What is the nature of this positive connection or link between one's belief and the truth goal of believing that constitutes the difference between true belief and knowledge? In what does positive epistemic status consist? We can begin reflecting on this question by considering so-called justification theories. During the second half of this century, especially since Edmund Gettier’s 1963 paper "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", philosophers have given considerable attention to the idea that knowledge is (or is not) justified true belief.¹ But what is it for a belief to be justified?

One prominent view of justification is the evidentialist view. A justified belief is one for which a person has adequate evidence of some sort. A second related notion is that one is justified in holding some belief only if one is intellectually entitled to hold the belief, i.e., within one's intellectual rights or not in violation of certain epistemic duties. The views are often combined in what we might call deontological evidentialism: one has an intellectual obligation to hold a belief only if one adequate evidence for the belief. Alternatively, a person ought not to hold a belief in the absence of sufficient evidence.

Let's look at the idea that justification involves the possession of evidence for one's belief. In the popular 1970s TV program Columbo, the often absent-minded, seemingly incompetent detective Columbo gathers together various bits of information in the course of the show that point him in the direction of the murderer. On the basis of these bits of information, he forms the belief that so and so is likely the murderer. Although he relies heavily on confessions to convict, his own beliefs about the guilty person are formed on the basis of various facts he uncovers during his investigation. Similarly, a person working in an office without windows may come to hold the belief that it is raining outside on the basis of seeing customers walking in with damp raincoats and perhaps hearing the sound of thunder outside. Or take the case of Milo. On the basis of his beliefs that all men are mortal and Socrates is a man, he believes that Socrates is mortal.

In these three cases, a person forms a true belief on the basis of reasons in the form of other beliefs or propositions. These reasons support the truth of their target belief in a particular way.² Each person has what we might call propositional evidence for his belief. These cases involve instances of logical inference, and as the latter two examples demonstrate such inferences may be quite automatic, taking very little time and a minimal amount of cognitive effort. The support could be viewed as adequate by stipulating that the reasons in question are themselves justified beliefs and they either entail the target belief (as in the third example) or at least make the target belief probable (as in the first two cases). Moreover, it appears that in each of these cases the person grasps, or could come to see upon reflection, that their reasons do provide good indications that the target belief is true. Since the target belief is held on the basis of this evidence, we can say that it is inferentially held and inferentially justified.³

The propositional evidence justification model (hereafter, PEJ model) seems to provide an accurate account of some cases of knowledge, such as the situations described in the above examples. But it seems implausible to suppose that propositional evidential justification is necessary for knowledge simpliciter. First, most of our putative knowledge states are not in fact evidentially grounded. While taking an afternoon walk, I believe that the sun is shining. I believe that there are other minds. I believe that the University of Cambridge is located in England. I believe that 2 + 2 = 4. At the moment, I believe that it seems to me that I am awake. These beliefs are not typically held on the basis of some kind of evidential inference, much less the result of some explicit argument. He we have sources such as sensory perception, introspection, intuition, and testimony. This suggests that either these sources of beliefs or modes of forming beliefs do not produce knowledge or the inferential evidential model is incorrect.⁴

Secondly, a propositional evidence requirement for knowledge would face a problem of infinite regress on the one hand or vicious circularity on the other. If knowledge (or justified belief) is defined in terms having adequate evidence, and adequate evidence is defined with reference to other beliefs that are justified, then before those beliefs could be adequate evidence for a given belief, they would have to have adequate evidence themselves. But then this latter evidence (if adequate) would also require adequate evidence, and so on ad infinitum. Justification would seem to require the possession of an infinite number of justified beliefs if a person is to be justified in holding any particular belief. But it is not psychologically possible for human persons to hold an infinite number of beliefs, so we could not be justified in any belief. But then justification evidentialism, coupled with an infinite regress and a limit to the number of beliefs a human person can have, entails that knowledge is not possible. But this conclusion certainly seems false. This conclusion could only be avoided if at some point the chain of evidence looped and returned back to a previous justified belief, so that A is evidence for B, C is evidence for A, D is evidence for C, and B is evidence for D. Of course this carries with it the implication that some proposition (B) is evidence for itself, at least if we assume that "being evidence for" is a transitive relation. But in that case B would be justified in a way independent of its evidential relations to other beliefs. This conclusion seems to be inconsistent with PEJ.

The problems with the PEJ model need not be taken as a conclusive case against justification construed as evidence, for we might legitimately broaden the idea of evidence. One of the important questions in epistemology is whether mental states other than beliefs can constitute evidence for beliefs. Take beliefs formed on the basis of sensory perceptual experience. I am appeared to in a particular way and I form a particular kind of belief. Looking out the window, I am appeared to rainly and I form the belief that it is raining outside. My belief that it is raining outside is made evident by the appearance of rain, by what we might call experiential evidence (in this case sensory perceptual evidence). My belief that it is raining outside is not held on the evidential basis of my belief that I am appeared to rainly. Indeed I might be appeared to rainly without believing that I am appeared to that way. What is crucial here is that I have the experience of being appeared to in a certain way and a particular belief is formed on the basis of this phenomenal imagery. But there is also what we might call testimonial evidence. My elementary school teacher tells me that 2 + 2 = 4 or that George Washington was the first president of the United States, and I believe her. Although I could reason from my teacher's past reliability when she speaks qua teacher to the likely truth of what she tells me on some specific occasion, this doesn't seem to be accepting beliefs on testimony works, at least not initially or for young children. But we might want to say that a child or adult's accepting something on testimony is accepting it on the basis of evidence of some sort, even if it is not clearly or necessarily propositional evidence.⁵

There are other kinds of beliefs, though, for which it is unclear as to whether they have anything like even non-propositional evidence. A priori beliefs and memory beliefs are prime examples. I believe that I had cereal last night before going to bed and that I went to the Pinnacles for a summer camping trip in June 1988. My memory alone is the source of such beliefs. Do I thereby have evidence for these beliefs? It might be argued that like being appeared to in a certain way, memorial experience is a kind of experiential evidence. But in the case of beliefs formed on the basis of evidence of the senses, there is a clear distinction between the belief and the experiential evidence. I believe that there is a tree in front of me because I am appeared to a certain way, a tree in front of me sort of way. Although memory often involves phenomenal imagery, sometimes it doesn't and even when it does it hard to distinguish between the memorial experience and the belief allegedly formed on the basis of this experience. Something similar is also encountered in the case of a priori beliefs. I believe that all blue objects are colored and that 10 x 10 = 100. Etc etc It seems difficult to explain evidence for these beliefs in a way that would distinguish between the belief that is held and its truth. Similarly with introspective beliefs like I seem to see a tree.

So it appears that even a sufficient broadening of the idea of evidence will leave us with at least problematic cases in which beliefs are formed and knowledge had but where this is nothing in the way of grounds or evidence for the truth of the beliefs. If these beliefs are self-evident, then they are clearly not based on evidence, but carry their evidence with them so to speak. So evidence views of justification will stand in need of sufficient modification to give us what it takes to make he difference between true belief and knowledge. Evidentialism in its various forms does not seem to be necessary for knowledge, even some cases of knowledge involve evidence.

Another (related) way of approaching justification is by beginning with the normative character of the idea "justification." The concept of justification carries a normative ring to it, like when we say that a person’s action was or was not justified. This smacks of duty and obligation. To take the relevant analogy from human behavior, Billy was justified (morally, prudentially, or legally) in doing A just if in doing A Billy was not in violation of any relevant duties or obligations. This is not to say, of course, that Billy was obligated or required to do A, only that he was permitted to do A (i.e., that A’s negation was not obligatory), because his doing A did not involve him in the violation of any relevant rules or regulations. So if Billy is legally justified in purchasing alcohol at age 21 this means that Billy does not contravene any of the laws of the state in purchasing alcohol, not that there is a law which places an (legal) obligation on Billy to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels.⁶

Several philosophers have argued something like this with respect to our believings. John Locke appears to be the fons et origo of this view,⁷ and it has enjoyed widespread endorsement by contemporary philosophers. Carl Ginet, for instance, writes: "One is justified in being confident that p if and only if it is not the case that one ought not to be confident that p; one could not be justly reproached for being confident that p."⁸ Similarly Laurence Bonjour writes: "My contention here is that the idea of avoiding such irresponsibility, of being epistemically responsible in one's believings, is the core of the notion of epistemic justification."⁹ "A justified belief," says John Pollock, "is one that it is 'epistemically permissible' to hold."¹⁰ Roderick Chisholm writes: "We may assume that every person is subject to a purely intellectual requirement: that of trying his best to bring it about that for any proposition p he considers, he accepts p if and only if p is true. . .One might say that this is the person's responsibility or duty qua intellectual being" (Theory of Knowledge, p. 14).

So we might say that a person S is justified in believing that p just if there are no relevant rules or principles which would prohibit believing that p. As in the case of moral or legal justification, S’s being justified in believing that p does not mean that S had an obligation to believe that p (though this might in fact be true), only that the relevant rules did not prohibit believing that p. But what sorts of rules or regulations can govern beliefs? Since we are talking about the "epistemic" justification of belief (as opposed to say, prudential justification of belief), the relevant concept will be that of not violating any epistemic, cognitive, or intellectual obligations. We might say that such an individual is epistemically entitled to hold his belief. If we return to the notion of the epistemic point of view, we will discover that acquiring true beliefs and avoiding false beliefs serves as the guide for determining epistemic duties and obligations. Presumably we will have duties like refraining from believing in the absence of sufficient evidence (whatever evidence amounts to), accepting those propositions that we see follow from (or are rendered probable by) some other proposition(s), or not accepting those propositions for which we have sufficient reason to think are false. Clearly, the deontological conception is subject to several permutations, depending on how exactly we spell out the relevant set of epistemic duties.

There is an interesting connection between epistemic deontologism and evidential justification. It might be thought that the deontological concept of justification implies evidential type conditions for justification. In other words, perhaps one of the intellectual duties we have is not to hold beliefs in the absence of evidence, to proportion the degree of belief to the degree of evidential support for the belief. It's hard to see how this is plausible if evidence is taken as propositional evidence though. Presumably the more basic intellectual obligations would be things like governing one's assent or beliefs so that one increases one's true belief and minimizes one's false beliefs. Another possibility is that we have an intellectual obligation to hold a belief in some circumstance only if we can - all things considered - regard the belief as likely to be true under those conditions. Specifying the relevant set of intellectual obligations is not an easy task, but given the truth goal of epistemically significant believing, the obligations must in some way relate to the truth goal. The rules for believing must place us in a good position vis-à-vis that goal.

But it is here that four main problems emerge for deontological views of justification.

1. Doxastic Voluntary Control Problem

If justification is construed deontologically, then it would seem that we must have direct voluntary control over our beliefs, to be able to take them up "at will." Otherwise concepts such as obligation, duty, reproach, and blame would not be applicable to them. Such is the case at any rate if we assume the wildly endorsed, but not uncontroversial, "ought implies can" thesis. This has led some epistemologists (Alston 1989c) to abandon justificatory deontologism, since there is good reason to doubt the plausibility of a thesis of direct voluntary control of belief (so-called direct doxastic voluntarism) be they beliefs which are obviously false (e.g., the moon is made of green cheese), obviously true (e.g., 2 + 4 = 6), or somewhere in between there two extremes (e.g., religious, philosophical, or higher-level scientific propositions). One very important consideration here (introduced by Swinburne, Faith and Reason, pp. 25-26) is a conceptual one. Our reason for trusting our beliefs is the conviction that they are formed in us by factors independent of our will. If a person were to control the formation of his belief directly, say that there is a tree in front of him, he would know that this belief originated from his will. But then he would know that his belief originated independent of whether what it reported was the case and so had no actual connection to whether there was a tree in front of him. It is hard to see how the person could actually hold the belief if he knew, in effect, that he had no reason to trust the deliverances of his senses. There are clearly cases of apparent choosing to believe propositions at will: the making of an assumption for practical or theoretical purposes and acting as if p is true without actually believing that p, seeking to bring oneself to believe that p, asserting that p, or aligning oneself with a group committed to the belief that p. But none of these voluntary activities should be confused with the state of believing that p.¹¹

To rule out direct voluntary control, though, is not to rule out indirect voluntary influence (Alston 1989c, pp. 134-142). We may embark upon various sorts of research, investigation, or study which puts us into contact with evidence of "this" or "that" sort, knowing that this activity may have certain negative or positive doxastic influences. We voluntarily engage in practices which will influence the formation of new beliefs, withholding belief, or the rejection of old beliefs, but these doxastic states each constitute an involuntary mental response to the evidence before us at any given time. Accordingly, if deontologism is to get off the ground it will have to modify the nature of epistemic obligations to account for lack of direct doxastic control. Instead of attaching obligations, permission, blame, etc. to beliefs, they would be applied to those practices (within our control) that influence factors that in turn influence belief. So, for example, the relevant obligation might be something like doing as much as can be reasonably expected of one to see to it that one believes a proposition only if one has adequate evidence for it. But to the extent that the criticisms above stand it does not seem that obligations can attach to individual beliefs.

2. Limited Application of Knowledge

There is still some doubt as to whether deontological justification thus modified is necessary for knowledge. For one, such a requirement can only apply to beings that are subject to intellectual obligations. This would exclude my pet dog, my neighbor's pet cat, and the animals at Lion Country Safari. But if deontological justification is necessary for knowledge, and animals are not subject to intellectual obligations, then animals cannot have knowledge. Whether animals know is I realize a controversial matter. It seems to me that they do have knowledge (even if they do not know that they know). The point is that if justification, deontologically construed, is necessary for knowledge, it would not be possible for animals to have knowledge. We would have to limit the applicability of the concept of knowledge to beings who could be subject to intellectual duties.

3. Intellectual Duties not Necessary for Knowledge

Even so, couldn't a person flout his epistemic duties, be an epistemic villain of sorts, and still have knowledge? Suppose that I have an intellectual obligation to investigate the credibility of what people tell me on highly important matters. A colleague at work tells me that another colleague has been fired. If I had investigated, as I ought to have, I would have found reasons for not trusting his testimony, but in fact I do accept what he tells me. He is in fact reliable, so the belief I form on the basis of his testimony is true. It seems reasonable to suppose that in this case I also know that the colleague in question has been fired, but I have not followed my intellectual duties. But it looks like I have knowledge in this case.

4. The Insufficiency of Deontologism

This raises another perceived difficulty with deontologism. It seems to fall short of the natural way of construing the epistemic point of view.

According to Schmitt:

But surely a person can be within his intellectual rights in holding some belief without the belief being reliably produced.

Suppose a man is raised in some primitive community on an Island that has little contact with the rest of the world. He finds himself as a teenager with the belief that a certain dance will cause it to rain. This belief is widely accepted in his community; in fact it is an essential part of the community tradition. He accepts, without hesitation, the traditions of his community. These traditions play an important role in the life of the community, and the man has never encountered anyone who has questioned either these traditions or the belief about the rain dance. On a particular occasion, the man forms the belief that it will rain the next day on the sole basis of performing this ritual. In fact, it does rain. So his belief is true. What intellectual duty is the young man violating? He has thought reflectively about this practice to some extent, but he has found no reason to doubt its efficacy. In fact, it has often worked in the past. Has he not done all that can reasonably be expected of him? It would seem so. But he is not in a good position to acquire true beliefs on the matter at hand simply because his method of forming the belief is unreliable.

Or consider the case of log cabin Jerry. The elderly man has lived in a log cabin in the mountains since he was a young man. For most of those years, he has had a lovely set of wind chimes on his porch. When he hears them chime, he believes that the wind is blowing outside. While on one his daily nature walks, Jerry is struck by a wayward burst of cosmic radiation. This radiation will induce periodic and random chiming sounds in his head for about two months, and this chiming sound is indistinguishable from his cabin chimes. Later that evening, the chiming is induced by the portion of his brain affected by the radiation. Jerry straightway believes that the wind is blowing outside. In fact, the wind is blowing outside (and the cabin wind chimes are chiming). Jerry's belief is true and he has violated no intellectual duties. He has no reason for supposing anything to the contrary, nor does he have any reason for thinking that he suffers from this unfortunate cognitive situation. Things are epistemically speaking business as usual. Further, let us stipulate that though he has no obligation to investigate whether he suffers from cognitive malfunction, even if had investigated the matter he would not have discovered anything abnormal in his cognitive situation.

Like the previous case, we find here a true belief produced in a way that is not reliable (due to cognitive malfunction), and this leads us to doubt whether the case describes a case of knowledge. It is doubtful that beliefs acquired by sheer luck constitute knowledge, and this is exactly what we have in the above cases. But both individuals get a true belief by sheer luck without violating any intellectual duties in doing so. Therefore, deontological justification is not sufficient, along with true belief, for knowledge.

The insufficiency of deontologism is related to the so-called "Gettier Cases." A suggested above, Gettier Cases purport to show instances of justified true belief that do not constitute knowledge. Not only do they raise problems for evidentialism and deontologism, but other views of justification (and knowledge) as well. But they also suggest what may be required for a more plausible theory of knowledge. To this we now turn.