Abstract
Epistemic expressivists maintain, to a first approximation, that epistemic assertions express non-cognitive mental states, like endorsements, valuations, or pro-attitudes, rather than cognitive mental states such as beliefs. Proponents of epistemic expressivism include Chrisman (Philos Stud 135: 225–254, 2007), Gibbard (Wise choices, apt feelings, 1990, Thinking how to live, 2003), Field (Proc Aristot Soc 96:359–379, 1996, Philos Stud 92:1–24, 1998, Philos Stud 143:249–290, 2009), Kappel (Acta Anal 25:175–194, 2010), and Ridge (Proc Aristot Soc 81:83–108, 2007a), among others. In this paper, I argue for an alternative view to epistemic expressivism. The view I seek to advocate is inspired by hybrid expressivist theories about moral judgments (see e.g. Barker (Analysis 60:268–279, 2000), Copp (Soc Philos Policy 18:1–43, 2001, in: Shafer-Landau (ed.) Oxford studies in metaethics, 2009), Finlay (J Ethics 8:205–223, 2004, Philos Impr 5:1–20, 2005), Strandberg (Philos Phenomenol Res 84:87–120, 2012)). According to these hybrid views, moral judgments express semantically cognitive or representational states and pragmatically convey the speaker’s non-cognitive mental states via implicatures. I will argue that a particular version of this view can reasonably be extended to epistemic judgments and that it has several advantages over its expressivist and cognitivist competitors. In particular, I will try to show that there exist certain phenomena in the epistemic domain that seem to be best accounted for by expressivist theories of epistemic judgments. However, a version of hybrid expressivism that maintains that epistemic judgments convey the attributor’s non-cognitive mental states via generalized conversational implicatures is able to account for these phenomena just as well without running afoul of the main problems that have been identified for different versions of epistemic expressivism.
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Notes
The terms “classical expressivism” and “non-classical expressivism” are taken from Cuneo (2007, pp. 124–184).
Specifically, in order to explain the action-guiding character of sincere moral judgments, moral cognitivists must abandon either the idea that moral judgments motivate necessarily or the view that only desire-like mental states are intrinsically motivating. Of course, several philosophers have argued for one of these options; for instance, Railton (1986) and Brink (1986) endorse externalist theories of moral motivation, and Dancy (2000) and Raz (1999) reject the assumption that only desires possess motivational force. It is far beyond the scope of the present paper to assess these alternative options satisfactorily.
Epistemic expressivists have presented several other considerations in favor of epistemic expressivism. Ridge (2007a) argues that epistemic claims are normative and that expressivism delivers the best explanation of this normativity. Moreover, according to Ridge, there are Moorean open-question type concerns regarding whether epistemic concepts (like the concept of knowledge) can truly be reductively defined. Blackburn (1998) and Gibbard (2003), by contrast, maintain that if one endorses moral expressivism, epistemic expressivism must be adopted in order to account for moral knowledge. Kappel (2010) asserts that epistemic expressivism best accounts for the value of certain epistemic standings, such as knowledge. For further discussion, see Chrisman (2012).
Dogramaci (2012) makes the case that epistemic terms like “epistemically rational” primarily serve to coordinate epistemic behavior, in that the speaker wants her audience to follow the speaker’s epistemic rules. Dogramaci maintains that this function of epistemic judgments explains why testimony is reliable.
Some proponents of virtue epistemology assume that motivational states play a more substantial role in belief-formation than is assumed here. Abroal Fairweather, for instance, has presented examples that allegedly suggest that when an epistemic agent has an improper epistemic motivation or no epistemic motivation at all in forming a belief, this affects our judgment of whether the agent is epistemically justified or not (see Fairweather 2001, pp. 71–74).
This worry is raised and addressed to some extent by Chrisman (2012, pp. 124–125).
There probably is a third option available. The non-cognitive mental states might consist in desires to achieve fundamental epistemic goals. Again, as with the first option, it remains controversial what our epistemic goals are. The prevalent view among epistemologists is that the fundamental goal in the epistemic domain is true belief, with the further qualification that the beliefs are of importance and of interest to us (see Alston 2005, p. 30). So the epistemic action-guiding state might consist in a desire to reach true beliefs that are of importance or interest to us.
Dogramaci does not present an account that explains in virtue of which feature epistemic judgments manage to perform this function. The position outlined in this paper is able to explain this function in terms of the meaning-like connection between epistemic judgments and motivational states.
However, more needs to be said about which types of belief-forming processes might be influenced by our epistemic evaluations. On the face of it, since few belief-forming processes seem to be under our direct, voluntary control, epistemic claims likely exert an influence just on those processes that are under our control. But in order for the claim made here to stand—that epistemic judgments have a tendency to influence epistemic behavior—very ambitious claims concerning the scope of the influence of our epistemic judgments and the commitments such claims might engender do not seem to be needed.
Cuneo primarily uses Timmons’ (1999) version of this type of expressivism to formulate these core commitments.
Accordingly, I will omit the conditions that Ridge introduces in order to account for attributions of knowledge.
See Zangwill (2008) for a very detailed discussion of several cases of “moral indifference” and how they cause trouble for motivational internalism. Zangwill also considers in passing the phenomenon of “prudential indifference” that concerns the lack of motivation with respect to judgments of prudential rationality (see Zangwill 2008, pp. 109–110).
Thanks to an anonymous referee for this journal for suggesting to me to consider Ridge’s response.
The moral version of ecumenical expressivism, as developed in Ridge (2006, 2007b, 2009), parallels the epistemic version of ecumenical expressivism. According to Ridge’s theory, a moral judgment expresses (i) a state of approval regarding actions insofar as “they would garner the approval of a certain sort of advisor” and (ii) a belief “which makes suitable anaphoric reference back to that advisor” (Ridge 2007a, p. 96).
Thanks to an anonymous referee for this journal for pressing me to consider these countermoves that the epistemic expressivist might make.
For an overview of very recent work, see Björklund et al. (2012).
I will omit discussion of R.M. Hare’s “inverted commas”-response, because this response is considered by most contemporary writers as being ad hoc. Moreover, I will also not examine the response of communal or deferential internalists such as Tresan (2006), since this response does not support expressivism.
For a more detailed exposition of these views, see Björklund et al. (2012, pp. 126–128).
For these and further objections, see the works cited in Björklund et al. (2012, p. 218).
Pinillos et al. (2011) conducted a study and found out that Joshua Knobe’s “side-effect effect” tends to disappear, when subjects possess higher cognitive skills, as measured by the cognitive reflection task. Another factor that shaped the responses of the subjects in Pinillos et al.’s study in a positive way was the subjects’ awareness that their spontaneous answers to Knobe’s cases were very likely mistaken. In a similar vein, Turri (2013) conducted a study that demonstrates that the tendency of the subjects to judge that a character of a Gettier-case lacks knowledge increases if the structure of a Gettier-case is made more perspicuous to the subjects.
I am most sympathetic to Levinson’s (2000) view concerning the way these implicatures are generated. Levinson does not assume, though, that these implicatures are based on explicit calculations. According to Levinson’s position, they rather result from default inferences. I will say more about this issue below.
Many thanks to an anonymous referee for this journal for urging me to be address this issue.
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Acknowledgments
For comments on earlier versions of this paper I am indebted to Jim Pryor, Christine Tiefensee, and Christos Kyriacou. I would also like to thank my colleagues at Dresden University of Technology and audiences at the 2014 meeting of the North Carolina Philosophical Society in Chapel Hill and at the 2014 meeting of the European Epistemology Network in Madrid. I am especially grateful to an anonymous referee for this journal for providing valuable suggestions and comments. Research for this paper was supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
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Grajner, M. Hybrid expressivism and epistemic justification. Philos Stud 172, 2349–2369 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0415-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0415-8