Volume V (2022) (2015)
Allowing Reliabilism to Account for Evidence
Klayton Silverpen Central Michigan University
Abstract
I argue against evidentialism, the position that beliefs are justified when the belief fits the belief- holder’s evidence, and instead argue in favor of reliabilism, the position that a belief is justified if it was formed using a reliable-belief forming process. However, I recognize a key issue with reliabilism is that it does not account for evidence. To help reliabilism handle this problem better, I propose that only processes that use evidence or existing justified beliefs as inputs be considered reliable belief-forming processes. I also add that multiple processes can contribute to the justification of a single belief, rather than only one process per belief. With these adjustments, I show how my account of reliabilism can better stand up to the criticisms made by Feldman and Conee in their paper “Evidentialism.” This puts reliabilism on somewhat equal footing as evidentialism. I then make a case for why I think reliabilism should be preferred, even though my account of reliabilism and Feldman and Conee’s account of evidentialism end up looking very similar.
I. Introduction
Evidentialism is the view that a belief is justified when it fits the belief- holder’s evidence.
In other words, the evidence is doing the justifying for any given belief. I would agree that
evidence is important in justification. However, I do not think that evidence is what makes a belief
justified or not. Instead, something must be done with the evidence to make it into a belief. I find it
more plausible that the process by which evidence is used to form beliefs is what does the
justifying for that belief, not the evidence alone. I am defending a form of reliabilism. Reliabilism
is the view that a reliable belief-forming process is what justifies a belief. Where my case for
reliabilism may differ from others is that I believe that evidence is still an important factor in
justifying beliefs, and I wish to give an adequate account of evidence’s role while also contending
that the evidence itself is not the justifying factor. I argue that evidence is necessary for
justification, but it is not sufficient . Instead, the reliable belief-forming process is what adds
justifying power to evidence.
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