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Dispatch: 25.6.10 Author Received:

Journal: EJOP No. of pages: 15

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DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0378.2010.00422.x

Reducing Responsibility: An Evidentialist Account of Epistemic Blame Trent Dougherty Abstract: This paper argues that instances of what are typically called ‘epistemic irresponsibility’ are better understood as instances of moral or prudenial failure. This hypothesis covers the data and is simpler than postulating a new sui generis form of normativitiy. The irresponsibility alleged is that embeded in charges of ‘You should have known better!’ However, I argue, either there is some interest at stake in knowing or there is not. If there is not, then there is no irresponsibility. If there is, it is either the inquirer’s interests— in which case it is a prudential shortcoming—or someone else’s interests are at stake—in which case it is a moral shortcoming. In no case, I argue, is there any need to postulate a form of normativity in epistemology other than the traditional epistemological norm that one’s attitudes should fit the evidence one has.

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It is not uncommon for epistemologists to seek greater unity between their discipline and ethics. A common way to accomplish this goal is via analogy. The most radical is via reduction. In this paper, I will be arguing for unification via reduction of a certain sort.1 I aim to validate Feldman’s claim that any normativity concerning belief that goes beyond fitting the evidence, and in particular epistemic responsibility, is either moral or instrumental (Feldman 2004: 189). The vast majority of those who have written on the subject of epistemic responsibility have disagreed with this thesis. Theorists like Code (1987: 12) and Montmarquet (1993: 5–6) have argued at length that epistemic responsibility is central to epistemology, and their treatments imply that its nature goes beyond evidential, instrumental, or moral considerations to identify a unique, distinctively epistemic normativity. Kornblith (1980, 1983), DeRose (2000), and Baehr (2009) have also defended the thesis that epistemic normativity is not limited to evidential fit or practical considerations. More recently Nottelmann (2007) has championed this position, as has, most recently, Axtell (Axtell and Carter (2008), Axtell and Olson (MS), Axtell (forthcoming)). If my reductionist program is successful, this will require a serious redirection of much thinking on the subject of epistemic responsibility. Also at stake is whether one very plausible traditional view of epistemology is correct, namely evidentialism. For if the standard European Journal of Philosophy ]]]:]] ISSN 0966-8373 pp. 1–15 r 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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responsibilists are right, evidentialism is false: the ethics of belief goes well beyond consideration of the evidence. I will begin with a brief review of the literature to set my thesis in proper context and throw into relief its contrast with extant views. Concerning the normative disciplines of ethics and epistemology, Dancy notes that ‘[t]he analogies between these two areas are many and various, and increasingly explored’ (Dancy and Sosa 1992: 119). Axtell points out that there is a natural basis for the analogical use of ethical concepts by epistemologists: ‘The availability of useful analogies between ethics and epistemology has never . . . been sharply divided from a substantial thesis of the structural parity or symmetry between these two fields as the primary normative sub-disciplines of philosophy’ (Axtell 1997: 20). This naturally raises the question whether they can be unified in some way. Montmarquet is explicit about what he finds an ‘intriguing goal—a unification of the two main normative disciplines of philosophy: ethics and epistemology’ (Montmarquet 1993: 108). Dancy also speaks of unification. In considering the more responsibilist parts of Sosa’s virtue theory he says ‘It is raising in our mind analogies with the supposed advantages of virtue ethics, and even the prospect of a unification of epistemology and ethics, built around the common notion of a virtue’ (Dancy 2000: 78/1995: 195). Nevertheless, the envisioned unification falls short of reduction in most cases. Hookway notes that there are many ‘parallel issues’ but still avows that ‘[e]thics and epistemology deal with different parts of our normative practice’ (Hookway 2000: 149). Axtell, after rehearsing the now commonplace notion than many terms of current usage ‘entered epistemology through analogy with the longstanding use of those terms in ethics’ points out that ‘[t]he method for this carryover is analogical and not reductive. The concern that it not be reductive is evident . . .’ (Axtell 1997: 1, emphasis added). One place in which this is evident is in Montmarquet. For though he says that normative notions in epistemology ‘closely mirror their moral counterparts’ and entertains a certain ‘normative level’ which is ‘at once and equally, ethical and epistemic’, he ultimately rejects this hypothesis concluding that ‘on a somewhat fuller analysis . . . they do carry a tag as more ethical than epistemic, or the reverse’ so that the distinction between moral virtue and epistemic virtue ‘is ultimate and irreducible’ (Montmarquet 1993: 108, 109, 110, emphasis added). Thus Montmarquet says ‘I want to treat the epistemic virtues as . . . the counterparts of the moral virtues’ (1993: x, emphasis added). This is very different from the sort of approach taken by Linda Zagzebski. She admits that her account ‘subsumes the intellectual virtues under the general category of the moral virtues’ so that ‘[e]pistemic evaluation just is a form of moral evaluation . . . it follows that normative epistemology is a branch of ethics’ (Zagzebski 1996: 255, 256, 258, emphasis in original). This is the fulfilment of the promise made at the beginning of the book: ‘I will argue that the intellectual virtues are so similar to the moral virtues . . . that they ought not to be treated as two different kinds of virtue. Intellectual virtues are, in fact, forms of moral virtue. It follows that intellectual virtue is properly the object of study of moral r

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philosophy . . . It will take most of this book to demonstrate that epistemic evaluation is a form of moral evaluation . . .’ (Zagzebski 1996, xiv, 6). That ‘epistemic evaluation just is a form of moral evaluation’ just is an identity thesis, which I take to be a form of reductionism. Though she protests ‘I think of this move as expansionist rather than reductionist’, the fact is that in her view we ‘begin with a certain complex of concepts that uncontroversially belong to the sphere of the moral, and we may then argue that these concepts are most naturally understood as having a wider scope than previously accepted’ (Zagzebski 1996: 255, 256). Thus, in the end, the moral persists as a distinctive category and the epistemic does not. So I doubt there is a substantive difference between reduction and ‘expansion’ here. It is, after all, the distinctive nature of epistemic evaluation which is being done away with. At any rate, even if Zagzebski’s ‘expansion’ is indeed non-reductive in some sense, my intention is not to insist on the term ‘reduction’ but rather to bring epistemic responsibility under very different forms of non-epistemic evaluation than Zagzebski does for knowledge. I too want to make an expansionist move and bring epistemic responsibility under ethics and instrumental rationality (if the latter two are different). My position is that all instances of epistemic irresponsibility are in fact either forms of instrumental irrationality or moral irresponsibility insofar as there is anything amiss that goes beyond one’s beliefs not fitting the evidence one has at the time (merely having a belief not fit one’s evidence can’t be sufficient for irresponsibility, of course, because that might be completely beyond one’s control). Thus my position regarding epistemic irresponsibility (though not necessarily all so-called internal intellectual virtues2) is what Roberts and Wood call the ‘more traditional’ view (which they reject) of a so-called epistemic virtue as being ‘a moral virtue applied to an intellectual context’ (Roberts and Wood 2007: 60). Or as Feldman puts it, our judgments about intellectual responsibility are ‘moral and prudential evaluations of behavior related to the formation of beliefs’ (2004: 190). Thus there is nothing distinctively epistemic about epistemic responsibility. I therefore reject the view of those responsibilists mentioned above who assert that epistemic responsibility and moral responsibility are only analogically related distinct notions, where both are equally fundamental. Recently, Nikolaj Nottelmann has presented a monograph on epistemic responsibility that fits squarely in the camp which affirms the independence of epistemic responsibility. In his Blameworthy Belief he speaks positively of ‘setting moral and epistemic evaluations on an equal [but separate] footing’ (Nottelmann 2007: 9). He begins with the locus classicus of Clifford’s ‘Ethics of Belief’ arguing that ‘the text suggests that he simply took epistemic and moral evaluation to be equally basic dimensions of normative evaluation’ (Nottelmann 2007: 8). Nottelmann takes this to heart and makes it a goal in his treatise ‘[t]o keep it absolutely clear that the basis of epistemic blameworthiness is epistemic, not moral . . .’ (Nottelmann 2007: 10, emphasis added). This is just the sort of picture I’m opposing. After briefly considering Nottelmann’s rationale for this separation, I will commence my positive argument for my position. r

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Nottelmann’s line of reasoning for the independence of moral and epistemic blameworthiness—which he notes is very similar to that of Montmarquet—is that moral culpability presupposes epistemic culpability. The reason this is so, he says, is that if one were fully reasonable in believing that the purportedly blameworthy act were in fact licit, then there would be no moral culpability at all. He draws heavily on the distinction in law between actus reus and mens rea. Roughly, the former refers to the objective gravity of the act while the latter refers to the psychological states like intent and forethought which go into making someone culpable for a harmful act. According to the ancient dictum actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea there is no guilt for the act without certain psychological conditions met. One is that it couldn’t have been reasonable for the agent to think the act was licit. Ignorance can be an excuse or it can be culpable. What I will argue is that culpable ignorance is not a distinctively epistemic shortcoming. That is, being in a state of ignorance is, when irresponsible, morally irresponsible or instrumentally irrational. To the argument for that thesis I now turn. The Thesis in Greater Detail

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As I said, I’ll be arguing for an identity claim. This has consequences for the method of my argument. Reductionistic theories are to be preferred over nonreductionistic theories due to their parsimony. I take this attitude to be a hallmark of contemporary analytic philosophy. I’m not suggesting that any particular form of reductionism should claim favour, only that, in general, the commitment to conceptual parsimony is a general commitment of contemporary analytic philosophy. Thus all that is required to make the reductionist thesis more choiceworthy in this context is to show that it can explain the same data as the non-reductionist theory. There is no question of a tie if my explanations are sufficient, for if there are two theories equally capable of accounting for the data, we ought to choose the simpler of the two. And it is clearly simpler to posit fewer basic normative categories. Here is my identity thesis. Identity Each instance of epistemic irresponsibility is just an instance of purely non-epistemic irresponsibility/irrationality (either moral or instrumental). This is a tacit conditional: If X is an instance of epistemic irresponsibility, then X is just an instance of either moral irresponsibility or instrumental irrationality. There are two ways in which we might come to see that there is no epistemic irresponsibility in a given case when at first we thought there was, and in such a case Identity will be trivially satisfied. First, a case might just be a case of a dysfunctional agent. This is regrettable and, as Feldman has pointed out (Feldman 2001) we tend to use normative language in such cases: The teacher who just can’t teach his kids can be fired because a teacher ought to be able to do that. However, Kornblith points out that these ‘role oughts’ are very different from the sort of normativity involved in the kinds of cases that motivate r

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responsibilists (Kornblith 2001). There is no genuine form of blame that can be levelled in cases of dysfunction (unless the dysfunction is self-inflicted, in which case the blame should be laid on the particular acts which led to the dysfunction). So we might be misled into initially characterizing a case as a case of genuine epistemic irresponsibility by focusing on this other sort of normative failing, which is essentially a failure to achieve one’s telos. Another way we might be misled into thinking there is blameworthiness when in fact there is none is in cases where a subject’s belief doesn’t fit their current evidence. This is a purely epistemic evaluation and can result from irresponsible behaviour or from dysfunction, but, again, it is the behaviour that’s properly blameworthy. So there is a small eliminative element to my case as well, for I shall suggest that at least some of our ascriptions of intellectual irresponsibility are simply misguided in the two ways I’ve just mentioned. However, this is consistent with my central thesis in Identity. Another way to state my thesis is that to be epistemically irresponsible consists in being either instrumentally irrational or morally irresponsible.3 Like Feldman, my position is that when one’s belief fits the evidence, all other forms of evaluation concerning the belief are either moral or instrumental. What there is not in my view is a purely epistemic category of evaluation which does not concern fit with one’s evidence. Only the latter are central for responsibilists (for reasons stated by Code (1987: 50)). I’m not aware of anyone who denies that epistemic fit, considered abstractly, is purely epistemic.

The Case of Craig the Creationist (BWUK EJOP 422 Webpdf:=06/25/2010 04:06:08 302195 Bytes 15 PAGES n operator=K. Sampath) 6/25/2010 4:06:56 PM

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It will be helpful to have a case before us to illustrate the dynamics of the reduction, and fortunately I have an anecdote that will work well. I will first introduce the case informally, then formalize the threat it poses to evidentialism in the form of a valid deductive argument. I have a friend—let’s call him ‘Craig’—who is a ‘special creationist’. That is, he thinks that the major species of animals were created separately—as opposed to their having a common ancestor—and that this occurred 6,000 to at most 8,000 years before present (YBP is a common metric in sciences that deal with the distant past). I was frustrated with the persistence of this unfortunate belief. The problem, though, didn’t seem to be that his beliefs didn’t fit his evidence—they did seem to fit his evidence, for he had read very narrowly on the subject and had been raised and schooled all his life in an apparently reliable community which sustained this belief in the usual social ways, and which had reasonable-sounding stories for why people deny their views. Rather, the problem seemed to be precisely that he only had the very limited evidence he had, since I’d often recommended books challenging his views. In language that is becoming more common, his belief seemed to satisfy the standards of synchronic rationality: it seemed to fit the evidence he had at the time; but it didn’t appear to meet the standards of diachronic rationality, which is a cross-temporal assessment of rationality.4 Feldman has claimed that ‘diachronic considerations are moral or prudential’.5 r

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But the core responsibilists mentioned above avow that there is a purely epistemic evaluation of such cases over and above synchronic irrationality. In what follows, I will use the above case as a study in which to suggest a way of substantiating a claim similar to Feldman’s against those responsibilists who take epistemic responsibility to be a basic epistemic normative category. In order to assess the diachronic justification of Craig’s belief we need to introduce a dynamic element and look at Craig’s belief over some specific interval of time. So focus on a time at which I suggest to Craig that he read a couple of books which I say show that the arguments of young-Earth creationists are seriously flawed. And suppose he refuses to do so.6 This seems epistemically irresponsible (they are shortish books, within his ken, he really wants to know, and he has lots of free time, and, we may suppose, it would not violate any moral obligations he has). And it seems that he has no new evidence, for he has refused to read the books. But evidentialism requires that a change in epistemic status of belief issue from a change in evidential status. The challenge may be put clearly in this simple argument I’ll call the Craig Argument. The Craig Argument

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In the case of Craig the creationist, there is a change (a drop) in epistemic status of his belief. However, there is no change in his evidential status. If 1 and 2, then Identity is false, unless the negative evaluation can be explained by instrumental irrationality or moral irresponsibility. The negative evaluation can’t be explained in terms of practical irrationality. The negative evaluation can’t be explained in terms of moral irresponsibility. So Identity is false.

Thus, it seems on first inspection as though this case is a consideration in favour of the irreducibility thesis against the reductionist. It’s worth a closer look though. In what follows, I’ll give evidentialist readings of the Case of Craig the Creationist on which I challenge both 4 and 5, since my thesis is disjunctive: all so-called epistemic irresponsibility is either a case of practical irrationality or moral irresponsibility. But of course an instance might be both, so my primary target is (  4 v  5). But first, a word about 2 is in order. It is controversial whether the disagreement of an epistemic peer constitutes evidence against one’s own position. Feldman’s (2006) and Christensen’s (2007) generalization of it suggest it does. Foley (2001a) and Kelly (2005) argue that it does not. I am inclined to agree with Feldman and Christensen, so I am inclined to think that premise 2 is false. I’ll discuss that shortly, but first let me note that we can easily tell the story so that r

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his belief does fit his evidence and yet there is still irresponsibility (such cases are discussed very briefly in Conee and Feldman (2004) and presented in several versions in Axtell (forthcoming) and Baehr (forthcoming)). So, though I think 2 is false, that’s not my central concern, as (i) it involves a separate controversy in epistemology, and (ii) the case could be modified so as to make it true. (So why did I pick a case where it is false? Because I think a lot of natural cases where we attribute irresponsibility are in fact of this variety, where what’s really going on is that one’s belief lacks evidential fit, then the question becomes: Was this the result of morally or practically irresponsible action?) We can make the idealizing assumption that I was the first person to question Craig’s belief. Thus we can safely assume, given the further assumptions above, that my friend was not intellectually irresponsible prior to my suggesting that he read the books.7 But his refusal to read the books I’ve mentioned seems irresponsible. The epistemological status of his belief has fallen. Why? First, in Craig’s experience, we may assume, I have been a reliable source of true information about a wide variety of matters philosophical, theological, historical, and scientific. In light of this, it seems the epistemically responsible thing to do is to at least take a look at the books I’ve suggested. But notice that this is perfectly explicable in terms of synchronic justification (this is where I consider the version of the case where I argue premise 2 is false). At the time at which Craig became aware that he had testimony from a known reliable source that some of his beliefs were false, at that moment he had evidence that his beliefs were false.8 How much justification this robs him of depends on how reliable I’ve been in his experience. The diachronic picture is that he has synchronic (evidential) justification at t, then at t11 he gets partially defeating evidence from my testimony which was embedded in the challenge to read the books. However, he doesn’t change his view at all so that he is no longer evidentially justified. So the move from his belief having positive epistemic status at t to lacking it at later times seems to be explained by considerations pertaining to a change in synchronic evidential justification over two times. This would reduce diachronic justification to synchronic justification. So in this kind of case, the appearance of irresponsibility can be at least partly explained by supposing that what we are really picking up on is that in such a case epistemic agents have not been sensitive to their evidence. This can either be the result of cognitive dysfunction or through some discrete act which I argue is a case of instrumental irrationality or purely moral irresponsibility. There is either something at stake in the matter or there is not. If there is nothing at stake, then, if he is anything like us and has many other pressing concerns, there’s nothing irresponsible in not being overly scrupulous (indeed, it would be irrational). If there is something at stake, then it pertains either to one’s own interests or the interests of others. If it pertains to one’s own interests, then the irresponsibility at hand is easily explained in terms of practical irrationality. If it concerns the interests of others, then either I have a duty to promote their interests or I don’t. If I don’t, then I’m doing nothing irresponsible in not being scrupulous. If I do, then the irresponsibility is clearly moral. In no case is there irresponsibility that cannot be explained in one of these r

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two ways, and if that is the case, then parsimony directs us to disregard the multiplication of further normative categories. The last paragraph has been concerned with the version of the story in which premise 2 is false (though the dilemma in the last few sentences applies more broadly). But we can modify the story so that 2 is true. The way I prefer to do this is to baptize Craig in the waters of Christensen (2007) and have him lower his credences to just the right degree that his degree of belief perfectly fits his evidence, which now includes the fact that I disagree with him and think some books back up my position. (We’re assuming with Feldman and Christensen that my disagreement is evidence against Craig’s view, but with Christensen and against Feldman that this does not always require suspension of judgment. But we are assuming that the remaining credence is still fairly high.) With 2 set to true, Craig now represents for responsibilists a potential counter-example to the following evidentialist thesis. NEC S’s belief B at t is subject to negative epistemic evaluation only if B fails to fit S’s evidence at t.9

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Craig’s case now seems to constitute an additional threat to evidentialism, for his case seems to provide a counter-example to NEC. So Craig hears my apparently reliable testimony that these books contain information that undercuts his belief about a matter avowedly of great importance to him. Craig’s thoughts should go something like this, it seems, ‘My reliable friend has just told me that these books contain new information relevant to my belief that I want very much to believe truly regarding p, and I have the time to do so and no moral obligation not to do so, so I should read the books’. That’s roughly the reasoning we’d expect from what we’re inclined to call an epistemically responsible agent regarding the significance of new information. So to the extent that Craig is aware of the deliberative significance of his new evidence but fails to act on it, it seems that he is irrational. However, this kind of irrationality is clearly instrumental rationality. He is failing to attempt to achieve his goal by what is—by his own lights—an effective means. So Premise 4 above is false.10 Can the friend of the irreducibility of responsibilist virtue reply that what’s really at bottom in this apparent case of means-end irrationality is that Craig doesn’t value the truth enough, and that this is a truly epistemic shortcoming? This is a plausible suggestion that is worth investigating. First, we must correctly describe the criticism. The criticism can’t be that Craig doesn’t care enough about the truth because of the instrumental value of the truth, for that would just be instrumental irrationality again. So the criticism must be that Craig doesn’t care enough about the truth simply because of its non-instrumental (intrinsic, final, what have you) value. There’s one objection to this that I will not pursue. Some have argued for the existence of ‘junk truth’ which allegedly indicates that useless knowledge is without any value at all.11 But we needn’t go so far. The intrinsic or final value of truth is compatible with all that I’m saying, r

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for even as defenders of the unrestricted value of truth have admitted, ‘there are truths that are not worth knowing and which do not deserve our attention’, for they admit that the value of truth is defeasible, perhaps easily so (Kvanvig 2008: 211). What, then, determines whether some truth is worth our attention, in light of this admission? Clearly, personal/practical interests or moral obligations are great candidates. If there were absolutely no costs to doing so, I should memorize the phone book: that seems to follow from the intrinsic value of truth. However, there are costs to doing so (great costs for one such as me!), so no one can say I’m epistemically irresponsible for not trying to do it. This fits quite nicely with my reduction of epistemic irresponsibility to practical or moral irresponsibility. There’s another kind of concern. If I were to consider someone who didn’t value, say, the environment or animal welfare for their own sake, my temptation to tell them they ought to do so looks to me like a temptation to form a moral evaluation. Not to care about such things is to be a bad kind of person; likewise with the lack of ‘sufficient’ desire for truth. This may be something for which I can be morally blameworthy: I might have an ethical duty to my community to seek the truth about matters which might affect its well-being. This is a rich source of responsibility, though wholly moral. In a connected society, what I believe is likely to affect others. So I will often have duties to them to be knowledgeable about various things. This includes, perhaps, giving an accurate account of the nature of the world to offspring. Another form of negative normative evaluation for lack of sufficient desire for truth, assuming there is a human telos for truth in general, is that the agent is just dysfunctional. But in this case, we are unable to discern our sorry state and are, as Aristotle says, to be pitied, not blamed (Nicomachean Ethics III, esp. III.5, see Aristotle/Ross 1998). So there are two dimensions of moral evaluation which can explain epistemic irresponsibility ascriptions, but in either case, it is moral evaluation if it is not a matter of instrumental rationality. (And even if failure to fulfil one’s telos for truth is considered an epistemic failing, it is not necessarily one for which we can be blamed; that would depend on whether the dysfunction was a result of a vicious act.) So it looks like Premises 4 and 5 above are false.

Summary & Conclusion So let’s review the case of Craig the creationist. The datum is that in not reading the books I gave him, Craig is liable to some kind of criticism regarding his belief: it’s irresponsible. It can’t be part of the datum that the criticism is from an irreducibly epistemic point of view, for that’s precisely what’s being questioned. So the datum includes only that Craig is liable to some kind of criticism regarding his epistemic state. But that does not entail that the problem is irreducibly epistemic in nature. And it can’t be sufficient to count as epistemic that it makes a potential impact on one’s doxastic states, for one’s diet can have that effect. It is said that too many carbohydrates will dull one’s thoughts. Anyone returning to the afternoon sessions of a conference after a big lunch can attest to this fact. r

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Ignoring a recommendation to eat more ‘brain food’ is not, ipso facto, an epistemic shortcoming. It is, rather, a dietary shortcoming with epistemic consequences. No epistemology text should overlap with a cookbook. We set up the case in such a way that it didn’t originally seem to be a problem with Craig’s synchronic justification—his belief seemed to fit the evidence he in fact had to begin with. However, we saw that my testimony changes Craig’s evidence set and that at the time the evidence set changes, what’s synchronically justified for him at that new time changes. Thus if his beliefs don’t change at all we have something to explain our inclination to condemn his belief in the lack of synchronic justification. And though this is purely epistemic, if it were all there were to epistemic irresponsibility judgments then my arguments would have carried the day, for the core responsibilists all say there is more to epistemic responsibility than evidential fit, and this more is something which is modeled on and analogous to but not identical with moral virtue. So one class of cases can be handled in this way. But can we tell the story–as many responsibilists have–so that it is stipulated that Craig’s attitude fits his evidence at the time. If we make this assumption, there is still a sufficient explanation of irresponsibility: it is instrumentally irrational for Craig not to read the books, since if he wants to get the truth, and we supposed he did, he ought to read the books, since he has evidence that reading the books will get him to the truth. The cost is low, the potential payoff, we may assume, is high. And if it’s not a matter of fairly great significance, then of course there’s nothing irresponsible in ignoring it. As Richard Foley points out, ‘the more important the issue, the more time and effort it is reasonable to devote to having accurate and comprehensive beliefs about it. . . . the standards of responsible belief vary with the importance of the issue under consideration. . . . More precisely, responsible believing does not require extraordinary care unless the issue itself is extraordinarily important’ (Foley 2001b: 226). A third explanation is suggested by the second: maybe the problem is that we think Craig doesn’t care enough about the truth. But this also is either a matter of instrumental irrationality if he has a sufficiently strong desire to believe truly on this matter or a purely moral one if he does not have such a desire. But this criticism adverts only to traditionally paradigmatic moral issues whether we characterize it as ‘internal’ in the sense of bad moral character or ‘external’ in the sense of a dysfunctional agent. And the most apt kind of negative moral evaluation here is an ‘externalist’ one, a matter of teleological dysfunction, not a moral one of the sort responsibilists look to for inspiration. There may be a human telos to seek truth, and there might be particular other-regarding moral duties to seek truth on matters of practical importance, but not a general, impersonal duty to seek truth as such (even the arch deontologist Locke held that our duty to seek truth was a duty to another person: God, the architect of our cognitive faculties (Essay Concerning Human Understanding, IV, xvii, 24), see Locke/Nidditch 1979). (And, again, even if the truth has value whether anyone desires it, this value is not necessarily sufficient to trump practical interests, as Kvanvig notes.) r

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Importantly, these three explanations are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I’m inclined to think they all apply in many relevant cases. Certainly they are compatible, and their overlapping application to one degree or another adequately explains what’s wrong in Craig’s situation and situations relevantly like Craig’s. It seems to me that the case study has the essential features to represent evaluations of epistemic responsibility generally, so I doubt that antireductionist virtue responsibilists will be able to find cases that cannot be explained in at least one of the ways I have indicated. And as long as this is so, the imperative to reduce normative categories will push us toward reductionism. That there is such an imperative is a nearly universal assumption among contemporary analytic philosophers, and I am certainly assuming it for the purposes of this argument. I would be very much surprised of the responsibilists I have cited would not accept it as well. This thought can be made more precise in the following simple argument: Core Argument

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The responsibilist is already committed to the existence of synchronic justification, moral rectitude, and instrumental rationality. We ought not multiply types of norms without necessity. So if epistemic responsibility can be explained in terms of synchronic justification, moral rectitude, or instrumental rationality, then the reduction ought to be accepted.

This paper has been an attempt to affirm the antecedent of the conclusion of the Core Argument establishing the reduction and defeating the Craig Argument against evidentialism above. What the friend of irreducible irresponsibility needs—since (1) is clearly true and (2) is a common assumption—is a case that meets the following criteria: (i) S’s belief that p is irresponsible, but either (ii) S is not synchronically unjustified or morally blameworthy for believing that p or imprudent in accepting p, or (iii) some of these negative epistemic appraisals hold but it is quite clear that these shortcomings have nothing to do with what’s wrong with believing p. For unless such a case can be given, it will always remain plausible that the other forms of negative evaluation are what is behind our judgments. I doubt any sufficiently clear case can be constructed, and so I am confident that Identity will prevail.12 Trent Dougherty Department of Philosophy Baylor University USA [email protected] r

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It is notoriously hard to distinguish between reduction and elimination, but it is not of importance to me how my thesis is seen in this regard. 2 There is a classificatory problem here since the list of intellectual virtues is puzzlingly heterogeneous. My target here is certainly not Aristotle’s ‘chief intellectual virtues’ (Nicomachean Ethics VI.B) (and note that his notion of ‘Practical Wisdom’ (Nicomachean Ethics VI.5) is quite different from the notion of instrumental rationality I’ve been using, which is simply decision theoretic), but rather the list one finds common in the responsibilists I’ve been focusing on: conscientiousness, open-mindedness, intellectual courage, intellectual humility, et al. I think all of these could probably be reduced to instrumental rationality. Note that Montmarquet 1993, especially Chapter Two draws a strong connection between the concept of epistemic virtue and love of truth (and he notes a similar connection in Kornblith 1985) which is also at the core of Zagzebski’s view. This provides a basis for a reduction to instrumental rationality. Unfortunately, there is currently no standard taxonomy of the internal virtues, nor is there a very stable definition of ‘responsibility’. This is why I’ve used ostensive definition, pointing to the sorts of irresponsibility judgments expressed in ‘You should have known better’. It is this notion which has been the traditional focus of responsibilists even if some have departed from it. Hookway also notes this classificatory problem (Hookway 2003: 188). 3 After finishing this MS I remembered that Code 1987 features a description of nineteenth-century prominent biologist Philip Gosse’s rejection of evolution on biblical grounds as a prime example of things going wrong intellectually. 4 Swinburne 2001, passim. and Conee and Feldman 2004, 189 use this term. 5 ‘The Ethics of Belief’, in Conee and Feldman 2004, 189. 6 Though the Dogmatism Paradox also gets its start from the same phenomenon— resistence to consider contrary evidnece—it is a problem in its own right, so I bracket it for the purposes of this essay. For discussion of the Dogmatism Paradox see Harman 1973 (he attributes it to Kripke), Sorensen 1988, and Conee 2004. 7 This might seem a bit far fetched, since it might seem that such an individual would have been confronted long before now. This is just a harmless idealization, and it would not be hard to adapt my response to more realistic cases, it’s just that more realistic cases are more messy. 8 This could arise either directly from my testimony or via Feldman’s principle that, in the relevant class of cases, ‘Evidence of evidence is evidence’ (in Feldman 2007) or Roger White’s similar ‘Meta-Justification Principle’ (in his 2006). The epistemology of disagreement literature provides many ways of seeing that my disagreement provides contrary and potentially defeating evidence for my interlocutor. The best statements of it are Feldman 2006 and Christensen 2007 and 2009. See Kelly 2005 and forthcoming for the opposing view. 9 This concerns propositional justification. There is also what Conee and Feldman 2004 refer to as ‘well-founded belief’. It concerns doxastic justification which adds proper basing to a belief the content of which is propositionally justified, the latter consisting solely in evidential fit. There are many interesting issues regarding the basing relation which are beyond the scope of this paper. 10 In his 2001, Swinburne develops a view of ‘diachronic justification’ which is based on the concept of adequate investigation. He gives three criteria for determining adequate justification (pp. 168, 174, and 177, respectively), but it is not clear that it fully generalizes

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to the sort of reduction I have in mind here. His thesis seems to be that S’s belief that p is responsible when further investigation does not have positive expected utility. Some of what Swinburne says seems to favor this generalization (178–179 in particular), but a survey of his very detailed theory is beyond the scope of this paper. For a treatment of epistemic responsibility which also leans heavily on instrumental rationality but is more friendly than Swinburne’s to externalism, see Heil 1983 and 1992. 11 Sosa 2004, 156 uses the example of counting grains of sand on the beach. Plantinga 1993: 98 uses the example of how many blades of grass are on my front lawn. 12 Many thanks to my colleagues at Baylor University for helpful discussion, especially Bob’s Roberts, Kruschwits, and Baird, and also to my excellent assistant Jordan Williams for her invaluable help.

REFERENCES

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Aristotle (1998), Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Axtell, G. (1997), ‘Recent Work in Virtue Epistemology’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 34: 1–27. Axtell, G. (ed.) (2000), Knowledge, Belief, and Character: Readings in Virtue Epistemology. Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield. Axtell, G. (Forthcoming), ‘From Internalist Evidentialism to Virtue Responsibilism’, in T. Dougherty (ed.), Evidentialism and its Discontents. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Axtell, G. and Carter, A. (2008), ‘Just the Right Thickness: A Defense of Second-Wave Virtue Epistemology’, Philosophical Papers, 37: 413–34. Axtell, G. and Olson, P. (2008), MS. ‘Three Independent Factors in Epistemology’. Presented at the International Epistemic Goodness Conference, University of Oklahoma, March 2008. Baehr, J. (2006), ‘Character in Epistemology’, Philosophical Studies, 128: 479–514. —— (2009), ‘Evidentialism, Vice, and Virtue’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 78: 545–567. Reprinted, with slight modifications, in T. Dougherty (ed.), Evidentialism and its Discontents. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Christensen, D. (2007), ‘Epistemology of Disagreement: The Good News’, Philosophical Review, 116: 187–217. —— (2009), ‘Disagreement as Evidence: The Epistemology of Controversy’, Philosophy Compass, 4: 756–67. Code, L. (1987), Epistemic Responsibility. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Conee, E. (2004), ‘Heeding Misleading Evidence’, in E. Conee and R. Feldman, Evidentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Conee, E. and Feldman, R. (2004), Evidentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dancy, J. (1982), ‘Intuitionism in Meta-Epistemology’, Philosophical Studies, 42: 395–408. —— (1995), ‘Supervenience, Virtues, and Consequences’, Philosophical Studies, 78: 189–205. —— (2000), ‘Supervenience, Virtues, and Consequences’, in G. Axtell (ed.), Knowledge, Belief, and Character: Readings in Virtue Epistemology. Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield. Dancy, J. and Sosa, E. (1992), ‘Ethics and Epistemology’, in J. Dancy and E. Sosa (eds), A Companion to Epistemology. Oxford: Blackwell.

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DeRose, K. (2000), ‘Ought We to Follow Our Evidence?’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 60: 697–706. —— (Forthcoming), ‘Questioning Evidentialism’, in T. Dougherty (ed.), Evidentialism and its Discontents. O xford: Oxford University Press. Feldman, R. (2004), ‘The Ethics of Belief’, in E. Conee and R. Feldman, Evidentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —— (2006), ‘Epistemological Puzzles about Disagreement’, in S. Hetherington (ed.), Epistemology Futures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —— (2007), ‘Reasonable Religious Disagreements’, in L. Antony (ed.), Philosophers Without God: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foley, R. (2001a), Intellectual Trust in Oneself and Others. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— (2001b), ‘The Foundational Role of Epistemology in a General Theory of Rationality’, in A. Fairweather and L. Zagzebski (eds.), Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harman, G. (1973), Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Heil, J. (1983), ‘Doxastic Agency’, Philosophical Studies, 43: 355–64. —— (1992), ‘Believing Reasonably’, Nous, 26: 47–62. Hookway, C. (2000), ‘Regulating Inquiry: Virtue, Doubt, and Sentiment’, in G. Axtell (ed.), Knowledge, Belief, and Character: Readings in Virtue Epistemology. Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield. —— (2003), ‘How to be a Virtue Epistemologist’, in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.), Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kelly, T. (2005), ‘The Epistemic Significance of Disagreement’, Oxford Studies in Epistemology, 1: 167–96. —— (Forthcoming), ‘Peer Disagreement and Higher-Order Evidence’, in R. Feldman and T. Warfield (eds.), Disagreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kornblith, H. (1980), ‘Beyond Foundationalism and the Coherence Theory’, The Journal of Philosophy, 77: 597–612. —— (1983), ‘Justified Belief and Epistemically Responsible Action’, The Philosophical Review, 92: 33–48. —— (1985), ‘Ever Since Descartes’, The Monist, 68: 264–76. —— (2001), ‘Epistemic Obligations and the Possibility of Internalism’, in A. Fairweather and L. Zagzebski (eds.), Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kvanvig, Jonathan. (2008), ‘Pointless Truth’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 32: 199–212. Locke, J. (1979), Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. P. Hidditch. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Montmarquet, J. (1993), Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Nottelmann, N. (2007), Blameworthy Belief: A Study in Epistemic Deontologism. Dordrecht: Springer. Plantinga, A. (1993), Warrant: The Current Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Roberts, R. and Wood, J. (2007), Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sorensen, R. (1988), ‘Dogmatism, Junk Knowledge, and Conditionals’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 38: 433–54.

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Sosa, E. (2004), ‘The Place of Truth in Epistemology’, in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.), Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swinburne, R. (2001), Epistemic Justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press. White, R. (2006), ‘Problems for Dogmatism’, Philosophical Studies, 131: 525–57. Zagzebski, L. (1996), Virtues of the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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