Abstract
This paper explores what constitutes reliability in persons, particularly intellectual reliability. It considers global reliability, the overall reliability of persons, encompassing both the theoretical and practical realms; sectorial reliability, that of a person in a subject-matter (or behavioral) domain; and focal reliability, that of a particular element, such as a belief. The paper compares reliability with predictability of the kind most akin to it and distinguishes reliability as an intellectual virtue from reliability as an intellectual power. The paper also connects reliability with insight, reasoning, knowledge, and trust. It is argued that insofar as reliability is an intellectual virtue, it must meet both external standards of correctitude and internal standards of justification.
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Notes
There is an interesting parallel between intellectual reliability and reliability in conduct (the “practical” kind) and, on the other hand, the contrasting directions of fit that, since G. E. M. Anscombe’s introduction of the metaphor, have been associated with belief and intention, respectively. Just as belief is supposed to have a mind to world to direction of fit, intellectual reliability is supposed to be a matter of getting certain propositional matters right; and just as intention is supposed to have a world to mind direction of fit, behavioral reliability (reliability in conduct) is supposed to exhibit a good fit between our intentions and our actions.
There is no good way to be precise about just how often a reliable person must succeed in the relevant matter, or just how probable a reliable (or reliably grounded) belief must be. Cf. Sosa’s frequent appeal, in developing his virtue epistemology, to the idea of what would “not easily” fail; e.g., “What is required for the safety of a belief is that not easily would it fail by being false.” See (2007), p. 25.
Nicomachean Ethics 1105a29.
For theists there is the related question of whether our de facto reliability is always dependent on God’s sustaining the truth-preserving character of the path from the facts to our beliefs that epistemically reflect them (as knowledge paradigmatically does). This interesting question leads to the further a question whether, even for God, it is possible to design a world that is systematically misleading in the way a demon world is. One plausible answer is Descartes’s well-known denial, but I cannot pursue it here.
Chapter 8 of Audi (2003) argues that the idiot savant indicates of the possibility of knowledge without justification.
See Audi (2003), on knowledge.
I have distinguished between an epistemic virtue and an epistemic power in discussing Sosa’s virtue perspectivism. See Audi (2004).
In Audi (2001), I discuss Aristotle’s conception of a virtue. He may have, in different places in NE, presented both historical and non-historical conceptions of virtue.
For an account of inferential grounding (in the case of “belief-basing”) see Audi (1986).
For a detailed epistemological treatment of related aspects of understanding, see Grimm (forthcoming).
This factual groundedness conception of knowledge goes back at least to Armstrong and Dretske and is found in others. It is sketched, and some references to their work given, in Audi (2003), chap. 8.
My (1995) indicates how the will is crucial for the notion of virtue.
Here it is instructive to compare Plantinga (2000), on proper function and the Calvinian concept of the sensus divinitatis.
Perhaps all or nearly all of the really important beliefs an intellectually reliable person holds are true, at least within a certain range, say in matters of life and death. This element may vary from one domain to another. I might add that my overall point here is not uncontroversial. Jennifer Lackey, e.g., distinguishes reliable believers from reliable asserters and might hold that there is a use of ‘reliability’—even if not as a virtue term—to refer to persons on the basis of the latter characteristic. For on her view, we can obtain knowledge of a true assertion by a person who has the latter but not the former characteristic. See Lackey (2006).
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Central Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association, Fordham University, Santa Clara University, the University of Colorado, the University of Toledo, and, most recently, the Midwest Epistemology Workshop held at Northwestern University. I am grateful for critical discussion with these audiences and, for detailed comments, also want to thank John Greco and Stephen Grimm.
References
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Audi, R. Reliability as a virtue. Philos Stud 142, 43–54 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9305-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9305-2