Turri on Lackey’s counter-examples to knowledge as a norm of assertion.

John Turri has a post up at Certain Doubts on Jennifer Lackey’s counter-examples to the claim that knowledge is a normatively necessary condition on assertion.

KA: You may assert that Q only if you know that Q.

If you are not familiar with Lackey’s cases, please follow the link over to Certain Doubts. The cases are: (1) Sebastian, the distraught doctor; (2) Stella, the creationist teacher; (3) Martin, the racist juror. In each case, Lackey argues that the individual appropriately asserts what he/she does not believe, let alone know. One of Turri’s suggestions is that these are cases not of individual assertions but rather of communal assertion. The assertions are to be understood as expressions of community knowledge according to this suggestion. So, when Sebastian assures his patient that there is no risk of autism from immunizations–despite being caused not to believe that there is no risk by his distress at his daughter’s recent diagnosis–he is not speaking for himself but rather for the medical community.

I think that this suggestion points in the right direction, but that it won’t handle a slight revision of the distraught doctor case.

DISTRAUGHT DOCTOR 2: Suppose, contrary to fact, that the consensus view of the medical community is that there is a link between immunization and autism. Sebastian has, however, just read advanced copy of the most recent research debunking this link. Still, due to his distress over his daughter’s diagnosis Sebastian is caused to believe there is a link despite his recognition that the best medical evidence indicates that there is not.

Turri’s suggestion that Sebastian’s assertion to his patient that there is no link between autism and immunization will not in this case be plausibly accounted for as a community assertion, since the community consensus is contrary to the assertion (as we have described the hypothetical). Nonetheless, if we acknowledge Sebastian’s assertion as permissible in Lackey’s original case then I see no reason why we should not do so here as well. The difficulty is that in communal assertion it would seem that one is forced to acquiesce to the pooled judgment of the community, but I think that cases paralleling Lackey’s can be developed wherein the subjects should be thought of as retaining some autonomy of judgment. I think that the defender of KA is better served by a multiple personages account. We have the following linguistic convention:

“Speaking as your doctor. . .”
“Speaking as your biology teacher. . .”
“Speaking as a juror. . .”

The convention makes explicit what may often be implicit in a given socio-epistemic situation: viz., that many assertions are made qua a certain epistemic role. What Sebastian asserts qua doctor and what he would assert qua father may be different things. My suggestion is that what he believes (or knows) qua doctor may not be the same as what he believes (or knows) qua father. This allows for Sebastian to retain autonomy of judgment. It also allows for the following response to both Lackey’s original DISTRAUGHT DOCTOR and my variation DISTRAUGHT DOCTOR 2:

Sebastian asserts qua doctor that P and also knows qua doctor that P.

I think similar responses are available to Lackey’s other cases. Of course, it is possible that Sebastian’s patient will pick up on some hesitancy or reluctance, especially if Sebastian is finding it difficult to fully adopt the personage of the doctor. The patient may insistently follow up “Is that what you really think?” This will require Sebastian to integrate his several personages, an emotionally difficult task. Sebastian may refuse, thereby insisting on compartmentalizing his judgments. He may express his refusal by making explicit what had been implicit, saying “Speaking to you as your doctor I assure you. . .” Or he may try to integrate his beliefs qua doctor with his beliefs qua father. If Sebastian agrees to say what he really thinks, thereby shifting the socio-epistemic context from professional to personal, it does seem to me that he violates a norm if he nevertheless lies. On this, I agree with Turri’s suggestion about “Speaking just for myself here. . .”

On behalf of the community assertion account it may be objected that acquiescence to the medical community’s simple consensus is an improper way to pool expert opinion in a case where one or some of the experts are known to have access to some crucial information that the others are lacking. Perhaps, it may be insisted, community assertion is properly understood as asserting what one knows the community consensus would be if all members of the community possessed all of the information that one has available. On this suggestion, however, DISTRAUGHT DOCTOR 2 remains a counter-example to KA because it has Sebastian asserting not what the community does know, but rather what he believes that it would or will soon know. Furthermore, it seems possible to vary the case in such a way that autonomy of professional judgment is motivated other than by access to some information the community lacks. Turri suggests that we take Sebastian as speaking on behalf of the medical community. I suggest that we take Sebastian as speaking qua member of that community with certain epistemic roles and responsibilities.