Internalism, Externalism, and Autonomous Belief

What must be the case for an autonomous belief condition on knowledge (motivated in Chapter 1) to be satisfied by a knower? Chapter 2 takes up this question by investigating whether or not the knowledge-relevant (viz., epistemic) autonomy of a belief is determined entirely by the subject’s present mental structure. What I’ll call ‘internalists’ about epistemically autonomous belief say ‘yes’, and externalists say ‘no.’ Internalism about epistemic autonomous belief turns out to be problematic for reasons entirely independent from those we might have for rejecting internalist approaches to epistemically justified belief. What is shown to fare much better is a kind of ‘history-sensitive’ externalist approach to epistemically autonomous belief. On the particular account I go in for, which draws from externalist thinking about attitudinal autonomy more generally (as well as from virtue epistemology), a belief lacks the kind of epistemic autonomy that’s needed for propositional knowledge if the subject comes to possess the belief in a way that (put simply) bypasses or pre-empts the subject’s cognitive abilities and is such that the subject lacks easy (enough) opportunities to competently shed that belief.

The Aim of Inquiry

I defend the thesis that the constitutive aim of inquiring into some question, Q, is improving one’s epistemic standing with respect to Q. Call this the epistemic-improvement view. I consider and ultimately reject two alternative accounts of the constitutive aim of inquiry—namely, the thesis that inquiry aims at knowledge and the thesis that inquiry aims at (justified) belief—and I use my criticisms as a foil for clarifying and motivating the epistemic-improvement view. I also consider and reject a pair of normative theses about when inquiry goes awry or is inappropriate. The first is the normative thesis defended by Dennis Whitcomb who claims that inquiry goes awry if it culminates in a belief that falls short of knowledge and that one should not inquire into Q if one already knows the answer to Q. The second is the normative thesis defended by Jane Friedman who claims that one should not inquire into Q if one already believes some complete answer to Q.

Normative Principles are Synthetic A Priori

I argue for the claim that there are instances of a priori justified belief – in particular, justified belief in moral principles – that are not analytic, i.e., that cannot be explained solely by the understanding we have of their propositions. §1–2 provides the background necessary for understanding this claim: in particular, it distinguishes between two ways a proposition can be analytic, Basis and Constitutive, and provides the general form of a moral principle. §§3–5 consider whether Hume's Law, properly interpreted, can be established by Moore's Open Question Argument, and concludes that it cannot: while Moore's argument – appropriately modified – is effective against the idea that moral judgments are either (i) reductively analyzable or (ii) Constitutive-analytic, a different argument is needed to show that they are not (iii) Basis-analytic. Such an argument is supplied in §6. §§7–8 conclude by considering how these considerations bear on recent discussions of “alternative normative concepts”, on the epistemology of intuitions, and on the differences between disagreement in moral domains and in other a priori domains such as logic and mathematics.

Ridiculous Beliefs, Irresponsible Beliefs, and Anti-skeptical Evidence

This chapter identifies three more potential problems (in addition to the one discussed in Chapter Nine) for the commonsense intuitionist particularist response to radical skepticism laid out in Chapters Six through Eight, and argues that none of these three alleged problems constitutes an insurmountable objection to commonsense anti-skepticism. The first additional problem is the Problem of Ridiculous Beliefs, according to which noninferential anti-skepticism is committed to approving of a way of responding to skepticism even if that way of responding to skepticism were used to defend ridiculous beliefs. The second is the Problem of Irresponsible Beliefs, according to which unperturbed persistence in endorsing beliefs undefended by argument (e.g. perceptual beliefs), in the face of obvious skeptical possibilities, is epistemically irresponsible. The third is the Problem of Anti-skeptical Evidence, which objects to the view (endorsed by the intuitionist particularism laid out in Chapters Six through Eight) that many of our justified beliefs in anti-skeptical propositions are based on good evidence. The worry behind this last alleged problem is that, even if people can have justified belief in anti-skeptical propositions (i.e. propositions that assert the falsity of radical skeptical hypotheses), there are good reasons for concluding that these sorts of beliefs cannot be based on good evidence. The chapter concludes that, after careful examination of all three problems, commonsense intuitionist particularism emerges unscathed.

Philosophical Issues in Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is active, good-quality thinking. This kind of thinking is initiated by an agent’s desire to decide what to believe, it satisfies relevant norms, and the decision on the matter at hand is reached through the use of available reasons under the control of the thinking agent. In the educational context, critical thinking refers to an educational aim that includes certain skills and abilities to think according to relevant standards and corresponding attitudes, habits, and dispositions to apply those skills to problems the agent wants to solve. The basis of this ideal is the conviction that we ought to be rational. This rationality is manifested through the proper use of reasons that a cognizing agent is able to appreciate. From the philosophical perspective, this fascinating ability to appreciate reasons leads into interesting philosophical problems in epistemology, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. Critical thinking in itself and the educational ideal are closely connected to the idea that we ought to be rational. But why exactly? This profound question seems to contain the elements needed for its solution. To ask why is to ask either for an explanation or for reasons for accepting a claim. Concentrating on the latter, we notice that such a question presupposes that the acceptability of a claim depends on the quality of the reasons that can be given for it: asking this question grants us the claim that we ought to be rational, that is, to make our beliefs fit what we have reason to believe. In the center of this fit are the concepts of knowledge and justified belief. A critical thinker wants to know and strives to achieve the state of knowledge by mentally examining reasons and the relation those reasons bear to candidate beliefs. Both these aspects include fascinating philosophical problems. How does this mental examination bring about knowledge? What is the relation my belief must have to a putative reason for my belief to qualify as knowledge? The appreciation of reason has been a key theme in the writings of the key figures of philosophy of education, but the ideal of individual justifying reasoning is not the sole value that guides educational theory and practice. It is therefore important to discuss tensions this ideal has with other important concepts and values, such as autonomy, liberty, and political justification. For example, given that we take critical thinking to be essential for the liberty and autonomy of an individual, how far can we try to inculcate a student with this ideal when the student rejects it? These issues underline important practical choices an educator has to make.

Sexual Consent and Epistemic Agency

In “Sexual Consent and Epistemic Agency,” Jennifer Lackey examines sexual consent in the context of the widely accepted thesis that knowledge is sufficient for epistemically permissible action; that is, the view according to which if someone knows a given proposition, then it is epistemically permissible for this person to act on it. To the extent that this is denied, it is argued that either more, or less, than knowledge is required, such as certainty or justified belief. Lackey shows that being able to act on knowledge that someone has consented to sex provides an interesting challenge to this framework. In particular, Lackey argues that someone may know that another consents to sex and yet it may still be epistemically impermissible to act on this knowledge. This is clearest when the knowledge of the consent in question is secondhand, rather than firsthand.

Reasons, Justification, and Defeat

Traditionally, the notion of defeat has been central to epistemology, practical reasoning, and ethics. Within epistemology, it is standardly assumed that a subject who knows that p, or justifiably believes that p, can lose this knowledge or justified belief by acquiring a so-called ‘defeater’, whether evidence that not-p, evidence that the process which produced her belief is unreliable, or evidence that she has likely misevaluated her evidence. Within ethics and practical reasoning, it is widely accepted that a subject may initially have a reason to do something although this reason is later defeated by her acquisition of further information. However, the traditional conception of defeat has recently come under attack. Some have argued that the notion of defeat is problematically motivated; others that defeat is hard to accommodate within externalist or naturalistic accounts of knowledge or justification; others that the intuitions which support defeat can be explained in other ways. This volume brings together recent work to re-examine the very notion of defeat, and its place in epistemology, and in normativity theory at large.