Abstract
An increasingly popular view in contemporary epistemology holds that the most fundamental norm governing belief is knowledge. According to this norm one shouldn’t believe what one doesn’t know. A prominent argument for the knowledge norm appeals to the claim that knowledge is the most general condition of epistemic assessment of belief, one entailing all other conditions under which we epistemically assess beliefs (truth, evidence, reliability…). This norm would provide an easy and straightforward explanation of why we assess beliefs along all these various epistemic dimensions. This article argues that this line of argument is ultimately unsuccessful. I show that the main premise of the argument actually supports the opposite conclusion: the norm of belief requires a condition weaker than knowledge. Furthermore, I argue that if we hold on to the assumption that knowledge is the most general condition of belief’s epistemic assessment, the fundamental norm of belief is factive: one is not permitted to believe a proposition p if it is not true that p.
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Notes
Variants of this argument have been put forward by, e.g., Bird (2007, pp. 94–95), Littlejohn (2013: §6), Smithies (2012, p. 283) and Williamson (forthcoming). Williamson has also recently defended a version of the argument in the 2017 Whitehead Lectures, a recording of which is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw2xiKE42A0.
Examples of assessments derivative from but not required by norms are excuses, which are assessments attached to and dependent on other normative standards. Someone is excused if she blamelessly violates some law, but arguably there are no independent laws regulating conditions for excusability which require us to excuse someone if such and such condition obtains.
A notable exception is Hughes (2017b).
In the quoted text I substituted occurrences of ‘aim’ with ‘norm’. Bird’s terminology switches quite freely between talk of aims and norms. This is due to his specific functionalist interpretation of the norm of belief. Other authors discussing the argument adopt deontic conceptions of epistemic norms. See Footnote 18 for suggestions how to reformulate the argument within a different normative framework. Note also that other philosophers put forward the argument by saying that a knowledge norm unifies both internal and external normative standards of belief (e.g., Littlejohn 2013; Williamson forthcoming). For example, according to Williamson, “Knowledge is the natural candidate for a truth-entailing standard of justified belief, because it unifies objective and subjective norms for belief”. However, I do not think that the internal–external distinction plays an important role in the argument. For my present purposes, what really matters is the unifying role of the knowledge norm for the various assessments of belief.
Both these objections to the argument are briefly outlined in Whiting (2013). Many philosophers endorsing non-factive norms of belief would happily endorse the first line of objection.
See Gibbons (2013, Chapters 8 and 9).
This point can be fully appreciated if we consider standard arguments for knowledge norms based on the ways in which we ask for justification and challenge beliefs falling short of knowledge (e.g., Williamson 2000, 2005b). A standard challenge to an outright belief (expressible by a flat-out assertion) is the question “how do you know that?”. This seems to imply that knowledge is enough for full defensibility of the belief. Moreover, claiming to know that p seems always sufficient to respond to epistemic challenges to one’s belief that p. Once we realize that one knows p, there seems nothing left to criticize in the belief. From an epistemic perspective, any further challenge sounds inappropriate. Relatedly, thoughts and judgments of the form [p but I don’t know that p] seem clearly defective and unreasonable. There seems to be something wrong, incoherent and criticizable in someone who holds an outright belief that p and at the same time that she doesn’t know that p. This indicates that outright beliefs falling short of knowledge are epistemically defective, less than fully defensible. However, it seems perfectly fine and fully reasonable to outright believe [p but I don’t fully understand it], or have an outright belief that p without having full reflective access to it. These data indicate that, while knowledge is necessary to avoid any sort of epistemic defectiveness and criticism of one’s belief, this condition seems also sufficient to exclude that a belief can be further challenged, criticized or assessed as defective. Epistemic statuses such as understanding or reflective knowledge undoubtedly deserve higher evaluative appreciation than mere knowledge, but these types of evaluation are supererogatory. They cannot ground criticisms or allegations of epistemic defectiveness.
Given a few plausible assumptions, an even stronger conclusion may follow from my argument: that conditions sufficient to grant maximal defensibility of an X are always stronger than any norm whatsoever governing X. However, this further conclusion is irrelevant for my present purposes.
We should be wary not to over-intellectualize the kind of normative guidance necessary for complying with a norm. This kind of guidance doesn’t necessarily involve full reflective awareness of the norm. An implicit form of sensitivity to normative reasons is sufficient. For example, a driver can be guided by traffic regulations and act on their basis even if she follows them in an unreflective, unconscious way. See Railton (2006) for a discussion of different forms of normative guidance. Thanks to Daniel Whiting and an anonymous reviewer for pressing me to clarify this point.
Another way to reach the same conclusion is by reductio. Assume the knowledge norm (per absurdum). Then argue that the condition of conformity to this norm (viz., knowledge) is not sufficient to achieve maximal positive epistemic assessment of belief (by (C1NWK)). Compliance with the norm is also required. This implies that more than knowledge is required for maximal positive epistemic assessment of belief, which contradicts (P3NWK).
As anticipated in the introduction, following standard conceptions, I have assumed here a deontic framework of epistemic normativity. While an extension of the argument to a different normative framework is not my goal here, let me briefly sketch how such an extension would work. Consider, for example, a functionalist framework in which norms are conceived as proper functions. In every respectable functionalist framework, we can distinguish more or less appropriate ways of fulfilling a function: evaluations related to the mere conformity to the function, and higher evaluations associated with more appropriate ways of satisfying the function. Suppose that the fundamental function of belief is F. There will then be higher evaluations associated with more appropriate ways of conforming to this function. Thus mere conformity to F will not be sufficient for maximal positive epistemic assessment of belief. More generally, in order to extend the argument to different normative frameworks, one must find a distinction in that normative framework similar to that between conformity and compliance in the deontic domain. This sort of distinction seems peculiar to any framework distinguishing fundamental standards from derivative assessments.
I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer whose comments greatly helped to improve the following discussions concerning premise (P1NWK).
Observe that exactly the same type of considerations is at work in the arguments used to support premise (P1GA) in the generality argument. In support of that premise, we are asked to intuitively appreciate the superior defensibility of belief that amounts to knowledge over belief that falls short of it. Similarly, in my argument for (P1NWK), I ask to intuitively appreciate the superior defensibility of compliance over mere accidental conformity. Thus, appeal to this type of intuitive considerations in defense of this premise is at least dialectically fair in the context of a discussion and criticism of the generality argument, even though, admittedly, both sets of intuitive judgments do not provide conclusive evidence for the respective claims.
These and similar data are considered by some philosophers as evidence for the existence of epistemic norms governing actions and practical reasoning (e.g., Gerken 2011, 2015; Hawthorne 2004, pp. 29–30; Hawthorne and Stanley 2008; Littlejohn 2012: Chapter 6; Stanley 2005, pp. 9–10). Notice however that my present argument is independent of the debate on epistemic norms of action and doesn’t rely on the assumption of any such norm. The focus of the present argument is exclusively on ordinary practices of criticizing ϕ-ings when based on weak epistemic positions, and justifying them on the basis of the fact that one knows the reasons for performing them. From such intuitive data I do not infer anything as strong as the existence of necessary, constitutive norms.
Again, it is worth observing that this kind of argument for (P1NWK) mirrors others advanced by upholders of the knowledge norm in defense of premise (P1GA). Some standard arguments for the claim that knowledge is the condition for maximal positive epistemic assessment of belief rely on the observation of the ways in which we ask for justification and challenge beliefs falling short of knowledge (see, e.g., Williamson 2005b). Since the legitimacy of the present argumentative strategy seems to be on a par with that deployed by upholders of the knowledge norm in defense of a crucial premise in their argument, this strategy should at least be considered appropriate from a dialectical perspective.
I mention this possibility even though I am one of those who think it is impossible to neatly separate assessments of acts and agents. For criticisms of the act/person distinction in the practical and legal domains see, e.g., Baron (1995, 2005), Dancy (2000, p. 53), Stocker (1973). In epistemology, with reference to the distinction between personal and doxastic justification ascriptions, see Alston (1989), Kvanvig and Menzel (1990).
An error theory for assessments on compliance could mimic the one suggested by Kolodny (2005) for the apparent normativity of rationality. It is worth observing that these various options are compatible with Littlejohn (2013)’s claim that norms only require mere conformity. As observed above, the superior defensibility of a condition doesn’t imply that that condition is required by a norm. Conformity to norms is sufficient for doing the right thing. Nonetheless, there may be more or less criticizable ways of doing the right thing. As Kiesewetter observes, “an agent could be criticizable for the way in which she ϕ-s, even though she has decisive reasons to ϕ” (2017, p. 28).
Any account of the normative nature of the above assessments will also do in the specific epistemic case. More precisely, premise (P1GA) in the generality argument claims the superior defensibility of beliefs that amount to knowledge over beliefs that don’t. Whatever explains the superior defensibility of compliance over conformity for norms in general seems also suitable to explain the specific superior defensibility of beliefs that amount to knowledge.
See Railton (2006) for examples and discussion.
I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for encouraging me to address this potential misunderstanding, as well as two other worries about (P1NWK) discussed in this and the next page.
In conversation, Clayton Littlejohn suggested to me that while we should expect a higher assessment for compliance in standard cases, there might be exceptions. Examples would be norms that require conforming to conditions that exclude compliance. For reasons I will advance below, I am skeptical about whether these can be treated as genuine norms. However, even if we admit such exceptions, we should be aware of the special nature of these alleged counterexamples. Epistemic norms clearly do not require conditions whose conformity excludes compliance.
Acting on the basis of what a norm requires is an instance of acting on the basis of reasons. It has been argued that one cannot ϕ on the basis of a reason R if one doesn’t know R (see, e.g., Alvarez 2010; Hyman 1999, 2015; Littlejohn 2012; Unger 1975). If a norm requires you to stop at the next crossroad, then that the norm so requires is a reason for you to stop there. But one cannot stop at the crossroad on the basis of this reason if one also doesn’t know the reason (i.e., doesn’t know that this is what the norm requires from her). If someone stops at the crossroad because she has a mistaken or Gettiered belief that a norm so requires, the reason for which she stops is not that the norm requires that. The connection between the attitude and the fact is too accidental, insufficient for that fact to guide the agent in her actions or reasoning.
There are reasons to doubt that a rule-schema involving trivial conditions can ever be considered a norm. A norm involving trivial conditions would be one that is always or never satisfied. But, as many have argued, it is doubtful that norms that it is impossible to satisfy or violate can really be norms at all. See, e.g., Ogien and Tappolet (2009, p. 67), Railton (1999, pp. 322–325; 2003), von Wright (1983) and Wedgwood (2005). See also Wittgenstein (2009) for the view that normativity conceptually requires the possibility of breaking the norm.
That is, whenever S is in C, she is in a position to know she is in C and whenever S is not in C, she is in a position to know she is not in C.
These types of case are those envisioned by Williamson’s anti-luminosity argument (Williamson 2000: Chapter 4). Of course, failures of transparency might not be limited to this type of case.
The present argument also applies to the particular case of the knowledge norm. Indeed, this kind of argument was first discussed in the literature precisely with the aim of illustrating the non-operationalizability of knowledge norms (e.g., Hawthorne and Srinivasan 2013). In the case of the knowledge norm of belief (as in that of any other norm), a subject may conform to this norm in a specific circumstance, but fail to know whether the conditions required by the norm obtain, and thus fail to know which specific conditions the norm recommends in the circumstance. For example, someone may believe and know that p, but fail to know whether that belief amounts to knowledge, and thus whether the knowledge norm demands believing that p or not. As compliance to a norm requires knowing what the norm demands in the circumstances, one can conform to this norm without complying with it.
See fn5 for references.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Cameron Boult, Jie Gao and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the GRE Conference “Les Principes de l’Épistémologie” at the Collège de France (Paris 2017) and the 2018 European Epistemology Network Conference at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Thanks to the audiences for their helpful feedback. Research for this article was partially funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation research project ‘The Unity of Reasons’ (P300P1-164569).
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Fassio, D. On the generality argument for the knowledge norm. Synthese 197, 3459–3480 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-01896-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-01896-x