Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T02:26:31.519Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Entitlement, Epistemic Risk, and Scepticism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2019

Luca Moretti Open the ORCID record for Luca Moretti [Opens in a new window]
Luca Moretti*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Crispin Wright maintains that the architecture of perceptual justification is such that we can acquire justification for our perceptual beliefs only if we have antecedent justification for ruling out any sceptical alternative. Wright contends that this principle doesn't elicit scepticism, for we are non-evidentially entitled to accept the negation of any sceptical alternative. Sebastiano Moruzzi has challenged Wright's contention by arguing that since our non-evidential entitlements don't remove the epistemic risk of our perceptual beliefs, they don't actually enable us to acquire justification for these beliefs. In this paper I show that Wright's responses to Moruzzi are ineffective and that Moruzzi's argument is validated by probabilistic reasoning. I also suggest that Wright couldn't answer Moruzzi's challenge without weakening the support available for his conception of the architecture of perceptual justification.

Keywords

Epistemic entitlementepistemic riskperceptual justificationscepticismCrispin WrightRoger WhiteDuncan Pritchard
Type
Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 576 - 586
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bricker, A.M. (2018). ‘Do Judgements About Risk Track Modal Ordering?’ Thought 7, 200–8.Google Scholar
Chignell, A. (2017). ‘The Ethics of Belief’. In Zalta, E.N. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/ethics-belief/.Google Scholar
Jenkins, C. (2007). ‘Entitlement and Rationality.’ Synthese 157, 25–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansson, S.O. (2005). ‘The Epistemology of Technological Risk.’ Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 9, 68–80.Google Scholar
Hansson, S.O. (2018). ‘Risk.’ In Zalta, E.N. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/risk/.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, J. (2004). Knowledge and Lotteries. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. (1974). ‘Simulation Heuristic.’ In Kahneman, D., Slovic, P. and Tversky, A. (eds), Judgement Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, pp. 201–8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Keynes, J.M. (1937). ‘The General Theory of Employment.’ Quarterly Journal of Economics 51, 209–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGlynn, A. (2014). ‘On Epistemic Alchemy.’ In Dodd, D. and Zardini, E. (eds), Scepticism and Perceptual Justification, pp. 173–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGlynn, A. (2017). ‘Epistemic Entitlement and the Leaching Problem.’ Episteme 14, 89–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGrath, M. (2013). ‘Dogmatism, Underminers and Skepticism.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86, 533–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moretti, L. (2015). ‘In Defence of Dogmatism.’ Philosophical Studies 172, 261–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neta, R. (2010). ‘Liberalism and Conservatism in the Epistemology of Perceptual Belief.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88, 685–705.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchard, D. (2005). ‘Wittgenstein's On Certainty and Contemporary Anti-Scepticism.’ In Moyal-Sharrock, D. and Brenner, W.H. (eds), Readings of Wittgenstein's On Certainty, pp. 189–224. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchard, D. (2015). ‘Risk.’ Metaphilosophy 46, 436–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchard, D. (2016). ‘Epistemic Risk’. Journal of Philosophy 113, 550–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pryor, J. (2000). ‘The Skeptic and the Dogmatist.’ Noûs 34, 517–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pryor, J. (2004). ‘What's Wrong with Moore's Argument?’ Philosophical Issues 14, 349–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schiffer, S. (2004). ‘Skepticism and the Vagaries of Justified Belief.’ Philosophical Studies 131, 525–57.Google Scholar
Silins, N. (2007). ‘Basic Justification and the Moorean Response to the Skeptic.’ In Gendler, T.S. and Hawthorne, J. (eds), Oxford Studies in Epistemology Vol. 2, pp. 108–40. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Silva, P. (2010). ‘How to be Conservative: A Partial Defence of Epistemic Conservatism.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91, 501–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weatherson, B. (2007). ‘The Bayesian and the Dogmatist.’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 107, 169–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, R. (2006). ‘Problems for Dogmatism.’ Philosophical Studies 131, 525–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, C. (2002). ‘(Anti-)Sceptics Simple and Subtle: G. E. Moore and John McDowell.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65, 330–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, C. (2003). ‘Some Reflections on the Acquisition of Warrant by Inference’. In Nuccetelli, S. (ed.), New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge, pp. 57–77. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wright, C. (2004). ‘On Epistemic Entitlement: Warrant for Nothing (and Foundations for Free?).’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 78, 167–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, C. (2008). ‘Perils of Dogmatism’. In Nuccetelli, S. (ed.), Themes from G. E. Moore: New Essays in Epistemology and Ethics, pp. 25–48. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wright, C. (2014). ‘On Epistemic Entitlement (II): Welfare State Epistemology.’ In Zardini, E. and Dodd, D. (eds), Scepticism and Perceptual Justification. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar