Pragmatic Encroachment: Do Our Practical Interests Affect What We Know?

Author: Alexandra Lloyd
Category: Epistemology, or Theory of Knowledge
Word Count: 999

Imagine you are having people over for lunch, so this morning you prepared sandwiches to share. You made two types of sandwiches: peanut butter and a nut-free spread that you like. These sandwiches look nearly identical, and you noted that you put them in the fridge in that order, from left to right. 

Do you know that the sandwich on the right is the nut-free sandwich? Ordinarily, people would say that you do.

Now, imagine your guests arrive and you learn that one of them has a severe peanut allergy. Do you still know that the sandwich on the right is nut-free? Or does the fact that getting it wrong threatens someone’s life make a difference to whether you know that the sandwich on the right is nut-free?^[1]

Those who answer “yes” to this last question may accept a view called pragmatic encroachment about knowledge. This essay introduces that view.

1. Pragmatic Encroachment

It is widely believed that a true belief might be knowledge only if that belief is epistemically justified or rational—meaning, in some sense, likely to be true. Many philosophers understand this “likely to be true” here in terms of evidence: beliefs that are supported by strong evidence are likely to be true and so, given the goal of having true beliefs, we should hold such beliefs.^[2]

Those who endorse pragmatic encroachment think that the pragmatic or practical stakes of a belief—e.g., whether anyone might be harmed or benefitted by the results of holding that belief, especially acting on that belief—can make a difference to whether someone is epistemically justified in believing something and so whether they might know it.^[3]

So, about the case above, pragmatic encroachment theorists say that, once you learn that one of your guests has a peanut allergy, you may no longer be justified in believing that the sandwich on the right is nut-free. This is because you are now in what’s called a “high-stakes” situation: there is a lot at risk if you falsely believe that the sandwich on the right is nut-free.^[4] Pragmatic encroachment theorists hold that when the stakes are high, stronger evidence is needed for beliefs to be epistemically justified and, potentially, knowledge.^[5]

Importantly, it’s not just that the high-stakes make a difference to what you should do, but that the high-stakes make a difference to what you know. The view is called pragmatic encroachment because it says that practical features make a difference to—encroach on—epistemic justification.

2. Why Pragmatic Encroachment?

Some people accept pragmatic encroachment because they just find it plausible that when you enter a high-stakes situation—such as when you find out that one of your guests has a life-threatening allergy—you can lose justification for some things you believe. Because of what is at risk, you need to have more evidence that the belief is likely true before you should believe it, or before it will count as knowledge.

This sense is confirmed in other high-stakes situations: e.g., ordinarily you may think that you know that Ottawa is the capital of Canada, but if suddenly you are on a game show and the stakes include $1 million, you might think you no longer know.

Pragmatic encroachment is also sometimes defended using a principle linking knowledge and action called a “Knowledge-Action Link”:

if someone knows some claim p, then they can appropriately act as if p.^[6]

If I know that the sandwich on the right is nut-free, then I can give it to my friend with a peanut allergy. If I know I have turned off the oven, then I don’t need to get out of bed to double-check that it’s off. On the other hand, if it doesn’t make sense for me to act as if something is true, then I do not know it. If I hesitate to give the sandwich to my friend with a peanut allergy, then I do not know that the sandwich is nut-free. If I need to get out of bed to check that the oven is off, then I do not know that I turned it off.

Many philosophers have thought that what we should believe depends only on evidence, while what we should do depends on practical consideration: typically, reasons for or against action are separate from reasons for or against beliefs. Pragmatic encroachment says that our reasons against acting can be reasons against believing, too.

3. Why Not Pragmatic Encroachment?

Many philosophers reject pragmatic encroachment. They argue that when it comes to knowledge, what primarily matters is whether a belief is true or false and whether the belief is epistemically justified or likely to be true.

Given that, wishful thinking—believing something just because you want it to be true—for example, is not a source for epistemically justified beliefs.^[7] Wanting something to be true can be a practical reason to believe it, but it cannot give an epistemic reason to believe it, the kind of reason relevant to whether a belief is justified and known. Pragmatic encroachment, however, does claim that practical factors can affect epistemic justification (although it does not support wishful thinking).

Evidentialists think that whether we should believe something depends only on whether the evidence supports it.^[8] What anyone stands to gain or lose in believing some claim has nothing to do with whether that claim is likely true or false, given someone’s evidence. So, what is practically at stake in a situation is the wrong kind of reason to believe or not to believe something.^[9] The evidentialist says that you still know that the sandwich on the right is the nut-free sandwich even after you learn that your guest has a peanut allergy because your evidence is the same. What has changed, importantly, is how you should act.

4. Conclusion

We want our beliefs to be true and supported by evidence. We also want to act in ways that make sense. Pragmatic encroachment says that these two goals are connected in a unique way: that what we should believe is bound up with how we should act.

Notes

[1] The example is adapted from Ross & Schroeder, 2014, p. 261.

[2] See Epistemology, or Theory of Knowledge by Thomas Metcalf and Epistemic Justification: What is Rational Belief? by Todd R. Long for introductions to epistemology.

[3] See Stanley, 2005 for a detailed investigation of pragmatic encroachment. For an introduction to some important challenges in defining “knowledge,” see The Gettier Problem & the Definition of Knowledge by Andrew Chapman.

[4] A variation of pragmatic encroachment is moral encroachment. Moral encroachment holds that the moral features of a situation can make a difference to whether someone’s belief is justified and so whether it counts as knowledge. See Fritz, 2017 for an argument from pragmatic to moral encroachment. Insofar as a person dying from an allergic reaction would be morally bad, the initial case of this essay is a case of moral encroachment.

[5] Pragmatic encroachment is sometimes seen as related to contextualism, a somewhat similar view that claims that the word “know” means different things in different contexts—meaning features of the situation such as what is at stake, what matters practically, or what possibilities are being considered. Both are often motivated using similar cases that stress the stakes of believing. For an introduction to contextualism, see DeRose, 1992.

[6] For a discussion of the “Knowledge-Action Link,” see Fritz, 2017, p. 646.

[7] A complication is that a belief’s being true and epistemically justified is usually thought to be necessary for it to be knowledge, there are important arguments that meeting these conditions is not sufficient for knowledge: see The Gettier Problem & the Definition of Knowledge by Andrew Chapman.

[8] See Conee & Feldman, 1985 for an explanation of the evidentialist position. Also see Epistemic Justification: What is Rational Belief? by Todd R. Long.

[9] See Fritz, 2020 for an argument that practical stakes are not epistemic reasons and so are the wrong kind of reason for or against belief or knowledge.

References

Conee, Earl & Richard Feldman. (1985) “Evidentialism” in Philosophical Studies, Vol. 48, No. 1, pp. 15-34.

DeRose, Keith. (1992). “Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52(4): 913-29.

Fantl, Jeremy & Matthew McGrath. (2012) “Pragmatic Encroachment: It’s not just about knowledge” in Episteme, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 27-42.

Fritz, James. (2017) “Pragmatic Encroachment and Moral Encroachment” in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 98, No. S1, pp. 643-661.

Fritz, James. (2020) “Moral encroachment and reasons of the wrong kind” in Philosophical Studies, Vol.177, pp. 3051-3070.

Ross, Jacob & Mark Schroeder. (2014) “Belief, Credence, and Pragmatic Encroachment” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 259-288.

Stanley, Jason. (2005) Knowledge and Practical Interests. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Related Essays

Epistemology, or Theory of Knowledge by Thomas Metcalf

The Gettier Problem & the Definition of Knowledge by Andrew Chapman

Epistemic Justification: What is Rational Belief? by Todd R. Long

“The Ethics of Belief”: Is it Wrong to Believe Without Sufficient Evidence by Spencer Case

Pascal’s Wager: A Pragmatic Argument for Belief in God by Liz Jackson

About the Author

Alexandra Lloyd is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tampa. She received her PhD from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her main research interests are in social epistemology; she works on issues at the intersection of ethics and epistemology, applying epistemological theories to important ethical questions. ut.edu/directory/lloyd-alexandra

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