Littlejohn and Comesana on Epistemic Justification

Challenging the Swamping Premise (Carter)

Note: The following is a cross-post written by J. Adam Carter, from over at Virtue Epistemology. Adam has an on-going treatment of the swamping problem, so if that's your thing, be sure to check it out.

The ‘swamping’ argument against reliabilism has been advanced on several occasions (i.e. Kvanvig 2003, Swinburne 1999, Zagzebski 2004, W. Jones 1997, and others), and is, at least prima facie, quite persuasive.

The crucial premise in the argument is, as Kristoffer Ahlstrom (whose formalization I am using) calls it, the swamping premise.

(1) V (SB R,T that p) = V (SBT that p).

The swamping premise has been defended a variety of ways. Zagzebski (2004), for example, defends (1) with her ‘espresso analogy.’ She argues that good espresso from an unreliable espresso machine is just as valuable as good espresso from a reliable espresso machine. Analogously, she thinks, for beliefs. Being produced from a reliable process doesn’t add value to a true belief. And, thus, (1).

Kvanvig (2003) defends the premise with his ‘two lists’ argument; if you want to know where you can get chocolate, and you are given a list telling you where chocolate is sold, and another list telling you where chocolate is ‘likely’ to be sold, then a conjunction of the two lists is no more valuable than the first list. The value of the second list is ‘swamped’ by the value of the first. So to, he thinks, for beliefs. If a reliably produced belief is valuable because it is ‘likely to be true’, then adding this property to a belief already stipulated as true does not increase its value.

The next premise is:

(2) V (SK that p) > V(SBT that P)

But because reliabilists just define knowledge as (SB R,T that p), we derive:

(3) V (SK that p) > V (SB R,T that p). Therefore:

(4) SK that p  df. SB R,T that p

(Note: the move from (3) to (4) relies on an implicit premise that: a difference in value between x and y entails that x  y. This assumption, as a side note, lurks in the background as Meno is reasoning to his conclusion that knowledge just is true belief).

If the ‘swamping premise’ (i.e. P1) can be adequately defended, it is not difficult to show how further premises will lead to a conclusion that process reliabilism is a false theory of knowledge.

There exist some recent attempts to vitiate the swamping argument. I am interested to know whether any succeeds.

First attempt: Kristoffer Ahlstrom and the diachronic goal.

Ahlstrom argues that the swamping premise is true only if our cognitive coal is conceived of synchronically; that is, only if the value relative to which other epistemic states are valuable by virtue of promoting that value, is having true beliefs now. He argues in favour of a reconstrual of our cognitive goal as diachronic—as having true beliefs not only now, but also later. Under such a framework, he thinks, a reliably formed belief is more valuable than a mere true belief. Here’s Ahlstrom:

To be (or have been) reliably formed is such a component since being (or having been) reliably formed implies something about the etiology of the belief in question—an etiology that, if repeatedly instantiated, will promote our diachronic goal to attain and maintain true beliefs through tracking the truth. To believe truly, however, is no such diachronic component since it carries no promise to the effect that the belief was formed in response to the way the world is rather than as a result of mere luck. This is why the presence of truth cannot make the epistemic value of believing reliably otiose”. (Ahlstrom, “An Argument Concerning Swamping”)

I agree with Ahlstrom that a ‘synchronic’ conception of our cognitive goal is unhelpfully narrow, however I am not convinced that stipulating a ‘diachronic’ goal gets us the result he wants. My worry is this: the property of a belief that best promotes a diachronic goal is ‘permanence’ of a belief (i.e. see Williamson’s cross-temporal explanation of the value of knowledge in his 2000b), however, permanence attaches to a belief not by virtue of its etiology, but by virtue of the extent to which we hold conviction with regard to the belief. Maybe I’m missing something here.

Second try: Goldman and Olsson No. 1

Goldman and Olsson in “Reliabilism and the Value of Knowledge” bring up an interesting case which, they admit, is not at the crux of their argument, but is nonetheless worth mentioning here. They suggest that in at least some deployments of the word ‘know’, we mean nothing other than ‘truly believes.’ Therefore, in at least some cases, it is no more valuable to know than to truly believe. The example they cite is one from Hawthorne (2004) who imagines that a classroom is asked ‘Who knows the capital of Austria?” The idea here is that: whomever says ‘Vienna’ is credited as knowing, and ipso facto, knowledge in such cases just is true belief.
Two problems here. Firstly, I think that it is more likely that in the classroom case, we just ‘misuse’ the word know (in the same way that we might use ‘deny’ sloppily rather than ‘refute’). But that aside, even if the case were legitimate, and we infer from that that some cases of knowing aren’t more valuable than their true-belief counterparts, it wouldn’t establish anything that we haven’t already learned from Sosa’s sand on the beach case. There are some propositions such that knowing them isn’t more valuable than truly believing them.

Second try: Goldman and Olsson No. 2

This case is the interesting case. It is an attack of Kvanvig’s two lists’ argument. Goldman and Olsson think that Kvanvig’s two lists argument relies on allegedly spurious thesis of ‘property parasitism’:

Property Parasitism: If the value of property P* is parasitic on the value of property P, then the value of P and P* together does not exceed the value of P. (Goldman and Olsson, p. 10)

Goldman and Olsson think property parasitism is false by way of counterexample: Suppose, they argue, that you have a ticket worth $1000 and another ticket that has a 10% chance of winning $1000. Clearly you would want both the $1000 and the ticket more than you would want merely the $1000. But, they think, if property parasitism is true, then the $1000 ‘swamps’ the value of the ticket, and thus, you should not prefer the conjunction of the two over the $1000.

This is quite clever. I’m afraid, though, that there is a subtle disanalogy between what Kvanvig is trying to do with the two lists argument (about wanting chocolate) and with the money case. In Kvanvig’s case, you goal is a true belief. You can’t get ‘truer than true’ and so once you have a true belief, then adding the property that it is ‘likely to be true’ doesn’t add to the value. On the Goldman/Olson case, though, it remains possible that your conjunction (i.e. of the $1000 and the ticket) could amount to something ‘more valuable than $1000), and for that reason, it seems to be relevantly disanalogous to what takes place when we adopt truth as a goal.

There are other ways to go about saving reliabilism form the swamp (i.e. Pritchard’s ‘final value’ discussion of reliable processes, as well as Greco’s ‘intrinsic value of success through ability’ defense of virtue reliabilism), but I’ll stop the discussion here and see if anyone thinks that any of the first three examples are legitimate reasons to deny the swamping premise.

Gettierising Nozick

Over at The Web of Belief, I lay out a Gettier case against local reliabilism (which is itself based on an earlier post of mine, Undescriminating Reliabilism). Let's call my proposed Gettier case against local reliabilism GLR. The version of local reliability I took as my target was admittedly quite simple, so here I will attempt to apply GLR to a much more sophisticated version of local reliability—namely, Nozick’s counterfactual account. Nozick [1981, p. 179] argues that the true belief that p is knowledge only if:

(N1) If p were true, then S would believe that p
(N2) If p were not true, then S would not believe that p¹

Following David Lewis [1973] we may say that (N1) and (N2) are true, as counterfactual statements, iff in possible worlds near to the actual world, if p is true, S believes that p, and if p is false S does not believe that p. Nozick recommends that we assess (N1) and (N2) by reference to what is the case in all nearby possible worlds. Roughly, a world may be described as ‘nearby’ if it is only slightly different from the actual world and ‘distant’ if it is radically different.

The following reply to GLR seems available to Nozick. Let us suppose that the set of nearby possible worlds include ones in which the computer is running a different program or is missing altogether. In such nearby worlds, although there is a red cube in the box, there is no hologram of a red cube. Since in such a world the subject would not believe that (a) although (a) is true, (N1) has not been satisfied.

One initial difficulty with this reply is that it is not immediately clear that worlds in which the computer is running a different program or is missing altogether should be considered nearby. But let us, for the sake of argument, assume that such worlds are in fact nearby.

Even so, Nozick’s strategy for responding to GLR proves too much, since it also impugns cases in which the subject intuitively has knowledge.

The ‘Jesse James’ Counterexample:
Consider the case of the Jesse James Bank Robbery, as described by Craig [1990]:

Jesse James, the reader will recall, is riding away from the scene of the crime with his scarf tied round his face just below the eyes in the approved manner. The mask slips, and a bystander, who has studied the ‘wanted’ posters, recognises him. The bystander now knows, surely, that it was James who robbed the bank. But Nozick has a problem: there is a possible world, and a ‘close’ one, in which James’ mask didn’t slip, or didn’t slip until he was already past the bystander; and in that world the bystander wouldn’t believe that James robbed the bank, although it would still be true that he did. So Nozick’s condition [N1] is not satisfied, and he is threatened with having to say that the bystander doesn’t know that it was James, even though the mask did slip. So his analysis looks like ruling out something which is as good a case of knowledge as one could wish for [p. 22].

Nozick is already equipped with a reply to the ‘Jesse James’ counterexample, akin to that employed in the Grandma case [See endnote 1]. In brief, he may simply argue that in worlds in which the mask did not slip, the method employed by the bystander would be different. Thus, given the version of Nozick’s counterfactuals revised to include the subject’s method, worlds in which the mask did not slip would not be included in the relevant nearby possible worlds.

However, to the extant that this reply is effective in preserving the bystanders knowledge in the Jesse James case, it is also effective at preserving the GLR subject’s ‘knowledge’ that (a). In GLR, the computer program, as the locus of reliability, constitutes part of the method by which S arrives at her belief that (a). Thus, by (N1*), all worlds in which the computer program is different or the computer is missing, a different method is being used and that world eo ipso fails to count as nearby.


Endnote:

1 Counter examples such as the Grandma case has prompted Nozick [1981, p. 179] to revise (N1) and (N2), limiting them to the same method (i.e., vision):

(N1*) If p were true, S (using M) would believe that p

(N2*) If p were not true, then S (using M) would not believe that p

References:

Craig, E. [1990], Knowledge and the State of Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Lewis, D. [1973], Counterfactuals. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Nozick, R., [1981], Philosophical Explanations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Un-discriminating Reliabilism (Part 2)

In [Goldman 1976], Goldman rejects the idea that knowledge requires evidence or justification, and instead conceives of knowledge as true belief that satisfies a reliability condition. On this view, reliability is what you add to true beliefs, instead of evidence or justification, in order to get knowledge. However, in [Goldman 1979], Goldman came to hold the view that instead of replacing the notion of justification in an account of knowledge, reliability is what makes a belief justified. This shift in Goldman’s thought is indeed significant, since it represents his move towards a full-fledged J-externalism. But there is an equally important (earlier) shift that takes place in [Goldman 1976]; namely, Goldman’s rejection of the causal account advocated in [Goldman 1967] and his embracing of the idea that knowledge requires certain discriminative abilities, a view he motivates with his now famous barn case (pp. 772-773). An analysis of the barn case leads Goldman to conclude:

A person knows that p, I suggest, only if the actual state of affairs in which p is true is distinguishable or discriminable by him from a relevant possible state of affairs in which p is false. If there is a relevant possible state of affairs in which p is false and which is indistinguishable by him from the actual state of affairs, then he fails to know that p. (Ibid, 774)

Notice that the above discrimination requirement avoids the unfavourable consequences of the Gettier case described in my previous post in at least two ways. First, it omits all talk of justification and so (in at least one sense) traditional Gettier problems never arise. Second, since according to the aforementioned Gettier case S is unable to discriminate between the actual red cube and the hologram, her true belief does not constitute knowledge (thereby preserving our common-sense intuitions regarding such cases). But, and this is crucial to the point I’m getting at, what is doing the actual work in [Goldman 1976]’s reply to Gettier is the discrimination requirement, and not the notion of reliability a la (J-Rel). Admittedly, in [Goldman 1976], Goldman defines reliability in terms of a subject being able to discriminate between relevant alternatives and thus the former is taken to entail the latter. However, in later formulations of the reliability requirement, explicit appeals to discriminative abilities are increasingly omitted, and Goldman eventually comes to define a reliable process as more or less one that tends to produce true beliefs. Moreover, I do not believe this shift in Goldman’s definition of reliability is by accident. Presumably, talk of discriminative abilities falls out of Goldman’s analysis (now taken to be unnecessary) once he shifts to an explicit J-externalism, where what makes a belief justified need not be internally available to the subject.

The objection may be raised that even with the J-externalist turn in Goldman’s thinking, the discrimination requirement remains an implicit part of his account. I will not deny that this may be the case. Even so, it has long been recognised that the discrimination requirement can stand on its own, independent of any appeals to reliability (see for example [McGinn 1984]). Thus, if my claim that what is doing the work vis-a-vis Gettier is actually the discrimination requirement, rather than reliability qua reliability, then this is at least sufficient to establish that when it comes to the aforementioned Gettier case, reliability a la (J-Rel) is at best explanatorily redundant and at worst explanatorily inert. (The second more unpropitious option holds if you consider my arguments in (Part 1) persuasive.) Moreover, even if one were to reject the account of the evolution of Goldman’s thought outlined above, my more general conclusions still stand: (1) that though reliability and discrimination are classically taken to go together this need not be the case and (2) if (DR) is doing the heavy lifting in classic reliabilist replies to Gettier then the widely held assumption that (J-Rel) constitutes a successful reply to Gettier may be unwarranted.

References:

Goldman, A. (1967), 'A Causal Theory of Knowing', Journal of Philosophy 64: 355-372.

Goldman, A. (1976), 'Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge', Journal of Philosophy 73: 771-791.

Goldman, A. (1979), 'What is Justified Belief?' Justification and Knowledge, Dordrecht: Reidel.

Un-discriminating Reliabilism (Part 1)

J-reliabilism is perhaps the most well-known, if not most widely held, response to Gettier’s criticism of the JTB account of knowledge. However, in this post (as well as in the one to follow), I argue that J-reliabilism is insufficient for responding to Gettier. Furthermore, I argue that what is really doing the work in classical formulations of reliabilism, such as that found in [Goldman 1976], is the discrimination requirement, or (DR):

(DR) For any subject S, if S knows that p then S can distinguish the actual situation in which p from all relevant or nearby alternative situations in which ~p.

Recall, J-reliabilism amounts to following claim:

(J-Rel) For any subject S, S’s belief that p is justified IFF it was formed via a reliable process (i.e., a process that tends to produce true beliefs).

According to (J-Rel), reliability is what makes a belief justified. (see [Goldman 1979]). By defining justification in terms of reliability, J-reliabilists hope to eliminate that element of luck that allows our beliefs, under the traditional JTB account, to be Gettiered. However, it is not clear that (J-Rel) is sufficient for resisting Gettier type cases. For example, consider the following perceptual Gettier case:

Suppose S has strong perceptual evidence for, and comes to believe, the proposition:

(a) There is a red cube in the box on the table.

Now, it so happens that there is in fact a red cube in the box on the table, though the cube is being obscured from S’s visual field by some sort of barrier. Furthermore, the box is rigged up to a computer which projects a visual hologram of a red cube in the box. However, the computer is programmed to only project the hologram of the red cube in the box when there is a real red cube in the box. Moreover, S lacks any of this background information, and forms her belief that (a) purely on the basis of the hologram of the red cube. All of the following seem true in the above case:

(i) (a) is true
(ii) S believes (a) is true
(iii) S’s belief that (a) is formed via a reliable process

Ex hypothesi, (iii) is true since the computer is programmed to only project the hologram of a red cube when there is an actual red cube present (one may build in whatever stipulations one likes, such as that the computer is eternal and infallible in its operation etc.). Thus, S’s belief that there is a red cube in the box is reliable since the process by which the belief was formed would, given the computer’s programming, tend to produce true beliefs. However, I believe this represents a bona fide Gettier case since, though S has a justified (i.e., reliably formed) true belief, we wouldn’t say that she has knowledge.

I take the above Gettier case to show that mere reliability is insufficient for eliminating the element of luck from S’s belief that (a). To wit, (J-Rel) fails to eliminate the element of luck associated with S’s belief that (a) since the fact that her belief is reliable is (from the subject’s perspective) itself merely a matter of luck. Thus, we may say that it is lucky that S’s belief was formed via a reliable process. Significantly, the particular species of epistemic luck here described is easily eliminated by making the reliability of the belief forming process internally available to S. Thus, if S knew that what she was seeing was merely a hologram, but that the hologram was itself reliably linked to the presence of an actual red cube in the box, then our intuitions would grant that S does in fact know that there is a red cube in the box. Thus, I see the above Gettier case as corroborating the internalist intuition that that which justifies S’s beliefs should be internally available to her.

Notice that I haven’t made any references to S being able to discriminate between actual red cubes and holograms of red cubes, nor to definitions of reliability that appeal to relevant alternatives (See [Goldman 1986]). This failure to invoke (DR) is in keeping with my ultimate goal of showing that what is doing the real work in classic reliabilist accounts is not reliability qua reliability, but rather an implicit commitment to (DR). Above, I have argued that reliability alone [i.e., (J-Rel)] is insufficient for responding to Gettier. In my next post, I argue that the mistaken assumption that (J-Rel) and (DR) must go together has misled reliability advocates to impute to J-reliabilism an explanatory power that it actually lacks.

References:

Goldman, A. (1967), 'A Causal Theory of Knowing', Journal of Philosophy 64: 355-372.

Goldman, A. (1976), 'Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge', Journal of Philosophy 73: 771-791.

Goldman, A. (1979), 'What is Justified Belief?' Justification and Knowledge, Dordrecht: Reidel.

J-Reliabilism and the New Evil Genius

In this post, I outline what has come to be known as the New Evil Genius objection to reliabilism. There are several versions of reliabilism currently available, but the one I have in mind has to do with justification and amounts the following claim:

(J-Rel) For any agent S, S’s belief that p is justified IFF it was formed via a reliable process (i.e., a process that tends to produce true beliefs).

The following claim seems to be in keeping with our common sense intuitions about justification:

(NEG) The extent to which S is justified in believing that p at time t is the same as the extent to which S’s recently envatted duplicate is justified in believing that p at t.

However, the combination of both (NEG) and (J-Rel) leads to the following implausible conclusion:

(C) The beliefs of S’s recently envatted duplicate are produced by reliable processes.

To see this, let us begin by simplifying (J-Rel) and (NEG) for the purpose of argumentation. First, we may note that (J-Rel) entails (A):

(A) If S’s belief that p is justified, then it was produced by a reliable process.

Likewise, we may simplify (NEG) by noting that in cases where S’s belief that p is justified, (NEG) entails (B):

(B) (Recently envatted) S’s belief that p is justified.

From premises (A) and (B) we can construct an argument for the conclusion (C), as follows:

(Arg1):

(A) If S’s belief that p is justified, then it was produced by a reliable process.

(B) (Recently envatted) S’s belief that p is justified.

Therefore, by modus ponens:

(C) (Recently envatted) S’s belief that p was produced by a reliable process.

But (C) is intuitively false. For those given to logical minutia, the proof for the denial of (J-Rel) from the above premises would look something like this:

1. ~(C) {premise (ex hypothesi)}

2. {(A) . (B)} → (C) {premise (restatement of (Arg1) above)}

3. (NEG) → (B) {premise (as defined above)}

4. (J-Rel) → (A) {premise (as defined above)}

5. (NEG) {premise (common sense intuition)}

6. ~{(A) . (B)} {from (i) and (ii), by modus tollens}

7. {~(A) V ~(B)} {from (vi), by De Morgan’s laws}

8. (B) {from (iii) and (v), by modus ponens}

9. ~(A) {from (vii) and (viii), by disjunctive syllogism}}

_____________________________________________

10. ~(J-Rel) {from (iv) and (ix), by modus tollens}