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Pluralist consequentialist anti-scepticism*

Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen Yonsei University

Abstract

Scepticism is an attack on our rational claims to warrant for ordinary beliefs about the empirical world. The sceptical attack targets so-called cornerstone propositions by purporting to show that our acceptance of these propositions cannot, as a matter of principle, be supported by evidence. The sceptic concludes that this shows that there can be no such thing as epistemic warrant to accept cornerstone propositions. A concessive response to scepticism grants the sceptic that there can be no evidence to accept cornerstone propositions, but denies that this shows that there can be no such thing as epistemic warrant to accept them. Several difficult questions face the concessive anti-sceptic: is acceptance of cornerstones epistemically warranted, rational, and underwritten by epistemic reasons? Epistemic warrant, rationality, and reasons mark positive epistemic standings. There is something epistemically good about them. However, given the concession that there is a principled absence of evidence, it is not clear how the concessive anti-sceptic is going to account for the epistemic goodness of cornerstone acceptance. The overarching aim of this paper is to tackle these challenges from a consequentialist point of view. First I explore whether it is possible to do so when veritic monism—a certain kind of monism about epistemic value—is taken as background. The monist consequentialist strategy does not work. In light of this I proceed to investigate a pluralist version of consequentialism. I argue that this version of consequentialism fares better than its monist counterpart. It can be used to address the questions concerning positive epistemic standings. In “Entitlement, value and rationality” (Pedersen 2009) I argued that a form of epistemic consequentialism vindicates Wright’s entitlement proposal, i.e. shows that the worry concerning epistemic goodness are unfounded. I now retract this argument. A successful execution of a consequentialist response to scepticism shows that there is no need for entitlement of cognitive project.

Keywords: scepticism, epistemic consequentialism, epistemic pluralism, epistemic warrant, non-evidential epistemic rationality, epistemic reasons, epistemic value (goods), entitlement of cognitive project, Crispin Wright.

* Earlier versions of this paper have been presented at Northwestern University, University of Aberdeen, European Epistemology Network Meeting (Bologna), 1st Conference on Contemporary Philosophy in East Asia (Taipei), Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom (Bled), University of Copenhagen, University of Edinburgh, University of St. Andrews, and Yonsei University. I would like to thank the following people for helpful discussion on these or other occasions: Kristoffer Ahlström-Vij, Jens Christian Bjerring, Michael Blome-Tillmann, Rachael Briggs, Tyler Burge, Annalisa Coliva, Ronald de Sousa, Richard Dietz, Dylan Dodd, Paul Faulkner, Mikkel Gerken, Sandy Goldberg, Peter Graham, Patrick Greenough, Katherine Hawley, David Henderson, Jinho Kang, Klemens Kappel, Chris Kelp, Junyeol Kim, Kihyeon Kim, Sukjae Lee, Fed Luzzi, Aidan McGlynn, Matt McGrath, Matthew Mullins, Erik Olsson, Gloria Origgi, Clara Panunzio, Jared Peterson, Martin Smith, Gabriel Uzquiano, Lani Watson, Brian Weatherson, James Woodbridge, Crispin Wright, Jeremy Wyatt, and Elia Zardini. I’m also grateful to two reviewers for Oxford University Press for very helpful comments. While writing this paper I was fortunate enough to be supported by grants no. 2013S1A2A2035514 and 2016S1A2A2911800 from the National Research Foundation of Korea. I gratefully acknowledge this support.

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1. Scepticism I believe that I’m currently in my office. I believe that there is a monitor in front of me. I believe that my fingers are hitting the keyboard, and that I hear the sound of the AC and feel its cool air. Indeed, not only that: I take it that I can rationally claim to be warranted in holding these beliefs. Scepticism is an attack on our rational claims to warrant for the aforementioned beliefs. This is quite radical. We ordinarily take ourselves to be able to make such rational claims to warrant. Following Crispin Wright, let a cornerstone proposition to be characterized as follows:

(COR) A proposition c is a cornerstone proposition for a region of thought R just in case, if one did not have a warrant to accept c, then one could not rationally claim warrant for belief in any R-proposition.1

The sceptical attack can be presented as having a three-step structure, with each step centered around cornerstone propositions. These three steps are presented below.

Step 1: The first step of the sceptical challenge is an argument to the effect that certain propositions occupy a central position in our thinking—that, indeed, they are cornerstone propositions in the sense just defined. The following qualify as cornerstone propositions relative to our thinking about the empirical world:

(~BIV) I’m not a brain in a vat. (~DEM) I’m not currently being deceived by an all-powerful, evil demon. (~DRE) I’m not currently having a lucid, coherent dream. (CAP) My cognitive capacities are functioning properly right now.

These propositions are epistemologically important to thinking about the empirical world. They pertain to something integral to our investigation of it—whether the deliverances of our cognitive capacities represent a world that is, by and large, as we take it to be. This is why (~BIV), (~DEM), (~DRE), and (CAP) qualify as cornerstone propositions.

Consider the proposition that I’m not a brain in vat. Suppose that I do not have a warrant to accept this proposition, and ask whether I can rationally claim warrant for my belief that my fingers are hitting the keyboard. I have acquired this belief through reliance on my cognitive capacities. This belief is warranted in virtue of evidence: my visual experiences represent the world as being such that my fingers are hitting the keyboard. My experiences count as evidence that my fingers are hitting the keyboard because they support the truth of this proposition. However, in the absence of a warrant to accept that I’m not a brain in a vat, I cannot be said to possess evidence that my fingers are hitting the keyboard. The evidential force of my experiences is conditional on the idea that they correctly represent—rather than misrepresent—my surroundings. Yet, this idea is precisely undermined in the absence of warrant to accept that I’m not a brain in a vat. In that case I do not have a warrant to think that my experiences do not generally misrepresent my surroundings, and so, I do not have a

1 Wright (2004a: 168).

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warrant to take them to possess evidential force. But this means that I cannot rationally claim to possess evidence that my fingers are hitting the keyboard. In turn, since my belief in this proposition is meant to be warranted in virtue of evidence, this means that I cannot rationally claim to be warranted in thus believing. The line of reasoning just rehearsed can be generalized to cover other ordinary beliefs about the empirical world—including my beliefs that I’m in my office, that there is a monitor in front of me, and that I hear the sound of the AC and feel its cool air. Furthermore, the reasoning can be given for (~DEM), (~DRE), and (CAP) as well. In sum, (~BIV), (~DEM), (~DRE), and (CAP) are cornerstone propositions.

Step 2: The second step of the sceptical attack is an argument to the effect that, due to epistemic circularity, there can be no (and so, is no) warrant to accept cornerstones. To illustrate suppose that I try to acquire a warrant to accept that I’m not a brain in vat. The sceptic insists that the only way to do so is through evidence. What kind of evidence might I acquire in support of me not being a brain in a vat, and how might I acquire it? I might try to throw myself against the wall. This leads me to having certain experiences: the feeling of moving towards the wall and the feeling of the impact of something solid against my body. On the basis of these experiences I believe that my body hit the wall. Now, if my body hit the wall, I’m not a brain in a vat. Hence, I’m not a brain in a vat.

Consider this reasoning, put into the form of a so-called I-II-III argument: (Wall):

(I) According to the deliverances of my cognitive capacities, my body hit the wall.

So, (IIa) My body hit the wall. (IIb) If my body hit the wall, I’m not a brain in a vat. So, (III) I’m not a brain in a vat.

The I-II-III structure of (Wall) is meant to codify the structure of the best kind of attempt to acquire an evidential warrant to accept (~BIV). (I) would seem to support (II) by being evidence in its favour. (IIb) is a conceptual truth. My body and the wall are two entities in external reality. The two of them interacting in the manner specified implies that I’m not envatted. The step from (IIa) and (IIb) to (III) is an application of modus ponens. In order for me to acquire a warrant to accept that I’m not a brain in a vat through the above I-II-III argument the evidential support offered for (IIa) by (I) must be transmitted through the inference. However, the sceptic contends that this is not possible due to epistemic circularity. The upshot is that the best kind of attempt to acquire an evidential warrant to accept (~BIV) fails, and so, that acquiring such warrant is not possible.2

The support offered by (I) for (IIa) does not transmit to (III) because (IIa) cannot be warranted antecedently and independently of (III). The reason is that the deliverances of my

2 Advocates of E = K and epistemological disjunctivism would disagree with the claim that the I-II-III structure in (Wall) codifies the best kind of attempt to acquire an evidential warrant to accept (~BIV). However, for present purposes I assume a Wrightian framework. The goal is to develop a view that agrees with Wright in certain fundamental respects—e..g, about I-II-III arguments—but disagrees with him in other fundamental respects (see Section 9).

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cognitive capacities saying that thus-and-so is the case does not support thus-and-so’s being the case absent a warrant to accept (III). If I’m not already warranted in accepting that I’m not a brain in a vat, I do not have a warrant to think that the deliverances of my cognitive capacities correctly represent—rather than generally misrepresent—my surroundings. In particular, absent a warrant to accept that I’m not a brain in a vat, I do not have a warrant to think that my experiences telling me that I hit the wall correctly represent—rather than misrepresent—the world. That is, I do not have a warrant to think that I experience—rather than vat-experience—hitting the wall. Thus, in the absence of a warrant to accept (III), (I) loses its evidential force. It fails to support (IIa). Since the I-II-III structure codifies the structure of the best kind of attempt to acquire an evidential warrant to accept (~BIV), the upshot is that there can be no evidential warrant to accept (~BIV) on the basis of (Wall).

The I-II-III reasoning in (Wall) can be generalized to cover ordinary propositions about the empirical world other than áMy body hit the wallñ. The reasoning can be generalized along another dimension as well: attempts to acquire an evidential warrant to accept any of (~DEM), (~DRE), or (CAP) on the basis of a I-II-III argument are likewise subject to warrant transmission failure. The I-II-III reasoning is generalizable along the first dimension because (~BIV) pertains to the suitability of the attendant circumstances for truth-directed enquiry of the empirical world. The I-II-III reasoning is generalizable along the second dimension because, like (~BIV), (~DEM), (~DRE), and (CAP) all pertain to the suitability of the attendant circumstances for truth-directed enquiry.

Step 3: The third step of the sceptical challenge is an assumption to the effect that evidential warrant is the only species of epistemic warrant. Given Step 2—i.e. that there can be no evidential warrant to accept cornerstone propositions—this assumption delivers the conclusion that there can be no warrant to accept such propositions. This includes (~BIV), (~DEM), (~DRE), and (CAP).

Conclusion: Given the characterization of cornerstone propositions, a successful argument targeted at just one cornerstone propositon delivers the sceptical conclusion: there can be no rational claims to warrant for belief in ordinary propositions about the empirical world. This is a radical conclusion. It constitutes an attack on our epistemic practice. Due to the deliverances of my cognitive capacities I believe that there is a monitor in front of me, that my fingers are hitting the keyboard, and that I hear the sound of the AC and feel its cool air. Given the way that these beliefs have been formed, we think that these beliefs are warranted. However, if the sceptic is right, we are in no position to make this kind of claim rationally.

Scepticism—as presented in this section—is a higher-order rather than first-order challenge. The sceptical argument is targeted at rational claims to warrant rather than possession of warrant. The first-order conception of scepticism is widespread.3 Wright favours a higher-order conception of scepticism. He takes the sceptic to be issuing an intellectual challenge—one that should not be answered if the world and our cognitive capacities turn out to be such as to

3 This is reflected by the fact that it is adopted in many epistemology textbooks. See, e.g., Feldman (2003), Fumerton (2006), and Pritchard (2009).

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deliver de facto warrant for our ordinary beliefs about the empirical world (2004a: 209–210). I find myself in agreement with Wright on this point and focus on scepticism as he conceives it. A concessive response to scepticism grants the sceptic that there can be no evidence to accept cornerstone propositions, but denies that this shows that there can be no such thing as epistemic warrant to accept them. Several difficult questions face the concessive anti-sceptic: is acceptance of cornerstones epistemically warranted, rational, and underwritten by epistemic reasons? Epistemic warrant, rationality, and reasons mark positive epistemic standings. There is something epistemically good about them. However, given the concession that there is a principled absence of evidence, it is not clear how the concessive anti-sceptic is going to account for the epistemic goodness of cornerstone acceptance. The overarching aim of this paper is to tackle these challenges from a consequentialist point of view. First I explore whether it is possible to do so when veritic monism—a certain kind of monism about epistemic value—is taken as background. The monist consequentialist strategy does not work. In light of this I proceed to investigate a pluralist version of consequentialism. I argue that this version of consequentialism fares better than its monist counterpart. It can be used to address the questions concerning positive epistemic standings. In “Entitlement, value and rationality” (Pedersen 2009) I argued that a form of epistemic consequentialism vindicates Wright’s entitlement proposal, i.e. shows that the worry concerning epistemic goodness are unfounded. I now retract this argument. A successful execution of a consequentialist response to scepticism shows that there is no need for entitlement of cognitive project. 2. Concessive anti-scepticism The sceptical challenge can be summarized as follows: Step 1 Proposition c is a cornerstone proposition for empirical world thinking. Step 2 There can be no evidential warrant to accept c. Step 3 There can be no warrant to accept c. Scepticism There can be no rational claim to warrant for belief in ordinary

propositions concerning the empirical world. By “concessive anti-scepticism” I mean any view according to which the sceptical conclusion is wrong, but Steps 1 and 2 of the sceptical challenge are regarded as correct. The concessive anti-sceptic wants to allow for concession without admitting defeat. Wright is a concessive anti-sceptic. Although ultimately wrong, he thinks that scepticism nonetheless teaches us an important lesson: warrant to accept cornerstone propositions must be non-evidential in nature.4 To see this reflect on the sceptical argument and the concessive anti-sceptical package: 4 Wright (2004a 191). There is another form of anti-scepticism that is weaker than the kind developed in this paper. According to this form of anti-scepticism evidence is not necessary for cornerstone warrant. This is weaker than what I have labelled “concessive anti-scepticism”. Concessive anti-scepticism grants the idea that evidence for cornerstones is not possible. The weaker form of anti-scepticism is compatible with E = K while concessive anti-scepticism, as I have presented it, is not. While the weaker form of anti-scepticism is certainly of interest, I stick to the stronger form here because it fits with the Wrightian considerations concerning I-II-III arguments and transmission failure. If these considerations are right, the upshot is that it is not possible to possess evidence

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Given the characterization of cornerstone propositions, the argument from Steps 1-3 to the sceptical conclusion is deductively valid. Hence, there is no such thing as endorsing the premises of the sceptical argument and rejecting its conclusion. Since the concessive anti-sceptic grants Steps 1 and 2, she must reject Step 3 in order to resist the sceptical conclusion. The anti-sceptic thus faces the task of spelling out a notion of warrant applicable to acceptance of cornerstone propositions. Her endorsement of Step 2 of the sceptical argument serves as a crucial constraint in the search for such a notion, as this step undermines the idea that there can be an evidential warrant to accept cornerstone propositions. For this reason, whatever notion of warrant is favoured by the concessive anti-sceptic must be non-evidential in nature.5

The nature of the favoured species of warrant is constrained by its inteded role as a response to scepticism. This role dictates that it be epistemic in nature.6 The sceptical challenge is an epistemic challenge. It targets our rational claims to warrant for ordinary beliefs about the empirical world. It does so by way of saying that, epistemically speaking, there is something radically wrong. We can never acquire an epistemic warrant to accept cornerstones, and for this reason the practice of claiming warrant for ordinary beliefs about the empirical world is deeply flawed. Such claims cannot be made rationally. Now, suppose that the anti-sceptic tried to address the sceptical challenge by arguing that we are morally or pragmatically warranted in accepting cornerstone propositions. This would be misguided. The attack on the rationality of claims to warrant goes through the idea of there being no warrant to think that the deliverances of our cognitive capacities do not systematically misrepresent. Saying that we have moral or pragmatic cornerstone warrant does nothing to address that concern. It does not engage with the issue whether the deliverances of our cognitive capacities systematically represent or misrepresent. In order to address this concern an epistemic kind of warrant is needed. 3. A dilemma for concessive anti-scepticism Concessive anti-scepticism is wedded to the idea that it is impossible to acquire evidence to accept cornerstone propositions. This observation immediately raises some difficult issues for the concessive anti-sceptic. It is a fundamental feature of epistemic warrant, rationality, and reasons that they are positive epistemic standings. If a belief or other attitude is epistemically warranted, epistemically rational, or underwritten by epistemic reasons, there is something epistemically good about it. However, it is not clear how the concessive anti-sceptic can account for this fundamental feature in the case of cornerstone acceptance. Given the principled absence of evidence it is not clear that there is any epistemic good to which cornerstone acceptance is connected.

for cornerstone propositions. I thank a reviewer for urging me to consider the weaker form of anti-scepticism. 5 Taking a concessive stance is not the only way to try to resist the sceptical challenge. Dogmatists such as Pryor (2000) take I-II-III arguments to be dialectically ineffective, but not epistemically circular. The transition from (I) to (IIa) is warranted independently of the epistemic status of (III). (I) by itself warrants (IIa), and for this reason I-II-III arguments are not epistemically circular. Dogmatists take I-II-III arguments to be warrant-transmissive and thus reject Step 2 of the sceptical challenge. According to dogmatists, there can be an evidential warrant to accept cornerstone propositions. For further discussion, see Pryor (2012) and Wright (2007). 6 I here find myself in agreement with Pritchard (2005) and Jenkins (2007).

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Let me spell out the present concern in greater detail, the culmination being a dilemma for the concessive sceptic. Consider the following three questions concerning cornerstone acceptance:

E-Warrant Question: Is acceptance of cornerstone propositions epistemically warranted? E-Rationality Question: Is acceptance of cornerstone propositions epistemically rational? E-Reasons Question: Is acceptance of cornerstone propositions underwritten by

epistemic reasons? Unfortunately for the concessive anti-sceptic, these questions—when asked in connection with her view—seem to call for a negative answer. To see this observe that, in general, there is an intimate relationship between positive standings of a certain kind and goods of that kind. When an action is morally warranted, rational, or supported by moral reasons, there is something morally good about it. Moral warrant, rationality, and reasons are positive standings with respect to moral goods. Similarly, epistemic warrant, rationality, and reasons are positive standings with respect to epistemic goods. The reason why the E-Warrant, E-Rationality, and E-Reasons questions seem to call for a negative answer is that it is not clear what epistemic good cornerstone acceptance is meant to be connected to once it is assumed that there is a principled absence of evidence in favour of cornerstones. What is the nature and boundaries of the epistemic? This is a difficult question. The dominant or most widespread view on this matter is given by what one might call the “truth conception”. According to this conception truth is the sole epistemic good, and what it means for something—a species of warrant, rationality, or reason, say—to be epistemic is for it to be truth-connected. This conception is often left implicit, but it seems to me to be ingrained in the work of many authors.7

Assuming the truth conception of the epistemic, in cases where belief or acceptance that p is supported by evidence it is plausible to say that there is something epistemically good about it. The evidence supports the truth of p, and so, the attitude is connected to truth, the good that gives the nature and boundaries of the epistemic. Taking epistemic warrant, rationality, and reasons to be positive standings with respect to this good, it also seems plausible to say that belief or acceptance supported by evidence is epistemically warranted, rational, and supported by epistemic reasons. Now, the same story cannot be told in cases of attitudes towards propositions for which there is a principled absence of evidence. Given the principled absence of evidence, it seems like there is nothing that could provide a connection to truth. Accordingly—assuming again the truth conception of the epistemic—it would seem like epistemic warrant, rationality, and reasons cannot apply in these cases. As seen, concessive anti-sceptics are committed to taking cornerstone acceptance to be this kind of case. It would thus seem that cornerstone acceptance is not connected to the epistemic good of truth, and accordingly, that it is difficult to see how positive standings such as epistemic warrant, rationality, and reasons could apply.

The considerations presented here can be developed into a dilemma for the concessive anti-sceptic—a dilemma I refer to as the “Goodness Dilemma”. To spell out the Goodness Dilemma consider cornerstone acceptance and ask the following question: is acceptance of cornerstone propositions connected to any good? There are two answers:

7 See, e.g., BonJour (1985), Burge (2003), David (2001, 2005), and Goldman (2001).

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Horn 1: No, acceptance of cornerstones is not connected to any good.

Horn 2: Yes, acceptance of cornerstones is connected to some good.

In connection with the second answer the question immediately emerges what kind of good we are dealing with, meaning that Horn 2 should be taken to bifurcate:

Horn 2a: Acceptance of cornerstones is connected to some epistemic good.

Horn 2b: Acceptance of cornerstones is connected to some non-epistemic good.

Horn 1 is obviously bad for the concessive anti-sceptic. Given that positive standings are constitutively connected to goods, the absence of any good of any kind would mean that there can be no warrant, rationality, or reasons of any kind—epistemic or otherwise—that apply to cornerstone acceptance. Horn 2b is likewise bad for the concessive anti-sceptic. If acceptance of cornerstones is connected to some non-epistemic good, this means that the associated notion of warrant, rationality, and reasons are non-epistemic. However, as we have seen in Section 2, in order for a species of non-evidential warrant to serve the concessive anti-sceptic’s purposes—i.e. work as a response to scepticism—it must be epistemic in nature.

Horn 2a would not be bad for the concessive anti-sceptic. If acceptance of cornerstones is connected to an epistemic good, there is an associated notion of epistemic warrant, rationality, and reasons. In turn, with an epistemic species of warrant in hand, the concessive anti-sceptic could respond to the sceptical challenge. The problem is that this—the only acceptable horn—is not available to the concessive anti-sceptic. Since truth is the only epistemic good and cornerstone acceptance cannot be truth-connected, cornerstone acceptance cannot be connected to an epistemic good. In sum, when asked whether cornerstone acceptance is connected to any good, the only two options for the concessive anti-sceptic are Horn 1 (no good) and Horn 2b (non-epistemic good). However, both of these options lead to unwanted consequences. This is the Goodness Dilemma. 4. The Plan The project of this paper is to develop a concessive form of anti-scepticism capable of addressing the Goodness Dilemma. I argue that, contrary to first appearances, the concessive anti-sceptic can embrace Horn 2a. My strategy is to develop a version of epistemic consequentialism that puts her in a position to do so. I proceed as follows: In Section 5 I present the consequentialist framework that I rely on in this paper. It is a basic version of epistemic decision theory. In Section 6 I explore the prospects of developing a satisfactory account of cornerstone warrant by pairing the consequentialist framework with veritic monism—the kind of monism about epistemic value that was taken as background

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when the Goodness Dilemma was presented. I argue that the prospects are rather bleak. Bearing in mind the lesson from Section 6 I go on to develop a consequentialist account of cornerstone warrant that takes a pluralist theory of epistemic value as background. This is done in Section 7. In Section 8 I show how the pluralist consequentialist account can be used to address the Goodness Dilemma. In Section 9 I explore the ramifications of the proposal for the existing literature on non-evidential warrant and scepticism. As seen earlier, Wright is a concessive anti-sceptic. As such, he too faces the Goodness Dilemma. Wright’s favoured kind of non-evidential warrant is what he calls “entitlement of cognitive project”. The main goals of Pedersen (2009) was, firstly, to develop a consequentialist story similar in significant ways to the one told in this paper and, secondly, to show that it can be used to defend Wright’s entitlement proposal against the kinds of critical considerations that drive the Goodness Dilemma. I now wish to retract the second part of the 2009 paper. If a consequentialist account of cornerstone warrant can be given, this shows that there is no need for entitlement of cognive project. I argue this point in Section 9. Section 10 contains some concluding remarks. 5. Epistemic consequentialism: the basic framework The consequentialist framework I adopt is a version of epistemic decision theory. It has the following components:

Strategies: S1 … Sn

States of the world: O1 … Ok

Value of strategy Si at state Oj: v(Si, Oj)

If we consider states O1 … Ok and strategies S1 … Sn, the value of strategy Si (1 £ i £ n) is given as follows:

v(Si) = Sv(Si, Oj)

j £ k

i.e. the value of a strategy Si equals the sum of the values of Si across the different states. Next, for strategies S1 … Sn, say that

Strategy Si maximizes value if and only if v(Si) > v(Sj) (where 1 £ j £ n and j ¹ i ) This is the basic apparatus of decision theory, with the notable exception that the states are not assigned a probability and, hence, we consider the value of a strategy instead of its expected value. Within our present context—a consequentialist exploration of concessive anti-scepticism—the omission of probability can be justified (see fn. 10). We now turn the basic framework into a version of epistemic decision theory by considering specifically epistemic strategies and goods. We consider two strategies—the first being to accept ~BIV and investigate the world, the second being not to accept ~BIV and not to investigate the world. The first strategy is a model of epistemic activity and can be regarded as an anti-sceptical strategy. The second strategy is a model of epistemic inactivity. There are

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two states: ~BIV and BIV. This means that we get the following two equations, one for each strategy:

(1) v(Accept) = v(Accept, ~BIV) + v(Accept, BIV)

(2) v(~Accept) = v(~Accept, ~BIV) + v(~Accept, BIV) In order to be able to assess which strategy, if any, maximizes value we have to add a story about what outcomes the different strategies generate and how their value is measured. I proceed on the following assumptions:

A1. Beliefs: A1.i The subject forms beliefs B(q1), …, B(qx) about the empirical world for

Accept-~BIV and Accept-BIV, i.e. the number of the beliefs that the subject forms is x in either case.

A1.ii The subject forms no beliefs about the empirical world for ~Accept-~BIV and ~Accept-BIV.

A2. B(q1) … B(qx) are true if ~BIV is true, but false if BIV is true.

A3. Measuring truth and falsity:

A3.i v(B(q1)) = 1 if q1 is true, and A3.ii v(B(q1)) = -1 if q1 is false

A1.i and A1.ii give precise mathematical content to the idea that the Accept and ~Accept strategies model respectively epistemic activity and epistemic inactivity. A2 is assumed because ~BIV is the state in which the world cooperates and the deliverances of the subject’s cognitive capacities represent the surrounding environment correctly while ~BIV is the state in which the world does not cooperate and the deliverances of the subject’s cognitive capacities systematically misrepresent. A3.i and A3.ii give us a way to quantify true and false belief. It is assumed that truth and falsity precisely counterbalance one another. 6. Monist epistemic consequentialism A strategy is said to maximize epistemic value just in case its epistemic value exceeds that of the other strategies. Now, in order to apply the concept of value maximization it must be specified what the epistemic values or goods are. Otherwise there is no way to assess how well strategies do, and so, no way to tell which one (if any) maximizes epistemic value. In this section I explore the prospects of addressing the Goodness Dilemma by taking veritic monism—a certain kind of monism about epistemic value—as the background theory of epistemic value. The prospects, as we shall see, are rather poor. According to epistemic value monism, there is precisely one epistemic good or value. Veritic monism is the specific version of epistemic value monism that says that there is precisely one epistemic good, and that this good is truth. This view is widely held—sometimes

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explicitly, other times implicitly.8 More carefully put, what most people buy into is the thesis that there is a dual pair of goods: attaining truth and avoiding error. Let us refer to this as “veritic dual goal monism” (or “vdg-monism” in short). There is good reason to adopt a pair of dual goals instead of the truth goal on its own. If attaining truth were the only goal, it would be easy to maximize epistemic value. One could do so by being very gullible, i.e. by believing everything one was told. In this way one would acquire the maximal number of true beliefs and thus do maximally well in terms of the truth goal. However, by being very gullible often one would end up with false beliefs, and this is an epistemically bad thing. Yet, if the truth goal were the only epistemic goal, we would not be in a position to say so. For this reason people with veritic monist sympathies typically buy into vdg-monism.9 Attainment of truth and avoidance of error are externalist values or goods. They are so in the sense that, whether or not they are realized, is an external matter. It depends on what the world is like. Now that we have a specification of the epistemic goods, we can apply the decision-theoretic machinery introduced earlier. We get the following two equations: (1) v(Accept) (2) v(~Accept)

= v(Accept, ~BIV) + v(Accept, BIV) = v(~Accept, ~BIV) + v(~Accept, BIV) = (1 ´ x) + (-1 ´ x) = (1 ´ 0) + (-1 ´ 0) = x + -x = 0 + 0 = 0 = 0

These two equations tell us that the Accept and ~Accept strategies do equally well in terms of epistemic value. Neither strategy generates any epistemic value.

Let us unpack the equations a bit. Turn first to (1). Recall that the Accept strategy models epistemic activity. Thus, it was assumed that x beliefs are formed whatever the world is like. When the world cooperates, these beliefs are true, and when it does not, they are false. Since 1 is the epistemic value generated by a true belief, we get 1 ´ x = x as the epistemic value of the Accept strategy in the ~BIV case. Since -1 is the epistemic value generated by a false belief, we get -1 ´ x = -x as the epistemic value generated in the BIV case. Hence, the goodness of truly accepting ~BIV is precisely counterbalanced by the epistemic badness of falsely accepting ~BIV. Mathematically: x + -x.

Turn now to (2). The ~Accept strategy models epistemic inactivity, as reflected by the assumption that no belief is formed whatever the world is like. As a result, the strategy generates no epistemic value whether ~BIV or BIV is the case. The epistemic goodness of truly accepting BIV is precisely counterbalanced by the epistemic badness of falsely accepting BIV,

8 E.g., Alston (2005), Burge (2003), David (2001, 2005), Goldman (2001). 9 To make more vivid why people adopt error-avoidance as a goal suppose that Peter is told the following four things (and that he is ignorant about these matters): there are infinitely many prime numbers, cyanide is not poisonous, water is H2O, and Paris is in Spain. Suppose, furthermore, that Peter is gullible and believes everything he is told. In that case Peter acquires two true beliefs—that there are infinitely many prime numbers, and that water is H2O. This is the maximum number of true beliefs that Peter could acquire on being told the four things in question. If the truth goal were the only epistemic goal, Peter would do maximally well in terms of epistemic value on this particular occasion. However, Peter does not do maximally well in terms of epistemic value. Why? Because in addition to two true beliefs, he acquires two false ones—that cyanide is not poisonous, and that Paris is in Spain. But in order to be able to say so we need to add that error-avoidance is good, or, alternatively, that falsehood is bad.

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but this time trivially because no epistemic value is realized in either case. Mathematically: 0 + 0.

Can epistemic consequentialism—paired with vdg-monism—offer the concessive anti-sceptic any help with respect to the questions concerning epistemic warrant, rationality, or reasons, or the Goodness Dilemma? No. The concessive anti-sceptic must thus look elsewhere for a way to address the fundamental challenge of saying what is epistemically good about cornerstone acceptance.10

7. Pluralist epistemic consequentialism The values recognized by veritic dual-goal monism are externalist in nature. Whether or not they are realized depends on what the world is like. This explains the failure of the Accept strategy (epistemic activity) to fare better than the ~Accept strategy (epistemic activity). Being epistemically active leads to epistemically good results when the world cooperates, but it leads to epistemically disastrous ones when it does not. In light of this, it is natural for the concessive anti-sceptic to adopt a theory of epistemic value that accommodates values that do not depend for their realization on the state of the world. This paves the way for the possibility that the realization of certain types of epistemic value is world-independent, i.e. that these kinds of value are realized whether or not the world cooperates. In this section I explore epistemic consequentialism against the assumption that the following are epistemic goods: Truth Error-avoidance Coherence Meta-cognitive truth-link Unlike truth and error-avoidance, coherence and meta-cognitive truth-link are internalist values. They do not depend on the world for their realization. Instead whether or not they are realized is determined internally, or by the subject’s attitudes. Coherence is a feature of systems of beliefs. Coherence is not an all-or-nothing matter, but a matter of degree. A system of beliefs can be more or less coherent. The degree of coherence of a system is determined by the extent to which it exhibits coherence-making features such as logical consistency, probabilistic consistency, and inferential and exlanatory connections between its members, and absence of unexplained anomali.11 Coherence is an 10 Probability is a standard ingredient of decision theory. However, as observed in Section 5, it is notably missing here. I have allowed myself to leave out probability for present purposes because its inclusion would not be significant. Let me justify this claim. I do so through an application of the Principle of Indifference—the principle that says that states should be assigned equal probability if there is no reason to think one state more likely than the others. Now, in the context of a discussion of scepticism, a core assumption is the idea that the subject has no reason to favour ~BIV over BIV. Everything seems the same to the subject whether one or the other state of affairs obtains. This means that we can apply the Principle of Indifference: there is not reason to think ~BIV more likely than BIV, and so, they should be assigned the same probability. There is only one way to achieve this, viz. with the following probability assignment: p(~BIV) = p(BIV) = 0.5. But if the probabilities of respectively ~BIV and BIV equal one another, the two states carry the exact same significance and leaving out the probabilities will not alter the relative significance of the two states vis-à-vis epistemic value. 11 BonJour (1985: 97–99). There is an extensive literature on coherence treated along the lines of BonJour’s work

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internal rather than external matter. The degree to which a system of beliefs is coherent is not determined by what the world is like, but rather by fit and significant connections between the beliefs in the system.

Meta-cognitive truth-link is a higher-order good that applies to investigations or executions of cognitive projects. For a subject’s execution of a project to be meta-cognitively truth-linked is for the subject to regard coherently the project as an instance of truth-seeking enquiry. Accepting ~BIV (and empirical world cornerstones) is constitutive of executing projects pertaining to the empirical world in a way that is meta-cognitively truth-linked. I talk about meta-cognitive truth-link to indicate that we are dealing with a higher-order good. The good is associated with an attitude towards the status of a given cognitive project, not with the status itself. Meta-cognitive truth-link, like coherence, is an internal matter. Whether the good is realized does not depend on what the world is like, but rather on the relationship between the subject’s attitude towards cornerstone propositions and the subject’s attitude towards her cognitive projects.

I have changed the axiological part of the consequentialist framework. Instead of having just a pair of externalist values, this pair has now been supplemented by two internalist values (coherence and meta-cognitive truth-link). This impacts the equations for the Accept and ~Accept strategies. Before the new axiological background can be brought to bear on these equations, something needs to be said about how the different kinds of value will be treated mathematically. Here are the two options:

(a) Have one value function (v) and assume that the value of coherence and meta-cognitive truth-link can be measured on the same scale as true and false belief.

(b) Have three value functions, v', v#, and v*: one for true and false belief, one for coherence, and one for meta-cognitive truth-link.

I am going to adopt option (b). Option (a) requires that the three types of value be measurable on a single scale, and thus, that they are comparable. At present I have no clear idea how approach (a) might be executed satisfactorily—indeed, whether it can be done so at all. For this reason I adopt approach (b). However, I note that the strength of the considerations offered in this section does not depend on the choice of (b) over (a). This claim is supported in the Appendix.

It needs to be shown how to quantify the different kinds of value in order for functions v', v#, and v* to deliver outputs that can be used to assess how well respectively the Accept and ~Accept strategies do in terms of epistemic value. No work needs to be done in connection with v'—the function for truth and falsity—as its behaviour has already been characterized by A1-A3. As for coherence and meta-cognitive truth-link, I adopt the following assumptions:

A4. Measuring coherence:

For a system of beliefs SB, v#(SB) = y# where y# is determined by the degree to which SB possesses coherence-making features such as logical consistency, probabilistic consistency, and inferential and exlanatory connections between its members, and absence of unexplained anomali.

on the topic. There is also an extensive literature on coherence within a probalistic setting (see, e.g., Olsson (2005)).

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A5. Measuring meta-cognitive truth-link:

v*(B(q1)) = 1*, whenever B(q1) is acquired as the result of a cognitive project pertaining to the empirical world and executed by a subject who accepts cornerstones of empirical world thinking.

Given A1-A5, we move on to the equations for respectively the Accept and ~Accept strategies. There is an equation for each strategy for each value function, i.e. three equations for each strategy. I consider these equations in turn. However, before doing so, let me briefly comment on the use of superscripts “#” and “ * ” for the outputs of respectively v# and v*. I use these superscripts to serve as a reminder that the three value functions v', v#, and v* generate outputs that do not belong to a single scale. While the outputs of each function taken separately can be manipulated using standard arithmetical operations, the outputs cannot be mixed across types and be jointly manipulated using these operations.

Turn now to v', the function for truth and falsity:

(1') Accept strategy: (2') ~Accept strategy:

v'(Accept) = v'(Accept, ~BIV) + v'(Accept, BIV) = (1 ´ x) + (-1 ´ x) = x + -x = 0

v'(~Accept) = v'(~Accept, ~biv) + v'(~Accept, BIV) = (1 ´ 0) + (-1 ´ 0) = 0 + 0 = 0

This function is covered by what was said in Section 6. The two strategies are on a par. The Accept strategy fails to do better than the ~Accept strategy because, while being epistemically active generates many true beliefs when the world cooperates (~BIV is the case), it leads to a corresponding number of false beliefs when it does not (BIV is the case). Next, consider v#, the function for coherence: (1#) Accept strategy: (2#) ~Accept strategy:

v#(SAccept) = y#

v#(S~Accept) = z#

I claim that y# > z#. That is, I claim that the system of beliefs associated with the Accept strategy is more coherent than the one associated with the ~Accept strategy. I am not going to support this claim by providing an algorithm that, in a precise mathematical manner, determines the degree coherence of a given system on the basis of the coherence-making features mentioned above, and then go on to apply this algorithm to SAccept and S~Accept to yield the desired result. It goes beyond the scope of this paper to provide an algorithm of this kind. However, thankfully, I do not have to do so in order to make plausible the claim that y# > z#. In order to do so it suffices to make a few observations.

First, recall that SAccept models epistemic activity. The subject undertakes cognitive projects pertaining to the empirical world and forms beliefs about it. SAccept is a comprehensive set of beliefs concerning the empirical world. Recall also that S~Accept models epistemic inactivity. The subject undertakes no cognitive projects pertaining to the empirical world and

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forms no beliefs about it. S~Accept is a very meager set of beliefs. Second, suppose that both systems do well in terms of logical and probabilistic consistency and absence of unexplained anomalies (although the latter does so trivially by being a very meager (or even empty) system of beliefs). Even so, when we consider inferential and explanatory connections, SAccept outscores S~Accept. The latter is a very meager system. It contains hardly any inferential or explanatory connections, if any at all. On the other hand, S~Accept is a comprehensive system of belief concerning the empirical world, rich on inferential and explanatory connections. Hence, even in the absence of an algorithm for determining the exact degree of coherence of a given system of belief, it is reasonable to take SAccept to be more coherent than S~Accept—that is, y# > z#.12 Lastly we turn to meta-cognitive truth-link. For this epistemic good we have the following pair of equations: (1*) Accept strategy: (2*) ~Accept strategy:

v*(Accept) = v*(Accept, ~BIV) + v*(Accept, BIV) = (1* ´ x) + (1* ´ x) = 1* ´ (x + x) = (2x)*

v*(~Accept) = v'(~Accept, ~biv) + v'(~Accept, biv) = (1* ´ 0) + (1* ´ 0) = 0* + 0* = 0*

The Accept strategy does better than the ~Accept strategy. The ~Accept strategy does not generate any meta-cognitive truth-links. This is because the strategy models epistemic inactivity. The subject does not execute any projects pertaining to the empircal world and forms no beliefs about it. Thus, trivially, the ~Accept strategy does not generate meta-cognitive truth-links. On the other hand, the Accept strategy results in meta-cognitive truth-links both when the world cooperates (~BIV) and when it does not (BIV). This is explained by the nature of meta-cognitive truth-links. They do not depend for their realization on what the world is like. Meta-cognitive truth-links are established as a result of subjects’ having the right kind of “cognitive profile”. They are realized when subjects have cognitive projects pertaining to the empirical world, take on board empirical world cornerstone propositions, and regard the cognitive projects they execute as being instances of truth-seeking enquiry. This is all internal. Hence, even if the subject is systematically wrong about what her surroundings are like (as when BIV or some other sceptical hypothesis obtains), execution of cognitive projects

12 It might seem too simple-minded that, other things being equal, more comprehensive systems should be more coherent than less comprehensive systems. In light of this one might take coherence to be tied to inferential and explanatory density. The density of a system is given by the number of inferential and explanatory connections of the system divided by the number of beliefs in the system. Other things being equal, a system with greater density will have a higher degree of coherence. This way of connecting inferential and explanatory connections to coherence does stack things in favour of larger systems. Even small systems can be highly dense in the sense defined. The important thing to note here, however, is that a switch to density will still sustain the case in favour of y# > z#—or saying that SAccept is more coherent than S~Accept. If we suppose that S~Accept is complete epistemic inactivity and S~Accept contains no beliefs at all, density will fail to be well-defined for S~Accept because the denominator will be 0. But even if we suppose that a few beliefs are formed, the density of S~Accept will still be low. The system contains neither many beliefs nor, relatedly, many inferential and explanatory connections between them. When the number of inferential and explanatory connections is divided by the number of beliefs, we thus have a low number divided by a lower number—which yields a low density.

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pertaining to the empirical world generates meta-cognitive truth-links (again, provided that the subject accepts empirical world cornerstones). In sum, we have the following verdicts: the Accept strategy is on a par with the ~Accept strategy with respect to v', the function for truth and falsity. For this particular function neither strategy generates any epistemic value overall. However, when it comes to v# and v*—the functions for coherence and meta-cognitive truth-link respectively—we have a radically different picture. For both of these functions the Accept strategy does better than the ~Accept strategy. That is, in terms of coherence and meta-cognitive truth-links being epistemically active outscores being epistemically inactive. Let me introduce a distinction between two kinds of maximization, as follows: Global maximization of epistemic value:

For value functions v1, …, vn and strategy Si, Si maximizes epistemic value globally if and only if Si maximizes value for all of v1, …, vn.

Local maximization of epistemic value: For value functions v1, …, vn and strategy Si, Si maximizes epistemic value locally if and only if Si maximizes value for at least one of v1, …, vn.

Applying this distinction to the functions relevant to our present setting, we get that a strategy maximizes epistemic value globally if and only if it maximizes value for all of v', v#, and v*. A stategy maximizes epistemic value locally if and only if it maximizes value for at least one of v', v#, and v*. On the basis of the verdicts for the Accept and ~Accept strategies with respect to the three functions, we see that the ~Accept strategy maximizes epistemic value neither globally nor locally. It is also immediately clear that the Accept strategy does not maximize epistemic value globally because, with respect to v', the strategy is on a par with the ~Accept strategy. Interestingly, however, we get the following result:

Local Maximization Result: The Accept strategy maximizes epistemic value locally. It does so because it maximizes value for functions v# and v*, i.e. the Accept strategy maximizes coherence and meta-cognitive truth-links.

In next section I argue that this result can be used to address the Goodness Dilemma and the E-Warrant, E-Rationality, and E-Reasons Questions.13 8. Pluralist consequentialist concessive anti-scepticism The task of Sections 5-7 was to develop a form of epistemic consequentialist that puts the concessive anti-sceptic in a position to address the Goodness Dilemma and the following three questions:

13 Earlier I claimed that the plausibility of the considerations offered in this section do not depend on the choice of a multiple-function framework over a framework with a single function. I support this claim in the Appendix. I argue that it is possible to recover the single-function analogue of the Local Maximization Result if a switch to a single-framework is made.

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E-Warrant Question: Is acceptance of cornerstone propositions epistemically warranted? E-Rationality Question: Is acceptance of cornerstone propositions epistemically rational? E-Reasons Question: Is acceptance of cornerstone propositions underwritten by

epistemic reasons? Given the Local Maximization Result from Section 7, the concessive anti-sceptic can now provide the following answer to these three questions: (ANSWER):

We are epistemically warranted, rational, and have epistemic reason to accept ~BIV and other empirical world cornerstones because doing so maximizes epistemic value locally. The Accept strategy delivers the best outcomes for functions v# and v*, i.e. with respect to the epistemic goods of coherence and meta-cognitive truth-links.

Epistemic warrant, rationality, and reasons are positive epistemic standings. As noted, the natural way to understanding positive standings—epistemic or otherwise—is in connection to goods. When an attitude is epistemically warranted, rational, or underwritten by epistemic reasons, there is something epistemically good about it. Being truth-connected does not appear to be a feasible candidate for grounding the epistemic goodness of cornerstone acceptance, bearing in mind the principled absence of evidence in their favour. However, as stated in (ANSWER), the pluralist-consequentialist story told in Section 7 points to an alternative. The epistemic goodness of cornerstone acceptance is connected to promotion of coherence and meta-cognitive truth-links. This points us to an answer to the Goodness Dilemma. Assuming the truth conception of the epistemic, the contention was that the concessive anti-sceptic is unable to connect cornerstone acceptance to an epistemic good. With the “epistemic path” blocked, the concessive anti-sceptic was thought to be caught between the horns of the following dilemma: either saying that cornerstone acceptance is not connected to any good at all, or saying that it is connected to a non-epistemic good. The first option is bad because of the tight connection between positive standings and goods. If there were no connection between cornerstone acceptance and any kind of good whatsoever, it would seem that no kind of warrant, rationality, and reasons whatsoever could apply to cornerstone acceptance. The second option is bad because, if cornerstone acceptance is connected only to a non-epistemic good, whatever kind of warrant, rationality, and reasons go with it would have to be non-epistemic too. This would be an unfortunate consequence for the concessive anti-sceptic because the account of cornerstone warrant is meant to deliver a response to scepticism. However, scepticism is an epistemic challenge and invoking a non-epistemic species of warrant to respond to it would be misguided. I respond to the Goodness Dilemma by rejecting the initial contention that the concessive anti-sceptic cannot connect cornerstone acceptance to an epistemic good. Given the Local Maximization Result, concessive anti-sceptics of the pluralist-consequentialist stripe can say that cornerstone acceptance is connected to the epistemic goods of coherence and meta-cognitive truth-link. By doing so the concessive anti-sceptic broadens the conception of the nature and boundaries of the epistemic compared to the truth conception of that realm. Attitudes towards propositions do not only enjoy positive epistemic standings if they are directly connected to the truth of their target proposition. There is a wider range of epistemic

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goods that attitudes can promote or be connected to and that can underwrite positive epistemic standings. Acceptance of ~BIV (and other cornerstones) promotes meta-cognitive truth-links. This is not something that pertains directly to the truth of ~BIV itself, but instead to what kind of meta-cognitive attitude the subject can take towards her cognitive projects—namely, regard them as being instances of truth-seeking enquiry. Additionally, acceptance of ~BIV promotes coherence because the epistemic activity that goes with it yields a system of beliefs that possesses coherence-making features to a significant degree. Coherence (or significant degree of coherence) is not a feature that directly connects with the truth of ~BIV in the way that evidence for a proposition connects directly with the truth of the proposition. Coherence (or significant degree of coherence) is a feature of the system of which acceptance of ~BIV is a part. I take the realm of the epistemic to be demarcated by cognition. For this reason I take features of attitudes and systems that aid, drive, or promote cognition to be epistemically good or valuable. The “cognition conception of the epistemic” might be an apt label for this conception. Coherence and meta-cognitive truth-links fall into this category, and accordingly, I take them to be epistemic goods. Coherence is a feature that drives and constrains cognition. We seek coherence when we reason and investigate the world, and we revise our beliefs to sustain it. Meta-cognitive truth-links are characteristic of cognition of beings with higher-order capacities such as reflection. Humans can reflect on their own cognitive situation—conceptualize what it is like and make adjustments to change or improve it. Let me emphasize that I do not intend to engage with those who endorse the truth conception of the epistemic here. My goal here is not to adopt the broader cognitive conception of the epistemic and try to convince people who are not antecedently sympathetic to it—and concessive anti-scepticism—that these ideas are plausible. My project is of a more moderate, internal kind. I want to show concessive anti-sceptics how to spell out a position that allows them to remain concessive anti-sceptics while also having a response to the Goodness Dilemma and its related challenges. I have now done so, and the route that I have plotted involves abandoning the truth conception of the epistemic. From the perspective of concessive anti-scepticism one weighty reason for abandoning this narrower truth conception is that it is difficult to hold on to it while granting, as the concessive anti-sceptic does, that there is a principled absence of evidence supporting cornerstones. To sum up, the view that has been presented in this paper is consequentialist pluralist concessive anti-scepticism! Its main components are as follows:

Concessivism: Steps 1 and 2 of the sceptical challenge are correct (anti-sceptical hypotheses are cornerstones and cannot be warranted evidentially).

Anti-scepticism: It is not the case that our acceptance of cornerstones fails to be epistemically warranted, and so, that we cannot make rational claims to warrant for belief in ordinary propositions about the empirical world.

Epistemic non-evidential warrant:

A species of epistemic non-evidential warrant applies to acceptance of cornerstone propositions (rejection of Step 3 of the sceptical challenge).

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Epistemic consequentialism: The species of epistemic non-evidential warrant applicable to acceptance of cornerstones is to be understood in terms of the epistemic goodness of the consequences of this kind of acceptance. Epistemic value pluralism: There is not just a single epistemic good, but a plurality of such goods. Truth, coherence and meta-cognitive truth-links are all epistemic goods.

9. A corollary: no need for entitlement of cognitive project In this section I explore the ramifications of the present pluralist-consequentialist proposal in relation to the existing literature. I focus on Crispin Wright’s response to scepticism in terms of entitlement of cognitive project. The main project of Pedersen (2009) was to use epistemic consequentialism in the service of Wright’s entitlement proposal. Challenges of the kind leveled against concessive anti-scepticism in Section 3 have been leveled against Wright-style entitlement. In Pedersen (2009) I argued that the entitlement theorist can appeal to epistemic consequentialism to address them. In this section I retract my earlier argument and instead argue for the opposite conclusion: the success of the consequentialist strategy undermines the need for entitlement of cognitive project. In a number of writings (2004a, b, c), Crispin Wright has endorsed entitlement of cognitive project—a certain species of non-evidential warrant—as a response to scepticism. He characterizes the notion as follows14:

Entitlement of cognitive project: a subject S with a given cognitive project C is entitled to trust a proposition p iff

(i) p is a presupposition of C, i.e. if to doubt p (in advance)—or weaker: being open-

minded about p—would rationally commit one to doubting (or being open-minded about) the significance of C;

(ii) there is no sufficient reason to believe that p is untrue; and (iii) the attempt to acquire an evidential warrant for p would involve epistemic

circularity.

Cornerstone propositions such as (~BIV), (~DEM), (~DRE), and (CAP) qualify as entitlements of cognitive project for projects pertaining to the empirical world.

Clause (i) tells us that presuppositions of a given cognitive project are unavoidable commitments of that project. In order for the project to be considered significant one must take on board its presuppositions. Imagine, e.g., that Cristiano Ronaldo wants to determine the length of his swimming pool. (~BIV), (~DEM), (~DRE), and (CAP) are all presuppositions of Ronaldo’s cognitive project. Suppose that he were to harbour doubt (or be open-minded) about any of them. In that case he would be rationally committed to doubting (or being open-minded about) the significance of the project—namely, yielding details about his pool, an

14 Wright (2004a: 191–192).

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object in external reality. This is because he would be rationally committed to doubting that he currently enters into contact with such things in the first place or that his cognitive path to them is somehow malfunctioning.

Clause (ii) is a negative clause. Entitlement is non-evidential in nature. It does not require the presence of positive evidence. Instead, what is needed is the absence of sufficient countervailing evidence. This is Wright’s key move in countering the sceptic. By insisting that evidential warrant is the only species of warrant the sceptic is assuming that warrant has to be earned through the acquisition of evidence. Wright rejects this picture by adopting (ii). Warrant is the default position for presuppositions satisfying (i) and (iii). There is nothing that one has to do to get it. In this sense entitlement is unearned warrant. According to clause (iii), attempts to acquire evidential warrant to accept p are doomed to fail. Any such attempt is going to be epistemically circular. As seen in Section 1, the sceptic thinks that any attempt to acquire an evidential warrant to accept ~BIV is subject to epistemic circularity. Furthermore, the same can be said in the case of other anti-sceptical hypotheses such as (~DEM), (~DRE), and (CAP). As seen in Section 2, concessive anti-sceptics grant the sceptic this point—which, in our present context, shows that clause (iii) is satisfied for cornerstones relative to cognitive projects concerning the empirical world.15 Wright is a concessive anti-sceptic. He grants that Steps 1 and 2 of the sceptical challenge, but rejects the sceptical conclusion that there can be no rational claims to warrant for ordinary beliefs about the empirical world. In Section 2 we saw that the only way for the concessive anti-sceptic to do this is to reject Step 3 of the challenge, i.e. the step according to which warrant is always evidential in nature. In turn this means that the concessive anti-sceptic must present a non-evidential species of warrant applicable to anti-sceptical hypotheses in order to resist the sceptical conclusion. Wright does this by introducing entitlement of cognitive project. Wright’s entitlement proposal has attracted considerable interest in the literature. Several objections and arguments have been launched against it. Pritchard (2005) and Jenkins (2007) press the issue whether entitlement of cognitive project can support the idea that acceptance of cornerstone propositions is epistemically rational.16 They both formulate their worries specifically in terms of entitlement and epistemic rationality. However, I think that what is ultimately driving them is the fundamental issue pointed to in Section 3: how, on a concessive anti-sceptical picture, does cornerstone acceptance connect to epistemic goods? The fundamental worry is that it is not thus connected, and so, that no positive epistemic standings—including epistemic warrant and epistemic rationality—can legitimately be said to apply to cornerstone acceptance.

15 The characterization that I have given of entitlement of cognitive project differs from the one provided by Wright himself. Clauses (i) and (ii) are the same, but his clause (iii) reads as follows (2004a: 192): “The attempt to justify P would involve further presuppositions in turn of no more secure a prior standing… and so on without limit; so that someone pursuing the relevant enquiry who accepted that there is nevertheless an onus to justify P would implicitly undertake a commitment to an infinite regress of justificatory projects, each concerned to vindicate the presuppositions of its predecessor.” Let me offer a few comments on the difference just highlighted. First, I note that the propositions that Wright intends to qualify as entitlements of cognitive projects pertaining to the empirical world satisfy clause (iii), as formulated in terms of epistemic circularity rather than infinite regress. The considerations offered in Section 1 support this claim. Second, the function of Wright’s clause (iii) is to say that attempts to acquire evidential warrant for p fail and to say why they do so as a matter of principle. This is a function that is still served when the clause is formulated in terms of epistemic circularity. Third, the criticism to be developed in this section does not depend in any way on the adoption of my version of clause (iii). 16 For other criticisms see, e.g., McGlynn (2014) and Tucker (2009).

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In Pedersen (2009) I introduced a consequentialist proposal relevantly similar to the proposal presented in this paper. Both proposals explicitly connect cornerstone acceptance to epistemic goodness or value by saying that it maximizes epistemic value locally. For present purposes this makes for relevant similarity because the challenges confronting the concessive anti-sceptic are precisely rooted in the question how cornerstone acceptance connects with epistemic goods—indeed, as we have seen, whether it does so at all. Bearing this relevant similarity in mind from now on I do not distinguish between the consequentialist proposals of Pedersen (2009) and the present paper and talk simply of “the consequentialist proposal” (“story”, etc.) or “epistemic consequentialism”.

In the earlier paper I argued that the proponent of entitlement of cognitive project can address worries concerning epistemic goodness and positive epistemic standings by appealing to epistemic consequentialism. I now want to retract this argument and argue for the opposite conclusion. The success of the consequentialist proposal undermines the need for entitlement of cognitive project.

Recall that entitlement of cognitive project is meant to be a species of epistemic warrant. Also, recall that epistemic warrant is a positive epistemic standing, and that positive epistemic standings are to be understood in terms of a connection to some epistemic good. Let us use “CENT” to refer to the three conditions in the characterization of entitlement of cognitive project. On the entitlement proponent’s view CENT constitutes a species of epistemic warrant. It is a set of jointly epistemic warrant-conferring conditions. Critics worry about this proposal, however, since satisfaction of CENT fails to make it clear what is epistemically good about cornerstone acceptance. As such, CENT—a set of supposedly epistemic warrant-conferring conditions—fails to ensure that entitlement of cognitive project possesses a core feature of epistemic warrant: being connected to an epistemic good. Now, suppose that, in the manner of Pedersen (2009), we try to defend the entitlement proposal by telling a consequentialist story about local maximization of epistemic value. In that case what has happened is the following: another condition—call it “CMAX”—has been introduced, and it is satisfaction of this condition that accounts for the epistemic goodness of cornerstone acceptance.

What is the upshot of these observations? The upshot is that the success of the consequentialist proposal eliminates the need for entitlement of cognitive project. Our observations show that CMAX rather than CENT is warrant-constituting. After all, CMAX is the condition whose satisfaction grounds the connection of cornerstone acceptance to epistemic goods—the very feature that propels it into the realm of positive epistemic standings. Someone initially sympathetic to the idea of entitlement of cognitive project should abandon the notion, upon reflection.

Note that I am not saying that there are no entitlements of cognitive project in the sense that the conditions characteristic of entitlement are not satisfied by cornerstone acceptance. I grant that they are satisfied. However, I have argued that the status of cornerstone acceptance as entitled does no work from the point of view of positive epistemic standings. There is no need to count entitlement of cognitive project as a species of epistemic warrant or take it to mark any other positive epistemic standing.

In recent work Wright tries to address the issues concerning epistemic reasons, rationality, and warrant discussed that have concerned us in this paper. I do not think that his attempt at addressing the relevant issues is successful and say why immediately below. I also offer some considerations on Daniel Elstein and Carrie Jenkins’ contribution to this volume.

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Wright (2014, Sect. 11.5 and 11.7) takes on the task of addressing the questions concerning epistemic reasons, warrant, and rationality discussed in this paper.17 Wright’s key move is to reject the contention that a clear distinction between pragmatic reasons and epistemic reasons can be sustained, together with the contention that entitlement can only provide the former kind of reason. Wright makes this move in the context of a discussion of entitlement and Pascal Wager-style reasoning, a paradigmatic case of dominance reasoning. So-called Wrightian strategic entitlement explicitly requires accepting p to be a dominant strategy. While Wright does not explicitly characterize entitlement of cognitive project in terms of dominance, he at times seems to think of this type of entitlement in such terms as well.18

Critics (such as Pritchard (2005) and Jenkins (2007)) have argued that dominance reasoning—exemplified by Pascal’s Wager—generates merely pragmatic reasons. Wright concedes that Pascal-style reasoning generates pragmatic reasons, but contends that they are merely pragmatic. On his view they can likewise qualify as epistemic reasons, provided that they are in the service of epistemic values such as maximizing true and useful belief.

Now, suppose that we grant Wright this point. In my view this does nothing to address the argument against entitlement of cognitive project presented in this section. For, dominance reasoning is consequentialist reasoning. Thus, what Wright’s point will deliver in relation to cornerstone acceptance is this: consequentialist reasoning delivers pragmatic reasons to accept cornerstones, and these reasons likewise qualify as epistemic reasons. But then we are back at the worry presented in this section: a consequentialist story—not entitlement of cognitive project—is what does the crucial normative lifting.

Wright also presents what might be considered a transcendental defence of entitlement of cognitive project: reflective enquiry is not possible without cornerstone acceptance.19 In this sense entitled acceptance of cornerstone propositions is underwritten by an epistemic reason and qualifies as epistemically rational. This transcendental line may be non-consequentialist in nature. Even if it is, a version of the argument presented in this section would seem to apply to it: something other than entitlement of cognitive project—namely the transcendental story—explains why cornerstone acceptance is underwritten by epistemic reasons and qualifies as epistemically rational and warranted. Again, there seems to be no need for entitlement of cognitive project as a species of epistemic warrant or as marking any other positive epistemic standing.20

I now turn to Elstein and Jenkins’ contribution to this volume. As they point out my view is that epistemic consequentialism replaces entitlement of cognitive project. There is no need for it. Elstein and Jenkins take a more entitlement-friendly approach, suggesting that a certain form of epistemic consequentialism—rule epistemic consequentialism—can help the proponent of entitlement of cognitive project in ways ‘quite conducive to Wright’s own current views on the matter’. They work with the following version of epistemic consequentialism:

Rule epistemic consequentialism (REC):

17 Wright (2014). 18 Wright (2004a), Sect. III introduces strategic entitlement. One example of dominance seemingly playing a role in Wright’s understanding of entitlement of cognitive project is (2004a: 192). 19 Wright (2014: 242–243), (2004a). 20 Elstein & Jenkins (this volume).

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X is epistemically warranted if and only if X is allowed (or recommended by) the rule set R the internalization of which maximizes expected epistemic value.

(REC) gives body to a form of epistemic consequentialism because the right-hand side features maximization of expected epistemic value. (REC) gives body to a form of rule epistemic consequentialism because it is the internalization of R, a rule set, that maximizes expected epistemic value.21 (Below I sometimes use “MEEV rule set” to refer to this kind of rule set.) Elstein and Jenkins argue that internalization of the following rule set maximizes expected epistemic value:

(ii) Accept p if and only if you possess sufficient evidence that p (evidentialism), with ‘exceptions created by specific rules that recommend accepting the reliability of induction, the general trustworthiness of the senses etc. (whatever other propositions the defender of ECP [entitlement of cognitive project] suggests as entitlements.’

Let us suppose that (ii) is indeed the rule set that maximizes expected epistemic value. In what sense does this help the proponent of entitlement of cognitive project? It does so in the sense that the combination of (REC) and (ii) allow for entitlements of cognitive project. (REC) and (ii) explain why epistemic warrant and rationality divide into for non-evidential and evidential subspecies, with the former being what Wright calls ‘entitlement of cognitive project’. This is because combining rules that sustain respectively evidential and non-evidential warrants and rationality delivers the rule set that maximizes expected epistemic value.

Elstein and Jenkins take my proposal to be entitlement-hostile while they take their own proposal to be entitlement-friendly. I try to use epistemic consequentialism to replace or eliminate entitlement of cognitive project while their aim is to present another version of epistemic consequentialism that ‘allows for’, ‘supports’, and ‘accommodates’ entitlement of cognitive project (Elsten & Jenkins: XX–XX). They take this difference to be grounded in the role that entitlement plays within their consequentialist framework. I take it to play no normative role because I think that CENT does not connect cornerstone acceptance to an epistemic good. Elstein and Jenkins, on the other hand, take entitlement to play a role within their rule-consequentialist framework. This is because the rule set that maximizes expected epistemic value includes rules that recommend accepting entitlements of cognitive project.

I’m not entirely convinced that the contrast between the Elstein-Jenkins proposal and my proposal stands up to scrutiny. At the very least it seems that more work must be done in order to sustain the claimed contrast. One issue that calls for attention is this: exactly in what sense do the exception-generating rules mentioned in (ii) allow for, support, and accommodate entitlement of cognitive project?

Here is one sense in which a framework might allow for, support, and accommodate entitlement of cognitive project:

(A) the clauses characteristic of entitlement of cognitive project are satisfied (and so, in this sense there are entitlements of cognitive project), and

21 Strictly speaking, Elstein and Jenkins work with a more refined version of (REC)—one put in terms of attempted internalization of R. They contrast this version of (REC) with a version that is put in terms of successful internalization of R. I allow myself to leave aside this distinction as it does not matter for the point I want to make below.

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(B) where p is an entitlement of cognitive project, acceptance of p qualifies as

epistemically warranted. (A) and (B) are not enough to sustain a contrast between my proposal and the Elstein-Jenkins proposal. (A) and (B) hold within my consequentialist framework. I grant that the conditions characteristic of entitlement are satisfied by cornerstone acceptance, and so, entitlements of cognitive project exist in that sense. What is more, they are epistemically warranted. Yet, I have argued that there is no need for entitlement of cognitive project as a species of epistemic warrant. My reason for saying so is that (A) and (B) fail to be suitably connected. The status of cornerstone acceptance as entitled does not constitute or explain why cornerstone acceptance is epistemically warranted. Again, this is because entitlement does not connect cornerstone acceptance to an epistemic good. For this reason it does not mark any positive epistemic standing. (A) and (B) are likewise satisfied within the Elstein-Jenkins framework. However, unlike me Elstein and Jenkins think that (A) and (B) are suitably connected. The status of cornerstone acceptance as entitled plays an important role in explaining why it is epistemically warranted. In order to have a suitable connection between (A) and (B) it would seem insufficient merely to have a rule that recommends accepting entitled propositions. For example, there are rules of the form ‘Accept p if and only if …’ that would recommend acceptance of entitled propositions for a wide range of substitutions of ‘…’ However, this does not mean that p’s being an entitlement of cognitive project plays any role in issuing or triggering the recommendation. In order for a specific rule to connect acceptance of p to entitlement in the right way entitlement should play a role in explaining why the rule recommends acceptance of p. Modifying (ii) as follows would be one way of achieving this:

(ii*) Accept p if and only if you possess sufficient evidence that p (evidentialism), but if p is

a cornerstone proposition and, so, is (and cannot be) supported by evidence, then accept p if and only if accepting p is an entitlement of cognitive project.

If (ii*) is combined with (REC), one might claim that entitlement of cognitive project plays a very important role in giving an account of epistemic warrant for cornerstone acceptance. The conditions characteristic of entitlement of cognitive project feature in a rule that recommends acceptance of cornerstones if the conditions on entitlement are satisfied. Within this framework entitlement of cognitive project can be regarded as the ground of the recommendation and, in turn, of the epistemic warrant applicable to cornerstone acceptance. (Reason: the relevant rule is a member of the set of rules that maximizes expected epistemic value—which, given (REC), is constitutively connected to epistemic warrant.) To recap: (A) and (B) are not by themselves enough to sustain a contrast between my consequentialist proposal and that of Elstein and Jenkins. However, with a rule that ensures a sufficiently substantial connection between entitlement and epistemic warrant, it might seem like a contrast can be sustained. Since entitlement of cognitive project plays an explanatory role (instead of getting elimiminated), it would seem that Elstein and Jenkins’ consequentialist framework allows for, supports, and accommodates entitlement of cognitive project in a way that my consequentialist framework does not.

Maybe a helpful way to understand the Elstein-Jenkins framework is this: at one level epistemic warrant is invariant. An attitude is always epistemically warranted if and only if it is

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recommended by a rule that is a member of the set of rules that maximizes expected epistemic value. However, at a different level—the level of grounds—the Elstein-Jenkins framework allows for variation. There are at least two types of ground of epistemic warrant. The ground of epistemic warrant for acceptance of cornerstones is that such acceptance is entitled, together with there being rules that recommend acceptance of cornerstones if such acceptance qualifies as an entitlement of cognitive project. The ground of epistemic warrant for acceptance of non-cornerstones is that such acceptance is supported by sufficient evidence, together with there being rules that recommend that such propositions be accepted if they are supported by sufficient evidence.

Although the Elstein-Jenkins framework operates with entitlement as a ground of certain instances of epistemic warrant, the degree to which it is entitlement-friendly should not be overstated. Both within their framework and my framework maximization of epistemic value is the core warrant-constituting feature. On their view the set of rules that maximizes expected epistemic value includes suitably entitlement-involving rules. These are rules that recommend acceptance of p because it qualifies as an entitlement of cognitive project. However, these rules generate epistemic warrant only insofar as they are members of the set of rules that maximizes expected epistemic utility. So, it would seem that maximization of (expected) epistemic value—a decidedly consequentialist feature—is in the epistemic driver’s seat. While entitlement of cognitive project may serve as a ground for epistemic warrant, the warrant-constituting feature for a specific case of acceptance is still that it is recommended by a rule that is a member of the set of rules that maximizes expected epistemic value. 10. Concluding remarks Let me offer some concluding remarks in order briefly to emphasize what I take the nature, scope, and limitations to be of the kind of project that I have undertaken in this paper. My primary goal in this paper has been to present a version of concessive anti-scepticism capable of addressing the fundamental concern that concessive anti-sceptics cannot connect cornerstone acceptance to epistemic goods. In pursuing this goal I worked within a consequentialist framework and adopted a pluralist theory of epistemic value to fix the list of relevant epistemic goods. Using this framework I argued that cornerstone acceptance is a local maximizer of epistemic value. It maximizes coherence and meta-cognitive truth-links.

Some might harbour worries about certain parts of the framework relied on in this paper. Pluralist, consequentialist, concessive anti-scepticism is a minority view, I believe. Most epistemologists would be critical of at least one of the core theses. Epistemic consequentialism has been subject to criticism recently. Like its ethical counterpart epistemic consequentialism seems to be vulnerable to trade-off based objections. It is a classic objection to ethical consequentialism that it classifies as ethically good actions that seem ethically bad—e.g., sacrificing the life of one person to save the life of five others. The epistemic analogue of this worry is that epistemic consequentialism classifies as epistemically good attitudes that seem epistemically bad—e.g., believing (without any evidence) a false belief that will trigger many true beliefs.22 As noted earlier, veritic monism is the predominant value-theoretic position in epistemology, meaning that pluralism about epistemic value is likely to find many opponents.

22 For this type of worry—and more general discussion of epistemic consequentialism—see Berker (2013a), (2013b), (2015); Elstein & Jenkins (this volume), Jenkins (2007), and Littlejohn (2012).

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Furthermore, concessivism—the idea that there can be no evidence supporting cornerstone acceptance—is also met with opposition by several camps (including dogmatists, disjunctivists, and advocates of E = K, as noted earlier).

I acknowledge that there are substantial points of contention in relation to epistemic consequentialism, epistemic pluralism, and concessivism. It would take a whole battery of masterfully and carefully crafted arguments to engage with these various issues. However, this is not the place to try to present such arguments. It lies (far) beyond the scope of the paper to do so. Instead I rest content with having shown concessive anti-sceptics that there is a way to connect cornerstone acceptance and epistemic goods on their view—that they can make all the pieces fit if they take on board pluralist consequentialism. A negative lesson was learned, too: taking on board the entitlement proposal is not the way to make all pieces fit. There is no need for entitlement of cognitive project as a species of epistemic warrant. Appendix: maximization within a single-function framework In Section 7 the following result was established:

Local Maximization Result: The Accept strategy maximizes epistemic value locally. It does so because it maximizes value for functions v# and v*, i.e. the Accept strategy maximizes coherence and meta-cognitive truth-links.

The result was established within a framework with three value functions instead of one. In this appendix I establish the result that the Accept strategy maximizes epistemic value within a single-function framework. I do so in order to block the worry that the concessive anti-sceptical line developed in this paper depends crucially on the choice of multiple functions over a single function.

In the multi-function framework we have seen that the Accept and ~Accept strategies are on a par with respect to one function (v'), and that the former strategy outscores the latter with respect to the remaining two functions (v# and v*). Using the specific values derived in Section 7 we have the following picture: Accept strategy ~Accept strategy

Truth/falsity

v'

0

=

0

Coherence

v#

y#

>

z#

Meta-cognitive truth-link

v*

(2x)*

>

0*

Table 1: multiple-function framework For each function, the values of the two strategies can be compared, as reflected by the horizontal occurrences of “=” and “>”. However, we cannot compare or perform arithmetical operations vertically, i.e. by working with outputs of different functions.

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Suppose now that we move to a single function framework, and let v be the relevant function. We can rewrite the above table as follows, reflecting the move into a single-function framework:

Accept strategy ~Accept strategy

Truth/falsity

v

t

=

t

Coherence

v

m

>

n

Meta-cognitive truth-link

v

2r

>

u

Table 2: single-function framework

As before, truth and falsity depend for their realization on what the world is like while the realization of coherence and meta-cognitive truth-links is an internal matter. Since v is the only function now, it is assumed that there is a single scale on which the determinants of truth, falsity, coherence, and meta-cognitive truth-link work and yield outputs for v. Thus, every two values in the table are identical or one is greater than the other. This has to be the case because they belong to the same scale. However, note that the way in which the different values are represented remains silent on comparisons or relative weighing across goods. In other words, the way in which the values are represented do not put us in a position to say how any of truth/falsity, coherence, and meta-cognitive truth-link compare to one another in terms of relative weight. This is a difficult issue, and as already said, I have nothing informative to say about it. Thankfully, however, all that is needed in order to establish the local maximization result for v is the information given horizontally in Table 2, i.e.

(1) t = t

(2) m > n

(3) 2r > u

(1) tells us that the Accept and ~Accept strategies do equally well when it comes to the epistemic good of truth. (2) tells us that the belief system associated with the Accept strategy has a higher degree of coherence than the system associated with the ~Accept strategy. (3) tells us that the Accept strategy generates more meta-cognitive truth-links than the ~Accept strategy. The justifications for (1)-(3) have been given in Section 7, using the representations of values from Table 1.

We have: (4) v(Accept) = t + m + 2r

(5) v(~Accept) = t + n + u

The question is how v(Accept) and v(~Accept) compare, i.e. (6) t + m + 2r ? t + n + u

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This simplifies to: (7) m + 2r ? n + u Since we know that m > n and 2r > u, we get: (8) m + 2r > n + u Given (4)-(6), (8) simply amounts to: (9) v(Accept) > v(~Accept) This tells us that the Accept strategy maximizes epistemic value. References Alston, W. (2005). Beyond Justification: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Berker, S. (2015). Reply to Goldman: Cutting Up the One to Save the Five in Epistemology. Episteme, 12: 145–153. Berker, S. (2013a). Epistemic Teleology and the Separateness of Propositions. Philosophical Review, 122: 363–387. Berker, S. (2013b). The Rejection of Epistemic Consequentialism. Philosophical Issues, 23: 363–387. BonJour, L. (1985). The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Burge, T. (2003). Perceptual Entitlement. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 67: 503–548. David, M. (2001). Truth as the epistemic goal. In M. Steup (ed.): Knowledge, Truth and Duty (151–169). New York: Oxford University Press. David, M. (2005). Truth as the primary epistemic goal: A working hypothesis. In M. Steup and E. Sosa (eds.): Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (296–312). Oxford: Blackwell. Elstein, D. & C. Jenkins. The Truth Fairy and the Indirect Epistemic Consequentialist. This volume. Feldman, R. (2003). Epistemology. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

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Fumerton, R. (2006). Epistemology. Oxford: Blackwell. Goldman, A. (2001). The Unity of the Epistemic Virtues. In A. Fairweather and L. Zagzebski (eds.): Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility (30–49). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, C. (2007). Entitlement and Rationality. Synthese, 157: 25–45. Littlejohn, C. (2012). Justification and the Truth-Connection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McGlynn, A. (2014). On Epistemic Alchemy. In D. Dodd and E. Zardini (eds.): Scepticism and Perceptual Justification (173–189). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Olsson, E. (2005). Against Coherence: Truth, Probability, and Justification. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pedersen, N. J. L. L. (2009). Entitlement, value and rationality. Synthese, 171: 443–457. Pritchard, D. (2005). Wittgenstein’s On Certainty and contemporary anti-scepticism. In D. Moyal-Sharrock & W. H. Brenner (eds.): Readings of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty (189–224). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Pritchard, D. (2009). What Is This Thing Called Knowledge? (2nd edition). London: Routledge. Pryor, J. (2000). The Skeptic and the Dogmatist. Noûs, 34: 517–549. Pryor. J. (2012). When Warrant Transmits. In A. Coliva (ed.): Mind, Meaning, and Knowledge: Themes from the Philosophy of Crispin Wright (269–303). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tucker, C. (2009). Perceptual Justification and Warrant by Default. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 87: 445–463. Wright, C. (2004a). Warrant for Nothing (and Foundations for Free)? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Suppl. Vol. 78: 167–212. Wright, C. (2004b). Wittgenstenian certainties. In D. McManus: Wittgenstein and Skepticism (22–55). London: Routledge. Wright, C. (2004c). Intuition, Entitlement and the Epistemology of Logical Laws. Dialectica, 58: 155–175. Wright, C. (2007). The Perils of Dogmatism. In S. Nuccetelli and G. Seay (eds.): Themes from G. E. Moore: New Essays in Epistemology and Ethics (25–48). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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