On Justification and Explanation: My Reply to Ben

What follows is my response to the questions posed by Ben in the comments following his post.

I’m not sure how you’re using the words ‘justification’ or ‘explanation’ here; these are terms of art and philosophers tend to define them in different ways. Moreover, on the way I’m inclined to use the word ‘explanation’, your question as to whether entitlement falls on the justification or explanation side of the divide does not lend itself to a straightforward answer. In fact, given my way of carving things up, the question would be somewhat ill-formed; the distinction between justification and explanation is simply not salient. Instead of talking about explaining a belief or action, I prefer to speak about making a belief or action intelligible. (The 'making intelligible' locution is meant to highlight the difference between the types of explanation implicated in our folk psychology, and that offered by the natural/physical sciences). The difference is not simply terminological. The philosophically interesting respects in which my preferred way of carving things up differs from your own may be seen in the following summary of the view I find most attractive.

When we ask why an agent believes such and such (at least in the sense of ‘why’ I presently have in mind), the question presupposes that the transitions that give rise to the belief are subject to certain norms relating to truth. Analogously, when we ask why an agent performs some action, the question presupposes that the transitions that give rise to the agent’s intentions are subject to certain norms relating to what ought to be done (what I refer to as ‘goodness-conditions’). I refer to both the norms relating to truth and goodness as ‘rational norms’. This way of putting things involves broadening the applicability of reason-talk to include more than the norms relating to truth. Moreover, I hold that a transition may be subject to a rational norm even if the agent engaged in the transition lacks the conceptual resources necessary to understand that norm. The upshot is that even the psychological transitions of animals may be subject to rational norms.

On the present view, a transition’s being subject to a rational norm does not entail or require that the agent performing the transition be able to assess whether or not that transition is rational. (Assessment is, of course, reserved for agents with the required conceptual capacities; namely, rational agents.) Thus, I distinguish between the conditions necessary for performing a transition that is rationally evaluable and the conditions necessary for evaluating a transition’s rationality. The first set of conditions are met by all agents with beliefs and intentions, while the second is met only by those agents that can reflect on (i.e., rationally evaluate) their beliefs or intentions. Moreover, it is only agents capable of evaluating their own beliefs and intentions that may be correctly described as ‘rationally responsible’. To say that an agent is rationally responsible is to say, not only that the agent’s beliefs or intentions, but also the agent herself is rationally evaluable. Thus, I also distinguish between the necessary conditions for an agent’s beliefs and intentions being rationally evaluable and the necessary conditions for an agent being rationally evaluable in the light of her beliefs and intentions. The latter are only met by rational agents.

To say that a transition is rational is, on the present view, to say that it is reason-providing. This reason provides the agent with an entitlement to beliefs or intentions based on that transition. When a suitably equipped agent comes to recognise her reasons as such, her entitlement (eo ipso) becomes a justification. Thus, a justification is what an entitlement becomes when an agent comes to recognise her reasons as reasons. In sum, I hold that the reasons that provide an agent with an entitlement to a certain belief or intention also constitute an agent’s justification just in case the agent recognises those reasons as reasons. The upshot is that the very reasons that constitute an agent’s entitlement may also constitute her justification; this leaves no room for a distinction between the kind of reasons that justify and kind that explain.

The preceding upshot – namely, that the account on offer leaves no room for the distinction between explanatory and justificatory reasons – may seem like a glaring omission. However, I believe that the intuitions that motivate the standard distinction between explanatory and justificatory reasons may be accommodated (without violence) by the distinction between theoretical and practical transitions. Time won’t allow me to fully unpack the view here. But the gist of it is that the content of theoretical transitions roughly corresponds with the kind of reasons that fall on the justificatory side of the traditional divide, and the content of practical transitions roughly corresponds with the kind of reasons that fall on the explanatory side of the traditional divide. Another way the point may be put (though it does not get things quite right) is to say that while theoretical transitions justify, practical transitions explain. This does not get things quite right since, as I noted above, I prefer to say that theoretical and practical transitions are salient to our respective attempts to render an agent’s beliefs and intentions intelligible. Both represent modes of folk-psychological explanation (which, again, must be contrasted with the types of explanations in the natural/physical sciences). In sum, I hold that the concepts of entitlement and justification (whether theoretical or practical in form) are explanatory concepts; they represent a fundamental part of our folk psychological attempts to render beliefs and intentions intelligible.

With regards to your second question, I believe that the notion of entitlement, like all normative notions, can only be applied by an agent equipped with the necessary concepts. But the question that presently concerns us is not who may apply a normative concept, but rather what a normative concept may have application to. I believe a certain state of affairs can be described as being good for a cat (in the most literal sense imaginable), even if the cat lacks the conceptual resources necessary to understand this fact or apply the concept of goodness in its own case or anyone else’s. Moreover, when we say that a certain state of affairs is good for a cat, we do not mean that it would be good for us if we were in the cat’s place. We mean it is good for the cat. For example, if I were in the corner of the room chewing on a freshly killed mouse, this state of affairs would not be good for me. But given the desires and needs of the cat, it may certainly be good for it. In short, when I say that “chewing on a freshly killed mouse” is good for the cat, I mean from the cat’s perspective (given the cat’s needs, beliefs and desires), not my own.

The need to distinguish between our perspective and that of an animal, whose beliefs and intentions we happen to be evaluating, becomes important when one considers that the evaluations in each case may actually be at odds. For example, a die-hard vegan may believe that it would be bad for her (or any other human being) to ingest the flesh of another animal and yet hold that it is good for a lion to do so. When the vegan says it is good for the lion to do so, she is not putting herself (with all her human capacities and desires) in the lion’s place, for if she were to do so, then whatever moral qualms she has about humans consuming animal flesh would continue to apply. Thus, her assessment of the lion cannot simply be a result of her projecting human capacities to the lion. Rather, she reflects on the lion’s needs, beliefs and desires (not her own) and concludes that the act of ingesting animal flesh is good (from the lion’s perspective. Moreover, reflecting on the lion’s perspective presupposes that it has one, and that this perspective belongs to the lion; not to the human being evaluating the lion’s actions.

The problem I have with your claim that talk of a lion’s reasons is simply metaphorical is that it threatens to obscure the above observations; it gives the impression that the lion really does not have a perspective, independent of the perspective of the human being evaluating the lion's beliefs or actions. This is why I emphasised that the human evaluator could get things wrong when she attempted to attribute certain beliefs and desires to an animal. The possibility that the human evaluator may be mistaken entails that there is something (independent of the human evaluator) that she could be mistaken about. Moreover, I maintain that the lion would continue to have a perspective even if there were no humans around to make evaluations based on it. But your view seems to entail that if all human beings died tomorrow, lions would no longer have a perspective from which certain states of affairs could be evaluated as good or bad. Of course, there would be no one around to carry out the evaluations, but that would not mean that ingesting wood chips and animal flesh would suddenly be seen as on a par by lions. Lions would continue to see ingesting wood chips as something not to be done (which, on my account, constitutes a certain state of affairs being represented as bad) and ingesting animal flesh as something to be done (which, on my account, constitutes a certain state of affairs being represented as good). In brief, when I say that a lion has a reason to stalk and kill a gazelle (for example, in order to feed its cubs), I am saying something about the lion, not about myself.

On Reasons and Animals: Ben's Reply to Me

What follows is Ben's response to my previous post:

Thank you for paying such close attention to my comments and for such a thorough and thoughtful reply. Let me mention that I really do not want to deny that animals are agents (that would be absurd) or that we can give explanations of animal behavior using ‘reason’ in (one of) its ordinary meanings. That is, animals are properly and non-metaphorically spoken of as agents and as behaving intelligibly (i.e., in ways that make sense given certain considerations).

That said, I still have a complaint about your conclusion that the monkey’s transition of thought in Hurley’s case (from A is dominant over B and B is dominant over C to A is dominant over C) gives the monkey a reason to believe that A is dominant over C—or, as you take them to be equivalent, justifies the monkey’s belief that A is dominant over C.

You’ve brought out two nice distinctions in your last two posts: first, the distinction between responding to reasons and responding to reasons as such; second, the distinction between reasons-for-which and reasons-with-which. I assume that these are not identical distinctions, but they share something important in common. In both cases, it takes an extra capacity to be the sort of creature to which the latter terminology is applicable. Human beings but not all agents act for reasons as such, and the same is true with respect to reasons-with-which. And this is the case because human beings have the capacity for reflection. I think this is all important and true.

But I also think that it does not show that a transition of thought like the one in the monkey case is reason-giving for the monkey. This is the claim at issue. You say that the transition of thought is reason-giving, but you deny that the monkey acts on the recognition of a reason as such (and so also, I assume, you deny that the monkey acts with a reason). I agree that the monkey does not act on the recognition of a reason as such (or with a reason). But I deny that the transition of thought gives the monkey a reason. The reason that I deny this is that I do not think that the rationality of the transition (i.e., its intelligibility in response to the relevant considerations) gives the monkey anything. From the monkey’s perspective, nothing is more or less justified before or after the transition of thought. Equivalently: nothing is justified for the monkey.

I think there is a similarity between the inanimate object and the monkey. Neither the monkey nor the knife, say, can gain a reason on the basis of a transition of thought. The explanation of why this is so in each case reveals a difference between the monkey and knife. The knife cannot gain a reason based on a transition of thought because the knife cannot have thoughts. The monkey cannot gain a reason based on a transition of thought, I claim, because the monkey cannot have reasons in the relevant sense. The relevant sense is, by your own lights, that the monkey’s belief is justified.

Now I can see two ways of making sense of the claim that the monkey’s belief is justified. First, the belief may be justified for the monkey. But this, I claim, requires that the monkey be able to countenance a reason as such. And we both deny that. Second, the belief may be justified for us when we consider things from the monkey’s perspective. This is the view I tried to advocate for in my comment to your previous post. You quote a sentence from those comments to the effect that we project our deliberative perspective on the monkey when thinking about the intelligibility of the monkey’s behavior. I stand by this claim. And I don’t think that it ignores the distinction between the monkey and the knife. We might project on both, even if the one can have thoughts and the other cannot.

To press you further, I think that there is an important distinction missing from this discussion. We might cite a reason for the monkey’s behavior in the sense of a consideration that explains why the monkey did such-and-such. But this is not yet to say that the consideration justifies anything. A justifying explanation requires that the one to whom the explanation is given has the capacity to take up and evaluate the explanatory considerations. And the monkey cannot do this, I think. We can, I think, because we have the capacity to reflect on possible determining grounds of our behavior and choose between them—we have the capacity for reflection.

My view allows us to still account for the ordinary practice of saying things like the reason for which the monkey leapt into the tree was that there was a predator approaching, where ‘reason’ has justificatory force here. This explains the monkey’s behavior in terms that engage our rational, reflective capacities. When we think about the circumstances from the monkey’s point of view, we take the approaching predator to be a reason to jump into the tree, in the sense of a consideration that justifies doing this. We talk as though the monkey took this as a justifying consideration as well. But this talk is metaphorical. (The same goes for the transition of thought regarding dominance.)

What might not be metaphorical is talk that attributes an explanatory role to the consideration that the predator is coming. I think that is the case. But then this consideration does not give the monkey a reason in the sense you are after. You claim that reason-givingness involves justification. And explanation of the sort we have here does not justify anything to the monkey. The monkey is not a proper recipient of justifying explanations because the monkey cannot take them up and assess them in the right way. The monkey does not have the relevant capacity for reflection. We do have this capacity, and we also have the capacity to take up the monkey’s perspective from within our own deliberative point of view. And when we do this, the same considerations that explain things about the monkey’s behavior also justify this behavior to us. But the move from explanation to justification requires the capacity for reflection. And I want to insist that if the monkey does not have this capacity, then the monkey cannot be given a reason, where this involves justification. I also want to insist that this does not undermine the propriety of our talking about the monkey having a justification so long as we recognize that our language is in this case metaphorical.

The upshot is this: we can talk of the monkey having a reason for doing something in both a metaphorical and non-metaphorical sense. In the first case, it is metaphorical because we take reasons to be justifying and the monkey cannot receive justifications. In the second case it is not metaphorical because we take reasons to be explanatory and the monkey’s behavior is explained by certain considerations engaging the monkey’s motivational states and issuing in the relevant behavior. (In case you are worried that the two collapse because, say, a good explanation justifies, I should note that I don’t think the monkey is given an explanation of his behavior here, and for similar reasons—the monkey does not have the requisite capacities to receive this sort of explanation. So I suppose I would still take issue with the (perhaps weaker) claim that the monkey receives a reason, where this involves the monkey receiving an explanation. The sense in which I think the monkey receives a reason is that he is made aware of a consideration that engages his motivational states and issues in the relevant behavior. This reason both explains and justifies his behavior, but the explanation and justification are given to us, not to the monkey.)

One last point. You are right that we may be incorrect about why the monkey leapt into the tree. Perhaps it missed the predator but saw some food in the tree. So we might mistakenly attribute mental states to the monkey, and our ordinary linguistic practices are sensitive to this. But I don’t see how this bears on the issue of whether or not our talking as if the monkey gains a justification is metaphorical or not. If we misattribute a mental state to the monkey, this impugns both the claim that the relevant consideration is justifying and the claim that it is explanatory. If there is no representation of a predator to justify the leap into the tree, then there is equally no representation of a predator to engage the motivational states of the monkey. I don’t see a special problem for my view here.

On Reasons and Animals: My Reply to Ben

Special thanks to Ben for his thoughtful feedback on my previous post (see comments). I concede that our ordinary linguistic practice often includes the metaphorical attribution of agency. But of course, that does not mean that such attributions are always metaphorical. For example, no one worth taking seriously (at least for the purposes of the present discussion) would say it is metaphorical in the case of fully competent human beings. So the question is, on which side of the divide does our agency-attributions to animals fall? Is it like our agency-attribution to inanimate objects, or is it more like our attributions to human beings?

Now there are clearly numerous respects in which animals are more like human beings than they are like inanimate objects. Hurley’s monkey, for example, has a heart, brain and haemoglobin bearing blood cells; as do we. But these points of similarity are not salient to the question at hand. Thus, in this post, my task will not be merely to show that animals are more like humans than they are like inanimate objects. That’s a given. Rather, it will be to show that they are similar to humans in ways that are salient to the question of agency. Consequently, when assessing my claims, one cannot simply ask if they are true; one must ask if they’re relevantly true. This is the question I wish to take up.

One striking difference between animals and inanimate objects is that the former are ordinarily assumed to possess motivational states while the latter are not. Moreover, the claim that animals possess motivational states is meant to be taken literally. This is a point made quite emphatically by Mary Midgley:

There is nothing anthropomorphic in speaking of the motivation of animals. It is anthropomorphic to call the lion the King of Beasts, but not to talk of him as moved, now by fear, now by curiosity, now by territorial anger. These are not the names of hypothetical inner states, but of major patterns in anyone’s life, the signs of which are regular and visible. Anyone who has to deal with lions learns to read such signs, and survives by doing so. Both with animals and with men, we respond to the feelings and intentions we read in an action, not to the action itself. (Midgley (1978), Beast and Man., pp. 105-6.)

I believe that the difference between animals and inanimate objects highlighted by Midgley is salient to the question of agency. In the knife case, the focus is on the event (the cutting of the hand). But in the animal case, the focus is on the animal’s inner (read: psychological) states. If one sees a lion walking towards you, it is important to be able to distinguish between whether it is being motivated by a desire to eat you or a desire to reunite with its pride that is gathered under a tree fifty feet behind you. Our folk psychology is what provides us with the tools we need to interpret the lion’s actions. But notice, we are not simply paying attention to the bodily movements of the lion, but also to the inner psychological states (e.g., the lion’s intentions), which we hope to opine by observing the bodily movements. Our concern is primarily with the lion’s psychological states since they will determine what the lion will do next. Moreover, while we may attempt to put ourselves in the lion’s shoes in order to help us opine what its intentions are, we nevertheless assume that these psychological states are real and that they belong to the lion.

The preceding claims are supported by a key assumption of any folk-psychological attempt to make sense of animal behaviour—namely, that when we attribute motives and intentions to animals, we may get things wrong. For example, we assume that it is possible for us to mistakenly conclude that the lion intends to reunite with its pride when it actually has its sights set on us; and this assumption entails that the lion’s inner states exist quite independently of our beliefs about them; that they are not simply hypothetical states we attribute to the lion. This does not seem to be true of inanimate objects, which occupy a very different place in our folk psychology. We do not, for example, think we can be mistaken about the motivations of an inanimate object. There is simply nothing to be mistaken about. I believe this difference suggests that while the motivations we attribute to inanimate objects are metaphorical, the same is not true in the case of animals. When we attribute a motive to an animal we typically take ourselves to be attributing something objectively real, something we may possibly be mistaken about.

I believe the above observations may reveal a difficulty with Ben’s alternative proposal. He writes:

We attribute rational agency to non-rational animals (and even inanimate objects) because we think about the relevant behavior/events (in these, but not necessarily all cases) by adopting the animal's (or object's) perspective from within our own first-personal point of view.

The problem with this proposal is that it overlooks what we ordinarily take to be an important difference between animals and inanimate objects. In the case of inanimate objects, like a knife, there is simply no perspective to adopt. The knife does not enjoy any representational states; it does not see, taste our experience the world in any way. It does not have desires, wants, or appetites. This is why talk of adopting a knife’s perspective can only be metaphorical. But animals, like Hurley’s monkey, are ordinarily assumed to have a perspective in the most literal sense imaginable. They enjoy representations of the world, and are plausibly assumed to be motivated by desires and appetites, and so on.

I hold that having motivational psychological states and being moved to act by them is sufficient for agency. Since the term agent, at least as it features in philosophical discussions, is a term of art, this definition may be seen as stipulative. Given the account of agency I favour (and one is of course free to suggest a better philosophical account), it follows from the conclusion of the preceding paragraph that animals may be agents (in a non-metaphorical sense). But terminological issues aside, the claim I actually set out to defend in my previous post has little to do with whether or not animals are agents and more to do with the concept of a reason and with what it means to be responsive to reasons. My contention is that there is an ordinary usage of the word ‘reasons’ that is consistent with the claim that animals may be responsive to reasons, and it is this usage of the word that I wish to subject to philosophical analysis.

In attempting to identify the ordinary usage of the word ‘reason’ that I have in mind, it may be helpful to distinguish between reasons-for-which an agent acts and the reasons-with-which an agent acts. The latter refers to considerations that an agent takes to be a justification for her carrying out a certain action. By contrast, let us say that the former refers to whatever motivates an agent to act. (Note: I may not be drawing this distinction in the same way others have.) When we specify the reasons-for-which an agent acts, there are typically two forms that our explanations take: We may say that a lion is walking towards me in order to devour me (an mode of explanation that emphasises the lion’s goals; think pull rather than push), or we may say the lion is walking towards me because it wants to devour me (a mode of explanation that cites specific desires that the lion possesses; think push rather than pull).

I believe that there is an ordinary and intuitive use of the word ‘reason’ according to which the following is true: to say that the lion approached the man because it desired to devour him is to give the lion’s reason for approaching the man. Likewise, to say that the lion approached the man in order to devour him is, again, to give the reason the lion approached the man. It is this usage of the word ‘reason’ that I am interested in preserving: reasons as reasons-for-which. I do not claim that it is the only usage of the word; I do not even claim that it is the only usage of the word that has a legitimate claim to being part of our ordinary linguistic practice. There may be multiple ordinary usages (i.e., meanings) of a single word. I only claim that it is a legitimate part of our ordinary linguistic practice (rather than my personal concoction), and it also happens to be a part of our ordinary linguistic practice that I wish my account of reasons and agency to preserve.

McDowell on Rational Animals

In my previous post on this topic, I described Burge's alternative to M-rationalism. Following Burge, I hold that justification is not the only type of warrant. Moreover, consistent with Burge, I hold that a psychological transition need not be motivated by a higher order attitude that takes the transition as its object in order for that transition to provide that agent with a justification for beliefs based on that transition. However, I part ways with Burge by advocating a broader and more inclusive conception of reasons; one that has application not only to justification but also to entitlement. In a slogan: only reasons warrant. I wish to say that the transitive inference performed by Hurley’s monkey provides it with a reason that warrants the monkey’s inference-based belief. On this view, a transition may count as reason-conferring even if the agent lacks the conceptual resources necessary to recognise that it accords with a rational principle. This less restrictive conception of reasons has application to all potentially belief-yielding psychological transitions, not only the psychological transitions of rational animals (in the sense reserved for mature humans). In short, one does not have to be a rational animal to have a reason.

The broader and more inclusive conception of reasons presently on offer is consistent with that of John McDowell, who draws a distinction between “responsiveness to reasons” and “responsiveness to reasons as such”:

The notion of rationality I mean to invoke here is the notion exploited in a traditional line of thought to make a special place in the animal kingdom for rational animals. It is a notion of responsiveness to reasons as such. That wording leaves room for responsiveness to reasons, though not to reasons as such, on the other side of the division drawn by this notion of rationality between rational animals and animals that are not rational. Animals of many kinds are capable of, for instance, fleeing. And fleeing is a response to something that is in an obvious sense a reason for it; danger, or at least what is taken to be danger. If we describe a bit of behaviour as fleeing, we represent the behaviour as intelligible in the light of a reason for it. But fleeing is not in general responding to a reason as such. (Italics his)

Following McDowell, I reserve the title “rational animal” for those agents that have the capacity to conceive of reasons as such. What makes one a rational animal (in the sense reserved for mature human beings) is not the ability to possess reasons—for this is an ability shared by some non-rational animals—but the ability to recognise one’s reasons as reasons. However, as McDowell’s “fleeing” example illustrates, an agent does not have to be a rational animal in order to possess or be responsive to reasons simpliciter. Hence, a distinction is drawn between the necessary conditions for possessing reasons; conditions that do not require the possession of the relevant concepts; conditions that some non-rational animals can meet; and the conditions for having beliefs about one’s reasons; conditions that do require the possession of the relevant concepts; conditions that only rational animals can meet. One does not have to be a rational animal to have reasons; but one must be a rational animal to reflect on them.

This manner of speaking strikes me as more natural, from a terminological point of view, than that of Wallace and Burge. To say that a psychological transition is rational is, intuitively, to say something about that psychological transition. To say that an agent is a rational animal is, intuitively, to say something about that agent. But on the Wallace-Burge way of putting things, to say that a psychological transition is rational is actually to say something about the agent enjoying the transition. This is because both Wallace and Burge make the status of a psychological transition dependent on whether or not the agent enjoying the transition possesses certain conceptual capacities, a fact that I take to be independent of the nature of the transition itself. By contrast, the conception presently on offer makes a transition’s status as rational contingent on the transition’s non-arbitrary truth-conduciveness, and an agent’s status as rational contingent on the agent’s conceptual capacities. This preserves a clear distinction between the rational status of a transition and the rational status of an agent; providing us with at least the option of talking about the two independently, should we need to do so.

The need to speak of the rational status of a transition independently of the status of the agent performing it arises in the case of Hurley’s monkey. We can imagine circumstances in which inferences performed by Hurley’s monkey comply or fail to comply with the norms of rationality. It would therefore be useful to be able to talk about the rational status of such an inference even if we recognise that Hurley’s monkey is not a rational animal. Moreover, there may be instances in which there is simply insufficient empirical evidence available to determine whether or not a particular agent has the conceptual resources necessary to recognise reasons as such. It would therefore be useful to be able to talk about the rational status of a transition performed by an agent without having to take a stand on whether or not the agent is rational. As it happens, our ordinary linguistic practice already provides us with tools needed for such a task, for it is part of said practice to talk about the reasons that some nonhuman animal has to behave in such and such a manner or hold such and such a belief, while leaving fixed the question of whether or not that animal can respond to reasons as such. This brings us to the most straightforward motivation for adopting a conception of reason that has application to agents that cannot recognise their reasons as such, agents that may be entitled but not justified; to wit, such a conception comports with our ordinary linguistic practice.

Burge's Alternative to M-rationalism

In my previous post, I presented a number of objections to the M-rationalist account suggested by R. J. Wallace. An alternative to Wallace's account is provided by Tyler Burge, who maintains that “a norm need not be understood or intentionally adhered to by the individual that it applies to or governs.” By Burge’s lights, the inference performed by Hurley’s monkey may be described as governed by the principle of transitivity even though the monkey performing the inference lacks the concept of transitivity and is not guided in its cognitive activity by its recognition of the concept. Hence, Burge’s slogan: “norms need not guide.” If we assumed that being governed by a rational norm is sufficient for a psychological transition to be rational (i.e., reason-conferring), then Burge’s account of what it means for a psychological process to be governed by a rational principle would entail that the transitive inference of Hurley’s monkey is a rational transition. However, as we shall soon see, things are not so simple on the Burgean account.

Burge distinguishes between two types of epistemic warrant; entitlement and justification. Regarding the former, he writes:

Individuals can be epistemically entitled to a belief without having reasons warranting the belief, without having the conceptual repertoire necessary to have relevant reasons for the belief, and without having the concepts needed to understand or even think the entitlement.

By contrast, Burge defines justification as “warrant by reason that is conceptually accessible on reflection to the warranted individual.” By his lights, Hurley’s monkey may be entitled to its inference-based belief. But insofar as Hurley’s monkey lacks the conceptual resources necessary to recognise that the inference is generalisable, it does not have a justified inference-based belief. And herein lays the rub. Burge only applies the label “reasons” to warrants that are conceptually accessible to the warranted agent—i.e., justifications. The upshot is that while Hurley’s monkey is entitled to its inference-based belief, it does not have reasons for this belief.

In this respect, Burge appears to be on the same page (albeit not the identical paragraph) as the Wallace. When Wallace conceives of a rational norm “governing” a psychological transition, he specifically has something akin to Burge’s notion of justification in mind. By contrast, when Burge conceives of a rational norm “governing” a psychological transition, he has not only justification but also entitlement in mind (the latter failing to even enter Wallace’s consideration). Thus, we have two different conceptions of what it means to be “governed” by a rational principle, the first (due to the Wallace) confined to transitions that take place within the space of justifications and the second (due to Burge) that includes transitions that take place within the space of entitlements.

Apart from Burge’s introduction of the notion of entitlements, the differences highlighted thus far between the two thinkers strike me as primarily terminological. Insofar as Hurley’s monkey lacks the appropriate concepts, both thinkers are committed to saying that it lacks reasons for its inference-based belief and both thinkers are ultimately committed to denying that the monkey’s inference-based belief is justified. However, Burge goes beyond Wallace in identifying a category of epistemic warrant that the latter simply fails to consider; namely, entitlement. Consequently, Burge has the resources to say that the inference-based belief of Hurley’s monkey is warranted, while Wallace does not.

There is also a substantive difference in the conception of justification adhered to by both thinkers. According to Wallace, a psychological transition is reason-conferring only if the agent engages in the transition because she recognises that it accords with a rational norm. By contrast, Burge only requires that the agent possess the conceptual resources necessary to recognise that the psychological transition is generalisable; it is not necessary that the agent engage in the transition because she recognises that the transition is generalisable or accords with a rational norm. Thus, Burge's account lacks the motivational implications of Wallace's account.