Starter: Reliabilism

1. What key difference is there between reliabilism and the standard JTB account?

2. What is Alvin Goldman’s further refinement to reliabilism?

3. Why does he propose it?4. What strengths does reliabilism have that

infallibilism does not?

From Reliabilism to Virtue Epistemology

Or: how to beEXCELLENT AT KNOWING

The concept of virtue in epistemology

• Virtue = ‘habitual excellence’• So intellectual virtues:– Broad cognitive abilities or powers – ‘innate

faculties or acquired habits that enable a person to arrive at truth and avoid error’ – such as sound reason, accurate perception, reliable memory

– Or, alternatively, personality traits, such as intellectual courage, open-mindedness, resilience etc

Recent Virtue Epistemologists• Ernest Sosa’s 1980 ‘The Raft and the

Pyramid’• introduces the notion of virtue

epistemology• to tackle the debate between

– foundationalism (a ‘pyramidal’ approach to knowledge’, where a solid foundation of knowledge grounds the entire structure)

– and coherentism (a ‘raft’, in Sosa’s account) where a structure is tied together simply by relations of mutual support

Sosa’s arguments for VE – It’s better than the alternatives

• ‘Epistemic justification’ – the property that turns true belief into knowledge

• Can coherentism provide this property alone?– Issue: highly coherent belief systems can be totally divorced from reality (Santa

Claus, the Evil Demon Hypothesis).– Issue: experience obviously plays a role in epistemic justification, not just

relations between beliefs. (e.g. I believe I see my hand, not a collection of tentacles)

• Can foundationalism provide this property alone?– The priority of direct experience would explain e.g. why my belief in my hand

being at the end of my arm is epistemically justified.• How do rational certainties get us back to worldly knowledge? (Cogito problems etc) • Such sensory experiences can be mistaken (Descartes)• And there are many such directly justified experiences. Is direct experience fundamental,

or is it an instance of some more general principle?

Virtue Epistemology in Standard Form

• S knows that P iff– P is true– S believes P– This belief in P is produced by one or more intellectual virtues of S

• Replaces justification condition with account of intellectual virtue.• So: focus on the nature of the knower rather than the knowledge itself.• And! (Strength!) ‘intellectual virtue’ can mean all of the kinds of

intellectual excellences that are attractive in other theories.• But (Weakness!) might look as if ‘intellectual virtue’ is therefore rather

‘underdetermined’ – it means all things to all men, perhaps…• Key question (Michael Lacewing): is this knowledge that is claimed ‘apt,

adroit, accurate’.– Alliterative, so memorable. But what exactly is being explained?...

A strength of VE: itsubsumes foundationalism

• provides general account of epistemic justification• Sosa: ‘a belief B (p) is epistemically justified for a person S iff B

(p) is produced by one or more intellectual virtues of S.’• So retains power of intellectually virtuous dispositions such

as:– Empiricism: perceptual ability to reliably form beliefs

about the environment on the basis of sensory inputs – Rationalism: Faculties of memory, introspection, logical

inference• ‘By defining epistemic justification in terms of intellectual

virtue we get a unified account of all the sources of justification traditionally recognised by foundationalism’ (John Greco)

A strength of VE: it subsumes coherentism

• as now coherentism can also make claim to be intellectual virtue.

• Intellectual Virtue = ‘disposition that reliably gives rise to true belief under relevant circumstances and in a relevant environment’

• So: coherence-seeking reason is therefore a reliable source of true belief and hence another source of epistemic justification.

• Sosa: animal knowledge or true beliefs produced by epistemic virtue can then lead to reflective knowledge ‘when coherent perspective on true beliefs and their origin in intellectual virtue is superadded’

A strength of VE: it subsumes reliabilism

• Subsumes reliabilism (= ‘a belief B (p) is epistemically justified for S iff B (p) is the outcome of a sufficiently reliable cognitive process i.e. a process that is sufficiently truth-conducive.’)

• Generic reliabilism– Has explanatory power about correctness of beliefs caused

by e.g. perception, memory, logic etc– Explains why beliefs based on hallucination, wishful

thinking etc are wrong– Cuts off sceptical arguments which trade on assumption

that processes must be 100% correct – ‘de facto reliability rather than vindicated reliability’

A strength of VE: it answers a key issue with reliabilism

• Brain lesion example, Barn County example, show that highly reliable cognitive processes are insufficient for epistemic justification problem for reliabilism.

• However, VE denies that these beliefs were epistemically justified: they’re just false beliefs, not knowledge.– True that they show that not all reliable cognitive processes give rise to

epistemic justification.– but belief about brain lesion does not arise out of knower’s intellectual

virtues, but from an organic illness.– but belief about barns does not arise out of intellectual virtues (how?)– So, these beliefs aren’t knowledge.

• ‘New Evil Demon problem’: ‘according to simple reliabilism, epistemic justification is entirely a matter of reliability. But the demon victim’s beliefs are not reliably formed…they are nevertheless justified.’ (Greco)

• Virtue epistemology’s answer to ‘new evil demon problem’– Beliefs of sufferer are not reliably formed

• Not ‘from the skin inward’ – she does reason appropriately from her sensory experiences.• But ‘from the skin outward’ – her cognitive facilities are not fitted to detect the issue with her

environment.

– Yet they are internally justified, as they are beliefs that result from intellectual virtues.

• So whether a cognitive faculty counts as virtuous is relative to its environment.– The demon victim’s perception and reasoning powers are not reliable in the

demon world, so are not virtues there.– But these same faculties are reliable, and therefore do count as virtues, in the

actual world.

A strength of VE: it answers another key issue with reliabilism

• To societal circumstances.• So knowledge might ‘flex’ or

change over time?• for example

– unusual powers of concentration might be socially disabling OR excellent.

– unusual arithmetical ability might not be always useful OR it could be very handy

– an unusual memory could be disabling OR brilliant

• Is this a strength, or a weakness of virtue epistemology?

A strength of VE: Epistemic Virtue is relative!

A strength of VE: deals with Gettier cases plausibly

• In Gettier cases, S believes the truth by accident. So these cases are not epistemically virtuous: she doesn’t believe the truth because of habitual excellence in her knowledge-claims.

• In cases of knowledge, S believes the truth, and her epistemic virtues are a ‘salient part of the causal story regarding how S came to have true belief’.

• ’S has knowledge regarding P iff S believes the truth regarding P because S believes P out of intellectual virtue’ her knowledge is aptly formed…

A strength of VE:notion of acquired traits is plausible

• Follows Aristotle in arguing that virtues can be taught and developed– Just as in the case of other virtues, epistemological

virtues are acquired traits of character. – You can be taught them, you can learn them.– Their acquisition is something at least partly controlled.– Possessing and exercising them are praiseworthy.– Not acquiring and exercising them are blameworthy.

A strength of VE:idea of balanced character development

• Intellectual virtues can be developed during a lifetime.• A properly virtuous knower might aim to be ‘rounded’.

Issues with Virtue Epistemology• The account is wishy-washy: it doesn’t precisely specify how

you justify any knowledge-claim.• How would you know if your knowledge was apt?

– (You’d have confidence because of your honed intellectual discipline...is this enough?)

• Are virtues of intellect or character most relevant?• What is the relationship between these? Could they be in

tension? (Rational psychopaths etc)• Why should a virtuous knower be rounded? What of autists

etc?• If virtuous qualities change, doesn’t knowledge itself change?