Preview of "NED Geneva Epistemic Excuses .PDF"

Another Plea for
Excuses
Clayton Littlejohn (KCL)
Thursday, 12 September 13
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Austins Pleas
If Im right about this, Austin would take a dim view of contrast arguments, arguments designed to
show that a kind of defense is justicatory rather than excusatory because it differs from a
paradigmatic case of non-justicatory defense in some salient way.
We (might) nd an instance of a contrast argument in Audis argument that defenses that point to mistakes
based on hallucinations justify rather than excuse:
I am in no way at fault for believing what I do, nor do I deserve any criticism (at least on
the non-skeptical assumption that we may generally trust our senses in this way). Far from it.
I am like a surgeon who skillfully does all that can be expected but loses the patient. There I
should feel regret, but not guilt; I should explain, but need not apologize; and when we
know what my evidence was, we approve of what I did. We consider it reasonable (Audi
2001).
It looks like Audi is arguing that mistakes and ignorance justify rather than excuse because defenses that
involve them differ from excusatory defenses.
Pryor seems to do something similar in his Highlights paper. He argues that systematically deceived
subjects can have justied beliefs on the grounds that there is more to be said for them and their belief
forming practices than some systematically deceived subjects who are merely blameless.
Austins Pleas
Pryor seems to do something similar in his Highlights paper. He argues that systematically deceived
subjects can have justied beliefs on the grounds that there is more to be said for them and their belief
forming practices than some systematically deceived subjects who are merely blameless. After asking us to
consider three BIVs, one who is reckless, one who is careful but follows defective standards, and one who
reasons just like we do, he says:
It seems natural to say that, although theres a sense in which the second and third brains are both
epistemically blameless, only the third is conducting his epistemic affairs properly, and so only he is justied
in his beliefs. This indicates that theres a kind of positive epistemic status which goes beyond mere
epistemic blamelesness, but which one can possess even if ones beliefs are reliably false, as the brains
beliefs are. Such considerations incline me to an internalist, non-deontological account of justication (Pryor
2001).
There are actually two problems with these passages. The rst is that they seem to deploy dubious contrast
arguments. The second has to do with what the pleas make salient. If Audis plea and Pryors plea focused
on the reasons to believe or the absence of reasons not to believe, this might be an argument for
justication, but thats not whats salient to me in this passage. Whats salient is that we shouldnt feel guilt,
that the subject was reasonable, responsible, etc. I dont think Austin would think that these were the
marks of justication.
Austins Pleas
One reason to think that Austin wouldnt be impressed is that Austins list of excusatory conditions
included humdrum factual mistakes.
If excuses excuse by showing that blame is inappropriate, how could ignorance or mistake excuse if the
operative mistaken belief wasnt rationally held or the ignorance helped to explain who the relevant
operative beliefs were rationally held?
If the subject didnt take all the care and concern that could be reasonably expected of them, there
couldnt be an excuse because the agents actions would manifest the kind of de re unresponsiveness by
virtue of which culpable actions are culpable.
Austins Pleas
Because theres this unfortunate tendency to think that contrast arguments are helpful ways
of thinking about the border between justication and excuse, it might help to remind
people that there are more elaborate schemes available.
Consider the trichotomous scheme of defenses:
Justication - Either no wrong is committed or it is done for adequate reason. (Lets let a
wrong be the violation of a norm.)
Excuse - While the agent can be held to account for her actions generally, the local
conditions exculpate.
Exemption/Denial of Responsibility - There are global exculpating conditions that would
preclude us from holding the agent accountable for her deeds generally.
If there are indeed three kinds of defenses, the contrast arguments are bound to fail. Theres
just no good inference from the observation that, say, a particular defense differs in salient
ways from some non-justicatory defense to the conclusion that this defense must be a
justication.
We know this already, of course. Accidental slips are, according to most, excusatory, not
justicatory, but they differ in important ways from defenses that cite mental illness or the lack
of developed rational capacity.
Austins Pleas
While nothing of substance turns on whether we adopt Austins scheme or the more
complicated scheme we get from Strawson, something substantive does turn on whether
defenses that focus on ignorance and mistake are excusatory or justicatory.
Ill explain why I think ignorance and mistake excuse rather than justify and why it would be a
mistake to counter this by insisting that rationality is the mark of justication on the grounds that
rationality just is justication.
To defend externalism about practical justication, hed have to respond to two familiar
arguments for internalism about practical justication...
On Ignorance and Mistake
Why think that ignorance and mistake excuse?
Excuses are tting when they can show that it is inappropriate to blame an agent who has the rational
capacities necessary to assume responsibility for her deeds.
They function by showing that the agents deeds (or failures to act) dont manifest de re unresponsiveness.
Factual ignorance and mistake can do both things.
The tricky question isnt really why ignorance and mistake gure in defenses, but why successful defenses
that cite ignorance or mistake dont constitute justicatory defenses?
In discussing Williams petrol and tonic example, they insist that ignorance does justify because it can make
an attitude and action rational, sensible, the thing that it makes most sense to do:
Notice that if we asked the unlucky fellow why he did such a thing, he might reply with
indignation: Well, it was the perfectly rational thing to do; I had every reason to think
the glass contained gin; why in the world should I think that someone would be going
around putting petrol in cocktail glasses!? Here the unlucky subject is not providing
an excuse for his action or treating what he did as a reason; he is defending it as the
action that made the most sense for him to do He is providing a justication, not an
excuse.
Whats wrong with this?
Part of my disagreement with them is substantive. Lets suppose that justication
requires norm conformity. If you think that there are norms that require us to keep
promises, help others, refrain from harming, youll think that the objective nature of the
deeds performed and the consequences of actions are part of what determines norm
conformity. Their line might be based on the mistaken but coherent Kantian view that
all moral assessment is concerned with the quality of the agents will.
If the disagreement is a disagreement about what it takes for a norm to be a norm, then it
looks like theyre going to have trouble articulating a coherent account of norms.
In the next few slides, Ill explain why we shouldnt accept this equation (holding xed the
idea that justicatory defenses require that the agent conforms to the norms that govern her
responses):
R=J: If it is rational for a conscientious agent A to respond doxastically, practically, or
affectively by F-ing, A has justication to respond doxastically, practically, or affectively by
F-ing.
Lets focus on the case of factual mistake...
(1) N is a norm (i.e., One must X if C obtains and must not X otherwise.) [Assume].
(2) C obtains [Assume].
(3) A rationally believes C doesnt obtain [Assume].
(4) It is rational for A to believe she must not X. [Because A rationally believes N is a norm and rationally believes that C doesnt obtain].
(5) If it is rational for A to believe she must not X, A is justied in refraining from X-ing [On the assumption that non-culpable factual
mistakes justify].
(6) A is justied in refraining from X-ing [From (4) and (5) because were assuming that mistake/ignorance justies].
(7) A must X [From (1), (2)].
(8) A is not justied in refraining from X-ing [(7)].
But this is absurd as (8) contradicts (6).
If there are genuine norms with application conditions we can rationally but falsely believe not to obtain, the thesis that ignorance justies must
be mistaken. For just about any non-normative condition we can think of, it seems it would be possible to have strong but misleading evidence
that this condition doesnt obtain. So, the thought that factual mistakes dont exculpate by justifying must be correct if any plausible objectivist
account of obligation is correct but the correctness of such a point doesnt require it.
Lets focus on another case of factual mistake...
(1) A rationally believes that N is a norm (i.e., One must X if C obtains and must not X otherwise.) [Assume].
(2) C obtains [Assume].
(3) A rationally believes C doesnt obtain [Assume].
(4) A is rationally required to believe she must not X. [Plausibly possible in light of (1)-(3).]
(5) If A is rationally required to believe she must not X and rationality just is justication, A is not justied in refraining from
X-ing.
(6) A is not justied in refraining from X-ing.
(7) A must X.
Two observations.
First, while A might rationally believe N is a norm, A might be mistaken about that. C might have no normative signicance
whatever. R=J has the odd implication that As mistakes are potentially inculpating.
Second, As mistakes would seem to generate obligations where there shouldnt be.
Both implications of R=J strike me as being quite troubling.
Cohen and Comesana say that rational beliefs about what it takes to conform to some
standard excuse action. Even thats a bit dubious.
Gideon Rosen, for example, has argued that an ancient slaveholder or a sexist father of the
50s might have rational but mistaken moral beliefs where the mistake doesnt derive from a
mistake in reasoning but a non-culpable normative mistake or instance of normative ignorance.
Presumably, these subjects might have rationally held moral beliefs. Since their actions manifest
de re unresponsiveness, I dont see why their ignorance would be exculpatory.
Worse, if you think R=J, there might be a situation in which the only justied option would be
for them to act on their abhorrent beliefs. If they suffered from akrasia and knowingly failed to
do what they judged they ought to do, would we really blame them? The suggestion that their
ignorance/mistake might be inculpatory is outrageous. Why would we blame them for failing
to act on the beliefs that we rightly take to be abhorrent? Surely blaming them for failing to act
in ways we judge to be abhorrent would be abhorrent.
Cohens Practical Demon
Its interesting that Cohen thinks that rational beliefs about what to do can excuse without
justifying as it seems quite natural to think that these theses are correct:
* Appearances rationalize - The way things appear to you determine which doxastic, affective,
and practical responses are rational.
* Doxastic priority - If you rationally take F-ing to be the thing to do, it wouldnt be rational for
you to maintain this belief and do otherwise. Just as factual mistakes dont necessarily impugn
the rationality of a belief (e.g., the belief that F-ing is the thing to do), they dont necessarily
impugn the rationality of the actions rationalized by the belief (e.g., F-ing).
We might imagine a demon sees to it that subjects in different external settings are nevertheless
internally indiscernible. It looks like Cohen would have to countenance the possibility that one
subject fails to meet her obligations while the other agent always acts with justication. Still,
both subjects act rationally.
So, it looks like Cohen has to reject R=J and opt for some more restricted link between
rationality and justication.
Cohens Practical Demon
If Cohen is going to defend externalism about practical justication, he has to deal with the
newer evil demon problem and explain how its possible for two internally indiscernible agents
to have rational beliefs about what to do and act on these beliefs with only one subject acting
with justication.
The rationality rationale
The subjects in the good and bad case would be equally rational if they were to F. If they
would be equally rational, they would have equally good justication. So, these subjects have
equally good justication to F. If one has sufcient justication to F, both do.
The reasons rationale
The subjects in the good and bad case would have the same reasons for action. Reasons justify
actions. So, these subjects would have to have equally good justication to F. If one has
sufcient justication to F, both do.
The Rationality Rationale
The rationality rationale
The subjects in the good and bad case would be equally rational if they were to F. If they
would be equally rational, they would have equally good justication. So, these subjects have
equally good justication to F. If one has sufcient justication to F, both do.
Its obvious where the rationality rationale errs. As weve seen, the mark of justication isnt
rationality.
Heres a helpful suggestion: the reasons that apply to you determine whether you have
justication to F but the way the reasons appear and what you would have justication to do if
your grasp of the situation were accurate and complete determine whats rational.
Of course, someone might say, This maneuver would be of no help. First of all, reasonable
and rational are virtual synonyms for justied, but Cohen can plausibly say that these
expressions arent synonymous at all and point to the earlier slides to explain why this equation
must be rejected.
The Reasons Rationale
The reasons rationale
(i) The subjects in the good and bad case would have the same reasons for action. (ii) Reasons
justify actions. So, these subjects would have to have equally good justication to F. If one has
sufcient justication to F, both do.
I think its important to distinguish between two readings of these claims about reasons:
Same reasons apply: If two subjects are internally the same, the same reasons bear on whether
they should believe p.
Same reasons possessed: If two subjects are internally the same, the subjects have the very
same reasons for believing.
Now we have two arguments to consider:
Same reasons possessed: If two subjects are internally the same, the subjects have the very
same reasons for believing.
If the subjects have the very same reasons for believing, they will have the same justication to
believe p.
C: If the two subjects are internally the same, they will have the same justication to believe p.
Same reasons apply: If two subjects are internally the same, the same reasons bear on whether
they should believe p.
If the same reasons bear on whether they should believe p, they will have the same justication
to believe p.
P1. Same reasons possessed: If two subjects are internally the same, the subjects have the very same reasons for
believing.
P2. If the subjects have the very same reasons for believing, they will have the same justication to believe p.
Both premises are false. Against SRP. The reasons that a subject has are reasons. Reasons are facts. Any fact that a subject
knows is among the reasons that the subject has. Since the subjects differ in terms of what they know, they differ in terms
of the reasons they have.
We dont need E=K to give us this. We only need to be clear about what reasons are (i.e., the facts that gure in
reasoning) and accept a weak claim about possession (i.e., any fact that you know is among the reasons you have).
Against P2. The reason we distinguished between the reasons the subject has and the reasons that apply to the subject is
that there are reasons that apply to us that arent in our possession. Such reasons include the reasons provided by norms
that were not in a position to know apply to us. The categoricity of such norms turns on the idea that these reasons will
apply to us even when we arent in a position to recognize their authority. [Ill develop this point in the next slide.]
P1. Same reasons apply: If two subjects are internally the same, the same reasons bear on whether they should
believe p.
P2. If the same reasons bear on whether they should believe p, they will have the same justication to believe p.
This argument is also unsound, but thats because of (P1), not (P2).
Suppose theres a norm that says this:
N: One must not believe p if one lacks sufcient evidence to believe p.
In light of this, a reason applies to you if you, say, have the usual grounds for believing that the number of stars is even
and you consider whether the number is indeed even. It may well be that the fact that theres a reason for you to suspend
judgment provided by N supervenes upon your mental states. The question is whether the presence/absence of all such
reasons supervenes upon your mental states. Theres nothing in Cohens argument that would indicate that there are, but
this is just what he would need to show to support P1.
For my own part, I think that there are norms with external application conditions. If there are such norms, it should be
possible for internal twins to differ in terms of how well they conform to them. For example:
KN: One must not believe p unless ones belief constitutes knowledge.
It looks like the reasons rationale could only succeed if Cohen could
show that there are no epistemic norms with external application
conditions.
Because its obvious that the points that Cohen could/would offer in
response to criticisms of his externalism about practical justication can
be carried over to respond to his criticisms of externalism about
epistemic justication, Ill simply note that and move on.
The interesting question, to my mind, is why he still thinks justied belief
just is rational belief in spite of the fact that it looks like he rejects R=J.
It looks like the reasons rationale could only succeed if Cohen could
show that there are no epistemic norms with external application
conditions.
Because its obvious that the points that Cohen could/would offer in
response to criticisms of his externalism about practical justication can
be carried over to respond to his criticisms of externalism about
epistemic justication, Ill simply note that and move on.
The interesting question, to my mind, is why he still thinks justied belief
just is rational belief in spite of the fact that it looks like he rejects R=J.
Might epistemic rationality be the mark of epistemic justication?
In more recent work, Cohen has offered an argument for linking epistemic justication to rationality, one
that doesnt seem to commit him to the unfortunate view that the rationality of an action ensures that the
action conforms to the norms that govern it.
He writes:
... distinguishing between rational beliefs and justied beliefs does not make any sense. It makes no more
sense than distinguishing between moral acts and justied acts. Justication is domain relative. A
justication for F-ing can be moral, rational, legal, etc. It is moral to F just in case F-ing is morally justied.
In the same way, it is rational to F just in case ones F-ing is rationally justied. So it is rational to believe
just in case believing is rationally justied. When one distinguishes between rational belief and justied
belief, one can only be distinguishing between rationally justied belief, and some other kind of justied
belief. What is the other kind of justication? (Theorizing about the epistemic, pp. 5.).
This strikes me as a bit odd. While I have only aesthetic objections to the introduction of this talk of
rationally justied believing and agree that rationally justied believing is just justied believing, why
cant we distinguish the rationality of a belief from its justicatory status? Has he just pulled the absence of
a distinction out of a hat?
Heres how we can coherently argue that epistemic justication and rationality are distinct.
Step one: Specify the norms that govern belief (e.g., one must not believe p if C obtains).
Step two: Provide a theory of justication in terms of norm conformity (e.g., believing p if C obtains is
unjustied and believing p otherwise might be justied, provided no further norm prohibits it).
Step three: Show that its possible for someone who knows the norms that govern belief to form rational,
false beliefs about whether the norms application condition is satised.
If our aim is simply to show the coherence of distinguishing justication from rationality, we dont need a
good theory of what the norms are. If a bad theory of the substantive norms will do, this should do:
E: One should believe p iff one considers whether p and one has sufciently strong evidence that supports
p.
T: One should believe p iff one considers whether p and p.
Its possible to be rational in believing falsely that you have sufcient evidence to believe p or to be
rational in believing falsely that p. If you knew or rationally believed these norms were norms, it would be
rational to believe in violation of E or in violation of T. Such violations cannot be justied, however.
Cohen writes, The fact that F-ing is rationally (morally, legally) justied just in case F-ing is rational (moral, legal) underscore the
obscurity of the appeal to epistemic justication ... Do those who distinguish between epistemic and rational justication want to say
that an epistemically justied belief is an epistemic belief? We simply have no idea what normative domain epistemic refers
to. (Theorizing the epistemic, pp. 6).
If my conjecture from earlier is correct and its possible to have rational false beliefs about just about anything, Cohens constraint
on a theory of justication (i.e., that it equates justication with rational justication with rationality) would prevent us from
formulating a coherent theory of justication.
Ordinary people who dont do epistemology have some grasp of what epistemic assessment amounts to and a pretty good grasp of
the difference between rationality and justication. Consider three cases of anger.
(i) p is the sort of thing you should be angry about. You learn p and youre angry because p.
(ii) p is the sort of thing you should be angry about. You falsely believe p and youre angry because you believe p.
(iii) p is the sort of thing you shouldnt be angry about. You learn p and youre angry because p.
People understand that theres two ways for anger to be irrational or unreasonable. Anger might be the wrong response to the
object of anger or it might be based on an irrational or unreasonable belief. Epistemic assessment is concerned with that second
kind of case, not the rst. Justied anger is limited to (i) and someone might be perfectly rational for being angry if theyre in (ii).
This idea that justication and rationality terms of art is silly. A little googling reveals plenty of discussions by non-philosophers of
justied anger, doubt, fear, regret, etc. and show a willingness to distinguish tting anger from reasonable anger. In turn, these
distinctions have fed into the ways that the law understands things like the excusatory power of anger, fear, etc.
If we want to get a x on the notion of justied belief and the distinction between epistemic justication and epistemic rationality,
focus on cases where the tting response to the fact that p would be to F and think about the difference between rational F-ing thats
merely excusable and justied F-ing.
We might characterize the fundamental epistemic norm this way:
R: One must not believe p unless ones belief in p provides one with a reason for a doxastic, practical, or affective response.
If such a norm governs belief, we have a straightforward argument for externalism about justication.
Step One: Only true beliefs provide such reasons. [Thats because reasons are facts, not states of mind or falsehoods.]
Step Two: There is no norm that conicts with R that requires violating it.
Step Three: Theres no further norm that prohibits believing p in conformity with R.
If it turns out that only beliefs that constitute knowledge provide reasons, justication isnt an internalist notion.
Consider the hypothesis that justied beliefs are beliefs that provide reasons (J=RPR). On this view, justication entails truth. (False
beliefs dont provide reasons.)
Does this view lead to scepticism? It does vindicate the Cartesian view:
CV: It is a conceptual truth that, if conditions C justify belief B for subject S, then C logically entails that B is true.
It should be clear why Cohens objection to CV fails. Cohen assumes that C is the sort of thing that supervenes upon a subjects non-
factive mental states, the things that the demon can manipulate in order to deceive you. What justies that assumption?
I think that Cohen assumes that the things that move you to believe determine whether the belief is justied. Thats part of it, surely,
but the parallel with action is instructive. Nobody assumes that the justicatory status of an action depends just upon the states of
mind that move you or could have moved you, but also upon whether in being so moved youd conform to the norms governing
action. The whole point of an excuse that cites, say, a gust of wind or a nudge is to remind us that facts about norm conformity dont
supervene upon facts about motivation. So, why should we assume in the epistemic case that facts about norm conformity
supervene upon facts about potential or actual doxastic motivations?
If we model our theory of epistemic justication on a theory of practical justication, we might agree that norm conformity depends
upon what moved you to believe, but we wouldnt think that it does so the exclusion of everything else. And we surely wouldnt
think that the fact that the rationality of our responses depends upon the internal that its impossible for there to be external
epistemic norms.

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