Intellectual Virtue and the Justification of Persons

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INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF PERSONS At first glance, it might seem that the distinction between personal and doxastic justification is rather insignificant and peripheral to epistemological matters. It would be tempting to think, for example, that if a particular belief is justified, then the agent is justified in holding that belief. In this way, one might argue either that personal justification supervenes on doxastic justification, or that the two putatively distinct kinds of justification are really identical in nature.1 Either way, it would appear that the concept of personal justification is largely vacuous and can be circumvented by appealing to other more standards notions of epistemic justification. In this essay, however, I hope to correct this assumption by exploring the relevance of personal justification in the context of a virtue epistemology, and by tying it to the intellectual virtues and the concept of epistemic praise.

In particular, I will show how a character-based conception of the intellectual virtues gives rise to a unique emphasis on persons or agents, and how this understanding of justification, in turn, provides the resources for dealing with several problems in epistemology.2 I. Underlying my distinction between personal and doxastic justification is the insight that individual agents can enjoy a positive epistemic status even when their beliefs fail to satisfy basic causal-nomological standards. Consider the familiar thought experiment in which a person unwittingly finds herself in a skeptical scenario, and therefore is incapable of forming true beliefs about her sensory experience. Perhaps this individual is being

1 I wish to remain neutral regarding whether personal justification is better juxtaposed with doxastic or propositional justification. For those interested in considering this matter, see Jonathan Kvanvig and Christopher Menzel, “The Basic Notion of Justification,” Philosophical Studies, Vol. 25 (1990), p. 235-61.

22 To be clear, I don’t presume that my theory is uniquely qualified to deal with these problems. But it does represent a helpful paradigm for creating parity between externalists and internalists.

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deceived by an evil demon or mad scientist—the specific details don’t really matter.3 Although she employs her best efforts to only believe true propositions, and consistently employs practices and attitudes that are widely regarded as truth-conducive, it turns out that none of her beliefs correspond to the true nature of reality. I assume that most observers would be inclined to grant this person a considerable amount of credit for her epistemic efforts. However, it would at least be debatable whether, on the basis of such effort, it follows that her beliefs are justified. According to one generic view of doxastic justification, a belief’s being justified is a product of the probability of its being true. In such a skeptical scenario, however, this condition fails to be satisfied, since the agent’s beliefs have no chance of being true. Some readers might disagree with this insight, and insist that the agent’s beliefs are justified. It is not within the scope of this essay to defend a probabilistic theory of doxastic justification, but it should be mentioned that assuming the truth of this account provides an opportunity for finding common ground between internalists and externalists. As I will argue, the internalist can grant the externalist that doxastic justification is primarily an external matter, while still insisting on the centrality of quasi-internalist themes for personal justification.4 To phrase it differently, by taking doxastic justification to be a product of the causal-nomological factors that obtain between a belief and the truth, we have the opportunity to consider how agents might enjoy a different kind of epistemic status even when such factors don’t obtain.

Despite this potential agreement concerning the epistemic status of the person’s beliefs, there is no standard way of explaining the unique status of the person holding these beliefs. It seems clear that most contemporary theories of justification are concerned with 3 For an excellent treatment of skeptical arguments and solutions, see Keith DeRose and Ted Warfield, eds.

Skepticism: A Contemporary Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

4For those interested in considering the role of probability in epistemic justification, see William Alston, “Concepts of Epistemic Justification,” Monist, Vol. 68 (1985), p. 57-89.

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the status of beliefs. Ironically, this is true even in the recently developed virtue epistemologies, in which presumably more emphasis is placed on persons rather than beliefs. But in all such models, the common theme is that the epistemic status of one’s beliefs is a product of the intellectual virtues employed in the process of believing. And this is true whether one conceives the intellectual virtues exclusively as processes or character traits; even the models of James Montmarquet and Linda Zagzebski, for example, lead to theories of doxastic justification.

What is needed to give shape to these insights regarding skeptical scenarios is a theory of personal justification. In such cases, while the agent practices virtue in forming her beliefs, there are external factors unknown to her that prevent her beliefs from being epistemically justified. Nevertheless, the agent rightly deserves praise for her epistemic efforts, because the character traits she manifests, at least in normal circumstances, would make it more likely that what she believes is actually true. It is certainly the case that she can’t be blamed for being unaware that she is the victim of an evil demon or mad scientist.

So from her own perspective, and from the perspective of neutral observers, she is employing the very practices and attitudes that would, in a different setting, produce fully justified beliefs. So while her beliefs are not justified, she most certainly is, albeit in a somewhat different sense.

Once again, some readers might insist that her beliefs are justified in this scenario.

But this conclusion is only required in the absence of resources for attributing a positive epistemic status to her, qua cognitive agent. That is, one correctly observes that she hasn’t violated any epistemic obligations and deserves some credit for her efforts, but one lacks the ability to attribute anything meaningful to her, from the epistemic standpoint. If my theory

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of personal justification is plausible, however, then we can offer different epistemic evaluations in these scenarios—one for the belief and one for the person.

What is the source of this conflating of personal and doxastic justification? At the very least, it is rooted in the assumption that epistemic justification is primarily a status concerning beliefs or propositions. There is a very good reason for this stance, as beliefs or propositions are more easily analyzable from the epistemic standpoint. For example, one can point to the logical or probabilistic relations that obtain (or might obtain) between a belief and the object of what is believed, and this introduces an element of objectivity into the epistemic analysis. The notion of supervenience is relevant here, in which justification is reduced to the natural features of the belief or proposition in question. But then it is uncritically assumed that because a belief is epistemically justified, it follows that the agent holding the belief is also justified. But the facts which contribute to doxastic justification are distinct from the facts which make the person justified, and so we should resist the temptation to conflate these two kinds of epistemic justification.

To be clear, being personally justified in believing something is not identical with being subjectively justified in believing. There are distinct concepts at work here. When a cognitive agent is subjectively justified, he enjoys some kind of mental access to the facts which provide that justification.5 This is a very specific notion of justification, and it involves having a kind of reflective awareness of the fact that one’s beliefs are justified.6 And while this is an important concept in epistemology, it is not exactly relevant to the matter at hand. One can be personally justified in believing a proposition, even if he is not 5 For a brief discussion of subjective justification, see John Greco, Putting Skeptics in Their Place (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 180-92.

6 To be clear, I don’t think this sort of epistemic justification is plausible, precisely because of the rigorous access requirement it entails. While the theory of personal justification that I’m defending is broadly internalist, it also gives credence to some externalist themes, thus making it distinct from a theory of subjective justification.

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subjectively justified in holding that same belief. This would obviously be the case regarding the victim of the skeptical scenario, who is incapable, through no fault of his own, of satisfying the access requirement for subjective justification. Although he might employ virtuous practices and manifest praiseworthy dispositions in the belief forming process, he is wildly disconnected from reality and so there are no causal-nomological facts for him to mentally grasp.

But even if it were possible for an agent to be subjectively justified, it wouldn’t follow that he is also personally justified in believing, since the belief in question may not be the product of the agent’s intellectual virtue. The reason for this asymmetry regarding these two kinds of justification is simple: what contributes to personal justification is distinct from that which would have to contribute to subjective justification. Personal justification, on my view, is a product of various character traits of the individual; subjective justification would be a product of the agent having the right perspective on the relevant probabilistic and evidential facts. And quite clearly, the one kind of justification could obtain in the absence of the other.

For this distinction between personal and doxastic justification to be intelligible, it requires a disambiguation in how the term ‘justified’ should be understood. Would it prove helpful to employ such a disambiguation in contemporary debates? Jonathan Dancy hinted at this sort of distinction when addressing the possible reconciliation between internalism and externalism. While the terminology he employs is slightly different, the basic idea is similar to what is being developed here. Dancy suggests that we distinguish between subjective and objective justification, in which the subjective variety applies to the agent,

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and the objective variety is relevant to the belief.7 As it turns out, Dancy is concerned that these two kinds of justification are too dissimilar to represent plausible instances of epistemic justification. He argues that a quasi-contradiction emerges in the context of this distinction, in which it is implied that a person can be justified in believing something that is unjustified.8 This particular conclusion, according to Dancy, seems to involve the issuing of contrary prescriptions, resulting in a gap between subjective and objective justification. To put it differently, if a belief is justified, this is to suggest, perhaps among other things, that the agent is within his epistemic rights to believe it. But if the same agent is not personally justified in holding that belief, then this seems akin to claiming that he is not within his epistemic rights to hold that belief.

But this is not a consequence of the approach I’m developing. My view is that the agent can be justified in believing something that itself is not justified, and vice versa. But asserting that a belief or proposition is justified, for instance, is not necessarily to recommend that she should believe anything at all. Part of the difficulty involves the task of specifying an adequate theory of doxastic justification. Ideally, a theory of personal justification would be consistent with either an internalist or externalist understanding of doxastic justification. For instance, assuming that some kind of evidentialist account is correct, one could specify that a belief is justified if and only if, say, it is made probable by the available evidence. Whereas if some version of reliabilism is more plausible, one might claim that the same belief is justified if and only if it is produced by a reliable process and is

7 In spite of the different terminology, Dancy’s understanding of subjective justification roughly parallels my account of personal justification, given that both kinds of justification pertain to agents rather than beliefs or propositions. To be sure, there are important conceptual differences between these models, most notably the fact that I’m developing a virtue theoretic account of personal justification.

8 See Jonathan Dancy, “Externalism for Internalists,” Philosophical Issues, Vol. 2 (1992), p. 101.

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not subject to defeaters. Either way, there is no requirement that the related proposition is actually believed, or that anyone is recommending that agents believe the proposition.

Regarding doxastic justification, this sort of neutrality concerning whether the agent actually believes the proposition is sometimes referred to as “ex ante” justification. The idea developed by Alvin Goldman, for example, is that a belief is ex ante justified when everything is present for full-fledged doxastic justification, were the agent to ever hold the belief in question.9 If something like that is plausible, then it becomes intelligible to claim that a justified belief is not necessarily being recommended to anyone. This would be because the fact that a belief is justified, on my view, owes to all the various causal and probabilistic relations that hold between the belief and the facts of reality, and these relations can obtain whether anyone comes to hold the relevant belief or not. So this is precisely why a theory of personal justification, when combined with a theory of doxastic justification, is not issuing contrary recommendations, despite initial appearances to the contrary. That is, the agent can be personally justified and his beliefs can be doxastically (ex ante) unjustified, which would be to assert that if the agent ever formed the relevant belief, it would fail to satisfy causal-nomological standards, but he or she would still be worthy of epistemic praise.

II. Before addressing some further potential difficulties, it is important to finally specify the nature of personal justification. At the very least, it represents a form of epistemic evaluation which is distinct from the evaluation of beliefs. And as already made clear,

9 See Alvin Goldman, “What is Justified Belief?” Justification and Knowledge, ed. George Pappas (Dordrecht: Reidel Press, 1979), p. 272.

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personal justification doesn’t supervene on doxastic justification, or vice versa. As a first approximation, therefore, consider the following: (PJ) A person is epistemically justified in believing a proposition when she is motivated to believe the truth, and manifests attitudes and employs practices that, in normal circumstances, would make it likely that what she believes is true.

On my view, when a cognitive agent satisfies these conditions, she is worthy of the epistemic praise of neutral observers, which is just another way of saying that she is personally justified. Notice a couple important features of this definition. First, there is a motivational component that is central here. This is a common element in virtue epistemologies, and it similarly belongs in my definition of personal justification. In short, it’s not enough for the agent to be engaged in the right activities, but this must be done for the right reasons, namely the pursuit of truth. To put it somewhat differently, for the agent to warrant the epistemic praise of neutral observers, she must be explicitly motivated by the goal of truth when manifesting the virtuous character traits. This emphasis in epistemology is akin to a similar theme in moral philosophy. Usually the idea is that moral agents must also be motivated, for example, by the good of those affected by their actions, and not merely by the duty to act right or justly. To the degree that this personal element is neglected, the relative virtue of the action is thereby diminished. In my view, a similar argument could be made in the realm of belief, and this theme will be discussed later in this essay. Suffice it to say, the motivational component of personal justification normally precludes agents from being epistemically justified on the basis of perceptual beliefs, although these beliefs might very well be justified. This is precisely because most perceptual beliefs, at least in the standard cases, are not the product of a conscious motivation to believe the truth and are not under the voluntary control of agents.

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Second, the primary factors that contribute to personal justification (that is, attitudes and practices) are very much within the purview of the cognitive agent. On my view, the intellectual virtues are best understood as character traits, rather than cognitive faculties or processes, and this suggests that personal justification is a quasi-internalist concept. It seems clear that these traits, as well as the practices which they ideally produce, are under the agent’s voluntary control and subject to her reflection and analysis; whereas the standard cognitive faculties, such as vision, memory, and introspection, typically function in a more involuntary and non-reflective manner. This difference between character traits and cognitive faculties represents a central reason for generally not applying the concept of epistemic praise to perceptual beliefs.10 By way of example, I can often decide to be more open-minded to new ideas, even when the truth of these ideas will affect me in negative ways. Consider the religious university student who is trying to decide whether to believe in evolution. He is well aware that if the theory is true, this would require him to modify his religious beliefs. And yet he is perfectly capable of analyzing the arguments in a fairly objective manner, allowing the evidence to take him wherever it may lead. Granted, there are times when such objectivity is difficult to manifest, but this is no reason to think that it represents an impossible ideal to achieve. At the very least, when the agent does manifest these sorts of qualities, there is a positive epistemic evaluation that is forthcoming. It is these facts which make it plausible to praise the agent for believing various propositions, and this notion of epistemic praise remains implicit in my definition of personal justification.

10 Of course, there will be exceptions to this rule, such as when the cognitive agent is motivated to believe the truth, and does employ virtuous attitudes and practices, when forming perceptual beliefs. The point is that such cases are sufficiently rare to preclude treating perceptual beliefs as paradigm instances of personal justification.

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Third, whether an agent enjoys personal justification is a function, not exclusively of facts that obtain in her present situation, but rather in normal circumstances. This qualification is intended to safeguard my insight, in response to various skeptical scenarios, that an agent can enjoy personal justification even when most of her beliefs are not justified.

Furthermore, it helps to avoid the criticism that even a fortune teller, for example, could enjoy personal justification.11 To put it differently, while doxastic justification, on my view, is a product of facts that actually obtain, personal justification is a product of facts which would normally obtain. And of course, the obvious assumption here is that skeptical worlds are anything but normal. Since we don’t have any reason to believe that our present circumstances are abnormal for epistemic agents, we are justified in thinking that the attitudes and practices we employ are likely to produce mostly true beliefs, even though it might turn out that we are mistaken. Nevertheless, we would deserve some kind of epistemic praise for our efforts, and therein lies the focus of personal justification.

If personal justification is a function of reliability in normal circumstances, then this may or may not correspond to the way things really are. That is, if a cognitive agent employs practices and character traits that, in normal scenarios, would likely yield true beliefs, then he has satisfied a necessary condition for personal justification. But again, the agent can be justified even if the practices he utilizes, in present circumstances, have a low probability of leading to true beliefs. Of course, this kind of scenario could obtain even in non-demon worlds, so the notion of abnormal circumstances should be conceived more broadly. But it should be clarified that the concept of normal circumstances, on the model I’m developing, is only relevant for personal justification. In other words, I reject the view 11 If such an individual is motivated to seek the truth, and employs practices that are conducive to reaching that end, then it might seem that she is personally justified in her subsequent beliefs. But my point is that in normal circumstances such practices would fail to produce true beliefs, thus precluding the fortune teller from being personally justified in her present setting.

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that reliability can be relative to normal circumstances, when it comes to doxastic justification. I hold that a belief is only epistemically justified when it is produced by faculties or processes that are reliable in one’s present situation. Furthermore, it should be admitted that, on my view, the concept of “normal circumstances” is related to the attitudes and practices that are endorsed by the broader epistemic community, rather than the individual agent. To be sure, this is a somewhat nebulous concept, but it is connected to my motivation for developing a theory of personal justification in the first place. That is, when someone is focused on believing the truth, and is manifesting attitudes and employing practices that he and virtually everyone recognizes as being truth conducive (and when the relevant circumstances are present these beliefs actually tend to be true), then he is worthy of epistemic praise and thereby enjoys personal justification—even if through no fault of his own these beliefs fail to be true, or have a very low probability of being true. As such, “normal circumstances” are, at least partly, those circumstances which virtually everyone believes do obtain, and which they have no good reason for believing don’t obtain.12 It might prove helpful to consider an example, such as the famous barn facade thought experiment, in which someone is driving through a countryside which, unknown to him, is littered with fake barns. As the story goes, the individual forms the belief that he is viewing a barn, and it just so happens that the object he is viewing is the one real barn in the entire area. One might argue that his belief is not justified, since he has no idea that he is

12 It might be further objected that this understanding of “normal circumstances” entails that if we lived in a world in which currently rejected attitudes and methods were instead universally endorsed, and were actually reliable in yielding the truth, then this would represent the de facto “normal circumstance” for epistemic agents in this world, with personal justification then being a product of that stance. But all this criticism amounts to is the insight that we lack objectivity regarding whether our currently accepted attitudes and methods ought to be universally endorsed. And I don’t see how that insight challenges the general point I’m making here, as it pertains to the status of epistemic agents who, through no fault of their own, form beliefs that fail to approximate the truth. If the conditions are satisfied, then surely these individuals are worthy of our epistemic praise, in spite of this possibility.

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currently in barn facade country, and he is completely unable to distinguish real barns from fake barns. And I would tend to agree with this evaluation, since the process used by the agent, at least in the present context, is not reliable for yielding true beliefs. But if we change the details of the thought experiment, it’s possible to show how the agent is justified, even though his beliefs are not.13 Suppose the agent knows that he’s in barn facade country and has developed a technological device for distinguishing real barns from fake barns. However, on this particular day the device is not working properly, a fact that is unknown to the agent.

Nevertheless, as a matter of pure luck, the device indicates that the object in front of the agent is a real barn, and this turns out to be true. Of course, if the agent knew the device wasn’t working properly, he would be hesitant to form the belief in question. But he has no reason to believe that such is the case. On my view, the agent probably deserves epistemic praise for his motivation to believe the truth, and for his efforts directed towards that end.

The fact that the processes he employs to form the belief are not reliable for getting at the truth is not relevant to this epistemic analysis. Rather, personal justification is a function of properties that obtain in normal circumstances. While barn façade country is likely anything but normal, it would still be natural for virtually everyone to expect such a device to work properly in such a situation, which explains why the agent deserves epistemic praise in spite of its malfunctioning. So while the agent’s beliefs are unjustified, he does enjoy personal justification.

One might object to this distinction by arguing something like the following: there is no substantive difference between the agent in barn facade country and, for example, the 13 As a caveat, what follows represents a special case in which a cognitive agent rightly deserves praise for a perceptual belief. But as I stated earlier, it is unusual for agents to be personally justified for such beliefs. My only reason for considering this possibility is to show how my distinction between personal and doxastic justification might get applied in a standard thought experiment.

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isolated inquirer.14 Assuming the latter is not the victim of a skeptical scenario, he is doing his best to discover the truth. But he utilizes methods which are not conducive to reaching that end. In both cases, the agents are properly motivated to believe the truth, and so it seems they should both enjoy personal justification. However, it all depends on what sort of methods the isolated inquirer is using to form his beliefs. If we stipulate that he is appealing to wishful thinking and astrology, for instance, I’m hesitant to attribute personal justification to this individual, primarily because satisfying the motivational component is not sufficient for deserving epistemic praise. My theory of personal justification provides the rationale for attributing a positive epistemic status to agents, even when their beliefs fail to satisfy basic causal-nomological standards. The problem with the isolated inquirer, at least in this case, is that his methods of belief formation, in normal situations, are inadequate for yielding true beliefs. And if such is the case, it’s hard to imagine how he deserves praise for using those particular methods, in spite of his good intentions.15 III. It is rather difficult to identify philosophers that have developed a theory of personal justification. One notable exception to this rule is Mylan Engel, who has helpfully argued for the distinction between personal and doxastic justification, insisting that these two states represent different—though importantly related—kinds of epistemic evaluation.16 Engel 14 For example, suppose a man has lived on a primitive, deserted island for his entire life and has no access to modern technology, the insights of science, nor any exposure to alternative belief systems or methods of evidence gathering. But he is highly motivated to form true beliefs and employs attitudes and methods which, as far as he knows, are reliable in achieving that end.

15 One might still object that this account displays a kind of epistemic chauvinism, in which it’s just assumed that “normal situations” are the ones in which the most widely accepted methods of belief formation tend to produce true beliefs. However, I challenge the reader to provide a plausible reason for thinking that such methods are abnormal, or for thinking that less widely accepted methods are normal. As others have argued, it is inevitable that our epistemic principles will be rooted in assumptions that can neither be proven nor disproven. Suffice it to say, I find this particular assumption eminently reasonable, especially given the absence of any evidence to the contrary.

16 Mylan Engel, “Personal and Doxastic Justification in Epistemology,” Philosophical Studies, Vol. 67 (1992), p. 133-50.

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finds that in much of the contemporary literature, it is just casually assumed that personal and doxastic justification are identical in nature. He calls this assumption the “equivalence thesis,” and his understanding of this thesis very closely parallels the brief account sketched at the beginning of this essay. But as Engel points out, this thesis is not consistent with our real intuitions, nor with the sort of language we utilize when conducting epistemological analysis. One is regularly giving praise to cognitive agents, because of the manner in which their beliefs are formed, and sometimes regardless of the fact that their beliefs are false or not likely to be true. That is, in spite of factors beyond the agent’s control or understanding, we find it easy to evaluate them positively, and to even praise them for being intellectually conscientious: When we evaluate person S as being personally justified in believing that p, we are evaluating S positively from the epistemic standpoint, and when we evaluate S as being personally unjustified in believing that p, we are evaluating S negatively from the same viewpoint. Of course, in evaluating S positively from the epistemic standpoint, we are, in effect, praising S epistemically. Similarly, in making the negative evaluation that S is personally unjustified in believing that p, we are blaming S epistemically for believing that p.17 My intuition is that it makes little sense to praise someone for holding a justified belief, when the fact that the belief is justified owes primarily to factors outside the agent’s cognitive purview. Thus, I agree with Engel that insofar as personal justification is understood in relation to notions of praise or credit, it must be an internalist epistemic status.

But I would prefer to be more specific than Engel in specifying which factors are sufficient for praising the agent. The question is simple: how does one decide whether an agent deserves epistemic praise for believing a certain proposition? Engel’s answer is that this depends on whether or not the agent has been epistemically responsible in coming to believe the proposition in question. And he goes on to list a number of activities that coincide with 17 Engel, “Personal and Doxastic Justification,” p. 139.

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this status: reasoning carefully, checking one’s work, considering defeaters, weighing the evidence, and so on.

To be fair, these are important and relevant practices that should be taken into consideration in evaluating the epistemic status of the agent. But the problem is that they don’t highlight, in the most important sense, what really ought to distinguish a praiseworthy agent from most of her peers—the fact that the attitudes practices she employs are rooted in a disposition that is motivated, above all else, to believe the truth. As briefly discussed above, it’s not enough that the agent engages in the right sort of epistemic practices; rather, she must do so for the right reasons. And it’s at least possible for an agent to engage in these practices without necessarily being motivated to believe the truth. For example, imagine a young scientist who is determined to make a name for himself, and so engages in rigorous testing and analysis to prove some important hypothesis. Suppose further that he is wildly successful in his efforts, and becomes an internationally known expert in the related field. According to Engel’s account, this individual would be worthy of our praise, precisely because he exercised epistemic responsibility in the development of this theory.

But according to the account, our ambitious scientist was not, at least in the relevant sense, motivated by the pursuit of truth. Perhaps some kind of positive epistemic evaluation is forthcoming, but it seems inappropriate to praise this individual in response to his activities. Why is that the case? Because his activities, despite their effectiveness at discovering the truth, did not emerge from a disposition that was motivated towards that end. So perhaps it is reasonable to claim that the scientist is being epistemically responsible, but that is not sufficient for attributing epistemic praise to him.18 That is 18 On my view, notions of epistemic responsibility or permissibility are more relevant to theories of doxastic justification, although at times I will refer to the “responsible” belief-forming practices of virtuous cognitive agents.

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precisely the sort of attribution that is pertinent for personal justification. I believe this suggests that epistemic praise, and therefore personal justification, involves a moral element that other kinds of epistemic justification are lacking. Indeed, the agent who is motivated to believe the truth is not just epistemically praiseworthy, but is also worthy of a positive moral evaluation. And it might be exactly this moral element which primarily juxtaposes personal justification from the doxastic variety. At the very least, it should be clear that what distinguishes my account from Engel’s theory of personal justification is that I place a stronger emphasis on the intellectual virtues, with the result that the agent must be motivated to believe the truth, and form beliefs which are the product of those character traits rooted in that motivation.

If this brief summary of personal justification is plausible, then I believe it provides the conceptual resources for dealing with several troubling problems in epistemology. I’ve already hinted at its relevance for handling skeptical scenarios, but more detail is needed to fill in the gaps. Engel argues that epistemologists have tended to conflate personal and doxastic justification, and this has resulted in wide confusion regarding the legitimacy of, for instance, reliabilist theories of justification. More specifically, one might object to the reliabilist intuition that, in a demon world, one’s beliefs are not justified, since one in this situation is using precisely the kind of cognitive processes which would normally yield justified belief. In other words, a belief’s being the result of a reliable belief-forming process is not necessary for justification, or so the argument might go: Our experiences and reasonings in W are, ex hypothesi, phenomenologically indistinguishable from the experiences and reasonings we would have in a verific world W* where we would indeed be justified in holding the beliefs we do. But since our justification for our beliefs, viz. our experiences and reasonings, is exactly the same in both worlds, intuitively we are just as well justified in holding the beliefs we do in W as we are in W*. Since we are justified in holding our beliefs in W,

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despite the fact that they have all been produced by unreliable [belief-forming processes], it follows that reliable production is not a necessary condition for epistemic justification.19 Nevertheless, Engel thinks the counterexample is not devastating, since it is based on a conflating of personal and doxastic justification. Here’s the basic idea: in the abnormal world, W, the reliabilist would be correct to assert that our beliefs are not justified, but that doesn’t mean that we are not justified. In the same abnormal world, the internalist would be right to point out that we are justified in our beliefs, but this doesn’t mean that our beliefs are justified. The failure to recognize this simple distinction is precisely why these sorts of counterexamples seem more persuasive than they really are.20 Engel then goes on to consider the scenario in which two persons, A and B, manifest very different epistemic properties. A uses practices which, in normal circumstances, are conducive to believing the truth, whereas B does not. Suppose further that A and B actually reside in a world in which an evil demon determines that both of these practices are unreliable in believing the truth, and yet this fact is concealed from both A and B. How would the internalist and externalist, while not respecting the distinction between personal and doxastic justification, typically interpret these scenarios from the epistemic standpoint?

Clearly, the internalist would insist that A and B, qua persons, are subject to different epistemic evaluations. This is because A, from the first-person standpoint, has every reason to believe that his intellectual efforts are epistemically virtuous, whereas B does not. And so the internalist would conclude that A, qua person, is justified. But with the distinction between personal and doxastic justification being ignored, the internalist would also conclude that A’s beliefs are also justified. And this would be the incorrect analysis. On 19 Engel, “Personal and Doxastic Justification,” p. 142.

20 To be sure, one could fruitfully employ this distinction whether he or she is attracted to my unique account of personal justification or not. As such, what immediately follows is a more generic account of how the distinction often gets conflated.

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the epistemic status of the belief, the externalist would actually get it right. In both cases, A and B would have unjustified beliefs, since these beliefs are completely disconnected from the truth. But this would typically result in the conclusion, once again by ignoring the distinction between personal and doxastic justification, that A and B, qua persons, are epistemically unjustified. And this would also be the incorrect analysis as well.

It would be tempting to think, from an internalist perspective, that in the demon world, in which both A and B’s practices are unreliable in yielding truth, that A has justified beliefs and B does not. But if we assume that some version of reliabilism is the correct theory of doxastic justification, then it follows that both A and B have unjustified beliefs, since they both are equally unreliable in yielding the truth. This might be a reason for thinking that reliabilism is false, since it fails to account for the allegedly clear intuition that A’s belief is justified. But it seems more clear that this intuition is only plausible when one is conflating personal and doxastic justification. As long as the distinction is respected, then our intuitions regarding these kinds of scenarios will be satisfied. Once again, it turns out that the beliefs of A and B are both unjustified, and for exactly the same reasons. But this fact doesn’t preclude A, qua person, from being justified in his intellectual efforts. And so both internalists and externalists will develop an incorrect analysis of this situation, based on the failure to properly distinguish personal and doxastic justification.

Recall the fictitious case of Norman the Clairvoyant, who has the inexplicable ability to form true beliefs about random facts, such as the President’s whereabouts. The thought experiment was originally developed to challenge externalist theories of justification, particularly the reliabilist versions. The basic idea is that Norman’s beliefs are reliably produced, and yet are seemingly not epistemically justified, thus calling into question the

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sufficiency of a reliable belief-forming process. Using the previous analysis as a guide, it is easy to predict how Engel will address this case: There certainly are sufficient grounds for a charge of subjective irrationality to prevent Norman from being epistemically justified…All that this shows, however, is that Norman is personally unjustified in believing that the President is in New York City. But Norman’s personal unjustifiedness is irrelevant to the doxastic justificational status of his belief…We should agree that Norman’s belief about the President’s whereabouts is justified, while nevertheless maintaining that, relative to other things he believes, he is beingepistemically irresponsible in holding the belief and is, therefore, personally unjustified in doing so. Simply put, the fault lies with Norman, not with his belief, and our respective justificatory evaluations should reflect this fact.21 Respecting the distinction between personal and doxastic justification results in the conclusion that Norman’s beliefs are, in fact, justified. At some level, this might seem counterintuitive. But if doxastic justification is primarily associated with the notion of probability, then this conclusion is perfectly reasonable.22 The main conclusion is that reliabilism is immune to both kinds of counterexamples, and the primary reason the arguments have exerted such influence is because of the failure to properly distinguish between personal and doxastic justification. In both cases, the argument begins with an internalist evaluation about the agent, but then concludes with a similar evaluation of the related belief. But as already stated, what is true of the individual is not necessarily true of the belief—personal justification is not identical, or reducible to, doxastic justification.

IV. Nevertheless, the notion of personal justification is not without its difficulties.

David Reiter, for example, has questioned the claim that personal justification is actually a

21 Engel, “Personal and Doxastic Justification,” p. 146-47.

22 One might be inclined to modify this analysis of Norman’s beliefs, claiming that his beliefs are merely prima facie justified. On this important concept, see Thomas Senor, “The Prima/Ultima Facie Justification Distinction in Epistemology,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 56:3 (1996), p. 551-66.

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positive epistemic status.23 It seems that for a belief to enjoy such a status, this will be a product of its objective probability of being true. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine doxastic justification not having some intimate connection to the likelihood of a belief’s being true.

But it is clearly unintelligible to speak of persons having an objective probability of being true. So then the question demands to be answered: how are we to understand the claim that these are both positive epistemic statuses relative to some single point of view? Presumably the point is that if both personal and doxastic justitification are relevant to epistemic matters, then one needs to provide an explanation for how they can be conceived so differently, and yet be similarly related.

Part of the problem is that Engel is ambiguous concerning the nature of epistemically responsible belief and how it leads to personal justification. He does provide some examples of the relevant practices, but this doesn’t amount to a detailed account of their properties, nor the manner in which they contribute to the truth-conduciveness of subsequent beliefs. But for that matter, it’s not clear that Engel should want to define epistemically responsible belief along these lines, for then it would be reducible to doxastic justification. To state the difficulty more succinctly: the agent’s belief has positive epistemic status if it enjoys a high objective probability; whereas a person has a positive epistemic status (in believing something) if he came to believe it in an epistemically responsible fashion. However, if being epistemically responsible is sufficiently connected to the notion of truth-conduciveness, then personal justification is related to the high objective probability of what is believed, in which case personal justification becomes a vacuous epistemic status, completely reducible to doxastic justification.

23 David Reiter, “Engel on Internalism & Externalism in Epistemology,” Erkenntnis, Vol. 49 (1998), p. 17584.

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But my intuition is that the property of being epistemically responsible (or rather, epistemically praiseworthy) need not be truth-conducive in present circumstances for the agent to be personally justified. But it should be truth-conducive in normal circumstances.

This would seem to allow both personal and doxastic justification to be in regards to the same subject without requiring that one necessarily reduces to the other. And that’s precisely the account I’ve described as being commonsensical, in which one enjoys doxastic justification, but is not personally justified; or is personally justified, but does not enjoy doxastic justification. Of course, it would be desirable if justification obtained in both senses, and in every situation. But that won’t always be the case, and so this distinction is helpful for allowing us to formulate and defend our intuitions about how to evaluate agents and beliefs from the epistemic perspective.

Again, the question raised by Reiter is, what does it mean to come to believe a proposition in an epistemically responsible manner? It seems that Engel can’t claim that personal justification is a function of the truth-conduciveness of the beliefs which are developed in response to such behavior, for this would threaten the claim that personal justification and doxastic justification are really distinct. And I tend to agree with Reiter that Engel cannot make this claim. The appeal to truth-conduciveness has to be more indirect and subtle, so that personal justification is obviously distinct from doxastic justification. Once again consider how Engel would treat the Cartesian evil demon scenario: the person is justified, but the belief is not. But to claim that this individual is justified is to suggest that she has positive epistemic status, and it’s hard to imagine, according to Reiter, how such a position could be intelligible: Given that epistemic responsibility in this [evil demon] world is highly conducive for false beliefs, and positive epistemic status is a positive status with respect to the

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goal of maximizing truth and minimizing falsehood in a large body of beliefs, how can one properly be said tohave positive epistemic status in one’s belief that the earth is spherical? The problem I am raising is this: the claim that epistemically responsible belief is epistemically positive because it is truth conducive does not appear to cohere well with Engel’s claim that we are epistemically responsible in many beliefs in Cartesian demon worlds.24 In other words, Engel cannot explain epistemically responsible belief according to its truth-conduciveness. But if he can’t explain it along these lines, what other option does he have? Absent a forthcoming account of what it means to be epistemically responsible, it is unclear how to understand the claim that epistemically responsible belief is a positive epistemic status. And to be clear, this is not just a problem for Engel’s theory of personal justification. Insofar as my definition implies the sort of epistemic practices that Engel describes, then I am equally required to deal with this objection.

But it strikes me that there is an easy reply in the waiting. I’ve already mentioned this solution, but it’s worth repeating. For personal justification to obtain, regarding what is believed, probability need not apply—with respect to the actual circumstances. But such probability should apply with respect to normal circumstances. Since what the Cartesian victim believes is, for all we know, highly likely with respect to these circumstances, positive epistemic status is attributed to her, even though in the actual situation the beliefs she forms would not enjoy positive epistemic status. Or to put it differently, in the present circumstance the victim enjoys positive epistemic status, but her beliefs do not. And positive epistemic status is still plausibly connected to the notion of truth-conduciveness, since with respect to the agent’s justification, her practices and methods are likely truthconducive in normal circumstances, though they clearly are not in the present circumstance.

24 Reiter, “Internalism & Externalism,” p. 179.

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An initial problem emerges: how can the agent get credit for something’s being true in normal circumstances, which is not true in present circumstances? It seems that if the agent enjoys personal justification, in the current situation, then this should be a result of facts obtaining in that situation, and not primarily the normal situation. But this is not a debilitating criticism. After all, some plausible theories of knowledge and justification require the satisfying of certain factors in “possible worlds,” before a positive epistemic status can be conferred in the “actual world.” For example, more refined versions of reliabilism appeal to various counterfactuals to ground one’s knowledge or justification in this world. The logic is that for the agent to enjoy the positive epistemic state, she must demonstrate sensitivity to factors which don’t obtain, but easily could have obtained. Such sensitivity is important, according to proponents of such theories, for demonstrating that the agent’s knowledge or justification is not the product of luck or chance. So in general, there is no conceptual problem with attributing an epistemic state to someone in this manner.

One of the greatest strengths of a theory of personal justification is its ability to give credence to internalist notions of justification. Particularly on the account that I’ve developed, there is much that contributes to justification that is internally accessible to the cognitive agent. But there is an underlying tension between mainstream internalism and my theory of personal justification. I take it that most internalists would hold that we are personally justified with respect to our normal perceptual beliefs. But with the requirements for personal justification set so high, how could such an epistemic status be possible? Given the fact that most, if not all, perceptual beliefs are formed in a non-reflective manner, it seems that I’m required to insist that we are not personally justified in such beliefs. Reiter

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has argued that since most internalists will reject this conclusion, personal justification does not, therefore, provide an explanation of these internalist concerns.25 With all due respect to Reiter, this strikes me as a strange criticism. Just because internalists won’t like this characterization of perceptual beliefs doesn’t mean that it is unable to give credence to internalism, nor have relevance for the controversy between internalists and externalists. In fact, Reiter’s criticism of personal justification, on this point at least, just begs the question against the model that I (and Engel) have developed. One of the fundamental conditions of personal justification is the ability to praise the agent in his believing. So it just follows that if an agent holds a belief, and is not subject to epistemic praise for doing so, then he is precluded from enjoying personal justification in that case.

To just insist, as Reiter clearly does, that agents are personally justified in their perceptual beliefs is, once again, to beg the question and thereby ignore the conceptual basis for my understanding of personal justification—to wit, the notions of praise and blame.

The intuition that Reiter seems to be utilizing is that the cognitive agent, in forming a perceptual belief, has not violated any epistemic rules or obligations. Or to put it differently, it is epistemically permissible for the agent, at least in most cases, to form beliefs based on normal perceptual experiences. To be fair, this is a very reasonable epistemic analysis. But my theory of personal justification is rooted in the notion of epistemic praise, not permissibility. And it seems obvious that a cognitive agent, at least in the standard cases, does not deserve praise for forming true perceptual beliefs. Based on this guiding assumption, therefore, it just follows that the agent is not personally justified, even if her beliefs do enjoy a positive epistemic status. Or to put it better, the agent is personally ajustified with respect to her perceptual beliefs.

25 Reiter, “Internalism & Externalism,” p. 181.

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What is the relationship between personal justification and knowledge? Apart from the above considerations, it might be tempting to think that there is a strong probabilistic connection between being personally justified and enjoying knowledge with respect to some proposition. At face value, this seems like a fairly reasonable assumption. After all, if an agent is personally justified, then she has satisfied the highest standards for epistemic activity, and is in a good position to know the truth. But this inference strikes me as too extreme. There are various scenarios that agents might find themselves in which prevent the acquisition of knowledge, even when they are employing the most rigorous epistemic practices and attitudes. Indeed, this is precisely what happens in the typical Gettier scenario, in which there are certain facts, unknown to agent, which prevent her from knowing the proposition in question.

On the other hand, there will be cases in which knowledge does obtain, even though the agent does not enjoy personal justification. This caveat would apply not only to perceptual beliefs, but to the beliefs of young children as well. Surely there is reason to think that most of our perceptual beliefs count as knowledge, and that young children know many things about their environment, in spite of the fact that these individuals typically are not worthy of praise for believing as they do. In other words, being epistemically praiseworthy is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for knowing some proposition.

Reiter is more attracted to the model of justified belief sketched out (but not endorsed by) William Alston.26 He feels that it accommodates the applicability of justification to persons, captures rather closely the flavor of Engel’s concept of epistemic responsibility, and doesn’t have putatively implausible consequence that we are not personally justified in our perceptual beliefs. So here’s Alston’s sketched account: S is 26 See William Alston, Epistemic Justification (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), p. 92-96; 136 -52.

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personally justified in believing p just in case it is not the case that S is epistemically blameworthy for believing that p. And S is epistemically blameworthy for believing that p just in case S’s believing that p stems from a violation of epistemic obligations. It would follow from this account that S’s perceptual beliefs result in him being personally justified in holding them. And it does seem right that beliefs based on perception do not violate any epistemic obligations.

But I would want to insist, with Engel, that the obtaining of this fact is more relevant to whether the agent knows, as opposed to whether the agent is personally justified. This is because, on my view, when agents form true beliefs on the basis of their sensory perceptions, while such a process does not typically involve the violation of epistemic obligations, it also doesn’t plausibly warrant the praise of neutral observers. Once again, this is because sensory perception is usually a non-reflective belief-forming process, and it is rarely motivated by the goal of truth. As such, it fails to satisfy the rigorous standards that I’ve outlined for personal justification. In short, while agents can have justified beliefs (and knowledge) that is derived from sensory perception, this will rarely give rise to personal justification.

Later, Reiter concludes that since personal justification is not exclusively an internalist property, therefore it is not well-suited for providing an explanation of internalist concerns. But neither Engel nor I have intimated that personal justification solves the dilemma between internalists and externalists. Rather, the claim is that insofar as internalists tend to think of justification in personal terms, and externalists in doxastic terms, carefully distinguishing between these kinds of justification can help to explain the nature of the various counterarguments leveled against these respective theories. The nature of these

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arguments, because they don’t distinguish between personal and doxastic justification, tend to sidetrack the discussion, and therefore make it difficult for real progress to occur. But again, this insight, by itself, doesn’t represent any kind of solution to the problem of internalism and externalism.

Back to the original topic—Alston’s sketched proposal. While it’s not an implausible proposal, I do wonder why personal justification needs to be framed so negatively. Again, the fact that an agent hasn’t violated any epistemic obligations hardly warrants praising him for holding a particular belief. I’m also concerned with the strong externalist implication in the definition, though as I mentioned before, I don’t see any reason to insist that everything which contributes to personal justification should be internally accessible to the agent.27 Nevertheless, I do think that most of these factors should be available to the agent’s cognitive purview, and this is precisely why I cast personal justification in the context of the intellectual virtues. At the very least, there should be a sufficient amount of control and internal access to make attributions of praise (or blame) intelligible.

That brings us back to my suggestion, that one is epistemically praiseworthy (or personally justified), when he is motivated to believe the truth, and employs practices or methods which, at least in normal circumstances, tend to yield true belief. On my account, the fact that the practices I use have this result is, from my first-person perspective, internally inaccessible. But then the fact that the practices I use are highly truth-conducive, in my present circumstance, is equally inaccessible to me. But this is no inherent problem 27 In short, I endorse a form of modest access internalism, in which the agent need only have access to the factors which contribute to personal justification (the attitudes and practices themselves), but need not be aware of the fact that the conditions for justification (that these attitudes and practices are reliable in normal circumstances, and that the current circumstance is, in fact, normal) have been satisfied. This disposition results in a quasi-mixed account of justification, in which both internalist and externalist themes play a role.

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for the brand of internalism that I endorse. The issue then becomes that of determining exactly what needs to be accessible for one to enjoy personal justification—that is, to be praised for using epistemically virtuous practices.

Another difference between my preferred model and the one sketched by Alston is that the essential feature, in Alston’s model, that contributes to personal justification is a factor which has no relation to the agent and his conscious activities. And therefore, it makes less sense to speak of praising the agent for the obtaining of this factor. Whereas in the model I prefer, the essential feature is more intimately connected to the agent, since it deals with specific activities (and dispositions) employed by the agent, which the agent has control over and can reflect upon, and so on. In both models, then, there are externalist elements which contribute to personal justification. But in my model, there is enough that is internal to make it intelligible to praise the agent for being epistemically virtuous.28 Of course, I also include factors which lead to the agent, when he is personally justified, to be morally praiseworthy. It is precisely this final feature which serves to distinguish my approach from Engel’s as well.

V. One of the results of this model of personal justification is a rather tenuous connection between justification and truth. Indeed, the connection is primarily motivational in nature, since one can be personally justified even when his beliefs have a low probability of being true. As long as the agent is motivated to believe the truth, and employs the kind of attitudes and practices that are considered likely to be truth-conducive, then the agent is

28 In particular, whether the agent is motivated to believe the truth is certainly internally accessible, and this component is clearly lacking in Alston’s model.

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personally justified. That consequence will strike many readers as counterintuitive. But I submit this is only because they are neglecting to consider the possibility that there are other kinds of epistemic justification, which highlight a weaker connection between justification and truth. This insight shows the sense in which a theory of personal justification is rather inclusive with respect to models of doxastic justification. While I’m generally inclined to think that some form of reliabilism is best suited for this role, I wish to remain open to the possibility that other theories are equally capable of augmenting personal justification.

One plausible strength of my theory of personal justification is that it explains the presence of epistemic diversity, and provides us with the resources for following our intuitions regarding the epistemic status of certain individuals. Montmarquet has addressed this issue, and explains its significance in the following manner: How are we to accommodate the approximate equality of epistemic virtue we find in such diverse agents as Aristotle, Ptolemy, Albertus Magnus, Galileo, Newton, and Einstein? From our present vantage point, we recognizethese thinkers as differing greatly in the truth of their respective beliefs and systems of belief—as well as in the truth-conduciveness of their leading ideas and methodological postulates. How can such rough equality in virtue be reconciled with this verific diversity?29 Montmarquet’s solution is to highlight the intellectual virtues that each of these individuals manifest, in spite of their conceptual differences. And to be sure, I find that proposal very attractive. But he utilizes these virtues in the context of developing a theory of doxastic justification, and he holds that these individuals, because of their similar dispositions and practices, have equally justified beliefs. This is the point at which I part ways with Montmarquet as well; I believe the intellectual virtues are better suited for a theory of personal justification. With respect to these individuals, it is difficult to positively evaluate,

29 James Montmarquet, Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1993), p. 483.

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from the epistemic standpoint, many of their beliefs. But it is quite easy to praise them, qua persons, for their intellectual efforts and general motivation to believe the truth.

I’ve already mentioned the relevance of personal justification for better understanding various skeptical scenarios. And it should be fairly clear how the distinction between personal and doxastic justification proves relevant for clarifying the differences between internalists and externalists. My purpose in treating these issues is to show the relevance of the intellectual virtues for contemporary epistemology. Obviously I’m convinced that the virtues have a special role to play in theories of justification, but this role should not be characterized according to the standard accounts. My theory of personal justification is, therefore, intended to utilize the virtues in a non-standard way, while still allowing them to legitimately contribute to matters epistemic.

Above all, however, I believe that a theory of personal justification, firmly rooted in the intellectual virtues, provides the foundation for taking contemporary epistemology into a new and fruitful direction. In particular, one of my goals is to correct the value monism in contemporary epistemology. While the goal of truth or knowledge is important for epistemic activity, it is not the most significant cognitive end for humans to achieve. On the contrary, there are higher epistemic goods, such as understanding and wisdom, which are more conducive to human flourishing. I am convinced that the intellectual virtues are particularly relevant for such ends, and I am hopeful that such an insight will pave the way for a consideration of whether ethics and epistemology can be viewed as intimately connected normative disciplines.