Utilitarian epistemology

Standard epistemology takes it for granted that there is a special kind of value: epistemic value. This claim does not seem to sit well with act utilitarianism, however, since it holds that only welfare is of real value. I first develop a particularly utilitarian sense of “epistemic value”, according to which it is closely analogous to the nature of financial value. I then demonstrate the promise this approach has for two current puzzles in the intersection of epistemology and value theory: first, the problem of why knowledge is better than mere true belief, and second, the relation between epistemic justification and responsibility. Standard epistemology has it that there is a particularly epistemic type of value. A belief might be disastrous in many other ways; it might bring about great misery, and be horribly ugly to contemplate, and even cause you to forget many other important things. If that belief is an instance of knowledge, though, then most would say it is valuable in at least one important way: epistemically.1 The nature of this epistemic value is mysterious, however, and a variety of notable epistemologists will cheerfully confess (when pressed) that they have no good idea what it is. It is fine to rely here and there on pretheoretical notions, of course—but given the weight this particular notion has borne in recent epistemology, I think it is time to start theorizing. That such special epistemic value exists is, at any rate, a normative claim, and it had better be consonant with one’s overall theory of value. If one is a Kantian about value, it is easy enough to imagine how to make room for an epistemic dimension; presumably epistemic value is (roughly) to do with forming correct intentions with respect to believing. It is also easy enough to see how an Aristotelian might start to accommodate epistemic value; probably, epistemic value inheres in stably virtuous epistemic habits.2 An explicit account of either such picture of epistemic value would ∗This is a draft (version: utilitarian-epistemology.tex,v2.2); the official version belongs to Synthese and Springer. Thanks to Marc Alspector-Kelly, James Beebe, Alvin Goldman, John Greco, Robert Gressis, John Keller, Ashley McDowell, Duncan Pritchard, and anonymous referees. 1Knowledge is what is of typically epistemic value in standard epistemology; Kvanvig (2003) and others have argued otherwise, but they still agree that there is particularly epistemic value in something, such as understanding. 2I am thinking the likes of e.g. Chisholm (1977) or Ginet (1975) for the former, and Goldman (2000) or Sosa (1997) for the latter.