Abstract
The New Evil Demon Problem (NEDP) is often seen as a serious objection to externalist theories of justification. In fact, some internalists think it is a decisive counterexample to externalism. Recently, Moon (Episteme 9:345–360, 2012) has argued that internalists face their own New Evil Demon Problem. According to Moon, it is possible for a demon to remove one’s unaccessed mental states while leaving the justificatory status of her accessed mental states unaffected. Since this is contrary to the claims of many forms of internalism, Moon maintains that his New Evil Demon Problem for Internalism shows that internalists face a problem that is just as troubling as the original NEDP. I argue that moderate internalists have nothing to fear from Moon’s demon.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Of course, this is not just a problem for reliabilism. Other externalist theories face their own versions of the NEDP.
Moon simply refers to this problem for internalism as the “new evil demon problem (NEDP)”. I have modified the abbreviation to NEDP-I because it is not clear that the problem for internalism is the same as the original NEDP.
Since Goldman coined the term “strong internalism,” which Moon uses, and Moon claims that his description of strong internalism is equivalent to Goldman’s, I use Goldman’s description.
Moon argues that the NEDP-I for internalism is a problem for both moderate internalism and historical internalism. However, since I am only concerned with defending moderate internalism, I will not discuss Moon’s arguments against historical internalism.
Moon does not provide names for his cases, but in order to make things clearer, I have given them names.
Moon offers two additional examples, one in which the subject is the reader and the other in which the subject is Neo from the Matrix movies. I will not discuss either of these examples because they are exactly like AUGUSTINE in all relevant respects.
For example, Moser (1989), p. 17 claims that a belief “is a dispositional state of a person that is related to a propositional object” (emphasis in original). See also, Marcus’ (1990) and Schwitzgebel’s (2002) dispositionalist accounts of the nature of belief and, plausibly, the representationalist accounts of Fodor (1975) and Dretske (1988).
See Fodor (1987) for the first sort of view of concepts, Peacocke (1992) for the second, and Dummett (1993) for the third. One might worry because it seems that grasping a Fregean sense is something that is occurrent and so not a dispositional state. While it is true that grasping can be occurrent, it is important to keep in mind that grasping is simply the way that S accesses concepts that she possesses on this sort of view of concepts. So, when S grasps the concept TREE, she is accessing a concept that she possesses. Possessing a concept on this view involves having various dispositional states. See Peacocke (1992) for further elaboration.
Even if one is unconvinced that AUGUSTINE is metaphysically impossible, the considerations below that show that Moon’s Local NEDP-I is not a threat to moderate internalism apply equally to his Global NEDP-I.
I use ‘evidence’ here as simply a placeholder for propositional justification. So, if one does not think that evidence is what provides propositional justification, she may simply insert whatever it is that provides propositional justification in place of evidence.
There are hybrid views as well such as Korcz’s (2000) causal-doxastic theory. I do not discuss such hybrid views here because they require that one satisfy either causal requirements or doxastic requirements, and I will argue that Melissa’s belief satisfies neither.
This result is also yielded by dispositional accounts of the basing relation such as Evans (2013).
Of course, Moon could add to the case that Melissa does have this higher-order belief. However, doing so would not cause a problem for the moderate internalist who accepts a doxastic view of the basing relation. Such a moderate internalist could then happily accept the claim that Melissa’s belief is justified because such a claim would not be a problem for her theory.
This result is not simply a feature of internalist theories of justification. Many externalist theories will also entail that Melissa’s belief is unjustified during the time that the demon is sustaining it. After all, it is implausible that the demon’s removing Melissa’s mental states and directly sustaining her belief that that’s a beautiful sunset is a reliable belief-forming process or a properly functioning cognitive faculty or an instance of a belief that exemplifies intellectual virtue!
The point here is that it could be that Melissa believes the right thing for the wrong reasons. Melissa could have justification for believing that that’s a beautiful sunset and, so, should not withhold belief. However, her belief that that’s a beautiful sunset is not well-founded because it is not held on the basis of her propositional justification; rather, it is held because of the actions of the demon.
Recall from above that Moon also targets historical internalism with his NEDP-I.
References
Audi, R. (1983). The causal structure of indirect justification. Journal of Philosophy, 80, 398–415.
Bergmann, M. (2006). Justification without awareness. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cohen, S. (1984). Justification and truth. Philosophical Studies, 46, 279–295.
Comesaña, J. (2002). The diagonal and the demon. Philosophical Studies, 110, 249–266.
Dretske, F. (1988). Explaining behavior. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Dummett, M. (1993). Seas of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Evans, I. (2013). The problem of the basing relation. Synthese, 190, 2943–2957.
Feldman, R., & Conee, E. (1985). Evidentialism. Philosophical Studies, 45, 15–34.
Fodor, J. (1975). The language of thought. New York: Cromwell.
Fodor, J. (1987). Psychosemantics: the problem of meaning in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Goldman, A. (1988). Strong and weak justification. Philosophical Perspectives, 2, 51–69.
Goldman, A. (1999). Internalism exposed. Journal of Philosophy, 96, 271–293.
Korcz, K. (2000). The causal-doxastic theory of the basing relation. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 30, 525–550.
Kvanvig, J. (2003). Justification and proper basing. In E. Olsson (Ed.), The epistemology of Keith Lehrer (pp. 43–62). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Lehrer, K. (1971). How reasons give us knowledge, or the case of the gypsy lawyer. Journal of Philosophy, 68, 311–313.
Lehrer, K., & Cohen, S. (1983). Justification, truth and coherence. Synthese, 55, 191–207.
Lyons, J. (2013). Should reliabilists be worried about demon worlds? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 86, 1–40.
Marcus, R. (1990). Some revisionary proposals about belief and believing. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 50, 132–153.
McCain, K. (2012). The interventionist account of causation and the basing relation. Philosophical Studies, 159, 357–382.
Moon, A. (2012). Three forms of internalism and the new evil demon problem. Episteme, 9, 345–360.
Moser, P. (1989). Knowledge and evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Peacocke, C. (1992). A study of concepts. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Schwitzgebel, E. (2002). A phenomenal, dispositional account of belief. Noûs, 36, 249–275.
Wedgewood, R. (2001). Internalism explained. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 65, 349–369.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to John G. Bennett, Matt Frise, Jon Matheson, Andrew Moon, Ted Poston, and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and discussion of earlier drafts.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
McCain, K. A New Evil Demon? No Problem for Moderate Internalists. Acta Anal 30, 97–105 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-014-0224-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-014-0224-x