Abstract

A central topic in experimental epistemology has been the ways that non-epistemic evaluations of an agent’s actions can affect whether the agent is taken to have certain kinds of knowledge. Several scholars have found that the positive or negative valence of an action can influence attributions of knowledge to the agent. These evaluative effects on knowledge attributions are commonly seen as performance errors, failing to reflect individuals’ genuine conceptual competence with knows. In the present article, I report the results of a series of studies designed to test the leading version of this view, which appeals to the allegedly distorting influence of individuals’ motivation to blame. I argue that the data pose significant challenges to such a view.