Abstract
Epistemic conservatism (EC) says that an agent is in some measure justified in maintaining a belief simply in virtue of the fact that the agent has that belief. In his new book On Evidence in Philosophy (2019), William Lycan argues that there is no special objection to EC that does not also impugn the other epistemic virtues. In a forthcoming Synthese piece, Daniel Coren argues that, for us as we are (as ordinary human beings), EC cannot be evaluated. Coren (Synthese 1:1–14, 2019) does not discuss Lycan (2019), and vice versa. Here I connect these two discussions of EC in order to shed light on the broader nature of epistemic virtues. Does Coren’s argument extrapolate to the other virtues? I argue that both answers to that question yield interesting results. If his argument does not extrapolate to the other virtues, that would show there is something special about EC that Lycan (and others) failed to notice. If, instead, Coren’s argument does extrapolate to the other virtues, then we learn something significant and novel about virtues such as simplicity, namely, simplicity cannot be evaluated. I discuss those results.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
There are several stronger versions of EC, in the literature. They include: believing that p is a reason for belief or continued belief that p (Adler 1996, p. 80); an agent is in some measure justified in maintaining a belief simply in virtue of the fact that the agent has that belief (Christensen 1994, p. 69); and anything we find ourselves believing may be said to have some presumption in its favor (Chisholm 1980, p. 551). There are other formulations of EC, and there are some important differences between them. I’ll not dwell on those differences here. Hamid Vahid (2004, p. 98), in his helpful study of different formulations of EC, concedes that there is a core idea among all of these various formulations: “Epistemic conservatism comes in many forms, the most basic of which asserts that the mere possession of a belief confers [some prima facie] justification on that belief. So any agent is justified in holding a belief simply in virtue of the fact of holding it.” Of course, no one thinks that S is justified in believing that p simply because S believes that p. Having some prima facie justification for a belief is an importantly different matter from being justified in holding that belief. I’ll follow Vahid in taking this to be the core idea in EC.
There are other insightful discussions of EC. Kevin McCain (2007) argues, for example, that EC is plausible if (and perhaps only if) it is formulated as follows: If S believes that p and p is not incoherent, then S is justified in retaining the belief that p and S remains justified in believing that p so long as p is not defeated for S. Sklar (1975) gives another interesting defense of EC.
Of course, one might take issue with one or both of Coren’s premises, and thus one might say that it is not interesting to examine whether an unsound argument extrapolates. However, since (1) Coren considers and carefully responds to a large number of objections, (2) I do not have space here to rehearse those discussions, and (3) I think that even if Coren’s argument is unsound, my discussion still has a good deal of independent interest, I leave it to others to either find a new, fatal objection to Coren’s argument and/or to argue that one or more of Coren’s responses doesn’t/don’t work.
For helpful discussions on topics related to the topic addressed in this paper, I am grateful to Dick Foley, Mike Huemer, Bill Lycan, Kevin McCain, Ted Poston, Rob Rupert, Matthias Steup, and Brian Talbot. For useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, I am grateful to Matthias Steup and two anonymous reviewers for Synthese.
References
Adler, J. E. (1996). An overlooked argument for epistemic conservatism. Analysis, 56, 80–84.
Chisholm, R. (1980). A version of foundationalism. In H. K. Wettstein, T. E. Uehling, & P. A. French (Eds.), Midwest studies in philosophy V. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Christensen, D. (1994). Conservatism in epistemology. Nous, 28, 69–89.
Coren, D. (2019). Epistemic conservatism and bare beliefs. Synthese, 1, 1–14.
Foley, R. (1983). Epistemic conservatism. Philosophical Studies, 43, 165–182.
Harman, G. (2001). Skepticism and foundations. In L. Steven (Ed.), The skeptics: Contemporary essays (pp. 1–11). Farnham: Ashgate Press.
Keas, M. N. (2018). Systematizing the theoretical virtues. Synthese, 195, 2761–2793.
Lewis, D. (1999). Letters to be all and Priest. In Priest et al 2004 (pp. 176–177).
Lycan, W. G. (1988). Judgment and justification. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lycan, W. G. (2012). Explanationist rebuttals (coherentism defended again). Southern Journal of Philosophy, 50, 5–20.
Lycan, W. (2019). On evidence in philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (especially Chapter 8: “intuitions and coherentism”).
McCain, K. (2007). The virtues of epistemic conservatism. Synthese, 164, 185–200.
McGrath, M. (2005). Memory and epistemic conservatism. Synthese, 157, 1–24.
Priest, G. (1998). What’s so bad about contradictions? Journal of Philosophy, 95, 410–426.
Quine, W. V. O. (1951/1961). Two dogmas of empiricism. In From a logical point of view (2nd ed.). New York: Harper & Row.
Vahid, H. (2004). Varieties of epistemic conservatism. Synthese, 141, 97–122.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Coren, D. Evaluating epistemic virtues. Synthese 198, 1569–1578 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02144-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02144-6