Skepticism and the value of knowledge Patrick Hawley September 24, 2006 1 The main claim of this essay is that knowledge is no more valuable than lasting true belief. This claim is surprising. Doesn't knowledge have a unique and special value? If the main claim is correct and if, as it seems, knowledge is not lasting true belief, then knowledge does not have a unique value: in whatever way knowledge is valuable, lasting true belief is just as valuable. As will become clear, this result does not show that knowledge is worthless, nor does it undermine our knowledge gathering practices. There is, rather, a positive philosophical payoff: skepticism about knowledge is defused. Assuming one can have lasting true belief, then even if one cannot have knowledge, one can have something just as valuable. 1 Hawley September 24, 2006 2 1.1 The main claim motivated and clarified 1.1.1 The main claim motivated In the Meno, Plato raises a question about the value of knowledge.[14, 97A98A] If, wonders Plato, a man knows which road leads to Larissa, he can surely get there. And if a man does not know, but has a true belief about which road leads to Larissa, he can get there all the same. Why then is it better for him to know which road leads to Larissa? Why is knowledge more valuable than mere true belief? Plato's answer is that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief because mere true belief can be easily lost; knowledge, however, is "fastened" by an explanation and thus more difficult to lose. An example will help explain the Platonic thought: Restaurant reviewers Joe and Renata are dining in a fancy new trattoria. Joe knows that the unusual mushroom on Renata's plate is poisonous. Renata does not know that the unusual mushroom on her plate is poisonous, although she has a true belief that the unusual mushroom is poisonous. Renata concluded this from her false belief that the chef, bitter at her negative reviews, is trying to poison her. The chef, in fact, holds no grudge; he has simply made a mistake. The chef comes out and clearly does not recognize Renata. So she gives up her belief that the mushroom is poisonous, and starts to eat it. Renata is in danger because her true belief was easily dislodged by new evidence. Luckily for Renata, Joe's knowledge is not so easily dislodged; Joe, who knows, stops her in time.1 1T. Williamson gives a similar example.[20, 87] Hawley September 24, 2006 3 The example about Joe and Renata supports two Platonic theses: (1) Knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief, and (2) Knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief because knowledge is more stable. Indeed, the example suggests, more boldly, that (3) Knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief only because knowledge is more stable. However, none of (1), (2) and (3) is particularly clear. What is stability, for example? Why does stability help make knowledge valuable? How are we to compare the value of such very different things as knowledge and mere true belief?2 When interpreted in a certain way, (3) is very close to the main claim. Suppose that to be stable is to be likely to last longer. Then (3) says that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief only because knowledge is likely to last longer. But what about a lasting true belief, a true belief which will last as long as knowledge? That sort of true belief, arguably, is just as 2In recent literature, (1) is presented as an obviously true premise ready for deployment in philosophical argument. Zagzebski[21] argues that reliabilist accounts of epistemic justification are incompatible with (1), and, since (1) is obviously true, reliabilism should be rejected. Jones[6] argues, more generally, that any account of epistemic justification which sees epistemic justification as valuable only as a means to gaining true beliefs and avoiding false beliefs, is incompatible with (1), and thus objectionable. Riggs[17] replies that Jones's and Zagzebski's arguments only support the weak conclusion that, in order to preserve (1), certain accounts of justification need to be supplemented. Another sort of argument is given by DePaul[2] and Riggs[18]. They conclude that gaining true beliefs and avoiding falsehoods cannot be the only epistemic values, otherwise (1) would be false. See especially Kvanvig[10] for a useful discussion of the value of knowledge and Pritchard[15] for a helpful review of the growing literature on epistemic value.