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Responsibilist Evidentialism

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Abstract

When is a person justified in believing a proposition? In this paper, I defend a view according to which a person is justified in believing a proposition just in case the person’s evidence sufficiently supports the proposition and the person responsibly acquired and sustained the evidence that supports the proposition. This view overcomes a deficiency in a prominent theory of epistemic justification. As championed by Earl Conee and Richard Feldman, Evidentialism is a theory subject to counterexamples at the hands of cases involving epistemic irresponsibility. I critically discuss such a case as put forward by Jason Baehr. After providing an argument that clarifies why the case is problematic for Evidentialism, I defend my argument from a response by Earl Conee. Then I develop a theory of epistemic justification capable of handling cases involving epistemic irresponsibility, and I defend this theory from evidentialist objections.

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Notes

  1. In this paper, I follow Earl Conee and Richard Feldman’s usage of “epistemic justification” as synonymous with “propositional justification.” Such justification contrast with “doxastic justification,” or, in Conee and Feldman’s terminology, “well-foundedness.” Propositional justification involves having adequate grounds for a proposition in order to be justified in believing that proposition. One can have propositional justification for believing a proposition even if (i) one does not actually believe the proposition, or (ii) one does believe the proposition but not on the basis of the adequate grounds that one has for the proposition. This contrasts with doxastic justification, which requires: propositional justification, actually believing the proposition, and properly basing one’s belief on the adequate grounds that one has for the proposition. This paper is an attempt to add an objective requirement to propositional justification (i.e., whether or not one has in fact responsibly acquired and sustained one’s evidence relevant to the proposition). Whether an epistemic agent has the evidence he ought to have need not be represented mentally by the agent or be introspectively accessible to the agent upon reflection in order for it to impact propositional justification. Doxastic justification, which involves proper basing, may require reflective access to the fact that one has the right grounds for one’s belief. The basing relation is a vexed notion that will not be addressed in this paper. For a good tour through views on the basing relation see Evans (2013).

  2. This idea finds its contemporary provenance in Kornblith (1983), Greco (1990), Greco (2005), and Foley (2005).

  3. For a clear statement of this commitment see Conee and Feldman (2004: 89).

  4. Examples of such cases can be found in Kornblith (1983), Greco (2005), DeRose (2011), and Baehr (2011). Responses to such cases are found in Conee and Feldman (2004: 89–90, 186–189) and Feldman (2003: 47–48).

  5. Baehr (2011: 90).

  6. Conee and Feldman (2008: 87–88) think evidence is non-propositional. It ultimately consists in experiences. Against Conee and Feldman’s stance on evidence being non-propositional see Dougherty (2011). I have doubts that the constitution of evidence is non-propositional, but, for the purposes of this paper, I endorse my interlocutors’ conception of the nature of evidence as experiential.

  7. Answering this question establishes the “insufficiency objection” to Evidentialism, which shows that principle (E) is false—the left-hand side of the biconditional is false while the right-hand side of the biconditional is true.

  8. A defeater is something that can undermine or diminish the justification of a doxastic attitude toward a proposition in relation to a body of evidence. When a defeater is added to a body of evidence it can undermine or override such justification.

  9. Baehr (2011: 90).

  10. For a related argument against Evidentialism using epistemic ought claims see DeRose (2011).

  11. This commitment to the equivalence of epistemic rationality, reasonableness, and justification is reflected in the linguistic practices in the literature. For instance, Feldman (2006: 220) addresses the use of the term ‘reasonable’ with regard to the epistemology of disagreement and says, “I will sometimes substitute the words ‘rational’ or ‘justified’.” Conee and Feldman think reasonable beliefs are rational beliefs, epistemic obligations go with rational beliefs, and rational beliefs are justified beliefs. Stewart Cohen (1984: 283) exhibits a similar commitment when he says that, “‘reasonable’ and ‘rational’ are virtual synonyms for ‘justified’.”

  12. In his comments on an earlier version of this paper presented at the 2014 Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association (APA). Comments included with permission.

  13. For a similar response strategy to a case involving epistemic irresponsibility see Feldman (2003: 48).

  14. In this section, I provide a negative answer to this question by indicating which attitude is not actually rational for George to take toward p 1. This negative answer implies a positive answer to the question. Given that George is going to take an attitude toward p 1 at t 1, he ought not to (i.e., is obligated not to) believe that p 1 at t 1. Believing p 1 is rationally impermissible; yet, either disbelieving p 1 (i.e., believing ¬p 1) or suspending judgment concerning p 1 (i.e., neither believing nor disbelieving p 1) is a rationally permissible attitude for George to take toward p 1. Responsibilist Evidentialism is not committed to saying that one of the attitudes is uniquely rationally permissible or that one attitude is more permissible than the other, though this is possibly the case. Instead it is plausible that George’s epistemic irresponsibility has eventuated an epistemic situation whereby no attitude is uniquely rational toward p 1, given George’s irresponsibly sustained body of evidence. Such situations are epistemically permissive, allowing for more than one attitude toward a proposition to be epistemically rational given one’s total evidence. This runs counter to the “uniqueness thesis,” which holds that, “Given one’s total evidence, there is a unique rational doxastic attitude that one can take to any proposition” (White 2005: 445). For arguments against the uniqueness thesis, and in support of permissiveness, see Brueckner and Bundy (2012) and Peels and Booth (2014). Is disbelieving p 1 or suspending judgment concerning p 1 a justified doxastic attitude for George? According to Responsibilist Evidentialism, neither attitude is an epistemically justified attitude for George to take toward p 1 at t 1. Though such attitudes are epistemically rational, they are not epistemically justified because George’s total evidence at t 1 does not on balance support suspending judgment or disbelieving. This result reinforces the epistemic costs of epistemic irresponsibility. In specific cases, it results in epistemic rationality and epistemic justification coming apart; it results in the absence of a justified doxastic attitude for the agent to take toward the proposition, given the epistemic situation the agent has gotten himself into. Justification goes with obligation, and there is no attitude George is epistemically obligated to take toward p 1 at t 1.

  15. Refer to Conee and Feldman (2008: 87–88).

  16. See Conee and Feldman (2008: 98). This is an explanationist construal of the epistemic support relation. For an argument against explanationism refer to Byerly (2013). For defense of an explanationist construal of the epistemic support relation see McCain (2013) and McCain (2014).

  17. Another enabling condition is the “no defeater condition.” For an instructive discussion of normative adequacy and enabling and conferring conditions refer to Kvanvig (2014).

  18. There is a normative enabling condition on epistemic justification because epistemic justification is a normative notion. As Lehrer and Cohen (1983: 193) indicate, “Justification is a normative concept. It is an evaluation of how well one has pursued one’s epistemic goals.” For more elaboration on this point see Alston (1989: 115), Plantinga (1993: 14), and Pryor (2001: 109–112).

  19. Feldman, in Conee and Feldman (2004: 175), endorses a similar line of reasoning regarding responsibly fulfilling the role of being an epistemic agent (i.e., a believer), “There are oughts that result from playing a certain role or having a certain position…They are based on what’s a good performance. Furthermore, it is plausible to say that the role of a believer is not one that we have any real choice about taking on. It is our plight to be believers. We ought to do it right. It doesn’t matter that in some cases we are unable to do so…Even in cases in which a believer has no control at all, it makes sense to speak of what he ought to believe and ought not believe.” I concur with both Heil and Feldman that deontological judgments regarding epistemic agency can be true even when the agent in question lacks direct voluntary control over what they believe (i.e., even when doxastic voluntarism is false). Given George’s evidence, he may not be able to not believe p 1. Yet, we can still judge that George ought not to believe p 1 by reference to what would be a good performance in the role of a believer in George’s epistemic situation.

  20. Baehr (2011: 91).

  21. However, they do not agree that George’s evidence “ought to be other than it is” because George’s evidence is a memory and his memory could not have provided different evidence than it did (Conee and Feldman 2011: 313). This is a confused point. For Conee and Feldman, experiences are evidence. George remembering a proposition about secondhand smoke and health is evidence that the proposition is true. His memorial experience does not simply provide evidence—it is evidence. Additionally, Baehr’s point is about George’s total evidence. Baehr is not implying that George’s memory should have been different or had different propositional contents. Rather, Baehr is indicating that George should have had additional experiences in his total evidence at time t 1.

  22. As previously mentioned in footnote 18. Though, one might wonder: if epistemic justification is fundamentally a concept regarding epistemic permissions and obligations, how can it be an externalist notion? Isn’t a deontological conception of epistemic justification an internalist conception such that the elements that factor into justification are internal to the subject or cognitively accessible upon reflection? Wouldn’t this be a mark against my proposal that combines a deontological approach with an externalist/objectivist condition on justification? Discussion of whether justification is internalist or externalist goes beyond the scope of this paper, but there is reason to think that a deontological account of epistemic justification is not necessarily internalist. For arguments supporting the possibility of combining epistemic deontology with externalism see Brueckner (1996) and Littlejohn (2012).

  23. Responsibilist Evidentialism is a more robustly deontological theory of epistemic justification than Conee and Feldman’s Evidentialism. I agree with Baehr that there is no conflict, in principle, with combining deontological elements with evidentialist elements, as he says, “I see no reason to think of ‘evidentialism’ as necessarily excluding deontological accounts of justification” (Baehr 2011: 92 n. 14).

  24. For a thorough treatment of epistemic blameworthiness and its applicability to belief see Nottelmann (2007) and Russell (2001).

  25. (RB) is modeled after principle (DDB) in Booth and Peels (2010: 257). Weatherson (2008) holds that responsible belief is praiseworthy belief, not blameless belief. (RB) is translatable into a principle involving praiseworthiness. But, to avoid confusion, I consistently formulate responsible belief in terms of blamelessness.

  26. Belief-formation is not under direct voluntary control, so blameworthiness does not initially target belief. Instead, blameworthiness initially targets activities under voluntary control (e.g., gathering evidence, cultivating intellectual virtues, etc.). Such activities indirectly influence belief-formation. Thus, in relation to blame, belief derives its status from the status attached to such voluntary activities. For more on the “indirect voluntary influence” view regarding belief-formation and epistemic deontology see Alston (1989: 136–142).

  27. The distinction between “rebutting” (AKA, “overriding”) and “undercutting” (AKA, “undermining”) defeaters traces back to Pollock (1986: 38–39). Rebutting defeaters are epistemic reasons (i.e., evidence) for believing the negation of the proposition, whereas undercutting defeaters are epistemic reasons that attack one’s evidence base supporting the proposition. Rebutting defeaters directly undermine the proposition, and undercutting defeaters indirectly undermine the proposition by undermining one’s evidential support for the proposition.

  28. For more on the notion of culpable ignorance refer to Peels (2011) and Smith (2011).

  29. See Engel (2013), Reed (2013), and Setiya (2013) for important issues regarding epistemic agency.

  30. I thank Patrick Ryan for helpful suggestions regarding this disanalogy.

  31. The duty to stay apprised of research is an imperfect duty—there’s a lot of leeway in how one can fulfill this diachronic duty. One does not need to neurotically pour over scientific journals or magazines to satisfy the obligation. However, if one has exhibited a pattern of neglecting to make easy efforts to avail one’s self of readily available updates on the state of research relevant to one’s beliefs, then one has been negligent and not done one’s due diligence with regard to the scientific data. One has breached one’s epistemic duty. The Oblivious George case is such a case. More difficult cases are what we might call “one-shot” cases. Perhaps the data was only accessible, in principle, at one point in time, and a reasonable epistemic agent in the situation would have gathered the data, but one missed gathering the data. Is one epistemically blameworthy for failing to gather that data? Another question to pursue in the future: Are people who support their beliefs using old scientific research epistemically blameworthy when there is recent research that corroborates the old data? Relatedly, how important is it that new data is adverse to one’s evidence or beliefs in terms of generating obligations to gather that data?

  32. Lackey (2005: 638–639). These defeaters are related to the issue of whether unpossessed evidence can defeat justification for believing a proposition. For more on this issue see Lycan (1977) and Harman (1980).

  33. This is another feature of normative defeaters, “a subject’s relation to normative defeaters can change over time as a result of changes in the external environment” (Lackey 2005: 641).

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Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful for the inspiration and guidance I received from my late advisor, Anthony Brueckner, concerning my exploration of Evidentialism. Thanks to Aaron Zimmerman, Rick Stoody, Patrick Ryan, Earl Conee, and Todd Long for helpful comments and conversations regarding this paper. I also thank audiences at the 2014 Pacific APA conference and the UCSB Graduate Student Colloquium (Spring 2014) for instructive feedback on an earlier version of this paper.

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    Christopher Michael Cloos

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Cloos, C.M. Responsibilist Evidentialism. Philos Stud 172, 2999–3016 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0454-9

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