The Legitimacy of Intellectual Praise and Blame

Journal of Philosophical Research © Philosophy Documentation Center ISSN: 1053-8364 doi: Online First: The LegiTimacy of inTeLLecTuaL Praise and BLame ANNE MEYLAN University of Geneva and University of friboUrG aBsTracT: We frequently praise or blame people for what they believe or fail to believe as a result of their having investigated some matter thoroughly, or, in the case of blame, for having failed to investigate it, or for carelessly or insuficiently investigating. for instance, physicists who, after years of toil, uncover some unknown fact about our universe are praised for what they come to know. sometimes, in contrast, we blame and may even despise our friends for being ignorant of certain ecological facts as a result of their refusing to countenance the evidence. the purpose of this paper is to explore what underlies the legitimacy of this practice—the praise or blame of people for what they know or fail to know as a result of investigation or otherwise—namely, the ability to exercise control over one’s doxastic states, and, in particular, as i will argue, one’s ability to exercise indirect generic control over one’s doxastic states. i. inTroducTion W e praise physicists when, after years of research, they come to know something new about the fabric of the universe. We praise our children for what they wind up knowing about killer whales through their seeking out specialist books on the topic—perhaps at a local library. in contrast, you might feel inclined to castigate one of your relatives for their ignorance of certain ecological facts as a result of their refusing to take into account the evidence; you might blame them for their ignorance as a result of having failed to take note of what is known about, say, climate change. i blame my friend for his holding the mistaken belief that consuming dairy is bad for one’s health—he holds this view because he refuses to read any empirical research that could inform such an opinion. it seems, then, that we sometimes praise or blame people for what they believe or fail to believe, for what they know or fail to know, etc.1 as a result of their having investigated the evidence, their having failed to investigate the evidence, or their having 2 Anne Meylan neglected some evidence, etc. Cast differently, we praise or blame people for—what i shall globally name for sake of brevity—the doxastic states, in which they are as a result of their investigative behavior.2 the purpose of this paper is to explore the legitimacy of this practice and to understand, thereby, the forms of control over our doxastic states—the forms of “doxastic control”—that are presupposed by such a practice if legitimate.3 the irst part of the article (sections ii and iii) prepares the ground for this investigation. the investigation of the legitimacy of the practice comes in the second part (sections iv to vii). ii. The condiTion of eVaLuaTion and The condiTion of resPonsiBiLiTy to begin, let us note that two necessary conditions govern the instantiation of the properties of praiseworthiness and blameworthiness and, thereby, the legitimacy of praise and blame.4 these are as follows: Conditions of General Praiseworthiness/Blameworthiness a subject s is praiseworthy/blameworthy for q only if:5 (i) q is a valuable/disvaluable state, event, fact etc.; (ii) s is responsible for q.6 the same thing is true in the more speciic cases of praiseworthiness/blameworthiness for doxastic states. if a subject S is in a certain doxastic state as a result of certain investigative behavior, it is legitimate to praise/blame her for being in this doxastic state, only if the two following conditions are satisied: The Condition of Evaluation (EVA) S’s doxastic state is a valuable/disvaluable state; The Condition of Responsibility (RESP) S is responsible for the valuable/disvaluable doxastic state she is in. as we will see below, the satisiability of the second condition (resP) raises speciic worries. before tackling this issue, however, i need to delineate the topic of this paper more explicitly. it is to that task that i now turn. iii. The PracTice of inTeLLecTuaL Praise and BLame as noted, this paper is an attempt to understand the legitimacy of the practice that consists in praising or blaming people for the doxastic states in which they are, as a result of a certain investigative behavior. Let me restrict the contours of this enquiry on two fronts: III.A. FIRST RESTRICTION the irst restriction concerns the condition of evaluation (eva). there are as many versions of eva as there are ways for our beliefs to be valuable or disvaluable. beliefs can be pleasant, disagreeable, useful, counterproductive, egotistic, generous, true, false, justiied, unjustiied, coherent, incoherent, etc. accordingly, there is a The Legitimacy of Intellectual Praise and Blame 3 version of eva that states that S’s belief is hedonically valuable or disvaluable, another that states that S’s belief is morally valuable or disvaluable, etc. this leads me to an important remark regarding the scope of this paper. in this article, i am interested in the question of whether the practice that consists in praising or blaming people for the doxastic states in which they are as a result of certain investigative behaviors is legitimate when the value or the disvalue at work is epistemic.7 that is, i am concerned with cases in which the subject is praised or blamed for her epistemically valuable or disvaluable doxastic state. the speciic version of the condition eva with which i am interested is, therefore, the following: The Condition of Epistemic Evaluation (EVAepi ) S’s doxastic state is an epistemically valuable or disvaluable state. the speciication of eva has direct inluence on the condition of responsibility (resP). Given this epistemic focus, the speciic version of the condition of responsibility that will be considered in the second part of this paper is the following: The Condition of Epistemic Responsibility (RESPepi ) S is responsible for the epistemically valuable/disvaluable doxastic state she is in. III.B. SECOND RESTRICTION the second restriction concerns what i shall call, somewhat roughly, “the purposefulness” of the doxastic state, which results from a certain piece of investigative behavior. this paper is exclusively concerned with cases in which the initial desire, will, purpose, etc. of the subject, for instance, the desire to believe something true about a topic, is satisied thanks to the piece of investigative behavior.8 More precisely, this article only deals with cases: (i) in which the reason why the subject performs such or such piece of investigative behavior is precisely because she wants to be in a certain epistemically valuable or disvaluable doxastic state (whether particular or generic9) and; (ii) in which the subject’s investigative behavior does really induce what the subject initially wanted—viz., her being in an epistemically valuable or disvaluable doxastic state.10 the following are three ordinary kinds of cases which satisfy conditions (i) and (ii):11 Kind 1: Self-Deception a subject wants to maintain a (potentially false) belief that p, for this reason, does not investigate or poorly investigates the evidence and, as a result of this absence of or poor investigation, maintains her belief that p. Here is a concrete example of self-deception: Example of Kind 1: The Fan Peter is a passionate fan of the cyclist Lance armstrong. because he wanted to maintain the belief that armstrong’s victories at the tour de france are 4 Anne Meylan only due to armstrong’s talents, Peter stopped watching his favorite sports program as soon as he became aware that his idol was facing investigation into doping allegations. as a result of this, Peter managed to sustain the belief that armstrong’s achievements are exclusively due to his skills.12 Kind 2: Intellectual Curiosity a subject wants to know more things about a certain topic, investigates the evidence for this reason and, as a result of this investigation, comes to know more about the topic. an example of intellectual curiosity is the following: Example of Kind 2: The Platypus young Paula is fond of animals. because she wants to know more about them, she starts reading specialized books on the topic. as a result of her reading, she comes to know, among other things, that the animal she calls ‘Platypus’ can also be called ‘ornithorhynchus.’ Kind 3: Intellectual Prudence a subject wants to avoid believing something false about a topic, investigates the evidence for this reason and, as a result of this investigation, avoids holding a false belief about the topic. Here is an example of intellectual prudence: Example of Kind 3: The Pediatrician Jeannie is a pediatrician. after having examined a baby with a temperature and a running nose, she is unsure whether the baby has just caught a cold or suffers from a more severe virus. because she really wants to avoid being wrong, she decides to do blood analyses. as a result of this investigation, she holds the true belief that the baby does not suffer from anything serious. for the sake of clarity, let me briely mention two kinds of cases that do not satisfy conditions (i) and (ii) and that are, thereby, not covered by this paper. Kind 4: Lucky Inquiry a subject wants to know something about a topic, investigates the evidence for this reason but, as a result of this investigation, knows something about another topic. Kind 5: Lucky Self-Deception a subject wants to maintain her (potentially false) belief about a topic, poorly investigates the evidence for this reason but, as a result of this poor investigation, ends up believing something true about this topic. at this point, it is worth marshaling the previous considerations i have detailed. i started by explaining why the legitimacy of our actually praising or blaming someone for the doxastic state in which she is as a result of a piece of investigative The Legitimacy of Intellectual Praise and Blame 5 behavior presupposes that two conditions (eva and resP) are satisied. then, i said that the scope of this paper is limited. the irst limit concerns its evaluative scope. it only deals with cases in which we praise or blame a subject for her epistemically valuable/disvaluable doxastic states. i have also reformulated eva and resP accordingly (evaepi and resPepi). the second restriction concerns what i have called “the purposefulness of the doxastic state resulting from the piece of investigative behavior.” i have said that this paper is only concerned with cases in which the resulting doxastic states are purposeful, in the sense speciied by conditions (i) and (ii) above. for the sake of brevity, let me give a speciic name to the practice that consists in praising or blaming a subject for the doxastic state in which she is as a result of some investigative behavior, when: (a) the value/disvalue at work is epistemic (irst restriction); (b) the resulting doxastic state qualiies as purposeful in the sense speciied by conditions (i) and (ii) (second restriction). Let me call it, the practice of intellectual praise and blame. the legitimacy of the practice of intellectual praise and blame presupposes that the two conditions evaepi and resPepi are satisiable.13 Critically, the satisiability of evaepi is not controversial. Philosophers have provided many different explanations of the epistemic value/ disvalue of our doxastic states.14 that is, although some of them disagree about the reasons why our doxastic states are sometimes epistemically valuable/disvaluable, they concur with the idea that our doxastic states are sometimes epistemically valuable/disvaluable. this is all that evaepi needs to be satisiable. in contrast, the satisiability of resPepi is contentious. the rest of the paper is therefore devoted to considering the conditions under which resPepi can be fulilled. iV. conTroL and resPonsiBiLiTy that a subject is responsible for what she does only if it is, in a sense, under her control is a well-accepted claim.15 now, the immediate consequence of this wellaccepted claim is that resPepi is satisiable only if our doxastic states could be, in some way, under our control. How should we understand the relevant notion of control in play?16 IV.A. DIRECT AND INDIRECT CONTROL the following two kinds of control are traditionally distinguished: direct and indirect control. i spell these out.17 Direct Control direct control is the kind of control that a subject is apt to exercise over her performance when this performance does not result from her performing something else, for instance, another movement. suzie’s action of raising her arm, for instance, is a performance she directly controls if—as it normally is—it is a performance that does not result from her performing something else. 6 Anne Meylan Indirect Control in contrast, indirect control is the kind of control that a subject is apt to exercise over her performance when this performance results from her performing something else, for instance, another movement. Manfred’s action of switching on the light in the room, for instance, is a performance he indirectly controls given that Manfred’s action of switching on the light in the room results from his performing the action of lipping the switch. the distinction between direct and indirect control casts light over the type of doxastic control that a subject has to be able to exercise in order for resPepi to be satisiable. Given that what resPepi demands is that the subject be responsible for the epistemically valuable or disvaluable doxastic state in which she is as a result of a certain investigative behavior, what the satisiability of resPepi accordingly requires is that the subject could exercise indirect control over her being in that state. in the cases under scrutiny in this paper, the subject always comes to be in the relevant state by performing something else: by having a certain investigative behavior. the next pressing question then is naturally whether we are, at least occasionally, able to exercise such indirect control. the mere existence of cases belonging to kind 1, i.e., the mere fact that we do sometimes deceive ourselves, is suficient to show that we are able to exercise such an indirect control over our doxastic states.18 in the fan case (mentioned in section iii), Peter’s maintaining the belief that Lance armstrong did not take drugs really seems to be something over which he exercises indirect control. after all, Peter’s initial desire is to maintain this belief and his maintaining it is the result of an action that Peter performed for the very reason that it enables him to maintain his belief about armstrong. When a subject manages to satisfy one of her desires, in this way—by performing an action for the very reason that she expects this action to induce a state that will satisfy her initial desire—we are really apt to say that this person exercises control over the state that satisies her desire.19 V. The oBJecTion of discrePancy We have just seen that, as far as cases of self-deception like the fan, are concerned, the subject’s exercising indirect control over her doxastic state is hardly deniable. at irst sight, we might be tempted to claim that the same thing is true for cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence. after all, the fan and the platypus/pediatrician cases are structurally analogous. Like Peter, Paula manages to be in a doxastic state that satisies her initial desire to know more things about animals, by performing an action for the very reason that she expects this action to induce the fulillment of this desire. the crucial thing to note at this point, however, is that cases of self-deception differ from cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence in the following respect: in cases of self-deception, the subject’s desire is particular. in contrast, in the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence, the subject’s desire is generic. Where: The Legitimacy of Intellectual Praise and Blame 7 a particular desire is a desire the content of which is such that it can be fulilled by the relevant particular state of affairs only.20 in the fan case, Peter’s desire to believe that armstrong did not take any drug to win will be satisied only if Peter ends up being in the doxastic state that consists in believing that armstrong did not take any drug to win. if Peter ends up believing something more speciic, for instance, that armstrong did not take creatine supplements, his initial desire won’t be satisied (even if it might be better than nothing). a generic desire is a desire the content of which is such that it can be fulilled by various particular states of affairs. More accurately, a generic desire is such that it can be fulilled by any of the various, more particular, states of affairs that fall under its content. Paula’s desire to know more things about animals, for instance, will be fulilled if she comes to know that the animal she calls ‘platypus’ can also be called ‘ornithorhynchus,’ but also if she comes to know that platypuses lay eggs, that whales are mammals, etc. similarly, if Peter’s desire were not a self-deceptive one, if Peter’s desire were to know more things about armstrong’s life in general, his knowing that armstrong did not take creatine supplements would satisfy his desire. the aforementioned difference between cases of self-deception and cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence can be harnessed to reach a different conclusion. Consider what i shall dub the objection of discrepancy. the objection concludes: Contrary to what happens with cases of self-deception, the claim that we are able to exercise indirect control over our doxastic states is not warranted for cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence.21 Let me present this objection in detail. the irst step of the objection consists in observing that there is a discrepancy between: (i) the cases in which we agree that a subject exercises indirect control over her action, e.g., a case in which a subject desires to switch on the light in the room and successfully switches on this particular light as a result of her lipping the switch (what i shall call “the practical cases”), and (ii) the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence. the discrepancy is the following: in the practical cases, a particular desire is satisied by a particular state of affairs, e.g., the state of affairs consisting in the light being switched on in this room; in the cases of intellectual curiosity and intellectual prudence, a generic desire is satisied by a particular state of affairs, e.g., the state of affairs consisting in Paula knowing that the animal she calls ‘platypus’ can also be called ‘ornithorhynchus.’ 8 Anne Meylan the second step of the objection consists in claiming that cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence have to be strictly analogous to practical cases in order for the inference from fact a to fact b to be warranted: fact a: Given that we are able to exercise indirect control over our actions in many practical cases (as when we intentionally switch on the light in the room by lipping the switch); fact b: We are analogously able to exercise indirect control over our doxastic states, in the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence. the third step consists in noting, as we did above, that cases of self-deception differ from cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence in the sense that the latter are, in contrast to the former, not strictly analogous to practical cases. and, as said already, the conclusion of the objection of discrepancy is the following: Contrary to what happens with cases of self-deception, the claim that we are able to exercise indirect control over our doxastic states is not warranted for cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence. now, recall two of the claims presented above: (i) that the satisiability of resPepi requires that our doxastic states could be, in some way, under our control and (ii) that the legitimacy of the practice of intellectual praise and blame itself necessitates the satisiability of resPepi. these two claims when considered in the light of the conclusion of the objection of discrepancy have the following undesirable consequence regarding an important—and perhaps the most important—aspect of the practice of intellectual praise and blame. on the assumption of the truth of the conclusion, it follows that: the only legitimate aspect of the practice of intellectual praise and blame is the one pertaining to cases of self-deception. in contrast, the legitimacy of the aspect that pertains to cases in which we praise people for what they know or for what they avoid to believe falsely (i.e., cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence) is questionable. Here is a slightly more formal way of formulating this reasoning: (P1) in order for the practice of intellectual praise or blame to be legitimate, resPepi has to be satisiable, that is, it must be possible for a subject to be responsible for the doxastic state she is in. (P2) in order that a subject could be responsible for the doxastic state she is in she must be able to exercise (indirect) control over it. (P3) the discrepancy between the practical cases and the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence prevents us from justiiably claiming that the subjects are able to exercise indirect control over their doxastic states in the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence. The Legitimacy of Intellectual Praise and Blame 9 (P4) Given that there is no such discrepancy between the practical cases and the cases of self-deception, the same thing is not true for the latter. nothing prevents us from claiming that the subjects are able to exercise indirect control over their doxastic states in the cases of self-deception. (C) then, as regards to the legitimacy of the practice of intellectual praise and blame, the diagnostic is twofold: while there is no reason to doubt the legitimacy of the practice when it pertains to cases of self-deception, the legitimacy of the practice is not warranted when the latter pertains to cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence. in what follows, i resist this thought. Vi. rePLy To The oBJecTion of discrePancy the conclusion reached by the argument above is undesirable since it casts doubt on the legitimacy of the well-entrenched (and probably useful) habit that consists in praising people for what they come to know or avoid believing falsely. fortunately, there is a way of circumventing the objection of discrepancy and of, thereby, avoiding conclusion (C). it starts by providing a practical case with the following two features: (i) it is strictly analogous to the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence, that is, a case in which, a subject’s generic desire is satisied by a particular state of affairs. (ii) We nonetheless, agree that the subject exercises indirect control over the particular state of affairs that satisies her desire. Here is such a case: The Airport nestor is the manager of a building, nearby an airport. every evening, he is in charge of lipping a switch in order to turn on one of the four neon signs located on the roof of the building. this is an action that nestor performs every day, at nightfall, since it reduces the probability of accidents when aircraft are landing. Moreover, nestor knows that the lighting system is designed in such a way that it exclusively takes the orientation of the wind into account and that he himself is not in a position to induce the switching on of one of the particular neon signs located on the roof of the building. yesterday evening, nestor induced, as a matter of fact, the turning on of the east neon sign. in this example, (i) nestor’s generic desire to turn on one of the four neon signs located on the roof of the building is satisied by a particular state of affairs, i.e., the turning on of the east neon sign. Moreover, (ii) nestor really seems to control something as regards the turning on of the neon signs (the exact nature of nestor’s control is the topic of the following section). to be sure, nothing speaks against the possibility of praising nestor for his action. Praising him, however, would be totally illegitimate if nestor were not controlling anything as regards the turning on of the neon signs. 10 Anne Meylan the mere presentation of an example in which a subject exercises indirect control while her desire is generic is enough to undermine the objection of discrepancy. even if it is true that in the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence, like the platypus case, a generic desire is satisied by a particular state of affairs, this is also sometimes the case in speciic practical cases, for instance, in the airport case. now, in these speciic practical cases, the subject exercises control over her action. Given that cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence are strictly analogous to these speciic practical cases, there is no reason to think that the same conclusion does not apply to them. that is, there is no reason to think that the subject is deprived of all her control in cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence. Vii. generic conTroL Let us suppose that what is true regarding the indirect control that nestor exercises (in the airport case) is, by analogy, true regarding the indirect control exercised in the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence. it is worth, then, considering the airport case in a little more detail. When speaking about nestor’s control, i vaguely claimed that he controls “something as regards the turning on of the neon signs.” but what is, more precisely, under nestor’s control? an immediate but incorrect answer to this question is the following: When, as a matter of fact, nestor’s generic desire to switch on any one of the neon signs whichever is satisied by the particular state of affairs consisting in his turning on the east neon sign, nestor exercises control over the particular state of affairs consisting in the east neon sign being turned on. this cannot be right. the fact that the east neon sign (rather than the west, the north or the south one) is turned on is, in no way, up to nestor. nestor cannot conceivably be said to exercise control over such a particular state of affairs given that it exclusively depends on the orientation of the wind and not on nestor at all. but, as we said above, something really seems to be under nestor’s control in the airport case. Here is a much more promising answer to the question above: When, as a matter of fact, nestor’s generic desire to switch on any one of the neon signs whichever is satisied by the particular state of affairs consisting in his turning on the east neon sign, nestor exercises control over the generic state of affairs consisting in any one of the neon signs whichever being turned on. a generic state of affairs is a state of affairs that implies the occurrence of another particular state of affairs that falls under it. More concretely, the state of affairs consisting in any one of the neon signs whichever being switched on is a generic one since it implies the occurrence of one of the following particular states of affairs that fall under it: the state of affairs consisting in the east neon sign being turned on; the state of affairs consisting in the west neon sign being turned on; the state of affairs consisting in the south neon sign being turned on; the state of affairs consisting in the north neon sign being turned on. The Legitimacy of Intellectual Praise and Blame 11 that is, every time a subject exercises control over a generic state of affairs, a particular one also occurs. this metaphysical fact might misleadingly drive us to reject the suggestion that i have just made, i.e., the suggestion that nestor exercises control over the generic state of affairs consisting in any one of the neon signs whichever being turned on but not over the particular state of affairs consisting in the east neon sign being turned on. addressing this proposal, one might, indeed, feel like appealing to the metaphysical fact in question and reply: “after all, if nestor exercises control over the turning on of any one of the neon signs whichever, this implies that he switches on a particular neon sign. thus, why shouldn’t we say that he also exercises control over his switching on a particular neon sign?” We should not say this because the only thing that the aforementioned metaphysical fact teaches us is simply that, when a subject exercises control over a generic state of affairs A, that is, when A is the case, a particular state of affairs which falls under A—i.e., a1 or a2 or a3, etc.—is also the case. this metaphysical fact does not tell us anything regarding the extent of a subject’s control. More speciically, it does not tell us that every time a subject exercises control over a generic state of affairs, she exercises control over one of the particular states of affairs that falls under it. Viii. concLusion Let me sum up these last considerations. to begin with, we noticed a difference between cases of self-deception, like the fan case, and cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence, like the platypus/pediatrician cases. While the cases of self-deception are strictly analogous to the cases of actions in which a subject indirectly controls a particular state of affairs (what i named the “practical cases”), the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence are not strictly analogous to practical cases. the discrepancy between the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence and the practical case provisionally led us, via the so-called objection of discrepancy, to the following undesirable conclusion: the legitimacy of the practice of intellectual praise and blame is limited to cases of self-deception. the legitimacy of the habit, which consists in praising the subjects involved in cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence, is actually unwarranted. our strategy to circumvent this conclusion was to provide a practical case that is strictly analogous to the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence and in the case of which it is hardly deniable that the subject exercises indirect control. this is the airport case. the presentation of the airport case was suficient to undermine the objection of discrepancy and, thereby, also suficient to evade the undesirable conclusion above. the presentation of the airport case had a second interesting outcome. the airport case also allowed us to reine our understanding of the indirect control that we—pace the argument of discrepancy—exercise in the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence. the indirect control, which is exercised in the cases of intellectual curiosity/prudence, is generic, i.e., it is exercised over a generic state of affairs. this is not a marginal result. our exercising such an indirect and generic 12 Anne Meylan control is what makes us praiseworthy for an important part of what we come to know or avoid believing falsely.22 ENDNOTES 1. We can also conceivably praise and blame people for suspending their judgment or failing to suspend it. i make use of the expression ‘doxastic states’ in order to refer to the general category of beliefs, failures to believe, pieces of knowledge, suspensions of judgment, etc. When i use the term ‘belief’ below, i consistently refer to the doxastic state consisting in believing that something is the case and not to the content of this state. 2. the idea, here, is that even a failure to investigate the evidence consists in a piece of investigative behavior. note that the piece of investigative behavior does not need to be as complex as the type of action involved in undertaking scientiic research. it can also consist in a single bodily movement like turning your head in order, for instance, to know what happens behind you or, in contrast, in order to avoid knowing this. the distinction between cases in which your belief (or your absence of belief) results from a single bodily movement and cases in which the piece of investigative behavior is more sophisticated echoes alston’s distinction between “nonbasic immediate voluntary control” and “long-range voluntary control.” see alston 1989, 127–135; 2005, 62–73. 3. the present article focuses on praiseworthiness/blameworthiness for doxastic states when the latter are induced by certain investigative behavior, that is, by a modiication of one’s evidence. this constitutes only one possible way of deserving to be praised/blamed for one’s doxastic states. first, praiseworthiness/blameworthiness for the doxastic states one is in can also result from the improvement/worsening of one’s doxastic mechanisms, as when one enhances one’s deductive capacities, for instance. second, one also deserves to be praised/blamed for the doxastic states one is in as a result of one having developed one’s intellectual virtues/vices, for instance, when one sharpens up one’s ability to understand another’s ideas. thanks to an anonymous referee who brought this point to my attention. 4. i take for granted that praising someone is legitimate only when this person is praiseworthy and that blaming someone is legitimate only when this person is blameworthy. 5. the conditions are not suficient. suppose a subject S is responsible for q but that S’s intention was actually to avoid that q (people are also, sometimes, responsible for what they induce unintentionally). in this kind of case, S won’t always be praiseworthy for q. 6. that these are two necessary conditions is hardly contestable. How could you be praiseworthy for your action if there is nothing good in your action or if you are not responsible for it? How could you be blameworthy for your action if there is nothing bad in your action or if your action is not something for which you are responsible? addressing this question, you might raise the following objection. suppose Marcel intends to kill the neighbor’s cat by poisoning it, but confuses the bottle of poison with a bottle of inoffensive mint squash. His (unintentional) action consisting in his inoffensively feeding the cat with squash is something for which Marcel is responsible. it is also something, which is not disvaluable. However, in this case, it really seems that Marcel is worthy of some blame. i agree. the irst thing to note is that Marcel cannot be blamed for killing the neighbor’s cat since he hasn’t killed it. if Marcel is to be blamed, it is either for having tried to poison the neighbor’s cat or for having performed an action that, from his own perspective, violates the obligation consisting in not poisoning your neighbor’s pet. in both cases—viz., whether Marcel’s action is described as a trying to poison the cat or as a violation of an obligation—, Marcel’s The Legitimacy of Intellectual Praise and Blame 13 action is (i) something disvaluable, (ii) for which he is responsible. that is, in both cases, Marcel’s case does not constitute a counterexample to the aforementioned conditions of general blameworthiness. i am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for having pressed me to clarify this point. 7. this is not to say that cases in which a subject is praised or blamed for his believing something that is not epistemically valuable or disvaluable are nonexistent. suppose, for instance, that Paul’s only chance to pass his math exam is to believe that the probability that he succeeds is very high despite the fact that this is false (the probability that he succeeds is actually very low). We can imagine circumstances in which Paul’s girlfriend, Jo, is legitimate in blaming him for holding, as a result of a piece of investigative behavior, the true but counterproductive belief that he is probably going to fail. but cases of this kind are much less frequent than cases in which we praise or blame a subject for his believing something truly or falsely. 8. for this reason, the paper does not deal with cases in which the subject exercises what alston (1989; 2005) has called “indirect inluence” over her doxastic states. see n17 below. 9. the distinction between desires the content of which are particular doxastic states and desires the content of which are generic doxastic states will turn out to be very important. see section v. for the sake of simplicity, i do not mention it before the relevant section. 10. note that cases in which the initial desire is satisied through deviant causal chains also satisfy conditions (ii) above. this is a general dificulty in the philosophy of action that i omit in this paper. 11. there might be other kinds of cases that satisfy these conditions. the present paper focuses on these three kinds since they certainly are the most common ones. 12. Clifford’s example in which a ship-owner maintains the belief that his vessel is safe is the classical example of self-deception. see Clifford 1947. thanks to an anonymous reviewer for reminding me this. 13. i will frequently speak of “the satisiability of the two conditions evaepi and resPepi” instead of “the satisfaction of the two conditions evaepi and resPepi.” While the legitimacy of our actually praising or blaming a subject for the doxastic state she is in as a result of a certain piece of investigative behavior depends on the two conditions evaepi and resPepi being actually satisied, the legitimacy of the practice consisting in praising or blaming a subject for the doxastic state she is in as a result of a certain investigative behavior depends on the two conditions evaepi and resPepi being satisiable. 14. the literature on this issue is very large. for excellent overviews, see Pritchard 2007; Pritchard and turri 2011. 15. When the relation between responsibility and control is at issue, however, the much more debated question concerns precisely the sense according to which the notion of control has to be conceived in order for this claim to be true. famously, Harry frankfurt and his followers consider that a counterfactual conception of control—according to which a subject exercises control over her action if and only if she could have acted otherwise—is misleading. see frankfurt 1969. several philosophers have tried to circumvent the frankfurtian dificulty by understanding control in terms of reason-responsiveness or answerability to reasons. see, for instance, fischer and ravizza 1998. 16. there is another very different way of describing the kind of control that a subject necessarily exercises when she is responsible for her doxastic states that does not appeal (or, at least, not explicitly) to the distinction between direct and indirect control. it consists 14 Anne Meylan in claiming that a subject exercises control over her doxastic attitude every time the latter responds to her reasons. see endnote 18 below for references and detail. 17. see alston 1989; 2005; Govier 1976; nottelmann 2006; 2007; Pojman 1985. More precisely, alston (1989; 2005) distinguishes between indirect voluntary control (which itself subdivides into two sub-kinds: nonbasic immediate and long-range voluntary control) and indirect voluntary inluence. the present article does not deal with indirect voluntary inluence for the reason that this article is restricted to cases in which the subject’s investigative behavior does really induce what she initially wanted. this is the topic of the second restriction. see subsection iii. b. above. 18. in contrast, given that we cannot put ourselves in the state of believing something or of failing to believe something “just like that,” i.e., without doing anything, we do not exercise direct control over our beliefs or over our failures to believe. several philosophers have tried to reject this claim. very briely, their strategy consists, irst, in rethinking what it is, for a performance, to be under a subject’s control, second, in showing that beliefs and failures to believe are under our control when the latter notion is properly understood. More speciically, beliefs, like actions, are under our control when they respond to reasons. see Hieronymi 2006; 2008; 2009; McHugh 2009; 2014; smith 2008; steup 2008. 19. once again, an exception is when the satisfaction of the initial desire is the result of deviant causal chains. see endnote 10. 20. below i will often formulate my claims in terms of “states of affairs” since the latter term can appropriately be used to cover states—like the states of believing, knowing that p—but also actions and facts. 21. alston hints at the objection of discrepancy. see alston 1989, 130–131; 2005, 70–72). Contrary to what i claim below, alston considers that this worry (at least partly) shows that we do not exercise indirect control over our doxastic states. alston’s view is, indeed, that we only exercise indirect inluence (not control) over our doxastic states. i am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for having helped me with this issue. 22. this paper has beneited from the comments of anthony dardis, Julien dutant, davide fassio, arturs Logins, santiago echeverri, olivier Massin, Clare McCumhaill, Conor McHugh, fabrice teroni. My thanks also go to the audiences of the epistemology research Group at the University of edinburgh (2009), the danish Philosophical society conference (arrhus, 2009), the sopha Conference (Geneva 2009) and to two anonymous referees for their insightful suggestions and criticisms. BIBLIOGRAPHY alston, W. 1989. Epistemic Justiication. Essays in the Theory of Knowledge. ithaca/London: Cornell University Press. alston, W. 2005. Beyond “Justiication”: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation. ithaca/ London: Cornell University Press. Clifford, W. K. 1947. “the ethics of belief.” in The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays, 70–96. London: Watts & Co. fischer, J. M., and M. ravizza. 1998. Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsbility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. franfkfurt, H. 1969. “alternate Possibilities and Moral responsibility.” The Journal of Philosophy 66: 829–839. The Legitimacy of Intellectual Praise and Blame 15 Govier, t. 1976. “belief, values and the Will.” Dialogue 15: 642–663. Hieronymi, P. 2006. “Controlling attitudes.” Paciic Philosophical Quaterly 87: 45–74. Hieronymi, P. 2008. “responsibility for believing.” Synthese 161: 357–373. Hieronymi, P. 2009. “two Kinds of agency.” in Mental Actions, ed. L. o’brien L. and M. soteriou, 138–162. oxford: oxford University Press. McHugh, C. 2009. “Judging as a non-voluntary action.” Philosophical Studies 152: 245–269. McHugh, C. 2014. “exercising doxastic freedom.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88: 1–37. nottelmann, n. 2006. “the analogy argument for doxastic voluntarism.” Philosophical Studies 131: 559–582. nottelmann, n. 2007. Blameworthy Belief. A Study in Epistemic Deontologism. dordrecht: springer. Pojman, L. 1985. “believing and Willing.” The Canadian Journal of Philosophy 15: 37–55. Pritchard, d. 2007. “recent Work on epistemic value.” American Philosophical Quarterly 44: 85–110. Pritchard, d., and J. turri. 2011. “the value of Knowledge.” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. e. n. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/ knowledge-value/. smith, a. M. 2008. “Control, responsibility, and Moral assessment.” Philosophical Studies 138: 367–398. steup, M. 2008. “doxastic freedom.” Synthese 161: 375–392.