Possessing reasons: why the awareness-first approach is better than the knowledge-first approach
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Possessing reasons: why the awareness-first approach is better than the knowledge-first approach Paul Silva Jr.1 Received: 18 April 2020 / Accepted: 12 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract In order for a reason to justify an action or attitude it must be one that is possessed by an agent. Knowledge-centric views of possession ground our possession of reasons, at least partially, either in our knowledge of them or in our being in a position to know them. On virtually all accounts, knowing P is some kind of non-accidental true belief that P. This entails that knowing P is a kind of non-accidental true representation that P. I outline a novel theory of the epistemic requirement on possession in terms of this more general state of non-accidental true representation. It is just as well placed to explain the motivations behind knowledge-centric views of possession, and it is also better placed to explain the extent of the reasons we possess in certain cases of deductive belief-updates and cases involving environmental luck. I conclude with three reflections. First, I indicate how my arguments generate a dilemma for Errol Lord’s (2018a) view that possessing reasons is just a matter of being in a position to manifest one’s knowledge how to use them. Second, I explain how my view can simultaneously manage cases of environmental luck without falling prey to lottery cases. Finally, I sketch the direction for a further range of counterexamples to knowledge-centric theories of possession. Keywords Reasons · Possession · Knowledge-first · Awareness · Justification · Knowledge It is now common, though not uncontroversial, to regard facts as the normative reasons that justify our actions and attitudes. But in order for a fact to be a reason that justifies an action or attitude for a given agent it must be a fact that is possessed by that agent. There are a range of views of what it takes to possesses a fact in a way that allows it to function as a reason for an agent, and as has become increasingly common in recent epistemology some have sought to put knowledge in the theoretical forefront. Accordingly, one prominent class of views are centered on knowledge: we possess a
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Paul Silva Jr. [email protected] University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
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fact P as a reason only if we know P (Williamson 2000; Littlejohn 2017) or we are in a position to know P (Lord 2018a; Neta 2017). Discussions of knowledge-centric views of possession have largely overlooked the insight that knowledge is itself an instance of a kind. Quite roughly, if knowing that P is a form of non-accidental true belief that P, and belief is but one way representing P, then knowledge is but one kind of non-accidental true representation that P. I stipulatively call the general state of non-accidental true representation of which knowledge is an instance ‘awareness’. I explore the implications of different substantive characterizations of awareness in light of recent theories of knowledge. The upshot is an alternative way of thinking about poss
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