Abstract
Beliefs based on pernicious ideology are widespread, and they often have harmful consequences. Attempts to solve the problems these beliefs cause could benefit from epistemological work on them, so it is heartening to see more epistemologists turning to study ideological beliefs. In this paper, I discuss one recent approach, radical epistemology, which has two aims: (1) offering structural explanations of epistemic justification and (2) putting these explanations to work in opposing ideology. While I share radical epistemologists’ opposition to pernicious ideology, I argue that their position is untenable because it gives rise to a vicious circularity. Its core commitment maintains that theorists’ choice between competing epistemological theories should be guided by their moral and political commitments. These commitments themselves, however, are susceptible to reasonable disagreement and thus stand in need of defense. To defend them, radical epistemologists must employ the very theories those commitments are supposed to undergird. I call this the problem of theory choice and conclude that radical epistemologists cannot solve it. But we shouldn’t despair: the time-honored tools of non-radical epistemology offer all we need to successfully theorize about and combat bad ideology.
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Notes
In this paper, I’ll use ‘justification’ exclusively to refer to epistemic justification unless otherwise noted.
Two terminological notes. (1) I’ll often use ‘moral considerations’ and similar locutions as a shorthand for ‘moral and political considerations.’ (2) I’ll also use ‘theory’ (‘theories’) and ‘account’ (‘accounts’) interchangeably.
There are many different forms of internalism. One of the central debates among internalists concerns whether the mental states which are the justifiers for someone’s belief must be accessible to her. Accessibilists say yes, while mentalists say no. For discussion of this distinction and a defense of mentalism, see Conee and Feldman (2001). For a defense of an accessibilist variety of internalism, see BonJour (2003), as well as BonJour (1980).
There are also many different forms of externalism. The dominant externalist view is process reliabilism (see Goldman (1986)). Other forms include proper functionalism (Bergmann 2006), truth-tracking accounts of justification (e.g. Nozick 1981), and virtue epistemology (Sosa 2003). For extended discussion of different varieties of externalism, see Carter et al. (2014). Srinivasan seems most sympathetic to process reliabilism, which holds, roughly, that a belief is justified if and only if it was produced by a reliable process. For a contemporary general discussion of reliabilism, see Goldman and Beddor (2021). Since process reliabilism is the most widely endorsed variety of externalism, I’ll use it as an exemplar of externalism below.
Srinivasan does not defend this assumption. I have doubts about its truth. I’m an internalist, and I feel no pull towards Srinivasan’s intuitions. By my lights, Radha’s belief is (regrettably) justified and Nour’s is not.
This case is originally from BonJour (1980) and is meant to be analogous to RACIST DINNER TABLE.
This case is meant to be analogous to DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.
This argument is interesting, but I am not sure that the cases in each case pair actually are analogous. If they are not, Srinivasan’s challenge misfires. This is not relevant for my line of argument, however, so I will set this aside.
Johnson King disputes this, arguing that internalism can provide structural explanations. (Johnson King, 61). I think she is right.
Note as well that Pettigrew attributes to Srinivasan the view “that an externalist conception of justification is best able to provide a certain sort of explanation that we need for political purposes” (294).
A Pettigrewian pluralist would need to decide, with respect to every case she encounters, whether to give the case an internalist or an externalist treatment, facing a particularly severe form of the problem of theory choice.
I reject Licensing and similar principles that wed epistemic and moral justification. This will not be the focus of my argument, however, so I’ll refrain from further discussion of it. For more on the relationship between epistemic and moral normativity, however, see Montmarquet (1987), Driver (2003), and Pace (2011). For discussion of and arguments for theses similar to Licensing, see Fantl and McGrath (2009), Williamson (2019), and Smithies (forthcoming).
Nothing in my argument hangs on the contents of Norman3’s clairvoyant belief, provided only that the belief is morally objectionable.
One might object that all minimally competent agents can know a priori that moral falsehoods are false—at least, egregious falsehoods like Norman3’s belief about Radha. If that’s right, then Norman3 has a defeater for his belief about Radha, and the belief would be unjustified. I have two responses. First, Srinivasan rejects this kind of apriorism, even about egregiously false beliefs like this belief about Radha (Srinivasan, 420-421). Other radicals seem to follow suit. Second, plausibly some moral disputes turn on empirical considerations. For example, the morality of eating meat likely turns on facts about animal sentience and agricultural practices. Even if I were to concede that Norman could know a priori that his belief about Radha is false, the case could be revised to include a false belief which Norman3 plausibly could not know a priori to be false, and my augment would go through.
For support, she cites Lynn’s (2006) work on race differences in tipping, which seems to corroborate Spencer’s views—albeit for very different reasons than those which Spencer might adduce.
I do not mean to suggest that Basu is an internalist. I intend only to note that we need to modify her case to use it to put pressure on Srinivasan’s externalism.
In calling radical epistemology 'consequentialist,’ I don’t mean to suggest that the consequences of endorsing a theory are all that matter to radical epistemologists. Presumably, each would acknowledge other relevant factors, although Pettigrew appears to err towards a more thoroughgoing consequentialism. I also don’t mean to suggest that radical epistemology is a full-blown epistemological consequentialism. I only mean that its flagship metaepistemological commitment is consequentialist in nature.
To be clear, I don’t mean to suggest that endorsing a consequentialist epistemology would force one to endorse consequentialism in ethics. I intend only to highlight that epistemological consequentialism will face similar challenges to consequentialism in ethics.
This assumes that there are non-trivial, real-world consequences of epistemological theorizing. I discuss this below.
I don’t mean to suggest that Ava must have a fully worked out moral theory available to her consciousness prior to making a choice. I think the stand she takes could be implicit: In siding with Johnson King’s internalism, for example, she may thereby commit herself to a particular view of praiseworthiness, marginalization, and ideology, even if she isn’t aware of this at the time. The circularity argument I develop would go through in this case, too.
Johnson King did not name the agents in this case, so I supplied the names.
The relevance challenge in essence asks whether moral considerations are reasons of the right kind to guide theory choice. For discussion of right-kind reasons in general, see Hieronymi (2005), Olson (2009), Way (2012), Howard (2016), Gertken and Kiesewetter (2017). In epistemology, the debate occurs in discussions of pragmatic and moral encroachment, i.e. whether pragmatic and moral considerations can determine whether a belief is justified or knowledgeable. On pragmatic and moral encroachment, see Fantl and McGrath (2002), Stanley (2005), Hawthorne and Stanley (2008), Pace (2011), Fritz (2017), Moss (2018), and the essays collected in Kim and McGrath (2019). One central question is whether pragmatic and moral considerations are right-kind reasons for or against belief. For discussion, see Reisner (2009), Schroeder (2012), Leary (2017), Fritz (2020), and Worsnip (2021). In effect, radical epistemology proposes meta-level moral encroachment—moral encroachment into theory choice rather than (just) first-order evaluation of beliefs. Further discussion would take us too far afield, so I’ll set aside the relevance challenge.
Sayre-McCord (1996), 149.
Following, perhaps, Timmons (1999).
For defenses of the view that one can acquire moral knowledge and justified moral beliefs via testimony, see Jones (1999) and Sliwa (2012). This idea has been questioned from (at least) three angles: first, that justified moral belief and moral knowledge require understanding, but testimony cannot provide understanding; second, that this view requires the existence of moral experts and moral expertise, which is disputed by those who hold that moral truths can be known a priori by all rational agents; and third, that relying on others’ testimony about important moral matters negatively impacts one’s autonomy. For discussion of these debates, see, among others, Nickel (2001), Driver (2006), Hopkins (2007), Hills (2009, 2020), McGrath (2009), Crisp (2014), Davia and Palmira (2014), Enoch (2014), Howell (2014), Lillehammer (2014), and Wiland (2017).
I would like to thank Anil Gupta, James Shaw, Kevin Dorst, and Alex Worsnip for feedback on several drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank the participants at the 2022 AGENT Conference at the University of Texas at Austin for feedback on an early draft, including especially Zoë Johnson King and Roy Sorensen. Finally, I am gratefully indebted to my long-suffering friends and interlocutors who have discussed these ideas with me at length. This includes, but is not limited to, Marina DiMarco, Vivian Feldblyum, Ned Howells-Whitaker, Nedah Nemati, and Dasha Pruss.
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Conner, W. Radical epistemology, theory choice, and the priority of the epistemic. Synthese 203, 33 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04448-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04448-0