Abstract
In this paper, we claim that, if you justifiably believe that you ought to perform some act, it follows that you ought to perform that act. In the first half, we argue for this claim by reflection on what makes for correct reasoning from beliefs about what you ought to do. In the second half, we consider a number of objections to this argument and its conclusion. In doing so, we arrive at another argument for the view that justified beliefs about what you ought to do must be true, based in part on the idea that the epistemic and practical domains are uniform, in a sense we spell out. We conclude by sketching possible implications of our discussion for the debates over what is wrong with akrasia and pragmatic encroachment on justified belief and knowledge.
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Notes
‘Ought’ is also to be understood as having ‘narrow-scope’. In the natural symbolism:
$${\qquad} ({\text{JBO}}{\upvarphi }) \to ({\text{O}}{\upvarphi })$$not:
$${\qquad}{\text{O}}({\text{JBO}}{\upvarphi } \to {\upvarphi }).$$Some deny that the dispute between objectivists and perspectivists is a substantive one [for discussion, see Sepielli (Forthcoming)]. They suggest that there are just different senses of ‘ought’ and so there is no argument to be had over whether objectivism or perspectivism captures the sense of ‘ought’. However, the point of appealing to the ‘deliberative ought’ is precisely to isolate a notion over which a dispute can be had.
The view that justification is a deontic notion is widespread in epistemology (cf. Cohen 1984; Conee and Feldman 2004; Fantl and McGrath 2009: 89ff; Steup 1988). The view that it is specifically a permissive notion is almost as widespread (cf. Goldman 1986; Littlejohn 2012: 46–47; Nelson 2010; Whiting 2013). Alston (1993) doubts that justification is a deontic notion but suggests that, if it is, it is a permissive notion. For reasons not to share Alston’s doubts, see Chuard and Southwood (2009), McHugh (2012).
For objectivism about justification, see, e.g. Littlejohn (2012). One might think that on such a view Ought Infallibilism is trivial, since objectivism implies that justification is in general factive. However, that is not the case, as we explain below.
Although he formulates it differently on different occasions, Littlejohn (2009, 2011, 2014) advances a principle akin to Almost Infallibilism. One of the points he offers in its support is that it would be ‘odd’ if you could not be justified in acting on (reasoning from) a justified belief that you should φ by (to) φing. This suggestion is similar to the line of thought we develop here, although Littlejohn does not spell out or defend the idea as we do. Moreover, Littlejohn does not consider moving from (what we call) Almost Infallibilism to Ought Infallibilism.
This assumes that the considerations which bear on intentions and the like are the same as those which bear on belief. We defend this assumption in Sect. 5.
For defence of a similar claim, see Pink (1996).
Some think that if you are justified in φing, you ought to φ. This assumption would allow us to move straight from (5) to Ought Infallibilism. But we do not rely on this controversial assumption here. For an argument for Ought Infallibilism from this assumption together with the claim that that you ought (if you believe that you ought to φ, to φ), see Gibbons (2013): ch.7. For arguments against this claim see Kolodny (2005). For doubts about the ‘deontic detachment’ inference which Gibbons relies on, see Broome (2013): 120.
One might think that this discussion ignores the difference between outweighing and disabling defeaters (see Dancy 2004; Horty 2012; Pollock 1986; Raz 1990). Disablers, one might suggest, can prevent it being the case that you ought to φ without being able to make it the case that you ought not to φ. However, this is a mistake. Disablers can make it the case that you ought not to φ, if there are other considerations speaking against φing. Suppose, to adapt the above example, that unbeknownst to you the cinema will not show the film if you turn up. Since there is no point in going to the cinema, you ought to watch TV. So, you ought not go the cinema (contrary to your justified belief).
We understand ‘deciding not to φ’ in a broad sense. In this sense, a decision to do something incompatible with φing counts as a decision not to φ.
It might be replied that, even if you justifiably believe that you ought to φ, you might nonetheless be justified in not making a decision now on the grounds that one can be made later. But (10) does not assume that the time at which the decision must be made is the time at which you are justified in deciding (only) to φ. If we were to add temporal indices to (10), we would reformulate it as follows:
-
(10*)
If there is justification at t1 for you to decide to (φ at t2) and no justification at t1 for deciding not to (φ at t2), you ought at t1 to decide, by t2, to (φ by t2).
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(10*)
In one sense, to have a reason to φ is just for there to be a reason for you to φ. In another sense, to have a reason to φ is to be in a position to φ for that reason, which, one might think, requires standing in a certain epistemic relation to it. For present purposes, we remain neutral on how talk of having is to be understood, since to take a stand on this issue is to take a stand on the debate between objectivists and perspectivists which we discuss below.
For discussions of objectivism and perspectivism (although not always in these terms), see Broome (2013), Feldman (1988b), Gibbons (2010, 2013), Graham (2010), Jackson (1991), Kiesewetter (2011, 2013), Littlejohn (2009, 2011, 2012), Lord (2015), Mason (2013), Ross (2012), Smith (2011), Smith (2006), Thomson (2008), Zimmerman (2014).
Others who reject the hybrid view include Gibbons (2010), Littlejohn (2012), and Lord (2015). Littlejohn (2009, 2011, 2012: §6.4.2) also suggests that the hybrid view rules out a principle akin to Almost Infallibilism. He provides direct arguments against the hybrid view, while our approach is to undercut the motivation for it. Moreover, as we go on to note, Almost Infallibilism does not follow straightforwardly from the rejection of the hybrid view.
This principle is not as popular in ethics as it once was. For a defence of it, see Dahl (1967).
One might try to motivate the hybrid view by appeal to the aims of action and belief—action aims only at the good, whereas belief aims at the truth. As Littlejohn (2012: 209) shows, this does not support the hybrid view.
This is close to Kiesewetter’s claim (2013: §7.8) that if one has sufficient evidence that one ought to φ, and one can φ, then one has decisive reason to φ.
Titelbaum (2015: 265) makes a similar point.
One might think that similar problems arise if there are further motivational or conative constraints on what you ought to do. To keep things manageable, we focus here on OIC, though what we say might carry over to other constraints.
Just as an objectivist might claim that the consequentialist is rational but not justified in believing consequentialism, so she might claim that the consequentialist is rational but not justified in acting in accordance with that belief.
It is important here to keep in mind that objectivism is not merely the view that there is a fact-relative sense of ‘ought’. The perspectivist can accept this. By the same token, perspectivism is not merely the view that there is a perspective-relative sense of ‘ought’. The objectivist can accept this. Objectivism and perspectivism are substantive (and incompatible) views about what determines what you ought in a certain sense to do, namely, the deliberative sense.
Greco (2014) defends the view that justified beliefs about what you ought to believe are always true. He does so by appeal to a broadly expressivist view of normative judgements. Such a view plays no part in this paper.
For defence of the claim that, if rationality permits you to believe that rationality requires you to φ, then rationality requires you to φ, see Titelbaum (2015). Titelbaum also argues that his thesis generalizes to beliefs about what rationality requires of others, or at other times.
Alternatively, one might suggest that Ought Infallibilism explains why a wide-scope requirement against akrasia holds. See Way (Forthcoming) for related discussion.
Adapting DeRose’s well-known examples (1992).
More carefully, the assumption is that you know a proposition only if you are justified in the deliberative sense in believing it. This seems plausible—if you ask yourself when deliberating whether you are justified in believing a proposition, and the answer to that question is ‘no’, you are surely not in a position to know that proposition.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Alex Gregory, Benjamin Kiesewetter, Clayton Littlejohn, Errol Lord, Conor McHugh, Kurt Sylvan, Alex Worsnip, and an anonymous referee for this journal for valuable feedback on earlier versions of this material and helpful discussions of the issues it concerns. Thanks also to audiences at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, the University of Southampton, and the 2014 Cracow Workshop in Analytical Philosophy, especially to Amy Floweree and Krzysztof Posłajko, our commentators in, respectively, Southampton and Cracow. Finally, thanks to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding in support of this research (AH/K008188/1).
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Way, J., Whiting, D. If you justifiably believe that you ought to Φ, you ought to Φ. Philos Stud 173, 1873–1895 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0582-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0582-2