Abstract
The epistemology of risk examines how risks bear on epistemic properties. A common framework for examining the epistemology of risk holds that strength of evidential support is best modelled as numerical probability given the available evidence. In this essay I develop and motivate a rival ‘relevant alternatives’ framework for theorising about the epistemology of risk. I describe three loci for thinking about the epistemology of risk. The first locus concerns consequences of relying on a belief for action, where those consequences are significant if the belief is false. The second locus concerns whether beliefs themselves—regardless of action—can be risky, costly, or harmful. The third locus concerns epistemic risks we confront as social epistemic agents. I aim to motivate the relevant alternatives framework as a fruitful approach to the epistemology of risk. I first articulate a ‘relevant alternatives’ model of the relationship between stakes, evidence, and action. I then employ the relevant alternatives framework to undermine the motivation for moral encroachment. Finally, I argue the relevant alternatives framework illuminates epistemic phenomena such as gaslighting and crying wolf, and I draw on the framework to diagnose the undue skepticism endemic to rape accusations.
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Notes
Note ‘evidential support’ can be interpreted broadly, to encompass epistemic competence and similar truth-conducive features. This is sometimes called ‘epistemic support’, but this terminology can mislead because—as I describe in section seven—some theorists claim practical and moral factors affect epistemic position by affecting whether S’s belief is epistemically justified or known.
A note on the scope of this essay: I here focus on articulating the relevant alternatives framework and explaining how it illuminates three loci of the epistemology of risk. Another key undertaking to rejuvenate the relevant alternatives framework is criticising rival frameworks, such as the quantifiable balance approach. I lack space to do justice to this second aspect here, and I instead focus on directly motivating the relevant alternatives framework. I articulate two objections to the quantifiable balance model in footnote 38 and its corresponding main text. For further objections to quantifiable balance theories of epistemic support, see Cohen (1977), Nelkin (2000), Achinstein (2003), Ho (2008, 2015), Nelson (2002), Littlejohn (2012), Buchak (2013, 2014), Haack (2014), Staffel (2016), Nance (2016), Smith (2016), Leitgeb (2017), and Jackson (2018). For surveys, see Ho (2015), Di Bello (2013), and Gardiner (2019a).
Costs relevant to locus one accrue were p false. But proponents of pragmatic encroachment hold that even when p is true, and so the bad consequences do not obtain, there can be something wrong with relying on p with insufficient evidence given the high costs involved were p false. It is too risky.
Knowledge-action links are claims like ‘A person can properly use p as a reason for action iff she knows p’. See Fantl and McGrath (2002, 2007, 2009), Hawthorne (2004), Stanley (2005), Hawthorne and Stanley (2008), DeRose (2009), Anderson (2015), Brown (2008, 2014), Worsnip (2015, forthcoming), Ichikawa (2017), Fritz (2017, ms), and Kim (2017).
This wording is from Gardiner (2018a). See Franklin (2005: pp. 4; 340). Gendler (2011) employs this example to exemplify a putative tension between epistemic and moral demands. Basu (2018, 2020a), Schroeder (2018a), Basu and Schroeder (2019), and Bolinger (forthcoming), have since invoked Franklin’s experience to motivate moral encroachment. See also Basu’s (2018, 2019) ‘Mistaken Identity’ example. For discussion, see Gardiner (2018a), Worsnip (forthcoming), Bolinger (2020), and Fritz and Jackson (ms). Fritz and Jackson (ms) also distinguishes ‘moderate moral encroachment’, which is based on the consequences of actions (locus one) from ‘radical moral encroachment’, which is based on the moral value of beliefs themselves, independent from action or choice (locus two).
This distinction is from Moss (2018a). See also Worsnip (forthcoming). Moss (2018a) holds that risks, but not costs, underwrite moral encroachment. Moss’s gloss on the distinction focuses on acting on the belief, restricting it to locus one. But the distinction can also apply to the second locus. That is, we can distinguish between costly and risky beliefs even when discussing the disvalues of holding the beliefs themselves, rather than acting on the beliefs. Note a belief might be wrong in virtue of being risky, even in cases where that belief is true. If the believer lacks conclusive evidence, the belief might be censurably risky, in virtue of harms risked were the belief false. Some theorists, such as Basu, claim that holding a risky belief about a person with insufficient evidence qualifies as a harm, because it is reckless, racist, or inconsiderate. Thus on Basu’s view, all risky beliefs are thereby also somewhat costly.
A belief’s subject and believer can, of course, be the same. This is exemplified by, for example, internalised racism.
I am grateful to Joe Pyle for help developing this example.
See Cohen (1999), Dutant (2016), Dretske (1970), Stine (1976), Goldman (1976), Lewis (1996), Pritchard (2002), Rysiew (2006), McKinnon (2013), Amaya (2015, esp. 525–531), Gerken (2017), Moss (2018a, b), and Bolinger (forthcoming). Gardiner (2019b) and Moss (2021) develop relevant alternatives accounts of legal standards of proof. Gardiner (2020b) harnesses the relevant alternatives framework to diagnose the undue doubt endemic to rape accusations.
Uneliminated error sub-possibilities inevitably remain, except for when p is the cogito; the skeptical challenge cannot root there.
Different relevant alternative theories offer various explanations for why this error possibility cannot be ignored. Explanations include that it could easily happen (Franklin 2005) or is a normal outcome (Smith 2010, 2016), reasonable action and assertion demand attending to the possibility and a reasonable person would attend to it (Lawlor 2013: p. 164), the possibility is not destabilising (McKinnon 2013), or is salient (Jackson 2018), the result actually obtains or is relevantly similar to the actual outcome (Lewis 1996: p. 557), and that social convention renders the possibility relevant (Heller 1989).
This distinction differs from Worsnip’s (2015, forthcoming) gloss on A-stakes and W-stakes. On Worsnip’s account, the passport number has high W-stakes, for example. This is because Worsnip glosses high W-stakes as holding fixed a particular attitude (such as believing the number is 75797825), it matters a great deal what the world is like (whether the number is 75797825). Here I find fault with Worsnip’s distinction. Insofar as there are two sources of stakes-sensitivity—viz, (1) what matters is that S has a true belief and (2) what matters is that p obtains given S’s practical context—Worsnip’s result indicates his gloss does not aptly capture this distinction. The passport example isolates the first source of stakes, but on his view qualifies as high W-stakes. Indeed, I aver Worsnip’s account cannot allow for isolating A-stakes-only cases. I am grateful to Alex Worsnip for helpful conversations.
Rysiew (2006) and Bradley (2014) argue for the universal appeal of the relative alternatives framework. See also Hannon (2015). The relevant alternatives framework proposed here says that whether a person has sufficient evidence to rely on a proposition is sensitive to practical factors. When coupled with some knowledge-action links, impurism about knowledge results. Theorists who endorse the proposed relevant alternatives framework—where the disregardability threshold depends on deliberative context—but endorse purism about knowledge, should deny the knowledge-action links. See Fantl and McGrath (2002, 2007, 2009), Stanley (2005), Brown (2008, 2014a, b), Reed (2010), and Gerken (2017).
Lewis (1996: p. 556) describes constraints on the rule of resemblance.
Lewis (1996). A reviewer asks ‘Why won’t this idea make all kinds of errors collapse into errors of misplaced relevance threshold?’ To clarify: The error is failing to realise that a particular error possibility is non-remote. The believer takes the possibility to be ignorably remote when it is not because, unbeknownst to them, it actually obtains. They thus misjudge the relative remoteness of a specific possibility. The believer might be correct about the location of the disregardability threshold, but be mistaken about the remoteness of a specific error possibility.
Suppose p is ‘the classroom is safe’ and error possibility T is ‘Ted plans a shooting today’. If evidence, such as an anonymous tip, indicates T, then T cannot be disregarded even if false and modally distant. That is, even if Ted is not planning a shooting and would never do so.
Some people foster reservations about metaphysical underpinnings of Pritchard’s account, such as possible worlds. These worries might be set aside because arguably one can recast Pritchard’s account with a different metaphysical substrate. But global similarity comparisons are integral to Pritchard’s account.
This example first appears in Buchak (2014).
Gardiner (2017) argues that safety cannot account for the epistemic value of knowledge because safety is always determined by other properties—such as good reasons and evidence—and those other properties, not safety, confer epistemic value. I am grateful to Duncan Pritchard for many helpful conversations on these topics.
Versions of this challenge are articulated in Gendler (2011), Basu (2018, 2020a), and Gardiner (2018a). See also the ‘problem of coordination’ in Basu and Schroeder (2019). Note that advocates of moral encroachment must explain the status of testimonial beliefs in such cases. That is, if the woman tells a third-party that Franklin is staff, is the hearer’s belief epistemically justified? This question interrogates whether the relevant moral stakes are transferred by testimony. If they are not transferred, this suggests a form of knowledge laundering (See MacFarlane 2005). If they are, the moral encroachment account should explain why the stakes remain high, given that the hearer’s belief is based on testimony rather than profiling. Accounts that locate the moral stakes in the social effects of such beliefs, rather than the believer’s moral conduct, will likely fare better at this. I am grateful to the Moral Encroachment Reading Group at Oxford University for insightful discussion on these topics.
One must not conflate (1) whether moral features affect the epistemic justification of true beliefs or only affects false beliefs with (2) whether moral encroachment arises from costly beliefs or only from risky beliefs. Several theorists, such as Moss (2018a) and Schroeder (2018b) hold that only riskiness—not costliness—gives rise to moral encroachment, but maintain that moral features can affect the epistemic status of true beliefs.
See Lewis (1996: p. 554)’s rule of actuality.
Gardiner (2018a) describes purist epistemic flaws with Spencer’s belief.
Given bare statistical evidence, error possibilities might be statistically improbable, but they can be normal outcomes, modally nearby, true, typical sources of error, outcomes for which evidence is insensitive, and so on. Gardiner (2020a) evaluates which epistemic values are secured—and, crucially, not secured—by bare statistical evidence. Note most social judgements are not based on statistical evidence. People draw on appearances, interpretations, stereotypes, associations, and so on. Note also social statistics usually have low magnitudes. A lottery example might underwrite an extremely low probability of error, but realistic social base rates do not. An arbitrary woman likely has longer-than-average hair, for example, but the probability magnitude is relatively slim. On many relevant alternatives accounts, to the extent the error possibility is likely, it is accordingly less remote.
We can find ways to discriminate the two possibilities, of course. Suppose someone tells us the person’s hair is long. The only uneliminated sub-possibilities in which her hair is shorter than average are ones where the informant has outdated information, a poor understanding of hair length, or is mistaken about the woman’s identity. These remaining possibilities are more distant.
I am grateful to Kyle Scott, Dominic Alford-Duguid, and the Moral Encroachment Reading Group at Oxford University for helpful discussions.
This is not something I endorse, but presumably some advocates of moral encroachment do, since employment examples are frequently used to motivate moral encroachment. Perhaps some such employment examples merely illustrate judging individuals based on race, regardless of social status. But usually relative social status plays some dialectical role.
Such moral or political reasoning might underwrite some general calls to ‘believe women’ about rape accusations. Ferzan (2021) and Bolinger (2020) discuss the epistemology of #BelieveWomen. Gardiner (2020d) argues that rape accusations are highly likely to be true, which provides purist reasons for belief. Note the above error possibility includes that the woman is lying or mistaken about her advisor. Lying about mistreatment is (plausibly) relatively unusual, which provides purist reason for treating the error possibility as somewhat remote—it is somewhat remote. Gardiner (2020b) applies the relevant alternatives framework to rape accusations.
Cf. Worsnip’s (forthcoming) discussion of the ‘beaker model’ and Bolinger’s (2020) distinction between threshold-raising and sphere-expanding variants of moral encroachment. A further objection to the rival quantifiable balance model for moral encroachment is that for many cases, simply having stronger evidence of the same kind does not solve the problem. If the belief is based on profiling, for example, the problem is not solved simply by having stronger (non-extremal) statistical support. The quantifiable balance model cannot explain why the problem remains, since according to the quantifiable balance model, the only available solution is increasing evidential probability. A relevant alternatives account, by contrast, offers a remedy: evidence must address particular error possibilities.
One virtue of the relevant alternatives framework for modelling epistemic risk is its superiority over rival accounts at explaining the central vignettes used to explore the epistemology and morality of profiling. These vignettes include the iPhone, taxi, and prisoner cases, and the three vignettes above. See Nesson (1979), Thomson (1986), Buchak (2014), and Enoch et al. (2012). Elsewhere I argue that rival views—specifically, safety, sensitivity, causal relation, normic support, and quantifiable balance accounts—cannot explain why judgements exhibited in these vignettes are epistemically flawed. See Gardiner (2018a, b, 2020a, c, e). Rather than criticising rival accounts, this essay instead focuses on developing and motivating the relevant alternatives framework.
Gardiner (2020b) describes systemic misestimates concerning rape accusations.
See Lewis’s (1996: p. 559) rule of conservation and Blake-Turner (2020). Which error possibilities are relevant is partially determined by what the community considers disregardably farfetched. This socially-embedded aspect of the relevant alternatives approach might illuminate the Jamesian distinction between ‘live’ and ‘dead’ hypotheses (James 1896). I am grateful to Kenny Easwaran for illuminating discussion.
Gardiner (2020b) asks whether society’s treating an otherwise remote error possibility as relevant can render it relevant. Suppose a culture continually draws attention to the possibility that rape accusers are lying. I explore whether these error possibilities are thereby rendered relevant, perhaps because they are salient, spring readily to mind, or are taken seriously by others. If so, this can be understood as society-wide gaslighting; possibilities that should be deemed disregardably remote are inflicted upon evaluators as legitimate sources of doubt; evaluators are burdened with undue relevant alternatives.
It is worth emphasising that social marginalisation also engenders epistemic advantages, including evidence and heightened awareness of structural features of society, such as discrimination and barriers to social equity.
In some marriages, granted, the wife can responsibly wholly ignore her husband and be confident he is wrong. But gaslighting is insidious and effective when she has some reason to trust or respect her partner, and it is these cases I have in mind.
Another illustration of gaslighting is when an individual is upset about someone’s conduct. Claim p might be, for example, ‘His actions were racist’. Interlocutors raise error possibilities: He didn’t mean it, it wasn’t racist, you’re too sensitive, you misunderstood his comment. See McKinnon (2017), Abramson (2014). My discussion of gaslighting benefitted greatly from conversations with Mark Alfano, Dominic Alford-Duguid, Renee Bolinger, Michael Ebling, and Jessie Munton.
Crewe Ichikawa (2020) develops this proposal.
Important clarifications: Firstly, even if the stakes are raised, hearers can err by overestimating this raise. Secondly, hearers can commit multiple simultaneous kinds of epistemic injustice. Various diagnoses are mutually compatible. Thirdly, even if such assertions characteristically raise the stakes because of the interests of the accused, the accuser also has interests, and these are largely overlooked or underplayed. Given the costs for the accuser of being disbelieved, Basu (2018, 2020a) argues rape accusations illustrate that moral stakes can not only raise the evidential threshold, but also lower it. Finally, Gerken (forthcoming) and Dotson (2018) express a related worry, namely that according to pragmatic encroachment, it is proper to treat marginalised individuals as accordingly less knowledgeable; such hearers simply track that high stakes undermine knowledge.
A doubter, D, might opine ‘the stakes are serious; the accused could go to prison’. Even in legal contexts, this is unlikely. But, regardless, that is not a consequence of D’s belief; D is an ordinary member of society. In the public imagination, rape accusations are strongly associated with legal contexts, which drives up the perceived stakes. This association is specious. The conversational and deliberative context is almost always interpersonal and only rarely has legal, or even professional, consequences. An interlocutor said, to explain the high threshold for believing rape accusations, ‘the usual context for such accusations is law courts’ (and so, the thought goes, those high standards bleed into other contexts). This claim is false, and the mistake is common. The usual context for believing and asserting rape accusations has relatively low practical consequences, but this is not widely noted. Gardiner (2020b) employs epistemological tools—especially the relevant alternatives framework and the epistemic effects of stakes—to diagnose the undue doubt endemic to rape accusations.
This is because assertions are normally sensitive to p. S would not have asserted p unless p, so assertions eliminate nearby error possibilities. Remaining error possibilities are where S asserts p despite not p, and for most assertions these are relatively unusual situations. For some assertions, error possibilities in which the speaker is lying or mistaken are nearby and preponderant. This includes assertions where the topic is commonly lied about, for example.
I am grateful to Heather Battaly, Catherine Elgin, Jon Garthoff, Hilary Kornblith, Declan Smithies, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful discussions about these ideas.
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Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Mark Alfano, Dominic Alford-Duguid, Rima Basu, Heather Battaly, Claire Becerra, Grace Boey, Renee Bolinger, Rebecca Brown, Bruce Chapman, Marcello Di Bello, Julien Dutant, Kenny Easwaran, Michael Ebling, Catherine Elgin, Iskra Fileva, Branden Fitelson, Jamie Fritz, Jon Garthoff, Mikkel Gerken, Hilary Kornblith, Seth Lazar, Clayton Littlejohn, Sebastian Liu, Linh Mac, Silvia Milano, Sarah Moss, Beau Madison Mount, Jessie Munton, Maura Priest, Duncan Pritchard, Joe Pyle, Paul Roberts, Sherri Roush, Mark Schroeder, Kyle Scott, Paul Silva, Martin Smith, Declan Smithies, Alex Walen, William Wells, Alex Worsnip, and anonymous referees for invaluable comments. I am grateful for helpful discussions at Sherri Roush’s graduate epistemology seminars at UCLA, the Moral Encroachment Reading Group at Oxford University, and the Between Ethics and Belief conference at Cologne University. Finally, many thanks to audience members at ANU and to my autumn 2019 students at the University of Tennessee for fruitful conversations on these topics.
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Gardiner, G. Relevance and risk: How the relevant alternatives framework models the epistemology of risk. Synthese 199, 481–511 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02668-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02668-2