According to the bootstrapping problem, any view that allows for basic knowledge (knowledge obtained from a reliable source prior to one’s knowing that that source is reliable) is forced to accept that one can utilize a track-record argument to acquire justification for believing that one’s belief source is reliable; yet, we tend to think that acquiring justification in this way is too easy. In this paper I argue, first, that those who respond to the bootstrapping (...) problem by denying basic knowledge succumb to over-intellectualizing epistemology, and secondly, reliabilist views avoid over-intellectualization only at the expense of sanctioning bootstrapping as a benign procedure. Both of these outcomes are difficult to bear. To ward off each of these unsavory outcomes, I propose an alternative solution that draws on a distinction between two separate epistemic concepts: entitlement and justification. (shrink)

In this chapter I investigate epistemological consequences of the fact that seeming-based justification is elusive, in the sense that the subject can lose this justification simply by reflecting on her seemings. I argue that since seeming-based justification is elusive, the antisceptical bite of phenomenal conservatism is importantly limited. I also contend that since seeming-based justification has this feature, phenomenal conservatism isn’t actually afflicted by easy justification problems.

Can a belief source confer justification when we lack antecedent justification for believing that it’s reliable? A negative answer quickly leads to skepticism. A positive answer, however, seems to commit one to allowing pernicious reasoning known as “epistemic bootstrapping.” Puzzles surrounding bootstrapping arise because we illicitly assume either that justification requires doxastic awareness of a source’s epistemic credentials or that there is no requirement that a subject be aware of these credentials. We can resolve the (...) puzzle by splitting the horns and requiring a non-conceptual awareness of, or direct acquaintance with, a source’s legitimacy. Requiring non-conceptual as opposed to doxastic awareness halts the regress and avoids the skeptical results. On the other hand, requiring non-conceptual awareness also guarantees that we are aware of evidence for a source’s reliability prior to using that source to form justified beliefs; we thereby avoid the problem of allowing epistemic bootstrapping to generate the illicit gains in justification. (shrink)

This book examines phenomenal conservatism, one of the most influential and promising internalist conceptions of non-inferential justification debated in current epistemology and philosophy of mind. It also explores the significance of the findings of this examination for the general debate on epistemic justification. According to phenomenal conservatism, non-inferential justification rests on seemings or appearances, conceived of as experiences provided with propositional content. Phenomenal conservatism states that if it appears to S that P, in the absence of defeaters, (...) S thereby has some justification for believing that P. This view provides the basis for foundationalism and many ordinary epistemic practices. This book sheds new light on phenomenal conservatism by assessing objections to it and examining epistemological merits and advantages attributed to it. In a nutshell, phenomenal conservatism is actually compatible with Bayesian reasoning, and it is unaffected by bootstrapping problems and challenges that appeal to the cognitive penetrability of perception. Nevertheless, appearance-based justification proves unstable or elusive and its antisceptical bite is more limited than expected. These difficulties could be surmounted if phenomenal conservatism were integrated with a theory of inferential justification. The book appeals to scholars and postgraduates in the field of epistemology and philosophy of mind who are interested in the rational roles of appearances. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the rise of a new family of non-probabilistic accounts of epistemic justification. According to these views—we may call them Normalcy Views—a belief in P is justified only if, given the evidence, there exists no normal world in which S falsely beliefs that P. This paper aims to raise some trouble for this new approach to justification by arguing that Normalcy Views, while initially attractive, give rise to problematic accounts of epistemic defeat. As we will (...) see, on Normalcy Views seemingly insignificant pieces of evidence turn out to have considerable defeating powers. This problem—I will call it the Easy-Defeat Problem—gives rise to a two-pronged challenge. First, it shows that the Normalcy View has counterintuitive implications and, second, it opens the door to an uncomfortable skeptical threat. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that any epistemological theory that allows for what is called basic knowledge, viz., knowledge that an agent acquires from a certain source, even if he fails to know that the source is reliable, falls victim to what is known as the problem of easy knowledge. The idea is that for such theories bootstrapping and closure allow us far too easily to acquire knowledge (justification) that seems unlikely under the envisaged circumstances. In this (...) paper, I begin by highlighting the distinction between the (epistemic) legitimacy and dialectical effectiveness of such inferences. After evaluating some of the well-known solutions to this problem, I offer a mixed view of the legitimacy of easy knowledge inferences while trying to provide novel explanations as to how contrary intuitions arise. (shrink)

Dogmatism is the view that perceptual experience provides immediate defeasible justification for certain beliefs. The bootstrapping problem for dogmatism is that it sanctions a certain defective form of reasoning that concludes in the belief that one's perceptual faculties are reliable. This paper argues that the only way for the dogmatist to avoid the bootstrapping problem is to claim that epistemic justification fails to have a structural property known as cut. This allows the dogmatist to admit that (...) each step in the defective reasoning considered on its own is acceptable, but when stitched together, these pieces of reasoning are unacceptable (§2). The fact that this is the only plausible solution to the bootstrapping problem is, in one way, bad news. This is because it adds another member to a family of recently uncovered results that show dogmatism is incompatible with certain connections between epistemic justification and probabilities (§3). But I try to make the best of it on the dogmatist’s behalf. I show that within a certain kind of foundationalist framework, we can make good on this idea that epistemic justification fails to satisfy cut in a way needed to solve the bootstrapping problem (§4–5). (shrink)

ABSTRACTShould conciliating with disagreeing peers be considered sufficient for reaching rational beliefs? Thomas Kelly argues that when taken this way, Conciliationism lets those who enter into a disagreement with an irrational belief reach a rational belief all too easily. Three kinds of responses defending Conciliationism are found in the literature. One response has it that conciliation is required only of agents who have a rational belief as they enter into a disagreement. This response yields a requirement that no one should (...) follow. If the need to conciliate applies only to already rational agents, then an agent must conciliate only when her peer is the one irrational. A second response views conciliation as merely necessary for having a rational belief. This alone does little to address the central question of what is rational to believe when facing a disagreeing peer. Attempts to develop the response either reduce to the first response, or deem necessary an unnecessary doxastic revision, or imply that rational dilemmas obtain in cases where intuitively there are none. A third response tells us to weigh what our pre-disagreement evidence supports against the evidence from the disagreement itself. This invites epistemic akrasia. (shrink)

Process reliabilists hold that in order for a belief to be justified, it must result from a reliable cognitive process. They also hold that a belief can be basically justified: justified in this manner without having any justification to believe that belief is reliably produced. Fumerton (1995), Vogel (2000), and Cohen (2002) have objected that such basic justification leads to implausible easy justification by means of either epistemic closure principles or so-called track record arguments. I argue (...) that once we carefully distinguish closure principles from transmission principles, and epistemic consequences from epistemic preconditions, neither version of this objection succeeds. (shrink)

Reliabilism is an intuitive and attractive view about epistemic justification. However, it has many well-known problems. I offer a novel condition on reliabilist theories of justification. This method coherence condition requires that a method be appropriately tested by appeal to a subject’s other belief-forming methods. Adding this condition to reliabilism provides a solution to epistemic circularity worries, including the bootstrapping problem.

That bootstrapping and Moorean reasoning fail to instantiate persuasive argumentation is an often informally presented but not systematically developed view. In this paper, I will argue that this unpersuasiveness is not determined by principles of justification transmission but by two straightforward principles of rationality, understood as a concept of internal coherence. First, it is rational for S to believe the conclusion of an argument because of the argument, only if S believes sufficiently many premises of the argument. Second, (...) if S doubts that a source O is reliable and believes that information i is delivered by O, then S rationally suspends judgment about the truth of i. This paper aims to accomplish two tasks. First, it provides a thorough analysis of why bootstrapping argumentation is not an instance of rational persuasion. Second, it contains a more general theory about preconditions and limits of persuasive argumentation. (shrink)

Propositional justification pertains to propositions: it is the sort of justification that a proposition enjoys for an agent when the agent is epistemically justified to believe it. By contrast, doxastic justification is justification of beliefs, i.e., of doxastic states actually instantiated by an agent. The ‘orthodox’ view of the relationship between propositional and doxastic justification is that the latter should be explained in terms of the former, so that an agent’s belief is (doxastically) justified just (...) in case (i) it is a belief in a proposition that is (propositionally) justified for the agent and (ii) it is held on the basis of that which (propositionally) justifies its content. This view has been challenged by John Turri in his paper ‘On the Relationship between Propositional and Doxastic Justification’ (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 80, 2010, pp. 312–326). There he offers two putative counterexamples to the orthodoxy and goes on to argue that the order of explanation should be reversed: it is propositional justification that should be explained in terms of doxastic justification, and not vice versa. Though I share Turri’s feeling that there is something amiss with the way a number of contemporary epistemologists talk of propositional and doxastic justification, I do not believe he has managed to put his finger on the real trouble. So the first point I make is that his counterexamples fall short of refuting the orthodox view, which I argue should be maintained. Then I try to diagnose the real source of the trouble. It lies, I suggest, in the way a number of recent epistemologists talk of propositional justification, a way which commits them to the questionable view that the basis upon which facts concerning propositional justification supervene does not include facts concerning the doxastic states of agents, but only facts concerning the evidence to which agents have access. So I observe that there are different degrees of idealisation involved in judgments of ‘propositional justification’, propose to distinguish what an agent is propositionally justified to believe given his overall doxastic state from what an agent is propositionally justified to believe irrespective of his overall doxastic state, and argue that, whenever it is the former relation that is at stake, an agent can be propositionally justified to believe a proposition p at time t only if it is reasonably easy for him to form a doxastically justified belief in p at t. It is most likely an awareness of this fact, or of some fact in the vicinity, that encourages the belief that propositional justification should be explained in terms of doxastic justification. But I suggest that this fact, far from being evidence that the notion of doxastic justification is in any sense more fundamental than that of propositional justification, can be accounted for by paying attention to the relationship that links the relevant sort of (epistemic) justification to (epistemic) responsibility. So I conclude that there is an important sense in which facts concerning epistemic justification supervene not merely on facts concerning the evidential states of agents, but on facts concerning their overall doxastic states. (shrink)

Sometimes we get what seem to be good reasons for believing that we’ve misevaluated our evidence for a proposition P. In those cases, can we use our evidence for P itself to show that we haven’t misevaluated our evidence for P? I show why doing so appears to employ viciously circular reasoning. However, I then argue that this appearance is illusory in certain cases and that we sometimes can legitimately reason in that way. This claim sheds new light on the (...) nature of epistemic undermining and epistemic circularity. In addition, it has implications for the current debate about the epistemic significance of disagreement. An important and influential position in that debate says that disagreement with others dramatically undermines our justification for a wide range of our opinions (e.g., political, religious, moral, economic, and philosophical opinions). My view on undermining and circularity implies that this position on disagreement rests on a mistake. (shrink)

One common attitude toward abstract objects is a kind of platonism: a view on which those objects are mind-independent and causally inert. But there's an epistemological problem here: given any naturalistically respectable understanding of how our minds work, we can't be in any sort of contact with mind-independent, causally inert objects. So platonists, in order to avoid skepticism, tend to endorse epistemological theories on which knowledge is easy, in the sense that it requires no such contact—appeals to Boghossian’s notion (...) of epistemic analyticity are particularly common here, as are appeals to some broadly pragmatic account of the good standing of basic beliefs. I argue, though, that these appeals are hopeless: an argument adapted from the Benacerraf–Field challenge shows that, even if some such theory can deliver the verdict that our beliefs about abstract objects have some prima facie good standing, this good standing will inevitably be defeated. (shrink)

This is a critical discussion of a paper on the problem of bootstrapping by Jose Zalabardo.

Pretheoretically we hold that we cannot gain justification or knowledge through an epistemically circular reasoning process. Epistemically circular reasoning occurs when a subject forms the belief that p on the basis of an argument A, where at least one of the premises of A already presupposes the truth of p. It has often been argued that process reliabilism does not rule out that this kind of reasoning leads to justification or knowledge. For some philosophers, this is a reason (...) to reject reliabilism. Those who try to defend reliabilism have two basic options: (I) accept that reliabilism does not rule out circular reasoning, but argue that this kind of reasoning is not as epistemically “bad” as it seems, or (II) hold on to the view that circular reasoning is epistemically “bad”, but deny that reliabilism really allows this kind of reasoning. Option (I) has been spelled out in several ways, all of which have found to be problematic. Option (II) has not been discussed very widely. Vogel considers and quickly dismisses it on the basis of three reasons. Weisberg has shown in detail that one of these reasons is unconvincing. In this paper I argue that the other two reasons are unconvincing as well and that therefore option (II) might in fact be a more promising starting point to defend reliabilism than option (I). (shrink)

One reliabilist option against the problem of bootstrapping is to argue that circular reasoning is bad, but reliabilism can avoid circular reasoning. Vogel dismisses this option on the grounds that reliabilists need circular reasoning in order to circumvent skepticism. Briesen argues, however, that although reliabilists need circular reasoning to block second-order skepticism, they do not need it to block first-order skepticism. But I argue in this paper that reliabilists cannot legitimately reject first-order skepticism unless they can block second-order skepticism. (...) In particular, I argue that reliabilists cannot meet the non-undermining provision for justification unless they can somehow block second-order skepticism. (shrink)

The distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge has been the subject of an enormous amount of discussion, but the literature is biased against recognizing the intimate relationship between these forms of knowledge. For instance, it seems to be almost impossible to find a sample of pure a priori or a posteriori knowledge. In this paper, it will be suggested that distinguishing between a priori and a posteriori is more problematic than is often suggested, and that a priori and (...) a posteriori resources are in fact used in parallel. We will define this relationship between a priori and a posteriori knowledge as the bootstrapping relationship. As we will see, this relationship gives us reasons to seek for an altogether novel definition of a priori and a posteriori knowledge. Specifically, we will have to analyse the relationship between a priori knowledge and a priori reasoning , and it will be suggested that the latter serves as a more promising starting point for the analysis of aprioricity. We will also analyse a number of examples from the natural sciences and consider the role of a priori reasoning in these examples. The focus of this paper is the analysis of the concepts of a priori and a posteriori knowledge rather than the epistemic domain of a posteriori and a priori justification. (shrink)

According to a much discussed argument, reliabilism is defective for making knowledge too easy to come by. In a recent paper, Weisberg aims to show that this argument relies on a type of reasoning that is rejectable on independent grounds. We argue that the blanket rejection that Weisberg recommends of this type of reasoning is both unwarranted and unwelcome. Drawing on an older discussion in the philosophy of science, we show that placing some relatively modest restrictions on the said (...) type of reasoning suffices to block the anti-reliabilist argument. (shrink)

According to the evolutionary sceptic, the fact that our cognitive faculties evolved radically undermines their reliability. A number of evolutionary epistemologists have sought to refute this kind of scepticism. This paper accepts the success of these attempts, yet argues that refuting the evolutionary sceptic is not enough to put any particular domain of beliefs – notably scientific beliefs, which include belief in Darwinian evolution – on a firm footing. The paper thus sets out to contribute to this positive justificatory project, (...) underdeveloped in the literature. In contrast to a ‘wholesale’ approach, attempting to secure justification for all of our beliefs on the grounds that our belief-forming mechanisms evolved to track truth, we propose a ‘piecemeal’ approach of assessing the reliability of particular belief-forming mechanisms in particular domains. This stands in contrast to the more familiar attempt to transfer warrant obtained for one domain to another by showing how one is somehow an extension of the other. We offer a naturalist reply to the charge of circularity by appealing to reliabilist work on the problem of induction, notably Peter Lipton's distinction between self-certifying and non-self-certifying inductive arguments. We show how, for scientific beliefs, a non-self-certifying argument might be made for the reliability of our cognitive faculties in that domain. We call this strategy Humean Bootstrapping. (shrink)

We address the issue of whether, why and under what conditions, quarantine and isolation are morally justified, with a particular focus on measures implemented in the developing world. We argue that the benefits of quarantine and isolation justify some level of coercion or compulsion by the state, but that the state should be able to provide the strongest justification possible for implementing such measures. While a constrained form of consequentialism might provide a justification for such public health interventions, (...) we argue that a stronger justification is provided by a principle of State Enforced Easy Rescue: a state may permissibly compel individuals to engage in activities that entail a small cost to them but a large benefit to others, because individuals have a moral duty of easy rescue to engage in those activities. The principle of State Enforced Easy Rescue gives rise to an Obligation Enforcement Requirement: the state should create the conditions such that submitting to coercive or compulsive measures becomes a fundamental moral duty of individuals, i.e. a duty of easy rescue. When the state can create such conditions, it has the strongest justification possible for implementing coercive or compulsive measures, because individuals have a moral duty to temporarily relinquish the rights that such measures would infringe. Our argument has significant implications for how public health emergencies in the developing world should be tackled. Where isolation and quarantine measures are necessary, states or the international community have a moral obligation to provide certain benefits to those quarantined or isolated. (shrink)

According to Perceptual Fundamentalism we can have justified perceptual beliefs solely in virtue of having perceptual experiences with corresponding contents. Recently, it has been argued that Perceptual Fundamentalism entails that it is possible to gain an a priori justified belief that perception is reliable by engaging in a suppositional reasoning process of a priori bootstrapping. But I will show that Perceptual Fundamentalists are not committed to a priori bootstrapping being a rational reasoning process. On the most plausible versions (...) of Perceptual Fundamentalism, a priori bootstrapping cannot be used to rationally support anti-sceptical beliefs about the reliability of perception. Moreover, seeing why Perceptual Fundamentalists are not committed to a priori bootstrapping will help us to better understand the nature of the perceptual entitlements that Perceptual Fundamentalists posit, or at least should posit. (shrink)

Glymour’s theory of bootstrap confirmation is a purely qualitative account of confirmation; it allows us to say that the evidence confirms a given theory, but not that it confirms the theory to a certain degree. The present paper extends Glymour’s theory to a quantitative account and investigates the resulting theory in some detail. It also considers the question how bootstrap confirmation relates to justification.

Recent discussion of Vogel-style “bootstrapping” scenarios suggests that they provide counterexamples to a wide variety of epistemological theories. Yet it remains unclear why it’s bad for a theory to permit bootstrapping, or even exactly what counts as a bootstrapping case. Going back to Vogel's original bootstrapping example, I note that an agent who could gain justification through the method Vogel describes would have available a “no-lose investigation”: an investigation that can justify a proposition but has (...) no possibility of undermining it. The main suggestion of this article is that an epistemological theory should not permit no-lose investigations. I identify necessary and sufficient conditions for such investigations, then explore epistemological theories that rule them out. If we want to avoid both skepticism and no-lose investigations, we must eschew either Closure or epistemic externalism. (shrink)

Juan Comesaña and Carolina Sartorio have recently proposed a diagnosis of what goes wrong in apparently illegitimate cases of ‘bootstrapping’ one’s way toexcessively easy knowledge. They argue that in such cases the bootstrapper bases at least one of her beliefs on evidence that does not evidentially support the proposition believed. I explicate the principle that underlies Comesaña and Sartorio’s diagnosis of such cases and show that their account of what goes wrong in such cases is mistaken.

This paper contrasts David Chalmers’s formulation of the easy and hard problems of consciousness with a Cartesian formulation. For Chalmers, the easy problem is making progress in explaining cognitive functions and discovering how they arise from physical processes in the brain. The hard problem is accounting for why these functions are accompanied by conscious experience. For Descartes, the easy problem is knowing the essential features of conscious experience. The hard problem is verifying our knowledge of the mathematical—physical (...) world. While Chalmers admits that consciousness as subjective experience has something irreducible about it, he also presupposes that conscious experience arises from physical processes. These physical processes are posited as objectively real entities given prior to human experience. The knowledge of such entities is assumed without theoretical justification. This assumption arguably invites a reductive materialist theory of mind. I suggest that employing the Cartesian method to articulate the representational theory of knowledge provides an antidote to reductive materialism and illuminates the conceptual gap between physical processes and conscious experience. To illustrate this I contrast Dennett’s heterophenomenology with the Cartesian method of crossing the conceptual gap. I suggest that the hard problem is attaining a knowledge of the extra-mental physical objects, not of conscious experience. (shrink)

Stewart Cohen argues that basic knowledge is problematic, as it implies that subjects can acquire knowledge or justified beliefs about certain matters in ways that are supposedly too easy. Cohen raises two versions of the problem of easy knowledge, one involving the principle of closure and the other track-record style bootstrapping reasoning. In this paper I confront the problem of easy knowledge from the perspective of epistemological disjunctivism about perception. I argue that disjunctivism can do a (...) better job than dogmatism at responding to the version of the problem involving closure. I also argue that while disjunctivism would permit subjects to bootstrap their way to justified beliefs about the reliability of their perceptual powers, the disjunctivist can distinguish in a principled manner between this sort of bootstrapping and instances of it that we should agree are objectionable. (shrink)

James Van Cleve raises some objections to my attempt to solve the bootstrapping problem for what I call “basic justification theories.” I argue that given 1 the inference rules endorsed by basic justification theorists, we are a priori (propositionally) justified in believing that perception is reliable. This blocks the bootstrapping result.

This article aims to provide a structural analysis of the problems related to the easy knowledge problem. The easy knowledge problem is well known. If we accept that we can have basic knowledge via a source without having any prior knowledge about the reliability or accuracy of this source, then we can acquire knowledge about the reliability or accuracy of this source too easily via information delivered by the source. Rejecting any kind of basic knowledge, however, leads into (...) an infinite regress and, plausibly, to skepticism. The article argues that the third alternative, accepting basic knowledge but rejecting easy knowledge, entails closure failure. This is obviously the case for deductive bootstrapping, but, notably, the problem also arises for inductive bootstrapping. Hence, the set of problems related to the easy knowledge problem has the structure of a trilemma. We are forced to accept easy knowledge, closure failure, or skepticism. (shrink)

This thesis is about how deduction is analytic and, at the same time, informative. In the first two chapters I am after the question of the justification of deduction. This justification is circular in the sense that to explain how deduction works we use some basic deductive rules. However, this circularity is not trivial as not every rule can be justified circularly. Moreover, deductive rules may not need suasive justification because they are not ampliative. Deduction preserves meaning, (...) that is, the meaning of non-logical vocabulary of any theory which is developed by deductive reasoning remains unchanged. It means that deduction adds no information to what we already had in our premises. This is why deduction is analytic. -/- However, there are many ways deduction can be informative. In the next three chapters, I will pick a specific kind of deductive reasoning, namely arithmetical reasoning, and will attempt to understand the nature of information we obtain by this kind of reasoning. There is a difference between simple deductive moves such as inferring `Socrates is mortal' from `All human are mortal' and `Socrates is human', and inferring that a relation is reflexive given that it is directed, symmetric and transitive. The latter is more complicated and not as easy to prove as the former. Therefore it is informative and the proof we construct to prove it puts us in an epistemic position that we were not in before having the proof. To be more specific, I show that concepts we need to confirm the conclusion are made in the process of proving the conclusion. (shrink)

In this Introduction, Altman surveys some of the most important positions and debates regarding the definition of punishment and its justification. After explaining the so-called “standard definition” of punishment, he poses several questions, including whether any definition can be value-neutral, whether punishments (as opposed to mere penalties) must include an expressive dimension, and whether punishment must intend to cause suffering. Altman then examines the traditional dichotomy between consequentialism and retributivism, and their different versions. Many theories of punishment blur the (...) distinction or resist easy categorization, which has led to alternative classifications. He describes the political turn in punishment theory, how legal punishment has been criticized as a tool of oppression, and the challenge of abolitionism. He also surveys the chapters in the book. (shrink)

I briefly sketch Bohm's causal interpretation (BCI) and its solution to the measurement problem. Crucial to BCI's no-collapse account of both ideal and non-ideal measurement is the existence of particles in addition to wavefunctions. The particles in their role as the producers of the observable experimental outcomes render practical considerations, such as what observables can be reasonably measured or how to get rid of interference terms in non-ideal measurements, secondary to BCI's account of measurement. I then explain why it is (...) not easy for BCI to justify its statistical postulate. To successfully justify the postulate would be to solve the distribution problem. Two proposed deterministic solutions to this problem are only briefly set out and not discussed in detail. BCI can solve the measurement problem whether or not the distribution problem is solved. However, if the distribution problem is not solved, BCI cannot be shown to be empirically adequate. (shrink)

Stewart Cohen has recently presented solutions to two forms of what he calls "The Problem of Easy Knowledge" ("Basic Knowledge and the Problem of Easy Knowledge," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXV, 2, September 2002, pp. 309-329). I offer alternative solutions. Like Cohen's, my solutions allow for basic knowledge. Unlike his, they do not require that we distinguish between animal and reflective knowledge, restrict the applicability of closure under known entailments, or deny the ability of basic knowledge to combine (...) with self-knowledge to provide inductive evidential support. My solution to the closure version of the problem covers a variation on the problem that is immune to Cohen's approach. My response to the bootstrapping version presents reasons to question whether the problem case, as Cohen presents it, is even possible, and, assuming it is, my solution avoids a false implication of Cohen's own. The key to my solutions for both versions is the distinction between an inference's transferring epistemic support, on the one hand, and its not begging the question against skeptics, on the other. (shrink)

Stewart Cohen has recently presented solutions to two forms of what he calls “The Problem of Easy Knowledge” (“Basic Knowledge and the Problem of Easy Knowledge,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXV, 2, September 2002, pp. 309‐329). I offer alternative solutions. Like Cohen's, my solutions allow for basic knowledge. Unlike his, they do not require that we distinguish between animal and reflective knowledge, restrict the applicability of closure under known entailments, or deny the ability of basic knowledge to combine (...) with self‐knowledge to provide inductive evidential support. My solution to the closure version of the problem covers a variation on the problem that is immune to Cohen's approach. My response to the bootstrapping version presents reasons to question whether the problem case, as Cohen presents it, is even possible, and, assuming it is, my solution avoids a false implication of Cohen's own. The key to my solutions for both versions is the distinction between an inference's transferring epistemic support, on the one hand, and its not begging the question against skeptics, on the other. (shrink)

We explore new connections between the epistemologies of mental rehearsal and suppositional reasoning to offer a novel perspective on skilled behavior and its relationship to practical knowledge. We argue that practical knowledge is "easy" in the sense that, by manifesting one's skills, one has a priori propositional justification for certain beliefs about what one is doing as one does it. This proposal has wider consequences for debates about intentional action and knowledge: first, because agents sometimes act intentionally in (...) epistemically hazardous environments, these justified beliefs do not always rise to the level of (practical) knowledge. Second, practical knowledge is more intimately related to basic knowledge than has been appreciated. Third, an attractive "middle way" opens between the Anscombian tradition of defending a necessary connection between intentional action and practical knowledge and the more recent tradition of explaining away substantive epistemic conditions on intentional action. (shrink)

We argue that individuals who have access to vaccines and for whom vaccination is not medically contraindicated have a moral obligation to contribute to the realisation of herd immunity by being vaccinated. Contrary to what some have claimed, we argue that this individual moral obligation exists in spite of the fact that each individual vaccination does not significantly affect vaccination coverage rates and therefore does not significantly contribute to herd immunity. Establishing the existence of a moral obligation to be vaccinated (...) despite the negligible contribution each vaccination can make to the realisation of herd immunity is important because such moral obligation would strengthen the justification for coercive vaccination policies. We show that two types of arguments—namely a utilitarian argument based on Parfit’s Principle of Group Beneficence and a contractualist argument—can ground an individual moral obligation to be vaccinated, in spite of the imperceptible contribution that any single vaccination makes to vaccine coverage rates. We add a further argument for a moral obligation to be vaccinated that does not require embracing problematic comprehensive moral theories such as utilitarianism or contractualism. The argument is based on a “duty of easy rescue” applied to collectives, which grounds a collective moral obligation to realise herd immunity, and on a principle of fairness in the distribution of the burdens that must be borne to realise herd immunity. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an urgent, global threat to public health. The development and implementation of effective measures to address AMR is vitally important but presents important ethical questions. This is a policy area requiring further sustained attention to ensure that policies proposed in National Action Plans on AMR are ethically acceptable and preferable to alternatives that might be fairer or more effective, for instance. By ethically analysing case studies of coercive actions to address AMR across countries, we can better (...) inform policy in a context-specific manner. In this article, I consider an example of coercive antimicrobial stewardship policy in Canada, namely restrictions on livestock farmers' access to certain antibiotics for animal use without a vet's prescription. I introduce and analyse two ethical arguments that might plausibly justify coercive action in this case: the harm principle and a duty of collective easy rescue. In addition, I consider the factors that might generally limit the application of those ethical concepts, such as challenges in establishing causation or evidencing the scale of the harm to be averted. I also consider specifics of the Canadian context in contrast to the UK and Botswana as example settings, to demonstrate how context-specific factors might mean a coercive policy that is ethically justified in one country is not so in another. (shrink)

In a 2002 article Stewart Cohen advances the “bootstrapping problem” for what he calls “basic justification theories,” and in a 2010 followup he offers a solution to the problem, exploiting the idea that suppositional reasoning may be used with defeasible as well as with deductive inference rules. To curtail the form of bootstrapping permitted by basic justification theories, Cohen insists that subjects must know their perceptual faculties are reliable before perception can give them knowledge. But how (...) is such knowledge of reliability to be acquired if not through perception itself? Cohen proposes that such knowledge may be acquired a priori through suppositional reasoning. I argue that his strategy runs afoul of a plausible view about how epistemic principles function; in brief, I argue that one must actually satisfy the antecedent of an epistemic principle, not merely suppose that one does, to acquire any justification by its means – even justification for a merely conditional proposition. (shrink)

Certainty The following article provides an overview of the philosophical debate surrounding certainty. It does so in light of distinctions that can be drawn between objective, psychological, and epistemic certainty. Certainty consists of a valuable cognitive standing, which is often seen as an ideal. It is indeed natural to evaluate lesser cognitive standings, in particular … Continue reading Certainty →.

This Introduction to the special issue on “Skepticism and Justification” provides a background to the nine articles collected here and a detailed summary of each, which highlights their interconnections and relevance to the debate at the heart of the issue.

Phenomenal Conservatism (the view that an appearance that p gives one prima facie justification for believing that p) is a promising, and popular, internalist theory of epistemic justification. Despite its popularity, it faces numerous objections and challenges. For instance, epistemologists have argued that Phenomenal Conservatism is incompatible with Bayesianism, is afflicted by bootstrapping and cognitive penetration problems, does not guarantee that epistemic justification is a stable property, does not provide an account of defeat, and is not (...) a complete theory of epistemic justification. This book shows that Phenomenal Conservatism is actually immune to some of these problems, though not all of them. Accordingly, it explores the prospects of integrating Phenomenal Conservatism with Explanationism (the view that epistemic justification is a matter of explanatory relations between one’s evidence and propositions supported by that evidence). The resulting theory, Phenomenal Explanationism, has advantages over Phenomenal Conservatism and Explanationism taken on their own. Phenomenal Explanationism is a highly unified, comprehensive internalist theory of epistemic justification that delivers on the promises of Phenomenal Conservatism while avoiding its pitfalls. (shrink)

Perceptual experience is one of our fundamental sources of epistemic justification—roughly, justification for believing that a proposition is true. The ability of perceptual experience to justify beliefs can nevertheless be questioned. This article focuses on an important challenge that arises from countenancing that perceptual experience is cognitively penetrable. -/- The thesis of cognitive penetrability of perception states that the content of perceptual experience can be influenced by prior or concurrent psychological factors, such as beliefs, fears and desires. Advocates (...) of this thesis could for instance claim that your desire of having a tall daughter might influence your perception, so that she appears to you to be taller than she is. Although cognitive penetrability of perception is a controversial empirical hypothesis, it does not appear implausible. The possibility of its veracity has been adduced to challenge positions that maintain that perceptual experience has inherent justifying power. -/- This article presents some of the most influential positions in contemporary literature about whether cognitive penetration would undermine perceptual justification and why it would or would not do so. -/- Some sections of this article focus on phenomenal conservatism, a popular conception of epistemic justification that more than any other has been targeted with objections that adduce the cognitive penetrability of experience. (shrink)