Abstract
This paper defends the view that in a certain sense evidence is normative. Neither a bit of evidence nor the fact that it is evidence for a certain proposition is a normative fact, but it is still the case that evidence provides normative reason for belief. An argument for the main thesis will be presented. It will rely on evidentialist norms of belief and a Broomean conception of normative reasons. Two important objections will be discussed, one from A. Steglich-Petersen on whether having evidence is sufficient for having a normative reason for belief and another one from S. Street.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
We can switch from evidence and the evidential facts that so and so is evidence for p to other, more inclusive facts in the vicinity: facts that so and so is evidence for p for S and S possesses the fact that so and so, or the like. The ambiguity remains.
For the present purposes we can leave it open whether bits of evidence and evidential facts are relative to some background (background facts, background beliefs, background knowledge, or the like).
To be precise, Sylvan does not mention normative reasons in his list of deontic facts, he only mentions “permissibility, rightness, and wrongness” (Sylvan 2018, 193). I take it that normative reasons facts are paradigmatic normative facts, and that this is not controversial. I believe Sylvan will not object. Furthermore, Sylvan uses the term ‘constituted by’ instead of ‘grounded in’. I take it that for the present purposes this does not make a difference.
Evidence and evidential facts are not on the list of paradigmatically normative items. Why not? – Well, it is uncontroverisal that bits of evidence are not normative facts, but it is rather controversial whether evidential facts are normative facts, and the paradigmatic examples should be uncontroversial. I believe that the normativist about evidence should not deny this. The normativist should instead hold that evidential facts are relevantly similar to the paradigmatic normative facts and should provide arguments for this claim. Needless to say that I do not see such arguments.
Among the relevant publications on the epistemic-moral/practical analogy or disparity are Heathwood (2018), Heathwood (2009), Cuneo and Kyriacou (2018), Rowland (2013), Cuneo (2007), and Olson (2018). At some points this debate is intertwined with the vexed open question argument and the analytic-synthetic question. The present paper does not concern this conundrum.
Safety facts are facts of the form ‘in all close worlds where s obtains, p is the case’ (s is a safe indicator of p); sensitivity facts are facts of
Of course, the relevant type of probability is not the epistemic probability that Bayesians speak of, but rather objective probability (in ensembles) and objective chance. Cf. Ismael (2011).
Skorupski (2010), p. 48.
Skorupski (2010), p. 47.
Just to give one example, Brian Epstein has recently analyzed issues of social metaphysics in terms of grounding. Cf. Epstein (2015). In epistemology and ethics, grounding ideas are all over the place. Let me note that of course, there are some serious remaining questions about grounding. Still, it has proved to be very useful for organizing views and arguments to rely on grounding, and this is how I will explore the terrain in this paper too.
Some epistemologists think that evidence does not, or not always, take the form of facts. Entities of other ontological categories might be, or serve as, evidence. This view will be ignored in the present paper, and with some justification, at least. For one, it might be possible to reformulate these views in terms of facts. (Particulars will be replaced by corresponding existence facts, for example.) For another, the existing literature provides good reason to think that evidence takes the form of facts or is ‘propositional’. Cf., e.g., Williamson (2000), Alvarez (2018).
Williamson’s kind of ‘objective Bayesianism’ seems to me to be such a normativist view, too. Cf. Williamson (2000), ch. 10. Normativists about evidence will at some point have to say something about what normative facts they take evidential facts to be grounded in. Alternatively, they might want to extend the list of paradigmatic normative facts by including evidential facts.
Strictly speaking, identity does exclude grounding, and so it is not exactly (1) that follows but a corresponding – stronger – identity claim: evidential facts are normative reasons facts (concerning belief, of course).
A particularly insightful analysis of the sources of practical normativity can be found in Worsnip (2018).
This view is proposed by Grimm (2009).
Cf. Hofmann and Piller (2019)
I believe that some considerations pushing into the direction of naturalizing normative reasons facts that Pekka Väyrynen has presented in Väyrynen (2011) could be taken over to argue for a need for naturalizing a norm of belief.
Here, ‘ought’ and ‘correct’ are of course to be understood in the relevant normative sense, and they are dual notions. That S ought to A means that it is correct that S As and it is incorrect that S does not A. So everything could be reformulated by using just one of these dual notions. For the sake of a more natural reading, avoiding awkward double negations, I am stating things by using both notions. ‘Ought’ also comes more naturally in prospective cases.
I take it that ‘correctness’ and ‘rightness’ mean the same. Here I depart from Broome on which denotic status it is that normative reasons ground. For Broome it is an ought (a normative, owned, unqualified ought), here it is correctness. But since ‘ought’ and ‘correct’ are dual notions, this is not a significant difference. I understand correctness as consisting in faultlessness, the absence of the subject’s committing mistakes. Other philosophers who favor a similar conception are Alvarez (2010: ch. 1), Hyman (2015: ch. 6), and Nebel (2018).
The argument contains a slight sloppiness. More precisely, things should be reformulated in terms of what makes it the case that something is a normative reasons. That x grounds correctness is what makes it the case that it is a normative reasons. This reformulation is less elegant, and so I have chosen to formulate things in the simpler way.
Here I am basically agreeing with Ralph Wedgwood. Cf. Wedgwood (2015).
The account is supposed to govern both practical and theoretical normative reasons. For the present purposes, I focus on the theoretical case.
Cf. Setiya (2007), Whiting (2018), Way (2017), Kearns and Star (2009). The overarching theme is how to come to grips with the defeasibility of reasoning. A reason which is rebutted (outweighed) is still a reason. Then there can still be a good (pattern of) reasoning leading from the rebutted reason to the conclusion. But a reason that is undercut is no longer a reason, though there might very well be a defeasible type of reasoning from it to the conclusion. It is also unclear how to deal with factual defeaters, viz., facts that turn good reasoning into bad reasoning merely thru obtaining and without being believed or detected by the subject.
Please note that all we rely on here is only that part of the Broomean conception that is concerned with what he calls a ‘perfect reason’ or ‘pro toto reason’, i.e., a reason that completely explains a deontic fact. Broome thinks there is a second type of reason that explains by being part of a weighing explanation involving more than one reason. These are his ‘pro tanto reasons’. What weighing explanations are is controversial, and it is also not clear to me. (Cf. Nebel 2018.) Fortunately, we do not need them here. All we need are the ‘pro toto reasons’. (Things may be different in the practical domain, but here I am concerend with the epistemic domain.)
Here ‘sufficient evidence’ should not be taken as evidence sufficient for correctness (which would make the norm circular and trivial) but evidence sufficient for truth. I believe that sufficient evidence should be understood in terms of safety: the fact that X is sufficient evidence for p if and only if X is a safe indicator that p. Safe indication is a modal relation, namely, guaranteeing truth in close worlds. So X is sufficient evidence for p if and only if in all close worlds in which X obtains, p is true. This would yield a kind of ‘objective evidentialism’. Alternative conceptions of sufficiency of evidence could be plugged in here, however, such as a pragmatic threshold conception.
For a defense of this claim, and of evidentialism, see Hofmann and Piller (2019).
It is noteworthy that epistemologists which are sympathetic toward reliabilism have recently tried to incorporate some evidentialist element in their views. For example, Comesaña (2010) and Goldman (2011) have both arrived at a kind of hybrid view combining evidentialism and reliabilism (‘evidentialist reliabilism’, as Comesaña calls it).
This is in line with a teleofunctionalist understanding of the (retrospective) evidentialist norm (vi): our doxastic capacities are supposed to let us hold true beliefs on the basis of sufficient evidence.
If it is replaced by a knowledge-norm, it depends on what the connection between evidence and knowledge is. Roughly we can say that in general, if the conditions in the content of the norm of belief are not intimately related to evidence, evidence will not be normative. The general lesson is clear: whether evidence is normative depends on what the norm of belief is.
Cf. Sosa and Sylvan (2018).
I am not subscribing to ‘ought implies can’ in general. But for the present purposes it does not do any harm to make the assumption that the subject needs to be able to do what she ought to do. The relevant abilities are to be understood as dispositions, be they narrow or wide. (For a convincing general criticism of ‘ought implies can’ see P.A. Graham 2011.) The condition that the question whether p is activated for the subject allows us to avoid an implausible inflation of oughts concerning propositions that the subject is not confronted with at the relevant time and, thus, is not subject to an ought even in case she has sufficient evidence for these propositions.
Recently, this has been emphasized by Sullivan-Bissett and Noordhof (2019). They use this point to argue against an explanatory argument for the truth-norm in connection with doxastic transparency, as proposed by Shah and Velleman (2005). I do not have the space to enter the discussion of doxastic transparency here. Suffice it to say that the proposed view does not vindicate doxastic transparency as conceived by Shah and Velleman: forming the belief that p by following one’s sufficient evidence, and thus settling the question whether p, allows one to infer that one ought to believe p only if one has sufficient evidence for believing that one has sufficient evidence for p (and perhaps in addition one has (implicit) knowledge of the relevant evidentialist norm of belief). So one cannot simply move from <p > to <I ought to believe that p > without significant further material. To the extent to which we are aware of our sufficient evidence and the norm of belief, we can make this inference. But it is unclear to what extent we do so.
This terminology is inspired by Ralph Wedgwood’s discussion of ought and correctness in Wedgwood (2013).
The opposite direction of the conditional is satisfied trivially, of course. It can only be the case that you ought to (form belief that p on the basis of your sufficient evidence for p) if you have sufficient evidence (leaving aside the activation and ability conditions). In other words, we could turn it into a biconditional.
A tricky question arises as to propositions that cannot be both true and believed at the same time (like Moore-paradoxical propositions of the form <p and I do not believe that p>. Wedgwood (2013) provides a plausible proposal about how to deal with these cases.
A similar but different form of teleology is sketched by John Gibbons in Gibbons (2014). He characterizes this view as follows: “According to some optimists, if it would be good that p, then you should be more inclined to believe that p than you would be if it would be bad that p, even given the same evidence.“(ibid., p. 99) This form of teleology speaks of its being good that p; Steglich-Petersen’s form of teleology speaks of its being good that one forms a true belief.
The second step faces serious difficulties. A fully worked out analysis of these difficulties would require some longer investigation. In order to indicate where the difficulties come from suffice it to say the following. Where does the value of forming a true belief about whether p come from? What is it grounded in? If it comes from a final epistemic value, it is probably the final epistemic value of true belief or knowledge. (What else?) Then the view would indeed be a genuine epistemic teleology. But the old problem of seemingly valueless true beliefs has a come back. If, however, the value is a pragmatic value, such as the value of successful action that requires a p-dependent choice, we have left epistemic teleology behind and entered an inter-domain grounding view. In effect, we have endorsed a form of pragmatism, a form of teleological pragmatism. Perhaps, there are these pragmatic-value-based normative reasons to form true beliefs about whether p. But this would have no tendency to show that there are no reasons for belief that are grounded in evidential facts plus the general evidentialist norm fact. The proposed view does not have to deny the pragmatic-value-based normative reasons, in case there are any.
Initially, Street frames the discussion in terms of ‘epistemic reasons’. (Cf. Street 2009, p. 217.) I take it that this is preliminary. In later sections she only appeals to likelifying facts.
Actually, Street embeds her argument in a dilemma that arises from accepting or rejecting a certain account of belief, the ‘constitutive-takings account’ (cf. Street 2009, sc. 5). Accepting this account is incompatible with normative realism, as Street argues convincingly. So we can focus on the second option, rejecting the ‘constitutive-takings account’. Therefore, we do not have to go into this account any further.
I might venture an exegetical hypothesis here. Why does Street implicitly assume that the normative realist is a norm-firster? She has imported the argument from her earlier and similar argumentation against practical normative realists (cf. Street 2006). And there it is of course intended to primarily deal well with reasons-firsters like Scanlon, Parfit, and Raz. But we are not to presuppose that the flow of grounding is of the same shape in the practical and the epistemic domain. It might be that in the practical domain, reasons ground correctness and are relatively fundamental (and even non-naturalizable). In the theoretical domain, reasons are not relatively fundamental but grounded in the norm (and evidential facts).
Incidentally, if the causal-historical facts underlying teleofunctions like the one mentioned – the job or teleofunction to produce true beliefs by following one’s evidence – are the non-normative facts that ground the norm of belief, we will arrive at an objective type of normative realism. Plausibly and arguably, the relevant teleofunctions are independent of our evaluative attitudes. At one place Street, however, characterizes evaluative attitudes extremely broadly, including not only desires and normative judgements but also “unreflective evaluative tendencies such as the tendency to experience X as counting in favor of or demanding Y“(Street 2016, n. 4, p. 334). Now, if X is an evidential fact and Y is a belief (favored by the evidential fact X) we might conclude that dispositions or capacities to form beliefs by following one’s evidence counts as evaluative attitudes, according to this very broad characterization. If this is so, earlier evaluative attitudes (in our ancestors) (partly) explain/ground the fact that our doxastic capacities now have the teleofunction described by the norm of belief, according to teleofunctionalism. Would that amount to a denial of objectivity? – No, in my view. Street has stretched the concept of an evaluative attitude beyond recognition and thus made it unsuitable for the purposes of leading a significant debate between objectivists and antiobjectivists (realists and antirealists).
References
Alvarez, M. (2010). Kinds of reasons, OUP.
Alvarez, M. (2018). Reasons for action, acting for reasons, and rationality. Synthese, 195(8), 3293–3310.
Berker, S. (2013a). Epistemic teleology and the separateness of propositions. Philosophical Review, 122(3), 337–394.
Berker, S. (2013b). The rejection of epistemic consequentialism. Philosophical Issues, 23, 365–387.
Comesaña, J. (2010). Evidentialist reliabilism. Nous, 44(4), 571–600.
Cuneo, T. (2007). The normative web, Clarendon Press.
Cuneo, T., Kyriacou, C. (2018). “Defending the moral/epistemic parity”, In: C. McHugh, J. Way, D. Whiting (eds.), Metaepistemology, OUP, 27-45.
Epstein, B. (2015). The ant trap, OUP.
Fine, K. (2018). “Truthmaking and the is-ought gap”, Synthese, published online 11 Nov. 2018.
Gibbons, J. (2014). Knowledge versus truth. In C. Littlejohn & J. Turri (Eds.), Epistemic Norms (Vol. 2014, pp. 97–114). New York: Oxford University Press.
Goldman, A. (2011). “Toward a synthesis of reliabilism and evidentialism? Or: evidentialism’s troubles, reliabilism’s rescue package”, In: T. Dougherty (ed.), Evidentialism and Its Discontents, OUP, 2011, 254–80.
Graham, P. A. (2011). ‘Ought’ and ability. Philosophical Review, 120(3), 337–382.
Grimm, St. (2009). “Epistemic normativity”, In: A. haddock, A. Millar, D. Pritchard (eds.), Epistemic Value, OUP, 243-64.
Heathwood, C. (2009). Moral and epistemic open question arguments. Philosophical Books, 50(2), 83–98.
Heathwood, C. (2018). “Epistemic reductionism and the moral-epistemic disparity”, In: C. Kyriacou, R. McKenna (eds.), Metaepistemology. Realism And Anti-Realism, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 45–70.
Hofmann, F. (2013). Three kinds of reliabilism. Philosophical Explorations, 16(1), 59–80.
Hofmann, F., Piller, C. (2019). Norm-reasons and evidentialism. Analysis, 79(2), 202–06.
Hyman, J. (2015). Action, knowledge, and will, OUP.
Ismael, J. (2011). A modest proposal about chance. Journal of Philosophy, 108(8), 416–442.
Kearns, S., & Star, D. (2009). Reasons as evidence. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 4, 215–242.
Nebel, J.M. (2018). Normative reasons as reasons why we ought. Mind, 128(510), 459–84.
Olson, J. (2018). Moral and epistemic error theory: The parity premise reconsidered. In C. McHugh, J. Way, & D. Whiting (Eds.), Metaepistemology (pp. 107–121). Oxford: OUP.
Rowland, R. (2013). Moral error theory and the argument from epistemic reasons. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 7(1), 1–24.
Schroeder, M. (2015). Is knowledge normative? Philosophical Issues, 25(1), 379–395.
Shah, N., Velleman, D. (2005). Doxastic deliberation. The Philosophical Review, 114(4), 497–534.
Setiya, K. (2007). Reasons without rationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Skorupski, J. (2010). The domain of reasons, OUP.
Sosa, E., Sylvan, K. (2018). “The place of reasons in epistemology”, In: D. Star (ed.), Oxford handbook of reasons and normativity, OUP, 555-74.
Steglich-Petersen, A. (2008). Does doxastic transparency support evidentialism? Dialectica, 62(4), 541–547.
Steglich-Petersen, A. (2011). “How to be a teleologist about epistemic reasons”, In: A. Steglich-Petersen, A. Reisner (eds.), Reasons For Belief, CUP, 13-33.
Street, S. (2006). A Darwinian dilemma for realist theories of value. Philosophical Studies, 127, 109–166.
Street, S. (2009). “Evolution and the normativity of epistemic reasons”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 35 supplemental volume, ed. D. Hunter, 213-48.
Street, S. (2016). Objectivity and truth: you’d better rethink it. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 11, 293–334.
Sullivan-Bissett, E., Noordhof, P. (2019) The transparent failure of norms to keep up standards of belief. Philosophical Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01242-y.
Sylvan, K. (2018). Knowledge as a non-normative relation. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 97(1), 190–222.
Väyrynen, P. (2011). In: M. Brady (ed.), New Waves in Metaethics, Palgrave-Macmillan, 185-207.
Way, J. (2017). Reasons as premises of good reasoning. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 98, 251–270.
Wedgwood, R. (2013). “The right thing to believe”, In: T. Chan (ed.), The Aim of Belief, Oxford University Press, 2013, 123–39.
Wedgwood, R. (2015). The pitfalls of ‘reasons’. Philosophical Issues, 25, 123–143.
Whiting, D. (2010). Should I believe the truth? Dialectica, 64(2), 213–224.
Whiting, D. (2018). Right in some respects: Reasons as evidence. Philosophical Studies, 175, 2191–2208.
Williamson, T. (2000). Knowledge and its limits, OUP.
Williamson, T. (2018). “Knowledge, action, and the factive turn”, In: V. Mitova (ed.), The Factive Turn in Epistemology, CUP, 2018, 125–41.
Worsnip, A. (2018). Eliminating prudential reasons. Oxford Studies in Ethics, 8, 236–257.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Hannes Fraissler, Susanne Mantel and Christian Piller for many helpful discussions and comments. A special thanks goes to Paul Noordhof who gave me the opportunity to present some of the material in his research colloquium at York University in March 2019, and also many thanks to the participants for valuable comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hofmann, F. Is Evidence Normative?. Philosophia 49, 667–684 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00241-2
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00241-2