Epistemic Goals and Epistemic Values

The truth exerts a powerful attraction. Reading the newspaper over breakfast a few months ago, I came across the following quote from Ricky Williams, a running back for the Miami Dolphins who was in the process of walking away from his million-dollar salary to pursue a career in holistic medicine. “I’m going to search for the truth,” Williams said. “Everything I’m doing in my life is about finding the truth.” And Socrates, more notably, could think of no greater compliment to pay his dialogue partners than that they entered the discussion only for the sake of truth. Thus when Socrates lost his patience with someone, it was almost always because the person placed more importance in protecting his reputation, or in impressing the crowd, than in finding the truth for its own sake. There are a variety of conclusions that epistemologists are tempted to draw from such examples. That truth is the goal of inquiry, for example. Or that truth has an intrinsic or standing value for us, insofar as we are cognitive agents. Or even that truth is the only thing, from an epistemic point of view, that has an intrinsic or standing value. These apparently straightforward conclusions lead to a number of significant worries, however. For example, if we say that truth is the only intrinsically valuable thing from an epistemic point of view, then why do we think that knowledge is better than mere true belief, or that a justified true belief is better or more valuable than an unjustified true belief?1 A justified true belief that it is raining is not more true than an unjustified true belief (a lucky guess, for example) that it is raining, so why do we take the former to be more valuable than the latter? Or again, if we think that pursuing the truth is intrinsically valuable, then why are we unapologetically indifferent to so many truths? If you propose an evening memorizing the phone book for Topeka, Kansas, and I decline, have I really missed an opportunity to enrich myself, from an epistemic point of view? If the truth is always intrinsically worth pursuing, then it seems that I have. And yet that conclusion seems ridiculous. In this paper I will sketch an approach to epistemic value that suggests a way around these problems, a sketch that attempts to make sense of the value of truth in our epistemic lives. In the final section I will then consider how this account sheds a different light on the nature of epistemic appraisal in general. Our interest in finding out how things stand with respect to a particular subject—of finding out the truth with respect to that subject—is often motivated by our practical goals. If one of my practical goals is to board the next flight to Chicago, for example, I will be interested in finding out when my flight is leaving and where the plane is docked. Or again, if one of my practical goals is to get the best deal on a new camera, I will be interested in comparing prices with respect to the stores in my area, searching the web for customer reviews, and so on. Practical goals aside, however, we also seem to have a purely epistemic or intellectual interest in finding the truth. Thus as Carl Hempel points out in the opening paragraph of his “Aspects of Scientific Explanation,” in addition to the obvious practical incentives we have for wanting to understand our environment, we also seem to have a distinctively intellectual desire to make sense of the world, a desire rooted in our “sheer intellectual curiosity, in [our] deep and persistent desire to know and to understand [ourselves] and [our] world. So strong, indeed, is this urge that in the absence of more reliable knowledge, myths are often invoked to fill the gap” (1965, p. 333). Along with Hempel, Alvin Goldman likewise points to the non-instrumental or intrinsic value that we often associate with acquiring the truth. According to Goldman: Truth acquisition is often desired and enjoyed for its own sake, not for ulterior ends. It would hardly be surprising, then, that intellectual norms should incorporate true belief as an autonomous value, quite apart from its contribution to biological or practical ends. (1986, p. 98) In later work Goldman (1999, 2002) goes further: not only is truth acquisition intrinsically valuable, but on his view truth acquisition is the only thing that is intrinsically valuable, from an epistemic point of view. Thus he argues that although there are a variety of traits that we value from an epistemic point of view—having beliefs that are justified, for example, or that are rational—all of these other traits are valuable only insofar as they tend to lead us to the truth. Goldman’s view raises important issues about the nature of epistemic appraisal that I will take up again towards the end of the paper. For the moment, however, it will help to take a step back and ask a more basic question: namely, why think that we have this interest in the truth for its own sake in the first place? In other words, why think that acquiring the truth has a more than merely instrumental value for us? In the passage quoted earlier, Hempel offers us an important clue, I think, when he appeals to our natural curiosity to make sense of the intrinsic value that we often associate with acquiring the truth. Goldman too, in his later Knowledge in a Social World, makes the appeal to curiosity explicit: Our interest in information has two sources: curiosity and practical concerns. The dinosaur extinction fascinates us, although knowing its cause would have no material impact on our lives. We also seek knowledge for practical reasons, as when we solicit a physician’s diagnosis or compare prices at automobile dealerships. (1999, p. 3)2 According to both Hempel and Goldman, then, it seems that the reason why we desire truth for its own sake, and quite apart from our practical goals, be to the that we are when of practical importance seems to on finding out how things stand with respect to a our natural curiosity we have a natural interest in finding out how they do According to this way of our curiosity about how things stand in the is the we at when our is our is we our is to a of intrinsic it seems to be a in its own quite apart from it make to our The that we are seems to us with a standing or reason to our a reason that in of the intrinsic value that from our that is not to say that our not to our in our we our in a way that us to our The point is that our seems to have value in its own over and these other if curiosity is in this in respect it is to my this is where a yet also way of about the value of truth its it to be it two as we have because we are we desire the truth for its own sake. and the we when we are our desire for the truth seems or the point of view of our natural curiosity, in other words, finding out the truth with respect to would seem to be of our for this in A do not that of a but to the of knowledge have and has in to its of interest in that in the of the of the of the of the of and and for the p. not a on his that he seems to that his of is than A a an interest in how things or in that is the It is because this conclusion seems so I that the following important seems so namely, is it about a about a of it our The seems because it at this point we have an a our curiosity because it the of and as we the truth. 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So is one of thing we seek with respect to p. point us to make sense of that seems to have of the value of truth from the namely, that our epistemic sense of curiosity, of wanting to about the world, to the to be We are in a to the sense in this is as points in there seems to be no to the of this than that us, and apparently us for own sake. also to why be tempted to think that we have a interest in finding out how things stand with respect to or the number of this than that us seems there is a to think that one to draw of will be curiosity, it is to think, is the of thing that be on a however, for as we know from there be of Thus as there are more natural than there are even there is an of natural in the I to there are more out there that the of than there are that intrinsically interest us, even the number of that intrinsically interest us seems we that to a basic a the of our natural make sense of the intrinsic value that we in acquiring the truth is with a number of For one thing, we have that our curiosity as it is only by a particular of or by so the that our natural curiosity to the intrinsic value we in acquiring the have a we was that even with respect to that our curiosity, not such seem to the of distinctively epistemic or that Goldman and Hempel to at the the of curiosity we with respect to many really going to take this seems rooted in our practical goals or they hardly seem to be intrinsically worth pursuing, from a epistemic point of view. In then, to make sense of the of curiosity that is distinctively to our epistemic goals and we to the sense of we in to we to the we when we think things could have it then when with such that we to are they are this way than I then that because this of this than was we the that our epistemic sense of curiosity likewise seems to the conclusion that finding out the truth with respect to is intrinsically from a epistemic point of view. In the next section I will consider how the of this discussion so on issues of epistemic I to in is that if our conclusions so have on then one way to think about the nature of epistemic it to epistemic to be and even According to Alvin Goldman 2002) and for example, our of epistemic appraisal are because it for a belief to do as justified, from an epistemic point of view, is for the belief to help or the things with intrinsic epistemic value. Goldman the point as I to make a for the of epistemic in the value, or is or The that epistemic to the epistemic value will be a or A or is an epistemic to the that it to or true p. And to We when we it or indifferent for or from point of We will be with the of when we it to be more or from the epistemic point of view, that for the of epistemic The of an to in the and the of our cognitive be better or the goals of And are Along with many other epistemologists I that the of in life is to true beliefs than beliefs about that are of interest to p. we a particular belief then, we are doing is that the belief this epistemic or in of the that it in a to the things with intrinsic epistemic value, true If our however, then at best only a of are for the of intrinsic epistemic value by Goldman and for example, that the to the has you to the number of of on the a few you that there are as we earlier, finding out the truth with respect to the number of of on the is not that is intrinsically worth from an epistemic point of view. For however, we in would epistemic of For example, if you and in we would be to belief on the of we even it and so on. this to for the account in the following For if it is true that even beliefs with respect to intrinsic epistemic be and from an epistemic point of view, then it seems to that our particular epistemic in be in of goals intrinsic epistemic value, at not in the way that Goldman and to from is a I will not take up at this but the basic is to a of epistemic appraisal that both beliefs both with respect to and beliefs with respect to as on with respect to our of epistemic