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Virtue, Evidence, and Epistemic Justification University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2016 Virtue, Evidence, and Epistemic Justification Alexander Steven Hallam University of Tennessee, Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Epistemology Commons Recommended Citation Hallam, Alexander Steven, "Virtue, Evidence, and Epistemic Justification. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2016. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/3921 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Alexander Steven Hallam entitled "Virtue, Evidence, and Epistemic Justification." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Philosophy. Eldon Coffman, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Markus Kohl, Adam Cureton, Stephen Blackwell Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Virtue, Evidence, and Epistemic Justification A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Alexander Steven Hallam August 2016 To My Loved Ones and To anyone who seeks answers to difficult but important questions. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First I would like to thank my dissertation committee members, E.J. Coffman, Adam Cureton, Markus Kohl, and Stephen Blackwell. Their time and service is immensely appreciated. Special thanks go to E.J. Coffman, my director and committee chair, for providing thoughtful, challenging, and substantive feedback throughout the dissertation process. His expertise, advice, and guidance were invaluable in shaping my dissertation. Secondly, I would like to thank my loved ones (they know who they are). Without their love, encouragement, and support, I never would have completed this dissertation. iii ABSTRACT Evidence is a central concept in epistemology and more narrowly, theories of epistemic justification. Evidence is commonly thought to be what justifies our beliefs. On this view, a belief is justified for a person if that belief fits that person’s total body of evidence. But it is also commonly thought that evidence isn’t the only thing that justifies a belief. Some epistemologists even think that evidence isn’t what justifies a belief at all. Virtue epistemologists give epistemic or intellectual virtues an important and fundamental role in theories of epistemic justification. On such views, for a belief to be epistemically justified, the belief must be formed responsibly or formed as the result of a reliable belief-forming process, faculty, or agent. Thus, virtuous character, agency, and inquiry are thought to be central to epistemic justification. The pressing issue to be explored in this dissertation is whether theories of epistemic justification in which evidence is central are compatible with theories of epistemic justification in which virtue is central. The aim of this dissertation is to argue for a hybrid view of epistemic justification in which evidence and virtuous (reliable) inquiry both play a salient role in the epistemic justification of a belief. My hybrid or ‘two-component’ view of epistemic justification holds that a belief is justified along two dimensions: the fittingness-dimension and the reliability-dimension. More precisely, a subject’s belief p is categorically justified (justified ‘period’ or ‘full stop’) when it fits the subject’s total body of evidence E (the fittingness-dimension), but that in addition, the reliability of one’s evidence-gathering methods (virtuous inquiry) can also play a salient role in increasing the degree to which p is justified (other things being equal) (the reliability- dimension). Furthermore, I will argue that being justified along the fittingness-dimension is all that is necessary for a belief to be justified full-stop (this also allows for the strength of one’s iv evidence to partly—sometimes wholly—determine the degree to which a belief is justified). Being justified along the reliability-dimension can only increase the degree to which the belief is justified. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: Introduction…………………………………………………………………...1 I. Preliminaries………….…………………………………………………………………1 II. Statement of the Problem...…………………………………………………………....4 III. Goal and Structure of this Dissertation………………………………….…………..13 CHAPTER TWO: Intellectual Virtues, Virtuous Inquiry, and Epistemic Justification...............19 I. Preliminaries – Moral vs. Intellectual Virtues………………………………………...21 II. Virtue Responsibilism vs. Virtue Reliabilism………………………………………..22 II.1. Virtue Responsibilism…………………………….………………………..23 II.2. Virtue Reliabilism…………………………….……………………………30 III. Virtuous Inquiry as a Reliable Belief-Forming Process………………………...…..44 III.1. Virtuous Inquiry and the Problem of Strange and Fleeting Processes…....48 III.2. Virtuous Inquiry and Greco’s ‘Stability’ Requirement…….……...……...52 III.3. Virtuous Inquiry and Cognitive Integration……………………………….57 IV. Vicious Inquiry……………………………………………………………………...59 V. Virtuous Inquiry as a Reliable Evidence-Gathering Method……..………………….61 VI. Conclusion…...……...……………………………………………………...…….....61 CHAPTER THREE: Epistemic Rationality……………………………………………………..63 I. Epistemic Rationality and Instrumental Rationality.......................................................67 I.1. Thomas Kelly’s Argument………………………………………………….69 I.2. Adam Leite’s Reply to Kelly………………………………………………..72 I.3. Kelly’s Reply to Leite……………………………………………………….75 I.4. Instrumental Rationality vs. Methodological Epistemic Rationality………..77 vi I.5. Two Components to Epistemic Rationality?..................................................78 II. Synchronic vs. Diachronic Accounts of Epistemic Justification…………………….83 II.1. Trent Dougherty’s Defense of Feldman—Reducing Responsibility………84 II.2. Responses to Dougherty—Recovering Responsibility?...............................90 II.3. Doxastic Justification vs. Personal Justification…………………………...93 II.4. Against Evidentialism: Keith DeRose and ‘Epistemic Ought’………...…107 III. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………116 CHAPTER FOUR: Explanationist Evidentialism......................................................................118 I. Evidential Fit………………………………………………...………………………122 II. Juan Comesana and ‘Evidentialist Reliabilism’…………………………………….128 II.1. Against Evidentialism…...…………………………………...…...………128 II.2. Reliabilism ………………………………………………...……………..131 II.3. ‘Fit’ ……...……………………………………………………………..…133 II.4. Proto-Evidentialist Reliabilism ……..……………………………………134 II.5. Evidentialist Reliabilism …………………………………………………135 II.6 Objection to Evidentialist Reliabilism…………………………………….137 III. Externalist Evidentialsim…………………………………………………………..140 IV. Explanationist Accounts…………………………………………………………...142 IV.1. Kevin McCain’s Account of Evidential Fit……………………………...144 IV.2. McCain’s Account of the Basing Relation………………………………154 IV.3. Objection to EX-WF……………………………………………………..164 V. Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………169 CHAPTER FIVE: Towards a Two-Component Theory of Epistemic Justification.…………...171 vii I. Evidence of Flawed Evidence Gathering (EFEG) as an ‘Undercutting Defeater’…..172 I.1. ‘Higher-Order’ Evidence and Defeaters…………………………………...174 I.2. Michael Bergmann—‘Defeaters and Higher-Level Requirements’……….177 I.3. ‘Defeat’ In Explanatory Terms…………………………………………….180 I.4. The New Evil Demon Problem……………………………………...…….184 II. The Fittingness-Dimension….……………………………………………………...188 III. The Reliability Dimension.…………………………….…………………………..191 III.1. Support Facts and J-Factors…………………………………………...…192 IV. A Two-Component View of Epistemic Justification ……………………………...203 IV.1. Truth-Conduciveness and Justification…………………………………..205 IV.2 Virtuous Inquiry as a J-Factor...…………………………………………206 IV.3. An ‘Awareness’ Requirement for Justification?..……………………….208 IV.4. Applications……………….……………………………………………..218 V. Conclusion..………………………………………………………………………...231 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………236 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………………243 viii CHAPTER ONE Introduction “A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.” -David Hume – An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Evidence is a central concept in epistemology and more narrowly, theories of epistemic justification. Evidence is commonly thought to be what justifies our beliefs. On this view, a belief is justified for a person if that belief is supported by that person’s total body of evidence. But it is also commonly thought that evidence isn’t the only thing that justifies a belief. Some epistemologists even think that evidence isn’t what justifies a belief at all. Virtue epistemologists give epistemic or intellectual virtues an important and fundamental role in theories of epistemic justification. On such views, for a belief to be epistemically justified, the belief must be formed responsibly or formed as the result of a reliable belief-forming process, faculty, or agent. Thus, virtuous character, agency, and
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