Pragmatic Encroachment, Religious Belief and Practice

A. Rizzieri

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137009418
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy of Religion

Engaging several recent and important discussions in the mainstream epistemological literature surrounding 'pragmatic encroachment', the volume asks, amongst others, the question: Do the high stakes involved in accepting or rejecting belief in God raise the standards for knowledge that God exists?

1

Breaking with Orthodoxy: Encroachment and the Bank Cases

I Overview

According to an important tradition that has been passed down through many centuries, only truth-conducive epistemic desiderata such as reliability, evidence, safety considerations, and the like determine whether or not s’s true belief that p amounts to knowledge that p.¹ This tradition has recently been named “intellectualism” and it is the reigning orthodoxy in contemporary analytic epistemology.² Orthodoxies tend to travel in packs. What would original sin be without substitutionary atonement? Trickle-down economics without widespread income disparity?

More relevant for our purposes, what would intellectualism be without strict invariantism? Strict invariantism is the view that the level of epistemic support all subjects s need towards all propositions p in order to know that p remains constant across contexts.³ All strict-invariantist views of knowledge I am aware of entail intellectualism, but not vice-versa. Contextualists, such as Stewart Cohen and Keith DeRose, have challenged strict invariantism whilst seeking to preserve intellectualism (Cohen 1999; DeRose 2009).⁴ In contrast, defenders of pragmatic encroachment (encroachment for now) have launched reform movements that target both intellectualism and strict invariantism (John Hawthorne 2004; Jason Stanley 2005; Fantl and McGrath 2002, 2007, 2009a, 2009b). Encroachment is the view that practical factors such as the practical stakes associated with acting as if that p, including the propriety of asserting that p, also constitute necessary conditions on knowledge.

Ironically, an important link in the chain of defense of encroachment is the claim that various principles which connect knowledge and practical reasoning are the best explanation of our intuitions in the bank and airport cases originally developed by DeRose and Cohen respectively (see below). DeRose and Cohen developed these cases in order to defend contextualism against strict invariantism, but not to defend encroachment (Cohen 1999; DeRose 1992).

Our focus in this chapter is a defense of encroachment on the basis of DeRose-type bank cases. I say “DeRose-type” because there are features in DeRose’s original presentation of the cases I prefer to leave out. Let us proceed as follows. In Section II, I give the cases as DeRose initially described them, indicate some concerns, and propose an altered set of cases that avoid these concerns. In Section III, I do two things. First, I introduce a principle of encroachment – Fantl and McGrath’s “knowledge-action” principle (KA for now) – and argue that it successfully accounts for our intuitions in the bank cases (Fantl and McGrath 2007).⁵ I also discuss whether or not KA commits us to the view that encroachment has a moral dimension and argue that it does under some circumstances. Finally, I discuss a principle which is deducible from KA, namely KNA (s knows that p only if s is not negligent in acting as if that p), in this section as well.

Section IV of this chapter is dedicated to undermining several competing strict-invariantist explanations of our intuitions in the bank case.⁶ In the course of doing so I argue that KA is grounded in its epistemic counterpart, EA (s is justified that p only if s is rational to act as if that p). I also consider and reject Keith DeRose’s contextualist interpretation of these cases. With this defense that stakes can indeed affect the level of justification which is necessary for s to know that p in place, I pass on to Chapter 2 where I apply these insights to religiously significant propositions such as “God exists,” “God does not exist,” and “Jesus rose from the dead.” Further principles of encroachment will be defended in Chapter 3 where I defend an internalist constraint on epistemic justification.⁷

The lengthy defense of encroachment in this chapter will facilitate our discussions of religious knowledge in the rest of the book.

II Introducing the bank cases

These are the bank cases as DeRose originally presented them:

Bank Case A: My wife and I are driving home on a Friday afternoon. We plan to stop at the bank on the way home to deposit our paychecks. But as we drive past the bank we notice that the lines inside are very long, as they often are on Friday afternoons. Although we generally like to deposit our paychecks as soon as possible, it is not especially important in this case that they be deposited right away, so I suggest that we drive straight home and deposit our paychecks on Saturday morning. My wife says, “Maybe the bank won’t be open tomorrow. Lots of banks are closed on Saturdays.” I reply, “No, I know it’ll be open tomorrow. I was just there two weeks ago on Saturday. It’s open until noon.”

Bank Case B: My wife and I drive past the bank on a Friday afternoon, as in Case A, and notice the long lines. I again suggest that we deposit our checks on Saturday morning, explaining that I was at the bank on Saturday morning only two weeks ago and discovered that it was open until noon. But in this case we have just written a very large and important check. If our paychecks are not deposited into our checking account before Monday morning, the important check we wrote will bounce, leaving us in a very bad situation. And, of course, the bank is not open on Sunday. My wife reminds me of these facts. She then says, “Banks do change their hours. Do you know that bank will be open tomorrow?” Remaining as confident as I was before that the bank will be open then, I still reply, “Well no, I’d better go in and make sure.” (DeRose 1992: 913)

The essential component of these cases is that a single subject (DeRose) has the same levels of epistemic support for a proposition p (the bank is open on Saturday until noon) in each case, yet we are inclined to think that the strength of DeRose’s epistemic support for that p is sufficient for knowledge that p in Case A, but not in Case B unless he double-checks.

There are features of these bank cases that I would like to ignore. In each case DeRose’s wife gives a reason why the bank might not be open on Saturday. Mentioning a possibility α, which supports that not-p, is a mechanism quite distinct from stakes considerations for rendering α a possibility s needs to be able to rule out based on her evidence in order to know that p.⁸ Several critics of either contextualist or encroachment theories of knowledge have noted that DeRose’s bank cases involve both the highlighting of a specific possibility of error and a rise in stakes (Brown 2008; Schaffer 2006; Fantl and McGrath 2009b). Furthermore, the possibility of error, which DeRose’s wife highlights, is not kept constant across the two cases.

Jonathan Schaffer argues that when a specific possibility of error is not mentioned, a mere shift in what is at stake for the subject does not raise the epistemic requirements for s’s knowledge that p. Schaffer also notes that DeRose’s desired verdict is explicitly stated in these cases.⁹ I have more sympathy for Schaffer’s second concern than I do for his claim that the explicit mention of a relevant alternative is what undermines DeRose’s knowledge in Case B. This is because a relevant alternative to that p is mentioned in both cases. Nobody engaged in this dispute denies attributing knowledge that p to DeRose in Case A is the correct attribution. Yet, if Schaeffer is correct and the mere mentioning of a possibility that not-p destroys s’s knowledge that p, then DeRose lacks knowledge that p in both bank cases. In any case, Schaeffer’s second concern is a serious one and motivates a change in how these cases are presented. Schaffer provides minimal pairs of bank cases which merely detail a change in stakes in order to discern whether or not such a shift is indicated by the subject’s practical environment.

Following Schaffer, I will now provide my own minimal pair of cases. Consider the following:

Case 1 (low stakes): Hanna is deciding whether to transfer money to her grandmother on Friday or wait until Saturday morning. Hanna has a good memory and she remembers transferring money on Saturday just two weeks ago. It is not particularly important that the money gets transferred by Saturday morning. Her grandmother has enough money for her purposes already. Hanna has a true belief that she can perform the transfer service on Saturday. Does Hanna know that the bank will be open and offer the transfer service on Saturday?

Case 2 (high stakes): Hanna is deciding whether to transfer money to her grandmother on Friday or wait until Saturday morning. Hanna has a good memory and she remembers transferring money on Saturday just two weeks ago. If Hanna does not transfer the money by Saturday morning, her grandmother will not be able to pay for a life-saving surgery. Hanna has a true belief that she can perform the transfer service on Saturday. Does Hanna know that the bank will be open and offer the transfer service on Saturday (that o for now)?

I pause in order to ask the reader at this point if you would attribute knowledge that o to Hanna in Case 1, but not in Case 2. If you would, then you have bought into the puzzle raised by these cases most relevant to the debate over encroachment. Namely, why do we attribute knowledge that o to Hanna in Case 1, but not in Case 2, even though her evidence is the same in each case and the only difference is what is at stake in her decision?¹⁰ It is important to note that accepting the puzzle does not commit one to a solution which entails encroachment. This is evidenced by the fact that many solutions to the puzzle have been proposed by DeRose himself and strict invariantists such as Timothy Williamson, Jennifer Nagel, and Kent Bach all of whom deny encroachment (Bach 2005; Nagel 2008, 2011; Williamson 2005b). These purported solutions will be discussed in Section IV where I will attempt to undermine them.

III Two principles of encroachment and the puzzle

A Fantl and McGrath’s “knowledge-action” principle

Let us begin this section by detailing an encroachment principle which, if veridical, successfully accounts for our intuitions in regard to the bank cases. Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath have recently defended the following principle which posits a necessary connection between an agent’s knowledge that p and an agent’s practical decision-making (2007):

KA:

S knows that p only if s is rational to act as if p.

What is meant by “S is rational to act as if p”? Let us focus on Hanna’s belief that o. If the course of action that is the most rational for Hanna to take, all things considered, is also the most rational course of action for Hanna to take on the assumption that o then Hanna is rational to act as if that o (Fantl and McGrath 2007: n. 2).

In Case 1 it is highly likely Hanna’s belief that o is true. There is a minor disutility involved in checking if it turns out that Hanna’s belief that o is true (the time wasted checking), and there is also a minor positive utility if she is wrong (she avoids having to come back on Monday). Hence, when we “crunch the numbers,” stakes do not cause a rise in standards for Hanna’s knowledge that o because it is reasonable for her to act as if that o in Case 1 without checking further. More specifically, the expected utility of acting on the assumption that o is greater than the expected utility of not acting on the assumption that o.¹¹

What about Case 2? When we apply KA to Case 2 we get the result that Hanna cannot rationally act as if that o. With so much at stake she would be morally negligent and, more relevant to KA, would not be acting in accord with her interest in seeing her grandmother survive. The disutility of her grandmother’s potential demise far outweighs the disutility of taking the time to double-check. Hence KA can explain why higher standards for knowledge are operative in Case 2.

It is worth noting that one does not have to rely on one’s mere “...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1 Breaking with Orthodoxy: Encroachment and the Bank Cases
• 2 High Stakes and Religiously Significant Propositions
• 3 An Encroachment Argument for Internalism
• 4 Reformed Epistemology in Light of Encroachment
• 5 The Justification of Action-Guiding Beliefs: A Positive Account
• 6 James and the Justification Norm of Belief and Action
• Bibliography
• Index