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Epistemic Responsibility

J. Angelo Corletta
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San Diego State University, California, USA

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International Journal of Philosophical Studies Vol. 16(2), 179200

Epistemic Responsibility1
J. Angelo Corlett
acorlett@mail.sdsu.edu
International
10.1080/09672550802008625
RIPH_A_301028.sgm
0967-2559
Original
Taylor
202008
16
J.
000002008
AngeloCorlett
&
Article
Francis
(print)/1466-4542
Journal of Philosophical
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Francis

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Abstract
Given the hundreds of articles and books that have been written in epistemology over the span of just the past few decades, relatively little has been written
specifically on epistemic responsibility. What has been written rarely considers
the nature of epistemic responsibility and its possible role in epistemic justification or knowledge. Instead, such work concerns philosophical analyses and
arguments about related concepts such as epistemic virtues or duties, rather
than epistemic praiseworthiness and blameworthiness.2 It is epistemic responsibility in the blameworthiness and praiseworthiness senses that is the primary
concern of this paper, though the duty sense of epistemic responsibility is
explored in terms of its pertinence to epistemic virtue. What is epistemic
responsibility? And what, if anything, is its relationship to justification and
knowledge?
Keywords: knowledge; intentionality; justification; luck; responsibility;
voluntariness

Introduction
Amidst the multifarious disagreements between epistemologists about the
nature of knowledge, most concur that cognizers often are and ought to be
responsible ones. Indeed, Laurence Bonjour avers that the idea of being
epistemically responsible is the core of the concept of epistemic justification.3 Yet it is unclear precisely what is meant by such a claim. This paper
seeks to analyse philosophically the nature of epistemic responsibility as a
condition of justification. This implies, of course, that epistemic responsibility is a condition of knowledge given that justification is a condition of
knowledge.4 In our search for the most plausible analysis of knowledge,
then, it is incumbent on us to analyse the nature of epistemic responsibility.
In turn, this might confirm the plausibility of certain epistemologies over
others, other things being equal.
This paper is concerned with analysing the concept of epistemic responsibility as it may concern the blameworthy and praiseworthy and duty uses
and senses of responsibility. Indeed, it will be argued that to the extent that
moral agents can be said to be responsible in each such use and sense of

International Journal of Philosophical Studies

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DOI: 10.1080/09672550802008625

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responsibility, so can epistemic agents. It is believed that to the extent that

analyses of knowledge are contingent on concepts of epistemic justification,
and to the extent that concepts of epistemic justification depend for their
overall plausibility on adequate analyses of epistemic responsibility, then
(among other things) theories of knowledge are only as plausible as their
respective explicit or implied conceptions of epistemic responsibility. After
my analysis and defence of a new conception of epistemic responsibility, I
shall explain how such a conception has significant implications for Keith
Lehrers epistemology.5
Lehrer has recently articulated the concept of epistemic responsibility in
terms of epistemic trustworthiness.6 In his discussion of justification and
reasonable acceptance, Lehrer claims that I may be justly criticized for not
having done better in sorting truth from error in the past, but I cannot be
faulted for judging now on the basis of my present acceptance system.7 It
would appear that sorting truth from error and judging on the basis of
ones own acceptance system assume some notion of epistemic responsibility, one which is at the core of Lehrers notion of epistemic trustworthiness:
My trustworthiness is not just a matter of what I now accept, but also of how
I change what I accept and even of how I change my methods of changing
in order to correct what I accept and improve in my quest to obtain truth
and avoid error.8 This striving for epistemic excellence captures well what
is fundamental to the duty sense of epistemic responsibility. It is for one to
do the best she can with what she has available to her, epistemically speaking. It is to be circumspect in seeking truth and avoiding error.9 It is, in short,
to be intellectually virtuous.10
What it means to be epistemically virtuous has been analysed in terms
of a cluster of intellectual habits such as impartiality11 (openness to the
ideas of others, the willingness to change ideas with and learn from them,
the lack of jealousy and personal bias directed at their ideas, and the
lively sense of ones own fallibility), intellectual sobriety12 and intellectual courage (the willingness to conceive and examine alternatives to
popularly held beliefs, perseverance in the face of opposition from others
and the determination required to see such a project through to
completion).13
Analogues of epistemic virtues have been explored in terms of moral
virtues.14 But more can be said along these lines. For example, not only is
epistemic courage needed in order to fulfil completely ones epistemic duty
of obtaining truth and avoiding error, but epistemic generosity is essential.
By epistemic generosity I do not mean an appropriate giving sense as in
moral philosophy, but rather a generosity of interpretation of all claims and
views under consideration during philosophical investigation. Along with
epistemic openness, one ought to have the virtue of epistemic honesty in
admitting when ones own views are implausible, and why, as epistemic
honesty and openness are fundamental to an examined life.
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However, questions arise here concerning the nature of epistemic responsibility. First, is epistemic responsibility delimited only to a virtue account,
as some have argued?15 The answer to this question is negative, as one must
not ignore the blameworthiness and praiseworthiness senses of epistemic
responsibility.
Second, epistemic responsibility must not be construed simply in terms
of cognizers attempts at being epistemically virtuous.16 On a more comprehensive analysis of the nature of epistemic responsibility, both attempts
and results are relevant to attributions of epistemic responsibility (understood more comprehensively in terms of virtue, duty, praiseworthiness and
blameworthiness).
Third, what kind and degree of attitude is relevant to attributions of
epistemic responsibility? One possible answer is that neither moral nor
epistemic virtue consists in or requires the maintenance of anything like a
constant, conscious attitude.17 But while this view might well describe a mitigated sense in which cognizers are responsible for the examination, acceptance or rejection of beliefs, it fails to recognize that epistemic responsibility,
like moral responsibility,18 admits of degrees. One can be more or less
epistemically responsible. And while a cognitive state of epistemic responsiveness is required for epistemic responsibility in the virtue sense, more is
required for epistemic responsibility in order for one to fulfil ones epistemic
duty and to avoid blame. This is because one must maintain a reasonably
high state of cognitive consciousness unless, say, one did not notice that a
belief one is about to accept has rather subtle problematic features for
certain aspects of ones own doxastic system that one has even greater reason
to accept as plausible. If requiring this reasonably high constant state of
cognitive awareness is expecting too much of epistemically virtuous cognizers,19 perhaps it needs to be emphasized that the requirements of epistemic
virtue, duty, blameworthiness and praiseworthiness are not plausibly
construed in terms of what is convenient for cognizers to achieve. Those
cognizers who typically do not exercise high states of cognitive awareness are
not highly epistemically responsible in at least the virtue and duty senses.
Other things being equal, the extent to which one is in a constant state of
cognitive awareness is the extent to which one is in a good position, intellectually, to guard against epistemic error. Indeed, cognizers must rise to the
challenge of becoming and remaining epistemically responsible agents. And
once we understand that these kinds of epistemic responsibility admit of
degrees, it seems to make sense that strong epistemic responsibility requires
reasonably high epistemic and cognitive standards. One of the virtues of
this conception of epistemic responsibility is that it guards against epistemic
negligence and rewards the cognitively diligent in terms of their evaluation,
acceptance or rejection of beliefs.
Of course, to be intellectually virtuous is to be epistemically responsible
in the duty sense, as described below. But it is not the same thing as being
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epistemically responsible for what one believes, or for what one is justified
in accepting or knowing in a blameworthy and/or praiseworthy sense. A
comprehensive analysis of epistemic responsibility must take into account
each of these general senses of the category. I shall attempt to provide some
of the foundations of the conceptual framework for such a project.
Robert Audi analyses epistemic responsibility in terms of an epistemic
agents open-mindedness and ability to avoid hasty generalizations and
other obvious forms of poor reasoning.20 David O. Brink, in elucidating the
notion of epistemic responsibility held by T. H. Green, states that epistemic
responsibility requires a cognizer to be able to distinguish and distance an
appearance from herself, to frame the question of whether she should assent
to the appearance, and to assess the reasons for assent by relating this
appearance to other elements of her consciousness.21 And Hilary Kornblith
argues that
Justified belief is belief which is the product of epistemically responsible action; epistemically responsible action is action guided by a desire
to have true beliefs. The epistemically responsible agent will thus
desire to have true beliefs and thus desire to have his beliefs produced
by reliable processes; but even doing the best he can, this desire need
not be fulfilled.22
Informative as these accounts are, what is lacking, it seems, is a more
systematic analysis of the nature of epistemic responsibility. Such an analysis might benefit from work done in moral philosophy. Just as the elucidation of epistemic virtues can benefit from an understanding of moral virtue,
so can the blameworthiness and praiseworthiness senses of epistemic
responsibility benefit from a careful look at some of the basics of moral
responsibility theory.
Moral Responsibility
There are various uses of responsibility in ethics. One such use is the duty
use. This is often tied to the role responsibility that an agent is assumed or
argued to possess, given certain factors in her responsibility context. My role
as an epistemologist assigns me the duty, among other things, to seek truth
and avoid error. However, to say that I am responsible for a certain outcome
in the causal use would constitute what Joel Feinberg calls a straightforward ascription of causality.23 The liability use of responsibility obtains
when one is either at fault for doing something, or negligent, or attempts
to do or refrain from doing something, as the case may be. Closely related
to the liability use of responsibility are the blame and praise uses, wherein
an agent is either blameworthy or praiseworthy for what she did, failed to
do, or attempted to do in that she is at fault in doing what she did, failed to
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do or attempted to do. Each of these uses of responsibility can be related

to the other. I shall, however, focus on a select number of them as I devise
my analysis of epistemic responsibility. Other uses of responsibility include
retrospective responsibility, prospective responsibility24 and responsibility
tout court.25 These uses concern ones responsibility, in either of the above
senses, for the past, for the future or on balance, as the case may be. In addition to prospective responsibility, Audi discusses genetic and retentional
senses of responsibility, each of which pertains to the ethics of belief.
Genetic responsibility, according to him, consists in responsibility for
getting into self-deception, as where one selectively exposes oneself to
slanted information and biased people until one becomes self-deceived.
Retentional responsibility is responsibility for remaining in self-deception
when one should get out of it.26
Each of these senses and uses of responsibility has been analysed and
discussed at some length in some of the literature on moral philosophy.
However, each such use is relevant to epistemic contexts in describing
different sorts of epistemic responsibility. For example, the duty and role
uses of responsibility may describe an epistemic agents duty to seek
truth and avoid error. This seems to be what Bonjour has in mind when he
states that
the concept of epistemic justification is fundamentally a normative
concept. It has to do with what one has a duty or obligation to do.
As Chisholm suggests, ones purely intellectual duty is to accept
beliefs that are true, or likely to be true, and reject beliefs that are
false, or likely to be false. To accept beliefs on some other basis is
to violate ones epistemic duty to be, one might say, epistemically
irresponsible.27
Also, I may be epistemically responsible in a causal sense to the extent
that, say, I persuade or dissuade a cognizer. Moreover, I might be epistemically liable to the extent that I am at fault for believing that p at tn
(perhaps I believed that p at tn while knowing that the best testimony28 of
experts relevant to that p undermined the plausibility of that p). And my
epistemic blameworthiness or praiseworthiness might concern what I
believed in the past, on balance, or what I am likely to believe in the future.
I may become genetically responsible in an epistemic sense if I selectively
expose myself to biases such that I am self-deceived. And I would become
retentionally responsible as an epistemic agent if I did nothing to guard
against or rescue myself from genetic responsibility as concerns my belief
system. Thus each of the uses of moral responsibility may accrue to
epistemic agents.
Lehrer argues that What is needed to convert autonomous preferences
into reasonable preferences is the trustworthiness of acceptance and
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preference. The explanation of these matters takes us beyond freedom and

autonomy to reasonableness and justification.29 Furthermore, he argues,
Autonomous preference loops back onto itself to provide us with the
point of power at the center of the keystone loop. From that point of
autonomous preference, we find the autonomous self-evaluating
belief and desire to accept what is worth accepting and prefer what is
worth preferring. The power preference loops back onto itself at the
center to make us worthy of our trust concerning what we accept and
prefer. We are, then, reasonable in preferring what we do autonomously, including what we prefer to accept. Autonomous preference
is the point of power at the center of the keystone loop. It enables us
to be trustworthy in what we accept and prefer and, ultimately, to
obtain knowledge and wisdom from undefeated justification based on
autonomous evaluation. Autonomy is the point of the keystone loop.30
But underlying Lehrers notions of autonomy and trustworthiness of
acceptance and preferences is, I shall argue, the concept of epistemic
responsibility, and at multiple levels.
Epistemic Responsibility
But what is epistemic responsibility? What does it mean to say that I am
epistemically responsible in the duty and blameworthiness and/or praiseworthiness senses? In order for me to be epistemically responsible for believing
that p at tn in either of these senses, it would seem that I ought to own (or
be the author of) the belief in question, which is another way of saying
that, at tn, that p is my own. This does not mean that the belief originates
with me, say, by way of my cognitive belief-forming processes. But what,
then, does it mean to say that a belief is my own? To say that a belief is
mine is to say, first of all, that I sincerely assent to that p at tn, and do so
without ambiguity.31 This is what might be referred to as doxastic responsibility. But there is more to epistemic responsibility than doxastic responsibility. It must also be the case that I am an intentional epistemic agent, e.g.,
that my wants and/or desires cause (at least in some significantly contributory sense) my belief-formation in regard to that p at tn.32 Moreover, my
belief-forming process must be voluntary, at least to some significant
degree. Implied in this analysis is the idea that epistemic responsibility, like
moral responsibility, is a matter of degree. For I may believe that p at tn,
more or less intentionally and/or voluntarily. And this sort of belief is necessary for blameworthy and/or praiseworthy and dutiful belief. More fully,
epistemic responsibility involves doxastic responsibility in terms of the
voluntariness and intentionality regarding my evaluation, acceptance or
rejection of beliefs. But it also entails responsibility in terms of justification
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and knowledge (assuming that strong epistemic scepticism is implausible, of

course).
However, it might be objected that my analysis of epistemic responsibility
problematically assumes a notion of belief ownership. Yet there are cases
where epistemic responsibility is responsibility for the beliefs of others, and
it might be urged that the idea of belief ownership as I describe it is wrongheaded, as in the example of teachers inculcating beliefs in their students.33
In reply to this concern, it must be pointed out that when it comes to
normally cognizing adults, vicarious epistemic responsibility is impossible as
each such adult is responsible for the acceptance of her own beliefs. As to
children and marginally cognitively competent adults, I would hasten to
argue that, though we rightly praise them for believing the right things when
they do, we are overly demanding if we blame them for believing the wrong
things when they do. For their ages or cognitive impairments mitigate such
blame where such mitigation is generally not present in normal cases of
adult cognition. What the example suggests is precisely my point about the
ownership of accepted beliefs, namely, that even the teacher of young children has an epistemic duty to teach seriously only those beliefs that are
congruent with her personal justification system of beliefs with the goal of
obtaining truths and rejecting falsehoods. That the teacher is fallible in no
way shows that she cannot or should not own her beliefs so long as she has
reasonably tested the beliefs she teaches to the children against the best
knowledge she possesses at that time. What she is incorrect in inculcating in
her students need not render her irresponsible, though it might to the extent
that she has insufficiently tested the beliefs in question. But if she has
performed such an epistemic responsibility (duty sense), then she cannot be
held epistemically responsible in the liability sense for unwittingly teaching
students a falsehood. Epistemic responsibility in either the duty or liability
senses must not be confused with truth or the guarantee thereof. What is
important is that we own our beliefs, e.g., that we make them our own in the
sense that we test them thoroughly with the intellectual tools we have at our
disposal.
Furthermore, crucial to epistemic responsibility is the idea that I am
open-minded and self-reflective in my pursuit of truth and attempt to avoid
error. This involves, among other things, my ardent efforts to avoid the
pitfalls of fallacious reasoning. Or, as one master of philosophical dialectic
puts it as he encourages those who would want to do philosophy:
But, Cratylus, I have long been surprised at my own wisdom and
doubtful of it too. Thats why I think its necessary to keep investigating whatever I say, since self-deception is the worst thing of all.
Therefore, I think we have to turn back frequently to what weve
already said, in order to test it by looking at it backwards and forwards
simultaneously.34
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It is only by possessing these sorts of epistemic virtues that I can deem

myself sufficiently trustworthy to be considered one who believes according
to reliable belief-forming processes.
But what does it mean to say that I am self-reflective, open-minded and
trustworthy? Requisite for this sort of epistemic agency (assuming that
epistemic agency is in turn a requirement, though insufficient, for knowledge) is that I engage in reliable higher-order cognitive informationprocessing and reasoning. Lehrer refers to something like this, absent
reliability, as higher-order (metamental) acceptance, contrasting it to mere
belief, which is a lower-order epistemic activity. We might borrow Lehrers
concept of higher-order acceptance and adapt it to the analysis of the
concept of epistemic responsibility and argue that it is necessary for
epistemic responsibility that I engage in higher-order epistemic acceptance
(against my evaluation system of beliefs) to be responsible so that I am
open-minded, self-reflective and trustworthy. But I must have my higherorder reasoning reliably produced in order to rule out both accidental
success and success that is non-accidental but due to something other than
the cognizer herself.35 We would not, I take it, think that I am epistemically
responsible, say, in a blameworthy sense, for believing a contradiction to
the extent that I am the victim of a severe instance of groupthink, or some
other social voluntariness-reducing factor such as extreme pressure toward
group consensus. For there are contexts in which human reasoning tends
to be unreliable, and when such unreliability is due to a significant degree
of involuntariness at lower- or higher-order levels of cognition, it is
implausible to think that I am responsible for my reasoning at that time.
This holds unless I intentionally, knowingly and voluntarily placed myself
in an epistemic position to become epistemically responsible in a blameworthiness sense.
It should be pointed out at this juncture that the aforementioned conditions of epistemic responsibility are independent ones. For a cognizer might
typically be open-minded yet at times be significantly involuntary in forming her belief that she could not believe otherwise. Or, she might be a
voluntary epistemic agent, yet a closed-minded one, etc. In neither case is
she epistemically responsible in the duty sense, though she might well be
epistemically non-responsible in the former case because she lacks sufficient voluntariness, or epistemically responsible in the blameworthy sense
for being close-minded.
Now, it might be argued that cognitive voluntariness is not a necessary
condition of epistemic responsibility regarding empirical beliefs as my analysis implies. Take the belief that the ring is currently on my finger. The
formation of my belief is formed rationally and without fault, and my
reasons for accepting it are unimpeachable given the notion of self-trust in
such cases, for my eyesight and other physical senses function well. Yet I did
not voluntarily select this belief. Like many empirical beliefs, it appeared to
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me in this or that way and I simply trusted my senses on the matter because
my senses are generally trustworthy. But is this not an example of my
accepting a belief involuntarily? Since cognitive voluntariness has nothing
to do with my acceptance of The ring is currently on my finger, voluntariness is not, contrary to my analysis, a necessary condition of epistemic
responsibility.36
In reply to this concern, it might be pointed out that what it provides is an
instance wherein non-epistemic responsibility obtains, not epistemic
responsibility. Consequently, it is a denial rather than a refutation of the
voluntariness requirement for epistemic responsibility. The fact that many
empirical beliefs are accepted involuntarily does not show that their acceptance is a sign of epistemic responsibility. Rather, it demonstrates that there
are cases of epistemic non-responsibility. At least this is true of epistemic
responsibility in the liability sense as we ought not to hold the cognizer
accountable for accepting it what is natural to accept under the epistemic
circumstances imagined. However, it is also true in the duty sense of
epistemic responsibility. For what sense does it make to say that a cognizer
performed her epistemic duty if she did so involuntarily? So if it is true that
empirical beliefs such as the one imagined are involuntary, then such involuntariness cannot issue in the cognizers doing anything, much less forming
or accepting a belief. For the formation and acceptance of beliefs requires
agency (which in turn entails voluntariness), which involuntariness prohibits at least insofar as it is a strong degree of involuntariness. So the concern
cannot have it both ways. It cannot hold that the example provided is one
that reflects both involuntariness and epistemic responsibility in either the
liability or duty senses. The example cannot simply declare that it shows that
cognitive involuntariness can issue in epistemic responsibility. Nor can it
simply deny that cognitive agency and voluntariness is a necessary condition
of epistemic responsibility in the senses stipulated.
To my earlier analysis of epistemic responsibility might be added multilevelled conceptions of blameworthy and/or praiseworthy and duty senses
of responsibility. lower-order epistemic responsibility and higher-order
epistemic responsibility. Each of these levels accrues to cognizers relative
to the sense of responsibility that obtains at each of the respective levels
of cognition. Thus a cognizer might be epistemically responsible in a
lower-order blameworthy sense in that, say, even though she did not have
sufficient control over her perceptual belief that p at tn,37 and where she as
an otherwise intentional and voluntary agent failed to train herself critically to evaluate matters presented to her at a lower level of cognition
(thereby failing in the duty sense of epistemic responsibility), yet she might
be epistemically responsible in a higher-order praiseworthy sense because
she was open-minded and self-reflective in her assessment of that p against
her background system. As Lehrer argues, she is trustworthy. For acceptance is a metalevel state with a role in action, reasoning and decision that
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ordinarily results from the positive evaluation of belief but may on occasions override the first order state.38 Moreover, Acceptance, preference
and reasoning are metalevel states that arise from the positive evaluation
of things believed, desired, inferred or from things merely considered.39
So epistemic responsibility admits, not only of degrees of severity, but also
of distinctions between levels at which a cognizer is rightly construed as
being, simultaneously, responsible in one sense or another.40
The foregoing point suggests a taxonomy of epistemic responsibility that
admits of different levels and kinds of responsibility. I might be epistemically responsible at a higher level and simultaneously at a lower level, such
as where I have trained myself to search for and challenge each and every
claim of philosophical significance. Perhaps out of a sense of epistemic and
moral duty, I have trained myself at a higher level to seek for and consider
rigorously all claims, screening them for plausibility and where no voluntariness or intentionality-reducing factors obtain. Or, I might be epistemically responsible at a higher level but not simultaneously at a lower level,
such as where in the foregoing process I find that a belief I am considering
but which is due to cognitive involuntariness41 is simply implausible. Thus I
reject at the higher level what I discover at the lower level to be unreasonable. Additionally, I can be epistemically responsible at a lower level but
not simultaneously at a higher level. I can, for example, consider for acceptance a claim under conditions of significant voluntariness, but I might be
too slothful to take the time and effort to assess the claim against my
background system and the facts of the world. Moreover, I can be nonresponsible at both lower and higher levels of cognition. An instance of this
would be a case in which I am forced by pain of sanction or punishment to
believe that p at tn, being disallowed in effect to engage in higherorder
cognitive assessment of that p. On no reasonable construal can this be
considered a case where I accept that p, as there is no meaningful extent to
which I cognize about that p voluntarily. Brainwashing cases come to mind
here. Such cases are extreme instances suggesting that in these contexts I
am not epistemically responsible (liable to blame or praise) at any level.
Furthermore, I might be epistemically responsible, in one sense or another,
at a lower level while I am epistemically responsible, in one different sense
or another, at a higher level. And at each level of responsibility, my responsibility might admit of varying degrees. So I might be epistemically responsible in a praiseworthy sense at a higher level, while I am simultaneously
epistemically responsible in a straightforwardly causal sense at a lower level.
A case in point would be where I cause myself to contemplate the plausibility
of a particular claim, say, that the music is playing, by turning on my stereo,
thereby causing me to consider at a lower level the claim that the music is
playing. At the same time, I might be epistemically praiseworthy for, say,
accepting the plausibility of that belief on the basis of certain factors that
would render such a claim plausible.
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Lower-level cognition often admits of involuntariness, at least in cases

like sense perception or selective attention (an automatic cognitive
process). But even metamental ascent might be fraught with involuntariness
sufficient to mitigate, even undermine, epistemic agency, such as when one
is forced by group pressure to conform epistemically to the decision of
others even against ones own better judgment. In such cases, the coerced
cognizer, even the metamental one, is not responsible in a blameworthy
sense for the belief she forms. It might be a metamentally formed belief in
that the cognizer struggled at the metamental level about the plausibility
and justifiableness of the belief. Perhaps seeing, through higher-order
reasoning, the implausibility of the belief42 to which she is forced to assent
for certain purposes, she decides to pacify the groups desire to decide thus,
though not without at the same time thinking to herself that the decision in
question is a bad or less than optimal one. In circumstances like these, the
cognizer is a metamental one, and her beliefs formed during such processes
are metamental. Yet she is not epistemically responsible in a blameworthy
sense for them in that she does not believe them voluntarily. She does not
accept them as her own, and does not have knowledge relative to them in
any strong sense. Thus involuntariness can affect not only lower-order
cognition, but higher-order cognition as well. Beliefs had at either level
might be riddled with involuntariness which might well mitigate epistemic
responsibility. So much for lower-order belief-formation and mere higherorder beliefs about lower-order beliefs.
Acceptance, however, is another matter. On Lehrers view, it is autonomous preference that makes a cognizer the author of her preference.43 This
would seem to imply that autonomy (a kind of voluntariness) is at least
sufficient for preference. Yet if my earlier argument is plausible, then some
kind and meaningful degree of voluntariness is also necessary for the kind
of acceptance requisite for responsible acceptance, and in turn, knowledge.
For it is difficult to imagine, especially on Lehrers analysis, how a cognizer
can be epistemically responsible in accepting that p if she is not an autonomous being at the time(s) in which she accepts that p. To accept a proposition is to make it ones own with an adequate degree of voluntariness and
intention, epistemically speaking. It means that the cognizer really wants
to believe the proposition at that time, via a process of higher-order
reasoning that would include openmindedness, self-reflection and the like.
It is something akin to this sense that Lehrer refers to when he writes of
epistemic trustworthiness: We are reasonable to accept what we do
because we are trustworthy in what we accept, and our reasons for accepting that we are trustworthy in what we accept consist in what we reasonably accept.44 Implied here, of course, is an assumption regarding the facts
of epistemic autonomy and voluntariness.
Lehrer argues that epistemic trustworthiness is a matter of how I cognize
at the metalevel of acceptance. He adds that leading the life of reason and
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being prepared to change what I accept are indicative of my trustworthiness.

What he has in mind here is largely what might be referred to as the
Socratic life, or my following the arguments wherever they lead me.
Conscientious and intentional reasoning lacking significant voluntarinessreducing factors must be wanting of epistemic luck. For the greater the
epistemic luck present in an epistemic context, the less the degree of
epistemic responsibility present in that context, and in turn, the less trustworthy I am in that context. As Lehrer points out: A person who believes
what she does for indefensible reasons may get lucky and believe what is
true,45 yet (I argue) she is hardly epistemically responsible for her belief in
a praiseworthy sense. For as the Gettier-type examples indicate, what one
knows by accident or luck is not knowledge. However, as we shall soon
see, the problems of epistemic involuntariness and luck pose important
challenges to any analysis of epistemic responsibility.
Furthermore, Lehrer argues that a cognizers acceptance system is her
final epistemic court of appeal in determining how she knows she is
justified.46 But if my acceptance system is the final epistemic arbiter in
determining how I know that I am justified in accepting that p at tn, and if
self-trust is, as Lehrer argues, the heart of personal, and in turn, undefeated
justification, then it would seem that I am only as worthy of my epistemic
trust as I am epistemically responsible (duty and liability senses) in maintaining my acceptance system. So if Lehrers theory of knowledge as
undefeated justified acceptance is sound, then it must be grounded in a
conception of epistemic responsibility that forms the basis of self-trust. He
argues that whether our justification is complete and undefeated depends
on whether we succeed in our attempt to obtain truth and avoid error.47
But whether or not we succeed, I contend, is contingent in an important
way on how epistemically responsible we are in attempting to obtain truth
and avoid error. Thus it seems that Lehrers theory of knowledge requires
a conception of epistemic responsibility in order to ground the notion of
self-trust. Knowledge cannot, on the Lehrerian model, obtain without
(personal and ultra) justification. But since personal justification requires
self-trust, and self-trust must be grounded in epistemically responsible
agency, knowledge as undefeated justified acceptance requires epistemic
responsibility.
The foregoing suggests the following analysis of epistemic responsibility:
S is an epistemically responsible agent at tn to the extent that S, as an
intentional and voluntary agent at tn, accepts (by higher-order cognition) open-mindedly and critically that p.
The extent to which S is epistemically responsible, in one or more of the
senses discussed above, determines how self-reflective and trustworthy S is
at tn in regard to that p in Ss living the life of reason. A significant degree of
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epistemic luck vitiates against responsibility because either intentionality or

voluntariness, or both, are undermined in the epistemic context facing S.
It is important to draw yet a further distinction concerning epistemic
responsibility. William P. Alston has distinguished between two senses in
which a cognizer might be epistemically justified, namely, being justified
and justifying. Being justified refers to a state of the cognizer in being
justified, while justifying refers to a cognizers attempt to provide reasons
for what she believes or accepts. Alston notes how often epistemologists
confuse these two senses in their respective discussions of epistemic
justification.48
Now, if there is more than one sense in which one might be epistemically
justified, then there seems to be more than one way in which one might be
epistemically responsible in either of the duty or blameworthiness and/or
praiseworthiness senses. For example, I might be epistemically justified and
responsible, where my being responsible means that I am significantly
intentional and voluntary in my epistemic agency. Yet this might not entail
my fulfilling some epistemic duty. On the other hand, I might fulfil an
epistemic duty of accepting truth and avoiding error by vigorously and
rigorously justifying my beliefs. But since such justifying of beliefs need not
entail voluntary epistemic agency, there seems to be more than one way in
which epistemic responsibility may accrue in contexts of epistemic justification. I may, on the one hand, be epistemically responsible. Or I may fulfil,
or seek to fulfil, my epistemic responsibility.
Thus there is an analysis of epistemic responsibility that serves to round
out an otherwise plausible notion of epistemic justification. This makes
epistemic responsibility a condition of knowledge since epistemic justification is one such condition. Intentionality and voluntariness are necessary
conditions of epistemic responsibility of any variety or level of cognition,
with the understanding that epistemic luck (good or bad) is a mitigating
factor in ascriptions of epistemic responsibility. To the extent that I accept
that p at tn as an intentional and voluntary epistemic agent, absent epistemic
luck, I am in one or more ways epistemically responsible for my belief or
acceptance of that p at tn.
But it might be argued, in light of the plausibility of Harry G. Frankfurts
arguments in favour of the claim that voluntariness (construed for my
purposes in terms of an agents ability to do otherwise) is not a necessary
condition of moral responsibility,49 that my analysis is open to Frankfurtstyle counter-examples to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP)50
as they are applied to epistemological contexts. If PAP is wrong, then to
the extent that my analysis of epistemic responsibility is contingent on
something like PAP in its insistence that the epistemic agents ability to
believe or accept otherwise is a necessary condition of epistemic responsibility, it too is problematic in light of Frankfurt-style counter-examples
showing that no alternative possibilities need be available to me as a
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cognizer for epistemic responsibility to accrue to me, so long as I have a

higher-order volitional acceptance of a belief. This suffices for epistemic
responsibility, just as higher-order volition suffices for moral responsibility.
In other words, so long as I really want to believe or accept that p at tn,
e.g., believe freely or accept freely, then I am epistemically responsible
in one or more senses and to one degree or another. Thus I need not, as
an epistemically responsible agent, have the ability to believe or accept
otherwise. But as Frankfurt might also put it, to be epistemically responsible is to make ones considered judgments ones own in the sense that
the agent identifies with them firmly. This Frankfurtian higher-order
model of epistemic acceptance contrasts with that of the Lehrerian model I
have proposed, the latter being grounded implicitly in PAP.
In answer to the stated concern, it might be argued that a Frankfurtian
higher-order model of moral responsibility must supplement the Lehrerian
model of epistemic responsibility in order to develop more fully a plausible
analysis of epistemic responsibility. Along these lines, the above analysis of
epistemic responsibility might be revised to read: S is epistemically responsible for believing or accepting that p at tn to the extent that S believes or
accepts freely that p at tn (in the Frankfurtian sense of really wanting to
believe or accept that p at tn).
The reason for the Frankfurtian analysis of epistemic responsibility is
now apparent, assuming for my purposes the plausibility of his counterexamples to PAP. But it is also important that my belief or acceptance of
that p at tn not be the result of accident or luck. For it is implausible to think
that I am genuinely and epistemically responsible in any sense if I believe
or accept something wholly accidentally, or wholly out of luck. For
instance, suppose I am totally unfamiliar with theories of law, but chance
upon a book by, let us say, a most eminent legal philosopher who articulates and defends the most plausible theory of law. Suppose further that I
study the authors theory and am struck by its intuitive and reasoned appeal
and adopt it as my own. However, I have not studied criticisms of it. Nor
have I studied competing theories of law. Out of luck I chance upon her
theory, read it, and accept it on the basis of its intuitive and reasoned
appeal.
It would appear that I have to some extent accepted the theory (and its
respective claims) out of luck, not having the opportunity to compare it with
and contrast it to competing theories of law. I have not been sufficiently
critical and self-reflective in my acceptance of the theory, though, as it
turns out, it is the most plausible one. Thus whatever I accept or believe
responsibly, in whichever liability or duty sense of responsibly, I must do
so without a maximum degree of epistemic luck. It must not be the case that
what I believe or accept just happens to be true, through little or no intention or cognitive effort of mine. Nor may it be the case that I believe or
accept what I do involuntarily.
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In sum, I have provided an initial (Lehrerian) higher-order analysis of

epistemic responsibility. This analysis, when supplemented with Frankfurtian considerations of moral responsibility, makes for an even more plausible
analysis. For the analysis, one which I christen the Lehrerian-Frankfurtian
model of epistemic responsibility, is then less prone to fall prey to Frankfurtstyle counter-examples pertaining to a cognizers ability to believe or accept
otherwise. It is noteworthy that the Lehrerian-Frankfurtian model of
epistemic responsibility is compatibilist in a twofold respect. It holds that
there can be compatibility between a certain degree of involuntariness
of belief or acceptance, on the one hand, and an epistemic agents being
responsible, on the other. Implicit in this compatibilism, however, is a
compatibilism between a cognizers belief or acceptance, on the one hand,
and factors (internal or external to her) that count toward a degree of
cognitive determinism, on the other. Furthermore, the taxonomy of moral
responsibility serves as a model for senses of epistemic responsibility, and at
various levels of cognition.
Objections and Replies
Now that the Lehrerian-Frankfurtian model of epistemic responsibility
has been articulated, it is important to consider major objections to it. There
are at least two objections that might be raised to the model. One is
the Involuntariness Objection, while the other is the Objection from
Epistemic Luck. Let us consider each of these concerns in turn.
The Involuntariness Objection
It might be argued that the Lehrerian-Frankfurtian model of epistemic
responsibility falls prey to what might be referred to as the Involuntariness
Objection. If it turns out that cognizers are involuntary at every level of
cognition, then this fact about us would vitiate any possible claim to a
cognizers possibly being responsible. This involuntariness, it might be
argued, would accrue not only at the level of lower-order cognition, but at
all levels of higher-level cognition. This would run counter to even the
Frankfurtian notion of higher-order volitions, and the idea of higher-order
acceptance as well. In turn, this implies that there is no genuine sense in
which I have the capacity, as it were, to accept a belief as my own. This epistemological fact would negate Lehrers concept of epistemic trustworthiness, and responsibility for anything epistemic would become impossible.51
In reply to this concern, it might be argued that if comprehensive involuntariness obtains, then this would render the Lehrerian-Frankfurtian
model of epistemic responsibility implausible, as it is contingent on there
being some significant degree of voluntariness in at least the higher-order
sense. But if this epistemological tragedy were to occur, then there would
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hardly, if at all, be a sense in which I could ever be an epistemically responsible agent. And just as hard determinism would imply that there could be
no moral responsibility, at least in the blame and praise senses, comprehensive epistemic involuntariness would seem to imply that there is no legitimate way in which I can be either blamed or praised for what I believe or
accept. Furthermore, the duty sense of epistemic responsibility could not
accrue to cognizers. For if ought implies can, then cognizers cannot be
expected to fulfil a duty to attain truth and avoid error, say, unless it is possible for them, as epistemic agents, to do it.52 So various, perhaps all, kinds of
epistemic responsibility will be impossible if comprehensive epistemic
involuntariness obtains. Indeed, the implications of comprehensive involuntariness for epistemology are even more drastic. It would seem to imply that
human knowledge is not possible. This would follow, assuming that human
knowledge entails, among other things, a kind of justification that makes me
the owner of my beliefs. But if I am a cognitive automaton, then in what
sense am I the author of my beliefs? And if I cannot be the author of my
beliefs, then surely I cannot accept anything as my own.
It would appear, then, that the strength of the Involuntariness. Objection
to the Lehrerian-Frankfurtian model of epistemic responsibility lands itself
in scepticism of one form or another. Perhaps one step in the direction of
answering the sceptic, aside from pointing out the self-defeating nature of
it,53 is to argue that at least sometimes it appears that we are able to doubt
what is presented to us cognitively, or what we believe. This higher-order
cognitive fact, if it is a fact, would be evidence in favour of some level and
degree of epistemic voluntariness. And if such voluntariness is significant,
then perhaps it is sufficient for epistemic responsibility in one or more of the
senses mentioned previously.
The question of whether or not epistemic voluntariness is so comprehensive that it negates any sense in which we are responsible cognizers is, in the
end, an empirical one. But I see insufficient reason to suppose at the outset
that it is true, especially in light of the fact of the practice of philosophy. If
comprehensive involuntariness accrues at this level, then it appears that
scepticism is plausible. As Thomas Nagel argues, epistemological skepticism arises from consideration of the respects in which our beliefs and their
relation to reality depend on factors beyond our control.54 But then we
would each be engaged in self-deception, cognitively speaking, insofar as we
think that what we believe is to some extent plausible.55 And this would
render even scepticism implausible.56
The Involuntariness Objection is concerned with the extent to which
cognizers are voluntary, epistemically speaking. It argues that to the extent
that involuntariness obtains in cognition, at any level, that is the extent to
which cognizers are not responsible, in any sense, for what they believe or
accept. But the question of the extent to which we are epistemically voluntary is an empirical one. And we seem to have insufficient reason to
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conclude, especially in light of higher-order cognition and the doubting and

philosophical reasoning that we believe obtains, that cognizers are comprehensively involuntary so that epistemic responsibility is wholly out of the
question.
The Objection from Epistemic Luck

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But there is a related concern with the Lehrerian-Frankfurtian model of

epistemic responsibility. It is what I shall refer to as the Objection from
Epistemic Luck. Nagel articulates the essence of this objection:
External and internal causes produce our beliefs. We may subject
these processes to scrutiny in an effort to avoid error, but our conclusions at this next level also result, in part, from influences which we do
not control directly. The same will be true no matter how far we carry
the investigation. Our beliefs are always, ultimately, due to factors
outside our control, and the impossibility of encompassing those
factors without being at the mercy of others leads us to doubt whether
we know anything. It looks as though, if any of our beliefs are true, it
is pure biological luck rather than knowledge.57
And the epistemic involuntariness in question is not simply a matter of
external senses in which a cognizer might not have the ability to believe or
accept otherwise. For the problem extends to internal ways in which we
might not have sufficient control over our cognition.58 The main issue is this:
even if a cognizer is a voluntary epistemic agent, there are cases, such as the
one of the student of theories of law, where epistemic responsibility is questionable because the information believed or accepted is due to luck rather
than (at least for the most part) a conscious effort on behalf of the cognizer
to undertake a philosophical investigation of the matter in question. So to
the extent that a cognizer believes or accepts that p at tn out of luck, she does
not do so as an epistemically responsible one. What she believes, as an
epistemically responsible agent, must be borne out of the struggle to obtain
truth and avoid error. This involves a kind of intentional epistemic agency,
reducing the extent to which luck plays a role in what she believes or
accepts.
But if I am constantly searching for defeasible reasons why I believe or
accept that p, and I am engaged also in ardent metamental evaluation of
the truth-values of the contents of my acceptance system in the interest of
obtaining truth and avoiding error, then I am epistemically responsible not
only in a duty sense, but in a praiseworthy sense as well. For I am doing quite
clearly what I ought to do, epistemically speaking, and I am to be praised
for doing it, whatever my degree of success. For I have engaged in metamental ascent, which qualifies me as an intentional and voluntary epistemic
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agent. And the very attempt to carry out my epistemic duty is worthy of
praise.
Furthermore, there seems to be insufficient reason to think that what we
as cognizers believe or accept is wholly a matter of epistemic luck. Although
the circumstances of life have been such that some have been, say, more
philosophically and epistemically fortunate than others, ascriptions of
epistemic responsibility (say, blameworthiness or praiseworthiness) might
well be reasonable in light of such luck. As long as we are to some meaningful extent epistemically voluntary cognizers, then we would, I think, have an
epistemic duty, in light of our respective lucky (good or bad) circumstances,
to examine propositions philosophically as far as we can. Given our respective backgrounds (including the respective degrees and kinds of epistemic
luck that help form our backgrounds), we can to some extent, I would think,
be praised or blamed for what we believe or accept to some meaningful
(voluntary) degree.
Although epistemic luck is one factor that will in at least most cases tend
to mitigate the extent to which cognizers are truly epistemically responsible,
there seems to be insufficient reason to think that no instance of epistemic
responsibility obtains. There are likely some cases where it does, as not
every epistemic context is riddled with total luck. And the same seems true
of epistemic involuntariness. Although it is plausible to think that epistemic
involuntariness and luck are factors which typically mitigate epistemic
responsibility of various kinds, there seems to be insufficient reason to
think that such factors negate epistemic responsibility altogether. For to
reach this conclusion legitimately we would, I would think, have to forfeit
the possibility of autonomous reason. The implications of this would have
to weighed, epistemically speaking, against the severe problems of any
strong version of scepticism it would imply. But we would then need to
ask, comprehensively involuntary as it would putatively be on the involuntariness account, whether even such weighing is itself possible.
Conclusion
The Lehrerian-Frankfurtian model of epistemic responsibility provides us
with a plausible conception of one important aspect of epistemic justification and knowledge which has received relatively little attention in analyses
of human knowledge. If comprehensive epistemic involuntariness obtains,
then it would seem that epistemic responsibility, in perhaps any sense, does
not. But this would seem to imply that some form of fairly radical scepticism
would obtain so long as human knowledge and justification would entail,
among other things, a putative knowers authorship or owning her beliefs at
some level and to some meaningful extent. But if Ren Descartes is correct,
then it seems that we do at least sometimes have the ability to doubt, and
that we indeed exercise that ability. If doubting is a meaningful sign of
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voluntariness-driven acceptance and cognition, then it would seem also that

cognizers at least sometimes might qualify as responsible agents. This very
possibility suggests the importance of an analysis of epistemic responsibility.
I hope to have provided at least part of the basis of such an analysis.
San Diego State University, California, USA

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Notes
1 I wish to express gratitude to Keith Lehrer for helpful comments on an earlier
draft of this paper.
2 Such work includes: Mark Bernstein, Moral and Epistemic Saints, Metaphilosophy, 17 (1986), pp. 1028; Roderick Chisholm, C. I. Lewiss Ethics of Belief,
in Paul Schilpp, (ed.) The Philosophy of C. I. Lewis (LaSalle: Open Court, 1968),
pp. 22342; Firth and the Ethics of Belief, Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, 51 (1991), pp. 11728; Jonathan Kvanvig, The Intellectual Virtues and
the Life of the Mind (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1992); Jack Meiland,
What Ought We to Believe? Or the Ethics of Belief Revisited, American
Philosophical Quarterly, 17 (1980), pp. 1524; James A. Montmarquet, Epistemic
Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993);
Anthony OHear, Belief and the Will, Philosophy, 47 (1972), pp. 95112; H. H.
Price, Belief and the Will, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume, 28 (1954), pp. 122; Holly Smith, Culpable Ignorance, Philosophical Review, 92 (1983), pp. 54371; Ernest Sosa, Knowledge and Intellectual
Virtue, The Monist, 68 (1985), pp. 22645; Knowledge in Perspective
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); J. T. Stevenson, On Doxastic
Responsibility, in Keith Lehrer (ed.) Analysis and Metaphysics (Dordrecht:
Reidel, 1975), pp. 22953; Linda Zagzebski, Virtues of the Mind (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996); Linda Zagzebski and Abrol Fairweather
(eds) Virtue Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
3 Laurence Bonjour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 8.
4 Citation removed for purposes of blind review.
5 Lehrers most considered epistemological views are found in Keith Lehrer,
Theory of Knowledge, 2nd edn (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000); Metamind
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); Self-Trust (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1997); Justification, Coherence and Knowledge, Erkenntnis, 50 (1999),
pp. 24358; Discursive Knowledge, Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research (2000), pp. 63753; The Virtue of Knowledge, in Zagzebski and
Fairweather, Virtue Epistemology, pp. 20013.
6 Lehrer, The Virtue of Knowledge. A concept of epistemic self-reflection that is
not inconsistent with Lehrers concept of trustworthiness is found in Linda
Zagzebski, Must Knowers Be Agents?, in Zagzebski and Fairweather, Virtue
Epistemology, pp. 14257.
7 Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge, p. 126.
8 Ibid., p. 140.
9 Ibid., p. 192. James A. Montmarquet posits this as the fundamental epistemic
virtue of epistemic conscientiousness that is regulated by the epistemic virtue
of impartiality or intellectual courage (James A. Montmarquet, Epistemic
Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993),
pp. viii, 212).

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10 Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge, p. 210.

11 See note 9.
12 Perhaps intellectual sobriety is not dissimilar to the virtue of epistemic continence, construed as an enduring state of a person that enables him or her to
deliberate well (Christopher Hookaway, Epistemic AKRASIA and Epistemic
Virtue, in Zagzebski and Fairweather, Virtue Epistemology, p. 196).
13 Montmarquet, Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, p. 23. For a broader
attempt at analysing the epistemic virtues, see Alvin I. Goldman, The Unity of
the Epistemic Virtues, in Zagzebski and Fairweather, Virtue Epistemology,
pp. 3048.
14 Montmarquet, Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Ch. 2; Zagzebski,
Virtues of the Mind.
15 Montmarquet, Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, p. 60, where
epistemic responsibility is identified with epistemic virtue.
16 Contrast Montmarquet, ibid., p. 60: Responsibility must be keyed to the
attempt rather than the end result.
17 Ibid., p. 63.
18 J. Angelo Corlett, Responsibility and Punishment, 3rd edn (Dordrecht: Springer,
2006), Chs 1, 78. The view that moral responsibility and some of its conditions
are matters of degree is also found in Joel Feinberg, Doing and Deserving
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970); Harmless Wrongdoing (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1990).
19 Montmarquet, Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, p. 64.
20 Robert Audi, Epistemic Virtue and Justified Belief, in Zagzebski and
Fairweather, Virtue Epistemology, pp. 8297.
21 David O. Brink, Perfectionism and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of T. H. Green (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 20.
22 Hilary Kornblith, Justified Belief and Epistemically Responsible Action,
Philosophical Review, 92 (1983), pp. 478; also see p. 34.
23 Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, Ch. 6. H. L. A. Hart refers to this as causal
responsibility (H. L. A. Hart, Punishment and Responsibility (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1968), Ch. 9).
24 Joel Feinberg, Responsibility for the Future, Philosophy Research Archives, 14
(19889), pp. 93113.
25 Joel Feinberg, Responsibility Tout Court, Philosophy Research Archives, 14
(19889), pp. 7492.
26 Robert Audi, Moral Knowledge and Ethical Character (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997), p. 149.
27 Laurence Bonjour, Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge, Midwest
Studies in Philosophy, 5 (1980), p. 55.
28 For philosophical analyses of testimony in epistemic contexts, see C. A. J. Coady,
Testimony (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Alvin Goldman, Knowledge
in a Social World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), Ch. 4.
29 Keith Lehrer, Freedom, Preference and Autonomy, Journal of Ethics, 1 (1997),
p. 25.
30 Lehrer, Self-Trust, pp. 1023.
31 Saul Kripke, A Puzzle about Belief, in A. Margalit (ed.) Meaning and Use
(Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979), pp. 2489. For a critical assessment of Kripkes belief
puzzle, see J. Angelo Corlett, Is Kripkes Puzzle Really a Puzzle?, Theoria, 55
(1989), pp. 95113. For a broader discussion of the nature of belief, see Bernard
Williams, Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973),
pp. 3651.

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32 This notion of epistemic intentionality is borrowed from the notion of intentional

action found in Alvin Goldman, A Theory of Human Action (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970). This notion of the nature of intentionality is consistent with an important aspect of Harry Frankfurts conception of higher-order
volition where this entails that one really wants to do that for which she is morally
responsible. Applying this to epistemological contexts, one might argue that
intentionally held beliefs are those that cognizers accept in the sense that cognizers really want to accept them.
33 I am grateful for this point to an anonymous referee.
34 Plato, Cratylus 428d, trans. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Company, 1997), p. 144.
35 Zagzebski, Must Knowers Be Agents?.
36 I am grateful to an anonymous referee for this point. I shall consider a
more global version of this concern below in the form of the Involuntariness
Objection.
37 As Lehrer puts it: beliefs arise in us without our willing that they do and
sometimes against our will (Lehrer, Discursive Knowledge, p. 640).
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid.
40 While Lehrer does not link his notions of acceptance, preference and reasonableness to the concept of epistemic responsibility, I endeavour to do so for my
purposes of analysing the nature of epistemic responsibility.
41 Bonjour argues, in the context of epistemic responsibility, that beliefs presented
to a cognizer involuntarily can often be doubted and rejected (Bonjour, The
Structure of Empirical Knowledge, p. 640).
42 I say belief here because it is not a proposition to which the cognizer assents
sincerely.
43 Lehrer, Freedom, Preference and Autonomy.
44 Lehrer, Discursive Knowledge, p. 643.
45 Ibid.
46 Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge, p. 151.
47 Ibid., pp. 1512.
48 William P. Alston, Concepts of Epistemic Justification, The Monist, 68 (1985),
pp. 5789.
49 See Harry G. Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988). For a rather select list of critical discussions
of Frankfurts analysis or moral responsibility, and competing analyses, see
Ethics, 101 (1991), pp. 236321; John Martin Fischer, (ed.) Moral Responsibility
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza
(eds) Perspectives on Moral Responsibility (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1993); John Martin Fischer, The Metaphysics of Free Will (London: Blackwell,
1994), Chs 78; John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, Responsibility and
Control (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); John Martin Fischer,
My Way (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Journal of Ethics, 1 (1) (1997);
Journal of Ethics, 3 (4) (1999); Journal of Ethics, 4 (4) (2000); Journal of Ethics,
12 (24) (2008); Ferdinand Schoeman (ed.) Responsibility, Character, and the
Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Peter van Inwagen,
An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983); R. Jay Wallace,
Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1996); Susan Wolf, Freedom Within Reason (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1990).

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50 PAP requires the ability to do otherwise for freedom sufficient for moral
responsibility.
51 As I argue elsewhere, there is little or no sense in our saying that a cognizer is
either praiseworthy or blameworthy for believing or accepting that p. to the
extent that she lacks epistemic voluntariness, the capacity for metacognition, and
the like, in regard to the formation and evaluation of that p (J. Angelo Corlett,
Analyzing Social Knowledge (Totowa: Rowman &Littlefield, 1996), p. 117).
52 I have in mind here cases where duty calls for a cognizers exercising her ability
to believe or accept otherwise, where her current belief or accepted proposition
is plainly false.
53 Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge, Ch. 9. For another helpful philosophical analysis
of scepticism, see Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984). For discussions of varieties of scepticism, see Robert Audi, Epistemology (London: Routledge, 1999), Ch. 10; Alvin
Goldman, Epistemology and Cognition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1986), Ch. 2.
54 Thomas Nagel, Moral Luck, in Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979), p. 27. For more on moral luck, see Bernard Williams,
Moral Luck, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 50 (1976), pp. 11535.
55 We would then be, to use Audis terminology, genetically responsible cognizers,
and, moreover, retentionally responsible ones so long as we remained selfdeceived in such a way.
56 What I argue here is consistent with Audis articulation of what he refers to as a
commonsense view that we can know that there is both justified belief and
knowledge about the external world, and can know this even if we cannot show
that there is there is certainly justified belief and knowledge about ones own
consciousness and about certain a priori matters. Skeptics certainly do not seem
to have shown that we do not know this (Audi, Epistemology, p. 313).
57 Nagel, Moral Luck, p. 27.
58 Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, Ch. 2.

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