- minded university students that Martians have kidnapped her and examined her brain. She is sincere and intends to persuade her audience

Although Graham's example is slightly odd. intuitively, it would seem that Tana is testifying

even though there is no issue under dispute or to be resolved. .Again note that in this case, even though there is no issue under dispute. Tana believes that the utterance is relevant to

some issue which she believes is under dispute. .As in the earlier case, this is a constraint

that Graham places on an account of testifying.

But again before we turn to Graham's account, there is another kind of counter­

example that can be raised for C3 (i.e.. the claim that the utterance has to be relevant to

some matter that is under dispute). Suppose a murder has been committed. Eager to tell

help the inspector. Jack believes that he has evidence (e.g.. he saw Sam near the scene of the crime) relevant to determining who committed the murder. Unbeknownst to Jack however.

Sam has been ruled out as a suspect. The inspectors have discovered irrefutable evidence

showing that Sam could not have committed the crime. Jack's testimony is irrelevant to any

matter that is under dispute given the total evidence that is available to the inspectors.

However, it would seem that Jack has testified.

Ibid. 229.

24 Consider now the second part of C3. According to this condition, in order for S to testify that p. the utterance must be directed at those who are in need of evidence on the matter. Consider the following two counter-examples. Suppose that Bill is doing research on the number of grains of sand on a particular beach. No one cares about this research, and Bill is aware of this fact; this is a self-edifying project. When Bill discovers and claims that there are 3. 213. 987. 028 grains of sand on the beach, intuitively Bill is testifying even though he is not directing his utterance to those who are in need of evidence.-- Consider another counter-example that raises a similar point. Churches and certain government offices keep track of marriages, births, and deaths that are made available to the public, but are certainly not directed to any given individual. They are intended as evidence that document certain events (births, deaths, etc.). but they are not directed at anyone. In both examples, these are cases of testimony, but there is no audience to whom the testimony is directed.

One might think that these examples also pose a problem for my account. If. on my account, testifying involves making commitment, then it seems plausible that a piece of testimony must be directed at an audience since a commitment must be directed at someone.

While I grant and recognize that my account does entail that acts of testifying have to be directed at an audience, we need to clarify exactly in what sense they are directed at an audience. Once we clarify this point, we will see that the above cases involving Bill, birth certificates, etc. do not pose a problem for my account.

A useful way of understanding exactly how making a commitment involves making a commitment to others is by noting a difference between private and public commitments.

In the case of a private commitment, we make a commitment to ourselves. For example, when we make a New Year's resolution, we are making a commitment to ourselves. There is often no point to make the commitment public since the commitment is not directed at

“ George Pappas originally raised this example in conversation.

25 others. In contrast to making private commitments, there seem to be different ways in which one can make a public commitment. There are different ways and reasons for why people make public expressions of a commitment. For e.xample. if I make a promise to you that I will pay you back ten dollars, the commitment is public and it is made directly to you. I make the utterance to let you know that I am making a commitment to you. However, there are other ways in which agents can make public commitments. For example, news reports are not directed at a particular individual, but at some general audience. Here the intent is to offer evidence for the truth of a proposition to a general audience. Moreover, in the case of news reports, the assumption is that there is a general audience that is interested in the reports or who are in need of evidence on a particular report. It is this assumption that allows us to distinguish public commitments such as news reports from other public commitments such as church registries and the example involving Bill. In these latter cases, there is no assumption that anyone is interested about the matter that is being testified to.

This is not to say however that the commitment is not directed at anyone. If an agent makes a commitment that is public, they presumably do so for a reason. The intent in these cases. I believe, is the following. Absent an assumption that there are people who are interested about the testified matter, an agent might testify with the intent that if anyone were to become interestedin the matter testified, the agent's utterance or statement is to be taken as a commitment to them. Thus, these kinds of commitments are made to a hypothetical audience, one that may or may not be realized.-^

To summarize. I have argued that the additional conditions that Coady places on testifying are unnecessary. Agents do not have to be an authority nor does the testimony

have to be relevant to some issue that is under dispute in order for someone to testify. As

we saw in some of the cases, one might plausibly argue that although an agent does not have

It may be that when Coady says that an act o f testifying must be directed at an audience who are in need of evidence on that matter, he means to allow for hypothetical audiences as 1 have described it above.

26 to be an expert to testify, one might argue that an agent has to intend that others take him to be an authority. Also, although an utterance does not have to be relevant to some issue that is under dispute in order to testify, perhaps an agent has to believe that the utterance is relevant to some issue which the agent believes is under dispute. This kind of account has been defended by Graham, so let turn toward considering his account.

1.4: Graham's Account of Testifying

According to Graham.

S testifies by making some statement p if and only if

(G 1 ) S's stating that p is offered as evidence that p

(G2) S intends that his audience believe that he has the relevant competence, authority or credentials to state truly that p

(G3) S's statement that p is believed by S to be relevant to some question that he believes is disputed or unresolved (which may or may not be p) and is directed at those whom he believes to be in need of evidence on the matter.

Let us first consider G2. Note that G2 does not require that the agent believe she

has the relevant competence and authority. This would be much too strong. In cases where an agent is not an authority but is trying to deceive others into thinking she is. the agent

would still be testifying. The plausibility of G2 will depend on whether we can find cases in

which someone intends that their utterance be taken as evidence for the truth of p. but does

not intend that their audience believe they have the relevant competence or authority. There

are two different kinds of cases that would work. First, we might try to imagine cases in

which S intends that her utterance be taken as evidence for the truth of p but also intends

that her audience believe that she does not have the relevant competence or authority. If we

think of an authority as someone who possesses good reasons for p. such a case would

have to be very odd. It is unclear whether we could imagine such a case without attributing

some degree of irrationality to the agent. But there is a more plausible way of trying to

-•* Peter Graham. "What is Testimony ?" The Philosophical Ouarterlv 47 ( 1997): 227.

27 imagine a case in which someone testifies, but G2 is not satisfied. Suppose that a meeting has been scheduled to protest the government's plan to build a nuclear power plant in the neighborhood. Along with people who are experts about the effects of nuclear power plants. Jack, a non-expert, has been asked to offer his reasons for why the power plant should not be built. Although Jack is aware that the other individuals who have been invited to speak are experts, Jack nevertheless stands before the crowd and utters "Nuclear power plants will cause many of the residents to get cancer.” Although Jack does not intend that his audience believe that he is an authority on the given matter, it seems plausible that Jack would still be testifying.

Let us now consider G3. Recall that according to G3. an agent testifies by making some statement p only if the statement is believed by S to be relevant to some matter which he believes is under dispute, and is directed at those whom he believes are in need of evidence on the matter. This constraint seems plausible given the example involving Tana considered earlier. .Although the existence of Martians is not under dispute. Tana believes that this issue is under dispute. But consider the following variation on Graham's example.

Suppose that Tana is aware of the fact that her audience will not accept what she says. She knows that her experience was extraordinary and that any reasonable person would not accept what she says. Tana does not believe there is an issue that is under dispute or needs to be resolved. Her intention is not to settle any dispute nor is it directed at anyone. Her intention is simply to make a commitment toward something, which she believes is true.

She recognizes that some agents could believe what she says, but she does not care whether they do. If a person. S. were to become interested in what she claimed, she recognizes that she could be held responsible or accountable to S. if she were to deliberately lead S astray.

Intuitively, she is still testifying.

The counter-examples that were raised for C3 of Coady’s account will raise a problem for G3 as well. It seems plausible that Bill, who is doing research on the number

2 8 of grains of sand on a particular beach, neither believes that the issue is under dispute nor does he believe that anyone is in need of evidence on this matter. The research is a self- edifying project. But it would seem that Bill could still testify about how many grains of sand that there are on the beach.

To summarize. I have defended an account of testifying, according to which.

S testifies by making the statement p if and only if S intends that the statement be taken as evidence for the truth of p and S recognizes that he can be held responsible or accountable if he were to deliberately lead others astray.

I have considered and suggested that other additional conditions, those suggested by Coady and Graham, lead to counter-examples. I will now move on to consider the nature of testimonial beliefs.

1.5: Testimonial Beliefs

One way of exploring the epistemic issues surrounding testimony would involve evaluating arguments or inferences that rely on testimony from an abstract perspective.

From this perspective, we would not consider whether agents use or are capable of using these arguments or inferences involving testimony. The project here would involve studying rules of inference involving testimony in the same way that we study abstract inductive and deductive rules of inferences within logic. Although I think that this kind of epistemological enterprise is worthwhile, it is not the kind of enterprise that interests me here. My overall

interest in this dissertation concerns attributions of justification, and in particular attributions of justification in the context of relying on testimony. And following Goldman.-^ I take the

primary objects of evaluation, in the context of attributions of justification, to be beliefs.

When an agent relies on testimony, it is an agent's testimonial beliefs that are justified. So

in order to explore the justificatory issues surrounding testimony, an account of testimonial

beliefs is needed and an account of testimonial belief forming processes is needed.-^

^ .-\lvin Goldman. Epistemologv and Cognition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1986): 4.

One might think that evaluating rules of inference involving testimony is an important component part o f this project, but I will argue in chapter 4 that this is not necessarily the case.

29 What is a testimonial belief? Consider the following account;

S's belief, B. is testimonial if and only if S forms B on the basis of testimony or is produced by someone having testified.

Such an account needs to specify what it means for a belief to be 'based on' or 'produced by' a piece of testimony. One answer is to adopt a causal account according to which a belief is based on some reason, R. just in case it is caused by R. This account will have to be modified in light of counter-examples, but in order to simplify matters. I propose that wc adopt this account for the moment.

Although a testimonial belief is one that is caused by an act of testifying, there can and typically are other factors that cause the agent to form the testimonial belief. For example, agents typically possess some evidence about the reliability of the testifier which play a role in the formation of the testimonial belief. The amount of such evidence that the agents possess will vary significantly. But the fact that there are these other causal factors complicates matters for we want to say that these beliefs are testimonial ones nevertheless.

Later, I will explain how this is possible.

The way in which evidence about the reliability of a testifier or testifiers affects how the agent forms the belief can vary as well. First, we can imagine cases in which an agent goes through a deliberative process as to whether to trust the agent. On the basis of the evidence that she possesses, we can imagine that she consciously chooses to form a belief on the basis of what the agent testifies. Prior to forming the testimonial belief, the agent forms a belief that the testifier is reliable. In these cases, the agent's belief is not merely a testimonial one. but an inferential belief, in the psychological sense, as well.

There are other ways though in which the evidence that an agent possesses about the reliability of the testifier can play a causal role in the formation of a testimonial belief. The evidence that an agent possesses concerning the reliability of a testifier might lead the agent to develop a disposition to form a testimonial belief without making an inference through

30 the belief that the testifier is reliable. This kind of case would be similar to the following non-testimonial case. Suppose that a child teams that trains make certain sounds. After years of being exposed to this correlation, it is easy to imagine that the child develops a disposition to form a belief that there is a train nearby on the basis of hearing a certain sound without reasoning through the belief that trains make certain sounds. In a similar way, consider an agent who possesses evidence about the reliability of the New York Times.

Although on the initial occasions, the agent might reason through the belief that the New

York Times is reliable in forming a testimonial belief, we can imagine that the agent develops a disposition to believe the reports without reasoning through the belief that the

New York Times is reliable. In these cases, although the evidence about the reliability of the testifier plays a causal role in the formation of the belief, the agent's testimonial belief would be psychologically immediate and not inferential. An interesting question, which I will discuss in the final chapter, is whether the evidence that the agent possesses plays any interesting epistemological role.

Let us investigate in more depth what is involved in forming a testimonial belief, and in order to simplify matters, let us focus on a case in which an agent does not possess any evidence concerning the reliability of the testifier.

As many have noted, in order for an agent to form a belief that p on the basis of someone's testimony, the agent must first perceive that someone has testified that p. This fact raises the possibility that any testimonial belief must be a psychologically inferential one. .A testimonial belief will involve forming a belief that p on the basis of a belief that someone has testified that p. Whether all testimonial beliefs are all psychologically inferential will depend on whether agents have to form a perceptual belief \h-dt someone has testified that p in forming a testimonial belief. One might argue that agents only have to perceive that someone has testified that p without forming a belief that they have testified

31 that p. As I see it, this issue can only be determined by empirical and psychological investigation for which, to my knowledge, we do not possess.

For our purposes, the outcome of this investigation will not really matter. Our primary interest is whether an agent can be justified in forming a belief on the basis of what someone says. In regard to this issue, it does not matter whether an agent has to form a testimonial belief that p on the basis of merely perceiving that someone has testified that p or on the basis of a perceptual belief ihât someone has testified that p. In either case, the agent's reasons will constitute good reasons Just in case there is a correlation between certain states of affairs in the world and a testifier's reports.

Let us consider what it means for someone to form a belief on the basis of a piece of testimony. As I noted earlier, the natural thought is to adopt a causal account according to which a belief is based on a reason. R. Just in case the belief is caused by R. This account though is clearly too simplistic. Consider the following counter-example. Suppose that

Roy tells me that every prime number is the sum of two other prime numbers. On the basis of what he says. I form the belief that every prime number is the sum of two other prime numbers. Thus, my belief is a testimonial one. Suppose that on the other hand. I have already been thinking about whether every prime number is the sum of two other prime numbers. Roy makes the same statement as above, but in this case I do not form the belief that every prime number is the sum of two other prime numbers merely because Roy has said so. Rather. I believe it because his statement causes me to realize a proof that allows me to see why every prime number is the sum of two other prime numbers. In this case, my belief is not a testimonial one. The problem is that in both cases. Roy's utterance plays a causal role in the formation of my belief.

Ross-^ tries to explain the difference between these two kinds of cases by drawing a distinction between forming a belief through someone's testimony and forming a belief

James Ross. "Testimonial Evidence." .Analysis in Metaphysics ed. K. Lehrer ( Dordrecht: Reidel. 1975) 35-36. 32 incidentally by way of it. Unfortunately, he does not offer any general way of understanding this distinction. The idea seems to be as follows. In the former case, my belief is produced by what we would consider to be a testimonial belief forming process, but in the latter case, my belief is not produced by a testimonial belief forming process. The role that Roy's testimony plays in the latter case is to only trigger (admittedly, in a causal way) a non-testimonial process that leads to my belief; it is not part of the belief forming process. This way of understanding the difference is helpful because it suggests that in providing an account of what a testimonial belief is, we need to first understand what a testimonial belief forming process is. This in turn requires that we understand how to individuate belief-forming processes.

Exactly how any belief-forming process is to be individuated is a very large and difficult issue, which I explore in Chapter 4. Here, I will only summarize my view of the matter. First, a belief forming process is a process that involves forming beliefs on the basis of reasons, broadly construed so as to include both beliefs and non-belief states such as perceptual or memory states. Second, and more immediately relevant to our discussion here, I take a belief forming process to be a stable belief forming habit or disposition. The testimonial belief forming processes that are responsible for an agent's belief are not singular causal chains that lead to a belief. Rather, they are psychological habits or processes that can explain the larger corpus of an agent's beliefs.

This way of understanding belief forming processes allows us to explain why peculiar or abnormal causal chains will not count as processes and why an event that merely triggers a belief forming process will not count as a process. In the former case, what is usually implied in saying that a causal chain is abnormal or peculiar is that it does not represent a stable belief forming habit. To say that the particular process is abnormal is to suggest that the agent does not have a tendency to form beliefs in this way. In the second

33 case, we can understand how a piece of testimony can trigger but not be a part of a belief forming process in the following way. An event that triggers a belief forming process is one that causes a tokening of a belief forming process. We can only understand which events are triggers of a belief forming process as opposed to being a part of a belief forming process against the background of already knowing what the agent's belief forming processes are. Thus, in our previous example, the reason why Roy's testimony only triggers, but is not a part of, the process that produces my belief is because I have a stable forming habit or process that involves forming a belief on the basis of a certain kind of reason. Roy's testimony only causes a tokening of this process.

Finally, we can also understand the causal role that background evidence about the testifier can play in the formation of a testimonial belief. In the usual case, the background evidence that an agent possesses about the reliability of testifiers shapes and determines an agent's testimonial belief forming habits. For example, an agent might possess evidence that speakers of kind K are reliable about S-matters. Usually, it is this evidence that causes the agent to develop a disposition to form testimonial beliefs about S-matters from testifiers of kind K. The evidence is not a part of the process. Instead, it is what causes the agent to have the process.

Although I have suggested how we ought to individuate belief-forming processes, I have not yet stated what makes a belief forming process a testimonial one. I propose the

following. A testimonial belief forming process is a stable psychological habit that involves not only forming a belief that p on the basis of perceiving or forming the perceptual belief that someone has testified that p, but it involves forming the belief in a particular way. The crucial element in forming a testimonial belief is that the belief be the result of the agent's

having perceived features that are involved when someone testifies that p. In particular, it

involves forming the belief on the basis of the fact that the agent has testified that p. As

such, an essential causal component of a testimonial belief-forming process is that the agent

34 must interpret the agent as having testified that p. This implies that in forming the belief, the agent must attribute a robust set of intentions to the testifier. First, the agent must attribute the intentions that underlie any kind of locutionary act. As Grice notes, in order for an agent to make a meaningful utterance, the agent must have the following intentions,

"U meant something by uttering is true iff, for some audience A, U uttered .x intending:

1 ) A 10 produce a particular response r

2) A to think (recognize) that U intends ( I )

3) A to fulfill (I) on the basis of his fulfillment of (2).

In short. Grice requires that in order for an agent to make a meaningful utterance, the agent must have the intention that the utterance produce some effect by means of the recognition of the agent's intention. Second, the agent must also interpret the testifier as having the intentions that are involved in an act of testifying. This produces the following account.

An agent possesses a testimonial belief fa nning process in ]\xsicase the agent possesses a stable habit to form a belief that p on the basis of interpreting a speaker or a kind of speaker as having.

1) the intention that the utterance produce some effect by means of the recognition of the agent's intention, and

2) the intention that the utterance that p be taken as evidence for the truth of p, and

3) recognized that in making the utterance, the testifier can be held responsible for deliberately leading the hearer astray.

With this account of a testimonial belief forming process, we can define a testimonial belief as simply being a belief that is produced by a testimonial belief forming process.

There are a few important points worth noting about this account. First, in saying that an agent must be capable of recognizing that testifiers have the above intentions. I am not claiming that an agent must possess the concepts that are referred to in the above three conditions. I have in mind a less robust sense in which agents must recognize the above

Paul Grice, "Utterer's Meaning and Intentions." Studies in the Wav o f Words (Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1989) 92.

35 intentions. More specifically, in order for an agent to recognize that testifiers have these intentions, it is sufficient that the agent be capable of distinguishing when agents have these intentions from when they do not. It is a kind of knowing how recognition and not a kind of knowing that recognition.

The second point worth noting about the above account is that it would seem unlikely that children could form testimonial beliefs. The reason is that it is unlikely that children are capable of recognizing the complex intentions that distinguish different kinds of illocutionary acts even if children only have to recognize that testifiers have these intentions in the sense just described . If we adopt this account of a testimonial belief, this will pose a problem for our discussion of the epistemic issues concerning testimonial beliefs. This is because many assume that very young children are capable of forming testimonial beliefs. In most discussions, the assumption seems to be that a testimonial belief that involves interpreting the speaker as having made an illocutionary act where the intention is that the utterance as evidence for believing p. Let us therefore distinguish a narrow conception of a testimonial belief, as it is defined above, from a broader conception that can be defined in the following way.

An agent possesses a testimonial belief fanning pmccx.y just in case the agent possesses a stable habit to form a belief that p on the basis of interpreting a speaker or a kind of speaker as having,

1) the intention that the utterance produce some effect by means of the recognition of the agent’s intention, and

2) the intention that the utterance that p be taken as evidence for the truth of p.

In our discussion of the conditions under which a testimonial belief is justified, I will be assuming this broader account of a testimonial belief.

A point worth noting about both accounts is that they both seem to require that the content of the agent's testimonial belief be the same as the utterance. This is too strong.

There are instances in which an agent testifies by uttering the statement p, but some other

36 statement is conversationally implied.-'’ For example, someone might utter the statement

"The Yankees won the seventh game of the World Series" in which it is conversationally implied that the Yankees won the World Series. Intuitively in such a case, the agent's belief that the Yankees won the World Series would be a testimonial belief even though the content of the belief is not strictly speaking the statement testified to. But we want to be careful here. We do not want to allow that any statement that the agent infers from a testimonial statement will be a testimonial belief. For example, on the basis of hearing that the Yankees won the World Series. I might infer that David Cone pitched well. Intuitively, such a belief would not be a testimonial belief, but rather an inferential belief that is inferred

from, or based on. a testimonial belief.

We can account for the difference in the following way. Suppose that a speaker

makes an utterance that p. Q is conversationally implied by p if and only if the context is appropriate for the agent to interpret the speaker as not merely having the intention that the

utterance that p be taken as evidence for the truth of the p. but that the speaker also have the

intention that the utterance be taken as evidence for the truth of q. In the above example, the context seems appropriate to ascribe the intention that the utterance be taken as evidence that

the Yankees won the World Series but not that David Cone pitched well. It is for this

reason that the former, but not the latter is conversationally implied. Consequently, the

belief that the Yankees won the World Series would be a testimonial belief, but the belief

that David Cone pitched well would not.-'*’

I want to note one final point about cases in which an agent's belief is causally over­

determined insofar as there are multiple causes of an agent's belief. For example, suppose

These cases are different than cases in which an agent infers q from a testifier’s utterance that p. In these cases, the agent's belief that q would be an inferential and not a testimonial belief. Moreover. I take it that if an agent infers a belief that q from a testimonial belief that p. this does not imply that a testifier has testified that p.

In cases where q is conversationally implied by p. it is not clear to me whether it would be apt to describe someone who has uttered p as having testified that q. 37 that as Jack is looking at the window and seeing that it is raining, he is told by his friend that it is raining outside. Would Jack's belief be a testimonial belief? My intuitions about this matter are not clear, but I do not think that we have to settle this issue. Regardless of whether the agent's belief is a testimonial one. the interesting question, (the question that will preoccupy us for the rest of the dissertation) is whether the agent's testimonial belief forming process is the kind of process that can produce justified beliefs. In other words, the interesting issue that I want to explore in the sections that follow is under what conditions an agent can form a justified belief on the basis of a testimonial reason. This question will arise regardless of whether the agent's belief is causally over-determined.

In conclusion. I have argued that testifying is a kind of illocutionary act that is performed with 1) an intention that the utterance be taken as evidence for the truth of p. and

2) the recognition that by testifying the agent can be held. I have argued that the additional conditions on testifying that have been suggested by Coady and Graham lead to counter- e.xamples. Furthermore. I have offered an account of testimonial beliefs by providing an account of a testimonial belief forming process. .A testimonial belief process is one that involves forming a belief on the basis of perceiving and interpreting the testirier as having certain intentions, the intentions that underlie any kind of locutionary act and the intentions that are specific to an act of testifying.

38 CHAPTER 2

A CRITIQUE OF INDIVIDUALISM

Let us turn our attention toward exploring some of the epistemic issues surrounding

testimony. My overall goal in this dissertation is to determine whether and how a

testimonial belief can be justified, and in this chapter. I focus on a particular approach for

developing an account of the Justification of testimonial beliefs, an approach that has come

to be known as imlividiuilisni. .According to individualism, our reliance on others should

serve no more than an instrumental role in acquiring justified beliefs. Any beliefs that we

acquire on the basis of what others say are either unjustified, or they must be grounded in

non-testimonial reasons. Here. I argue that this kind of approach fails. In its weakest form,

weak individualism leads to a counter-intuitive consequence. In particular, weak

individualism leads to the consequence that laypeople cannot acquire justified testimonial

beliefs about a matter from someone who is an expert about that matter, but most would

agree that laypeople could.

In Section 2.1. I begin by offering a general characterization of the individualist

approach. I then distinguish and discuss the merits of two general kinds of individualism.-’'

strong and weak individualism. In Section 2.2. I focus on strong individualism, a view

according to which all beliefs must be justified first-hand. Since no testimonial beliefs are justified first-hand, it follows on this view that none of our testimonial beliefs are justified. I

argue that this view leads to counter-intuitive consequences. In addition to the fact that none

of our testimonial beliefs are justified, this view also has the counter-intuitive consequence

39 that many of our non-testimonial beliefs are unjustified (e.g.. those that appeal to an

inductive inference). In Sections 2.3 and 2.4. I discuss a weaker form of individualism,

weak individualism. .According to this view, a testimonial belief is justified just in case the belief is ultimately grounded in non-testimonial reasons. I discuss several versions of this

view. I argue that although weak individualism does not lead to as extensive a kind of

skepticism as strong individualism, it does lead to the conclusion that a layperson about a certain matter cannot acquire a justified belief from someone who is an expert about that

matter. This is counter-intuitive.

2.1: Individualism

What is individualism? Individualism is a view about whether an agent should or

should not rely on others in acquiring justified beliefs and knowledge. As the name

suggests, individualism takes the stand that agents should only rely on their own cognitive

capacities, and should not rely on what others say in acquiring knowledge and justified

belief. In regard to whether we can acquire knowledge via testimony, the view has deep

historical roots. Plato uses an example of testimonial belief formation in which a jury forms

beliefs on the reports of an eye-witness to illustrate how true belief can fail to be knowledge.

.And when a jury is rightly convinced of facts which can be known only by an eye­ witness, then, judging by hearsay and accepting a true belief, they are Judging without knowledge...But if true belief and knowledge were the same thing, the best of jurymen could never have a correct belief without knowledge. It now appears that they must be different things.^-

Descartes takes a similar negative stance toward testimony.

So. too. I retlected that we were all children before being men and had to be governed for some time by our appetites and our teachers, which were often opposed to each other and neither of which, perhaps, always gave us the best advice; hence I thought it virtually impossible that our judgments should be as unclouded and firm as they would have been if we had had full use of our reason from the moment o f our birth, and if we had always been guided by it alone.

^'This distinction is taken from Schmitt; see the introduction to Fred Schmitt. Socializing Epistemologv (London; Rowman & Littlefield. 1994).

-’-Plato. Theaetetus in Collected Dialogues eds. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton UP. 1989) 90S.

40 Finally. Locke writes,

I hope it will not be thought arrogance to say. that perhaps we should make greater progress in the discovery of rational and contemplative knowledge if we sought it in the fountain, in the consideration of things themselves, and made use rather of our own thoughts than other men's to find it: for. I think, we may as rationally hope to see with other men's eyes as to know by other men's understanding...The floating of other men's opinions in our brains makes us not one jot the more knowing, though they happen to be true. What in them was science is in us but opiniatrety.^"*

All three passages suggest that we cannot acquire knowledge through testimony, and that relying on testimony is somehow inferior to relying on our own cognitive capacities.

Although none of the above passages show that Plato. Descartes, or Locke e.xplicitly endorse the view that agents could not acquire justified beliefs via testimony, it is likely that each of the above authors would endorse such a claim. The reason why agents fail to acquire knowledge when forming a belief on the basis of testimony is not because agents fail to acquire a true belief or whatever is required over and above justified true belief in order to be knowledge. Instead, it is plausible that for Plato. Descartes, and Locke, one cannot acquire knowledge on the basis of testimony because testimonial beliefs will not have the appropriate epistemic status (i.e.. justified belief or something akin to it) necessary for knowledge.

In what follows, our focus will be on whether individualism, understood as an approach that claims that we cannot acquire jiistifiied beliefs on the basis of testimony, can be made plausible. We shall consider two types of individualism, strong individualism and weak individualism.

2.2: Strong Individualism

Let us begin by considering strong individualism, an extreme form of individualism that is often associated with Locke. As Schmitt defines this view, "[it] denies that any testimonial beliefs are justified; all beliefs must be justified first-hand."^^’ This

^^Rene Descartes. Discourse on Method in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes eds. John Cottingham. Robert Stoothoff. and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 1993) 117.

•’■'John Locke, An Essav Concerning Human Understanding ed. John Yolton (London: Dent, 1961) 58.

41 characterization is confusing. It suggests that there are different kinds of justification (i.e., ones that are first-hand, and ones that are not) while at the same time, it suggests that non first-hand justification is not a form of justification. Schmitt's characterization of strong individualism can be made less confusing by drawing a distinction between a first-hand and a non first-hand reason. Hence, according to strong individualism, a belief is justified only if it is based on a first-hand reason; since no testimonial beliefs are based on first-hand reasons, no testimonial beliefs are justified.

But what is a first-hand reason? A natural, but I think unhelpful, way of e.\plicating this notion would be to appeal to the notion of direct acquaintance. In particular, one might argue that S's belief that p is based on a first-hand reason just in case S's reason for believing that p involves S being directly acquainted with p. There are several reasons for rejecting this way of analyzing the notion of a first-hand reason. First, there seems to be no plausible account of the notion of direct acquaintance. Second, and more importantly, even if a plausible account of direct acquaintance could be given, it is unclear whether an account that appeals to this notion would capture our intuitions about what counts as a first-hand reason. For example, suppose that I form a belief that a swan in Australia is white on the basis of the belief that all swans are white. Let us suppose further that this latter belief is

based on evidence that involves having observed many swans. Although my belief that a

swan in Australia is white is not based on any direct acquaintance with any swans in

Australia, my belief is nevertheless based on reasons that are first-hand, since my reasons

involve nothing more than some perceptual observations and the use of an inductive

inference.

Fortunately, there is a more promising way of drawing the distinction between a

first-hand and a non first-hand reason. Hardwig^<> notes that if S forms a belief that p on

^^Fred Schmitt, Socializing Epistemologv (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994) 5.

-*^\John Hardwig. "Epistemic Dependence." The Journal of Philosophy S2 (1985): 336.

42 the basis of T having testified that p. S forms a belief on the basis of a reason fo r belie\’ing that T has a good reason for believing Possessing p. a testimonial reason for p involves possessing a reason for believing that others possess good reasons for believing p.-’'^ What makes a testimonial reason unique is that it involves possessing a reason about the epistemic states of other individuals.

If we think of a testimonial reason as being a paradigmatic example of a non-first­ hand reason, we can formulate the following account of a first-hand reason.

A reason. R. for believing p is first-hand if and only if it is not a reason that involves possessing a reason for believing that others possess good reasons for believing p.

Notice that this account allows that an agent could possess bad or good reasons for believing that others possess good reasons for believing p. More interestingly though, the account allows that an agent could possess testimonial or non-testimonial reasons for believing that others possess good reasons for believing p. This latter possibility allows us to distinguish different kinds of non-first-hand reasons. If an agent possesses non­ testimonial reasons for believing that others possess good reasons for believing p. let us say that the agent's reasons for believing p are second-hand. Furthermore, if an agent possesses non-testimonial reasons for believing that A possesses good reasons for believing that B has good reasons for believing p. then the agent's reasons are third-hand and so on.

I should note that if an agent forms a belief on the basis of testimony, the agent’s reasons will sometimes or often involve more than simply possessing reasons for believing that the testifier possesses good reasons for believing that p. To possess reasons for believing that the testifier has good reasons for believing p only involves possessing reasons for believing that the testifier is competent about p. But when we form beliefs on the basis of testimony, we are sometimes concerned not only with whether the testifier is competent about p. but also with whether the testifier is trustworthy about p. Although we might have

^^.\lthough Hardwig fails to note this point, whether we form the testimonial belief will also depend on whether we have good reasons for believing that the testifier is trustworthy about the subject matter.

43 good reasons for believing that someone is an expert about p. we might refrain from believing him because we might think that he has a reason to lie about p. Thus, in many instances, our reasons for believing a piece of testimony will involve not only reasons for believing that the testifier is competent about p but will include reasons for believing that the agent is trustworthy about p. In short, our reasons will involve possessing reasons for believing that the testifier is reliable about p. where being reliable about p involves being competent and trustworthy about p.

Although strictly speaking in these kinds of cases, the agent's reasons for believing that p are not simply reasons for believing that the testifier has good reasons for believing that p. the agent's reasons are still non-first hand reasons. This is because the agent's reasons are reasons about the epistemic states of other agent's. This poses a minor complication for our definition above, but I will ignore this complication in order to simplify the discussion.

With the above account of a first-hand reason, we can formulate a more precise characterization of strong individualism.

(SI) S's belief that p is justified only if it is based on a first-hand reason. R.

where S possesses a first-hand reason. R. for believing p if and only if R is not a reason for believing that others possess good reasons for believing p.

How plausible is this view? Many have argued that strong individualism is implausible on the grounds that it leads to the skeptical consequence that very few of our beliefs will be justified. Strong individualism leads not only to the conclusion that none of our testimonial beliefs are justified since all testimonial beliefs are based on non-first hand reasons. But it also leads to the consequence that any non-testimonial belief that is inferred from a testimonial belief will be justified since it seems plausible that one cannot form a justified

belief on the basis of an inference from an unjustified belief.

But I suspect that the strong individualist will not be persuaded by this criticism. If

in fact many of our beliefs are either testimonial or inferred from testimonial beliefs, then

44 the consequence that most of our beliefs are unjustified is one that the strong individualist will readily accept.

A more serious problem for the strong individualist however is that it seems to lead to the consequence that even some of our non-testimonial beliefs that are not formed on the basis of an inference from testimonial beliefs are unjustified. Consider the following two cases. Suppose that Bob tells me that it will rain tomorrow. I believe Bob because I have good reasons for believing that Bob is reliable about these matters. In other words. I have reasons for believing that he is competent and trustworthy about the weather. We can suppose that I have seen Bob make a large number of different predictions about the weather in the past, and on each occasion. I observed that his prediction was correct. In contrast, suppose that I form a belief that it will rain tomorrow on the basis of observing clouds as the sun sets on the previous evening. I believe that it will rain tomorrow on the basis of this observation because 1 have observed a correlation between clouds appearing as the sun on the previous day and there being rain.

Both beliefs are formed on the basis of the following kind of inductive inference: most Fs are Gs. x is an F. therefore x is a G. But according to strong individualism, only the latter belief can be justified since the former is a testimonial belief. The problem is that

it is unclear how the strong individualist can draw an epistemic difference between the cases.

One might try to draw a distinction between our reliance on testimony and these other kinds of inductive inferences by appealing to some remarks that have been made by

Hardwig.^* Hardwig argues that if B possesses a testimonial reason for believing p (i.e.. a

reason for believing that A possesses good reasons for believing p). then B's reasons do not

constitute evidence for the truth of p. According to Hardwig. only non-testimonial reasons

-’^I should note that Hardwig’s aim here is not to defend a form of strong individualism. Rather, his point is to suggest that an examination of testimonial reasons will require introducing a different kind of justification that does not involve possessing evidence for the truth o f a proposition. 45 for p constitute evidence for the truth of p. He defends this claim by offering the following consideration.

Although A's evidence counts towards establishing the truth of p. the case for p is not stronger after B discovers that he has this evidence than it was before B found out about A and A s reasons/'^

I don't share Hardwig's intuition. If an eyewitness testifies that the defendant committed the crime, surely the prosecution's case for the claim that the defendant is guilty is made stronger when the eyewitness's testimony is offered and when we discover her credentials and reasons.

Moreover, there seems to be no theory of evidence that supports the claim that a testimonial reason does not provide evidence for the truth of some matter. On a probabilistic account of evidence for example.

e is evidence that h iff p(h.e.b) > p(h.b) where his a hypothesis, e is some proposition, and b is some background information. But in the same way that the presence of smoke increases the probability that there is a fire. someone's testimony that p increases the probability that p is true. In both cases, the evidence might be caused by the relevant state of affairs.

Similarly, on an explanatory account of evidence, according to which.

e is evidence that h if and only if h correctly explains e or e explains h.

It seems that an agent's testimony that p is evidence for the truth of p as well. In the same way that the temperature might causally e.xplain a thermometer reading, the truth of a proposition might causally e.xplain why a testifier believes and testifies that p.

But Hardwig suggests that our reliance on testimony is different in a substantive way from our reliance on other mechanisms or features.

Nor need the individualist grant Schmitt’s contention that medical researchers are reliable' instruments of observation in the wav a good thermometer is. Researchers have beliefs.

^'^John Hardwig. "Epistemic Dependence." The Journal of Philosophy 82 ( 1985); 337.

46 values, and interests and are thus, unlike thermometers, given to bias, rationalization, deception about what are good reasons for believing

I suspect that this is the reason why Hardwig wants to suggest that testimony cannot be

evidence for the truth of a proposition while the reading of a thermometer can. But it is hard

to see why the fact that agent's having beliefs, values, and interests can allow Hardwig to

draw a substantive distinction here. While I grant that the reliability of relying on people

depends on more factors than the reliability of relying on a mechanical detectors, the

difference here is only one of degree and not in kind. Just as we can have good reasons for

believing that a mechanism is reliable, so can we have good reasons for believing that a

person is both knowledgeable and trustworthy. Thus this way of drawing a difference

between the two different inductive inferences would seem to fail. Consequently, it is

unclear how the strong individualist would not be committed to the claim that all beliefs

formed on the basis of an inductive inference of the form 'most Fs are Gs and x is an F

therefore x is O' are unjustified.

To summarize, we have considered possible ways in which one might try to draw a

distinction between how we rely on testimony and how we rely on other inductive

inferences. None of these attempts succeed in drawing a substantive epistemic difference

between these ways of reasoning. Consequently, it would seem that strong individualism

leads to the counter-intuitive result that none of our testimonial beliefs are Justified and that

none of our beliefs that are based on inductive inferences are Justified.

2.3: Weak Individualism

In order to avoid the skeptical consequences entailed by strong individualism, any

plausible kind of individualism must allow for the possibility that an agent can form a

Justified belief on the basis of possessing reasons that others possess good reasons for

believing p. Hume offers the following alternative.

■'°John Hardwig. “Evidence. Testimony, and the Problem of Individualism -.A Response to Schmitt." Social Epistemologv 2.4 ( 1988); 311. 47 Il will be sufficient to observe that our assurance in any argument of this kind is derived from no other principle than our observation of the veracity of human testimony, and of the usual conformity of facts to the reports of witnesses. It being a general maxim, that no objects have any discoverable connexion together, and that all the inferences, which we draw from one to another, are founded merely on our experience o f their constant conjunction; it is evident that we ought not to make an exception to this maxim in favour of human testimony, whose connexion with any event seems, in itself, as little necessary as any other."*'

This suggestion is a natural response to our earlier criticism of strong individualism. If our reliance on testimony is not significantly different from our reliance on an inductive inference (e.g.. forming a belief that there is a train coming on the basis of hearing a kind of sound and having observed a correlation between the kind of sound and the presence of trains), then testimonial beliefs could acquire their justification in the same way that beliefs formed by an inductive inference acquire their Justification. More specifically, we can provide an account of how a testimonial belief acquires its Justification by appealing to the fact that agents observe a correlation between what people say and the truth.

The reason why we place any credit in w itnesses and historians, is not derived from any connexion, which we perceive apriori. between testimony and reality, but because we arc accustomed to find a conformity between them."*-

Thus. for Hume, a testimonial belief derives its Justification from a belief about a generalization concerning testimony, and this latter belief is derived from the agent's perceptual evidence and an inductive inference.

The picture Hume suggests in the above passage oversimplifies the complex ways in which we acquire evidence concerning the reliability of a testifier and testimony in general.

In many cases, the evidence that we possess about the reliability of a particular testifier or the reliability of testimony in general is itself testimonial. In one kind of case, we can acquire evidence that a person. T. is reliable through some other person's testifying about T's reliability. For example, the reason why I believe that the statements in the Consumer

■"David Hume. .An Enquirv Concerning Human Understanding eds. L..A. Selby-Bigge and P.H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon. 1992) 111.

■*-Ibid. 113. 48 Reports magazines are reliable is because George has told me so. But, another way in which we rely on testimony in acquiring evidence about the reliability of a testifier T is when we receive testimony from another source, P, that corroborates T's testimony. For example, my evidence that the Dispatch is reliable about the world news is that other news sources provide the same reports.

On the weak individualist account, since in both cases the evidence is testimonial, the agent would have to possess non-testimonial reasons for believing that these other testimonial sources are reliable. The chain of justification for a testimonial belief is likely to be very complex insofar as the non-testimonial reasons for believing multiple testimonial sources will help support a particular belief. This is allowable on the weak individualist account as long as the chains of justification are ultimately grounded in non-testimonial reasons. Thus, according to weak individualism, if an agent, S. forms a belief that p on the basis of T's testimony,

(VVI) S's belief that p is justified only if S's reasons for believing are ultimately grounded in non-testimonial reasons.

In contrast to strong individualism, which seeks to eliminate testimonial reasons altogether. weak individualist does not claim that one cannot possess good testimonial reasons. Rather. it claims that one can form a justified belief on the basis of non-first hand reasons as long as those non-first hand reasons are grounded in first hand reasons.

It is worth noting that weak individualism is similar to a foundationalist account of justification in the following way. According to a foundationalist account of justification, there are basic and non-basic beliefs. Roughly, the idea is that basic beliefs are beliefs whose justification is non-inferential in character insofar as the justification of a basic belief does not depend on the justification of other beliefs. In contrast, the justification of non- basic beliefs is inferential in character insofar as the justification of a non-basic belief depends or derives its justification from other beliefs. The similarity between foundationalism and weak individualism is that for both accounts, there are beliefs (basic

49 beliefs for the foundationalist. and non-testimonial beliefs for the weak individualist) whose justification does not depend on the justification of other beliefs (non-basic beliefs for the foundationalist. and testimonial beliefs for the weak individualist), but not vice versa. For the foundationalist. the justification of a non-basic belief depends on the justification of basic beliefs, but not vice versa. For weak individualism, the justification of a testimonial belief depends on the justification of non-testimonial beliefs but not vice versa.

There is however an important dissimilarity between foundationalism and weak individualism. The non-testimonial beliefs that ultimately ground the justification of testimonial beliefs do not have to be basic in the foundationalist sense, i.e.. they do not have to be self-justifying. In fact, some of the beliefs are likely to be inferential beliefs about what the testifier has said in the past.

I should clarify what it means to say that the justification of a testimonial belief is derived from non-testimonial reasons. Webb raises the following objection for any kind of weak individualism.

what does it mean to say that our assurance is denved from' our knowledge o f human veracity.’ If it means we reason from a general principle that people rarely lie to the conclusion that this particular witness is telling the truth, it is certainly wrong. In only the rarest instances do we reason at all before forming a belief based on w hat someone has told us. In the vast majority of cases we simply believe them, or else not."*’

Webb's objection is that since most testimonial beliefs are not based on inference from the belief concerning the veracity of the testifier or testifiers in general, it follows that a testimonial belief cannot derive its justification from these beliefs.

.Although I agree that very few of our testimonial beliefs are formed on the basis of an inference from non-testimonial reasons or a non-testimonial belief about the reliability of a testifier. I don't think that this poses a problem for the weak individualist. The reason is

■*^M. O. Webb. 'Why I Know .About .As Much .As You: .A Reply to Hardwig. " The Journal of Philosophy 90(1993): 262. 50 that, in general, a belief can derive its justification from a belief or a reason without being psychologically derived (i.e., being causally produced via an inference) from these reasons.

The similarity between foundationalism and weak individualism noted earlier can allow us to understand how this is possible. As I noted earlier, according to the foundationalist, within the class of our justified beliefs, we can draw a distinction between those beliefs whose justification depends on the justification of other beliefs, and those beliefs whose justification does not depend on the justification of other beliefs. Let us call the former epistemic basic beliefs, and the latter epistemic non-basic beliefs. The foundationalist distinction here does not concern the causal origins of the belief. One might try to draw a distinction between beliefs that are psychologically basic and non-basic, where psychologically basic beliefs are produced by processes that do not take other beliefs as inputs, while psychologically non-basic beliefs are produced by processes that do take other beliefs as inputs.

As I understand the foundationalist account, it is possible for a belief to be psychologically basic, but epistemically non-basic. How is this possible? The foundationalist project of trying to identify what are epistemically basic beliefs has been a project that tries to identify a unique and special property that allows them to be self­ justified. It has traditionally been thought that only a certain class of beliefs could possess this property. For example, on Descartes' account, the basic beliefs are those that possess the property of being indubitable. Beliefs that are not indubitable can only derive their justification from these beliefs. On a more modem version of foundationalism, such as

Annis' contextualist account,-^ an agent's belief is justified just in case the agent is capable of responding to challenges about the belief by a certain group, G. Basic beliefs on Annis'

■*^David .Annis. ".A Contextualist Theorx of Epistemic Justification." .American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1978): 213-229.

51 account are those for which no challenges are raised by G. while non-basic beliefs are those for which members of G will raise a challenge.

In both cases, the intuition is that the property that makes a belief basic does not necessarily pertain to how the belief is formed. This is most clearly illustrated in the case of the cogito proposition for Descartes. The reason why the belief that I think or that I doubt is indubitable has to with the content of the belief and not with how the belief is formed.-^^

•A. belief with the content, I doubt or I think, cannot be doubted because to doubt a belief with this content leads to a contradiction. Similarly, on Annis’ account, which beliefs are basic is determined purely by facts about the group. G. If a group does not find a belief with a certain content objectionable, then the agent's belief will be epistemically basic.

If the property that makes a belief epistemically basic is not necessarily connected with how the belief is formed, it is possible for a belief to be psychologically basic even though it is not epistemically non-basic. Consider the following example. Suppose that

Jack has grown up near train tracks all of his life. .As a child, he learned to associate a certain kind of sound with trains. While early on. Jack's belief that there is a train coming was formed on the basis of an inference through the belief that trains make a certain kind of sound, it seems plausible that at some later point. Jack no longer reasons through this belief.

Jack immediately forms the belief that there is a train coming on the basis of perceiving a certain sound. But we can imagine that although Jack's belief is psychologically basic, it is epistemically non-basic. For example, on Annis' account, we can imagine that Jack's belief that there is a train coming is the kind of belief that would be challenged by members of G.

I have argued that within a foundationalist account of justification, it is possible for a belief to be psychologically basic, while being epistemically non-basic. Furthermore, as I noted earlier. I take weak individualism to be drawing an epistemic distinction that is similar

do not mean to imply here that for Descartes the indubitability of all beliefs has nothing to do with how the beliefs are formed. .•Xs George Pappas pointed out to me. for Descartes beliefs about one’s current sensations are indubitable because how they are formed. My point here is that there is only a contingent connection between whether a belief is foundational in the epistemic sense and how the belief is formed. 52 to the foundationalist's distinction. Testimonial beliefs are somewhat like non-basic beliefs insofar as their justification derives from a privileged class of beliefs (e.g., non-testimonial beliefs). The claim here is not about how the belief is formed, but about how the belief can acquire its justification. Thus, it is possible for a testimonial belief to derive its justification from non-testimonial reasons or beliefs even though it is not formed on the basis of these non-testimonial reasons or beliefs. Like our earlier case, an agent might observe over a long period of time that a testifier has a tendency to tell the truth, and after a while the agent might immediately form a testimonial belief without reasoning through the belief that the testifier is reliable. Although the agent's belief would not be formed on the basis of this, the justificatory status of the belief would still depend on this belief.

To summarize, according to weak individualism, in order for a testimonial belief to be justified, it must ultimately derive its justification from non-testimonial reasons or beliefs.

What I have argued is that this does not entail that an agent's testimonial belief has to be psychologically derived from these reasons. Thus, the claim that most of our testimonial beliefs are not psychologically derived from these non-testimonial reasons does not pose a problem for this view.

2.4: Varieties of Weak Individualism

In order for weak individualism to be made plausible, the account needs to specify how a testimonial belief derives its justification from non-testimonial reasons. In what follows. I consider several different possibilities, and I argue that each of these possibilities leads to a serious problem.

The passage by Hume considered earlier suggests that Hume adopts a form of weak individualism according to which a testimonial belief derives its justification from the belief that most testimonial utterances tend to be true. This latter belief in turn derives its justification from having observed a correlation between what people generally tend to say and the truth of what they say. A testimonial belief ultimately derives its justification from

53 having observed a correlation between what people generally tend to say and the truth of

what they say.

How plausible is Hume's claim that we possess enough non-testimonial reasons to justify the belief that most testimonial utterances tend to be true'? The view seems radically

implausible for the simple reason that agents typically do not possess the kind of non­

testimonial evidence that would justify such a belief. One problem is that most agents are

exposed to very few testimonial sources relative to the amount of testimonial sources that

exist. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that there are probably many different kinds

of testimonial sources that an agent has never encountered. For example. I have never

received any testimony from teenagers from most countries outside of the United States or

testimony from any tribal communities in many countries. For all I know. I might take

much of their testimony to be false, if 1 were to hear it. So even if an agent were justified in

believing that the testimonial sources with which they have interacted are reliable, it seems

unlikely that the agent's evidence is large or diverse enough to justify the belief that most

testimonial utterances tend to be true. A form of weak individualism, which claims that

agents do possess enough testimonial reasons for believing that testimonial utterances in

general tend to be true, is clearly implausible.

There are two different kinds of responses that one might offer on behalf of Hume.

First one could argue that agents might use inductive evidence for the reliability of

testimony in general in the following way. Although agents will typically only possess

sufficient non-testimonial evidence for the reliability of close acquaintances, once the agent

acquires sufficient non-testimonial evidence to justifiably believe that their close

acquaintances, they might rely on the testimony of their close acquaintances to acquire

evidence that other testimonial sources are reliable. So for example, my evidence that the

New York Times is reliable might be grounded in the following way. Suppose that I believe

that the New York Times is reliable because close acquaintances have told me that it is

54 reliable, and I possess sufficient non-testimonial evidence to believe that they are reliable.

Thus, although I do not possess sufficient non-testimonial evidence for believing that the

New York Times is reliable, nevertheless, the justification of my belief that the New York

Times is reliable is ultimately grounded in non-testimonial evidence.

The problem with this kind of response is that it will not allow us to capture a significant class of sources or kinds of repons that we rely on. viz.. the class of testimonial reports that involve relying on experts. The problem, generally, is that even if we possess inductive, non-testimonial evidence for believing that close acquaintances lu-e reliable, we will not be able to acquire sufficient non-testimonial evidence for believing that certain sources are in fact experts, or that certain kinds of testimonial reports that require expertise are reliable. The weak individualist is faced with a dilemma: either the agent's close acquaintances are experts on some matter, or they are not. If they are. then it is unclear how an agent, who is a layperson about that matter, could acquire sufficient non-testimonial evidence for believing that the acquaintance is in fact reliable. Later I shall consider several ways in which the weak individualist might defend this claim when I consider the problem of experts more generally. On the other hand, suppose the agent's close acquaintances are not experts. The problem here is that if they are not experts, then intuitively, we cannot rely on their testimonial evidence about the reliability of other sources that are experts or about the reliability of reports that require expertise. Again later I will make this point clearer.

Consider ne.xt the second kind of response that one might offer on Hume's behalf.

One might argue that an agent can acquire non-testimonial evidence for believing that testimony in general is reliable by using an argument by analogy. On the basis of possessing non-testimonial evidence that close acquaintances are reliable and on the basis of possessing non-testimonial evidence for believing that other sources are relevantly similar to our close acquaintances, one might argue by analogy that other sources are reliable as well.

00 But a similar problem arises here. The weak individualist again faces almost the same dilemma as the one above. Either the agent’s close acquaintances are expens or they are not. If they are, then a layperson will be unable to possess non-testimonial evidence for believing that the agent’s close acquaintances are reliable. But if the agent’s close acquaintances are not experts, then the following problem arises. In cases where the other source is an expert, there is a relevant disanalogy between the agent’s close acquaintances and the other source. One cannot argue that some person. E. is reliable about a matter. M. that requires expertise on the grounds that E is similar to a close acquaintance who is not an expert about M. If E were just like one’s close acquaintances, then one would actually have reasons for believing that E is not reliable about M. The problem here highlights the fact that when we seek people who are experts about a certain matter and our close acquaintances are not experts, then we are looking for evidence that there is a disanalogy between E and our close acquaintances. The strategy of appealing to an argument by analogy will not help the weak individualist.

To summarize, it seems that a Humean account, which requires that agents possess sufficient non-testimonial evidence for believing that testimony in general is reliable, will fail. Coady identifies an alternative interpretation of Hume’s position, which does not commit Hume to the strong view that we considered above.

On a more plausible interpretation of Hume's position, he is understood as claiming that the justification of a testimonial belief derives from the agent's possessing non­ testimonial evidence that certain kinds of reports tend to be true. But what is meant by a kind of reportl There is a natural and broad way of understanding what is meant by a kind of report'. It is natural to think of a 'kind of report' as being like a news report, historical, geographical, or scientific report. But there is broader way to think of 'kinds of reports': in this sense, they are like a type, rather than a token, report. Thought of in this way. there are no constraints on what can count as a kind of report. For example, a kind of report might

56 include reports given by a particular individual, or those given at a certain time, etc. Since this broader way of understanding what is meant by a 'kind of report' includes our natural

way of thinking about this notion, let us focus on the plausibility of forms of weak

individualism that rely on this broader construal.

In order to understand this view more clearly, let us consider Coady's objection to

this account. Coady argues,

,\n initial problem for this interpretation concerns the degree of generality that should attach to the content of a report before it qualities as a kind of report. That is to say, some sort of decision would presumably be required as to w hether or not the report There is a sick lion in Taronga Park Zoo' belonged to the kind, medical report or geographical report or empirical repon or e.xistence report...Clearly some non-arbitrar>’ restriction on the scope o f report o f a kind of situation' is required to make this notion of any real value...■**’

It is not clear why Coady's objection poses a problem for this weak individualist position.

Coady assumes that the weak individualist has to provide a way of individuating kinds of

reports that is independent of the agent's beliefs. But it is not clear why the weak

individualist has to do this. The weak individualist can simply require that the agent believe

or be justified in believing that the utterance is an instance of the kind of report for which

the agent is justified in believing is reliable. For example, if the agent possesses sufficient

non-testimonial evidence for believing that medical reports tend to be true, then it will be

sufficient that the agent believe or be justified in believing that the report is a medical report.

.Alternatively, if the agent takes the report to be a geographical report about a particular lion,

then the agent only has to possess sufficient non-testimonial evidence for believing that

geographical reports tend to be true. In order for the agent’s belief to be justified, all that is

needed is that the agent takes the token report to be an instance of a kind of report, broadly

construed, and the agent possesses sufficient non-testimonial evidence for believing that

these kinds of reports are reliable.

^C . .A. J. Coady, Testimony: A Philosophical Studv (O.xford: Clarendon, 1992) 84-85. 57 Whether the weak individualist should require that the agent be justified in believing rather than merely believing that the utterance is an instance of the kind of report for which the agent has evidence for believing is reliable is unclear. Consider the following example.

Suppose that Bill hears the utterance, "There is a sick lion in Taronga Park Zoo", and he believes that it is a medical report. Furthermore suppose that Bill has sufficient evidence to be Justified in believing that most medical reports tend to be true. However, suppose that

Bill is unjiistifiecl in believing that the utterance is an instance of kind of medical report.

There is no evidence that supports his belief, and Bill has ignored evidence, which suggests that the utterance is an instance of a geographical report. Is Bill's belief that there is a sick lion in Taronga Zoo Park justified'? My intuitions in this case are unclear. I suggest therefore that we leave it open as to whether the weak individualist should require that the agent have a justified belief or merely believe that the utterance is an instance of a kind of report for which the agent has evidence for believing is reliable. To simplify our discussion, however, 1 will assume that the agent only has to believe that the utterance is an instance of the kind of report for which she possesses evidence.

.As I noted earlier, if there are no constraints on what can count as a kind of report and on how an agent individuates kinds of reports, there can be many different ways in which a testimonial belief can derive its justification. For example, an agent might form a testimonial belief on the basis of a belief that the utterance is a kind of medical report or that it is a medical report from a physician, or a medical report from a particular physician, etc.

Given that this form of weak individualism allows for all these different possibilities, there are an infinite number of possibilities by which a testimonial belief can acquire its justification. The plausibility of this view will depend on whether agents possess sufficient non-testimonial evidence to justify the belief that a particular kind of report, for which the agent believes the utterance to be an instance, is reliable.

58 In arguing that this view is implausible, I do not intend to consider all of the different ways in which a testimonial belief can acquire its justification. Instead, I shall argue that this view is unable to account for a significant class of testimonial beliefs that we take to be justified. The problem is one that both Schmitf*’ and Coady*** raise for the weak individualist position, and I take it to be the most serious problem facing this view.

On the view that we are considering if an agent forms a testimonial belief on the basis of a report and the agent takes the report to be an instance of a kind of report. K, then the agent must possess sufficient non-testimonial evidence to believe that K-reports are reliable. In considering the different kinds of reports for which the following report is an instance, "There is a sick lion in the Tarango Zoo", notice that we can draw a distinction between kinds of report that require e.xpertise and kinds of report that do not. For e.xample, the report is an instance of an existential report, and we do not think that existential reports

(or at least some of them) require expertise. Notice also that the report is an instance of many kinds of reports that require expertise (e.g., a medical report, a medical report at the

Tarango Zoo, a medical report by the speaker, or any other kind of medical report). The problem, I shall argue, is that if an agent ever construes a report to be an instance of a kind of report that requires expertise, then it is unclear how the agent, who is a layperson, could acquire inductive non-testimonial evidence to believe that the kind of report is reliable.

Clearly, the weak individualist must allow that agents can construe reports to be instances of kinds of reports that require expertise. If we only allow agents to construe the above report as a kind of existential report, we preclude the possibility that agents acquire a justified belief that they could not have acquired themselves. The agent could have simply gone to the Tarango Zoo to learn that there is a sick lion in the Tarango Zoo. It is qua a

■*^Fred Schmitt, "Justification, Sociality, and .Autonomy," Svnthese 73 ( 1987): 48-53.

■*®C. .\. J. Coady. Testimony: .A Philosophical Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992) 83-84.

59 medical report that the agent can acquire a belief that the agent could not have acquired himself.

A layperson’s reliance on the testimony of experts constitutes a large majority of our testimonial beliefs. Most of the beliefs that we have about science, history, car mechanics, etc, are ones that we acquire via experts. We rely on the testimony of others because it is useful way of forming beliefs. And relying on testimony is most useful when it allows us to acquire beliefs that we could not have acquired ourselves because we lack the relevant knowledge or expertise. Thus, if the above version of weak individualism is to be made plausible, it must explain how a layperson could acquire non-testimonial evidence for believing that kinds of reports that require expertise are reliable.

In what follows, I shall argue that agents rarely possess the necessary non­ testimonial evidence. To see the force of the problem facing weak individualism, consider the following example. Tom is interested in buying some antiques. Like most of us, Tom knows very little about antiques; he is unable to distinguish genuine antiques from their popular imitations. George, an antique dealer, tells Tom that there is a 19th century Tiffany spoon on sale that is worth buying. Since Tom believes that George is an expert about antiques, he believes what George says. What kind of report does Tom take George to have made? There are many possibilities: a report about antiques from an antique dealer, a report about antiques from George, a report about antique cutlery from an antique dealer, etc. Let us suppose that Tom takes George's utterance to be an instance of a report by an expert about antiques. On the weak individualist account under consideration, Tom's belief is

Justified only if he possesses enough non-testimonial reasons to Justify the belief that

George is an expert about antiques. But how could Tom acquire this evidence? How could

S who is not an expert about matter M come to acquire non-testimonial reasons that T is an expert about M?

60 Let us consider a number of ways that one might argue that S could acquire non­ testimonial reasons for thinking T is an expert about M.

1. The most obvious, but least plausible, suggestion is that S could acquire non­ testimonial evidence that T is an expert about M by observ ing T's track record. This would require that S possess first-hand evidence about the truth of T’s previous statements about

M. But since S lacks the expertise to determine the truth of any propositions concerning M. this is not possible. S's lack of expertise prevents him from acquiring any non-testimonial evidence of this sort.

2. A second way in which one might argue that a layperson could acquire non­ testimonial evidence about the reliability of an expen is through relying on the expert's testimony and confirming it by observing the implications of the report. As .Adler puts it.

If one acts upon testimony, and if the success of that act depends upon the truth of that act. then one is often immediately able to confirm [or discontlrm| it."**’

Suppose for example that you are not feeling well and you decide to see your doctor. Your doctor tells you that you have encephalitis, and he tells you that if you take a particular medication, the problem will disappear. Although you lack the expertise to confimi directly the doctor’s report that you have encephalitis, it seems that you can acquire non-testimonial evidence for the truth of his report, by relying on it and discovering that you get better. The fact that taking the medication leads to your feeling better confirms your belief that he had correctly identified the illness.

There are two problems with appealing to this kind of evidence. Let us consider each in tum.

First, this kind of evidence will only be available for certain kinds of reports. Only reports concerning matters with practical implications or consequences allow an agent to acquire evidence about the reliability of reports or experts in those areas. However, there are

■^‘^Jonathan E. .Adler. Testim ony. Trust. Knowing." The Journal of Philosophy 4L (1994): 267.

61 many kinds of reports for which we never or rarely ever observe consequences of the report.

Consider for example, historical reports, reports on East-Asian politics, reports in physics, chemistry, etc.

The second problem is more serious. Appealing to the practical implications of an expert's report as evidence for the truth of the report is supposed to be analogous. I take it. to using the hypothetico-deductive model of confirmation. On this model of confirmation, a hypothesis h is confirmed through observing some event. E. which is known to be entailed by h and a set of law statements. L. To illustrate, let us consider a simple case. Suppose that L relates h to e in the form of the following conditional, if h then e. If we assume h and we know that h entails E, then observing E will confirm h. Analogously, in the case of testimony, the practical consequences. C. of an expert's report. R. are taken to confirm R, if it is known that R entails C.

But there is an important disanalogy between standard appeals to the hypothetico- deductive model of confirmation and appealing to the practical implications of an expert's report as evidence for confirming the report. In using the hypothetico-deductive model of confirmation, the law statements or the conditionals that relate h to E are assumed. But in the context of a layperson trying to acquire sufficient non-testimonial reasons that someone is an expert, such an assumption cannot be made. In other words, we cannot assume here that a layperson can be justified in believing that there is a law-like correlation between an expert's reports and the observable or practical consequences of their reports. For it is unclear how a layperson could acquire sufficient non-testimonial reasons for believing that these conditionals or law statements are true. The reason is that the conditionals or law statements relate a statement that requires expertise to verify to another statement that does not require expertise. But since one of the statements in the conditional requires expertise to verify, it would seem that a non-expert could not verify the truth of such a conditional. If this is right, then we cannot simply assume that an agent will have sufficient evidence to

62 ground the belief that there is a connection between the expert’s reports and proposed observable consequences of those reports.

3. A third way in which one might argue that a layperson could acquire non-testimonial evidence about the reliability of an expert is to rely on testimonial evidence of others. This can be accomplished in two different ways: first, the layperson might rely on some other person P's testimony that T is reliable about M; or, the layperson might rely on P's testimony as a way of corroborating T's testimony. Let's consider each in tum.

a. Suppose that P tells S that T is an expert about matters regarding M. The idea here is that P's testimony that T is an expert about M provides evidence that T is an expert about M. The problem with this suggestion is that unless S is justified in believing that P is an expert about M. P's testimony that T is an expert will not help. Here's why. If S isn't justified in believing that P is an expert about Vl-matters, then S will be reasoning fallaciously. Thus, the person who testifies about M-experts must also be an expert about

M. The problem is that if weak individualism requires that S's belief that P is an expert about M be grounded in non-testimonial reasons to be justified, then the problem has just been pushed back.

b. Suppose that S receives testimonial evidence from P. who is also an M-expert. that corroborates T's testimony about M. So. P and T both testify to the same claim about

M. Intuitively, the fact that both P and T agree provides evidence for the truth of T's utterance on M.

But how plausible is the idea that agreement among M-experts should be taken as evidence of the fact that both P and T are correct? We assume that agreement should be taken as evidence for the truth of T's utterance because we assume the truth of T's utterance is the best explanation for the fact that both experts agree. But is it? There are other, equally plausible explanations for this agreement. For example, it could be that the experts both acquire their beliefs from the same source, and so did not acquire their information

63 independently. Had they acquired their information independently, then I grant that the best explanation for their agreement would be that T's utterance is true. However, before S could conclude that P's testimony is evidence for T's reliability. S would have to determine whether

S and T acquired their information independently. Without this evidence, an agent would not be justified in believing that this is the best explanation. Assuming agents do not typically know that testimonial sources have acquired their information independently, it is not clear that this evidence would help the weak individualist.

Are there others ways in which an agent could acquire non-testimonial evidence about the reliability of experts? Goldman^" has argued that an agent can acquire non­ testimonial evidence that someone is an expert in certain settings.^' For example, in the context of a dialectical exchange between two purported experts, an agent might acquire non-testimonial evidence that one of the agents is an expert by observing whether one of the agents is dialectically superior to the other. We can observe whether someone wins a dialectical exchange without understanding what the purported experts have said. What signs might indicate dialectical superiority? Goldman mentions features such as the comparative quickness and smoothness of the responses.

While I agree with Goldman that this kind of non-testimonial evidence is sometimes available, it should be clear that this kind of evidence is certainly not pervasive. It is only in academic contexts that we are often given the opportunity to see dialectical exchanges.

Outside of the academic context, it is only in political contexts that we are able to see dialectical exchanges, and here it is not clear whether the comparative quickness or smoothness of an arguer’s response is a reliable indicator of whether someone is an expert.

.Alvin Goldman. "E.xperts: Which Ones Should You Trust?" forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. I should note that Goldman's aim in this paper is not to defend weak individualism. His aim is not to show that we can acquire sufficient non-testimonial evidence that certain agents are experts, but rather to show that it is possible for a layperson to acquire some non-testimonial evidence that someone is an expert. Moreover. Goldman's discussion is restricted to contexts in which we are comparing two putative experts.

64 These qualities might be a sign that someone is an expert debater, and not an expert about the given subject matter.

Another kind of non-testimonial evidence^'- Goldman suggests that we can rely on is

“evidence about distorting interests and biases that might lie behind a putative expert's claims." Goldman's idea is that if we know that one putative expert is biased in a way that another putative expert is not. then we have evidence that one putative expert is more reliable than the other. The problem here is that this kind of non-testimonial evidence is not evidence for believing that someone is an e.xpert. It only serves as evidence for believing that a putative expert is not reliable.

To summarize. I have considered a number of different ways in which one might argue that an agent, who is not an expert about M. could acquire non-testimonial evidence that some other agent is an expert about M. Given the problems that 1 have raised for each form of evidence, it seems implausible that an agent would possess sufficient non­ testimonial evidence to Justify the beliefs that we have about experts.

When we reflect on how we identify to experts, and why we tend to trust some, but not others, it seems clear that we rely on beliefs for which we possess very little non­ testimonial evidence. The reason why we take sources like published books, news reports, and educators to be reliable is because we believe there are methods within our society to ensure that certain standards of reliability are met and maintained. For example, we believe that educators must acquire teaching certifications and must go through periodic evaluations by their peers. We believe that the media is held in check by other members of the media, as well as by the community at large. We have beliefs about how books must go through a review process before they can get published. Although we have beliefs that these mechanisms are in place, it seems clear that we have very little non-testimonial evidence about how these mechanisms work and whether they are reliable. And consequently, we

In addition to these two different kinds of evidence. Goldman also considers the different kinds of testimonial evidence that we considered earlier. 65 have very little non-testimonial evidence to justify how we identify experts about a given matter

How does this pose a problem for the weak individualist view that we were considering? On the weak individualist position that we are considering, an agent’s testimonial belief is justified just in case 1 ) the agent believes the utterance is an instance of a

K-report and 2) the agent possesses sufficient non-testimonial evidence for believing that

K-reports are reliable. The problem that was just raised is that if determining the truth of K- reports requires expertise, then a layperson could never acquire sufficient non-testimonial evidence for believing that K-reports are reliable. But if this is so. then this form of weak individualism would preclude the possibility that an agent could acquire justified testimonial belief about reports that required expertise. This would preclude a large and significant portion of our knowledge.

In conclusion. I have argued that even the weakest form of Humean weak individualism fails to explain how individuals acquire justification for most of their testimonial beliefs. For most of the interesting pieces of information that we acquire via testimony (i.e.. testimony from experts), we lack sufficient non-testimonial evidence to justify the belief that the relevant kind of report tends to be true.

66 CHAPTER 3

A CRITIQUE OF THE BLIND TRUST ACCOUNT

The primary purpose of this chapter is critical and focuses on a view that I call the

Blind Trust account".A ccording to this account, a testimonial belief is justified if it is produced by a disposition to blindly trust others. I distinguish two different versions of this account. According to the first, beliefs formed on the basis of a disposition to blindly believe others are justified on a priori grounds. According to the second, beliefs formed on the basis of a blind trust are justified because such a disposition or belief forming process is reliable. I discuss several arguments that have been offered for each of these versions, and I argue that none of them succeed.

In Section 3.1,1 begin by considering what it means to form a belief on the basis of inisting others, and what it means to form a belief on the basis of blindly trusting others. In

Section 3.2,1 consider arguments that attempt to show that beliefs formed on the basis of a disposition to blindly trust others are justified on a priori grounds. A common strategy is to invoke considerations concerning rationality, content, and meaning. I consider different versions of this kind of argument, and I show that all of them fail. In Section 3.3, I consider several arguments that attempt to show that a disposition to blindly believe others produces

See Tyler Burge, "Content Preservation," The Philosophical Review 102 (1993); 457-488, Richard Foley, "Egoism in Epistemoiogy." Socializing Epistemologv. ed. Fred Schmitt (Lanham: Rovvman & Littlefield Publishers. 1994) 53-73. Hilary Kornblith, "Some Social Features of Cognition," Svnthese 73 (1987): 27-41, .Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function. (New York: Oxford UP. 1993), and Mark Owen Webb, "Why I Know .About .As Much .As You: .A Reply to Hardwig," The Journal of Philosophy 40 ( 1993): 260-270.

67 a justified belief because such a disposition is reliable. In particular, I consider arguments which purport to show that if a disposition to blindly trust others is not reliable, many of our beliefs, testimonial and non-testimonial, will be unjustified. I argue that we can avoid skepticism without licensing a disposition to blindly believe others.

3.1: Varieties of Trust

According to the Blind Trust account, if a belief is formed on the basis of a disposition to blindly trust others, then other things being equal, it is justified. It is important to note that this account only specifies a sufficient and not a necessary condition for when a testimonial belief is justified. To require that a testimonial belief has to be formed on the basis of a blind trust in order to be justified would be absurd. There are obviously other ways in which an agent can form a justified testimonial belief. For e.\ample. if an agent satisfied all of the conditions that are required by a weak individualist account

(i.e.. possessed enough inductive non-testimonial evidence for believing that the kind of report is reliable), clearly the agent's belief would be justified. Defenders of a Blind-Trust account are not denying that an agent could form a justified testimonial belief if the agent were to satisfy the conditions specified by Weak Individualism. The Blind-Trust theorist's goal is to identify a w eaker set of conditions by which an agent can form a justified testimonial belief.

To fully understand the Blind Trust account, we need to first understand what it means to say that an agent forms a belief on the basis of blind trust. Let us begin with the broader notion of trust.^’** I take trust to be a kind of cognitive stance that we take toward other objects. This cognitive stance can be taken toward different kinds of objects. We naturally think of trusting other people, but we also trust our cognitive capacities and

I should note that I will only try to provide a sketch o f how I see the notion o f trust. I have found that defenses of more detailed accounts (see for example Karen Jones. ‘Trust as an .Affective .Attitude." Ethics 107 ( 1996): 4-25 and .Annette Baier. "Trust and .Antitrust." Ethics 96 ( 1986): 231-260) rely on intuitions about trust that are not clear to me. In other words. I do not have clear enough intuitions to agree with either.

68 mechanical devices. Furthermore, when we trust something, we do not trust it simpliciter;

we trust an object to do something. For instance, if I trust my friend by falling backwards, I

trust that he will catch me. And when I rely on my cognitive capacities, I trust that they will produce true beliefs.

How should we understand the cognitive stance involved in trust? Following

Hardwig=5, [ take trust to be the kind of cognitive stance that is necessary to rely^^ on an

object. This kind of cognitive stance has two important features. First, trusting something

does not require that one decide to trust that thing. We might trust something because it is

John Hardwig. "The Role of Trust in Knowledge." The Journal of Philosophy SS 11991): 693-708.

understanding trust' simply as 'reliance', the notion of trust that I have charactenzed is similar to the notion to which Lehrer appeals (see Keith Lehrer. Theory of Knowledge. Boulder: Westview Press 1990). but is broader than the notion others, such as Annette Baier and Karen Jones) have tried to explicate. For instance, both .Annette Baier and Karen Jones argue that we need to distinguish trust from reliance. Baier uses the following example to motivate her point.

We may rely on our fellows' fear of the newly appointed security guards in shops to deter them from injecting poison into the food on the shelves, once we have ceased to trust them.(.Annette Baier, 'Trust and .Antitrust," Ethics 96 ( 1986): 234.)

Clearly, in this example, Baier is assuming or has in mind a very narrow notion of trust. In particular, both Baier and Jones suggest that trust is a special kind of reliance, a reliance on a person's special goodwill towards one. It is plausible that we think of trust in this narrower way, but for our purposes, it is too narrow. Notice that it can only be a stance that one takes toward another individual.

Similarly. Richard Holton defines a notion of trust that is similar to, but slightly different from, the notion that I am attempting to provide a loose characterization of here. Holton's first claim is that trust involves a participant stance towards something, where taking a participant stance toward something involves relying on that thing. On this point. I completely agree with Holton. However. Holton places further constraints on what is involved in trusting.

When you trust someone to do something, you rely on them to do it, and you regard that reliance in a certain way: you have a readiness to feel betrayal should it be disappointed, and gratitude should it be upheld. (Richard Holton, "Deciding to Trust, Coming to Believe," .Australasian Journal of Philosoohv 72 ( 1994): 67.

I should note that on Holton's view of reliance on something to happen, reliance involves incorporating that assumption that the event will happen into one's plans. This conjoined with the fact that Holton considers instances o f trust to involve a feeling of betrayal when the trust is violated strongly suggests that in cases o f trust, one is aware of one's trust. This notion of trust is much narrower than the one that I have in mind.

69 the natural thing to do. For example. Reid held that agents have a natural and innate disposition to trust others.

The wise and bénéficient .Author o f nature, who intended that we should be social creatures, and that we should receive the greatest and most important part o f our knowledge by the information o f others, hath, for these purposes implanted in our natures two principles that tally with each other...(the second) is a disposition to confide in the veracity of others, and to believe what they tell us.^'

For Reid, we have a disposition to blindly believe others that we are bom with and that vve do involuntarily.

Second, the cognitive stance involved in trusting does not require that one be aware of trusting an object. For e.xample. it seems plausible that children trust their cognitive capacities without their realizing that they do so. But it is also the case that adult agents place trust in others without being aware that they are doing so. A famous set of Asch^* experiments illustrates this point. As Kornblith describes these experiments.

E.xperimental subjects were asked which of three lines is closest in length to a target line. Subjects would find themselves in the following position. Seven to nine other individuals, each apparently subjects of the e.xperiment as well, would be asked in succession to pick out the line closest in length to the target line. The subject would watch, in increasing discomfort, as each of the others picked a line, which seemed obviously incorrect; needless to say. all of these apparent subjects, who were actually confederates of the e.xperimenter. picked the same line. By the time the actual subject of the e.xperiment was asked his opinion, he came, in a majority of cases, to agree with the others.

Asch's experiments suggest that adults can trust others without being aware that they are doing so. One of the most interesting aspects of this experiment is that Asch found the subjects were actually surprised when they were told that they had been influenced by the opinions of others.

One way of distinguishing different kinds of trust is in terms of the evidence that the agent may have toward a testifier. T. On one extreme, an agent might be disposed to trust T without anv evidence concerning the reliability or trustworthiness of T. These cases are

^'Thomas Reid. .An Inquiry into the Human Mind (Charlottesville: Lincoln-Rembrandt) ch.6. sect. 24.

^^Solomon .Asch. Social Psvchologv (New Jersey; Prentice Hall. 1952).

70 instances of blind trust. On the other extreme. S might only trust T, if S has enough reasons to be justified in believing that T is reliable. Let us call this kind of trust, fully grounded trust.'’” Between these two extremes, there will be a gradation of cases in which agents possess some evidence toward T’s reliability. The kind of trust here would be partially blind and partially grounded.

Although I have characterized different kinds of trust in terms of the epistemic position in which the agent stands toward other agents or objects, we can distinguish different kinds of trust from a more psychological standpoint. That is. we can distinguish different kinds of trust in terms of the agent’s belief forming habits. If S has a tendency to believe any testifier about any matter, then the agent's trust would be blind. If S only has a tendency to trust certain testifiers on certain matters, then S's trust would not be blind.

These two ways of thinking about trust (i.e.. the evidential and the psychological senses) are related because the evidence that agents possess often affects or modifies their belief forming habits. For example, if an agent possesses evidence that a particular kind of testifier is unreliable, we would expect the agent to not rely on this kind of testifier in the future. Similarly, if an agent possesses evidence that a particular kind of testifier is especially reliable, we would expect such an agent to form beliefs on the basis of this kind of testifier. So an agent who forms beliefs on the basis of trust that is not blind, in the evidential sense, will probably not form beliefs on the basis of a blind trust in the psychological sense.

However, these two different ways of thinking about trust differ in an important respect: the psychological sense of blind trust is actually stronger than the evidential sense

^‘’Hilary Kornblith. "Some Social Features of Cognition," Svnthese 73 ( 1987): 29.

It might be tempting to think that if one adopts the view that only instances o f fully grounded trust can produce justified beliefs, one is thereby committed to a kind of Humean weak individualism. This would be a mistake. .Although Humean weak individualism requires that an agent's trust be fully grounded to form a justified testimonial belief, it also requires that the trust be grounded in non-testimonial reasons. Thus, although fully grounded trust is necessary according to Humean weak individualism, it is not sufficient. 71 of blind trust. Here is why. Notice that one can form a belief on the basis of blind trust in the evidential sense without forming a belief on the basis of blind trust in the psychological sense. For example, an agent might form a belief on the basis of a report without possessing any evidence about the testifier even though the agent might not be disposed to

believe anything that is said by anyone. We can imagine that had the report been The

moon is made of blue cheese.' the agent would not have formed the belief even though the

agent may not possess any evidence about the testifier. In my discussion of the different

versions of the blind trust account that follows. I will assume that defenders of this view are

adopting the weaker notion of blind trust (i.e.. the evidential sense of blind trust).

3.2: The A Priori Justification of Testimonial Beliefs

As I noted earlier, the view that one can form a justified belief on the basis of a blind

trust has been defended in two different ways. Some have argued that if a testimonial belief

is formed on the basis of blindly trusting others, it is Justified on a priori grounds. Others

have argued that if a testimonial belief is formed on the basis of blindly trusting others, it is justified because such a belief forming process is reliable. In this section. I consider

versions of the Blind Trust account, according to which beliefs formed on the basis of a

blind trust are justified on apriori grounds. In various ways. Foley. Burge, and Coady have

argued that considerations conceming rationality, meaning, or content explain why a belief

that is produced on the basis of blindly trusting others is justified. I consider each of their

arguments, and I argue that none of them succeed.

3.2.1: The Argument from Inconsistency

Let us begin with Foley’s view.^' I should begin by noting that although Foley's

discussion focuses on whether we can grant authority rather than trusting others, this

Richard Foley. "Egoism in Epistemoiogy." Socializing Epistemologv. ed. Fred Schmitt (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1994): 55.

72 difference is merely terminological. To grant authority to someone about some matter involves trusting the person about that matter. Thus, if an agent believes a proposition on the basis of a testifier’s utterance, the agent is granting authority to the testifier on that matter. Foley notes that there are two different kinds of authority that an agent can grant to a testifier, fundamental and derived. An agent grants derived authority to some testifier about some matter M just in case the agent possesses independent reasons for believing that the testifier is reliable about M (i.e.. reasons that do not simply involve the fact that the testifier appears to endorse the proposition). In contrast, an agent grants fundamental authority to a testifier about some matter just in case the agent does not possess any independent reasons that the testifier is reliable about the testified matter. The distinction between fundamental and derived authority thus mirrors the distinction between trust that is blind and trust that is not.

Foley's aim in distinguishing fundamental from derived authority is to argue that if an agent grants fundamental authority to a testifier, then other things being equal, the agent’s testimonial belief is justified. In other words, agents are licensed in granting fundamental authority to others. For example, he claims that if an agent were to discover a diary consisting of a list of propositions for which we could infer nothing about the background, history, training, abilities, or circumstances of the diarist, the agent would be licensed in granting fundamental authority to the diarist. Thus, if the agent were to believe what the diary said, the agent's beliefs would be justified.

How does he argue for this conclusion? Foley begins by arguing that we are licensed in granting fundamental authority to ourselves insofar as we are licensed to rely on our own capacities without possessing independent evidence that they are reliable. The reason is that.

Fundamental trust in one’s own intellectual faculties is an unavoidable part of any nonskeptical life.^-

Ibid. 58. 73 There are two familiar problems that motivate this claim. First, it seems that we have no

other resources than our own cognitive capacities to acquire reasons for believing that our

cognitive capacities are reliable. So the requirement that agents must possess independent

reasons for believing that their cognitive capacities are reliable would lead to skepticism.

Second, if agents are required to possess independent reasons for believing that their

cognitive capacities are reliable, this requires that agents possess good reasons for believing

that they have good reasons. This presupposes that the mere having of a good reason is

insufficient to form a justified belief. But if the mere having of a good reason is insufficient

for producing a justified belief, it is unclear why having a good reason for believing that one

has a good reason for believing would be either. If possessing good reasons requires

having good reasons for believing that one has good reasons, then it is unclear why it would

not also require having good reasons for believing that one has good reasons for believing

that one has good reasons, and so forth. The iterative requirement (i.e., requiring that agents

have good reasons for believing that they have good reasons) leads to a regress, and would

lead to skepticism since no agents possess such a comple.\ chain of reasons.

So if we suppose that an agent is licensed in granting fundamental authonty to her

own intellectual capacities, why must the agent also grant fundamental authority to others?

According to Foley, the reason is that an agent would be inconsistent or irrational if she

only granted fundamental authority to herself and not to others.

The heart o f this argument is a consistency claim. If I grant fundamental authority to myself. I must in consistency grant it to others. I must do so because it is reasonable for me to think that my intellectual faculties and my intellectual environment are broadly similar to theirs.'^’-’

How does this inconsistency arise? In what follows, I offer two interpretations of how

Foley thinks that an inconsistency arises.

^3 Ibid. 63. 74 At times, Foley suggests that the inconsistency arises at the level of the agent’s beliefs or reasons.

Our reasons for trusting others, on threat of incoherence may decrease as their distance from us in abilities and circumstances increases. The trust owed to others can be a matter of degree. Still, insofar as the abilities and circumstances of even the most unfamiliar people are broadly similar to our own, we have at least some reason to trust the beliefs of anyone. We have reasons even if we know little about their individual talents or training and nothing about their past reliability. What I have been arguing is that even if I lack positive evidence of their reliability. I can still have reasons to trust them-the reasons being that it would be irrational for me not to do so. given that 1 have fundamental trust in myself and given that i think that my intellectual faculties and my intellectual environment are broadly similar to theirs. But if these are my reasons for trusting them, then as I am em ploying the distinction, their authority over me is fundamental and not derivative.^'*

In both passages. Foley describes agents as possessing reasons for believing that others possess the same cognitive capacities. This suggests that the inconsistency arises in regard to the reasons or beliefs that the agent possesses. Let us reconstruct Foley's argument.

PI) We can grant fundamental authority to our own cognitive capacities.

P2) We have reasons for believing that others have similar cognitive capacities and live in similar environments.

P3) If we have reasons for believing that the intellectual equipment and environment is similar to ours, then it would be irrational to not grant fundamental authority to others.

C) Therefore, it is rational to grant fundamental authority to others.

The obvious problem with this argument is the third premise. If we possess reasons for believing that the testifier has similar cognitive capacities to ours, then we would be granting derivative, and not fundamental, authority. Recall that fundamental authority requires that the agent not possess independent reasons for thinking that the agent is reliable. But if the agent has reasons for believing that the testifier has the same cognitive capacities and is in a similar environment, then clearly the agent possesses some relevant independent evidence conceming the reliability of the testifier.

There are two different responses that Foley might offer. First, instead of requiring that the agent have good reasons for believing that the testifier have similar cognitive

[bid. 63-64. 75 capacities, one might simply require that the agent believe that the testifier have the same cognitive capacities. However, a familiar objection will arise. Suppose that the agent’s belief that the testifier has similar cognitive capacities is based on wishful thinking and is thus unjustified. The agent would not be justified in granting authority to the testifier, and the agent's testimonial belief would be unjustified.

A second line of response is to simply require that the testifier have similar cognitive capacities (without believing or having good reasons for believing that they have similar cognitive capacities). This response leads us to the second way of interpreting Foley's argument.

PI) We can grant fundamental authority to our own cognitive capacities.

P2) Others have similar cognitive capacities and live in similar environments.

P3) If the intellectual equipment and environment of others were similar to ours, then we would be irrational or inconsistent if we did not grant fundamental authority to others.

C) Therefore, it is rational to grant fundamental authority to others.

On this interpretation of Foley's argument, the inconsistency does not arise at the level of the agent's beliefs since the argument can apply to cases in which the agent is unaware of or does not possess reasons for believing that others have similar cognitive capacities. .An agent who did not grant fundamental authority to others would be acting inconsistently.

Although this interpretation produces a more plausible argument, there are two problems. The first is that Foley assumes that an agent can grant fundamental trust to any of their own cognitive capacities or to any other agent. But surely this assumption is false.

If an agent has a tendency to form beliefs on the basis of wishful thinking, surely the agent should not licensed in granting fundamental authority to such a capacity. To allow that they could grant fundamental authority to themselves or to such a capacity would entail that beliefs produced by wishful thinking are justified, and this is counter-intuitive. Given this, it seems that an agent can grant fundamental trust to only certain cognitive capacities, whether their own or some other agent's. The reliabilist intuition is that an agent could only grant

76 fundamental trust to the agent’s own or to another agent’s cognitive capacities that are reliable. But if this is right, then an agent cannot simply grant fundamental trust to just anyone. The agent would have to be sensitive to whether other agent’s used reliable cognitive capacities. However, the trust then would not be blind.

But there is a second and further problem with the argument. Foley conflates a distinction between granting fundamental authority to an agent’s cognitive belief-forming capacities and granting fundamental authority to what an agent says. The argument is intended to establish the claim that we must grant fundamental authority to what people say. but at best the argument only shows we must grant fundamental authority to another agent’s cognitive capacities. Foley fails to recognize that an agent can consistently grant fundamental authority to our own or someone else’s cognitive capacities, but not grant fundamental authority to what someone says. What people believe and what they say can be very different. What people say is mediated by the underlying intentions that determine why the agent is making the utterance. People are often motivated to not say what they believe (e.g.. advertising, political campaigns peer pressure, etc.).

To summarize. Foley's argument only supports the claim that we must grant fundamental authority to the agent's cognitive capacities, and not to what they say.

Furthermore given that an agent would not be licensed in granting authority to Just anyone

(i.e.. those who form beliefs on the basis of wishful thinking), it would seem that an agent would have to be sensitive to who they could grant authority to. This suggests that an agent would not be granting fundamental authority.

3.2.2: The Argument from Rationality

Let us now consider Burge’s arguments. Unlike Foley. Burge^^ appeals to considerations conceming rationality and meaning in order to argue that if an utterance that

Tyler Burge. "Content Preservation." The Philosophical Review 102 ( 1993): 457-488. 77 p seems'^'’ intelligible to S, then S is entitled'"^ or justified in believing p. The justification for S’s testimonial belief is grounded by what Burge calls the ’Acceptance Principle’:

(A?) A person is entitled to accept as true something that is presented as true and that is intelligible to him. unless there are stronger reasons not to do so/'*

Burge offers two arguments for why we should accept the Acceptance Principle: the first relies on considerations conceming rationality and the second relies on considerations concerning content. I will consider the first argument in this section, and I will consider the second one in the next.

Burge uses considerations conceming rationality in order to argue for AP in the following way. First, if a piece of utterance seems intelligible to an agent, then the agent is prima facie entitled to believe that the source of the utterance is rational. Second, if an agent is entitled to believe that a source is rational, the agent has an entitlement to believe that the utterance is true. It follows that if an utterance is intelligible to an agent, then the agent is entitled to believe that the utterance is true. Let us formalize this argument.

PI: If an agent seems to understand an utterance, then the agent is prima facie entitled to believe that the source is rational.

P2: If an agent is prima facie entitled to believe that the source is rational, then the agent is prima facie entitled to believe the utterance.

C: If the agent seems to understand the utterance, then the agent is prima entitled to believe the utterance.

The argument is valid, but are there good reasons for believing that both of the premises are true?

^ The utterance does not actually have to be intelligible. If a person uttered an ungrammatical string of words, this would not matter as long as the string appeared or seemed intelligible to the hearer.

Burge distinguishes between an entitlement and justification. Like Plantinga. Burge takes justification to be an internalist notion. For Burge, an entitlement is the e.xtemalist counterpart to justification. We do not have to distinguish an internalist versus an externalist conception of justification for our purposes so I will use the terms entitlement' and 'justification' interchangeably.

Tyler Burge. "Content Preservation." The Philosophical Review 102 ( 1993); 467.

78 Burge*^'^ offers compelling considerations in support of PI.

Presentation of propositional content presupposes at least a derivative connection to a system of perceptual, cognitive, and practical interactions with a world, involving beliefs and intentional activity. Belief and intention in turn presuppose operation under norms of reason or rationality-norms governing information acquisition, inference, and practical activity. For propositional attitudes, especially those comple.x enough to yield articulated presentations of content, are necessarily associated with certain cognitive and practical practices.

While these claims adequately establish PI. the same cannot be said for P2. .As Burge recognizes, there are reasons for thinking that P2 is false.

The straight-line route from the prima facie intelligibility of a presentation-as-true to prima facie rational characteristics of the source to prima facie acceptability (truth) of the presentation, is threatened by the fact that certain aspects of rationality (rational lying) may go counter to true presentations. So why should rationality, especially in another person, be a sign of truth'.’’ *

An agent's goal in making an utterance can be different than the goal to present what the agent takes to be the truth. There are obvious e.xamples. One of the goals or perhaps the primary goal for a corporation is to make a profit, and the best means to accomplish this goal might be to lie. Insofar as the agent is adopting the best means to make profit, the corporation would be acting rationally in not presenting truth. In a similar way. we can imagine conte.xts in which goals such as avoiding punishment or seeking fame will run counter to portraying the truth. Relative to a goal. G. an agent might be acting in a practically rational way (i.e.. a means-end kind of rationality) in not portraying the truth.

These cases are not just mere possibilities. They occur quite frequently.

For similar defenses of this claim, see Paul Grice. Studies in the Wav o f Words (Cambridge: Harvard UP. 1989) and Donald Davidson. Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford UP. 1984).

’** Tyler Burge. "Content Preservation." The Philosophical Review 102 ( 1993): 471-472.

’ * Ibid. 474.

The threat here is posed not only by cases involving an explicit intention to lie. In such cases, it may be the case that the agents have become accustomed to shading the truth (e.g.. one might portray that one is more certain about a matter than one actually is) or one might not even realize that one is lying.

79 So if aspects of rationality can and likely do provide reasons for lying, why should we think that P2 is true? Why should an entitlement to attribute rationality to a testifier provide an entitlement to believe what the testifier says? Burge offers two reasons.

First.

The Humean [conception of rationality] that reason [or rationality) only functions to ser\e individual passions or interests is unconvincing. Reason has a function in providing guidance to truth, in presenting and promoting truth without regard to individual interest. This is why epistemic reasons are not relativized to a person or to a desire. It is why someone whose reasoning is distorted by self-deception is in a significant way irrational- even when the self-deception serves the individual's self-interests. It is why one is rationally entitled to rely on deductive reasoning or memory, in the absence of counter­ reasons. even if it conflicts with one's interests.

Burge makes three substantive claims in this passage. First, a plausible conception of rationality must account for three features a) why epistemic reasons are not relativized to a person or to a desire, b) why self-deception is irrational even when it serves the individual's self-interests, and c) why one is rationally entitled to rely on deductive reasoning or memory. Second a Humean conception of rationality fails to capture these features (i.e.. this is presumably because practical rationality does not require that the agent have the goal of presenting or promoting truth). Third, only a conception of rationality that involves a function'-* to present or promote truth in others can account for these three features.

The three claims. I take it. are supposed to establish two conclusions. The first argument is supposed to establish the claim that a Humean conception of (practical) rationality is implausible.

FI: A plausible conception of rationality must account for three features a) why epistemic reasons are not relativized to a person or to a desire, b) why self-deception is irrational even when it serves the individual's self-interests, and c) why one is rationally entitled to rely on deductive reasoning or memory.

P2: A Humean conception of practical rationality cannot account for these features.

C: Therefore, a Humean conception of practical rationality is implausible.

Tyler Burge. "Content Preservation." The Philosophical Review 102 ( 1993); 475.

At times. Burge calls this a ’transpersonal function’ to rationality.

80 The second argument is an argument for a particular conception of rationality that Burge endorses,

PI: A plausible conception of rationality must account for three features a) why epistemic reasons are not relativized to a person or to a desire, b) why self-deception is irrational even when it serves the individual's self-interests, and c) why one is rationally entitled to rely on deductive reasoning or memory.

P2: Only a conception of rationality that involves a function to present or promote truth in others (i.e., a goal to present truth to others) can account for these three features.

C: Therefore, a plausible conception of rationality must involve a function to present or promote truth in others.

While I agree with Burge that a Humean conception of rationality fails to capture the above features, I think it is unfair to criticize this view on these grounds for the following reason.

If a Humean conception of rationality were supposed to capture these features, then I think we could legitimately criticize a Humean conception of rationality for failing to capture this reason. But my sense is that a Humean conception of rationality is only to intended to provide an account of practiced rationality, and is not supposed to capture features that we associate with a more general conception of rationality or features that are associated with a non-practical conception of rationality.

But my aim here is not to defend a Humean conception of rationality. It is the second argument that is more interesting and relevant to our discussion. If the argument succeeds, it shows that a rational agent ought to present the truth. ,And if this latter claim were true, Burge would have an argument for the claim that an entitlement to believe that a source is rational provides an entitlement to believe what the source says.

The crucial premise of the second argument is the second premise: only a conception of rationality that has a function to present or promote truth can account for the three features suggested above. In what follows, I will consider each of these features, and I will argue that none of them can be captured by a conception of rationality that has a function to promote truth in others. Furthermore, I will argue that there is an alternative and more obvious way of accounting for these features.

81 (a) Epistemic reasons are not relativized to a person or to a desire. It is unclear what

Burge means by this claim. It could mean that what makes a reason an epistemic one rather than a moral, practical, or pragmatic reason is not tlxed by the agent or the agent's desires.

If this is what Burge means, then no conception of rationality should have to capture this claim because it is simply false. The way in which we determine whether a reason is epistemic. moral, pragmatic, etc. is by appealing to the agent's goals and desires. If the agent's goal or desire were to seek truth in forming a belief on the basis of a reason, the reason would be epistemic. If the agent's goal or desire were to do some good action in forming a belief on the basis of a reason, the reason would be moral.

Perhaps a more plausible way of interpreting the claim that epistemic reasons are not relativized to a particular person or desire is to interpret it as a claim about the criteria that we use in evaluating epistemic reasons. The criteria that should be used in evaluating epistemic reasons should not be fixed by the agent or the agent's desires. They should be objective. On this interpretation, the claim seems plausible. However. I do not see how claiming that rationality has a function to present truth to others would capture this feature.

.Adopting a reliabilist account of justification, for example, would capture the claim that the criteria by which we assess epistemic reasons are objective, but notice that a reliabilist account of justification does not require that an agent present or promote truth in others.

On either interpretation. I fail to see how considerations in (a) support the claim that rationality has to have the function to promote truth in others. Let us now consider (b).

(b) Self-deception is taken to be irrational-even when the self-deception serves the agent’s ends. Consider the following moribund case. Suppose that Jack has good reasons for believing that he has only ten days to live. With no other alternative. Jack hopes that he can extend his life by forcing himself to believe that he will live longer.

In this case. Jack is trying to deceive himself into believing that he will live longer in order to serve the goal of extending his life.

82 I agree with Burge that Jack is being irrational. But according to Burge, the reason why Jack is irrational is because rationality has a function to promote truth in others, and

Jack fails to act in accordance with this function. But is this the right explanation? There are two reasons for thinking that it is not. The first is that it is not clear how Jack is failing to present truth to others, and the second is that there is much more natural explanation for why Jack is irrational. First, it is unclear how Jack is failing to act in accordance with a function to present truth to others simply because there is no one else in the example. How can Jack be accused for having failed to act in accordance with a function to present to others when there is no other agent to present truth to? In response, perhaps Burge's idea is that Jack is rational because if there were other agents. Jack would not present truth to those other agents. But this response seems to miss why we think that Jack is irrational.

Jack isn't irrational because he is deceiving others; we are trying to understand why self- decepiion is irrational. This can be highlighted by the fact that we can imagine a case in which Jack's goal is not to deceive others, but it is simply to deceive himself. In order to get better, he only has to fool himself, and he might not have enough effort to try to deceive everyone. The intuition is that Jack would still be irrational in such case, and this is what we need to explain.

As I noted above, there is much more natural explanation for why we tend to think that agents who are engaged in self-deception are irrational. The alternative to Burge's explanation is that rationality has a function to pursue or seek to truth for himself. In other words, a rational agent is an agent who has a goal to seek truth, and acts in accordance with the means for which the agent believes satisfies this goal. Thus. Jack is irrational because he has abandoned the goal to seek truth in order to best achieve some non-truth related goal.

The reason why I think this explanation is much more natural than Burge's is

because I do not take myself to be saying anything new here. Jack is simply being

irrational in the sense that he is being epistemically irrational, and we recognized a long time

83 ago. a central component, or perhaps the central component, of epistemic rationality is that it involves seeking truth for themselves. On the other hand. Burge's claim that rationality involves presenting truth and not seeking truth is much more contentious.

(c) W e are rationally entitled to rely on deductive reasoning or memory even if it conflicts with one's interests. This claim seems plausible, but like above, I fail to see why positing a transpersonal function to reason would account for this intuition. Relying on deductive reasoning or memory does not serve an agent's interest to promote truth in others.

It serves the agent's own interest to promote truth for themselves. A conception of rationality (e.g., epistemic rationality) that simply requires agents to seek truth for themselves could account for this feature.

To summarize, although I agree with Burge that a plausible account of rationality must account for the above three features, I disagree that a conception of rationality, which has a function to promote truth in others, will accomplish this task. The features can be captured by a concept of epistemic rationality, according to which a function of epistemic rationality is that the agent seeks truth for himself. If this is right, then Burge has not shown that if an agent is entitled to believe that a testifier is rational, then the agent is thereby entitled to believe what the testifier says. An entitlement to believe that an agent is rational only provides an entitlement to believe that the agent is a truth seeker and not a truth presenter or promoter.

In response, Burge might argue that it is rational to present or promote the truth because I) it is epistemically rational for agents to seek truth for themselves and 2) the best way to accomplish this goal is to present the Relative truth. to the goal of seeking the truth, the best means for accomplishing this goal is to present or promote truth in others. In other words, it might be argued that the practically rational thing to do in seeking truth is to present truth in others. The plausibility of this response will depend on whether it can be

84 shown that the best strategy for acquiring true beliefs is to present or promote truth in others.

Although Burge does not offer an argument for this latter claim. Michael Blais’^ does. Blais' discussion focuses on iterated Prisoners' Dilemma games involving agents who are testifying. In these games, agents interact by testifying to one another, and on each occasion, the agents have the option of lying or telling the truth. In a series of experiments, agents adopt a strategy that is a mixture of some or all of the following five properties: being nice (the default is to tell the truth), being retaliatory (if lied to. respond by lying), being forgiving (after retaliating, return to the default position), being invasive (displace uncooperative strategies), and being resistant (fend off other strategies that attempt to invade). By appealing to studies done by .A.xelrod"'^’ in which these interactions are simulated by a computer. Blais notes that if the agent's goal is to maximize acquiring true information, the agent's best strategy is to adopt an epistemic tit for tat strategy, one that involves adopting all of the above features including the feature of being nice (i.e.. telling the truth). So the best strategy in acquiring true beliefs involves presenting or promoting truth in others.

But there is a problem in appealing to cases involving iterated Prisoners' Dilemma cases in order to argue that it is. in general rational, to tell the truth. The iterated Prisoners'

Dilemma cases involve making two idealized assumptions that do not hold in actual situations. The first is that if one defects or lies, it will be detected, and the second is that there is extensive interaction between the participants. As Hardwig'^ points out. both of

Michael Blais. 'Epistemic Tit for Tat." The Journal of Philosophy 82 ( 1985): 363-375.

Robert .Axelrod. The Evolution of Cooperation. (New York: Basic Books. 1984).

John Hardwig. "The Role of Trust in Knowledge. " The Journal of Philosophy 88 (1991): 704.

85 these assumptions are likely to be false in normal or everyday contexts. In regard to the first assumption. Hardwig quotes from Reiman,

Fraudulent data may be rapidly identified in an area o f great importance where research activity is intense, but that is probably not true in most tlelds.'*

The same is true of ordinary interactions as well. As we noted in chapter 2, in many contexts, agents rarely have the opportunity or the ability to verify a piece of testimony. The second assumption, which i n v o l v e s assuming that there i s extensive interaction between participants in ordinary contexts, is clearly false as well. In actual contexts, most testimonial interaction involves interaction in only one direction. We rely on books, news sources, magazines, but not vice versa.

What is the best policy when these two assumptions fail? As Blais'*' notes, A.xelrod shows there is not a policy that is best for any kind of interaction. The best policy will depend on particular features of the situation. What is the best policy for our actual situation? It is not clear that this question makes any sense given the variety of ways in which we interact with other agents. .And if this is right, then there is no argument to show that it is practically rational to tell the truth. Thus an entitlement to believe that a testifier is rational would not provide an entitlement to believe that the testifier is telling the truth.

To summarize, I have considered and argued against two ways in which one might argue that it is rational to present the truth. First, I have argued that considerations about a) why epistemic reasons are not relativized to a person or to a desire, b) why self-deception is irrational even when it serves the individual’s self-interests, and c) why one is rationally entitled to rely on deductive reasoning or memory even it conflicts with one’s own interests can be explained by a concept of epistemic rationality and not by a concept of rationality that requires agents to tell the truth. Second, I have also shown that arguments, which

.4.S. Reiman "Lessons from the Darsee .Affair," New England Journal of Medicine. 308 ( 1983): 1416.

'‘'Michael Blais, "Epistemic Tit for Tat," The Journal o f Philosophy 82 ( 1985): 367. 86 attempt to show that the best strategy for agents to pursue truth for themselves is to present truth to others, fail. I conclude therefore that considerations about rationality fail to show that if one is entitled to believe that an agent is rational, one is thereby entitled to believe what the agent says.

3.2.3: The Argument from Content

.Another argument Burge offers in support of the Acceptance Principle (i.e.. an agent is entitled to entitled to accept as true something that is presented as true and that is intelligible to him. unless there are stronger reasons not to do so) appeals to considerations conceming content. Burge states.

.A condition on an individual's having propositional attitudes is that the content of those attitudes be systematically associated with veridical perceptions and true belief; true contents must be presented and accepted as true within some individual; indeed, the very practice of communication depends on preservation of truth. If a rational interlocutor presents intelligible contents as true, one can rationally presume that the contents are associated with a practice of successfully aiming at and presenting truth.

In order for an agent’s propositional attitude to have a particular content (e.g.. for a belief to have a content that is about bams), there must be a systematic connection between the agent's propositional attitudes involving the concept and the states of affairs that would make those propositional attitudes true. If an agent has a sufficient number of false beliefs involving a concept, we would begin to question whether the agent possesses the concept.

The relevance of this claim is that the systematic connection necessary for attributions of content is what grounds an agent’s entitlement to believe what a testifier says.

PI: If an agent seems to understand an utterance, then the agent is entitled to believe that the testifier has certain propositional attitudes.

F2: If the agent is entitled to believe that the agent has certain propositional attitudes, then the agent is entitled to believe the testifier has been successful at aiming and presenting truth.

P3: If the agent is entitled to believe that the agent has been successful at aiming and presenting the truth, then the agent is entitled to believe the testifier's utterance.

so Tyler Burge. "Content Preservation." The Philosophical Review 102 ( 1993); 475-476. 87 C: If the agent seems to understand an utterance, then the agent is entitled to believe that the testifier's utterance is true.

Coady offers a similar argument that draws on Davidsonian considerations about language and meaning. On Davidson's view of language and linguistic interpretation, the speaker and hearer must share a view of the world.

The reason is that we damage the intelligibility of our readings o f the utterances of others when our method of reading puts others into what we take to be broad error. We can make sense o f differences all right, but only against a background o f shared belief. What is shared does not in general call for comment; it is too dull, trite or familiar to stand notice. But without a vast common ground there is no place for disputants to have their quarrel. O f course we can no more agree than disagree w ith someone else without much mutuality; but perhaps this is obvious.

As Coady notes, Davidson goes on to argue for a much stronger claim; the shared beliefs

must also be true on the following grounds,

there is nothing absurd in the idea o f an omniscient interpreter; he attributes beliefs to others, and interprets their speech on the basis o f his own belief, just as the rest of us do. Since he does this as the rest of us do, he perforce finds as much agreement as is needed to make sense of his attributions and interpretations; and in this case, of course, what is agreed is by hypothesis true. But now it is plain why massive error is simply unintelligible, for to suppose it intelligible is to suppose there could be an interpreter (the omniscient one) who correctly interpreted someone else as being massively mistaken, and this we have shown to be impossible.

Of course, this argument only supports a conditional claim: if there is an omniscient

observer, then the beliefs have to be true. As such, it does not establish that agents must

have true beliefs since there is no argument showing that there is an omniscient observer.

Worries about the e.\istence of God aside, the Davidsonian claim that we must share

a large number of true beliefs in order for our utterances to be interpretable, and thus to have

meaning is grounded on the same intuition that grounded the claim that we must have a

large number of true beliefs about something in order for our beliefs to be about that thing.

If an agent make enough false utterances about bams, then we begin to wonder whether the

word 'bam' refers to bams for the agent.

Donald Davidson, "The Method of Truth in Metaphysics," Inquiries Into Truth and Interpretation (O.xford; Oxford UP, 1984): 199-200.

Ibid. 201. 88 It seems therefore that we have a compelling argument for why an agent would be justified in forming a belief that p (e.g., there is a bam) on the basis of a testifier's utterance

that p.

PI: The seeming intelligibility of a testifier's utterances provides an entitlement for believing that the agent has propositional attitudes with a certain content (e.g.. the agent's beliefs are about bams).

P2: An entitlement for believing that the agent has propositional attitudes with a certain content provides an entitlement for believing that the testifier has mostly trae beliefs with that content.

P3: An entitlement for believing that the agent has mostly true beliefs with that content provides an entitlement to believe that the agent’s utterance is true.

C: Therefore, the seeming intelligibility of a testifier's utterances provides an entitlement for believing that the agent's utterance is true.

Let us call this argument the Argument from Content Ascription ( ACA).

AC.A appears to be a compelling argument. Premise 1 seems pertectly plausible.

P2 appears plausible for the reasons discussed earlier. P3 should seem plausible for a

reliabilist. If one has reliabilist intuitions about epistemic justification, then one should

grant that an entitlement or justification for believing an utterance requires that it be likely

that the utterance be true. Since I have suggested that we should adopt a reliabilist account

of justification, it seems that we should accept P3. Finally, the argument seems valid, so it

appears that we have very good argument for why the intelligibility of a testifier's utterance

provides an entitlement for believing that the utterance is true. If ACA is a sound argument,

then we have, as Davidson*^ notes, a very powerful argument against skepticism.

Possessing contentful states guarantees that the majority of our beliefs are true and thus

justified.

Although this argument has some initial plausibility for the reasons just indicated, I

shall argue that we ought to reject P3. The problem with P3 is similar to a problem that was

Donald Davidson, ".A. Coherence Theorv' of Truth and Knowledge, " Truth and Interpretation, ed. Ernest Lepore (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986): 307-319.

89 raised for Foley’s argument, and can be seen when we consider the kind of systematic connection that is necessary for content attribution.

In his discussion of the kind of systematic connection that is necessary for content

attribution. Davidson makes the following remarks.

But o f course it cannot be assumed that speakers never have false beliefs. Error is what gives belief its point. We can. however, take it as given that most beliefs are correct. The reason for this is that a belief is identified by its location in a pattern of beliefs; it is this pattern that determines the subject matter of the belief, what the belief is about. Before some object in. or aspect o f the world can become part o f the subject matter of a belief (true or false) there must be endless true beliefs about the subject matter.^"*

Davidson goes on to clarify what these shared beliefs are.

We can make sense of differences all right, but only against a background of shared belief. What is shared does not in general call for comment; it is too dull, trite, or familiar to stand notice.

If the systematic connection that is necessary for content and meaning ascription is about

matters that are not worth noticing, then it is unlikely that agents will testify about these

matters. .As Pricker rightly notes in her criticism of Coady's argument.

We only bother to say what is - relatively -surprising and controversial. Thus there is no implication from the truth-in-the-main of beliefs to the truth-in-the-main of assertions.*^'

How does this consideration pose a problem for P3 of the above argument?

According to Davidson, possessing contentful states requires that there be a

systematic connection between a certain class of beliefs (ones for which it would be unlikely

that an agent would testify about) and states of affairs of world. This requirement though is

consistent with an agent having false beliefs or testifying falsely about matters that are worth

mentioning or worth testifying about. Thus, one could have an agent who tended to have

Donald Davidson, "Thought and Talk," Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (O.xford: Oxford UP, 1984): 168.

Donald Davidson, 'The Method o f Truth in Metaphysics," Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1984): 200.

Elizabeth Pricker, "Telling and Trusting; Reductionism and .A.nti-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony," Mind 104 ( 1995): 410.

90 mostly false beliefs about matters that are worth testifying about on Davidson’s account of content attribution. If this is right, then an entitlement to believe that an agent has contentful states does not provide an entitlement to believe that the agent’s utterance is true.

An example will help to illustrate the above point. Suppose that we know the following about Jack. If Jack were to be standing directly in front of a bam and if he were to take his time in trying to identify the objects that are before him, he would correctly identify the object as a bam. We know this about Jack because on some rare occasions we have seen Jack form a belief about bams in this way. The fact that Jack does this on the rare occasion suggests strongly that Jack's beliefs that there is a bam are actually about bams. When situated appropriately, he will correctly form the belief that there is a bam.

However, as I noted these occasions are rare. For the most part. Jack forms beliefs about bams when he is not well situated in front of them, and in general Jack has a tendency to form beliefs in a hasty way. Thus, most of Jack's beliefs about bams are actually unjustified and false.

This example highlights the fact that there are features relevant to determining the justificatory status of a belief that are not relevant to semantic considerations. Whether an agent is lazy, for example, is relevant to whether the agent's beliefs are justified, but entirely irrelevant to whether the agent's belief has a particular content. If this is right, then an entitlement to believe that an agent has contentful states does not provide an entitlement to believe that the agent’s utterance is true. Consequently, the AC A fails because premise 3 of the argument is false.

3.3: A Reliabilist Defense of Blind Trust:

So far. we have considered apriori versions of the Blind Trust account, and in the process, we have shown that arguments appealing to considerations conceming rationality, content and linguistic interpretation fail to show that a disposition to blindly believe others

91 can produce a justified belief. In this section. I consider three different arguments that have been offered in the context of defending a reliabilist version of the Blind-Trust account.

The first argument is a skeptical one that appeals to an empirical premise about how many of our testimonial beliefs are formed. Millgram, Komblith. and Webb not only claim that during childhood many of our testimonial beliefs formed are formed on the basis of a disposition to blindly believe others, but they also claim that many of our testimonial beliefs are formed in this way during adulthood as well. For instance. Millgram writes.

Of course, although I have been emphasizing the trust that allows the very small child to bootstrap his defeasible inferential (and observational) processes, it is not as though the kind of trust 1 am considering is confined to early childhood...Reducible trust is rare, and so primitive trust in testimony is inevitably pervasive, not only among the ver\’ young, but among those we regard as mature adults.^'

Similarly. Komblith states.

.At least early on. children accept what their parents tell them at face value and uncritically. Children do not accept what their parents say because they have found their parents to be generally reliable sources of information on mundane matters; at least early on. children are incapable of running such checks on their parents. The fact is that children merely do accept what their parents say. and this uncritical attitude serves them well... Sensitivity of an agent's beliefs to the opinions of others is by no means limited to children.^*

Finally. Webb writes.

We naturally do believe one another, and we also naturally ( when we consider the issue at all) believe it is right to do so. Skeptics who do not find it so natural are in the grip of a theory and have lost sight of what common sense teaches them. Reidian e.xtemalism gives us an account of blind trust that explains our epistemic intuitions about a lot of cases and does not require us to treat trusting others as a source o f knowledge that is fundamentallv different from our other sources.

Elijah Millgram. Practical Induction (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1997) 147-148.

Hilary Komblith. “Some Social Features of Cognition.” Svnthese 73 ( 1987): 28.

Mark Owen Webb. "Why I Know .About .As Much .As You: .A Reply to Hardwig." The Journal of Philosophy 40 ( 1993): 269.

92 If these authors are right in claiming that forming testimonial beliefs on the basis of blind trust is pervasive, then a defender™ of a reliabilist account of justification could construct the following plausible argument for the reliability of blind trust:

PI) Most of our testimonial beliefs are based on a disposition to blindly believe others.

P2) Most of our testimonial beliefs are justified.

P3) If a disposition to blindly believe others were not reliable, then most of our testimonial beliefs would not be justified.

C) Therefore, a disposition to blindly believe others is reliable.

Foley attributes this kind of argument to Reid.

Indeed. Reid thought that if our natural attitudes of trust, first in ourselves and second in others, were not reasonable, the inevitable result would be skepticism. There would be little that we could rationally believe.'''

From the standpoint of adopting a reliabilist account of justification, it is difficult to see where the argument goes wrong.

The main problem with this argument is that the first premise is false. There are both obvious and subtle reasons for denying the first premise. In most cases, our testimonial beliefs are not formed on the basis of a blind trust. .Although it is true that we rarely possess enough inductive non-testimonial evidence to believe that the testimonial source is reliable, in most cases we do possess some evidence, either testimonial or non­ testimonial. conceming the reliability of the testifier. Consider for instance our epistemic position toward our family members, friends, colleagues, and news sources. As Reid noted, while a disposition to blindly believe others is innate, it is likely that this disposition becomes modified in light of experience. We learn to trust some people, but not others.

Even in other cases in which it appears as though our trust is blind (e.g.. forming a

belief about the time from a complete stranger), our trust is not completely blind. There are

Although Komblith and Webb do not explicitly endorse this argument, they do espouse some reliabilist element in their accounts of justification, and this argument. 1 believe, is implicit in their papers.

Richard Foley. "Egoism in Epistemology." Socializing Epistemology. ed. Fred Schmitt (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1994): 57.

93 numerous studies on persuasion*’- indicating that when agents rely on testimonial sources, they are influenced by general features pertaining to the reliability of the testimonial source at an unconscious level. For instance, it has been shown that agents tend to rely only on testimonial sources that are taken to be cognitively similar to themselves (tone of voice, features in the surrounding environment, mode of presentation, etc.). The fact that there are reasons influencing the agent at an unconscious level and that the agent would not believe anyone about anything implies that the agent’s trust is not blind.

Consequently, the above considerations indicate that any argument that relies on the claim that most of our testimonial beliefs are formed on the basis of a blind trust will fail.

Skepticism can be avoided if it can be shown that the testimonial belief forming processes that we actually use are reliable.

In response to the above argument, one might grant that even if adults do not form most of their beliefs on the basis of blind trust, it remains true that children form most of their testimonial belief on the basis of blind trust. The following argument may be offered to show that children's beliefs must be justified. For example, it might be argued that we acquire a conceptual repertoire and a language on the basis of a disposition to blindly believe others. This knowledge serves as a foundation for most of our present beliefs, since

See in particular M.I. .-Mpert and W.T. .\nderson, 'Optimal Heterophily and Communication Effectiveness-Some Empirical Findings, " Journal of Communication 23 ( 1973 ): 328-343, E.VV. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovation (New York: Free Press, 1983), J.C. McCroskey, ".A Summary of Experimental Research on the Effects of Evidence on Persuasive Communication, " The Ouarterlv Journal of Speech 55 ( 1969): 169-175, B.J. Calder et al, "The Relation of Cognitive and Memorial Processes to Persuasion in a Simulated Jury Trial, " Journal o f .Applied Social Psvchologv 4 ( 1974): 62-93, L. Festinger and N. Maccoby, "On Resistance to Persuasive Communications," Journal o f .Abnormal and Social Psvchologv 68 ( 1964): 359-366, and W. J. McGuire. "Inducing Resistance to Persuasion: Some Contemporary Approaches," .Advances in Experimental Social Psvchologv I ed. L. Berkowitz (New York: .Academic Press, 1964).

My claim here is not that agents have to be aware o f when they are trusting blindly, but rather it is to suggest that agents are not trusting blindly in these cases. They cannot be used in support of the Blind- Trust account.

94 if the beliefs we acquired as children were not justified, then none of our current beliefs would be justified either.

There is an obvious conceptual problem in arguing that we acquire knowledge of a language via testimony. What is distinctive about testimonial belief formation is that it is a kind of belief formation that is necessarily linguistic. It involves interpreting an agent as having a complex set of intentions that are associated with making a linguistic interpretation, but perhaps more importantly, it presupposes that the agent is capable of understanding the string of sounds as a linguistic utterance. Testimonial belief formation presupposes that the agent is already capable of understanding a language. The point is that the claim that we acquire all of our knowledge of language via testimony is impossible.

But it might be argued that even though all of our knowledge of language cannot be acquired via testimony, perhaps most of it is. However, this claim is even questionable for a number of reasons. First, it is doubtful that the knowledge that competent speakers have of their knowledge is propositional. Rather it seems much more plausible that it is a form of procedural knowledge akin to knowing how to ride a bike. Second, according to a generative approach’’-* to grammar, much of our knowledge of syntax is innate, and not acquired via testimony. While a generative approach to grammar is admittedly controversial, on the main alternative approaches to a generative approach.’’^ (i.e.. a functional or cognitive approach), our knowledge of grammar is not acquired via testimony. .Although our knowledge of grammar is not innate on this approach, it is acquired via learning mechanisms such as association and positive and negative feedback, which do not necessarily and often do not involve testimony. These mechanisms also play an important role in how the agent acquires knowledge of the concepts and terms of a language. In the

’’■* See Noam Chomsky. .Aspects of the Theory of Svntax (Cambridge; MIT Press. 1965) and Steven Pinker. The Language of Instinct ( New York: W. Morrow and Co.. 1994).

See George Lakoff. Women. Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1987). 9 5 case of association, the form of learning is not testimonial, because the child learns by observing a correlation between the utterances of competent speakers of the language such as the child's parents (on most occasions the parent is not even speaking to the child) and

what the term or concept refers to. In the early stages, children do not learn the meanings of word through the parents making utterances of the form ' x means p." Finally, in the case positive feedback, feedback may be entirely non-testimonial. In these cases, the parent may

use non-verbal cues, such as smiling or increased attention, to indicate that the child has

mastered the application of a term properly.

Undoubtedly, we do learn some of our knowledge of language via testimony at later

stages of our linguistic development. It is undeniable that we learn the meanings of many

words and proper grammar in the context of an education system where testimony plays a

central role. But at this point in our development, it is not clear that we form the beliefs on

the basis of a disposition to blindly believe others. .At this stage, children most likely

possess evidence conceming the reliability of others, and. it is likely that we use this

evidence to modify our testimonial belief forming habits.

On a final note. I want to suggest that even if it could be shown that the beliefs of

very young children were justified and that the justification of many of our present beliefs

depended on those beliefs, it would not thereby follow that a disposition to blindly believe

others is generally reliable. Unlike adults, in most contexts, very young children are

protected and thus live in sheltered and isolated environments. Although children

themselves are not discriminating about the source of testimony, parents act as filters of

testimonial information. Choosing an education for the child is a case in point. It should

not be surprising that child's blind disposition to believe any testimony is reliable in this

kind of environment. And in contexts, in which the children are not protected in this way. it

is not clear whether the children's beliefs would be justified.

96 In conclusion. I want to consider a final argument for believing that the disposition to blindly believe others is reliable. Reid argues that there is a counterpart to the principle of credulity, the principle of veracity that governs our propensity to speak the truth. .A.ccording to the principle of veracity, we have an innate and powerful tendency to speak the truth.

This principle has a powerful operation, even in the greatest liars; for w here lie once, they speak truth a hundred times. Truth is always uppermost, and is the natural issue o f the mind. It requires no art or training, no inducement or temptation, but only that we yield to a natural impulse. Lying, on the contrary, is doing violence to our nature; and is never practiced, even by the worst men. without som e temptation. Speaking truth is like using our natural food, which we would do from appetite, though it answered no end; but lying is like taking physic, which is nauseous to the taste, and which no man takes but for some end which he cannot otherwise attain.''^'

If Reid is cotrect. we have an argument for the reliability of testimony. If testifiers have a powerful tendency to speak the truth, then the tendency to believe what they say will be reliable.

One point worth noting is that there is an ambiguity as to what is meant by saying that someone has a tendency to speak the truth. On the one hand, a tendency to speak the truth can be understood as meaning that most of what one says is in fact true. On the other hand, a tendency to speak the truth can be understood as meaning that one intends to speak the truth. In other words, there is an innate and powerful tendency to be sincere. The fact that Reid contrasts a tendency to speak the truth with a tendency to lie suggests that the principle of veracity amounts to a claim that normally we have the intention to speak the truth, not that we have a tendency to actually speak the truth. If this interpretation of Reid is right, then the principle of veracity does not by itself show that the process of blindly believing others is reliable. It is perfectly possible that most people intend to speak the truth, even though much of what they say is in fact not true. We can suppose, for instance, that someone has mostly false beliefs about a particular matter.

Thomas Reid. .An Inquiry into the Human Mind. (Charlottesville; Lincoln-Rembrandt Publishing) ch.6. sect.24.

97 A final problem with trying to argue that the principle of veracity shows that a disposition to blindly believe others is reliable is that one would expect that, like the principle of credulity, this tendency would become modified as we come to acquire certain goals and ends. As was argued before, there will likely be contexts m which these ends will conflict with our disposition to tell the truth.

In conclusion. I have argued that considerations conceming content, meaning and skepticism do not show that one can be justified on the basis of a disposition to blindly believe others. Furthermore. I have also considered some reliabilist arguments which purport to show that a disposition to blindly believe others is reliable. Consequently, it seems implausible that an agent could form a justified belief on the basis of a disposition to blindlv believe others.

98 CHAPTER 4

A DEFENSE OF RELIABILISM

My aim in this chapter is to defend reliabilism as a general account of justification.

The reason for this defense is that in the next chapter. I develop an account of the

Justification of testimonial beliefs within this more general account of Justification.

According to the most well known version of reliabilism. the reliable p rocess account.*’’ a

belief is Justified only if the process that produces it is reliable. Critics argue that this

account can be made plausible only if it can resolve a few serious problems, two of which

are the Generality Problem and the New Evil Demon Problem. My aim here is to offer

solutions to both of these problems.

The problem posed by the Generality Problem is this. Any belief is the result of

several if not an indefinite number of processes, some of which are reliable but others not.

In order for a reliabilist account to give a determinate answer as to whether a belief is

Justified, the reliabilist must provide some way of identifying a unique process. However, it

is also the case that some processes are not relevant to our epistemic Judgments (viz.. the

account produces counter-intuitive results if certain processes are selected). The challenge

to the reliabilist is to provide a principled way of determining which process is the relevant

one in regard to our epistemic Judgments. This is the Generality Problem.

See .-Mvin Goldman. “What is Justified Belief?" Justification and Knowledge ed. George Pappas (Dordrecht: Reidel. 1979) 1-23. Marshall Swain. Reasons and Knowledge ( Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1981). William Alston. Epistemic Justification: Es.savs in the Theory o f Knowledge i Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1989) and Erederick Schmitt. Knowledge and Belief (London: Routledge. 1992). .Although strictly speaking Swain and .Alston defend a reliable indicator account o f justification. I am ignoring the difference between a reliable indicator and a reliable process account here.

99 In the first part of this chapter, I propose a solution that adopts a criterion for identifying a unique process type that has been suggested by Alston.'^* Alston argues that we can identify a unique process by identifying the psychologically real one, the process that reflects or embodies the actual dynamics of belief formation. Though I agree with

Alston that this criterion identifies a unique process, he fails to show that the psychologically real process is the relevant one in regard to our epistemic judgments. Even worse, at the end of his discussion, he provides reasons for thinking that in some cases it is not. Contra Alston's suggestions, I argue that the psychologically real process is the relevant one, and thus offers a solution to the Generality Problem. The first two sections are primarily e.xpository. In Section 4.1. I begin by outlining the Generality Problem. In

Section 4.2,1 consider what is meant by 'a psychologically real process', and why there is a unique one. Finally, in Section 4.3, I argue that the psychologically real process is the relevant one in regard to our epistemic judgments.

In the second part of this chapter, I develop a solution to the New Evil Demon

Problem, a problem that I will label as NED". The problem arises when we consider a case in which an agent is being systematically deceived by an evil demon. In such a case, an agent's belief-forming processes would be unreliable, but intuitively some of his beliefs

(e.g., those produced by careful reasoning and some perceptual processes) are justified.

But according to a reliabilist account, all of the agent's beliefs would be unjustified.

In developing a solution to this problem, I begin by distinguishing two different kinds of solution that one could adopt. The first involves arguing that the concept of justification is multivocal. I consider several different solutions of this kind, and I argue that each is implausible. A more plausible kind of solution, which I endorse, involves arguing that the agent's belief forming processes are reliable in some sense even though they do not have a tendency to produce more true beliefs than false ones in the actual world. The idea

William .•\lston. “How to Think .About Reliability." Philosophical Topics 2.1 ( 19951: 1-29.

100 here is to argue that the agent's belief-forming processes are reliable relative to a set of circumstances. C. that might be different from the actual ones, and it is relative to these circumstances that a process has to be reliable in order to produce a justified belief. The challenge for this kind of solution is to identify what these circumstances are and to explain why a process has to be reliable in them in order to produce a Justified belief. I consider solutions of this kind that have been offered by Goldman and one that appeals to evolutionary considerations. I argue that counter-examples can be raised for each, and that for both of these solutions, it is mysterious why a process has to be reliable in either of the specified circumstances in order to produce a Justified belief. I then develop my own account in which I appeal to considerations underlying our responsibilist intuitions about

Justification (i.e.. considerations conceming the evidence that is available to agents) as a way of fixing the relevant circumstances. Because this solution appeals to considerations that underlie our responsibilist intuitions about Justification, it is not mysterious why a process has to be reliable in these circumstances in order to produce a Justified belief. Finally. I argue that this account avoids all of the problems that arise for the other accounts.

4.1: A Solution to the Generality Problem

4.1.1: The Generality Problem

To begin, consider how the Generality problem arises for the reliable process account of Justification. .According to a simplified version of this account.

(RT) S's belief that p is justified if and only if the process that produces S's belief is reliable.

where a belief-forming process is reliable if and only if it has a tendency to produce more true beliefs than false ones.

One of the primary motivations for this account is that it offers a simple and natural explanation for why certain kinds of beliefs (e.g.. perceptual, inferential, reasoning in certain ways, etc.) are Justified while others (e.g.. guesswork, quick glances, and hasty generalizations) are not. Kinds of beliefs are normally individuated by the processes that

101 produce them, and prima facie, all and only those kinds of beliefs that are justified are produced by a reliable process.

But there is a problem with the way RT is formulated. Note that the term ’process' is used in two different ways. On the one hand, it is used to refer to that which produces a particular belief, a sequence of token events. Used in this way. it refers to a belief-forming process token. On the other hand, notice that reliability is attributed to the term 'process'.

Here the term is not used to refer to a belief-forming process token since normally reliability is not attributed to something that occurs only once. Instead, it is more aptly predicated to a repeatable sequence of events, a belief-forming process type.

So as to avoid any equivocation on the term 'process', let us reformulate RT.

iR T) S's belief that p is justified if and only if the belief-forming process taken leading to S's belief that p is an instance of a belief-forming process typ e that is reliable.

Invoking the type-token distinction though raises a problem. .Any belief-forming process token is an instance of an indefinite number of types. For instance, the token producing my perceptual belief that it is sunny is an instance of the following types: perception, visual perception, visual perception on Wednesday, etc. These types also have different degrees of reliability. Some criterion is needed to specify a unique type amongst these candidates.

But as Feldman')'' points out. the criterion cannot select any type. A criterion that selects types that are too narrow, ones possessing only a single token as an instance, leads to the Single Case Problem (SCP). The token either produces a true belief or a false one. and consequently, the type is either perfectly reliable or perfectly unreliable. Selecting types this narrow will likely lead to counter-intuitive results since the distinction between truth and justification collapses. Moreover, if we suppose that this criterion applies generally, all and only true beliefs will be justified. This is counter-intuitive.

Richard Feldman. "Reliability and Justification". The Moni.st 68 ( 1985): 159-160.

102 As others'oo have noted, the SCP can be easily rebutted by noting that it involves assuming an implausible conception of reliability, the actual frequency conception. Note that the SCP only arises if a criterion selects types possessing no more than a single token as an instance. But there could only be such types if we were restricted somehow only to tokens in the actual world. An actual frequency conception of reliability puts in place this kind of restriction since on this conception, a mechanism’s reliability is determined only by its past and future uses in the actual wurld. However, this conception of reliability is implausible since a mechanism can be reliable even if it is never used or if it accidentally generates inaccurate results on a few occasions. Our intuitions about reliability are better captured by a propensity conception, according to which reliability is determined by actual and possible uses. .An unused but normal thermometer might be reliable because it would produce more accurate results in worlds other than the actual one. Moreover, notice that on the propensity conception of reliability, even the narrowest types will possess more than a single token. Thus, the SCP cannot arise on a propensity conception of reliability.

Since the SCP does not arise on a propensity conception of reliability. Goldman"” concludes that one can adopt a criterion that selects the narrowest type. But this is a mistake for it is possible to construct a variation on the SCP.'”- Suppose'”^ Smith forms the belief that A on the basis of a justified belief that A v (A & B). In forming this belief. Smith uses an invalid inference; he has a tendency to form the belief that p on the basis of the belief that p V q, for any p and q. Intuitively. Smith's belief is unjustified. However, the process token

lOOsee Alvin Goldman. Epistemoloav and Cognition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1986) 50. and William .-Mston. "How to Think .About Reliability." Philosophical Topics 23 ( 1995): 6.

.Alvin Goldman. Epistemologv and Cognition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1986) 50.

'”-Feldman recognizes this point in his paper. "Reliability and Justification". The .Monist 68 ( 1985): 159- 160.

Marshall Swain. ".Alston's Intemalistic E.xtemalism. " Philosophical Perspectives 2 ed. James Tomberlin (.Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company. 1988) 461-473. Swain uses this example to pose a similar but different problem for .Alston's account o f justification.

103 producing his belief is an instance of the following narrow type: forming the belief that p on the basis of a belief that p v q where p is A and q is ( A & B). This type is perfectly reliable even on a propensity conception of reliability since in any possible world in which A v (A &

B) is true, A is true. Thus, the process token that produces Smith's belief is an instance of a very narrow type that is perfectly reliable, but intuitively the belief is unjustified. Thus, even on a propensity conception of reliability, a criterion can still select types that are too narrow.

A different kind of problem, the No-Distinction problem (NOP), arises if a criterion selects types that are too broad. A type is too broad if and only if there are tokens of it that produce beliefs with different justificatory status. For instance, the type, inference, is too broad since not all instances of it produce beliefs with the same justificatorv' status. .An inference involving modus ponens produces a justified belief while an inference involving affiiTning the consequent produces an unjustified belief. If a reliabilist account were to appeal to a criterion that selects type that are too broad, it will fail to capture the intuition that different instances of this type will produce beliefs with different justificatory status.

The variation on the SCP and the NDP show that an adequate criterion cannot select just any type; it must select types that accord with our epistemic intuitions by selecting types that are neither too narrow nor too broad. The criterion must select what is called the

'relevant' type. The problem of formulating such a criterion is the Generality Problem.

Finally, Feldman and Conee place two"” constraints on any adequate solution.

First, the criterion must be principled in that it cannot select types by simply making "case by case selections that match our intuitions." Second, the criterion must be in the spirit of process reliabilism. Together, these two constraints require that the solution be non ad hoc.

So to summarize, a solution to the Generality Problem involves providing a principled

Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, The Generality Problem for Reliabilism," Philosophical Studies 89 ( 1998): 3-5. Strictly speaking, they place three constraints on any adequate solution. I have described the Generality Problem in such a way that one o f these constraints is incorporated into the problem.

104 criterion, in the spirit of process reliabilism. that selects the relevant type for any case of belief formation.

4.1.2: Psychological Realism

In a recent paper. Alstonoffers a criterion for identifying a unique type. In what follows. I provide a brief'^ exposition of how to best understand his criterion and why it selects only one. I also briefly discuss how his criterion is principled and in the spirit of process reliabilism. In the final section. I show that it selects the relevant type.

.•Mston's general approach is to formulate a criterion that appeals to objective, psychological facts. The choice of psychological facts seems natural and intuitively plausible since, according to the process view, the justification of a belief depends on the reliability of the psychological process'"' that produces it. .As such, it would be surprising if non-psychological facts determined what the relevant processes are.

Toward specifying a criterion. .Alston begins by drawing an analogy between some process types and natural kind properties. Like natural kind properties, certain types are

"ontologically rooted, fundamental, or important in ways indefinitely many others are not".'"*' This seems right, but how is this metaphysical distinction to be drawn? According to one standard account."^' genuine or natural kind properties are those that appear in scientific generalizations. These properties acquire their metaphysical status by playing an important role in scientific explanations. One can imagine a similar way of demarcating

William .\lston. "How to Think .About Reliability." Philosophical Topics 23 ( 1995); 1-29.

See .Alston’s paper for a more thorough discussion.

'"'.As .Alston also points out. since we are concerned with psychological processes, it is reasonable to inter that they begin and end in the head.

'"* Ibid. 10.

'"" David .Armstrong. Belief. Truth and Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1973).

1 0 5 psychological types. Ontologically rooted or natural kind psychological types are those that serve an important role in scientific explanations of our mental operations.

As Conee and Feldman"" note, the notion of ontological rootedness cannot by itself identify a unique type. Like natural kind properties (e.g.. being human and being a mammal), there are ontologically rooted types at different levels of generality. Our mental operations can be legitimately explained in different ways: an electrochemical process, an organic process, a perceptual process, etc. Simply identifying the ontologically rooted type fails to identify a unique one.

But as I understand .Alston, the notion of ontological rootedness is not supposed to identify a unique type by itself. Instead. Alston proposes that we can identify a unique type by appealing to the notion of a psychologically realized function. What does this phrase mean? Consider first the notion of a function. In "What is Justified Belief?”. Goldman states

We need to say more about the notion of a belief-forming process’. Let us mean by a process a functional operation or procedure, i.e.. something that generates a mapping from certain states-'inputs'-into other states-'outputs'. The outputs in the present case are states o f believing this or that proposition at a given moment ’ ' '

Processes then should be understood as functional operations, and consequently they are to be individuated in terms of their input and output states. But how should these input and output states be characterized?

Alston makes the following point.

The crucial point here is that every belief formation involves the activation o f a certain psychologically realized function. That activation yields a belief with a propositional content that is a certain function (the function the psychological realization o f which is activated here) of the proximate input. The function involved will determine both what features o f the input have a bearing on the output and what bearing they have. i.e.. how the content of the belief is determined bv those features.

' Richard Feldman and Earl Conee. The Generality Problem for Reliabilism," Philosophical Studies S9 (1998): 10-11.

' ' ' .-Mvin Goldman. "What is Justified BelietT' Justification and Knowledge ed. George Pappas (Dordrecht: Reidel. 1979): 11.

William .Alston. "How to Think About Reliability." Philosophical Topics 23 (1995): 12.

106 In order to see what Alston means in claiming that ‘the psychologically realized type specifies what features of the input have a bearing on the output and what bearing they have” (i.e., how the content of the belief is determined by those features), let us consider an example

Consider the formation of a visual perceptual belief that a maple tree is in front of me. The input will be a visual "presentation" o f a certain sort, one that involves the perceived object’s looking a certain way. The mechanism that is activated will take account of certain phenomenal features of the laresentation. while others will plav no role. Certain shape features, certain color features, the spatial distribution of variously colored regions, and contrasts with the surrounding field will be "picked up" by the mechanism, while others will be ignored. .-\s for the latter, many details of the presentation could have been different without changing the content of the belief generated. The tree could have looked larger or smaller, the bark could have looked rougher or smoother, and so on. It all depends on what function is operative.11.'

Alston's final remark suggests that there is only one unique type that is operative, and in particular, it is the psychologically realized one. This is misleading since the term

’operative' is usually not used in this way. In a particular instance of visual belief formation, all of the following processes or mechanisms seem to be actually operative:"-* perception, visual belief perception, object identification, etc. Talk of actually operative

(unctions, processes, or mechanisms only suggests that the mechanisms are in use.

As the above passage suggests however, the psychologically realized type or function is not simply one that is actually operative. Instead, it is one that accounts for all and only those features that play a role in the formation of a belief, and how those features produce a belief with the content that it has. Certain, but not all shape features, of a tree are responsible for the formation of my belief. Although process types, such as perception. visual perception, etc.. do account for some of the features that are responsible for how an agent forms her beliefs, they do not account for all of them. Recall that for a process type such as perception, the input state will be specified in such a way that any perceptual state

Ibid. 13.

' '■* This was pointed out to me by an anonymous referee.

107 will count as an input state, and any perceptual belief will count as an output state. As such, the input state will not specify any particular phenomenal features of a token input state that might be relevant in producing a particular belief.

Before discussing this criterion in more detail. I want to make one note in regard to labeling the type that accounts for all and only those features that are relevant in the formation of the belief, the ‘psychologically realized' one. Like the phrase 'actually operative', 'psychologically realized' only seems to imply that the types are used by the agent. .Any type that reflects at least some of the causally operative features such as perception, and object identification would seem to be psychologically realized in some sense. Consequently, there is a temptation to think that several types are psychologically realized. So as to avoid confusion. I propose to label the process that accounts for all and only those features that play a role in the formation of the belief, and how those features produce a belief with the content it has. the 'narrowest psychologically realized type'. This gives us the following criterion.

(NPR) The narrowest psychologically realized type is the ontologically rooted type that reflects all and only those features that play a role in the formation of the belief, and how those features produce a belief with the content it has.

Note that the narrowest psychologically realized type is not the type that reflects the most specific and complete description of the causal process that produces the belief where each event in the causal process leading to the formation of a belief will be specified in complete detail. There is a difference between a complete description of the events that are causally responsible for a belief, and a complete description of the features of the that events are causally responsible for a belief. In particular, only the former includes features such that had they been absent, the agent would have still formed the belief.

Consider the following example. A standard Coke machine is sensitive to the differences between a quarter, a dime, and a nickel. However, it is not sensitive to very slight differences between different quarters or different dimes or different nickels. Quarters

108 slightly different in thickness will both be recognized as quarters. Now if we suppose that two quarters, slightly different in size, are used on a particular occasion, then a complete description o f the events that are causally responsible for producing a coke will include the fact that one quarter is thicker than the other. However, a complete description of the causally operative features of the events will not since the machine is insensitive to these slight differences. This is not to say that there is no causally operative feature associated with the size of the quarters. The causally operative feature will be broadly characterized insofar as different quarters of slightly different size can possess this property.

4.1.3: Psychological Realism versus Causal Operativeness

NPR bears strong similarities to a criterion that Goldman has proposed according to which the relevant type is "the narrowest type that is causally operative in producing the belief token that is in question." Though the two criteria arc similar, there is an important difference. While both criteria require that the type reflect all and only those features that play a role in the formation of the belief, and how those features produce a belief with the content it has, NPR but not Goldman's criterion also requires that the type be ontologically rooted.

Although it is tempting to think that types that reflect all the causally operative features are ontologically rooted, I shall argue that this is not so. Moreover. I will argue that this difference is important insofar as it allows NPR to avoid a problem that Feldman has raised for Goldman's criterion.

Consider first Feldman and Conee's objection to Goldman's criterion. They argue that Goldman's criterion fails to identify the relevant type in a number of cases.If a type

.-Mvin Goldman. Epistemoiogv and Cognition (Cambridge; Harvard University Press. 19S6) 50.

' See Richard Feldman and Earl Conee. The Generality Problem for Reliabilism." Philosophical Studies S9 ( 1998): 14. In their discussion, they interpret Goldman as also requiring that the type be a natural kind. If this is the right interpretation o f Goldman's criterion, then it is the same as NPR. but it is not clear to me that this reflects Goldman's criterion. Furthermore, in their objection. Feldman and Conee don't seem to recognize the relevance o f also requiring that the type be a natural kind.

109 specifies all of the causally operative features that are responsible for a belief then assuming determinism, the narrowest type that is causally operative can only have one content for its output belief. This is problematic for beliefs in necessary truths and falsehoods because in these cases, the reliability of the process will be determined purely by the content of the belief. Since the belief is in a necessary truth or falsehood, the resulting belief will have the same truth-value in any possible world. Thus, the narrowest type that is causally operative type will always be either perfectly reliable or unreliable. This leads to a counter-intuitive result for any case in which a belief in a necessary truth is produced by an unreliable process or vice versa.

The problem is more general. A common intuition is that in some cases,*'' the intuitively relevant type is an inferential mechanism in which the contents are left unspecified to the e.xtent that variables are used in the place of the propositions. To use

Alston's phrase, intuitively in some cases, the narrowest psychologically realized inferential types are content neutral. For e.xample, we can imagine that the narrowest psychologically realized type for an agent who uses modus ponens would be the following, forming the belief that q on the basis of the belief that p and the belief that p 3 q. Goldman’s proposal in these cases fails to identify the relevant type. The narrowest type that is causally operative must reflect all and only those features that play a role in the formation of the belief, and how those features produce a belief with the content it has. Suppose that Jim forms the belief that it is raining on the basis of a modus ponens inference (viz., from the belief that it is wet and the belief that if it is wet to the belief that it is raining). Notice that the particular contents of the input beliefs play a causal role in the formation of Jim's belief that it is raining. Jim would not have formed a belief that it is raining had the contents been different. If these are causally operative features, and are thus included within the narrowest

"^Whether the narrowest psychologically realized is content neutral will depend on the particular psychological facts about the agent. If an agent only uses an inference such as modus ponens for certain contents, then the narrowest psychologically realized type would not be content neutral for the agent.

no type that is causally operative, the type can only produce beliefs that it is raining.

Goldman's proposal leads to a massive proliferation of inferential mechanisms even though

intuitively the relevant type would be one where the contents are left unspecified.

Does this problem arise for NPR? I believe that it does not. The reason is that

although the problematic types reflect all and only the causally operative features in the

formation of the belief, they are not ontologically rooted. Consequently, these types are not

selected by NPR.

Although it is tempting to think that it is sufficient for a type to reflect at least some

of the causally operative features in the formation of belief to he ontologically rooted, this is

a mistake. There are other relevant considerations. The claim that certain types are

ontologically rooted involves making a substantive metaphysical commitment analogous to

the commitment scientific realists make in regard to theoretical entities.'In the case of a

science such as physics, once we have discovered the theory that best e.xplains the data,

realists claim that we can infer that the postulated entities of the theory, such as electrons,

exist. In a similar way. once we have discovered the best theory of the mind, we can infer

that the cognitive processes postulated by the theory exist or at least have some privileged

ontological status. The general realist methodology adopted in both cases is. as Sellars

states, "to have good reason for holding a theory is ipso facto to have good reason for

holding that the entities postulated by the theory exist."""'

Since the ontological commitment toward certain types should be seen as simply

employing a realist inference, an inference to the best explanation, the constraints that

determine what counts as the best explanation in a science, such as physics, will apply for

cognitive science as well. For example, notice that in the case of physics, we are not content

"*See for instance Richard Boyd. "Realism. Underdetermination, and a Causal Theory of Evidence." Noor 7. ( 1973): pp. 1-12. Nancy Cartwright. How the Laws of Phvsics Lie (Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1983). and Willfred Sellars. Science. Perception and Reality (New York: Humanities Press 1962).

Willfred Sellars. Science. Perception and Reality (New York: Humanities Press 1962): 97.

Ill with a theory that simply accounts for the phenomena. We do not construct theories in which there is a different phenomenological law for every phenomena to be explained.

Such a theory would be overly complex and would have very little explanatory and predictive power. The same would be true of a theory that postulated a psychological mechanism or process for every particular belief to be explained. In our evaluation and construction of scientific theories in general, what we seek is a theory that not only accounts for the phenomena, but one that is simple and has explanatory and predictive power. These considerations play a role in determining what is the best theory from which the realist suggests that we can infer the existence of the postulated entities or mechanisms of that theory.

Returning to the problem posed for Goldman’s criterion, we can explain why in some cases, such as when an agent forms an inferential belief or a belief in a necessary truth, the psychological mechanism will be content neutral. Suppose that George forms the belief that it is raining from the belief that it is wet and the belief that if it is wet. then it is raining. Recall that according to Goldman's proposal, the narrowest type that is causally operative will refer to the particular contents of the input beliefs since those contents do play a causal role in the formation of the belief. But for NPR. this will not necessarily be so. In identifying the ontologically rooted type that reflects all of the causally operative features, considerations such as simplicity and explanatory power might constrain us in the following way. Suppose that if we were to give George two propositions of the form p and p D q. he is capable of inferring q even though he may not understand p and q other than the fact that they are propositions. This fact about George would lend plausibility to a theory that posited a modus ponens process type that is content neutral, (viz.. an inference type in which the contents of the belief are variables) as the narrowest psychologically realized type.

Such a theory would be simpler and have more predictive and explanatory power in explaining George's cognitive behavior.

112 For similar reasons, we can imagine that in a case in which an agent forms a belief in a necessary truth, there might be other beliefs that the agent forms that are relevant in determining what would count as the best explanation of all of the agent's behavior. Thus, the ontologically rooted mechanism might be one that does not only produce beliefs in necessary truths.

To summarize, there are two considerations that are relevant in identifying the narrowest psychologically realized type, whether the type is ontologically rooted and whether it retlects all and only the operative features in the formation of a belief. While there may be a type that can identify all of the operative features (e.g.. an inference type that includes a specification of the contents of the beliefs), if we observe patterns of behavior, this may raise doubts as to whether the type is ontologically rooted. It is surprisingly difficult to describe what the narrowest psychologically realized type is other than to suggest that it is guided by the considerations that I have just raised. Consequently, I propose to describe the narrowest psychologically realized type as the ontologically rooted type that reflects all ami only those features that play a role in the formation of the belief, and how those features produce a belief with the content it has while recognizing that in some cases, considerations conceming ontological rootedness and operative features may play off against one another.

There are two final points to be made about NPR. Up to this point, I have been speaking in terms of positing mechanisms or processes. This way of speaking might sound too mechanistic. If so, I am willing, like Alston, to speak in terms of habits or dispositions.

As Alston points out, whether we speak of dispositions, mechanisms, or processes.

The common thread running through all this is that it is part o f the constitution of the psyche to be so disposed that upon being presented with certain kinds o f input a belief is generated with a content that it is a function o f certain features o f that input.

William .Alston. “How to Think .About Reliability.” Philosophical Topics 23 ( 1995): 13.

113 On a final note, I should point out that while I have argued that NPR involves

assuming psychological realism, and that this realism is analogous to other kinds of

scientific realism, I have no intention of justifying here the realist's claim that in general we can infer the existence of the postulated entities of the best theory that accounts for the

phenomena. Although I think the reliabilist must defend this principle, such a discussion is

much too large to enter into here.

So far, I provided an interpretation of how Alston’s proposal identifies a unique

type. We can identify a unique type by identifying the narrowest psychologically realized

type (i.e., the ontologically rooted type that reflects all and only those features that are

responsible for the belief and how those features produce a belief with the content that it

has). Barring general anti-realist'-' worries, it is difficult to see how there could be more

than one. One would either have to deny that there is a unique set of features that are

causally relevant in the formation of a belief or deny that two process types that reflect the

same causally operative features are the same process. Denying the former would seem

absurd. Denying the latter would be tantamount to denying that we ought to individuate

process types functionally, but I cannot think of any other plausible way of individuating

them.

Finally, let us consider briefly whether NPR is principled and in the spirit of process

reliabilism. The criterion would be unprincipled and ad hoc if it selected types on a case by

case basis to match our epistemic intuitions. Notice however that NPR is general. It will

select the narrowest psychologically realized type in the same way for any kind of belief.

Moreover, it does not invoke any epistemic considerations in identifying the narrowest

psychologically realized type.

.\lston rightly notes that the plausibility of process reliabilism depends on the plausibility of psychological realism. .\s such, reliabilism may ultimately have to be abandoned if there are sufficient grounds to show that we need to be anti-realists about our mental processes. But as .Alston goes on to consider, evidence that is found in cognitive science and that we gain through introspection suggests that we are making some progress towards identifying unique processes.

114 The criterion is also in the spirit of process reliabilism. I have suggested that

Alston's talk about functions'-- should simply be taken as a claim about how to individuate process types functionally. This does not go against the spirit of process reliabilism for. as

I noted earlier, Goldman makes this point in his original formulation of the reliable process account of justification. Furthermore, he reiterates this point in a later work,

.A preferable unit o f analysis, then, might be a process, construed as the sort of entity

operations (or sets of parallel operations), ultimately culminating in a belief-like output. Such a sequence may span several cognitive systems. This is the sort of entity I had in mind in previous publications (especially Goldman 1986) when 1 spoke of "cognitive processes".1:3

I see no reason why we should not think that the above proposal is in the spirit of process reliabilism. as thus characterized by Goldman.

4.1.4: Solving the Generality Problem

Up to this point, the discussion has been primarily e.xegetical and interpretative. 1 have suggested that Alston's criterion provides a principled way of identifying a unique type in the spirit of process reliabilism. But in order to provide a solution to the Generality

Problem, it must be shown that NPR always selects the relevant type. In other words, it must be shown that NPR avoids the variation on the SCP and the NDP discussed earlier. I turn now towards this task, and the substantive part of this section.

Consider first whether it avoids the variation of the SCP by not selecting types that are too narrow. Recall that in the earlier example. Smith forms a belief that A on the basis of a belief that A v (A & B). He forms this belief because he has a tendency to form a belief that p on the basis of a belief that p v q for any p and q. However, the process token that produces Smith's belief is an instance of the following narrow and reliable type:

'--Som e of the worries that Feldman raises for .Alston’s criterion arise because .Alston makes extensive use o f the notion of a function in formulating the criterion. 1 have tried to suggest that .Alston the appeal to the notion of a function simply amounts to the claim that process types are to be individuated functionally.

Alvin Goldman. “Epistemic Folkways and Scientific Epistemology." Liaisons: Philosophv Meets the Cognitive and Social Sciences (Cambridge: MIT Press. 1992) 165.

115 forming the belief that p on the basis of p v q where p is A and q is (A & B). A criterion that selects this narrow type leads to a counter-intuitive result since Smith's belief is unjustified.

This case does not pose a problem for NPR however since NPR will not select the above type. The reason is that the above type includes features that do not play a role in the formation of the agent's belief. In particular, the fact that q is (A & B) is not a causally relevant feature in the formation of Smith's belief. Notice that Smith would have formed the same belief even if q had been different. .All that matters to Smith is that the input proposition is a disjunction.

Moreover, it seems that NPR in general will not select types that are too narrow.

The reason is that the justificatory status of a belief depends not only on what occurs in the particular instance of belief formation, but also on what the agent would believe in other normal or typical situations.'--* For example, if an agent were to form the belief that there is a horse when presented with a horse, the justificatory status of the belief depends on whether the agent would have formed a different belief if presented with a different object.

The same is true in the case involving Smith. The justificatory status of his belief does not merely depend on whether he forms the belief that .A on the basis of a belief that A v (A &

B). but on whether Smith would have formed the same belief on the basis of a belief that A v

B instead. The general point here is that in determining the justificatory status of a belief, the relevant facts concern what the agent would believe in the kinds of circumstances that we typically encounter. If in such circumstances, the agent tends to form more true beliefs than

false ones, then the belief is justified. But notice that these facts are the same as those that determine what is the narrowest psychologically realized type. For what the narrowest

'-■* For the moment. I am following .Alston in claiming that the reliability of a process is to be assessed in contexts that we normally encounter. In the next section, I will argue that this cannot be completely right. But the differences between .Alston's claim that the reliability of a process should be evaluated in typical circumstances and what I will propose in the next part of this chapter do not matter here.

116 psychologically realized type determines is what an agent will believe in normal circumstances. In contrast, when a type is too narrow, information about what the agent would believe under different but relevant circumstances is excluded by the specification of the type. This leads to problems because it is precisely these facts that are relevant in determining the justificatory status of the agent's belief. I conclude therefore that NPR will not select types that are too narrow.

Showing that NPR does not fall prey to the NDP is more difficult. In fact. Alston suggests the possibility that in some cases the narrowest psychologically realized type might be too broad. Contra .Alston. I will argue that this is not possible. But let us begin by considering why Alston thinks it might be possible for NPR to fall prey to the NDP.

Alston begins by rightly pointing out that in all. if not most, of the cases that are used to illustrate the NDP. the type is not the narrowest psychologically realized one.'^

For example, consider Feldman's example involving an agent who forms a perceptual belief that there is a mountain goat. Feldman rightly notes that the type, visual belief formation, fails the no-distinction test. Seeing a goat that is nearby will lead to a justified belief, but seeing one that is far off will not. Furthermore, both of the process tokens that produce these beliefs are instances of the broad type, visual belief formation. But as Alston points out.

Feldman supposes that this difference has to be drawn in terms o f external conditions of observation. But that is not so. The relevant features of the sensory experience will obviously be different in the two cases, and so a different [psychologically real type] will be activated. 1:6

'^ .“Xnother example that Feldman 1988 discusses involves a person viewing a succession o f objects under the same conditions, and forming a belief about whether the objects possess a certain properties. For instance, he considers a case where an umpire is deciding whether a pitch is a ball or a strike. Feldman claims that "some o f the objects the person sees may clearly have the property in question while others do not. .-\s a result, some beliefs to the effect that the object has the property may be better justified than others I think the right response, which Feldman considers, but does not take seriously, is to say that if the person does see it more clearly one case but not the other, then the same process is not used in both cases.

William .-Xlston. “How to Think .About Reliability." Philosophical Topics 23 ( 1995): 24.

117 In other words, the type, visual belief formation, is not the narrowest psychologically realized one.

Alston generalizes on this example by arguing that for any type that is too broad it is unlikely to be the narrowest psychologically realized one. In the case of a non-deductive inference, he considers the type, for any F and G, forming the belief that Most F's are G's on the basis of a belief that one hundred F's are G's. This type is supposedly too broad because there are instances of it that produce beliefs with different justificatory status. We can imagine that in different instances the factors that determine whether an enumerative inference is good, (e.g., relevance of the predicates, diversity of the sample, etc.) will be different. For example, an instance in which F is being a golden retriever and G is being affectionate will produce a justified belief since being a golden retriever is positively relevant to being affectionate. However, an instance in which F is being a book and G is having a red cover will not since being a book is not positively relevant to having a red cover.

Intuitively, in any case in which F is relevant to G, the inference will be good, but in any case in which they are not relevant, the inference will not be good. If the process type, for any F and G, forming the belief that Most F's are G's on the basis of a belief that one hundred F's are G's. were the narrowest psychologically realized one, we would have a case in which the

NDP arose for NPR, but Alston argues that this is unlikely.

But it seems clear that the nondeductive inference [types| generally internalized are nut of this sort. They are. rather, designed to be sensitive to peculiarities of the subject matter as well as to the kind of inference involved. 127

Alston's general strategy here is to argue that, as a matter of fact, types cannot be both too broad and the narrowest psychologically realized one. However, as .Alston recognizes, this general kind of strategy is problematic for two reasons. First, there are surely some cases in which the cognitive mechanisms of agents do not work according to their design. Students often do not realize that enumerative induction is reliable for some

Ibid. 25.

118 predicates but not others. Second, even if as a matter of fact, there are no such agents, "there

are surely possible subjects that instantiate such [types]. And doesn't a reliabilist epistemology aspire to handle possible as well as actual cases?"'-* Unfortunately, Alston's

discussion ends here, and so we are left to conclude that NPR falls prey to the NDP.

In response. I shall argue that there cannot be types that are both the narrowest

psychologically real one and too broad. In order to see this, let us begin by considering

what follows if the type, for any F and G. forming the belief that Most F's are G's on the

basis of a belief that one hundred F's are G's. were the narrowest psychologically realized

one. Suppose that Jack forms the belief that most golden retrievers are affectionate on the

basis of having observed that 100 golden retrievers are affectionate. In assuming that the

narrowest psychologically realized type is. for any F and G. forming the belief that Most F's

are G 's on the basis of a belief that one hundred F's are G's. we are assuming that the

particular F and G in this inference process are not features that are relevant to the formation

of Jack's belief. Jack is forming a belief on the basis of a general inference structure, which

does not take into account whether F and G are relevant to one another. Jack would form

the belief that most books are red on the basis of observing 100 books that are red.'-*’

If the narrowest psychologically realized type is. for any F and G. forming the belief

that Most F's are G's on the basis of a belief that one hundred F's are G's. I see no reason

for thinking that this type is too broad. The thought is that the type is too broad because

there are different tokens of it that produce beliefs with different justificatory status. For

example, there is a token in which Jack forms the belief that most golden retrievers are

'-* Ibid. 25.

'-*’ Notice that if. on the other hand, we were to discover that Jack would not form the belief that most books are red on the basis of seeing 100 red books, and in general would not form the belief that most Fs are Gs on the basis of observing 100 Fs are Gs. then the narrowest psychologically realized type (in a case when Jack forms the belief that most Fs are Gs on the basis o f observing 100 Fs are Gs) would not be forming the belief that most Fs are Gs on the basis of observing 100 Fs and Gs for any F and G. For it is not true that Jack follows this general inference structure. The type that is likely to be the narrowest psychologically realized type would be something such as. forming the belief that most Fs and Gs on the basis of observing 100 Fs and Gs when F is taken to be relevant to G.

119 affectionate on the basis of a belief that 100 golden retrievers are affectionate and a token in which he forms the belief that most books are red on the basis of a belief that 100 books are red. The intuition is that the former is justified, but the latter is not. But I do not see why we should think that the beliefs have different justificatory status. Notice that since the narrowest psychologically realized type is. for any F and G. forming the belief that M ost F's are G 's on the basis of a belief that one hundred F's are G's, this implies that Jack is insensitive to the fact that the inference is good when F and G are relevant and bad when they are not. Thus, when Jack forms the belief that most golden retrievers are affectionate, it is simply an accident that he uses a good inference. Justification involves an aspect of epistemic praise, and intuitively we should not be giving epistemic praise for accidentally using good inferences.

Here is another example. Suppose that Melissa is a student in an Introduction to

Logic class. When asked what follows from p =) q and p. Melissa will say q. .A natural reaction is to say that Melissa's belief is justified. However, suppose we discover that

Melissa would have concluded q even if she were presented with the propositions q 3 p and p. We discover that Melissa is not sensitive to the direction of the conditional. Would we still say that Melissa's belief is justified'? .At the very least, the answer is unclear. But more importantly, it very unclear whether her belief is more justified than an instance in which she forms the belief on the basis of the propositions q 3 p and p. The reason is that from the perspective of Melissa's psychological states, there is no difference in the two cases. It is simply an accident that the conditional is pointed in the right direction when it is an instance of modus ponens.

This point can be made even clearer if we contrast Melissa with some other agent.

Suppose that Betty, unlike Melissa, is sensitive to the direction of the conditional. In other words. Betty will use modus ponens but not affirming the antecedent. Suppose that both

Betty and Melissa form the belief that it rained on the basis of the beliefs that it is wet and

120 that if it is wet. then it rained. Would we say that their beliefs are equally justified? If we keep in mind that Melissa, but not Betty, would have still formed the belief on the basis of the belief that it is wet and the belief that if it rains, then it is wet. clearly Melissa and Betty’s beliefs are not equally justified. The fact that Betty, but not Melissa, is sensitive to the direction of the conditional seems relevant to the justificatory status of their beliefs.

Let me try to diagnose why we initially thought a type could be both the narrowest psychologically realized one and too broad, and why it would be a mistake to think this.

There is a tendency to view certain types as being inherently too broad. Types, such as inference and perception, are thought to be inherently too broad in that these types are thought to possess tokens that produce beliefs with different justificatory status regardless of whether the type is the narrowest psychologically real On one. the basis of this assumption, it is natural to think that the narrowest psychologically real type could be too broad. For if certain types are inherently too broad, then the connection between a type being the narrowest psychologically real one and being too broad is only contingent. As such, it is possible for the same process type to possess both properties.

This tendency to think of certain types as inherently broad stems from a long tradition of construing justification in an abstract way. where within this tradition, the primary objects of evaluation in regard to justification are propositions and not cognitive states of individuals. Viewed in this way. inferences are evaluated from a purely statistical and formal perspective. Whether agents actually believe the relevant propositions and whether they use the inferences or processes gets ignored.

Thus, in the above case, we are inclined to say that Melissa's belief is justified because the process token that produces her belief is an instance of the process type, modus ponens. From a formal perspective, this type is a perfectly good inference. However,

without considering whether this narrower type is the narrowest psychologically realized one for Melissa, we cannot say that tokens of this type will produce justified beliefs. This

121 would be tantamount to giving credit to an agent for using a process that was not used.

What naturally explains why Betty's belief is more justified than Melissa's is that even though the process tokens that produce their beliefs are instances of the same narrow reliable process type. Betty uses this narrower process type but Melissa does not.

The point that I am raising here is not new to process reliabilism. The idea that the justification of a belief depends on what process is actually used lies at the heart of process reliabilism. As Goldman states, "the psychological processes actually executed in forming the judgment are critical to the judgment's justifiedness. Justitledness is not fixed by an ideal statistical, or confirmational. analysis of the evidence."'^" If we keep this in mind, it is difficult to see how a type could be both the narrowest psychologically realized one and too broad.

4.1.5: The No Distinction Problem

I suspect that even in light of the above consideration, there are perhaps some lingering doubts as to whether there could be a type that is both too broad and the narrowest psychologically realized one. In this final section. I want to consider a different case that would seem to pose a problem.

Recall that in Feldman's example involving a visual belief of a mountain goat, there is a temptation to think that for two different tokens, seeing a goat far off and seeing one nearby, the difference in the justificatory status of the two beliefs can only be reflected by a difference in the external conditions. In response, it was noted that it seems plausible that there will be a difference in the sensory experience, and the difference in the justificatory status of the two beliefs would be reflected by this difference. Notice that the general

methodology of this response to Feldman's example is to argue that if there is a difference

in external conditions that is relevant to the epistemic status of the beliefs, it is likely that this

Alvin Goldman. Epi.stemologv and Cognition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1986) 91.

122 difference will be reflected in the internal psychological mechanisms that produce the beliefs.

A natural response, available to the critic of reliabilism. is to argue that there could be a difference in external conditions that is relevant to the justificatory status of the beliefs without this difference being reflected in the psychological processes that produce them.

Consider the following case. Suppose that Sam forms a belief that there is a kangaroo by observing a certain print. He has a tendency to form the belief that there is a kangaroo when he has a perception of a certain kind of print, a K-print. In Sam's normal environment, this belief-forming process is reliable. Intuitively. Sam's belief is justified. But suppose that

Sam. without his knowing it. is moved to a different environment, one in which believing that there are kangaroos on the basis of having perceived K-prints is not reliable. Suppose that the environment is tilled with wallabies that make prints similar to. but not identical with, kangaroo prints. In this environment, most agents are capable of discriminating kangaroo prints from wallaby prints. Thus, they do not use the process that Sam uses in forming beliefs about kangaroos. Is Sam's belief justified'.” ''

I do not propose to definitively answer this question. My concern here is whether this kind of case might pose a problem for NPR. If Sam's belief is justified, then this kind of case obviously does not pose a problem since both instances of Sam's belief-forming process produce beliefs with the same justificatory status. However, if we suppose that

Sam's belief is unjustified, a problem seems to arise. There would be two instances of the same narrowest psychologically realized type that produce beliefs with different justificatory status, and thus the narrowest psychologically realized type would be too broad.

'^'The type o f case that I am imagining here are not as rare as one might think. For instance, suppose that in Europe, unlike the U.S.. one needs a much more discriminating palate in order to recognize a certain cheese as a Brie. We can imagine an agent who is transported from one context and the other, and it would perhaps be unclear whether the agent's beliefs would have the same justificatory status.

123 Drawing this final conclusion however is a mistake. The reason is that the argument involves making a false assumption, viz.. if there are tokens of a narrowest psychologically real type that produce beliefs with different justificatory' status, then the type is too broad.

To see that this is not generally true, consider a slightly different case. It is generally agreed that an agent’s belief could be unjustified even if the process that produces it is reliable. In particular, a belief will be unjustified if the agent possesses an alternative and available process that would have led him to believe otherwise. Here is Goldman’s e.xample that illustrates this point.

Suppose that Jones is told on fully reliable authority that a certain class of his memory beliefs are almost all mistaken. His parents fabricate a wholly false story that Jones suffered from amnesia when he was seven but later developed pseudo-memories of that period. Though Jones listens to what his parents say and has excellent reasons to trust them, he persists in believing the ostensible memories from his seven-year old past.'-’-

In this case. Jones’s belief is produced by a reliable process, but the belief is not justified since there e.xists an available process that would lead him to believe otherwise. Goldman concludes that in order for a belief to be justified, the belief forming process must be reliable and there must not be an available and alternative process that would lead the agent to believe otherwise. Given this additional condition, it is easy to imagine two instances of the same narrowest psychologically real type that produce beliefs with different justificatory status. Suppose that on one occasion but not the other, there is an available process that would lead the agent to believe otherwise. Notice that in this example, even though instances of the same process might produce beliefs with different justificatory status, we would not want to conclude that the process is too broad and that there is a Generality

Problem here. The problem is not that we have misidentified the relevant type. There is an alternative and more intuitive explanation for why instances of the same process produce

.-\lvin Goldman. "What is Justified Belief?" Justification and Knowledge ed. George Pappas (Dordrecht: Reidel. 1979): 18.

124 beliefs with different justificatory status. It is simply that in one case but not the other, some other condition within the reliabilist account is not satisfied.

The suggestion is that a reliabilist account of justification consists of a set of distinct conditions. Thus, a full specification of the account will consist not only of a specification of the relevant process type, but a specification of other conditions as well (e.g.. a condition concerning whether there is an alternative and available process that would lead the agent to believe otherwise). The relevance of these other conditions is that they provide a natural way of e.xplaining how different tokens of the sam e process type can produce beliefs with

JZ/fere/ir justificatory status. The explanation is that for one token but not the other, one of these other condition is not satisfied.

I suggest that this is how we should understand the case involving Sam. The general thrust of this case is to suggest that justification is contextual insofar as the justification of a belief will depend on the particular context or environment that the agent is in. This would go against the traditional way of understanding a reliabilist account of justification, which involves assuming that reliability assessments for any belief will always be determined in the same global environment. If we grant that Sam's belief is unjustified, this claim will have to be rejected. The justification of a belief will depend on whether the process is reliable in the local and immediate environment, and this can change. The salient point is that the example raises issues concerning how to specify the relevant environment for our reliability assessments in regard to justification. However. I take issues concerning how to assess reliability to be different than issues concerning what is the relevant process type. If so, we ought to take these two issues to constitute two distinct conditions within a reliabilist account. Finally, the reason why there are two tokens of the same type that produce beliefs with different justificatory status is not because the type is too broad, but because the narrowest psychologically real type is reliable in only one of the local environments or contexts. The reliability condition is satisfied in one case, but not the other.

1 2 5 I have suggested that it is possible for instances of the same narrowest psychologically real type to produce beliefs with different justificatory status. Since a reliabilist account consists of distinct conditions, we can explain why instances of the same process type produce beliefs with different justificatory status by appealing to these other conditions. It might be argued however that I have not given an argument for why we need to view a reliabilist account of justification in this way. This is true. I have only suggested that this is a natural way of understanding a reliabilist account. Could one then not insist that the above cases do show that a narrowest psychologically real type could be too broad?

Critics of reliabilism. it seems to me, cannot insist in this way. Notice that if we construe these cases as examples of the NDP. then we should conclude that a specification of the relevant type specifies 1) the narrowest psychologically real type. 2) that the agent cannot possess an altemative process that would lead the agent to believe otherwise and 3) that the process must be reliable in the local environment. If so. notice then that the NDP simply becomes the problem of specifying all of the conditions under which a belief is justified. Call this latter problem, the Full Specification Problem (PSP).

Are these two problems simply the same problem under different guises? Perhaps, they are. Perhaps the worries that underlie the NDP are simply the same worries that underlie why some epistemologists have questioned whether necessary and sufficient conditions can be given for when a belief is justified. But if the critic of reliabilism draws this conclusion, then the reliabilist is much better off than originally thought. Notice first that there is one less problem to solve. But more importantly, if the NDP is simply the PSP. then it is unclear whether the Generality problem, and in particular the NDP. is a special problem for the reliabilist. For it seems that worries about whether necessary and sufficient conditions can be given for when a belief is justified plague not only the reliabilist but everyone.

126 As a matter of fact, I think that we do distinguish these two problems. We implicitly do so by making assumptions about the nature of processes. For example, it is often

assumed that by 'processes’, the reliabilist is referring to internal processes, ones in the head.

Given this assumption, a specification of the relevant type cannot include a specification of

the context in which the reliability of a process is to be assessed even if it is shown that justification depends on these factors. It is against the background of these assumptions

that we understand why the Generality problem is a distinctive problem for the reliabilist.

and why it is different from the PSP. But if this is right, then it is unclear how NPR could

fail to identify the relevant type.

In conclusion, I have tried to show that NPR offers a plausible way of solving the

Generality Problem. I have argued that it is a principled criterion in the spirit of process

reliabilism, and that it will always select a unique type. Finally, I have argued that NPR

always selects the relevant type by showing that it avoids a variation on the SCP and the

NDP when this latter problem is properly understood.

4.2: A Solution to the New Evil Demon Problem

In this part of the chapter, I turn toward offering a solution to the New Evil Demon

Problem (NED). In Section 4.2.1, I begin by outlining how NED poses a problem for a

reliabilist account of justification. In Section 4.2.2, I consider several different solutions to

NED that all involve multiplying concepts of justification, and I argue that all of these

solutions lead to a problem. In section 4.2.3. the discussion turns to a different kind of

solution that involves relativizing reliability assessments to circumstances that might be

different from the actual ones. This kind of solution must specify what circumstances a

process must be evaluated in, and in this section, I consider several different proposals that

have been offered or suggested. I raise problems for each. In Section 4.2.4. I offer a

different way of fixing the circumstances that involves appealing to the evidence that is

127 available to an agent. In Section 4.2.5, I address worries that the notion of available evidence is too vague to rely on in developing an account of justification.

4.2.1: The New Evil Demon Problem

To begin, let us consider carefully how demon scenarios pose a problem for a reliabilist account of justification. Suppose that Bill has normal eyesight and that he is capable of identifying objects that are normally found outside (e.g., trees, bushes, buildings, etc.). On the basis of a perception, an instance of a kind of perception that is normally produced when Bill takes a careful look at a tree, he forms the belief that the object is a tree.

Suppose however that Bill is being systematically deceived'-'^ by an evil demon, and as a result, the perceptual process that produces his belief is unreliable. On a reliabilist account.

S's belief that p is justified only if S’s belief is produced by a reliable process. So, according to a reliabilist account. Bill's belief is unjustified. Intuitively, however it seems that his belief could be justified. Suppose that it is impossible for Bill to determine that he is being deceived by a demon. If he were to do his epistemic best, he would not be able to determine that he is being deceived. The requirement that a belief forming process be reliable in order to produce a justified belief would seem to be too strong. This is the New

Evil Demon Problem (NED).

These kinds of cases present a further problem for a reliabilist account of justification. One of the primary motivations for a reliabilist account of justification is that it provides an intuitive and natural explanation for why certain beliefs are justified while others are not. Beliefs that are intuitively justified (e.g., those based on careful reasoning and perception) are produced by reliable processes while beliefs that are intuitively unjustified

(e,g„ those based on wishful thinking and guessing) are produced by unreliable processes.

However, in light of NED cases, the above motivation for reliabilism loses its force. All of

'^^The fact that Bill is actu ally being deceived by an evil demon is important. Unlike the traditional Cartesian skeptical supposition which only involves considering the mere possibility o f an evil demon deceiving us, this supposition entails that the agent’s belief forming processes are unreliable.

1 2 8 our processes would be equally unreliable, but intuitively some of them (e.g.. careful

reasoning and perception) would produce justified beliefs, but others (e.g., guesswork and

wishful thinking) would not.

4.2.2: Multiplying Concepts of Epistemic Justification

A possible way of responding to NED is to argue that the concept of epistemic justificationis multivocal. .Although the agent's beliefs are not justified in the sense that

they are produced by reliable processes, they are justified in some altemative sense. In this

section, I consider several different concepts that the reliabilist might appeal to, and 1 argue

that a problem arises in each case.

In "Strong and Weak Justification",Goldman argues that in the NED cases, and

ones similar to it, our intuitions are pulled in opposite directions. On the one hand, there is

a temptation to say that the agent’s beliefs are unjustified because they are ill fanned. On

the other hand, there is a temptation to say that the agent's beliefs are justified because they

have been formed in a blameless or nan-culpable Accordingway. to Goldman, the fact that

we are pulled in these two directions indicates that we possess two different concepts of

epistemic justification: one that entails that a belief is properly formed, and one that entails

that the belief be formed in a blameless or non-culpable way. He introduces a distinction

between strong and weak justification, and defines these notions in the following way:

S’s belief is 5frong/y justified if produced by a reliable process.'^'’

and

S's belief is ueoA:/y justified if

I) the cognitive process that produces the belief is unreliable

'■’■'This claim is different from the claim that the concept of justification is multivocal insofar as beliefs or actions can be epistemically, pragmatically, or morally justified.

Goldman, "Strong and Weak Justification," Philosophical Perspectives 2 ed. James Tomberlin (.Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company, 1988) 51-69.

Ibid. 54.

129 2) S does not believe that the process is unreliable,

3) S neither possesses, nor has available to him/her, a reliable way of telling that the process is unreliable, and

4) There is no process or method S believes to be reliable which, if used, would lead S to believe that the process is unreliable.'-’’^

By distinguishing these two concepts, the reliabilist can account for our intuitions in the

NED cases in the following way. Although the agent’s beliefs are not strongly justified, they are weakly justified. Thus, the cases do not present a counter-example for a reliabilist account. To think they do would involve equivocating on the notion of justification.

The main problem with this response concerns how Goldman defines the concept of weak justification. Notice that weak justification not only entails that a belief be formed in a blameless or non-culpable way. but it also entails the belief be ill formed, since condition 1 requires that the belief be produced by an unreliable process. This raises a problem because

Goldman offers no reason for why we should think that we possess such a narrow concept.

Why should we think that we possess a concept that entails ill-formed blameless belief rather than one that only entails blameless belief? The following consideration suggests that the burden is on Goldman to provide an answer. It might plausibly be argued that the intuition in the NED cases is not simply that the agent's beliefs are justified, but that they are justified in the sam e sense that beliefs in non-demon worlds are justified. Whether Bill happens to be in a demon or a non-demon world, his perceptual beliefs will be justified and they will be justified in the same sense. The notion of weak justification, as Goldman defines it, would fail to capture this intuition. Since weak justification requires that an unreliable process produce the belief, an agent's belief in a non-demon world could not be weakly justified. Without an argument to show why we should think that we possess the concept of weak justification, this particular solution seems implausible.

Ibid. 56.

130 The obvious response is to modify Goldman’s account of weak justification, by

dropping the first condition so that it only entails a belief be blameless or non-culpable. To

avoid confusion, let us call this kind of Justification 'non-culpable Justification' or 'NC-

Justification'.

S’s belief that p formed on the basis of a process. BP. is non-culpably justified or NC Justified if

1) S does not believe that the BP is unreliable.

2) S neither possesses, nor has available to him/her. a reliable way of telling that the process is unreliable, and

3) there is no process or method S believes to be reliable which, if used, would lead S to believe that the process is unreliable.

Because NC Justification only entails that the belief is faultless or non-culpable. it is more

plausible that we actually possess such a concept. .A solution that appeals to NC-

Justifiication could e.xplain our intuition that an agent's belief is Justified in NED cases

without violating the intuition that an agent's belief in demon worlds could be Justified in the

same sense as it would be in non-demon worlds.

There is. however, a problem with this amended solution. Notice that NC weak

Justification is a very weak form of Justification. Each condition is a negative requirement

insofar as they each concern what an agent cannot have. Furthermore, the conditions for

NC-Justification are so weak that it seems likely that these conditions are necessary for any

concept of Justification. Perhaps more importantly, it is likely that a plausible account of

iTro/ig Justification would require that these conditions be satisfied. In fact, in his original

formulation of the reliable process view, an account of the concept of strong Justification.

Goldman builds these conditions into the account.'-'^ But if strong Justification also

requires that these conditions be satisfied, then strong Justification entails NC Justification.

Is this a problem? It raises the following problem for the reliabilist. If NC Justification can

Alvin Goldman. “What is Justified Belief?" Justification and Knowledge ed. George Pappas (Dordrecht; Reidel. 1979): 20.

131 account for our intuitions in both demon and non-demon worlds, it is unclear why we should think that we possess a concept of justification that corresponds to Goldman’s

notion of strong justification. Since we can never distinguish between being in a demon world and being in the actual world, the reliabilist will have to claim that there is an

important sense in which our beliefs are justified, over and above being NC justified,

without ever knowing it. To say that we actually possess a concept of justification that has

this property seems implausible for we would never know whether we are applying it correctly.

In light of the problem, a possible response is to appeal to a concept of justification

that is more robust than NC-justification and thus one that is not entailed by strong justification. There are many options that are available. For example, one could appeal to

an evidentialist concept of justification according to which an agent’s belief is justified if

and only if the belief best tits the agent’s evidence. Alternatively, one could appeal to a

coherentist concept of justification according to which.

S's belief is C-justitled if it is a member of a set of coherent beliefs, where a coherent set of beliefs requires more than the conditions that are required by NC justification.

As a solution to the NED cases, the idea here is to grant that there are two concepts of justification, a reliabilist and a non-reliabilist concept of justification for which neither

entails the other, and to appeal the non-reliabilist concept of justification to explain our

intuitions in the NED cases.

The problem however with appealing to a solution of this kind is that it will not

account for the following variationon the NED cases. Suppose that both Jack and

Melissa form the belief that there is a tree. Jack forms his belief on the basis of perception,

but Melissa forms her belief on the basis of guesswork. As in the other NED cases. Jack

'■’‘^Stewan Cohen ("Justification and Truth." Philosophical Studies 46 ( 19S4): 285-2S6) considers a solution along these lines and presents a similar counter-example.

132 and Melissa are being systematically deceived by an evil demon. So again both of their belief-forming processes are unreliable. However. Jack and Melissa are very young children and are using their belief-forming processes for the first time. Neither has any evidence concerning the reliability of their belief forming processes, and thus in regard to whether Jack’s and Melissa's belief coheres with their other beliefs, there is no difference.

In regard to whether their beliefs are C-justified. the answer will be the same. But intuitively, there is a difference in the justificatory status of their beliefs.

This kind of case presents an interesting problem. The intuition is that Jack’s belief is justified even though the process that produced his belief is unreliable, and it would seem that Jack does not satisfy any other conditions beyond those that are specified in the concept of NC justification. If this is right, then any response that appeals to a concept of justification that is more robust than the concept of NC justification would not be able to e.Kplain why Jack's belief is justified and why there is an intuitive difference between Jack’s and Melissa's belief.

We seem to have a dilemma. The reliabilist can either appeal to a concept that is entailed by strong justification (e.g.. NC justification) or one that is not (i.e.. one that is more robust than NC justification). If the reliabilist opts for the former, it is unclear why we should think that we possess the concept of strong justification. If the reliabilist opts for the latter, this conception of justification will be unable to explain cases in which an agent's beliefs are justified and it would seem that the agent only satisfies the conditions specified by NC justification. I do not see how this dilemma can be resolved. For these reasons. I suggest that the reliabilist should adopt a different strategy in responding to the NED cases.

4.2.3: Reliability and Relativizing

.A. different, and I believe, more plausible way of responding to the NED cases is to argue that although the agent's belief forming processes are unreliable, in the sense that the

133 processes have a tendency to produce more false beliefs than true ones in the actual world,

they are reliable in some other sense. As Goldman notes.the NED cases pose a problem

for a reliabilist account of justification only on the assumption that a process has to be

reliable in the actual circumstances in order to produce a justified belief. In rejecting this

assumption, the idea is that the reliabilist would adopt the following kind of account.

S's belief that p is justified in W only if the belief forming process is reliable in \Vl. where \Vl worlds might or might not include W.

In adopting a reliabilist account of this kind, the main challenge is to specify what the VVI

worlds are. Before providing my own account. I will consider some possible altematives.

and I will present some counter-e.xamples for each.

One possibility, that I doubt any reliabilist would accept, is to let the circumstances

be determined subjectively. For example, one could appeal to what an agent believes or is justified in believing as a way of identifying the circumstances by which to assess the

reliability of the process. Both suggestions lead to serious problems.

Appealing to what the agent is justified in believing would make the account circular;

S's belief that p is justified just in case S's belief forming process is reliable in circumstances for which S is justified in believing that S is in.

It would seem that the only non-circular subjective way of fixing the circumstances would

be to appeal to what the agent believes to be the actual circumstances:'-*'

S's belief that p is justified just in case S's belief forming process is reliable in the circumstances that S believes herself to be in. where the relevant circumstances are those that are consistent with the agent's background beliefs.

'•*®Alvin Goldman. Epistemology and Connition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1986) 113.

'■*'This account is very similar to Lehrer's account of subjective justification (see Keith Lehrer. Theory of Knowledge (Boulder: VVestview Press. 1990) ch.6. For Lehrer. S's belief that p is subjectively justified just in case relative to S's acceptance system, p is more reasonable than any competitor given the agent's evidence. Although Lehrer claims that the notion is more reasonable than' is primitive, a natural way of understanding what it means for p to be more reasonable than any competitor given E is that p is more likely to be true than any other competitor given evidence E. This would produce the same account that we are considering.

134 The main problem with this account is that it produces counter-intuitive results in cases of culpable ignorance, (i.e.. cases in which an agent ignores evidence that she should take into account). Consider the following example. Suppose that Peter believes that he will win the lottery on the basis of a horoscope in today's paper. Peter believes that horoscopes are reliable. This is because whenever horoscopes have made incorrect predictions. Peter has simply ignored this evidence. He only pays attention to those instances in which the horoscopes have made a correct prediction. Relative to Peter’s beliefs, the process of forming beliefs on the basis of horoscope readings is reliable since the worlds that are consistent with his beliefs will not include worlds in which the predictions of horoscopes are mostly false. But intuitively. Peter's belief is unjustified.

The above problem suggests that a more objective criterion is needed to fix the circumstances by which to assess the reliability of a process. One possibility is to argue that the reliability of a process should be determined in nonncil or typical circumstances.

For example. Alston writes.

we are faced with a question as to the range of situations in which a process must yield mostly true beliefs in order to qualify as reliable...! can’t think of any better answer to this question than the following. The requirement for reliability is that the process would yield a high proportion of truths over a wide range o f situations of the sort that we typically encounter.

Similarly. Goldman writes.

Which possible worlds are relevant to the rightness o f a rule system, and ultimately to the justifiedness of a belief formed in compliance with that system'.’...My proposal is that, according to our ordinary conception of justifiedness. a rule system is right in any world W just in case it has a sufficiently high truth ratio in normal worlds.

What are normal or typical worldsAccording Goldman, they are worlds that are consistent with our general beliefs.

William .Alston. "How to Think .About Reliability." Philosophical Topics 23 ( 1995): 9-10.

Alvin Goldman. Epistemology and Cognition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 19S6) 106-107.

Alston does not offer an account of what these worlds are.

1 3 5 We have general beliefs about the sorts o f objects, events, and changes that occur in it. We have beliefs about the kinds of things that, realistically, do and can happen. Our beliefs on this score generate what I shall call the set of normal worlds. These are worlds consistent with our general beliefs about the actual world. (I emphasize general', since I count worlds with different particular episodes and individuals as normal.)'"*^

Thus, for Goldman.

S's belief that p is justified just in case S's belief forming process is reliable in normal worlds, where a normal world is a world that is consistent with our general beliefs.

Let us call this the ’Normal Worlds' account.

There are several problems that Goldman himself has raised for the Normal Worlds account.

First, which general beliefs about the actual world are relevant in fixing normal worlds'.’ There seem to be too many choices. Second, whichever general beliefs are selected, it looks as if dramatically different worlds might conform to these beliefs. Does a rule system count as right only if it has a truth ratio in all those worlds'.’ Third, when the theory says that normal worlds are tlxed by the general beliefs we have about the actual world, what is the referent of we".’ Is it everyone in the actual world, i.e.. the whole human race'.’ Different members of the human race have dramatically divergent general beliefs. How are the pertinent beliefs to be extracted ’'"*^’

The first point by itself does not raise a serious problem since all of our general beliefs about the actual world might be consistent, and so we could simply appeal to all of them.

The second and third points raise more serious problems by presenting a dilemma. On the one hand, we could appeal to the general beliefs that everyone shares. These beliefs will be

very general since different cultures disagree on very fundamental matters. But if there is agreement only on extremely general matters, then the worlds that are consistent with these

beliefs can be radically different. This is a problem because the account will then include

worlds that are intuitively irrelevant (e.g.. worlds that contain ghosts) in determining whether

a belief is Justified. On the other hand, if the general beliefs do not have to be shared by everyone, the account will have to select a particular set of general beliefs. But which

.Alvin Goldman. Epistemologv and Cognition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 19S6) 107.

A. Goldman. "Strong and Weak Justification. " Philosophical Perspectives 2 ed. James Tomberlin (.Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company. 1988) 62.

136 general beliefs should be selected? One cannot appeal to those beliefs that are justified since this would again make the account circular. It is unclear how to make this decision in a non-arbitrary way.

There are further problems. Even if a set of general beliefs can be selected in a non-

arbitrary way, the resulting account of justification is both too strong and too weak.'-*' The

following case illustrates how the account is too strong, and rule out cases in which we

intuitively think a belief is justified (i.e., according to the account, the belief is unjustified,

but intuitively it is justified). Consider a species that has a clairvoyant ability. .Although

their clairvoyant ability is unreliable in normal worlds, it is reliable in their world.

Intuitively, when these agents form their beliefs on their world, they are justified. But on the

Normal Worlds account, they are not.

The following case illustrates how the account is too weak insofar as the account

fails to rule out cases in which a belief is unjustified (i.e., the agent's belief is unjustified, but

according to the account, it is justified). Suppose that our general beliefs are formed on the

basis of wishful thinking. In the worlds that are consistent with these general beliefs (i.e..

the normal worlds), processes such as wishful thinking will be reliable. Thus, on the

Normal Worlds account, beliefs produced by wishful thinking will be justified, but

intuitively these beliefs are unjustified.

An altemative to Goldman's Normal Worlds account involves appealing to evolution

as a way of identifying the relevant circumstances.'-^* According to the theory of evolution,

our cognitive mechanisms have been selected through natural selection. Given the

'•*'Both o f the following examples are taken from Goldman. See .Alvin Goldman, "Strong and Weak Justification," Philosophical Perspectives 2 ed. James Tomberlin (.Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company. 1988) 62.

'■'* Such an account would be similar to Plantinga's account of warrant ( Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press. 1993)) except that it would be a naturalistic altemative to Plantinga's appeal to God and it would apply to the concept of justification rather than warrant. To my knowledge, no one has explicitly defended this kind o f account, but my sense is that many think that this is a plausible altemative to Plantinga's account that needs to be explored.

137 environment that we are in, our cognitive mechanisms have contributed toward the survival of our species. Though we may no longer be in these circumstances, according to this altemative, the reliability of a process would be evaluated relative to the circumstances for which our processes were selected to survive in. This yields the following account.

S’s belief that p is justified if and only if S's belief forming process is reliable in the circumstances selected by evolution for the survival of S's belief forming processes.

But there are problems with this account as well.

The tirst problem is that the account depends on assuming that the theory of evolution is true. Suppose that we are not only being deceived by an evil demon, but that the

demon is responsible for why we possess our cognitive capacities. On this supposition, our

processes have not been selected by evolution to survive in a certain environment. But in

this case, it seems that if an agent were to use careful reasoning or perception, the beliefs are

intuitively Justified. But on the above account, it is unclear how the reliability of the agent's

process would be assessed.

The second problem with the account is that it relativizes the reliability assessments

to a tlxed set of circumstances. The following consideration suggests that the

circumstances by which to assess the reliability of a process might change. It seems that

processes that produced Justified beliefs two hundred years ago would not produce Justified

beliefs now. For instance, an agent who formed a belief that an object was a fish simply on

the basis of the fact that it lived in water would be Justified two hundred years ago. but not

now. An account that always evaluates a process relative to a fixed set of circumstances

would be unable to explain how this is possible. In order to capture our intuitions in the

above case, it would seem that we need an account in which the relevant circumstances can

change.

might be argued that we could account for the difference by appealing to the fact that agents now know that some animals living in the water are not fish. But this response will not work in cases in which the agents lack this knowledge.

138 I have argued that many of the proposed (or suggested) accounts that involve relativizing reliability assessments to a set of circumstances (that might not include the actual ones) are implausible. In the next section, I develop an account that I believe avoids all of the problems that have been raised for these accounts.

4.2.4; Responsibility. Reliability, and Available Evidence

Given our earlier discussion, it should be clear that there are many different ways in

which we could select a set of worlds by which we could assess the reliability of a process.

For both Goldman's Normal Worlds account and the evolutionary account, it is mysterious

why a process has to be reliable in the claimed circumstances in order to produce a justified

belief. In other words, what is it about these circumstances rather than other ones that

requires a belief forming process to be reliable in them in order to produce a justified belief?

In what follows. I suggest that if we appeal to considerations concerning epistemic

responsibility, there is a way of fixing the relevant circumstances in which it is not

mysterious why a process has to be reliable in these circumstances in order to produce a justified belief. Consequently, such an account will not lead to the problems that were

raised for the above accounts.

In his defense of a responsibilist account of justification. Komblith'^'* contrasts two

different ways in which a belief can be evaluated from an epistemic standpoint. First.

One o f the central projects o f epistemologicai theorizing is the task o f discovering the rules o f ideal reasoning...If the inferences made by the subject are licensed by the rules.

'^^Hilary Kornblith. "Justified Belief and Epistemically Responsible .Action." The Philosophical Review 92 ( 19S3): 33-48. .As Kornblith notes, there has been dispute about what our responsibilist intuitions entail. For instance. Kornblith notes that it is often thought that attributions o f responsibility presuppose that the action was free or voluntary. He rejects this presupposition on the basis of the fact that certain beliefs seem to be formed in an epistemically responsible way even though they were not voluntarily formed. Though my aim here is simply to capture certain responsibilist intuitions and not to defend any responsibilist account. I will simply follow Kornblith in rejecting this assumption. Kornblith also notes that the term "epistemic responsibility" applies primarily to agents and actions, and not to beliefs. But as Kornblith notes, there is an intuitive connection between epistemically responsible actions and justified beliefs. Justified beliefs are those that are the result of epistemically responsible actions. Since there is this close connection, to simplify matters. I will talk about beliefs being formed in epistemically responsible way as shorthand for saying that a belief is justified because it is the result of an epistemically responsible action.

139 then the belief is justified; if they are not. the belief is unjustified. Here we take a God's- eye view and hold our subject up to the highest standard of good reasoning.’^'

From this standpoint, an agent's belief forming methods are evaluated relative to an ideal rule of reasoning, one that is licensed from a God’s-eye point of view, a point of view from which the agent possesses all of the information that is available to them.'^- In contrast, he notes.

Many subjects will, of course, fall short o f the ideal. More importantly, subjects will often fall short of the ideal through no fault of their own. Rules o f ideal reasoning are not easily come by. and it does not always show some shortcoming on the part of the subject that his reasoning was less than ideal. Sometimes we wish to know whether a subject was reasoning "as best as he could. " where this does not simply mean "in accord with rules o f ideal reasoning we want to know whether the extent to which the subject departed from the ideal was his own fault.

From this standpoint, the agent is evaluated relative to what she could have done, and if she falls short of what she could have done, then her belief has been formed in an epistemically irresponsible way.

What exactly is involved in doing one’s epistemic best or being epistemically responsible"? Komblith addresses this issue by exploring the distinction between culpable

(irresponsible) and non-culpable (responsible) ignorance. The distinction can be clarified by e.xamining cases of each. NED cases illustrate how an agent can be non-culpably ignorant. In these cases, the agent is ignorant of some evidence that would lead her to believe that she is being deceived by an evil demon, but we do not hold her culpable for having ignored this evidence. As another example. Komblith draws on studies done by

Nisbett'^-* and Ross on how people perform inductive inferences. Nisbett and Ross point

Ibid. 33.

'^-It is worth noting that if ideal rules o f reasoning are determined in terms o f a truth tendency, then this way of evaluating beliefs is essentially a reliabilist account that relativizes reliability assessments to the actual world.

>=-’ Ibid. 33.

Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross. Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. 1980) 256.

140 out that people, in general, have very little understanding of how sample size can affect the quality of an enumerative induction. As a result, agents often perform an enumerative induction on the basis of a sample that is too small. Komblith argues that these agents should not be held culpable for ignoring evidence that would lead them to believe that this form of reasoning falls short of the ideal for two reasons. First, agents frequently do not have access to a better sample and. second, they often do not have the opportunity to verify these inferences.

As an e.xample of culpable ignorance, he offers the following example, one that is similar to the counter-example raised earlier against the subjectivist account. Jones is a headstrong physicist who has just presented his studies to some well-respected colleagues.

Eager to hear their praise, he ignores the many criticisms that are raised. In this case. Jones should be held culpable for ignoring evidence that would lead him to believe that his results were mistaken. Jones has acted in an epistemically irresponsible way and. intuitively, his beliefs about his studies are unjustified.

According to Komblith. two features distinguish culpable from non-culpable ignorance. First, the distinction rests on whether the ignored evidence is easily accessible or available to the agent. This seems right. In both cases in which the agents are non- culpable. there is no easily available evidence that would lead them to believe that they are using methods that fall short of ideal rules of reasoning. However in the case involving

Jones, the evidence that he ignores is easily available.

A second factor that Komblith claims is relevant in determining whether an agent's ignorance is culpable is if the belief is formed by a natural tendency.

One can hardly fault an agent then for making judgments about a population on the basis o f a sample, when there is a natural tendency to make such judgments and little opportunity to detect one's errors.

Hilary Komblith, "Justified Belief and Epistemically Responsible .-Action." The Philosophical Review 92 ( 1983): 44.

141 This suggests that in order for an agent to be non-culpably ignorant, the tendency must be

natural. What is meant by a "natural tendency’? Many of Komblith's remarkssuggest

that he has in mind tendencies that are innate. But as a constraint on an agent's ignorance

being non-culpable. this would be too strong. Consider the non-innate practice of forming

beliefs about the temperature by relying on thermometers, and suppose that Bob happens to

buy some thermometers that have not been properly designed. Although Bob is ignorant

about some evidence that would lead him to believe that his thermometer is unreliable, his

ignorance is non-culpable. But notice that his tendency to form beliefs on the basis of these

thermometer readings is not innate. This shows that in order for an agent's ignorance to be

non-culpable. the belief does not have to be formed on the basis of an innate tendency.

I suspect that Komblith's intention is to make the following point. In discussions on moral responsibility, it is often argued that an agent can be held morally responsible for

an action only if the agent could have done otherwise. An agent who has Turret's syndrome

should not be held morally responsible for offending other people by swearing at them. .A

similar intuition applies in the case of epistemic responsibility, but at a slightly different

level. Although it is recognized that agents do not have voluntary control over what they

believe, we do think that agents can modify their belief forming habits. It is this ability to do otherwise that allows for attributions of epistemic responsibility. If an agent is incapable of

modifying her belief forming habits, the agent should not be held culpable for not

modifying them in light of certain evidence. But if an agent is capable and should modify

her belief forming habits, then the agent should be held culpable.

My aim so far has been to identify the considerations that underlie our intuitions

about epistemic responsibility. I have suggested that our intuitions about epistemic

responsibility rest on considerations concerning 1) what evidence is externally available to

>56 Ibid. 46.

142 the agent and 2) whether the agent has an ability to modify her belief-forming habits in light of the evidence that is available to her.

How are these considerations relevant toward identifying or determining the circumstances by which the reliability of a belief forming process should be assessed? As I noted earlier, the challenge for the reliabilist is not merely to identify just any set of circumstances by which to evaluate the reliability of a belief forming process. Rather, it is to identify and to e.xplain why a process has to be reliable in a particular set of circumstances in order to produce a justified belief. To ease discussion, let us use the term ’J-worlds' as a shorthand for the worlds by which the reliability of a belief forming process is to be assessed in regard to issues concerning justification.

My proposal is that if we appeal to the above considerations that underlie our responsibilist intuitions about justification, we can identify a set of J-worlds in a way that respects our intuitions about justification. In particular, my proposal is to tlx the J-worlds by appealing to the evidence that is available to an agent. Although it is unclear to me what

Komblith means by 'evidence'. I should note that, as I will be using the term, evidence includes non-propositional states. Evidence that might be available to an agent might include non-propositional states, such as perceptual states. In what follows. I propose two different ways, each specified in terms of sufficient conditions, in which the evidence that is available to an agent fix the J-worlds. I will argue that these two sufficient conditions, taken together, constitute a necessary condition for being a J-world. In other words. I will argue that the J-worlds are determined primarily by considerations concerning the evidence that is available to an agent, and there are two ways in which this can be done.

Before considering the first way in which the evidence that is available to an agent can be used to fix the J-worlds. it will be helpful to consider a different way of thinking about the reliability of a process. As Goldman notes, an alternative way of thinking about what it means for a process to be reliable is in terms of whether the process can discriminate

143 or distinguish different states of affairs. To discriminate or to distinguish different states of affairs involves invoking different cognitive responses in the presence of different states of affairs. On this way of thinking about reliability, a process that produces the belief that p will be reliable if and only if the process can discriminate p from other incompatible alternatives, q. Let us understand what it means for a process to discriminate p from q in terms of the following subjunctives: 1) if p were true, it would produce the belief that p. and

2) if. some relevant alternative, q. were true, then S would not form the belief that p. Let us call this way of thinking about reliability, "the discriminative conception of reliability'.

Goldman originally introduces this discriminative conception of reliability in the context of developing an account of knowledge. In developing this account of knowledge.

Goldman noted that an agent did not have to discriminate p from all incompatible alternatives in order for the agent to know that p. Goldman's bam façade example illustrates this point. In this case. Henry has normal eyesight, and he is driving in the countryside. As he looks at a bam. he forms the belief that there is a bam. Goldman asks whether Henry knows that there is a bam. If there were bam facades actually present in the environment, then in order for Henry to know that there is a bam. he would have to be able to discriminate bams from bam facades. However, if there were no bam facades around, and if Henry's looking at a façade were a mere possibility, then Henry would not have to be able to discriminate bams from bam facades in order to know that there is a bam. This case shows that an agent need only discriminate p from relevant incompatible altematives. For the sake of clarity, let us refer to the altematives that are relevant for knowledge K-relevant altematives.

Although this discriminative conception of reliability has in the past been traditionally applied to accounts of knowledge, notice that there is no principled reason why this discriminative conception of reliability could not also be applied to accounts of justification. In developing such an account, in order for an agent to be justified in believing

144 that p, an agent again need not discriminate p from all incompatible altematives. Rather, to be justified in believing that p, an agent must only be able to discriminate p from relevant incompatible altematives. Moreover, the kinds of altematives that are relevant to justificatory matters might be different than the altematives relevant to cases of knowledge.

Return to our example in which Henry is driving in the countryside where there are bam facades. In the case of knowledge, it would seem that when there are bam facades around,

Henry would have to be able to discriminate a bam from a bam façade in order to know that there is a bam. However, in the case of justification, when there are bam facades around, we do not think that Henry would have to be able to discriminate bams from bam facades in order to be justified in believing that there is a bam. If a reliabilist were to appeal to this discriminative approach to reliability in developing an account of justification, he would have to specify what altematives an agent would have to discriminate in forming a justified belief.

Let us call those altematives relevant for justification. J-relevant altematives.

The discriminative conception of reliability does not radically depart from a traditional truth tendency conception of reliability. Both conceptions of reliability will yield the same results if we think of J-worlds (on the truth-tendency conception) as worlds in which the states of affairs that an agent has to capable of discriminating (on the discriminative conception) are true. For example, suppose that Henry has to be capable of discriminating between being presented with a bam and being presented with a silo in order to be reliable on a discriminative conception. Translating this requirement into the truth tendency conception of reliability, this would mean that his process would be evaluated in a

world in which he is presented with a bam and a world in which he is presented with a silo.

Both ways of thinking of about reliability would yield the same reliability if Henry is capable or incapable of discriminating between bams and silos. On the one hand, if he is

incapable of discriminating between bams and silos, then on a discriminative conception of

reliability, his belief forming process is unreliable simply because he is incapable of

145 discriminating these two states of affairs. But notice that his process would also be unreliable on a truth tendency conception of reliability. If Henry is incapable of discriminating between bams and silos, then he will form the same belief in a world in which he is presented with a bam and in a world in which he is presented with a silo. He would form a false belief in one of these worlds, and so his process would not have a tendency of producing more true beliefs than false ones. On the other hand, if he is capable of discriminating between bams and silos, then on a discriminative conception of reliability, his process is reliable. But notice again that it would also be reliable on a truth tendency conception of reliability. In a world in which he is presented with a bam and a world in which he is presented with a silo, he would not form the same belief, and thus he would not form a false belief in one of the possible worlds.

If the discriminative and the truth tendency conceptions of reliability are related in the way just suggested, then the problem of identifying the J-worlds and the problem of identifying J-relevant altematives are closely related. If we can identify the J-relevant altematives. then we can also identify the J-worlds. The J-worlds will be worlds in which the J-relevant altematives are true.

My motivation for introducing the discriminative conception of reliability is that it will be easier to understand one way in which evidence that is available to an agent can tlx the J-worlds. I will begin by formulating a proposal conceiving of justification in terms of the states of affairs that an agent must be able to discriminate:

(J) S's belief that p is justified at t if and only if S’s belief forming process is reliable, where S’s belief forming process is reliable if and only if S’s belief forming process allows S to discriminate p from any competing J-relevant altemative. q, for S.

(JR) q is a J-relevant altemative to p for S if there exists evidence. E. that is available to S. and S would be able discriminate p from q. if S were to possess E.

146 Let us motivate this account, and in particular (JR) with an example.'^' Suppose that Henry is driving along the countryside. As Henry looks at an object that looks like a bam. he forms the belief that the object is a bam. In determining whether a particular state of affairs, q, is one that Henry must be able to discriminate from, p, one in which he is looking at a bam, we consider whether there exists evidence that is available to Henry that would allow him to discriminate q from p. If there exists evidence available to Henry that would allow him to discriminate q, looking at a silo, from p. looking at a bam, then Henry must be able to discriminate silos from bams in forming a justified belief that there is a bam. It seems plausible that such evidence is available to Henry (e.g.. perhaps Henry has been told by one of his teachers that silos, but not bams, tend to be cylindrical in shape), and consequently, we expect him to discriminate bams from silos in forming a justified belief about bams.'^*

In contrast, there is no evidence available to Henry that would allow him to discriminate p (looking at a real bam) from q (e.g., looking at a bam façade or looking at a demon caused illusion). These altematives (e.g., ones in which he is looking at a bam or a demon-caused illusion) are not J-altematives, because there is no evidence that would allow

Henry to discriminate a bam from a demon-caused illusion that there is a bam. As a result.

.Alvin Goldman. "Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge " Journal of Philosophy 73 ( 1976): 771- 791.

'^*The above example involves a case o f perceptual belief formation, but this account applies to inferential beliefs as well. Consider the following example. Suppose that Sam wakes up one morning, and goes to the kitchen for his daily cup of coffee. When he enters the kitchen, he notices that a piece of cheese has been left out on the counter and has been partially eaten. On the basis of certain evidence (e.g.. he discovers tracks, resembling mouse tracks, leading toward a hole in the wall), he forms the belief that the cheese has been eaten by a mouse. In this case, the intuition is that in order for Sam s belief to be justified, his evidence must be able to rule out certain possibilities. More precisely, given Sam s evidence, it must be more likely that a mouse ate the cheese rather than some other possibility. .Again, the intuition is that the possibilities that Sam s evidence must rule out are determined by the evidence that is available to Sam. If there exists evidence that is available to Sam that would allow him to rule out the possibility, then the possibility is one that we expect him to rule out in forming a justified belief. But if there is no available evidence that would allow him to rule out the possibility that a demon ate the cheese, then demon scenarios are not relevant possibilities. It is against the background of worlds in which the believed proposition is true, and in which these altemative states o f affairs are true that the reliability o f the agent s belief forming process is to be assessed.

147 these altematives are not ones that Henry has to be able to discriminate from p in forming a justified belief that there is a bam.

It is important to keep in mind that there is a distinction between the evidence that an agent possesses and the evidence that is available to an agent. Evidence that an agent possesses implies that the evidence is available to him. but the converse is not true. For example, if Henry is told how to distinguish bams from silos by a teacher (e.g.. perhaps he is told that silos, but not bams, are cylindrical) and he chooses to ignore this testimonial evidence, then this is evidence that Henry does not possess, but is available to him. On the above proposal, it is not the evidence that the agent actually possesses that fixes the J- altematives. It would be far too easy for agents to form Justified beliefs if this were the case. By appealing to the evidence that is available to an agent, the idea behind the above

proposal is to formulate a reliabilist account of justification that captures the intuition that an

agent's belief is not justified when the agent ignores evidence that is available to him. If we

use the above proposal as a way of identifying the altematives that an agent must

discriminate in order to form a justified beliefs, such an account will do so by yielding the

result that the agent's belief is unjustified.

In addition, note that (JR) is formulated as a sufficient condition. If it were stated as

a necessary condition as well (i.e.. q is an altemative to p that S must be able to discriminate

only //there exists evidence that is available to S that would allow S to discriminate p from

q), it would be too strong. There may be cases in which there is no evidence available to S

that would allow S to discriminate q from p. but S's inability to discriminate p from q would

prevent S's belief that p from being justified. For example, suppose that Clark forms the

belief that Judy was at the library on the basis of seeing someone that looked like Judy.

Suppose however that it is well known that Judy has an identical twin sister Trudy, and

Clark is unable to discriminate Judy from Trudy. There is however no evidence that is

available to Clark that would allow him to discriminate Judy from Trudy. Suppose that

148 there is a conspiracy to keep it a secret that Judy has a twin, and so even if he were to ask anyone if Judy had a twin, no one would tell him. If (JR) were stated as a necessary' condition, then Clark would only have to discriminate different states of affairs if there exists evidence available to him that would allow him to do so. On the above account, he could simply form the belief that Judy was in the library on the basis of seeing someone that looked like Judy without having to have to worry about whether it was Trudy. This case shows that (JR) should not be stated as a necessary condition.

The above case also calls into question whether appealing to the evidence that is available to agents can provide a complete specification of the J-relevant altematives. The example suggests that there are J-altematives that are relevant to the assessment of the reliability of a process for justification, but that do not satisfy (JR). In particular, an altemative in which Clark is looking at Trudy seems relevant to assessing the reliability of

Clark’s process, but this altemative will not be included given how (JR) is specified. We need another condition to include these kinds of J-altematives.

In motivating this second condition, let us consider some variations on the above case. In the first case, suppose that Clark possesses evidence that Judy has an identical twin sister Trudy. Perhaps he has seen them together, and Judy’s parents have told him that

Judy has a twin sister. If Clark were to form a belief that Judy was in the library on the basis of seeing someone who looked like Judy, his belief would be unjustified.

In the second case, suppose that Clark does not possess evidence that Judy has an identical twin. However, there is evidence that has been made available to him that she does have a twin sister. Suppose that Judy’s parents tell Clark that Judy had a twin sister, but in this case, Clark ignores this evidence. If Clark were to form a belief that Judy was in the library on the basis of seeing someone that looked like Judy, his belief would be unjustified.

In the third case, suppose again that Clark does not possess evidence that Judy has a twin sister, but suppose that there is also no evidence that has been made available to Clark

149 that would lead him to believe that she has a twin sister. While Judy in fact has a twin sister, her parents have chosen to keep this a secret. They have never let them both out in public together, and they have destroyed any form of evidence that would suggest that Judy has a twin. In contrast with the above two cases, if Clark were to form a belief that Judy was in the library on the basis of seeing someone who looked like Judy, his belief would intuitively be justified.

These three cases suggest that considerations concerning the evidence that is available to an agent determine some additional altematives that an agent must be able to discriminate in forming a Justitled belief. The first two cases again illustrate that in fixing the altematives among which an agent must be able to discriminate, we want to appeal to the evidence that is available to the agent, and not necessarily the evidence that the agent actually possesses.

The more interesting contrast, however, is between cases 2) and 3). The fact that

Clark’s belief is justified in 3) but not 2) suggests that Clark has to be able to discriminate

Judy from Trudy in case 2). but not in case 3). There are two differences between these two cases. First. Clark's belief is justified in one case but not the other. Second, even though in both cases. Clark is unable to discriminate Judy from Trudy, in case 2). but not in case 3). there is evidence available to Clark that would suggest that it could have been Trudy. This suggests the following additional condition.

(JRE) q is a J-relevant altemative to p for S if there is evidence. E. that is available to S. and E provides evidence for the existence of

I propose that we allow the possibility that something can be evidence for a proposition q, even though q is false. In forming a justified belief, it would seem that agents do not have to

do not intend to provide a theory of evidence here. Rather. I merely intend to rely on the formal notion of evidence, according to which the notion of E’s providing evidence for some proposition h is a relationship between propositions, and not belief-states. For a discussion of several theories of what it means for E to provide evidence for h. see Peter .Achinstein "Concepts o f Evidence" Mind 86 ( 1978): 145- 174.

150 rule out only J-relevant altematives that are true, but ones that are false as well. Consider another variation on the bam example. Suppose that Henry forms a belief that there is a bam. Suppose further there is enormous evidence for believing that there are silos around even though there are not. Suppose that someone is creating the illusion that there are silos around. Intuitively, if Henry was unable to discriminate and thus be unable to mle out the possibility that the object was a bam. intuitively Henry’s belief is unjustified. Analogously, we can imagine that there an enormous amount of evidence for believing that Judy has a twin sister, even though she does not. If we allow for the possibility that E can be evidence for a state of affairs that is false. JRE can capture out intuition in these kinds of cases.

We are now in a position to formulate a general account of justification, which specifies the J-altematives that an agent must be able to discriminate:

(J*) S's belief that p is justified at t if and only if S’s belief forming process is reliable, where S’s belief forming process is reliable if and only if S’s belief forming process allows S to discriminate p from any competing J-relevant altemative. q. for S.

Bringing together (JR) and (JRE). we can now say:

(JR*) q is a J-altemative to p if and only if either

( I ) there exists evidence. E. that is available to S. and S would be able discriminate p from q. if S were to possess E. or

(2) there exists evidence E that is available to S. and E provides evidence for the existence of q.

Notice that while (1) and (2) each individually serve as a sufficient condition for being a J- altemative the disjunction formed by these conditions serves as a necessary condition for being a J-altemative. I propose that these two conditions capture our intuitions regarding what we expect agents to be capable of discriminating in order to be justified in their beliefs.

Although I have formulated JR* in terms of the evidence that is available to an agent.

I should note that the proposal can be recast in terms of processes that are available to an agent. For on my view of processes, if there exists available evidence to an agent, then there is an available process that involves taking into account the evidence.

151 (JR**) q is a J-altemative to p if and only if either

(1) there exists a process available to S that would allow S to discriminate p from q. if S were to possess E. or

(2) there exists a process available to S for believing that q is true.

How does this account handle the NED cases? Demon worlds fail to satisfy either condition (1) or (2). First, there is no evidence available to agents that would allow them to discriminate an object from any perceptually equivalent demon-caused appearance. Second, there is no evidence that is available to agents that would lead them to believe that there are such demon caused illusions. As a result, agents will be justified in their beliefs, even in

NED cases.

I formulated my account above in terms of a discriminative conception of reliability.

Since, as I argued earlier, the discriminative and the truth-tendency conceptions of reliability are similar, we may now formulate the above proposal in terms of the truth-tendency conception of reliability.

(J*) S’s belief that p is justified at t if and only if S's belief forming process is reliable where S's belief forming process is reliable if and only if the process has a tendency to produce more true beliefs than false ones in J-worlds.

Reformulating JR* in terms of J-worlds.

(JW*) A J-world is one in which either (exclusively)

(1) q is true, if q is an incompatible altemative to p. and if there exists evidence E available which, if possessed, would allow S to discriminate p from q. or

(2) q is true, if q is an incompatible altemative to p. and if there exists evidence E available to S and if E provides evidence for q. or

(3) p is true.

Condition (3) is motivated by the fact that if we only include worlds in which incompatible altematives to p were true (i.e.. ones in which p is false), then no process would have a tendency to produce more true beliefs than false ones. This simply follows from the fact that the process would not produce true beliefs in any of these worlds.

152 4.2.5: Availability

One main worry for my account is whether we can make clear sense of what it means for evidence to be easily available to agents. There are two issues here. First, what does it mean for evidence to be available to an agent? And second, what does it mean for evidence to be easily available to an agent? Although both questions need to be addressed in developing my account fully. I must admit that it is unclear to me at this point how to fully address the issue of what it means for evidence to be easily available to agents. I will say some brief remarks on this issue, but it is my hope that it can be addressed more fully at some future time. At any rate, before we can develop an account of what it means for evidence to be easily available to agent, we need to understand what it means for evidence to be available to agents.

Whether a piece of evidence is available to an agent depends on two general factors.

First, the availability of a piece of evidence depends on the agent's psychological capacities.'^*’ A difference in an agent's psychological capacities can result in a difference in the evidence that is available to an agent. Consider the following example. Suppose that a scientist is creating an illusion that there are bams in the countryside by using ultraviolet light. For an agent who lacks the capacity to detect ultraviolet light, there is no evidence available to the agent for believing that the objects are actually illusions. However, for an agent who is capable of detecting ultraviolet light, there is evidence available to him.

The availability of a piece of evidence also depends on a second more external factor. Consider two agents who possess the same psychological capacities, but one is kept locked in a room while the other is not. The evidence that is available to them is not the same. This point can be more clearly by imagining someone who is a brain in a vat. The evidence that is available to the agent will depend on whatever stimulus a scientist provides

'60 In talking about psychological capacities here. I should note that I am not restricting to capacities that are in an agent's head. Someone who has a poor eyesight, but is able to correct for it by wearing glasses would have similar discriminative or psychological capacities as someone who did not need glasses.

153 to the agent. If the scientist does not provide any stimulus to the agent, there will be no evidence available to the agent about the external world. In a similar way, changes or differences in the external world can cause changes or differences in the evidence that is available to the agent. If there are 10,000 rather than 5. 000 trees, the evidence that is available to an agent about the number of trees that exist will likely be different.

While the evidence that is available to an agent depends on the external world, there is a sense in which the evidence that is available to an agent does not depend on the exact nature of the external world. Consider an agent who is in a brain in a vat and another who is

in the external world.The evidence that is available to them will be the same if they

receive the same retinal stimulation. Thus, while the evidence that is available to an agent depends on external factors (e.g., how much evidence is available to an agent will depend on how much retinal stimulation a clever scientist provides), it will only depend on the exact

nature of the external factor to a certain extent. Whether the evidence is provided by a clever

scientist or the external world does not matter in determining what evidence is available to

the agents.

So far, I have suggested that the evidence that is available to an agent depends on two general factors, the discriminative capacities of the agent and the external stimulus.

Before continuing our discussion on when evidence is available to an agent. I should say

something toward what it means for evidence to be easily available to an agent. For it seems clear that the justificatory status of an agent’s belief will depend not simply on whether there is evidence available to an agent, but on whether the evidence is easily available to an

agent. To see this, consider again the above case in which someone is creating an illusion

that there are bams by using ultraviolet light. Although I suggested earlier that there is no

evidence available to someone with our innate capacities for believing that the objects are

Henceforth. I will use the term external world'. I will use the external world' to mean the world as we think that it is.

154 illusions, strictly speaking this is incorrect. We have discovered ways of detecting ultraviolet light, and with enough effort, an agent could acquire evidence that the apparent objects are in fact illusions. But if an agent were to form a belief that the object was a bam, the agent’s belief would be justified even though there is evidence available to him that there is no object. The reason, 1 take it, is because the evidence is not easily available to the agent.

This would further explain why someone who has an innate capacity to detect ultraviolet light would not form a justified belief that the object was a bam. The evidence for this agent would be easily available.

But of course, if the justificatory status of a belief depends on whether evidence is easily available to agents, this raises the very difficult issue of determining when evidence is easily available to agents. To see the problem, suppose that devices for detecting ultraviolet light become popular, but not commonplace, would there be evidence that is easily available to agents for thinking that the objects are illusions'? Determining precisely when evidence is easily available to agents is a very difficult problem, and as I noted earlier, it is unclear to me how to fully address this problem at this point. possible way of responding to this problem may be to grant that being easily available is a vague predicate, and that we should rest content with the fact that no sharp distinction can be made between evidence that is easily available and evidence that is not. This would pose a problem for developing an account of justification that appealed to this notion such as mine if the notion of justification were not vague. However, it is not clear to me that the notion of justification is as precise as we sometimes think. If devices for detecting ultraviolet become easily available as described above, would we still say that the agent's belief is justified? It is not clear to me that we would. And in general when we consider cases in which there is evidence that is somewhat easily available to agents, it is not clear to me that an agent’s belief would be unjustified if they were to ignore this evidence. Thus, it may be that the notion of easily available has the

155 appropriate degree of vagueness for developing an account of justification. Determining whether this is true or not though will have to be explored at some later time.

Let us return then to issues regarding when evidence is available to an agent. The above example involving devices for detecting ultraviolet illustrates an important point about when evidence is available to an agent. In particular, the example illustrates that the evidence that is available to an agent can change. Evidence that the objects are only ultraviolet illusions is available to us now but not before.

In general, there are two ways in which evidence that is available to an agent can change. One way is if the external stimulus changes. For example, if our discriminative capacities were to stay the same, but the external world were to change, then the evidence that is available to us would likely change as well. But another more interesting way in which the evidence that is available to us can change is through changes in the agent’s psychological capacities as in the above example.'^’- It is worth noting that in acquiring a novel capacity, an agent does not have to acquire a capacity in the sense of acquiring a mechanistic device as in the above example. An agent might acquire a new way of acquiring evidence by acquiring and using evidence that is already to them. On a very fine-grained notion of capacities, the agent's capacities have changed insofar as she is capable of making an inference on the basis of the evidence that has been acquired. On a more plausible and more course grained notion of capacities, agents acquire new capacities by accumulating evidence which in turn allows them to discover or develop novel belief forming methods.

For example, consider how we learn to rely on experts. In many instances, agents learn to rely on experts by observing a certain feature. F. which is correlated with people who are believed to be experts (i.e.. agents who are very knowledgeable about a given subject

"^-Komblith seems to endorse this claim in his discussion. See Hilary Komblith. "Justified Belief and Epistemically Responsible .Action." The Philosophical Review 92 ( 1983): 38-39.

156 matter). This evidence allows agents to acquire a novel belief forming method or capacity that involves forming a belief on the basis of the testimony of any individual with feature, F.

The idea that our capacities for acquiring evidence can change in this way is the central idea behind scientific progress. We assume that the nature of the world stays

relatively fi.xed. But we discover more about the nature of this world by acquiring evidence

that was available to us at a previous time, and using this evidence to acquire new ways or capacities to acquire more evidence. The evidence that is available to the scientific community now is very different than the evidence that was available to the scientific

community two hundred years ago because our capacities for acquiring evidence changed.

Changes in the evidence that is available to the scientific community can have

consequences for the evidence that is easily available to the layperson. In our society, for

e.xample, the evidence that is easily available and acquired by a scientific community is

passed on and made available to the layperson through an education system. The existence

of a scientific community and an education system is what explains how our (the laypeople)

cognitive capacities have changed substantially. In fact, without a mechanism such as an

education system and an organized community such as the scientific community, it is

difficult to see how the cognitive capacities of an agent could change significantly.

Since our cognitive capacities have changed significantly and since the relevant

circumstances or worlds are fixed by the evidence that is easily available to agents, the

relevant circumstances by which we assess the reliability of a process have changed

significantly as well. As I have argued, this is a desirable result. Recall that an account that

identifies a unique set of circumstances or worlds for determining the reliability of a belief

forming process (e.g.. the evolutionary account) cannot explain how a belief forming

process can produce a justified belief at one time, but not at another. On my account, there

is a way of explaining how this can happen. If the evidence that is available to agents have

changed, then the worlds or circumstances by which we assess the reliability of this process

1 5 7 have changed as well. Consequently, processes that may have been reliable two hundred years may no longer be reliable.

So far. I have been arguing that the relevant circumstances or worlds for determining the reliability of a process should be fi.xed by the evidence that is available to an agent, and this in turn is partially fixed by the agent's psychological capacities. Because the relevant circumstances ultimately depend on a particular agent's psychological capacities, it might be argued that this account makes the notion of justification too subjective. In particular, it might be argued that this account falls prey to the same counter-examples that were raised for the subjectivist account considered earlier. Recall that on the subjectivist account, the reliability of a process is determined in worlds that consist of a world for which an agent believes that he is in and ones similar to it. I argued that this kind of account produced counter-intuitive results in cases of culpable ignorance. Recall that in our example. Peter believes that he will win the lottery on the basis of a horoscope in today’s paper. He believes that horoscopes are reliable, because whenever horoscopes have made incorrect predictions. Peter has simply ignored this evidence. He only pays attention to those instances in which the horoscopes have made a correct prediction. Relative to Peter's beliefs, the process of forming beliefs on the basis of horoscope readings is reliable since the worlds that are consistent with his beliefs will not include worlds in which the predictions of horoscopes are mostly false. But intuitively. Peter's belief is unjustified.

My account avoids the above problem for the following reason. Although on my account the evidence that is available to an agent (and thus the J-worlds) is determined by subjective facts (i.e.. an agent's psychological states and capacities), it is not determined by what evidence the agent believes to be available to him. Such an account would fall prey to counter-examples such as the one above since an agent could believe that there is no evidence available to him when there in fact is and when the agent should believe that there is evidence available to him. On my account, it is the agent's actual discriminative

158 capacities that determine what evidence is available to him. Suppose for example, Tom forms a belief there is a bam and Tom has the capacity to discriminate between bams and silos. While there are silos around, Tom forces himself to believe that there is no evidence for the claim that there are silos around. Even though Tom does not believe that there is evidence that there are silos, on my account, there is evidence available to Tom that there are silos around. Consequently, a world in which he is presented with a silo would be a world in which we assess the reliability of his process.

In general, my account will not fall prey to examples involving culpable ignorance

for the following reason. Cases of culpable ignorance illustrate an important difference between what an agent actually does and what an agent could do. The evidence that an agent actually takes into account is different from the evidence that an agent could take into account. Moreover, these cases, I believe, illustrate that an agent must take into the account the evidence that is available to him in order to form a justified belief. The lesson that the

reliabilist should team from these cases is that in order to account for our intuitions in these cases, we must appeal to the evidence that is available to an agent in determining the

reliability of a process, and this is exactly what my account does.

A more serious problem that can be raised for my account arises when we consider

cases involving agents who are mentally deficient or who have e.xceptional psychological

capacities. If an agent is mentally deficient, there is less evidence that is easily available to

the agent than most other agents, and consequently, someone who is mentally deficient

would have to take into account less evidence than others. Similarly, if an agent is

exceptionally gifted, there is more evidence that is easily available to the agent than most

other agents, and consequently, the agent would have to take into account more evidence

than most other agents. Given this, it might be argued that my account leads to the counter­

intuitive consequence that it is easier to acquire justified beliefs if one is mentally deficient,

and it is harder if one has exceptional capacities.

159 In response. I suggest that it is unclear whether this is a con/z/gr-intuitive consequence. The issue is whether we want to allow for different standards of justification for those have different psychological capacities. Consider a variation on Komblith's example involving Jones, the headstrong physicist. Recall that in Komblith’s example.

Jones’ beliefs about his work are unjustified because he ignores evidence provided by the audience, and he ignores this evidence because he is a headstrong individual. But suppose that Jones is not headstrong and that instead, he ignores the evidence because he cannot mentally process what people say. Would Jones' belief still be unjustified? Should Jones be held culpable for not having taken into account what members of the audience have said?

It is not clear to me that he should, and thus it is not clear to me that his beliefs about his work are unjustified. In a similar way. our intuition also waivers when we consider a case involving someone who is exceptionally gifted. Suppose that Samantha has an ability to detect ultraviolet light, and she is driving in a countryside where someone has created the illusion that there are many bams by using ultraviolet light. In forming a belief that there is a bam. Samantha fails to take a careful look at the objects. While most agents would not be expected to rule out the possibility that the objects are illusions, do we expect the same of

Samantha? It is not clear to me that we do. If we say that Jones’ belief in the variation on

Komblith’s case is justified and that Samantha is expected to rule out the possibility that

there are these illusions, then my account does not have to be amended. The fact that my

account allows that agents can be held to different standards of justification is not counter­

intuitive.

Let us consider how my account fares against some of the counter-examples that

have been raised for other accounts. Goldman discusses the following example in

motivating the intuition that the concept of justification is multivocal (i.e.. we have both a

concept of weak and strong justification).

Consider a scientifically benighted culture, of ancient or medieval vintage. This culture employs certain highly unreliable methods for forming beliefs about the future and the

160 unobserved. Their methods appeal to the doctrine of signatures, to astrology, and to oracles. Members of the culture have never thought of probability theory or statistics, never dreamt of anything that could be classed as ’experimental method'. Now suppose that on a particular occasion a member o f this culture forms a belief about the outcome of an impending battle by using one of these aforementioned methods, say. by consulting zodiacal signs in a culturally approved fashion. Call this method M. Is this person's belief justified, or warranted?

In answering this question, Goldman suggests that our intuitions are pulled in two directions; the agent's belief is both justified (in the weak sense) and unjustified (in the

strong sense).

While I agree with Goldman that we are tom in opposite directions, I do not think

that he correctly identifies why. I suggest that it is because the case is under-described, and

there are two natural ways of tilling out the example such that in one way, the agent's belief

is justified, but in the other way. it is not. What the example leaves out is whether the

method produces beliefs that are inconsistent with beliefs that would be produced by the

agent's innate capacities. In determining the justification of the agent's belief, this

information is important for the following reason. As we noted earlier, a plausible version

of a reliabilist account must have the following requirement. In addition to being produced

by a reliable process, there must not be any available process or method that would lead the

agent to believe that the process is unreliable or that the belief is false. If we suppose that

the method produces beliefs that are inconsistent with beliefs that would be produced by the

agent's innate capacities, the agent's beliefs would be unjustified simply because this latter

requirement is not satisfied. It is natural to ascribe our innate capacities to the agent in the

above example, and so it is natural to think that he is ignoring the fact that the method

produces inconsistent results with his innate capacities.

On the other hand, it is also natural, given principles of charity, to assume that the

method does not produce beliefs that are inconsistent with beliefs that would be produced

.Alvin Goldman. "Strong and Weak Justification." Philosophical Perspectives 2 ed. James Tomberlin (Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company. 1988) 51-52.

161 by the agent’s innate capacities. There is a natural inclination to suppose that the agent possesses innate capacities that are different from ours. If this were so, then I see no reason why we ought to say that the agent's belief is unjustified.

I should note that if the above e.xample is specified more fully in either way. my account yields the correct result. If the agent's innate capacities are the same as ours, the agent's belief will be unjustified because there is a process or method available to him for believing that his method is unreliable. On the other hand, if the agent's innate capacities are different from ours and would not believe him to believe that his method is unreliable, the agent's method will be reliable on my account. This is because on my account, the evidence that is available to the agent determines the J-worlds.

Consider now Goldman’s case involving a species that has a clairvoyant ability.

Recall that by relativizing reliability assessments to normal worlds, Goldman's account is unable to capture the intuition that a species with clairv'oyant abilities could form justified beliefs on the basis of this ability. In their world, this ability might be reliable. It is interesting that in this case, our intuitions are not pulled in opposite directions. We unequivocally want to say that the agent's beliefs are justified. On the account that I propose, we are able to capture this intuition, since the evidence that is available to agents is ultimately constrained by the actual capacities of agents. Since their cognitive capacities are different from ours, the circumstances by which the reliability of their processes is to be assessed will be different from ours.

In conclusion, I want to consider two objections that could be raised for the general kind of account that I have proposed. The first objection is one that Goldman raises for an account that is similar to mine. In his discussion of different kinds of reliabilist accounts of justification, Goldman discusses the plausibility of what he calls a ’resource-relative' conception of justification. Like other kinds of reliabilist accounts, on this account, the justification of a belief is determined by the reliability of the agent’s belief forming process.

162 What makes this account distinctive is that the resources that are available to the agent fix the degree to which a process has to be reliable in order to produce a justified belief. The

less resources that are available to an agent, the less reliable the process has to be in order to produce a Justified belief. My account is different but similar in spirit. On my account, the

resources that are available to the agent do not determine the degree to which a process has

to be reliable. Instead, they fix the circwnsttmces or worlds by which to assess the

reliability of a process is to be assessed. In his criticism of the resource-relative account,

Goldman argues that it does not take the skeptical challenge seriously enough.

In most of what follows, though. I shall opt for an absolute, resource independent criterion of justifiedness. One virtue o f this approach is that it makes the challenge of skepticism both serious and credible. If some tl.xed level of truth ratio is necessarv’ for justifiedness, it is an open question whether human processes ever yield justified belief, whether they are even capable of yielding justified beliefs. By contrast, the maximizing, resource-dependent criterion guarantees that some human processes can yield Justified belief'^’"*

I interpret Goldman as raising the following problem. The resource relative conception of justification does not take the skeptical challenge seriously enough because it guarantees

that some human processes can yield justified beliefs. The intuition I take it is that as long

as an agent takes into account all of the resources that are available to him, the agent's belief

will be justified. If this is the problem for the resource-relative account, it would seem that a

similar objection could be raised for my account. By using the resources or evidence that

are available to an agent, my account guarantees that some of our processes can produce justified beliefs. As long as the agent takes into account all of the evidence that is easily

available to him, the agent's belief can be justified.

In response, I grant that a consequence of my account is that it almost ensures that

agents will have justified beliefs. An agent who takes into account the available evidence

will have justified beliefs. What Goldman assumes and what is unclear to me is why this is

a problem. The issue here is whether we should take skepticism to pose a serious threat to

Alvin Goldman, Epistemologv and Cognition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986) 105.

163 our claim that we have justified beliefs in addition to our claim that we have knowledge. To think that skepticism poses a threat to both is natural since we have only recently (i.e.. since

Gettier) drawn a substantive distinction between justification and knowledge. But the fact that we now draw a distinction between knowledge and justification, over and above the distinction that knowledge requires true belief and the fact that we have responsibilist intuitions about justification should cause us to rethink matters. If the presence of bam facades does not threaten the claim that we have justified beliefs about bams, why should we think that demons do? In order to fully explore this issue would require investigating the relationship between knowledge and justification, and I am not prepared to defend an account of knowledge here. My intent is to suggest that we should not assume that skepticism poses a serious threat to justification in the sense that Goldman suggests.

The second objection concerns whether the account that I have proposed is reliabilist in spirit. One might argue that the account that I have proposed is simply a reformulation of a responsibilist account of justification and abandons the fundamental intuitions that lie behind a reliabilist account.

In response, it is unclear to me what it means to offer an account in the spirit of reliabilism. If it requires evaluating the reliability of a process in the actual circumstances, then I readily admit that the account is not reliabilist in spirit. But if this is required in order to defend a reliabilist account, then I see the NED cases as showing that a reliabilist account of justification is implausible. But if reliabilism merely requires that we identify the relevant circumstances in an objective way. then the account is still reliabilist in spirit. The object of assessment is still a belief forming process; the processes are evaluated in terms of their truth tendency. And finally, the circumstances are fixed in an objective way.

The second point to be made in response is that I expect and readily accept that my account can be recast in responsibilist terms. Such an account has the advantage of being

able to capture our intuitions in cases in which our responsibilist intuitions are invoked (e.g..

164 the NED cases and cases of culpable ignorance). What then is the point of formulating the

account in reliabilist terms? The advantage is that it allows us to capture a set of non-

responsibilist intuitions that we associate with justification. First, we tend to think that an

attribution of justification involves determining whether the agent has formed a belief on the

basis of good evidence. Second, we tend to think that epistemic justification, unlike other

kinds of justification, is related to the notion of truth in a way that other conceptions of justification are not. The natural intuition here is that an agent possesses good evidence for

a belief that p just in case p is likely to be true given the agent's evidence and certain

background conditions. Third, we tend to think that an agent's evidence is to be evaluated in

an objective way. .Ml of these intuitions are captured if the account is cast in reliabilist

terms. When we evaluate how the agent has formed a belief on the basis of a certain piece

of evidence, we are in essence evaluating a belief forming process (viz.. a process of forming

a belief on the basis of a certain kind of evidence). Furthermore, since considerations

concerning availability are objective, by relativizing reliability assessments to worlds that are

fixed by the available evidence, whether the belief is likely to be true, given the evidence will

be determined in an objective way.

In conclusion. I have tried to provide a solution to the NED problem that involves

arguing that the agent's processes are reliable in circumstances that are fixed by the evidence

that is available to the agents. Such an account can capture our responsibilist intuitions

about justification while at the same time capture our intuition that justification is related to

truth.

165 CHAPTER 5

DISCRIMINATION, JUSTIFICATION, AND TESTIMONY

The aim of this chapter is to outline and defend a novel account of the justification of testimonial beliefs. .According to this account, an agent's testimonial belief is justified only if the agent is discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports. The account

requires that an agent form a testimonial belief on the basis of a reliable kind of report, and

it also requires that an agent would not have formed the belief had the testimony been

received from a source for which there exists available evidence for believing is unreliable.

Unlike the Blind-Trust account, this account requires that an agent be discriminative about

different kinds of testimonial reports, but unlike weak individualism, it allows that agents can be discriminative without relying on non-testimonial evidence.

In Section 5.1. I explain what it means for an agent to be discriminative about

testimony. In Section 5.2. I motivate the requirement that agents have to be discriminative

about testimonial sources by invoking considerations conceming gullibility. I argue that if

an account does not require an agent to be discriminative about testimony, such as the

Blind-Trust account, it will license gullibility. In Section 5.3. I describe the different ways

in which an agent can be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports. In so

doing. I contrast my account with weak individualism. Although weak individualism also

requires that agents be discriminative about testimony, weak individualism requires that

agents be discriminative on the basis of non-testimonial evidence. In contrast, my account

allows an agent to be discriminative in other ways. An agent can be discriminative by

appealing to testimonial evidence. This difference allows my account to avoid the skeptical

166 consequence that faces the Weak Individualist account. Finally in Section 5.4. I consider the consequences that my account has for issues conceming autonomy. I argue that when we rely on testimony, we do not surrender our autonomy, as some'^^ have argued.

5.1: Being Discriminative about Testimonial Reports

I claim that in order for an agent's testimonial belief to be justified, the agent has to be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports. In what follows. I explain what it means for an agent to be discriminaiive about any subject matter, and specifically what it means for an agent to be discriminative about différent kinds o f te stitnonud reports.

Being discriminative about a subject matter involves being sensitive to differences in that subject matter. Moreover, being sensitive to differences in a subject matter involves having different cognitive responses to differences in the subject matter. If an agent is discriminative about colors, then the agent would have a different cognitive response if the agent were presented with different colors

There are different ways in which an agent can be discriminative about a subject matter. To take a trivial example, suppose that Bart can tell the difference between different kinds of ice cream, but suppose that he also likes all kinds of ice cream. With respect to being able to identify different kinds of ice cream. Bart is discriminative about different kinds of ice cream. When he is presented with different kinds of ice cream, he will have a different cognitive response (i.e.. he will form different beliefs about what kind of ice cream is before him). With respect to desiring ice cream however. Bart is not discriminative about different kinds of ice cream. When presented with different kinds of ice cream, he will invoke the same cognitive response (i.e.. he will have a desire for it). Thus, in saying that an agent is discriminative about a subject matter, we need to specify the kind of cognitive response with which the agent is discriminative. Since our interest concems the justification of testimonial beliefs, our focus will be on whether agents are discriminative with respect to

See Fred Schmitt. "Justification. Sociality, and Autonomy." Svnihese 73 ( 1987): 43-85.

167 beliefs (i.e., whether the agent will form different beliefs when presented with differences in a subject matter).

If an agent is discriminative about a subject matter. S, at time, T, this does not entail that the agent actually discriminates differences in S at T. In other words, being discriminative about differences in S does not require that the agent be presented with differences in S at T and thereby react differently to these differences. Being discriminative about a subject matter. S. involves possessing an ability to discriminate differences in S.

Thus, whether an agent is discriminative about a subject matter will depend on the truth of the following subjunctive. If the agent were to be presented with differences in the subject matter, then the agent would react differently.

In claiming that an agent has to be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports, I am not presupposing any special constraints on what can count as a kind of testimonial report. On my view, kinds are like types. There can be very narrow kinds of reports (e.g., a kind of report that involves a particular speaker offering a report with a particular content), or there can be very broad types (e.g., a kind of report that involves some speaker offering a report on any subject matter). In the next section, I shall argue that the kinds of testimonial reports about which an agent is expected to be discriminative will depend on considerations other than those that have to do with metaphysical constraints on what can count as a kind. In particular, I shall argue that if there is available evidence for believing that a certain kind of report is unreliable, then the agent should not form a belief on the basis of this kind of report.

5.2: Why Be Discriminative about Testimony

In this section, I outline and motivate an account of the justification of testimonial beliefs that requires an agent to be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports. I motivate this constraint by arguing that if an account (such as the Blind-Trust

168 account) does not require that agents be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports, it will license gullibility and will fall prey to counter-examples.

Recall that according to the Blind Trust account, a belief that is produced on the basis of blind-trust is justified. Considerations about gullibility pose a problem for this account because particular cases in which an agent is gullible are also cases in which the agent’s beliefs are unjustified. Suppose that Martha is gullible. Suppose that she forms a belief about a proposition that is obviously false (e.g.. she forms the belief that the moon is made of blue cheese) or suppose that she forms a belief from a testimonial source that is obviously unreliable (e.g.. she forms the belief that the President has been shot on the basis of a National Enquirer report). In either case. Martha's belief is unjustified. However. according to the Blind Trust account, her belief is justified since it is formed on the basis of a disposition to blindly believe others.

In response, it might be argued that the above objection assumes an overly simplistic version of the Blind Trust account. On a sophisticated version of the Blind-Trust account, a testimonial belief is justified if. other things being equal.^^’^' it is produced by a disposition to blindly believe others. For example. Foley'*'’ notes that if an agent possesses evidence that the testifier's utterance is false or evidence that the testifier is unreliable, then the agent would not be justified if the agent were to blindly believe the utterance. Thus, on a more sophisticated version of the Blind-Trust account.

S's testimonial belief that p is justified if 1) it is produced by a disposition to blindly believe others and 2) the agent does not possess evidence that p is false or that the testifier is unreliable.

Since it seems plausible that Martha possesses some evidence for believing that the moon is not made of blue cheese or that the National Enquirer is not reliable, condition 2) is not

166 ggg Tyler Burge. "Content Preservation." The Philosophical Review 102 ( 1993); 467.

Richard Foley. "Egoism in Epistemology." Socializing Epistemoloav. ed. Frederick Schmitt (London: Rowman and Littlefield) 64-68.

169 satisfied (i.e., other things are not equal). Thus, on the sophisticated Blind-Trust account, her beliefs are unjustified.

The problem with this response is that the above cases can be modified in one of two ways so that Martha does not possess any evidence for believing that the utterance is

false or that the kind of testimonial report is unreliable.

(1) Suppose again that Martha forms her belief on the basis of a blind-trust.

Moreover, suppose that Martha however has ignored and failed to acquire evidence that would lead her to believe that the moon is not made of blue cheese or evidence that would

lead her to believe that the National Enquirer is an unreliable source. In some relevant sense of ‘should’, which I shall spell out in a moment, Martha should have acquired this evidence,

but she has not. In these cases, Martha satisfies conditions I) and 2) of the Blind-Trust

account, but intuitively her beliefs are still unjustified.

Martha's beliefs are still unjustified because she does not possess evidence that is

available to her that would lead her to believe that the moon is not made out of blue cheese

and that the National Enquirer is an unreliable kind of report. The important distinction

here is between evidence that an agent possesses and evidence that is available to an agent, a

distinction that we considered earlier in Chapter 4, but worth reconsidering here.

Evidence that is available to an agent is evidence that an agent is capable of

acquiring, but that an agent might or might not actually possess. As I noted earlier, the

evidence that an agent is capable of acquiring depends on two factors: I) the psychological

capacities of the agent and 2) the nature of the external stimulus. How do these two factors

come into play in the context of testimony?

Consider first how the evidence that is available to an agent can depend on the

psychological capacities of the agent. Suppose that a large number of reports are in

circulation testifying to the unreliability of the scientific journal Science. If an agent were to

read and understand these reports, the agent would believe that Science was an unreliable

170 scientific journal. These reports however are only comprehensible to physicists; a layperson would never be able to understand the reports. The evidence that is available to a layperson in contrast to an e.xpert is not the same because there is a difference in the psychological capacities of an expert and a layperson.

To see how the evidence that is available to an agent also depends on the external stimulus, consider the following case. Imagine two agents who have the same psychological capacities; they are both physics experts, and so could understand the reports conceming the unreliability of the journal Science. However, one expert is in a world where these reports have entered into circulation, while the other expert is in a world where they have not. Intuitively, the evidence that is available to the agents in these different worlds is different even though they have the same psychological capacities.

The importance of the distinction between the evidence that is available to an agent and evidence that the agent possesses is this. When there is evidence available to an agent, and the agent does not possess this evidence, intuitively the agent is culpably ignorant of the evidence. As I argued in Chapter 4. if there is evidence that is available to an agent and that is relevant toward the goal of seeking truth, then it is evidence that the agent should, from an epistemic standpoint, possess.

Moreover, as I also noted in Chapter 4. not all cases of ignoring evidence are cases of culpable ignorance. Agents are only culpably ignorant when they ignore evidence that is available to them. A layperson about science who fails to acquire the evidence conceming the unreliability of Science should not be held culpable for having failed to acquire this evidence. Whether an agent should be held culpable for having failed to acquire evidence depends crucially on whether the agent is capable of acquiring and understanding the evidence.

We are now in a position to see how the distinction between evidence that is available to an agent and the evidence an agent possesses can be used to explain why

171 Martha’s beliefs are iinjiistifiecl, and to diagnose how the sophisticated Blind Trust account goes astray. Because Martha does not po ssess evidence that is available to her. Martha is culpable for having ignored evidence that is relevant to the justificatory status of her belief.

The sophisticated Blind Trust account only takes into consideration the evidence that the agent actually possesses. But the Martha cases show that considerations about evidence that is available to an agent, but which the agent fails to possess, can also affect the justificatory status of the agent's beliefs. Specifically, these cases motivate the requirement that the agent not form a belief on the basis of a kind of report for which there exists available evidence that, if possessed, would lead the agent to believe that the kind of report used is unreliable.

Although I think the above case refutes the sophisticated Blind Trust account, it is worth considering a second way in which the original cases can be modified so as to present a problem for the sophisticated Blind Trust account. This second modification illustrates an important but slightly different point about what is expected of agents in forming beliefs on the basis of testimonial reports.

(2) Suppose that Martha forms her belief on the basis of a blind trust, but she happens to form her belief on the basis of a kind of report that is reliable, such as the New

York Times. She only happens to form her belief on the basis of a reliable kind of report

because there are many other kinds of newspapers or journals that she could have bought

and read. (e.g.. the National Enquirer, the Star. etc.). It is simply an accident that she forms

her belief on the basis of a reliable kind of report.

The above case is analogous to a perceptual case that I considered in Chapter 4. In

the perceptual case I considered, an agent forms a belief that there is a bam on the basis of

looking at a bam. Although in this case she happens to be right, just as Martha happens to

be right in virtue of having relied on a reliable report, the agent would have formed a belief

that there is a bam. even if he had looked at a silo. Since this agent is incapable of

172 distinguishing bams from silos, intuitively this agent’s belief is unjustified. If this is correct, then vve ought to draw the analogous conclusion about Martha. Her belief is unjustified because she is incapable of distinguishing reliable from unreliable kinds of reports even when she happens to form beliefs on the basis of reliable kinds of reports.

This kind of example is problematic for the Blind Trust account, because although

Martha’s belief is unjustified, on the Blind Trust account, it is. Her belief is produced on the basis of a disposition to blindly believe others, and she does not possess any evidence for believing that the proposition is false or that the kind of report is unreliable.

The above cases involving Martha motivate the following kind of account. In the second case, although Martha forms her belief on the basis of a reliable kind of report, more is needed. It must be the case that the agent would not have formed the belief on the basis o f cinoilier kind of report KR*. for which there exists available evidence that would lead the agent to believe that KR* is unreliable. I will elaborate on the particular kinds of reports that qualify as KR* reports in a moment. But. the general structure of the account is as follows:

S's testimonial belief that p is justified for S at t if and only if

1) S’s belief that p is formed on the basis of a testimonial report. R such that R is an instance of a kind of testimonial report KR about some subject matter SM; and

2) forming beliefs about SM on the basis of KR-reports is reliable: and

3) if R were an instance of a relevant unreliable alternative testimonial report KR*. then S would not have formed the testimonial belief that p on the basis of KR* (where relevant alternative’ will be further explained below); and

4) there is no evidence that is available to S or that S possesses which would lead S to believe that p is false or that KR is unreliable.

Conditions 1 and 2 merely state how the belief is formed and require that the agent form a belief on the basis of a reliable kind of report. Note that Condition 4 requires not only that the agent not possess evidence for believing that the believed proposition is false or that KR reports are unreliable, but it also requires that there not be available evidence for believing so

173 as well. The interesting condition though is condition 3 since it requires that an agent be discriminative about different kinds of reports. It entails that there are some kinds of reports. KR*-reports. upon which the agent would not form a belief. In developing this account more fully, we need to specify what these reports are.

To allow that KR* can be any kind of report would make the account too strong. I propose two restrictions on KR* reports. First. KR* must be available in the e.\temal sense described earlier. Suppose Martha forms the belief that the President was shot on the basis of a New York Times report. Suppose further that she would have believed the British variant of the National Enquirer - the "British Star". However, it is very unlikely that

Martha would have relied on this kind of report, because it is not a kind of report that

Martha typically encounters. Just as an agent should not be required to discriminate a bam from an object that is rarely ever found, agents should not be required to be discriminative about unreliable kinds of reports that are rarely encountered.

Second, there has to exist available evidence for believing that KR* is unreliable.

Consider again another variation on the above case. Martha believes that the President was shot on the basis of a New York Times report. Had Martha read the New York Post, she would have believed it as well. However, unbeknownst to Martha, the New York Post is unreliable about current affairs. Martha is not culpable for not realizing this: there is no evidence that is available to her that would lead her to believe that it is unreliable. Suppose that there is a government conspiracy that prevents any evidence about the unreliability of the New York Post from being circulated. Although Martha would have relied on the New

York Post, she should not be held culpable for being disposed to rely on the New York

Post. This case suggests that if there is no evidence available to an agent about the reliability (or unreliability) of a certain kind of report, then the agent should not be held culpable for having a disposition to rely on that report.

174 To summarize, vve have the following restrictions on KR*-reports,

R is a KR*-report if and only if

a) R is an unreliable kind of testimonial report that is available to S, and

b) R is an unreliable kind of testimonial report for which there exists evidence, E available to S that would lead S to believe that forming beliefs about subject matter SM on the basis of KR*-reports is unreliable.

According to b), if there exists evidence available to S that would lead him to believe that

KR* reports are unreliable, then S will be culpably ignorant for having ignored this evidence.

One might object to b) as a restriction on KR*-reports because there are cases in which there exists available evidence. E. to S that would lead him to believe that KR*-reports are unreliable, but S should not be held culpable for ignoring this evidence. Consider the following example.

(I) Suppose that Tom only likes to watch the television news when he knows that there will be a report about the local newspaper, the Bakersfield Chronicle (EC). Suppose further that

Paul tells Tom that he watched the moming news, and that there is nothing in the news regarding EC. Although Tom has the television and the 5 o'clock news on. he does not pay any attention to what is reported. It tums out. however, that there is a report about a scandal at the Bakersfield Chronicle. Most Bakersfield reporters have been fabricating false stories and portraying them as factual.

Notice that there is evidence E for believing that KR* reports are unreliable. The television reports provide testimonial evidence that EC reports (i.e.. the KR*-reports) are unreliable. However. Tom ignores E because he possesses evidence E* (i.e.. testimonial evidence from Paul’s report) that E is not available. In this case. Tom is not culpable for having ignored evidence available to him. E because he possesses evidence. E*. for believing that there is no evidence E.

1 7 5 This case poses a problem for (b) since according to (b) an agent should be held culpable for ignoring evidence that is available to him. More specifically. I suggested that an agent should not be disposed to rely on a kind of report (i.e., a KR*-report) if there exists available evidence for believing that KR*-reports are unreliable. In the above case. such evidence exists, but intuitively Tom should not be held culpable for ignoring it. Thus. he should not be held culpable for being disposed to rely on KR*-reports.

In response. I propose that we add a constraint on condition (b) that is somewhat like a defeater constraint.

(c) There is no evidence E* that S possesses and that would lead S to believe that E is not available to S.

Notice that (c) requires that an agent not possess evidence E' that would lead him to believe that E is not available. In contrast, it does not require that.

(c’) there is no evidence. E*. that is available to S that would lead him to believe that E is unavailable.

(c) is preferable over (c') for the following reason.

The difference between (c) and (c') concems cases in which there is evidence E* that is available to S. but that S does not possess, for believing that there is no evidence E.

As a defeater condition on (b). (c"). in contrast to (c) would imply that an agent should not be held culpably ignorant for ignoring E if there exists evidence. E*. that is available to S. but which S does not possess. But in these cases. I suggest that an agent should still be held culpable for ignoring E.

Consider the following variation on the above case.

(2) Paul tells Tom that there will not be any reports about BC on the evening news (E*), but.

Tom ignores Paul. Moreover. Tom has the television turned on. but still ignores (not because of Paul's utterance, but for other reasons) the television, and the report about the reliability of BC. In this case, if Tom were to rely on the BC reports, his beliefs would not be justified. Moreover, he is culpably ignorant for having ignored evidence. E (i.e.. the

176 television reports) about BC’s unreliability. Tom is culpable on two grounds: first, for having ignored E (i.e.. the television reports about BC’s unreliability) and second, for having ignored E* (Paul’s testimony that there will be no television reports about BC’s unreliability).

In contrast to my claim that Tom should be held culpable for having ignored E and

E*. one might try to argue that Paul should be held culpable only for having ignored E* and not for having ignored E as well. The reason is that had he not ignored E*. he would not have been held culpable for having ignored E. That is. if Tom had not ignored Paul’s testimonial evidence that there will not be any television reports on BC’s reliability, he would not have been held culpable for ignoring E.

But it would be a mistake to hold Tom culpable only for ignoring E*. Consider an analogous set of cases involving moral judgments. Consider first a case similar to our original case ( I ). Suppose a woman W is crossing the street, and Joe is standing at the comer. W is about to be hit by a car. and Joe could save W. by screaming to W "Watch out for the car!” Call this action available to Joe. action Suppose A is in fact available to Joe (he could perform this action, if he wanted to). But. suppose further he has other

(perhaps, moral) reasons or evidence. .A*, for believing that A is not available to him.

Suppose that Joe was told by God. from whom he believes moral laws come, that if there is an opportunity to save someone’s life, he is forbidden to do so. Like case (I), in this case.

Joe should not be culpable for failing to save W by performing A. Although there is an action that is available to him. he has reasons or evidence for believing that it is not available.

Let us imagine a variation, like case (2). on this case. Imagine again W is about to be hit by a car. and Joe could save W by performing A. Again, suppose that Joe is told by

God that if there is an opportunity to save someone’s life, he is forbidden to do so.

168 f recognize that there is a disanalogy in that what is available to Joe is an action and not evidence. This disanaiogy however is irrelevant to the point that I am making.

177 However, unlike the above case, suppose that Joe chooses to ignore God’s command (A*), and moreover, he also chooses to not perform A.

In the epistemic and the moral variations of this case. Tom and Joe are ignoring nvo relevant items: Tom is ignoring nro pieces of evidence that are available to him (E and E*). while Joe is ignoring nvo possible courses of action (A and A*) that are available to him.

The suggestion that Tom in our original case is only culpable for having ignored E*. but not for ignoring both E and E* commits us to claiming that Joe in case (2) is culpable for having only ignored A*, but not for having ignored both A and A*. But. intuitively, this seems incorrect. Joe is culpable not only for having ignored God’s command (A*), but also for having failed to save W’s life (A). If this is the correct assessment of Joe, then we ought to say that Tom is culpable not only for having ignored Paul’s reports, but also for having ignored the report on the evening television news.

The upshot of these cases is the following: in specifying the defeater condition for

(b). we want to allow that an agent be held non culpable for having ignored evidence. E. if and only if the agent actually possesses evidence E* for believing that E is not available.

These cases illustrate that if S ignores E. when there is actually evidence E* that is available to S (but not possessed by S) that would lead S to believe that evidence E is not available, then S is culpable for having ignored E.

We are now in a position to formulate a full account of the justification of testimonial beliefs which requires that agents be discriminative about the kinds of testimonial reports that they rely on.

S’s testimonial belief that p is justified at t if and only if

1) S’s belief that p is formed on the basis of a testimonial report. R. such that R is an instance of a kind of testimonial report KR about some subject matter SM; and

2) forming beliefs about SM on the basis of KR-reports is reliable; and

3) it is not the case that if R were an instance of KR*. then S would have formed the testimonial belief that P. where

178 a) KR* is an unreliable kind of testimonial report that is available to S; and

b) KR* is an unreliable kind of testimonial report for which there exists evidence, E, available to S that would lead S to believe that forming beliefs about subject matter SM on the basis of KR*-reports is unreliable; and

(c) there is no evidence E* that S possesses and that would lead S to believe that E is not available to S.

4) and there is no evidence that is available to S or that S possesses which would lead S to believe that p is false or that KR is unreliable.

This account, like the first formulation of the general reliabilist account that I defended in

Chapter 4, makes reference to the notion of evidence. While again it might be thought that appealing to the notion of evidence is not in the spirit of process reliabilism, like the account in Chapter 4, this account can be reformulated in terms of whether there are processes, ones that involve taking into account evidence, that are available to an agent.

S's testimonial belief that p is Justified at t if and only if

1) S's belief that p is formed on the basis of a testimonial report, R, such that R is an instance of a kind of testimonial report KR about some subject matter SM; and

2) forming beliefs about SM on the basis of KR-reports is reliable; and

3) it is not the case that if R were an instance of KR*. then S would have formed the testimonial belief that P, where

a) KR* is an unreliable kind of testimonial report that is available to S; and

b) KR* is an unreliable kind of testimonial report for which there exists an available process, R, to S that would lead S to believe that forming beliefs about subject matter SM on the basis of KR*-reports is unreliable; and

(c) there is no further process, R* that S possesses and that would lead S to believe that E is not available to S.

4) and there is no process that is available to S or that S possesses which would lead S to believe that p is false or that KR is unreliable.

It is worth making explicit how this account avoids the two gullibility cases that were originally raised as problems for the sophisticated Blind Trust account. In doing so. we

shall get clear on exactly how my account is preferable to the Blind Trust account.

179 Recall that in the First case, Martha forms a belief on the basis of a report from the

National Enquirer. There is available evidence that, if possessed, would lead Martha to believe that KR (the National Enquirer) is unreliable. This account yields the correct result that Martha’s belief is unjustified because both conditions 2) and 4) are not satisfied. In addition to the fact that Martha’s belief is formed on the basis of an unreliable kind of report, there is also evidence that is available to her that would lead her to believe that KR is unreliable or that the report is false.

In the second case, Martha forms a belief on the basis of the New York Times, a straightforwardly reliable kind of report. Remember that in this case, she would have formed her belief on the basis of an unreliable kind of report (such as the National

Enquirer), for which there e.xists evidence available to her which, if she possessed, would lead her to believe that the report is unreliable. Martha is culpable, because she has failed to acquire this evidence that would prevent her from forming her belief on the basis of this kind of report. She has only accidentally formed her belief on the basis of a reliable report, and hence intuitively, her belief is unjustified. Our account provides the correct result.

Although conditions (2) and (4) are satisfied, condition (3) is not. Martha would have formed a belief on the basis of the National Enquirer, and the National Enquirer satisfies all of the conditions for KR*. First, it is a kind of report that has a similar subject matter to the

New York Times. Second, it is a kind of source that is typically encountered. Third, there is available evidence that would lead an agent to believe that it is unreliable.

On a more general note, notice that the above account will avoid cases of gullibility.

The characteristic feature of gullibility cases is that an agent should be held culpable for having formed a belief on the basis of a kind of report for which there exists available evidence that would lead the agent to believe that this kind of report is unreliable. Because condition (3) essentially requires that an agent not form beliefs on the basis of these kinds

180 of reports, our account yields the result that cases of gullibility will result in unjustified beliefs.

Notice that my account only requires that agents be discriminative about reports within a given subject matter if there are in fact KR* reports within that subject matter. If there are no KR* reports within a subject matter, the above account would be similar to a reliabilist version of a Blind Trust account insofar as it would not require that agents be discriminative about testimonial reports within the subject matter. But in most subject matters, there are good reasons for believing that there are KR* reports within a given subject matter. In other words, for most subject matters, there are kinds of reports I ) which we typically encounter and (2) for which there e.xists evidence available to agents that would lead them to believe that these kinds of reports are unreliable.

When we reflect on the interests that underlie many of the reports that we often encounter, it seems clear that these interests are often, in part, non-truth related ones. In other words, in many instances, the reason why people offer reports is not purely truth related. Of course, the presence of a non-truth related interest does not by itself show that these reports are unreliable. In addition, it must be the case that when these non-truth related interests conflict with an interest to tell the truth, these non-truth related interests will win the day. Perhaps the paradigm and most prevalent example of this is advertising because in this case the non-truth related interest that underlies the reports is economic. But there are other examples too: political interests often conflict with and may outweigh an agent’s interest in telling the truth. In the above cases, non-truth-related interests actually drive an agent to intentionally lie. But there are other reasons for thinking that there are other unreliable kinds of reports. The primary consideration here concems agents who are biased. Agents can be biased by social, cultural and psychological factors, and in such cases, the agents are not intentionally lying, but their reports are unreliable because their views or beliefs are influenced by non-truth-related factors.

181 Do agents have evidence for thinking that the above kinds of non-truth-related kinds of reports are unreliable? Agents can acquire evidence about the context in which the reports are being made that would suggest that the intentions underlying the reports are not truth-related. For example, agents can often acquire evidence through observing contextual facts, which make it clear that information is being presented as an advertisement rather than as an actual journal report. Furthermore, through evidence about themselves and acquaintances, agents often acquire inductive evidence that non-truth related interests outweigh truth-related interests. As a trivial example, at some point, we have all lied in order to avoid punishment. Regarding bias, we are all to some extent aware of how in the history of both science and cultures, social and political influences have radically affected the reliability of people’s reports.

So it would seem that there are often kinds of reports within a given subject matter and furthermore, there is often evidence that is available to agents for thinking that this is so.

If this is correct, then a requirement that agents be discriminative about any subject matter is

warranted.

Before considering how and why my account differs from a weak individualist account, let us consider how my account handles NED cases, when applied to testimonial belief forming processes.

Recall that in the NED cases discussed earlier, we considered whether a belief

forming process, that is reliable in the actual world, would produce justified beliefs in a demon world. For example, if an agent used perception, but was being deceived by an evil demon, the beliefs produced by this process would still be justified. These cases were discussed in the context of raising a problem for a reliabilist account since they show that a

belief can be justified without being produced by a reliable process. One could imagine a

similar case involving testimonial belief forming processes. We think that relying on the

reports of the New York Times is a reliable testimonial process in the actual world. But

182 suppose that we are all, including the New York Times, being deceived by an evil demon, and suppose that Joe has a tendency of relying on the New York Times reports, and of avoiding reports by the National Enquirer. Intuitively, Joe's testimonial beliefs that are formed on the basis of reports by the New York Times would be justified. However, in this case forming beliefs on the basis reports by the New York Times would be unreliable, and thus condition (2), the requirement that the agent's belief forming process be reliable, of my account would fail.

I propose that we account for this case in the same way that we accounted for the

NED cases that were considered in chapter 4. In other words, 1 propose that we appeal to the evidence that is available to agents in order to fi.x the worlds by which we assess the reliability of an agent’s testimonial belief forming process. If a states of affairs is more likely true given the evidence that available to agents, then a world in which we assess the reliability of an agent’s belief forming process will be a world in which that states of affairs is true. Furthermore if there is no available evidence that would allow an agent to discriminate demon worlds from the actual world, demon worlds will not be included in the worlds in which the reliability of a testimonial belief forming process is assessed.

If we assess the reliability of an agent’s testimonial belief forming process in worlds that are fi.xed by the evidence that is available to agents in the above two ways, the process of relying on the New York Times will be a reliable process in these worlds. This will be true regardless of whether we are in fact being deceived by an evil demon. In contrast, beliefs formed on the basis of reports by the National Enquirer, beliefs that we would take to be unjustified regardless of whether we are in a demon world, will be unjustified on my account. For in the worlds that are fixed by the evidence that is available to agents, a belief forming process that involves being disposed to rely on reports by the National Enquirer will be unreliable. In both the non-testimonial and the testimonial version of the NED cases.

183 the intuition is that agents should only be held culpable for forming false beliefs when there exists available evidence that would prevent the agent from doing so.

5.3: How to be Discriminative

In this section. I explore how agents can be discriminative about different kinds of

testimonial reports. In particular. I consider the different kinds of evidence that agents can

acquire that allow them to be discriminative, and the ways in which agents can modify their

testimonial belief forming habits in light of this evidence. The purpose of this discussion is

to draw a contrast between my account and a weak individualist account. As I will suggest,

weak individualism can be seen as an account that also requires agents to be discriminative

about different kinds of testimonial reports. The difference between my account and weak

individualism is that weak individualism requires that agents be discriminative in a particular

way. Agents need to possess enough non-testimonial evidence to justify the belief that

certain testimonial reports arc reliable. My account allows agents to be discriminative in

other ways. An agent can form a justified belief on the basis of being discriminative about

different kinds of testimonial reports without possessing non-testimonial evidence that

certain reports are reliable.

It will be useful to reconsider the different kinds of evidence that an agent can

acquire conceming the reliability of different kinds of reports. A broad category of

evidence that agents can acquire is a kind of evidence that I call 'track record evidence’.

What is distinctive about track record evidence is that it involves verifying the truth of a

certain kind of report in a non-testimonial way. For example. I might acquire track record

evidence that reports by you are reliable by observing that you reported that it is raining, and

checking to see whether it is raining by looking outside. If I were to rely on someone else's

testimony as a way of verifying your testimony, (i.e.. corroborative testimony), then this

would not be a form of track record evidence. Similarly, if another agent were to tell me that

184 you were reliable, this kind of testimonial evidence would not be a form of track record evidence either. Track record evidence requires that the evidence be non-testimonial.

There are two different kinds of track record evidence. The first kind involves observing positive instances of a certain kind of a report. For example, if I were to verify an agent’s report that it is raining by looking outside and seeing that it is raining, this would be a form of confinning track record evidence. Contlrming track record evidence of a kind of report involves observing that instances of the kind of report are true. But another kind of track record evidence involves observing negative instances of a certain kind of report. For e.xample, if I were to observe an agent making a false report that it is raining by looking outside and seeing that it is not raining, this would be an instance of disconfmning track record evidence. Discontlrming track record evidence of a certain kind of report involves observing that instances of a certain kind of report are false.

Of course, track record evidence is not the only kind of evidence that can allow us to be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports. As I noted earlier, we can acquire testimonial evidence about the reliability of different kinds of testimonial reports.

This testimonial evidence can come in two forms. First, we can acquire testimonial evidence that a particular kind of report is reliable or unreliable through an agent’s testifying that a certain kind of report is reliable or not. For example, you might tell me that the New York

Times is reliable, but that the National Enquirer is not. Second, I might acquire testimonial evidence about the reliability of certain kinds of reports through another agent’s testimony that either confirms or disconfirms the original agent’s report. Weather reports by a news agency might be confirmed or disconfirmed by receiving the same or a different report from other news agencies.

So far, we have considered different kinds of evidence that an agent can acquire in being discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports. What are the different way-s in which agents can use this evidence in being discriminative?

185 First, an agent might use evidence as part of a reasoning process in determining which reports are reliable. For example, in deciding whom to trust about matters regarding cars, I might look into the background of two individuals, and on the basis of their track record, decide to consult only one of the individuals. In these cases, it would be apt to describe the agent as having reasoned through evidence about the reliability of different kinds of testimonial reports in forming a testimonial belief. Consequently, the testimonial beliefs will be psychologically inferential.

Second, an agent might form a testimonial belief without reasoning through the evidence that allows them to be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial sources.

I have in mind two different kinds of cases here. First, there are cases in which an agent initially reasons through evidence that a certain kind of report is reliable, but later develops a disposition to form a belief on the basis of the kind of report without reasoning through the evidence. Consider for example how our reliance on a particular kind of report such as the

New York Times evolves. Suppose that Sam relies on the New York Times because Mark has told him that it is a reliable source of information. On the initial occasions when Sam relies on the New York Times, it seems plausible that Sam reasons through his evidence that

Mark has testified that the New York Times is reliable in forming a testimonial belief. But later on, we can imagine that Sam no longer reasons through this evidence. Instead, he simply believes what he reads in the New York Times without performing any kind of reasoning about the reliability of the New York Times or the particular article he is reading.

In this kind of case, although Sam does not reason through his evidence about the reliability of the New York Times, we can still say that this evidence has played an important role in producing Sam’s testimonial belief. In particular, his evidence is responsible for why Sam has modified his testimonial belief forming habits.

This is what some refer to as inferential simpliciter.

186 There is a different way in which agents can rely on evidence about different kinds of testimonial reports in order to be discriminative without thereby making the testimonial belief psychologically inferential. As Audi notes, disconfirming track record evidence often plays a filtering role in how an agent forms a testimonial belief,

...beliefs about the credulity of the attester and beliefs pertinent to the attested proposition play a mainly filtering role: they prevent our believing testimony that does not "pass," for instance because it seems insincere; but if no such difficulty strikes us, we "just believe" (non-inferentially) what is attested. These filtering beliefs are like a trap-door that shuts only if triggered; its normal position is open, but it stays in readiness to block what should not enter.'™

An agent might have evidence that a nervous look is a sign of untrustworthiness, but the agent would not reason through this evidence in forming the testimonial belief.

Given these different ways in which an agent can rely on evidence in order to be discriminative about testimony, let us consider how a weak individualist account is different from a reliabilist account that incorporates the requirement that agents be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports.

According to the most plausible form of weak individualism, an agent’s reasons for believing that certain kinds of testimonial reports are reliable must ultimately be grounded in non-testimonial reasons. Weak individualism requires that agents be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports since it requires that an agent be disposed to rely on some but not all testimonial reports in forming a testimonial belief. More specifically, the view requires that an agent be disposed to rely on a testimonial report if the agent possesses sufficient non-testimonial reasons to justify the belief that the report is reliable. Although my account is similar to weak individualism in requiring that agents be discriminative, there are some important differences.

First, recall that according to weak individualism, a belief can be justified only if the justification of the testimonial belief is ultimately epistemically grounded in non-testimonial

Robert .Audi, "The Place of Testimony in the Fabric o f Know ledge and Justification," .American Philosophical Quarterly 34 ( 1997): 406.

187 reasons. As I argued in Chapter 2, according to weak individualism, a testimonial belief can derive its justification from non-testimonial reasons without being psychologically derived

from these reasons. Thus, in the above case involving Sam, if Sam forms a belief on the

basis of a New York Times report without reasoning through his evidence about the

reliability of the New York Times, the justification of his belief could still be grounded in

that evidence. On a weak individualist account, the justification of a testimonial belief can be

grounded in reasons that allow an agent to be discriminative about testimonial sources

without the belief being psychologically inferred from these reasons.

In contrast, on the account that I defend, a kind of reliabilist account, it is not

necessarily true that a testimonial belief will derive its justification from the evidence that

allows the agent to be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports. In cases

such as the one involving Sam. where an agent develops a belief forming habit that does not

involve the agent reasoning through the evidence about the reliability of different kinds of

testimonial reports, on my account the belief will not derive its justification the evidence.

The reason is this. The process that produces Sam’s belief is a belief-independent process

since it is a process that does not take beliefs as inputs. Consequently, the justification of

his belief depends only on the reliability of the process that produces it. In contrast, if Sam

reasons through his evidence about the reliability of the New York Times (or the belief that

the New York Times is reliable), then the justification of his testimonial belief will depend

on two factors: 1) the reliability’’' of the belief-dependent process that produces it, and 2)

the justificatory status of the evidence (or his belief that the New York Times is reliable).

The point here is that on any reliabilist account, the justificatory status of a belief that is

' ' ' .As Goldman notes, the reliability of a belief-dependent process will be evaluated differently from a belief-independent process. In the case of a belief-independent process, the reliability of the process will simply be determined by whether the process has a tendency of producing more true beliefs than false ones. In the case of a belief-dependent process, the reliability of the process will be determined by whether it has a tendency to produce more true beliefs than false ones given that the input beliefs are true.

188 produced by a belief-dependent process will depend on the justificatory status of the beliefs that function as inputs to the process. For example, suppose that I form the belief that an object in the water is a mammal on the basis of the belief that the object is a whale and the belief that if an object is a whale, it is a mammal. Notice that if my belief that the object is a whale is unjustified, my belief that the object is a mammal is unjustified as well even though the belief forming process is conditionally reliable.

The difference between weak individualism and my account then is the following.

On a weak individualist account, a belief can be epistemically derived or grounded in evidence without being psyclwloyiically derived or grounded on that evidence. On a reliabilist account however, this is not the case. For a reliabilist. a belief is epistemically derived or grounded on evidence, E, only if the agent's belief is psychologically derived from E.

On the account that I defend, the evidence that an agent possesses about the reliability of different kinds of testimonial reports can play two different roles. If the agent forms a belief on the basis of a process which takes the agent’s evidence as input to the process, then the agent's belief will derive part of its justification from the justificatory status of the agent’s evidence. But in cases where the agent forms a testimonial belief on the basis of a process, which does not take the agent’s evidence as an input to the process, the agent’s evidence can play an important but different role. Our innate tendency, as Reid notes, is to form beliefs on the basis of blind-trust, a testimonial belief forming process that is unreliable. Without acquiring about the reliability of different kinds of testimonial reports, it would be very difficult to acquire testimonial belief forming habits, belief- dependent or independent, that are reliable.

But there is a second and more important difference between my account and weak individualism. As I noted earlier, although weak individualism requires an agent to be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports, it requires that an agent be

189 discriminative in a particular way. Agents have to possess sufficient non-testimonial reasons for believing that certain reports are reliable. This requirement, as we noted in

Chapter 2, raises problems for weak individualism. For many of our testimonial beliefs, we simply do not possess the kind of reasons that weak individualism requires. To require that agents be discriminative in this way leads to skepticism.

In contrast to weak individualism, my account does not require that an agent’s reasons for being discriminative be grounded in non-testimonial reasons. If an agent is discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports (e.g., forms beliefs on the New

York Times but not the National Enquirer) on the basis of testimonial evidence that is not ultimately grounded in non-testimonial reasons, the agent's belief would still be justified.

Furthermore, if an agent were to rely on non-testimonial evidence, without possessing sufficient evidence to inductively infer that some reports are reliable, again an agent’s testimonial belief could still be justified. In order to account for the fact that many of our testimonial beliefs are justified, we must allow for these possibilities. My account does so by placing an emphasis on the fact that agents have to use reliable belief forming habits by being discriminative, and not placing any emphasis or constraints on how agents come to be discriminative. How an agent comes to acquire testimonial belief forming processes that are reliable does not matter.

In contrasting my account from weak individualism in this second way, it might be noted that I am adopting a reliabilist account that rejects a requirement that Goldman has argued for within a general reliabilist account of justification. In developing a more sophisticated reliabilist account of justification, Goldman’"^- abandons the claim that it is sufficient for a belief to be produced in a reliable way in order to be justified. Drawing on a distinction between processes (i.e., ways of forming beliefs that are innate) and methods

(i.e., ways of forming beliefs that are leamed and not innate, such as algorithms and

.Alvin Goldman. Epistemoiogv and Coonition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1986) 91-92.

190 heuristics), he argues that a reliable belief forming m ethod can produce an unjustified belief.

He illustrates this with the following e.xample.

Suppose Gertrude's mathematical education is seriously deficient: she has never leamed the square root algorithm. One day she runs across the algorithm in a pile o f papers written by someone she knows to be a quirky, unreliable thinker, and no authority at all on mathematical matters. Despite this background knowledge, she leaps to the conclusion that this rule for deriving square roots (the rule so labeled) is a sound method. She proceeds to follow, and form beliefs in accordance with, this algorithm. She forms beliefs in propositions of the form ‘s is the square root o f y'. .\re these beliefs justified? Clearly not, for Gertrude has no adequate grounds for trusting the results o f this algorithm.

The e.xample shows that if a reliable method has been acquired in an unreliable way, then it will not produce a justified belief. In order to account for our intuitions in these kinds of cases, Goldman argues that a belief produced by a belief forming method is justified only if

I) the belief forming method is reliable, and2) the method has been acquired by a reliable meta-process.

Goldman's second constraint puts my account of the justification of testimonial beliefs in direct conflict with Goldman’s general reliabilist account of justification. I claimed above that in forming a justified belief, how an agent comes to be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports does not matter. But if Goldman is right that a

belief-forming method has to be acquired by a reliable meta-process, then testimonial belief

forming methods must be acquired in a reliable way. On Goldman's account, if an agent

were to use an unreliable process, such as blind trust, in acquiring a reliable testimonial

belief forming method, beliefs produced by this method would not produce justified beliefs.

In response and in what follows, I argue against*’-^ Goldman's requirement that a

reliable belief forming method has to be acquired by a reliable meta-process in order to

produce a justified belief. I will begin by raising some problems for Goldman's constraint

>'5 Ibid. 91.

I should note that Schmitt challenges this requirement on similar grounds. See Frederick Schmitt, Knowledge and Belief ( London: Routledge, 1992) ch.4.

191 and then I will suggest an alternative explanation for why Gertrude’s belief is unjustified, one that has nothing to do with how Gertrude acquires her belief forming method.

As Schmitt notes in his discussion, the constraint that a method has to be acquired

by a reliable method seems too strong. He illustrates this point with the following example,

Hermione is unusual in being natively deficient in deductive reasoning: she does not natively exercise the modus tollens process. One day. however, she falls down the stairs, bangs her head on the banister, and ever after exercises the modus tollens process *

Schmitt’s intuition, and I tend to agree, is that Hermione’s belief is justified even though the

belief-forming method has not been acquired by a reliable meta-process.

I can only speculate as to how Goldman might respond to this case. A possible

response is to argue that in the above case, it is unclear whether Hermione’s belief-forming

habit is actually a merlioci rather than a process. This is important because only methods,

and not processes have to be acquired by a reliable meta-process on Goldman’s account.

The reason why it is unclear whether Hermione’s habit is a process or method is because

Goldman never draws a clear distinction between processes and methods. He describes

processes as being habits that are innate while he describes methods as being habits that are

leamed. But as the above example illustrates, there are habits that are neither innate nor

leamed. In drawing the distinction more clearly, a possible suggestion is to draw the

distinction in terms of whether the habit is adopted, perhaps in terms of whether they are

consciously selected.'"'^ Methods are belief-forming habits that we adopt, but processes

one that we do not adopt.

But if we draw the distinction in this way, there are further counter-examples that

arise. Suppose that an agent uses a reliable belief-forming method that has been acquired in

a reliable way, but suppose that the meta-method has been acquired in an unreliable way.

' Ibid. 168.

' This way of drawing the distinction raises issues regarding doxastic voluntarism: does adopting a belief- forming habit presuppose voluntarily choosing a belief? This is a very large issue, which I do not want to

192 Suppose that Joan acquires a method of forming beliefs on the basis of reports by the New

York Times. Moreover, suppose she acquires this method on the basis of the following meta-method: if she possesses inductive evidence for believing that M is reliable, then M is a method she will adopt. Suppose however that this meta-method has been acquired in an unreliable way. She adopts methods for which she possesses inductive evidence as a result of having been hit on the head. Prior to having been hit on the head, she would have adopted any method. If we suppose that Joan forms a belief on the basis of a New York

Times report, would her belief be justified?

My intuition is that Joan's belief is justified even though her meta-method has been acquired in an unreliable way. Could Goldman’s account capture our intuition in this cases? Goldman assumes that all methods are acquired by meVd-processes, and so the question of whether meta-methods have to be acquired in a reliable way never arises in his discussion. But as the above example shows, the assumption that all methods are acquired by mcVd-processes is false. So it would seem that in order to account for the above case.

Goldman needs to defend the claim that the justificatory status of a belief will only depend on what happens at the level of meta-processes or meta-methods, and not at the level of meta-meta-processes. Meta-methods do not have to be acquired by reliable met-meta- methods or processes. The meta-method that is responsible for acquiring a method has to be reliable, but the meta-meta-method does not. The problem however with trying to defend this claim is the following. If the reason why methods, but not processes, have to be acquired by a reliable meta-method or process is because methods are adopted but processes not. then it is unclear why meta-methods, things that are also adopted, do not have to be acquired in a reliable way as well. I cannot think of any possible way of drawing a principled distinction here.

address here, since there are reasons for thinking this line should not be pursued. I merely want to note that these issues are lurking, and would have to be addressed.

193 I recognize that the above examples are not knock-down counter-examples for

Goldman’s claim that reliable methods have to be acquired in a reliable way. But the above problems are not the only reasons for why we should reject Goldman’s way of accounting for our intuitions in the Gertrude case. There is, I shall suggest, a more plausible way of accounting for our intuitions in this case.

There are two considerations that contribute to why we think that Gertrude’s belief is unjustified. In identifying the first, let us contrast Goldman’s Gertrude case with the following variation; call it the ‘M-G case’. Suppose that MGertrude acquires a reliable belief-forming habit in an unreliable way; like Gertrude, she randomly grabs an algorithm from a desk. Suppose however that MGertrude continues to use the algorithm over an extended period of time. She does so without acquiring any inductive evidence about the reliability of the method. One might naturally think that on each occasion in which she continues to use the method, her reliance on it is random in the same way that her initial choice of the method was random. But there are two reasons for thinking that her continued use is not random. First, on the later occasions, she does not have the opportunity to use the other methods. So on the later occasions, there is no possibility that she would select other method. This is because there are no other methods available to her. Second and more importantly, the reason why her continued use of the algorithm is not random is that even if

MGertrude were presented with other algorithms, she would not use them. We should think of MGertrude as having developed a stable belief forming habit of only relying on the algorithm. How her reliance on the method has become a stable belief forming habit does not matter. It might be the result of a conscious or voluntary commitment to use only the method, or it might be the result of something that falls well short of a voluntary or conscious commitment. I do not think our intuitions about the justificatory status of

MGertrude s beliefs depend on this aspect of the example.

194 Although I believe that MGertrude’s belief is unjustified, there seems to be a difference in the Justificatory of their beliefs. Let me first motivate why we should think that there is a difference in the justificatory status of their beliefs. I should stress that I am not claiming that MGertrude’s belief is justified. Later in identifying a second reason for why we should think that Gertrude’s belief is unjustified. I will suggest that the same applies to

M Gertrude.

Why should we think that there is a significant difference in the justificatory status of their beliefs? Consider that in the evaluation of our students, we are not concerned with how their belief forming methods have been acquired. If we find that students consistently use a modus ponens inference, we do not ask how they acquired their belief forming methods. In fact, if we were to discover that only one of the students had acquired the belief forming method in a reliable way. I suspect that this would not cause us to give them a different grade. Similarly, if. as math instructors, we were confronted with MGertrude and someone who acquired the same algorithm in a reliable way. we would not treat them differently. Our primary concern focuses on whether people use reliable methods

(independently of how they came by them), and we seek evidence for this by seeing whether they are capable of responding to questions correctly and consistently. Of course. I recognize that when we evaluate students, we are not making attributions of justification.

Nevertheless, when we make these evaluations, they are similar to attributions of justification insofar as they are made from an epistemic standpoint, and these judgments involve judgments of blame and praise. If considerations about how agents acquire their belief forming methods do not affect our attributions of epistemic blame and praise as teachers, this suggests that they do not affect our attributions of justification as well.

What could account the difference in the justificatory status of their beliefs? In both cases, their belief forming methods have been acquired in an unreliable way. and so

Goldman’s constraint that belief-forming methods have to be acquired in a reliable way will

195 not help. I suggest the following. Goldman assumes that the process or method that is

responsible for Gertrude’s belief is one that involves a disposition to rely on the algorithm.

This assumption though, I think, is false. MGertrude’s belief is produced by the method,

but Gertrude’s is not. As I noted in the discussion on the Generality Problem, the process

or method that is responsible for an agent’s belief will not be determined by a particular

instance of belief formation. When we observe a particular instance, we simply observe a

token belief forming process. But as we noted earlier, a token belief forming process is an

instance of an indefinite number of belief forming types. What an agent would do in other

situations partially determines the relevant process (what I called the narrowest

psychologically realized process’ in chapter 4) that is responsible for producing a belief. If

the process that produces Gertrude's belief involves a disposition to rely on the method,

then her reliance on the method would have to be stable. Instances in which an agent relies

on a method, but in which there is no stable belief forming habit of relying on the method,

are instances of randomly relying on any method. The fact that Gertrude would have relied

on any method provides strong evidence that the process that is responsible for her belief is

not a process of relying on the method. Instead the process that is responsible for her belief

is one that involves randomly relying on any method on a desk. But such a process is

unreliable and would account for our intuition that her belief is unjustified. However, the

fact that MGertrude consistently relies on the algorithm, and would not rely on any other

algorithm provides strong evidence that the process responsible for her belief is a process

that involves a disposition to rely on the method. Because this process is reliable, we are

less inclined to say that her belief is unjustified.

I have provided one reason for why we should think that Gertrude’s belief is

unjustified; her belief is produced by a method that is unreliable. But as I noted earlier,

there is a second consideration that contributes to why her belief is unjustified. This second

consideration also explains why we hesitate in saying that MGertrude’s belief is justified.

196 For both Gertrude and MGertrude, there exists evidence available to them for thinking that the method is unreliable. In particular, the evidence that is available to both of them is that algorithms capable of producing reliable results about mathematics are not the kinds of things that agents often or normally rind. Something capable of producing reliable results about mathematics requires having special features. For example, they are methods that tend to be only produced by mathematicians. For matters that require expertise, the intuition is that only some, and certainly not random, methods are reliable in forming beliefs in the subject matter. If there is evidence available to them that only certain methods are reliable at producing reliable results about mathematics, then there is evidence available to them that relying on any random method will be unreliable.

We can imagine an analogous case involving testimony. Suppose that Martha has a clairvoyant ability that allows her to track the whereabouts of the President. .Analogous to

Gertrude selecting any method on the desk, suppose that Joe randomly selects Martha as a way of forming beliefs about the whereabouts of the President. He has no reasons for thinking that Martha has any special abilities in tracking the President. Would Joe's belief be justified? No, his beliefs are unjustified for reasons similar to the ones suggested above.

Reliably tracking the whereabouts of the President requires expertise, but Joe has no reason for believing that Martha possesses the requisite expertise, i.e., Joe thinks that Martha is simply an ordinary agent with no special abilities. So Joe has evidence available to him for believing that relying on Martha in forming beliefs about the President's whereabouts is an unreliable method.

If what I have suggested above is correct in that I have correctly identified why

Gertrude, MGertrude and Joe's beliefs are unjustified, then the account that I defended in the previous section can account for why Gertrude, MGertrude. and Joe's beliefs are

unjustified. Notice that condition (4) of my account, which states,

(4) there is no evidence that is available to S or that S possesses which would lead S to believe that p is false or that KR is unreliable.

197 is not satisfied in all three cases. In all three cases, there exists available evidence to them that the matter, for which they are forming beliefs about, requires expertise. Consequently, there exists available to them that relying on any random source is an unreliable way of forming beliefs.

The above cases are similar to how laypeople rely on experts, i.e., in both cases, there is a subject matter that requires expertise. However, there is an important contrast between the cases described above and cases in which agents typically rely on experts. The difference is that laypeople. but not Gertrude, do not rely on random kinds of testimonial sources. Laypeople typically use features usually indicate when someone is an expert.

Since the layperson's reliance on experts is not random, there is no evidence available to them for believing that their belief forming method is unreliable. In contrast, if an agent randomly relies on anyone or if the agent relies on certain kinds of testimonial sources in a non-random way. (i.e., those with feature G) for which there exists evidence available for believing that G testimonial sources are not reliable, then the agent’s belief would not be justified. In both of these cases, the agent's belief is unjustified because there exists available evidence for believing that the belief forming method is unreliable.

In summary, I have argued that we do not have to modify a general reliabilist account in order to explain why Gertrude's belief is unjustified. In particular, we do not have to include the additional requirement that a belief-forming method has to be acquired by a reliable meta-process, as Goldman suggests. As a result, we can have the requirement that agents have to be discriminative about testimonial resources without requiring that they become discriminative in a particular way as Weak Individualism would require.

5.4: Discrimination, Autonomy, and Individualism

In this section, I want to consider the consequences that my view has for the claim that relying on testimony involves surrendering part of our autonomy. I will begin by trying to identify why some have thought that we surrender part of our autonomy in relying on

198 testimony, and what it means to surrender part of our autonomy. I will then argue that the

motivation for why some have thought that we surrender part of our autonomy depends on assuming a false claim. Finally. I shall argue that our reliance on testimony is not a very distinctive way of acquiring justified beliefs. By requiring that agents be discriminative

about different kinds of testimonial reports, we can understand how testimonial belief-

formation is similar to other methods of belief formation that do not involve surrendering

our autonomy.

Why have some thought that we surrender part of our autonomy by relying on

testimony? Schmitt writes.

So far I have been talking about justification on nonHumean testimony as if we already have some idea of what it involves, but of course we do not. We know only that it involves a noninferential process taking a source's belief lor belief-forming process) as input and yielding the subject's belief as output. Such justification depends on many factors: the justificatory status of the source's belief ' "

since justification on nonHumean testimony evidently requires that the source's belief be Justified, and most justification is based on nonHumean testimony, the present view entails a regress of justification: the subject's justification traces to the source's, but the source's must trace to further sources

Although Hardwig does not directly address the issue of autonomy, he makes a similar

point.

The chain of appeals to authority must end somew here, and. if the whole chain of appeals IS to be epistemically sound, it must end with someone who possesses the necessary evidence, since truth claims cannot be established by an appeal to authority, nor by- investigating what other people believe about them?'''

Both Schmitt and Hardwig endorse the claim that an agent’s testimonial belief that p will be

justified only if the testifier’s belief that p is justified as well.

The intuitive motivation for accepting this claim involves drawing an analogy

between testimony and memory. Schmitt writes.

' Frederick Schmitt. "Justification. Sociality, and .Autonomy. " Svnthese 73 ( 1987): 60.

Ibid. 60.

John Hardwig. "Epistemic Dependence." The Journal of Philosophy 82 ( 1985): 337.

199 Other questions concern the character of the noninferential process involved in testimony. From the present vantage, the noninferential process appears to function as a carrier of, or surrogate for, the vast array of observations which fund an individual's justification on testimony and which cannot be present in the individual. In this respect it is like the process of memory, which, interpreted as taking old beliefs (or processes) into new beliefs, functions as a carrier of, or surrogate for, justification which may well be no longer present in the individual.'*"^

In a similar vein, Coady writes.

Simplifying somewhat, we could say that memory as an information source makes past perceptions of the individual available in the present, testimony makes the past and relatively present perceptions or others available to those who did not perceive tor themselves

In regard to memory, the salient point is that one can form a justified belief that p on the basis of memory only if the original belief that p is justified. If my perceptual belief that

Sondra is standing in the oval is unjustified, I cannot thereby form a justified belief on the basis of remembering such an occurrence. The suggestion here is that testimony is similar to memory. In order for an agent's testimonial belief that p to be justified, it must be the case that the testifier is justified in believing p. While memory transfers justification across time, testimony transfers justification across individuals.

If Schmitt and Hardwig are correct in claiming that the justification of a testimonial belief depends on the justificatory status of the testifier's belief, how does this entail surrendering our autonomy'? What is involved in thinking of ourselves as autonomous agents is that whether we can acquire knowledge or justified belief's will depend on what we do as individual agents. If an agent does their epistemic best in seeking truth, then the agent will form justified beliefs. If however the justification of a testimonial tielief requires that the testifier's belief be justified, this picture is threatened. The justification of an agent's testimonial bielief will depend not only on what the agent does, but on what the testifier does as well.

180 Frederick Schmitt, “Justification, Sociality, and .\utonomy," Svnthese 73 (1987): 60-61.

•*' C..A.J. Coady, Testimony: .A Philosophical Studv I Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) 146.

200 Does it matter that we surrender part of our autonomy in relying on testimony? Is it important whether Schmitt and Hardwig are right in claiming that the justification of a testimonial belief requires that the testifier’s belief be Justified? What is unpalatable about

Schmitt’s claim that we surrender our autonomy in relying on testimony is the fact that we normally think of attributions of justification as involving attributions of epistemic blame and praise. One way in which we think about the concept of justification is that it involves forming a belief in a responsible way. If however Schmitt and Hardwig are right in claiming that the justification of a testimonial belief depends on the justificatory status of the testifier’s belief, then it is difficult to see how this way of thinking about justification can be maintained. We can be blamed for doing things that we did not do. For example, suppose that two agents are capable of discriminating experts on a given matter in the same way. But suppose that one agent forms a belief on the basis of an expert who happens to have an unjustified belief. If Schmitt and Hardwig are right, only one of the agent’s beliefs would be justified. Consequently, only one of the agents should be epistemically blamed or praised even though the psychological processes that are responsible for their beliefs are the same. This is counter-intuitive.

Because Schmitt believes the justification of a testimonial belief depends on the justificatory status of the testifier’s belief. Schmitt offers a very different picture about how we should think about the nature of justification.

While an individual's justification regresses, individuals each contribute some observations to the Justification. No individual's observations are enough for justification, but the right combination of observations and configuration of processes connecting these observations suffices for justification. Justification is in this sense collective.

These conclusions and the claim that we surrender part of our autonomy by relying on testimony can be avoided if we reject the claim that the justification of a testimonial belief requires that the testifier’s belief be justified.

Frederick Schmitt. "Justification. Sociality, and .Autonomy. " Svnthese 73 ( 1987): 60.

201 It seems perfectly possible for an agent to form a justified testimonial belief on the basis of a testifier's testimony even though the testifier's belief is unjustified.

We would expect that justification on nonHumean testimony will allow instances in which the source's beliefs are unreliable or false (and even instances in which the subject is incorrect in thinking the source exists)

The following case illustrates how this can happen. Suppose that I am reliable about matters concerning golf equipment. Joe is sensitive to this fact, and as a result, he forms the belief that a particular Titleist golf club is worth buying on the basis of my testimony.

Intuitively. Joe's belief is justified, but it seems possible that my belief is unjustified: simply suppose that my belief that the club is worth buying is based on an emotional attachment rather than on any rational reasoning. Intuitively, Joe's belief is still justified because he is sensitive to the fact that 1 am the kind of person who is an e.xpert on such matters. On most occasions, had I testified that some golf equipment was worth buying. I would have been correct, and it would have been based on rational reasoning.

Oddly. Schmitt recognizes that there are such cases, but he claims that we still surrender part of our autonomy in relying on testimony for the following reason.

Such cases will be the exception rather than the rule: there would be no justification on nonHumean testimony if the system of testimony didn't serve epistemic goals most of the timeT^"*

Though I think that Schmitt is right, it is important to see what underlies the truth of the claim and why it does not entail surrendering our autonomy.

From a reliabilist perspective, it is easy to understand why there cannot be a predominance of cases in which agents form justified testimonial beliefs on the basis of another agent's unjustified belief. On a reliabilist account, if a belief is justified, the process that produces the belief must be reliable. Thus, if a person were to form a belief that p on the basis of the fact that a certain kind of testifier. K. has said so. what is needed for such a

Ibid. 61.

Ibid. 61.

202 process to be reliable is that the testifier be reliable in testifying about matters concerning p.

But in order for testifiers of kind K to be reliable in testifying about matters concerning p.

testifiers of kind K must be reliable at acquiring beliefs about matters concerning p. One cannot testify reliably about matters for which one is not knowledgeable. Finally, if

testifiers reliably acquire beliefs about p. they will likely possess justified beliefs about such

matters.

If I have correctly identified why there cannot be a predominance of cases in which

agents acquire Justified beliefs from testifiers who unjustifiably form beliefs about the

things that are testified to. testimonial belief formation turns out to be no less unusual than

complex cases of perceptual belief formation. Consider, for instance, cases in which we rely

on a thermometer in order to acquire beliefs about the temperature. Relying on a

thermometer in some sense involves adopting a belief-forming method. Like a heuristic or

an algorithm, it is a way of believing that goes beyond our innate cognitive capacities. But

more importantly, in order for an agent to acquire justified beliefs on the basis of a reading

of a thermometer, one must be sensitive to the fact that thermometers, and not other kinds of

objects, are reliable at measuring the temperature.

In complex cases of perceptual belief formation such as this one. the rationale for

why there cannot be a predominance of cases in which agents form justified testimonial

beliefs from testifiers who are unjustified in their beliefs applies here as well. If we think of

thermometers as cognitive agents that form perceptual beliefs about the temperature, then to

say that their beliefs are unjustified is simply to say that their beliefs are formed in an

unreliable way. But this then would explain why agents cannot form justified beliefs on the

basis of thermometer readings. Such a process is unreliable.

Flicker recognizes this way of understanding our reliance on testimony, but she

contends that testimonial belief formation is different in an important way from these

complex cases of perceptual belief formation.

203 Is knowledge through testimony a distinctive category of knowledge at all? First note that we may define as our epistemic category, and topic of investigation; coming to know that something is so, through knowing that a certain speaker has asserted it to be so Testimony, defined as just suggested, does indeed constitute a distinctive kind of epistemic link. There is a distinctive type of connection, characteristic of testimony, between a state o f affairs, and a hearer's coming to believe in its obtaining. This connection runs through another person , a speaker -her own original acquisition of the same belief, her other mental states, her subsequent linguistic act, which transmits that belief to the hearer

Though Flicker's definition of knowledge through testimony rightly excludes reliance on thermometers as a kind of knowledge through testimony, it is not clear why there is an epistemic difference between these different ways of acquiring knowledge, .Admittedly, in the case of testimony, the information comes from a person as Pricker indicates. But from an epistemic standpoint, this does not really complicate matters beyond the fact that the intentions of the testifier might affect the reliability of the testimonial belief forming process.

To emphasize, we should understand testimonial belief formation in the same way as other complex forms of perceptual belief formation. On such a picture, what is to be evaluated is the reliability of the process that the agent uses in forming beliefs. Though the reliability of a testimonial belief formation might depend on the reliability of the cognitive processes that other agents use, this does not provide any reason for thinking that an account of testimony will be distinctive.

In conclusion, I have tried to show that a plausible account of the justification of testimonial beliefs requires that agents be discriminative about different kinds of testimonial reports. In so doing, I have tried to suggest, both in this chapter and throughout this dissertation, that the most plausible approach in accounting for the justification of testimonial beliefs is a reliabilist one, I hope to have provided what I take to be a plausible account of the justification of testimonial beliefs, and how it is to be understood within a general reliabilist framework.

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