Wedgwood’s explanation of internalism about rationality
In ‘Internalism Explained,’ Ralph Wedgwood attempts to explain–apparently not argue for–internalism about rationality. Internalism is expressed by Internalism:
internalism: Necessarily, if A and B are internal twins, then A is rational iff B is rational.
Wedgwood focuses solely on belief revision–i.e. on the requirements governing coming to have new beliefs and the requirements governing standing beliefs. He starts out by noting that different situations call for different belief revisions. Since this is true, we can imagine a set of rules that delineate which belief revisions are called for in various circumstances. One follows some of those rules as a means to following other rules. However, one also follows some of those rules directly–i.e. one follows some other rules by not following simpler rules intermediately. Wedgwood calls the rules that one follows directly the basic rules. He holds that the basic rules are the rules governing rational belief. Wedgwood argues that whenever one revises her beliefs by following a (direct?) rule, a ‘fully-articulated folk psychological explanation of that belief revision will always identify the proximate explanation of that belief revision with’ a non-factive mental state. Thus, since he holds that the basic rules govern rational belief revision and he holds that necessarily each folk psychological explanation of a belief revision that is caused by following a basic rule is spelled out in terms of internal facts, it follows that internalism is true.
I could spell out in more detail Wedgwood’s argument (and trust me, there are lots more details), but I don’t think it is necessary to show that Wedgwood’s conclusion is actually compatible with externalism. This is because in order to explain internalism, it is not enough to show that whenever someone is rational, she is rational in virtue of internal facts. One also has to show that that whenever someone is irrational, she is irrational because she fails to respond to internal facts in the appropriate way. But I think that it’s clear that Wedgwood has only done the former. To see this, consider the following two cases:
banal: Suppose Eve is driving home from work. She is approaching a traffic light that is green. She believes that since the light is green, no pedestrians will cross the street. She thus believes that it’s safe to drive through the light. As she approaches the light, her gaze focuses on a billboard on the side of the road. No pedestrians cross her path and she safely makes it home.
danger: Suppose Eve is driving home from work. She is approaching a traffic light that is green. She believes that since the light is green, no pedestrians will cross the street. She thus believes that it’s safe to drive through the light. As she approaches the light, her gaze focuses on a billboard on the side of the road. Just as her gaze moves from the road to the billboard, a pedestrian streaks onto the road. She hits and kills the pedestrian.
Call the world where Banal takes place W1 and the world where Danger takes place W2. Obviously Eve is rational in Banal. But I have the strong intuition that she is irrational in Danger. More specifically, I think that her belief that it’s safe to drive through the intersection and her intention to drive through the intersection are irrational in Danger. Ignore for the moment that there is a more straightforward argument against internalism based on these cases (viz. that Eve in W1 and Eve in W2 are internal twins yet in W1 Eve is rational and in W2 Eve is irrational). Let’s focus on ways in which Eve can be irrational in this situation. Remember that Wedgwood has only claimed that every time Eve is rational, the fully articulated folk psychological explanation only mentions non-factive mental states. So, one way Eve could be irrational is if she saw the pedestrian but failed to (e.g.) form the intention to safely avoid hitting the pedestrian. In that case, there would be a fully articulated folk psychological explanation that only mentions non-factive mental states explaining her irrationality. But consider Danger. In that case, she is intuitively irrational, but there cannot be a fully articulated folk psychological explanation that only mentions non-factive mental states because she had no experience with the content of the pedestrian. But notice that this contradicts nothing Wedgwood actually says. He only makes a claim about explanations of someone’s rationality, not their irrationality. Thus, his official claim is compatible with externalism. That is, it might be that necessarily when one is rational there is a fully articulated folk psychological explanation explaining one’s rationality by only referring to one’s non-factive mental states while at the same time it being the case that there are instances of irrationality where there is no such explanation. But if the latter is true, then internalism if false. So, Wedgwood’s explanation is no explanation at all.
is this what you are clamming is compatible with externalism:
Necessarily, if A and B are internal twins, then A is rational iff B is rational.
or something else?
Shyam,
No, I’m not claiming Internalism is compatible with externalism. Externalism is the denial of Internalism. I am claiming that this is compatible with externalism:
Necessarily, whenever one [rationally] revises her beliefs by following a (direct?) rule, a ‘fully-articulated folk psychological explanation of that belief revision will always identify the proximate explanation of that belief revision with’ a non-factive mental state.
First, I should note that I don’t get that pair of intuitions, for what that’s worth (I get the intuition that the cases are under described, but that the verdict should be the same).
More importantly, does Wedgewood allow cases where one’s belief formation is neither rational nor irrational? If he does not, then wouldn’t one’s irrationality be explained by the fact that one’s belief formation confirms to the rules that would make it rational? What more would be needed to explain the irrationality of your belief?
Justin,
Re. the underdescription. Imagine W1 is the actual world. Eve leaves work and starts to drive home. She approaches the corner of 5th and 17th at T1. All of the facts in W1 are the same in W2 up until T1. Both Eves look at the billboard at T2. In W1, Eve goes through the intersection untouched and goes on. In W2, at T3, the pedestrian comes out and at T4 the pedestrian is hit. The idea is that up until T2 all of the facts were the same in each world.
Re. intuitions. Lots of people have my intuitions, but a good amount don’t. In other work I tie being irrational with being blameworthy, and tie agents like Eve in Danger to blame.
You write, ‘More importantly, does Wedgewood allow cases where one’s belief formation is neither rational nor irrational? If he does not, then wouldn’t one’s irrationality be explained by the fact that one’s belief formation confirms [conforms?] to the rules that would make it rational? What more would be needed to explain the irrationality of your belief?’
I am not sure about the first question, but I conjecture no. You say ‘wouldn’t one’s irrationality be explained by the fact that one’s belief formation conforms to the rules that make it rational?’ But if one’s belief formation conforms to the rules that make it rational, then the belief is rational. The proximate explanation of an instance of irrationality needs to cite the rule that is broken and the fact that constitutes the agent’s failure. The rule in this case has something to do with which conditions it’s safe to drive through intersections in. Eve’s failure is constituted by the fact that there is something that (1) is easily known by her and (2) greatly affects what she ought to believe and do. But that constitution fact is not an internal fact about Eve. In fact, even if that isn’t the right proximate explanation, we know that the right proximate explanation won’t refer to an internal fact about Eve because Eve never has an experience with the content of the pedestrian’s presence.
What a dreadful typo of mine–I must have lost a negative while rearranging that sentence. It should have been “wouldn’t one’s irrationality be explained by the fact that one’s belief formation fails to confirm to the rules that would make it rational?”
The reason I said it was underdescribed is that your exposition, and even your revised exposition give us no real grip on whether Eve is acting responsibly or not. After all, there are going to be rules about paying attention to the road–did Eve hit the pedestrian because she wasn’t paying attention, or because the pedestrian darts out in such a way that an attentive driver observing the speed limit would be likely to hit them? (I think attention to that sort of distinction ought to undermine your intuition).
We’re actually taught (impossibly stringent) rules in driver’s ed. In particular: “She believes that since the light is green, no pedestrians will cross the street” doesn’t pass muster, anymore than “I’m maintaining speed in my lane, so I won’t have an accident” passes muster.
So I don’t see the reason to appeal to rules about conditions under which you drive through the intersection.
Justin,
That’s a good point about the description of the case with respect to the rationality of actions. That is, we might not think Eve is irrational if she doesn’t avoid hitting the pedestrian if the pedestrian darts out in such a way as to make it unavoidable that she will be hit. But suppose that Eve can avoid hitting her even if she looks at the billboard and then looks back (so at T3 she sees the pedestrian).
Nonetheless, I don’t see how those facts are supposed to undermine our intuitions about the rationality of her belief. For even if she can’t avoid hitting the pedestrian, she still should believe that it’s not safe to drive through the intersection. Moreover, I don’t even think it should affect our intuitions about the rationality of her intention to drive through the intersection because I think she should intend to avoid hitting her even if it’s impossible for her to succeed in actualizing her intention (I admit this case is more controversial).
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