Abstract
Controversy over the epistemology of disagreement endures because there is an unnoticed factor at work: the intrinsic value we give to self-trust. Even if there are many instances of disagreement where, from a strictly epistemic or rational point of view, we ought to suspend belief, there are other values at work that influence our all-things considered judgments about what we ought to believe. Hence those who would give equal-weight to both sides in many cases of disagreement may be right, from the perspective of pure rationality. But their critics are right too, in seeing something undesirable in the consequences of giving equal weight. Among epistemologists, there is a tendency to set aside trust and other such non-epistemic factors, on the grounds that these are not germane to their topic. But ultimately, the value of self-trust shows signs of encroaching on the strictly epistemic question of when our beliefs may be said to be justified. Hence again, even if the equal-weighters are right about what is rational, they may be wrong about what knowledge requires.
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Notes
There is no canonical definition of rationality, or even of epistemic rationality. The core idea here comes from Foley (1987). For a helpful discussion of the varieties of rationality, see Kelly (2003). On Kelly’s account, one should be called epistemically rational “when one believes propositions that are strongly supported by one’s evidence and refrains from believing propositions that are improbable given one’s evidence” (2003, p. 612). The arguments of this paper could all be adapted to that conception of rationality.
This formulation is intended to reflect White (2009)’s important observation that ‘epistemic peer’ should be defined in terms of expected reliability. Much of the worries in the literature about the notion of an epistemic peer—e.g., Feldman (2009, pp. 300–301), Frances (2010, pp. 424–425), King (2012)—arise because of the mistaken assumption that an epistemic peer will be someone who is actually on a par with regard to information, cognitive abilities, etc. To be sure, one is unlikely ever to meet an actual epistemic peer, and even less likely to know it if one does. But this is not to the point: all that matters is that one has good reason to expect one’s interlocutor to be neither more nor less likely to get things right, in the domain at issue. Such a state of affairs is quite common.
Prominent defenses of the equal-weight view include Feldman (2006), Christensen (2007), Elga (2007), and Cohen (2013). Some of its defenders, most prominently Elga (who coined the label ‘equal weight’) have argued that the view can be defanged of its most intolerable consequences, by showing it to be applicable to a much narrower range of cases than one might suppose. My own proposal amounts to a different path toward avoiding the intolerable consequences.
A prominent example of this sort of mixed verdict is Lackey (2010).
Here, and throughout the paper, this sort of formulation is only roughly right, because it is often suggested that, even from a narrow epistemic point of view, there is more that matters than just getting at the truth (and avoiding error). For discussion see, e.g., the papers collected in Steup (2001). For more narrowly epistemological discussions of self-trust, see e.g. Lehrer (1997) and Foley (2001).
Typically, these are noted only to be set aside as not relevant to epistemology. See, e.g., Sosa (2007, p. 44): “First, we are interested in distinctively epistemic justification, not in pragmatic or any other sort of justification of beliefs or other attitudes.”
Although I am unaware of anyone who has argued for self-trust as having non-epistemic doxastic value, some excellent work has been done on the subject of trust in others. On the value of putting trust in friends, see Keller (2004) and Stroud (2006), who concludes that “friendship requires epistemic irrationality” (p. 518). Adams (1987) has made somewhat similar claims in a religious context, and Baier (1980) has argued for a secular faith that puts trust in both individuals and institutions: “the secular equivalent of faith in God, which we need in morality as well as in science or knowledge acquisition, is faith in the human community and its evolving procedures—in the prospects for many-handed cognitive ambitions and moral hopes” (p. 133). I discuss the doxastic value of hope in Pasnau (forthcoming-b). For a recent attempt to account for this sort of trust in the context of disagreement, see Hazlett (2014), though his proposal is quite different from my own, because he attempts to defend the epistemic rationality of such practices.
The main text here canvasses very quickly some of the tests that have been advanced to distinguish between the right and the wrong kinds of reasons. See, e.g., amidst a large literature, Schroeder (2012b) and D’Arms and Jacobson (2014). The latter makes it clear just how murky this distinction is, and I scarcely wish to put much weight on it here. But it is perhaps worth noting that, on its face, self-trust passes at least one prominent test for being the right kind of reason. For it scores quite high as being the sort of reason that people are able to respond to as a reason for belief. Threaten someone to believe p or else, and the threat likely will not work. (That’s the wrong kind of reason.) In contrast, tell someone who is tempted by the arguments for the equal-weight view that she should have the courage to trust herself, and this is as likely as anything to have some influence. It looks, in this respect, like the right kind of reason. But this may show simply how unreliable that particular test is, since one might suggest that various reasons that are clearly of the wrong kind, such as various forms of bigotry, will fair quite well on the “ability to respond to” test. Alternatively, one might try to save the test by pointing out that self-trust motivates belief only indirectly, by leading an agent to put more weight on her own first-order reasons, reasons that are presumably of the right kind. (This will become important in Sect. 7.)
The argument of this paragraph is indebted to Schroeder (2012a, p. 276), who argues somewhat similarly that “reasons to withhold can’t be evidence.” But the reasons he is interested in are pragmatic ones, not the sorts of intrinsic values I am concerned with, and his argument arises in a wholly different context. For more on credences versus full belief, see note 22.
Christensen (2007, p. 216). For a similar verdict, see Kornblith (2010, pp. 51–52). Even Kelly, a leading opponent of the equal-weight view, remarks that he does not regard the implication that we should give up our beliefs in these controversial domains as “a significant theoretical cost”; on the contrary, the suggestion we are too confident in these domains has “considerable independent plausibility” (2010, p. 128).
Pettit (2006, p. 181).
Elga (2007, p. 484).
Sosa (2010, p. 284).
It should be noted that the motive of self-trust hardly could yield such a strong claim, inasmuch as agents who are persuaded of the equal-weight case should presumably trust that conclusion, and should follow their inclination to suspend belief. But such agents might themselves be threatened with epistemic irrationality, inasmuch as the equal-weight view is itself the sort of disputed thesis where suspension of belief seems mandated. On the self-referential character of the equal-weight view, see Elga (2010).
An anonymous referee suggests that epistemic values alone might account for why the threshold for belief is greater than 51 %, inasmuch as our epistemic values might simply give more weight to avoiding false belief than to achieving true belief. Yet still the question arises of why we weigh one of these twin desiderata more than the other, and to what degree. It is reasonable enough to think that the twin desiderata are simply basic epistemic values, with nothing more to be said about what makes them valuable. But it would be odd to think that the decision to weigh one more than the other is likewise basic. On the contrary, the decision to give more weight to avoiding falsehood seems to call out for some sort of further explanation, grounded in some sort of further value. Of course there will be many pragmatic reasons, in differing circumstances, for weighing the risk of error more or less heavily. But here the question is what sort of intrinsic weight is to be placed on one or the other desideratum. It is perhaps merely a terminological point whether such values get included among our “epistemic” reasons, but for my purposes what matters is just that we need to expand the field of doxastic values beyond what is usually counted as epistemic.
I am indebted here to the work on moral deference in Hills (2009) and McGrath (2011). Compare McGrath’s remark, regarding someone who defers to a moral expert, that “even granting that such an agent might very well deserve moral praise, he or she still falls short of an important ideal associated with moral agency: that of doing the right thing for the reasons that make it right” (p. 135). Both Hills and McGrath explicitly contrast the moral and cognitive domains, and apply their conclusions only to the moral. Here, then, I am suggesting a way in which the general structure of their argument can be extended even into the cognitive domain. Compare Sliwa (2012), who likewise denies that moral deference is a special case, and then uses that claim to argue for moral deference’s legitimacy. I take the considerations here to point toward a sharper understanding of the contexts in which deference (moral and otherwise) is problematic.
Conduct of the Understanding Sect. 33. See also Essay IV.17.24.
Russell (1945), p. 835.
See note 7 for various cases. And see e.g. Foley (1993) for the rejection of evidentialism in favor of a broader conception of rationality. ‘Evidentialism’ is used in a variety of different ways, but here I roughly follow, e.g., the usage in Chignell (2010): “the position, roughly, that we are obliged to form beliefs always and only on the basis of sufficient evidence that is in our possession” (Sect. 1.1). On other characterizations, evidentialism is framed in terms of the epistemic rationality of conforming one’s beliefs to the evidence, and when so framed I of course have no quarrel with the doctrine.
See, e.g., Adler (2002, p. 25): “Any account of the ethics of belief should fit tightly with the crucial fact that it is not possible to regard oneself as both holding a belief and holding that one’s reasons for it are inadequate.” For another argument that reaches a similar conclusion, see Shah (2006), who holds that “truth is hegemonic with respect to doxastic deliberation” (p. 490).
Arguing that the case of full belief is analogous to self-trust invites the thought that perhaps my theory might best be advanced by directly appealing to the distinction between credence and full belief. Whether this will help depends on one’s theory of belief. On views that divorce credence and belief, it is relatively easy to invoke doxastic norms that depart from epistemic rationality. Indeed, Kaplan (1996) goes so far as to contend that “there is no reason why we cannot rationally believe the improbable” (p. 148). In contrast, on views that identify belief with sufficiently high credence (e.g., Hawthorne and Bovens 1999), there is no gap between belief and credence to be exploited. Indeed, on such views there is no basis for arguing that full belief violates epistemic rationality, in part because there is no such thing as truly “full” belief, unless an agent’s credence actually hits 1. But this is not a difficulty for the argument here in the main text, which is concerned only with showing that it is psychologically possible for agents to violate evidentialism, and so seeks to show only that in fact the psychology of full belief, in some agents, sometimes involves setting aside evidence that they are aware to be available.
As always, the details of the example matter tremendously. If Kathrin had an extremely vivid memory of learning that a mix of hard and soft layers is stable—if she felt completely certain of it—then she might be so certain she is right that it becomes epistemically rational to doubt David’s reliability, no matter how persistently he insists that he too is certain. In such a case we would not need to appeal to self-trust in accounting for why she should carry on despite David’s dire warnings. When the story is so told, it becomes an instance of the widely discussed sort of case where one’s opponent’s view seems flatly absurd, and where equal weight accordingly should not be given. Some regard such cases as a difficulty for the equal-weight view. But I take these simply as cases where it becomes rational to doubt the equal reliability of one’s supposed peer. For criticism of the absurd-disagreement objection to the equal-weight view, see Pasnau (forthcoming-a).
See also van Inwagen (1996, p. 139), who considers and rejects the thought that peer disagreement is permissible in philosophy because nothing is at stake. He urges to the contrary that much can be at stake in philosophical disagreement. Someone not ready to give up this low-stakes interpretation of the phenomenon might plausibly suggest, however, that philosophers often do not take seriously enough the real-life consequences their views can have, even when it is true that such views do have important consequences.
For a more wide-ranging discussion of dogmatism, from a rather different point of view, see Kelly (2011).
On the distinction between acceptance and belief, and the way that acceptance might serve as a surrogate for belief in cases where some kind of pro-attitude seems useful, see Foley (1993, pp. 22–27) (speaking of “commitment” rather than acceptance). For a similar suggestion in the context of disagreement, see Frances (2010, pp. 428–429, 450–451).
See Kelly (2005 pp. 190–192) and Elgin (2010, pp. 67–68). For a recent hypothesis regarding the adaptive value of self-trust in the context of disagreement see Mercier and Sperber (2011). The usually cited source for this line of thought is Mill, On Liberty ch. 3. But Mill calls only for “the fullest and freest comparison of opposite opinions” (p. 185), something that on its face seems best secured not by self-trust but by suspending belief with respect to controversial questions.
See e.g. Feldman (2006, p. 217): “My conclusion will be that, more often than we might have thought, suspension of judgement is the epistemically proper attitude. It follows that in such cases we lack reasonable belief and so, at least on standard conceptions, knowledge.” See also Kornblith (2010) passim.
The example is patterned on the mathematician case in Kelly (2010, p. 137), though he puts the case to different use.
On Lasonen-Aarnio (2010)’s intriguingly different account, someone in Michael’s position could count as having knowledge for externalist reasons, in virtue of his reliable original method of belief formation. The defeating evidence of his peers would not undermine knowledge, but it would show him to be epistemically unreasonable. Her account agrees with mine in allowing knowledge to come apart from rationality in a case like this, but she pushes much further, arguing for the “radical option” (p. 2) that knowledge is in general consistent with such defeaters. This strikes me as having incredible results, however, unless it is limited to cases where the refusal to heed the defeater can be attributed to doxastic values of the kind I describe here.
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Acknowledgment
Thanks for their advice to Michael Huemer, David Christensen, Bradley Monton, Graham Oddie, and particularly to the critical comments of a series of anonymous referees who, by undermining my own self-trust, made this a vastly better paper.
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Pasnau, R. Disagreement and the value of self-trust. Philos Stud 172, 2315–2339 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0413-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0413-x