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Where the Littlejohn objection goes wrong is that it overlooks the fact that we are presently concerned with the concept of justification (understood in the abstract) rather than some particular application of the concept. Recall, according to the advocate of non-factive justification, it is part of our concept of justification that a subject's belief that p may be justified by evidence that fails to guarantee thatp. However, once we admit that some type or token body of evidence does not guarantee truth, we find ourselves in the position of the aforementioned lottery subject. For example, suppose we were to hold that at best, perceptual experience provides a subject with less than truth-guaranteeing evidence for some perceptual proposition p. By adopting this posture we are establishing a paradigm of evidential justification that is akin to the overt lottery subject. Such a posture would remove all entitlement we may have for believing thatpsince we would be admitting that perceptual experience, at best, only makesplikely.

Interpreted along these lines, I believe LOTTERY goes some way towards establishing the falsity of the claim I took as my original target:

(A) For any subject

S,

S

Littlejohn’s distinction between overt and covert lotteries—or Sutton’s distinction between ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’—is no longer salient since we are dealing with the concept of justification itself, rather than some particular application of the concept. In sum, my argument strategy may be put as follows: to suggest that the concept of justification is not factive is to suggest that evidence that fails to guarantee truth may justify. But to admit that evidence which fails to guarantee truth may justify is equivalent to saying that the (overt) lottery subject may be justified. But that the (overt) lottery subject may be justified is the very conclusion the lottery argument impugns.

Additionally, it is important to get clear on what it means for a subject to take herself to have a (truth-guaranteeing) reason, {R}, for believing p. It is not part of my view that a subject must know that some reason {R} is truth-guaranteeing in order for {R} to justify her belief. I do hold that for {R} to justify a subject’s belief thatp, the subject must be in a position to take {R} as her reason for her belief thatp. That is to say,Smust not only possess (i.e., have subjective access to) {R}, but she must also take {R} as the reason for her belief thatp. I also hold that {R} must be truth-guaranteeing. However, I do not hold that a subject must know (or even believe) that {R} is truth-guaranteeing. This is based on the simple fact that one does not need to have a proper understanding of the concept of justification for one’s belief to be justified. (If one did, then I fear that the beliefs of very many philosophers would be unjustified.) I suspect that it is precisely on this point that some advocates of non-factive justification go wrong. They confuse the (true by my lights) assumption that a subject may be justified even though she is not aware that her reasons are factive with the (false by my lights) claim that she may be justified by non-factive reasons. But the take-home point of the foregoing discussion is that there are two senses in which a subject may take herself to have some factive reason, {R}:

(*) Stakes herself to have {R} and {R} happens to be a factive reason forp. (**) Stakes herself to have {R} and she takes {R} to be a factive reason forp.

My thesis clearly entails (*). However, the suggestion that (**) is required for justification entails that a subject must have a proper understanding of the concept of justification for her

belief to be justified. I want no part with such a proposal. Simply put, my view is that the concept of justification implicates factive reasons. Whether or not a particular subject happens to possess this concept is an entirely different matter.

Finally, to say that justification is factive is not to deny that a subject may be mistaken with regards to whether or not she knows that p. A subject may take herself to have a (truth-guaranteeing) reason {R}, for believingp when she in fact has no such reason. In such a case, a subject may take herself to have knowledge she actually lacks and therefore be mistaken regarding the epistemic standing of her belief thatp. Thus, my position does not entail the absurd species of infallibilism according to which a subject only knows thatpif she cannot be mistaken with regards top.

5.6

Chapter Summary

This chapter represents my first step in articulating the bipartite conception of knowledge. Towards this end, I have juxtaposed truth-guaranteeing reasons with HCF-evidence. I take the lottery argument limned in this chapter to show that HCF-evidence—that is, evidence which falls short of guaranteeing truth—is insufficient for justifying our beliefs. This further motivates the disjunctive conception of experiences adumbrated earlier. If veridical and non- veridical experiences are taken to be of the same type, then perceptual experience can, at best, only make our perceptual beliefs likely. However, on the relational conception of experiences, seeing that p entails that p. Thus, seeing thatp provides us with the type of truth-guaranteeing reason we need for our perceptual beliefs to be justified.