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Cartesian Skepticism As Moral Dilemma University of Kentucky UKnowledge University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2011 CARTESIAN SKEPTICISM AS MORAL DILEMMA Jennifer Woodward University of Kentucky, [email protected] Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Woodward, Jennifer, "CARTESIAN SKEPTICISM AS MORAL DILEMMA" (2011). University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations. 809. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_diss/809 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Jennifer Woodward The Graduate School University of Kentucky 2011 i CARTESIAN SKEPTICISM AS MORAL DILEMMA ________________________________ ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION ___________________________ A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky By Jennifer Woodward Lexington, Kentucky Director: Dr. Brandon Look, Professor of Philosophy Lexington, Kentucky 2011 Copyright © Jennifer Woodward 2011 ii ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION CARTESIAN SKEPTICISM AS MORAL DILEMMA I argue that despite the fact that there can be no strong refutation of skepticism it remains that ignoring skeptical hypotheses and relying on one’s sensory experience are both sound epistemic practices. This argument comes in the form of arguing that we are justified in ignoring skeptical hypotheses on the grounds that (1) they are merely logically possible, and (2) the merely logically possible is rarely relevant in the context of everyday life. I suggest that (2) is true on the grounds that the context of everyday life is one in which our epistemic pursuit of truth is mixed with other pragmatic goals. The result of this mix is that the pursuit of truth can conflict with our goal of avoiding error in such a way that we must choose to prioritize one goal over the other. The above choice implies that skepticism comes at an epistemic cost not acknowledge in the contemporary literature on external world skepticism. This epistemic cost of skepticism means that the relative risk of error involved in relying on sensory experience is not as epistemically problematic as has often been assumed. These considerations allow an anti-skeptical position in which relying on sensory experience is prima-facie justified despite the possibility of being a brain in a vat. In this paper I explore what such a position might look like and what the implications of such a view might be for relevant alternatives positions, the closure debate, and the concept of differing epistemic perspectives in contemporary epistemology. KEYWORDS: Cartesian Skepticism, External World Skepticism, Relevant Alternatives and Skepticism, Epistemology and Skepticism, Skepticism iii CARTESIAN SKEPTICISM AS MORAL DILEMMA By Jennifer Woodward Dr. Brandon Look Dissertation Director Dr. Arnold Farr Director of Graduate Studies Monday May 2, 2011 Date iv RULES FOR THE USE OF DISSERTATIONS Unpublished dissertations submitted for the Doctor's degree and deposited in the University of Kentucky Library are as a rule open for inspection, but are to be used only with due regard to the rights of the authors. Bibliographical references may be noted, but quotations or summaries of parts may be published only with the permission of the author, and with the usual scholarly acknowledgments. Extensive copying or publication of the dissertation in whole or in part also requires the consent of the Dean of the Graduate School of the University of Kentucky. A library that borrows this dissertation for use by its patrons is expected to secure the signature of each user. Name Date v DISSERTATION Jennifer Woodward The Graduate School University of Kentucky 2011 vi CARTESIAN SKEPTICISM AS MORAL DILEMMA DISSERTATION A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky By Jennifer Woodward Lexington, Kentucky Director: Dr. Brandon Look, Professor of Philosophy Lexington, Kentucky 2011 Copyright © Jennifer Woodward 2011 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...iii Chapter One: Introduction………………………………………………………………...1 1.1: Introduction to External World Skepticism………………………………….1 1.2: The importance of knowledge and responding to the skeptic………………..9 1.3: Skepticism as a distinctly epistemic issue………………………………….20 1.4: Another look at the skeptic’s argument………….………………………….27 1.5: Outline of remaining chapters………………………………………………29 Chapter Two: Skepticism and Epistemic Perspectives…………………………………..36 2.1: Laurence Bonjour and Epistemic Perspectives……………………………...36 2.2 Epistemic Perspectives and Skepticism………………………………...……43 2.3: Nagel’s View From Nowhere……………………………………………….48 2.4: Audi and the Structure of Justification………………………………………52 2.5: Duncan Pritchard’s Epistemic Luck……………………………………..….55 2.6: Summary……………………………………………………………………60 2.7: Strategy for Handling the Skeptic…………………………………………..62 Chapter Three: Belief Formation in the Context of Everyday Life…………………..73 Chapter 3.1: Introduction……………………………………………………….73 3.2: Are there Relevant Disanalogies between Scenario A and Scenario S?.......82 3.2.1: “Skeptical Alternatives are irrelevant because …life”….……….86 3.2.2: Assumptions of reliability are epistemically justified……………95 3.2.3: Agents are not blameworthy for relying on sensory experience...103 3.3: Other Relevant Alternatives Views………………………………………..104 3.4: “Assumptions of Reliability… are Truth-Conducive”…………………….105 3.3: Conclusion…………………………………………………………………110 viii Chapter Four: Justifying Knowledge Ascriptions in Everyday Life…………..…….…116 4.1: Characterizing the Problem………………………………………..………116 4.2: Henderson and Horgan’s Pascalian Wager………..……………………...131 4.2.2: Grounding Assumptions of Reliability as Rational…………...…138 4.3: The Pyrrhonian Objection…………..…………………………………..….145 4.4: A Thought Experiment: The SK principle versus the AR principle…….....152 4.5: Conclusion………………………………………………………..………..156 Chapter Five: Skepticism and Shifting Epistemic Perspectives……….……………….161 Chapter 5.1: Introduction……………………………………………………….161 5.2: The Bigger Picture: How might a Theory of Knowledge Look?.................162 5.3: Relevant Alternatives Conditions and “Ruling Out”………………………173 5.4: Lewis’s Rule of Actuality and BIV’s……….…………………………..…178 5.5: Epistemic Perspectives and Closure……………………………………….181 5.6: Other instances of mistakes in shifting perspectives………………………187 5.7: Conclusion…………………………………………………………………193 Chapter Six: Remaining Questions and Concluding Remarks………...……………….196 Chapter 6.1: Summary………………………………………………………….196 6.2: Skepticism in a Philosophical Context…………………………………….199 6.3: Moore and Skepticism…………………………………………………….202 6.4: Sensory Experience, Knowledge, and Luck……….………………………205 6.5: Contextualism, Relevant Alternatives, and the Rule of Exclusion…...……206 6.6: Other Solutions to Skepticism…………..…………………………………210 6.7: Concluding Remarks………………………………………………………212 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………....219 Vita……………………………………………………………………..........................222 ix Cartesian Skepticism as Moral Dilemma “Introduction” 1.1: Introduction to external world skepticism: Generally, external world skeptics believe that we do not possess knowledge of the contingent aspects of the world around us. Traditionally, such skepticism involves denying that sensory experience can ground knowledge. However, it is possible on this particular kind of skepticism to allow knowledge of the external world via means other than sensory experience. It might be possible, for example, to grant a priori knowledge of necessary truths via reason, and such a belief might constitute a kind of external world knowledge. If we look to the particulars of the argument that Descartes gave in Meditation I, concern about his external world beliefs stemmed from concerns about the reliability of the source of those beliefs; specifically, sensory experience. Descartes did not question the notion of external world knowledge in principle. Instead, he found that beliefs grounded in sensory experience fell short of counting as knowledge because the method by which the beliefs were formed admitted of too much doubt to yield knowledge. Descartes notes early in his Meditations that: All that I have, up to this moment, accepted as possessed of the highest truth and certainty, I received either from or through the senses. I observed, however, that these sometimes misled us; and it is the part of prudence not to place absolute confidence in that by which we have even 1 once been deceived. 1 See Descartes, Meditations, pg. 47. 1 In this moment Descartes set out that skeptical worry that has come to be known in the contemporary literature as Cartesian skepticism. While Descartes’ skepticism is often thought of as grounded in the existence of uneliminated skeptical hypotheses, we can see in this quote that the fundamental question for Descartes was how we can be justified in relying on a source that has been found, at times, to be unreliable. Of course, Descartes felt that he could not justify such reliance; that an even occasionally unreliable source cannot yield real knowledge. This worry is particularly salient if we have no way for determining
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