Does Knowledge Secure Warrant to Assert?
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DOES KNOWLEDGE SECURE WARRANT TO ASSERT?
E.J. Coffman
University of Tennessee
I defend an argument—the so called Sufficiency Argument (SA)—for the thesis that the truth-value of a
knowledge-ascribing sentence can vary across conversational contexts that differ only with respect to
practical facts (facts about what’s at stake for people in the contexts). The SA depends on the Sufficiency
Thesis (ST): if you know that P, then you are positioned to make an epistemically appropriate (for short, a
warranted) assertion that P.
I defend the SA by defending the ST from four important alleged
counterexamples. I then disable an argument that my defense of the ST undermines another premise of the
SA, thus failing as a defense of the SA.
I. Introduction
I defend an argument—the so called Sufficiency Argument (SA)1—for the thesis that the truth-value of a
knowledge-ascribing sentence (i.e., a sentence of the form ‘S knows that P’) can vary across
conversational contexts that differ only with respect to practical facts (facts about what’s at stake for
people in the contexts). The SA depends on the Sufficiency Thesis (ST): if you know that P, then you
are positioned to make an epistemically appropriate (for short, a warranted) assertion that P. I defend
the SA by defending the ST from four important alleged counterexamples. I then disable an argument
that my defense of the ST undermines another premise of the SA, thus failing as a defense of the SA.
II. The SA Explained
The SA takes off from a pair of cases like the following:2
Low Stakes: Ann and Bob drive past the bank late Friday afternoon. They see that the bank is
very busy. Ann reminds Bob that they needn’t deposit their paychecks before next week. She
then asks him whether he plans to stop now. Having visited the bank a week ago last Saturday,
Bob believes correctly that the bank will be open until noon tomorrow. Bob expresses his true
belief about the bank by asserting: “I was there the Saturday before last and saw the hours posted:
the bank will be open tomorrow.”
1
Jessica Brown (2008, forthcoming) formulates and then rejects a slightly less detailed version of the SA than the
one presented below.
2
Many readers will recognize these as variants of Keith DeRose’s (1992) famous “Bank Cases”.
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High Stakes: Ann and Bob drive past the bank late Friday afternoon. They see that the bank is
very busy. Ann reminds Bob that it’s extremely important that their paychecks be deposited over
the weekend. She then asks him whether he plans to stop now. Having visited the bank a week
ago last Saturday, Bob believes correctly that the bank will be open until noon tomorrow. Bob
expresses his true belief about the bank by asserting: “I was there the Saturday before last and
saw the hours posted: the bank will be open tomorrow.”
From here, the SA runs as follows:
1. In any conversational context, C, ‘Bob knows the bank will be open tomorrow’ is true (in C)
only if Bob has (in C) warrant to assert that the bank will be open tomorrow (i.e., only if Bob is
positioned to make an epistemically legitimate assertion that the bank will be open tomorrow).
2. In High Stakes, Bob lacks warrant to assert that the bank will be open tomorrow (i.e., Bob isn’t
positioned to make an epistemically appropriate assertion that the bank will be open tomorrow).
3. So: in High Stakes, ‘Bob knows the bank will be open tomorrow’ is not true. [1,2]
4. In Low Stakes, ‘Bob knows the bank will be open tomorrow’ is true.
5. So: the truth-value of ‘Bob knows the bank will be open tomorrow’ varies across Low Stakes
and High Stakes. [3,4]
6. Low Stakes and High Stakes differ only with respect to practical facts.
C. So: the truth-value of a knowledge-ascribing sentence can vary across contexts that differ only
with respect to practical facts.
Anyone accepting the SA must abandon the following traditionally popular position:
Classical Invariantism: The truth-value of a given knowledge-ascribing sentence neither varies
across contexts nor depends on practical facts.3
3
Prominent defenders of Classical Invariantism include Jessica Brown (2005) and Timothy Williamson (2005).
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Positions open to those accepting the SA include
Standard Contextualism: (C) + Practical facts do help determine which propositions get
expressed by knowledge-ascribing sentences (for the meaning of ‘knows that’ varies across
contexts differing only with respect to practical facts); but such facts don’t help determine the
truth-values of propositions expressed by knowledge-ascribing sentences (the truth-values of
such propositions are completely fixed by “non-practical” facts)4
and
Interest-Relative Invariantism: (C) + Practical facts do help determine the truth-values of
propositions expressed by knowledge-ascribing sentences (for whether a person knows P depends
in part on how important it is to the person that P is true); but such facts don’t help determine
which propositions are expressed by knowledge-ascribing sentences (the meaning of ‘knows
that’ is invariant across contexts).5
Clearly, much hangs on whether the SA succeeds. Its only questionable steps are 1, 2, and 4. But few
will seriously consider rejecting 4. That is because 4’s denial is (to put it mildly) in serious tension with
knowledge fallibilism, the nearly universally accepted view that “someone can know that P, even though
their evidence for P is logically consistent with the truth of not-P” (Stanley [2005a: 127]).
So, it looks like the only potentially viable escape route from the SA is to reject 1 or 2. But 1
follows from the prima facie plausible ST, according to which knowing P positions you to make an
epistemically legitimate assertion that P.6 Turning to premise 2, given that Ann has (in High Stakes) just
reminded Bob how extremely important it is that their paychecks be deposited over the weekend, Bob’s
outright assertion that the bank will be open tomorrow seems somehow out of place. The impropriety of
4
Prominent proponents include Stewart Cohen (1998) and Keith DeRose (1992, 2002, 2009).
5
Prominent proponents include Jonathan Hawthorne (2004), Jason Stanley (2005b), and Jeremy Fantl and Matthew
McGrath (2007).
6
Explicit advocates of the ST include Timothy Williamson (2000), Keith DeRose (2002), and Steven Reynolds
(2002). Williamson may be better known as a proponent of the view that you have warrant to assert P only if you
know P. But see his (2000: 241, 252), where he says that (a) “If an assertion satisfies the [C rule, which soon
becomes the thesis that warranted assertability requires knowledge], whatever derivative norms it violates, it is
correct in a salient sense [= warranted]” and (b) “To have the (epistemic) authority [= warrant] to assert p is to know
p.”
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Bob’s assertion seems due to his grounds for believing the assertion’s content: if Bob had supplemented
his actual grounds with (say) a confirming telephone call to the manager on duty, his assertion would
have been (at least closer to) appropriate. At this point, the following plausible principle can kick in:
Principle: Absent apparent impropriety of some kind other than K, an item’s seeming to you
improper for reasons of kind K makes you prima facie epistemically justified in believing the
item is K-ly improper. A little more precisely: If an item (i) seems to you improper for reasons of
normative kind K (e.g., moral, epistemic, prudential, conversational) and (ii) doesn’t seem to you
improper in any other way (than K), then (other things equal) you are epistemically justified in
thinking the item is K-ly (e.g., morally, epistemically, prudentially, conversationally) improper.
The preceding points buttress 2 of the SA as follows. In High Stakes, Bob’s assertion seems improper
due to certain epistemic shortcomings he has relative to its content. Simply put, Bob’s assertion seems
wrong, and for epistemic reasons. Further (the argument for 2 continues), Bob’s assertion does not strike
us as suffering from any nonepistemic kind of impropriety. By Principle, then, we’re prima facie (“other
things equal”) justified in thinking Bob’s assertion is epistemically improper. Finally, since we’ve no
defeaters for that judgment about Bob’s assertion, it follows that we’re justified full stop (“all things
considered”) in thinking Bob’s assertion in High Stakes is epistemically improper or unjustified.
In light of the support just sketched for premises 1 and 2, the SA strikes me as being promising
enough to merit careful evaluation. The remainder of this paper will contribute to that evaluative task. In
the next two sections (III-IV), I’ll defend the SA by defending the ST (which, recall, supports premise 1)
from four important putative counterexamples. In the final section (V), I’ll consider an argument that my
defense of the ST undermines premise 2 of the SA, and so fails qua defense of the SA.
III. Four Attempted Counterexamples to the ST
We find four main kinds of alleged counterexamples to the ST in the recent literature.
Here are
prominent instances of the four kinds (I’ll distinguish among the kinds in the next section):
Conjunction:7 Even granting that knowledge is necessary for proper assertion, it is not sufficient.
[…] Now suppose a person knows each of a long sequence of propositions and has deduced and
thereby comes to believe the conjunction. Suppose, further, that while she believes [and thereby
knows] the conjunction, she believes that she does not know the conjunction (perhaps on the
7
Hawthorne (2004: 50).
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grounds of Preface-style considerations: “There’s an excellent chance that I’ve made a mistake
somewhere”). Her own belief that knowledge is absent explains well enough the dubious status
of the assertion ‘The conjunction is true’ in her mouth…
Affair:8 A husband is berating his friend for not telling him that his wife has been having an
affair even though the friend has known of the affair for weeks.
Husband: Why didn’t you say she was having an affair? You’ve known for weeks.
Friend: Ok, I admit I knew, but it wouldn’t have been right for me to say anything before I
was absolutely sure. I knew the damage it would cause to your marriage.
Doctor:9 Matilda is an oncologist at a teaching hospital who has been diagnosing and treating
various kinds of cancers for the past fifteen years. One of her patients, Derek, was recently
referred to her office because he has been experiencing intense abdominal pain for a couple of
weeks. After requesting an ultrasound and MRI, the results of the tests arrived on Matilda’s day
off; consequently, all of the relevant data were reviewed by Nancy, a competent medical student
in oncology training at her hospital. Being able to confer for only a very brief period of time
prior to Derek’s appointment today, Nancy communicated to Matilda simply that her diagnosis is
pancreatic cancer, without offering any of the details of the test results or the reasons underlying
her conclusion. Shortly thereafter, Matilda had her appointment with Derek, where she truly
asserts to him purely on the basis of Nancy’s reliable testimony, “I am very sorry to tell you this,
but you have pancreatic cancer.”
Food:10 Jennifer’s neighbor Ken is a connoisseur of fine dining. As they were leaving Starbucks
this afternoon, Ken told Jennifer that the food at a new local restaurant about which she was
previously quite unfamiliar, Quince, is exquisite, though being in a hurry prevented him from
offering any details or evidence on behalf of this claim. While Jennifer talked with her friend
Vivienne later in the day, Vivienne was fretting over where to take her boyfriend to dinner for
Valentine’s Day. Jennifer promptly relieved Vivienne’s stress by truly asserting, “The food at
Quince is exquisite.”
8
Brown (forthcoming: 11-2). Similar cases include the one Brown calls Result (forthcoming: 11-2) as well as two
that Janet Levin presents in her (2008: 373-5).
9
Lackey (forthcoming: 3-4). The example Brown calls Result (forthcoming: 11-2) is relevantly similar to Doctor as
well.
10
Lackey (forthcoming: 9-10). I’ve lightly edited Lackey’s text, which is written in the first person.
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Each of these examples highlights an assertion that either was, or would have been, inappropriate due to
certain epistemic deficiencies in its agent. Conjunction’s subject thinks she doesn’t know the content of
her assertion. Friend (in Affair) didn’t tell Husband about the affair because he never actually saw the
most incriminating events “with his own two eyes”—otherwise, he wouldn’t have described himself as
having not been absolutely sure. As for Matilda (in Doctor) and Jennifer (in Food), they have only (what
Lackey calls) “isolated secondhand knowledge” concerning (respectively) the diagnosis and the
restaurant. In short, each of the indicated (actual or counterfactual) assertions clearly seems illegitimate,
and for epistemic reasons or considerations. Principle thus pressures us to reckon all these assertions
epistemically improper.
But (we’re to suppose) each subject knows the proposition in question
(respectively: The conjunction is true, Wife is having an affair, Derek has pancreatic cancer, The food at
Quince is exquisite).11 Accordingly, each case threatens the ST—and so, premise 1 of the SA.
I’ll now argue that all four attempted counterexamples to the ST fail. I’ll then fend off an
argument that my defense of the ST undermines premise 2 of the SA.
IV. Defending the ST
My defense focuses on Principle and proceeds in two steps. First, I’ll show that dropping Principle’s
initial “absence” rider (which shows up as clause [ii] in the second, more precise statement of Principle)
yields a thesis that’s clearly false, thereby underscoring how crucial that clause is to Principle. I’ll then
argue that none of our four attempted counterexamples to the ST meets that clause—thus, none combines
with Principle to threaten the ST.
First, an argument that dropping Principle’s “absence” clause yields a thesis that’s clearly false.
Here’s what results from dropping that clause:
Principle+: If an item seems to you improper for reasons of normative kind K, then (other things
equal) you are epistemically justified in thinking the item is K-ly improper.
To begin to see that Principle+ is false, consider the following familiar passage from Chisholm (1977: 123):
[I]t is at least conceivable that a man may have the duty to accept a true proposition which he
does not know to be true. For example, a man may have the duty to believe that the members of
11
[suppressed] pointed out that some will sensibly think Conjunction’s subject’s belief that she’s ignorant of the
conjunction prevents her belief in the conjunction from constituting knowledge. I agree, but am granting the subject
knowledge of the conjunction for argument’s sake.
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his family are honest or faithful without in fact knowing that they are. Or a sick man, who has
various unfulfilled obligations, may have the duty to accept certain propositions [about his
prospects for recovery] if, by accepting them, he can make himself well and useful once again.
A person in circumstances like those Chisholm describes may be epistemically justified in believing
propositions it would be morally or prudentially inappropriate for him to believe. For example, we can
imagine a scenario in which it would be morally improper for you to form a certain negative moral
judgment about a close friend or relative of yours—you morally ought to give this person the “benefit of
the doubt”—, notwithstanding the fact that you are epistemically justified in holding that negative moral
belief. Now add this detail: while you’re not presently positioned to know the negative moral proposition
to be true, it would be morally permissible for you to believe the proposition if you were positioned to
know it’s true (for then, we’re imagining, there wouldn’t be any significant doubt left for the person in
question to benefit from). Suppose that, under such conditions, you go ahead and form an epistemically
justified negative moral belief about the relevant person (e.g., that he’s dishonest). Because you’re not
now positioned to know your negative belief’s content, you’re not now morally justified in holding it. So,
your negative moral belief is epistemically justified yet morally unjustified, and for epistemic reasons (for
one thing, it’s held by someone who’s not now positioned to know that its content is true). More
generally, there could be an item that’s K-ly proper yet improper in some other way for reasons or
considerations of kind K. While impropriety due to reasons of kind K and being K-ly improper often
travel together, they sometimes part ways.
We now have all we need to construct a counterexample to Principle+. Suppose you learn that I
believe, without knowing, a certain negative moral proposition about a close friend or relative of mine. It
seems to you that my holding that negative moral belief is itself morally wrong, and for epistemic reasons
or considerations: I harbor some doubt that I morally ought to be letting this person benefit from, but I’m
not. By Principle+,12 you’re now justified in thinking my negative moral belief is epistemically improper
or unjustified. But you’re not now justified in viewing my belief as epistemically improper: for all you
know, after all, I’m in a quite strong epistemic position relative to the content of my negative moral belief
(perhaps I have very strong evidence for the proposition, etc.). So, Principle+ turns out to be false: even if
an item seems improper to you for reasons of kind K, you may nevertheless lack prima facie justification
to believe the item is K-ly improper. Note, finally, that the logically weaker (than Principle+) Principle is
perfectly consistent with the preceding example: in this case, while my belief seems wrong to you for
epistemic reasons, the belief also strikes you as morally unjustified. So, this case doesn’t meet Principle’s
12
And supposing ceteris are paribus—e.g., you lack reason to think my belief is epistemically justified.
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crucial “absence” rider. Accordingly, unlike Principle+, Principle does not predict that you are prima
facie justified in thinking my negative moral belief is epistemically improper or unjustified.
Now for an argument that all four attempted counterexamples to the ST violate Principle’s crucial
“absence” clause—and so, fail to combine with Principle to impugn the ST. A case violates Principle’s
“absence” rider if, upon close inspection, the target item (e.g., an assertion) seems improper for reasons of
kind K yet also seems improper in some other way (than K). As we’ve seen, in such a case you may well
lack justification to believe the item is K-ly improper, notwithstanding the item’s apparent impropriety for
reasons or considerations of kind K.
On reflection, all the (actual or counterfactual) assertions in our attempted counterexamples to the
ST seem to suffer from some or other nonepistemic kind of impropriety. Let’s take them in the order they
were introduced. Starting with Conjunction, the subject’s asserting ‘The conjunction is true’ would
clearly seem conversationally inappropriate to us.
For that assertion would (among other things)
obviously generate the false implicature that the subject does not now take herself to be ignorant of the
conjunction.
In Affair, Friend makes clear that he lacked certain important kinds of evidence for the affair’s
occurrence—e.g., Friend never saw the most incriminating events “with his own two eyes” (otherwise, he
wouldn’t have described himself as being less than absolutely sure). Given that Friend lacked such
evidence, his flatly telling the husband that the wife has been unfaithful would have seemed at least
somewhat morally and/or prudentially questionable to us. I speculate that our sense of moral and/or
prudential impropriety would stem at least partly from considerations like these. For starters, intervention
by an “outsider” like Friend is often wrong in such scenarios because it takes away the offending party’s
opportunity to “come clean” on their own. Moreover, since (as he indicates) Friend did harbor some
doubt about the affair’s occurrence, he morally ought (for the time being, at least) to have given the wife
the benefit of that doubt, and so refrain from telling the husband that his wife has been unfaithful. Finally
(and on a related note), since there was some chance (for Friend) that the situation wasn’t exactly what it
appeared to be, in telling the husband that his wife has been unfaithful Friend would have run the risk of
seriously upsetting the husband and (at least temporarily) damaging the marriage for no very good reason.
In Doctor, Matilda’s flatly telling Derek that he has pancreatic cancer clearly seems, in the first
place, professionally improper. (We’re strongly inclined to say: “Matilda is behaving unprofessionally.”)
For when she tells Derek that he has pancreatic cancer, Matilda isn’t able to convey to him any of the
“reasons underlying [the diagnosis]”. All she can now say in support of her distressing news is “That’s
what my competent student Nancy told me”. Given how woefully unprepared Matilda is to discuss
Derek’s condition with him, starting that discussion as she does seems quite unprofessional. Given
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Matilda’s apparent failure to fulfill important professional responsibilities, her behavior will also strike
many (if not most) of us as both morally and prudentially problematic.
Finally, consider Food. Here, Jennifer takes on the role of informant or advisor with respect to an
issue about which she has only “isolated secondhand knowledge”.
Further, she takes on this role
voluntarily, and by way of an unqualified assertion (as opposed to hedging with something along the lines
of “Well, someone I trust about such things told me…”). Finally, Jennifer gained her belief about Quince
from a source (Ken) that Vivienne (Jennifer’s testifee) hasn’t acknowledged as an authority on the
relevant subject matter. In light of all this, Jennifer’s assertion should strike us as imprudent; and I
suspect some readers will feel her assertion was at least a touch morally questionable as well.
Considerations like the following give rise to a sense of prudential and/or moral impropriety surrounding
Jennifer’s assertion. Suppose (as Jennifer should think at least somewhat likely) Vivian immediately
responds to the assertion in any of a wide range of very natural ways—e.g., “So tell me about its
ambience…” or “Which dishes do you recommend?”
Or, suppose Vivian goes on to have a bad
experience at the restaurant and subsequently brings it up with Jennifer: “What did you have there?” or
“Your service must have been much better than ours was…” In even the best case, Jennifer would suffer
nontrivial embarrassment for no very good reason; in the worst case, her friendship with Vivienne would
be somewhat damaged.
All four cases, then, appeal to (actual or counterfactual) assertions that do (or would) seem clearly
to involve some or other nonepistemic sort of impropriety (conversational, moral, prudential, professional,
…). The upshot is that none of the examples satisfies Principle’s crucial “absence” clause. But then none
of the cases will combine with Principle to engage the ST after all. We can conclude that the ST—and
more broadly, the SA—survives confrontation with these four cases.
I’ll now explain and disable an argument that this defense of the ST actually undermines premise
2 of the SA, thus failing qua defense of the SA.
V. Does My Defense of the ST Defeat the SA?
In her (forthcoming: 13-4), Jessica Brown criticizes the basic strategy I’ve employed in defending the
SA:13
While this strategy may enable one to defend the ST against the proposed counterexamples, …it
is not helpful to anyone concerned to use the ST in the SA… The SA attempts to combine the ST
with the intuition that, in High Stakes, Bob is not in a good enough epistemic position to assert
13
[suppressed]. (I’ve lightly edited this quotation to make it fit with my particular examples and labeling.)
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that the bank will be open tomorrow in order to conclude that, in High Stakes, Bob does not know
that the bank will be open tomorrow. Once one allows that a number of different norms may
impose potentially differing epistemic conditions on assertion, it is no longer clear that the
relevant intuition and the ST concern the same notion of propriety. […] Perhaps, in High Stakes,
Bob is in a good enough epistemic position for his assertion to be epistemically appropriate, but
not in a good enough epistemic position for his assertion to be appropriate in other senses. Thus,
the suggested defense of the ST opens up the SA to the charge that it fails through a fallacy of
equivocation on the relevant notion of an assertion’s being appropriate.
Brown and I agree on this much: my kind of defense of the ST does indeed “open up the [SA] to the
charge” that High Stakes involves some or other nonepistemic kind of impropriety. If the charge sticks,
High Stakes won’t combine unproblematically with Principle to justify premise 2 of the SA. Essentially,
the SA’s proponent faces a potentially nasty dilemma: In light of the attempted counterexamples to the
ST, either he employs the defense presented in the last section or he doesn’t. If he employs that defense,
he undermines premise 2. And the support for premise 1 (= the ST) is neutralized if he doesn’t employ
the defense. The critical question, then, is whether the charge that High Stakes involves some or other
nonepistemic kind of impropriety really will stick. Let me explain why it won’t.
By Principle, when it’s clear to you that an item is inappropriate due to relevant epistemic
shortcomings, you’re thereby prima facie justified in thinking the item is epistemically inappropriate—
provided you’ve no sense that the item suffers from some or other kind of nonepistemic impropriety. As
we’ve seen, in all four attempted counterexamples to the ST, we do have the sense that the target assertion
suffers from some kind of nonepistemic impropriety. As it turns out, though, no such sense need arise
with respect to High Stakes. Unlike all the attempted counterexamples to the ST, High Stakes can satisfy
Principle’s crucial “absence” clause—with the result that High Stakes can be cleanly combined with
Principle to support premise 2 of the SA.
Let’s make sure I’m right in suggesting that, properly described, High Stakes won’t generate in us
any sense of nonepistemic impropriety. Start with professional impropriety. Unlike Matilda in Doctor,
Bob’s assertion in High Stakes isn’t made in any kind of professional capacity. So Bob’s assertion in
High Stakes can’t qualify as unprofessional.
Further, his assertion doesn’t seem conversationally
inappropriate. Granted: if Bob had simply asserted “The bank will be open tomorrow”, that might have
generated the false implicature that he has different evidence for his assertion than he actually does (say,
confirming testimony a little while ago from the manager on duty). But recall Bob’s overall assertion: “I
was there the Saturday before last and saw the hours posted: the bank will be open tomorrow.” By
describing the grounds on which he’s basing his belief about the bank, Bob cancels various false
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implicatures concerning his evidence that might have been generated otherwise. So it’s hard to see how
Bob’s assertion could have been conversationally inappropriate.
Some (perhaps many) will worry that Bob’s assertion was morally inappropriate. The most
promising way to try to bring out the alleged moral impropriety of Bob’s assertion, it seems to me, is to
invoke something like the following claim: Bob’s assertion manifests culpable insensitivity to Ann’s
obvious deep concern about the paychecks being deposited over the weekend.14 Notice, however, that we
can amplify High Stakes so that Bob’s assertion is framed as follows:
I can see how this could keep you worried all night. So we can definitely stop now if you
want me to go in and make sure. But I was there the Saturday before last and saw the hours
posted: the bank will be open tomorrow.
In this slightly amplified version of High Stakes, Bob’s assertion about the bank still seems improper due
to epistemic deficiencies he has relative to its content. In short, the assertion still seems somehow wrong,
and for epistemic reasons. Crucially, though, Bob now seems duly sensitive to Ann’s obvious deep
concern about their paychecks. I conclude, then, that supplementing the SA with the slightly amplified
version of High Stakes protects the SA from the proposal that Bob’s assertion is somehow morally
inappropriate.
I think that the best way to formulate Brown’s suggested dilemma for my defense is to try
assimilating High Stakes to Food. The dilemma’s proponent should say that—like Jennifer’s assertion (in
Food) that the food at Quince is exquisite—Bob’s assertion (in High Stakes) that the bank will be open
tomorrow is imprudent, owing to Bob’s epistemic shortcomings vis-à-vis the target proposition.
But a little reflection reveals that Bob’s assertion in High Stakes differs importantly from
Jennifer’s assertion in Food. What made Jennifer’s assertion imprudent (and perhaps even a touch
immoral), recall, is that she voluntarily took on the role of advisor by unqualifiedly expressing isolated
secondhand knowledge gained from a source that her testifee hadn’t acknowledged as an authority on the
relevant subject matter. By contrast, Bob’s assertion about the bank expresses a belief grounded in both
(a) pertinent “firsthand knowledge” (he was recently in the bank on a Saturday) and (b) testimony from a
source (the bank itself, via its posted hours) that Ann would acknowledge as an authority on the relevant
subject matter (the bank’s hours into the not-too-distant future). On close inspection, then, we see that
Bob’s assertion about the bank lacks the very features that made Jennifer’s assertion about the restaurant
imprudent (and maybe also a touch immoral). Clearly, then, Bob’s assertion in High Stakes differs
14
Thanks to [suppressed] and [suppressed] for suggesting this strategy.
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importantly from Jennifer’s assertion in Food. So far as I can see, we’ve no good reason to judge Bob’s
assertion prudentially inappropriate.
By way of conclusion, then: High Stakes differs from all four attempted counterexamples to the
ST in that we lack good reason to think it involves some or other nonepistemic kind of impropriety. The
envisaged dilemma for the proponent of the SA thus fails: the SA’s proponent can employ the above
defense of the ST without thereby undermining her second premise. I submit that my defense of the ST
constitutes a successful defense of the SA from the four attempted counterexamples considered above.15
15
[acknowledgements]
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References
Brown, Jessica. 2005. “Adapt or Die: The Death of Invariantism?” Philosophical Quarterly 55: 263-85.
———. 2008. “The Knowledge Norm for Assertion.” Philosophical Issues 18: 89-103.
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