Abstract
In this paper I hope to demonstrate two different (and seemingly independent) ways of interpreting the tenets of evidentialism and show why it is important to distinguish between them. These two ways correspond to those proposed by Feldman (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 60, 667–695, 2000, Evidentialism: Essays in epistemology, Oxford University Press, 2004) and Adler (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 23, 267–285, 1999, Beliefs own ethics, MIT Press, 2002). Feldman’s way of interpreting evidentialism makes evidentialism a principle about epistemic justification, about what we ought to believe. Adler’s, on the other hand, makes evidentialism a principle about how we come to believe, what it is, broadly speaking, rational for us to believe. Having identified this difference, I consider two complaints levied against evidentialism, namely what I call the threshold problem and what I call the availability problem, and hope to show that: (a) only an independent, bracketed justification principle of evidentialism can deal with those problems; (b) the rationality principle of evidentialism is not in fact independent from the justification principle; (c) the rationality principle is hard to motivate; and that (d) in the final analysis the argument for the justification principle depends on the rationality principle. I thus conclude that although it may be convenient for evidentialists to treat these two principles as independent, such an independence cannot be maintained.
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Notes
I.e. it is what S takes his evidence to suggest that determines what would be his rational doxastic attitude towards p.
One may here complain that if the rationality of belief is treated as a matter of epistemic rationality, then perhaps the difference between rE and r(E) does not really amount to much. There is nonetheless a difference in that for rE the rationality of belief must always be treated as a matter of epistemic rationality, where r(E) denies this (i.e. it allows for the rationality of belief to be determined by other means) although epistemically speaking, the rationality of belief is always a question of epistemic rationality—the last claim is not trivial in that it allows for the situation in parentheses above.
Alvin Plantinga is an example of someone who holds this combination: “it is indeed true that we always or nearly always form beliefs upon the basis of evidence (at least where there is no cognitive pathology). But of course no amount of evidence of this sort is itself sufficient for warrant” (Plantinga 1993, p. 192).
For more on this see Achinstein (1983).
This point is well made by Sartwell (1992).
Feldman (2000) also cites Keith DeRose as having made this objection during conversation.
We perhaps ought to add that if S’s evidence at t does not support that p, then S ought to withhold judgement on p.
There are related problems to the threshold and availability problem that can be treated the same way, consider this one raised by Wedgewood (2002). His problem is that evidential considerations alone do not answer the question of how much better it is to believe that p when p is true, than just suspending judgement about p. Or how much better it is to suspend judgement about p than to believe that p when p is false,
but different answers to these questions have dramatically different implications about when one should believe p and when one should suspend judgement about p. If suspending judgement about p is much better than believing p when p is false, but not much worse that believing p when p is true, then presumably the rational attitude is to suspend judgement unless the evidence for p is very strong. On the other hand, if suspending judgement about p is much worse than believing p when p is true, but not much better than believing p when p is false, then presumably the rational attitude is to take one’s chances and believe p when p is false, then presumably the rational attitude is to take one’s chances and believe p even if the evidence for p is relatively weak (Wedgewood 2002, p. 248).
Further, there may be times where evidence itself can give you reason not to believe a proposition. This is because belief can itself create evidence, and there at times when it does so that affects what reasons you have for believing a proposition. Consider this example from Richard Foley (Foley 1991). I know that I am going to pass my exam if, and only if, I pass the exam. At the moment I am undecided on the issue, but I do have evidence (e) that I will pass the exam (I have done pretty well in my mocks, for example), so if I took the time to think about it, I would come to believe that I would pass the exam. However, my teachers, in an attempt to teach me some humility, decide to make it the case that I will only pass if I believe that I will not pass the exam. So if I believe that I do, they will make the exam so difficult for me that I will fail. Further, I know they are going to do this, and I have now thought about (e). It seems that I am in a bind here, for what should I believe? I cannot believe what I have got good evidence (e) for without somehow undermining that very belief (and under rE, believe irrationally), but to withhold belief is to go in the face of good evidence. Once again, evidential considerations alone cannot determine what I ought to believe.
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Acknowledgement
I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer at Erkenntnis for some very valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
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Booth, A.R. The Two Faces of Evidentialism. Erkenn 67, 401–417 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-007-9055-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-007-9055-0