Ridiculous Beliefs, Irresponsible Beliefs, and Anti-skeptical Evidence

Abstract

This chapter identifies three more potential problems (in addition to the one discussed in Chapter Nine) for the commonsense intuitionist particularist response to radical skepticism laid out in Chapters Six through Eight, and argues that none of these three alleged problems constitutes an insurmountable objection to commonsense anti-skepticism. The first additional problem is the Problem of Ridiculous Beliefs, according to which noninferential anti-skepticism is committed to approving of a way of responding to skepticism even if that way of responding to skepticism were used to defend ridiculous beliefs. The second is the Problem of Irresponsible Beliefs, according to which unperturbed persistence in endorsing beliefs undefended by argument (e.g. perceptual beliefs), in the face of obvious skeptical possibilities, is epistemically irresponsible. The third is the Problem of Anti-skeptical Evidence, which objects to the view (endorsed by the intuitionist particularism laid out in Chapters Six through Eight) that many of our justified beliefs in anti-skeptical propositions are based on good evidence. The worry behind this last alleged problem is that, even if people can have justified belief in anti-skeptical propositions (i.e. propositions that assert the falsity of radical skeptical hypotheses), there are good reasons for concluding that these sorts of beliefs cannot be based on good evidence. The chapter concludes that, after careful examination of all three problems, commonsense intuitionist particularism emerges unscathed.