Justified Closure of Inquiry

Kraig Martin

 

In my dissertation, I argue the following: one has full justification to close inquiry whenever a) one is morally required to close inquiry, b) one has epistemic justification to close inquiry, it is instrumentally rational to do so, and one is not morally prohibited from doing so, c) it is instrumentally rational for one to close inquiry, and one is not morally prohibited from doing so, or d) one has epistemic justification for the relevant proposition, one is not morally prohibited from doing so, and one is worried that any defeaters one will find in continued inquiry will be misleading defeaters.  In situation (c) (and in some instances of (a)), one is fully justified in closing inquiry, but one does not have epistemic justification for the proposition into which one closed inquiry (or its denial).  By ‘full justification’, I mean the kind of justification one is asking about when one asks, “If I close inquiry concerning p, will I be doing what I ought to do?”  It is not merely epistemic, nor is it merely practical, nor is it merely moral.  I argue that fully justified closure of inquiry does not reduce to any one of those domains of normativity, though there are relations between those domains the occurrence of which reliably predicts when full justification obtains.

            I need to say something about what I mean by closure of inquiry.  A closure of inquiry is an intentional act. It is what one does when one decides to quit looking for evidence regarding the truth of some proposition.  When one closes inquiry, one does not expect to reopen it (although one may).  Scientists are no longer looking for evidence into the truth of the claim “the earth is at the center of the universe,” because they know that it is false.  Inquiry into the matter is closed.  When I was a kid, I wondered if Corvettes were faster than Porsches.  I never did find out, but I quit caring, so I quit inquiring.  I have closed inquiry into the question of whether or not God exists; I am satisfied that he does.  At one point, most scientists closed inquiry into the question, “Newtonian physics accurately predicts movement in the universe.”  They thought they knew that it was true.  At some point, they reopened inquiry into that proposition. 

I take it that inquiry can’t be closed unless it is first opened.  As such, one does not close inquiry into the truth of a proposition unless one first inquires into the truth of the proposition.  Further, closing inquiry does not occur every time one stops looking for evidence into the truth of some proposition that one at one time looked for evidence regarding; dying, for example, is not the act of closing inquiry.  Rather, closing inquiry, although one need not be conscious of it as closing inquiry, must be an intentional cessation of evidence gathering, though it need not always lead to belief on the part of the one who closed inquiry.

            My dissertation is solely interested in the following question: in virtue of what might one be justified in closing inquiry?  I have already stated how I intend to answer that question.  In explicating and defending that answer, I first look at some alternative principles of justified closure of inquiry, showing how each of them fails. 

 

Non-Epistemic Principles of Justified Closure of Inquiry

In chapter one, I consider three principles of justified closure of inquiry that understand closure as entirely concerned with non-epistemic normativity.  First I consider the following principle:

IR:                   S is justified in closing inquiry concerning whether or not p iff it is instrumentally rational for S to close inquiry into whether or not p.

 

I argue that IR fails because moral concerns can trump instrumental concerns.  This concern would be neutralized if either a) there were no truly moral domain of normativity or b) moral normativity were a species of instrumental rationality.  However, both (a) and (b) are false.   In regards to (a), I follow Ralph Wedgwood in arguing that noncognitivism is false.  In regards to (b), I give a case in which an act is clearly morally justified, and yet clearly instrumentally irrational.  As such, morality cannot be a species of instrumental normativity.

            I then consider a second principle of justified closure of inquiry:

M:                    S is justified in closing inquiry concerning whether or not p iff S is not morally forbidden from closing inquiry into whether or not p.

 

I show that the left-facing arrow in (M) is unlikely to be true.  There are cases in which S is not morally forbidden from closing inquiry, and yet S does not have justification to close inquiry.  I give an example of someone who is morally permitted to close inquiry, and yet is not justified in closing inquiry.

            I then investigate an argument in favor of (M).  The argument that I consider in favor of (M) is committed to something like the following:

1.      If instrumental rationality can be reduced to a more fundamental normative concept without losing the ability to explain relevant data, then the reduction ought to be accepted.

2.      Morality is more fundamental than instrumental normativity.

3.      Instrumental rationality can be reduced to morality without losing the ability to explain the relevant data.

4.      The reduction ought to be accepted

 

I argue that (3) is false.  While some cases in which it seems that instrumental rationality and morality come apart can be handled by advocates of (3), other cases that seem to conclusively falsify the claim.  I give one such case. 

            I then consider the following principle:

IR+M:              S is justified in closing inquiry concerning whether or not p iff it is instrumentally rational for S to close inquiry into whether or not p and S is not morally forbidden from closing inquiry into whether or not p.

 

A first concern for IR+M is this: one might be morally required to close inquiry even though such closure is instrumentally irrational.  If that is possible, then there are cases in which IR+M fails because S is justified in closing inquiry in some instances in which it is not instrumentally rational for S to close inquiry.  A second concern for IR+M is that there are possible agents who find themselves compelled to believe a proposition for reasons that they know to be irrational, and in cases in which continuing to hold the belief would constitute neither a moral failing nor a breach of instrumental rationality.  In some such cases, it seems as though the agents ought to leave inquiry open until they achieve epistemic justification for their belief.  If this is the case, then IR+M fails.

            After considering and rejecting principles of closure of inquiry that rely solely on non-epistemic normativity, I consider principles that make use of epistemic justification, but merely of the synchronic variety.

 

Closure of Inquiry and Synchronic Justification

In chapter two, I consider a principle of justified closure of inquiry that relies on synchronic justification.

SJ:                    S is justified in closing inquiry concerning whether or not p iff S is synchronically justified in believing p or in believing ~p.

 

By synchronic justification, I mean that which Richard Foley describes as time slicing epistemology.  Richard Feldman’s O2 principle is an articulation of synchronic justification.[1]

O2:                  For any person, S, time t, and proposition p, if S has any doxastic attitude at all toward p at t, then S epistemically ought to have the attitude toward p supported by S’s evidence at t.

 

I first note that SJ fails because there are cases in which one can close inquiry into some proposition merely because one stops caring about the truth of the proposition.  In order to handle this problem, SJ needs to distinguish between closures of inquiry that are evidentially justified and closures of inquiry that are justified for other reasons.

SJ’        S’s evidence justifies S in closing inquiry concerning p iff S is synchronically justified in believing either p or in believing ~p.

 

SJ’ has a problem with high-stakes cases.  There are times in which one is not justified in closing inquiry, despite having great evidence.  The holder of a lottery ticket is, in many cases, not justified in closing inquiry into <my ticket is a loser> despite having great evidence that her ticket is a loser.  I suggest an emendation to SJ’.

SJ’’       S’s evidence justifies S in closing inquiry concerning p iff a) S is   synchronically justified in believing either p or ~p and b) a suitably informed and logically competent observer could demonstrate that closing inquiry maximizes S’s potential utility.

 

I argue that SJ’’ fails for three reasons.  First, even if one has great evidence and closing inquiry would maximize utility for one, one might be morally obligated to refrain from closing inquiry.  Second, it confuses the issue regarding what one’s evidence justifies and what instrumental rationality justifies.  Finally, and most problematically, there are cases in which agents are justified in closing inquiry, despite the fact that closing inquiry would not maximize utility for them.  I follow Lara Buchak in arguing for this possibility.[2]  It seems to me that synchronic justification can never fully explain justified closure of inquiry because justified closure of inquiry is fundamentally connected to diachronic concerns.

 

Alethic and Epistemic Justification

            At the close of chapter two, I will have argued that purely non-epistemic principles of closure of inquiry and synchronic principles of closure of inquiry fail.  Where shall we turn?  If my arguments are successful, then it is clear that we need to include epistemic justification in our principle, and that the nature of that justification should be diachronic.  However, I am not yet ready to offer a principle that deserves a favorable evaluation.  I need to make a distinction between alethic and epistemic jusification.  In answering the question of when closure of inquiry is justified, a distinction is needed between when one’s evidence justifies closure, and when instrumental or moral factors justify the closure.  I argue that an adequate account of the differences between evidentially based closures and non-evidentially based closures requires a distinction between alethic and epistemic justification.

            Towards this end, I first articulate the differences between alethic and epistemic justification, as articulated by Kvanvig.[3]  Following Kvanvig, I point out that there seem to be occasions when the constituents of knowledge are present (I assume here that knowledge is something like unGetteried justified true belief), and yet knowledge is absent.  The standard example is the lottery case, in which one has great reason to believe <my ticket is a loser>, and yet one does not know that one’s ticket is a loser.  One is justified in believing that one’s ticket will lose, and yet, even in cases when one’s belief that one’s ticket will lose is undefeated and true, one does not know that one’s ticket will lose.  The claim that one does not know that one’s ticket will lose is supported two facts: a) one is not justified in believing that all of the tickets will lose and b) one is not justified (in normal cases) of closing inquiry regarding whether one’s ticket will lose.

            I consider the case made by defenders of the claim that one does know that one’s ticket will lose.  Jessica Brown has given a case that she thinks shows that one can know p even when one is not justified in closing inquiry into whether or not p.[4]  I argue that her case is inconclusive, and that the commonsense view of knowledge as permitting closure of inquiry should be retained.  Since we should think of knowledge as entailing justified closure of inquiry, we should accept the distinction between alethic and epistemic justification (at least, unless we are willing to depart from the view of knowledge as some form of UnGettiered justified true belief).  To fail to do so would cause one to conclude that one is unjustified in believing <my ticket will lose>, since one is unjustified in closing inquiry on the matter.  Since one is clearly justified in believing <my ticket will lose>, we need the distinction between alethic and epistemic justification.

            Next, I consider more fully the distinction between evidentially based closings and non-evidentially based closings.  I start by returning to a gloss I made in an earlier chapter; when practical concerns justify the closure of inquiry, one is not justified in believing p and one is not justified in believing its denial.  I point out that this distinction is faulty in at least two ways.  First, the gloss is faulty because it is possible for both one’s evidence and for one’s practical concerns to justify a closure of inquiry.  Second, it is faulty because one’s evidence might fail to justify a closure of inquiry regarding p, and yet one have alethic justification to believe p or its denial.  After working through some articulations of the distinction, I wind up with this: When practical concerns justify the closure of inquiry (and one’s evidence does not justify the closure), one is not epistemically justified in believing p and one is not epistemically justified in believing its denial, though one may be alethically justified in believing one or the other.

 

Closure of Inquiry and Epistemic Justification

            In this chapter, I argue for two claims.  First, I argue for a principle of justified closure of inquiry on which one’s evidence justifies a closure into whether or not p if and only if S has epistemic justification for believing p or S has epistemic justification for believing ~p.  Secondly, I argue that one is fully justified in closing inquiry whenever a) one is morally required to close inquiry, b) one has epistemic justification to close inquiry, it is instrumentally rational to do so, and one is not morally prohibited from doing so, or c) it is instrumentally rational for one to close inquiry, and one is not morally prohibited from doing so.  Thirdly, I discuss how the claim that knowledge entails justified closure of inquiry handles the worry that one may know p and yet be morally obligated not to close inquiry into whether or not p.  I favor an account in which knowledge entails only that one is evidentially justified, not fully justified, in closing inquiry.

            In regards to the first task, I first consider

EJ:                    S is justified in closing inquiry concerning whether or not p iff S is epistemically justified in believing p or in believing ~p.

 

I conclude that EJ is false because one can be justified in closing inquiry concerning a trivial proposition even when one has no epistemic justification for the proposition or its denial.  I modify as follows:

EJ’                    S’s evidence justifies S in closing inquiry concerning whether or not p iff S is epistemically justified in believing p or in believing ~p.

 

I argue that EJ’ is also false.  I point out that one can be epistemically justified in believing p, but not believe p.  It follows from EJ’ that such a person is evidentially justified in closing inquiry concerning p, even though she believes neither p nor ~p. I make one final emendation:

EJ’’                   S’s evidence justifies S in closing inquiry concerning whether or not p iff S’s belief that p (or S’s belief that ~p) is epistemically justified.

 

EJ’’, I argue, is true.  There are two ways one might argue that it is true.  First, one could consider all of the logical space along which a principle of when one’s evidence justifies a closure of inquiry might fall, and conclude that all of the other options fail.  That is more or less what I have done in the first part of the dissertation.  However, it is exceedingly difficult to identify all of the relevantly possible principles.  I need a positive argument.  I provide the following positive argument in support of EJ’’.

1.      If S knows p, then S is evidentially justified in closing inquiry concerning whether or not p.

2.      The feature of S’s knowledge of p that explains why S is evidentially justified in closing inquiry concerning p has to do with one of the fundamental constituents of knowledge.

3.      The fundamental constituents of S’s knowledge that p are the following: p is true, S has epistemically justified belief that p, and S’s belief that p is undefeated.

4.      The feature of S’s knowledge of p that explains why S is evidentially justified in closing inquiry concerning p is one of the following: p is true, S has epistemically justified belief that p, and S’s belief that p is undefeated.

5.      That p is true and that S’s justification for believing p is undefeated cannot explain why S is evidentially justified in closing inquiry.

6.      Therefore, that S is epistemically justified in believing p explains why S is evidentially justified in closing inquiry.

7.      If that S is epistemically justified in believing p explains why S is evidentially justified in closing inquiry, then EJ’’ is true.

8.      Therefore, EJ’’ is true.

 

In my defense of the premises of my argument, I focus primarily on (5) and (7).  In regards to (5), I show how none of the other constituents of knowledge are likely to explain the almost analytic connection between knowledge and justified closure of inquiry. 

I then consider an objection to (7) .  (7) is not true merely based on the logical construction of EJ’’ and (7).  Other explanatory connections exist between two phenomena without the relevant biconditional being true.  For example, <I am Jed’s father> explains <Jed is my son> without <Jed is my son> entailing <I am Jed’s father>.  This shows that the truth of (7) rests not merely on the logical connections.  I need to show not only that  <S has epistemic justification> explains why <S is evidentially justified to close inquiry>, but also that <S is evidentially justified to close inquiry> entails <S has epistemic justification>. 

Having argued for the truth of EJ’’, I consider the question of full justification.  I consider twelve ways in which moral justification, instrumental rationality, and epistemic rationality might come apart.  Here is a representaton of these twelve possibilities (blue represents obligation, black represents justification, red represents lack of justification):

1.      M         IR        EJ

2.      M         IR        EJ

3.      M         IR        EJ

4.      M         IR        EJ

5.      M         IR        EJ

6.      M         IR        EJ

7.      M         IR        EJ

8.      M         IR        EJ

9.      M         IR        EJ

10.  M         IR        EJ

11.  M         IR        EJ

12.  M         IR        EJ

 

For each of those, I ask: ought one who finds himself in this circumstance close inquiry?  Four of the twelve ways in which these three domains of normativity might come apart involve cases in which one is morally obligated to close inquiry (cases 9-12).  In all such cases, one is fully justified to close inquiry. 

Of the remaining six cases, one of them involves situations in which one has justification in all three domains to close inquiry (1), and another involves a case in which one lacks justification in all three domains (7).  These cases are straightforward.  Four cases involve situations in which one lacks moral justification to close inquiry (5-8).  Since one ought not do something one is not morally justified in doing, one is not fully justified to close inquiry in these cases. 

That just leaves three kinds of cases (2, 3, and 4).  In each of these cases, one is morally justified to close inquiry; the factor that varies among these three is the relationship between the status of one’s epistemic justification and instrumental rationality.  I judge that one is not fully justified to close inquiry in case three.  The most difficult cases are 2 and 4.  Regarding case 4, I argue that one is fully justified to close inquiry, but one lacks epistemic justification for the relevant proposition; in most cases (though not all), this means that one is not justified in believing the relevant proposition.  Regarding case 2, I argue that one may sometimes have full justification to close inquiry (namely, when one is worried that any defeater one will find in one’s continued inquiry will be a misleading defeater).

Next, I mention concerns that I have oversimplified things; there may be complexities involving standards of convention, etiquette, and aesthetics that further complicate the notion of full justification.  For this reason, I regard my statement of when full justification obtains to be a helpful simplification tool.

The use of cognitive tools or shortcuts is commonplace.  Or example, it is well documented that humans are not natural probabilistic thinkers.  For this reason, they often use shortcuts, or tools, to help with their probabilistic decisions making.  These tools, while often helpful, can sometimes provide the wrong answer for those who make use of them.  For example, people often ignore the importance of sample size when asked about the probability of two classes (of differing sizes) straying from their most likely distributions.  This mistake is often blamed on the common use of the representation heuristic, a heuristic in which people assess the likelihood of a sample result from what is representative from some other salient class.[5]  The use of such heuristics, while often helpful in daily decision-making, can lead to mistakes.  It might be that my statement of when full justification obtains is actually a reliable heuristic, albeit one that can err is certain unusual circumstances.

It seems possible to me that there are actually far more than three domains of normativity.  As such, it is possible that some unusual relationship of differing normative judgments among these different domains could well lead to situations when my articulation of when full justification obtains to fail.  Nonetheless, due to the exceedingly complex nature of these potential relationships, heuristics can be helpful.  I do not know how to articulate a situation when my account of full justification fails, but I worry that one may well be possible.

Finally, I consider that the worry that my statement regarding when full justification obtains is a counterexample to my previous claim that knowledge entails justified closure of inquiry.  When one is morally obligated to not close inquiry into p, even though one’s belief that p is epistemically justified, I conclude that one is not fully justified in closing inquiry.  There are two possible replies. First, I might say that morality cannot part with epistemic justification.  A closure is a cessation of evidence-gathering; one might continue to look at relevant bits of information, but one cannot look at those bits of information as evidence unless one takes oneself not to know the truth of the proposition for which they are evidence.  Since one can’t truly leave inquiry open unless one doesn’t know, and morality can never obligate someone to do something that is impossible for one to do, it might be that morality never obligates that an inquiry remain open when one’s evidence justifies its closure.  While this reply seems feasible, it demands a defense of the claim that it is not psychologically possible for one, in the relevant circumstance, to look at the new bits of information as evidence.  That’s an argument that I don’t need to make.  A second possible reply seems better; I say that knowledge doesn’t entail that one is fully justified in closing inquiry, but only that one is evidentially justified in closing inquiry.  Knowledge entails justified closure of inquiry except in those cases when morality constrains it.


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[1] Conee and Feldman, Evidentialism.

[2] Buchak, “Instrumental Rationality, Epistemic Rationality, and Evidence-Gathering.”

[3] Kvanvig, “Coherentism and Justified InConsistent Beliefs: A Solution.”

[4] Brown, “Subject‐Sensitive Invariantism and the Knowledge Norm for Practical Reasoning.”

[5] Tversky and Kahneman, “Judgment under Uncertainty.”