The application of knowledge practice questions.

A shipowner sends an ageing vessel to sea after talking himself into a comfortable conviction that she is sound; the ship goes down with all hands. W. K. Clifford argues that the owner is to blame for the belief itself. Which principle does the case illustrate?

• It is wrong to hold a belief on evidence that is insufficient for it.
• A belief may be adopted whenever holding it brings practical benefits.
• A belief becomes blameworthy only once acting on it causes harm.
• Beliefs escape moral assessment because they are not chosen at will.

Answer: It is wrong to hold a belief on evidence that is insufficient for it.

Clifford's target is the believing, not only the shipwreck: on his evidentialism the owner would be equally culpable had the ship arrived safely, because careless believing degrades the shared stock of evidence everyone relies on. William James's reply, that some beliefs may legitimately be adopted on non-evidential grounds, is a rival position rather than a misreading.

Stanley and Williamson grant that a skilled cyclist rehearses no rule as she rides, but deny that this settles the case against intellectualism. What do they claim her know-how consists in?

• A bodily disposition that amounts to no knowledge of anything whatsoever
• Knowledge of a way to ride, held under a practical mode of presentation
• A justified true belief about balance that she is unable to put into words
• Acquaintance with the sensations of balancing rather than with any fact

Answer: Knowledge of a way to ride, held under a practical mode of presentation

Their reply concedes how skilled action feels and attacks the inference from it: know-how may still be knowledge that a certain way is a way to ride, entertained in a practical rather than a theoretical guise. Whether this rescues intellectualism or merely relabels Ryle's problem is what the debate now turns on.

A political forum systematically teaches its members that every outside source is corrupt, so contrary evidence is heard and then dismissed as manipulation. On C. Thi Nguyen's distinction, this structure is best described as

• an epistemic bubble, since relevant outside voices are simply absent
• an echo chamber, since outside voices are actively discredited
• hermeneutical injustice, since the members lack the concepts needed
• a Gettier case, since the beliefs are true only by luck

Answer: an echo chamber, since outside voices are actively discredited

Nguyen's point is that the two structures need different repairs: a bubble bursts once the missing evidence arrives, whereas an echo chamber has pre-loaded a story about why that evidence is untrustworthy, so further exposure can entrench rather than correct it.

Two equally well-trained epidemiologists work from the same dataset and reach opposite conclusions. One of them says: 'She is as careful and as well informed as I am, so I should lower my confidence and move part of the way towards her view.' This response is best described as

• the steadfast view, since expertise licenses holding one's ground
• scepticism, since neither party can know anything about the data
• conciliationism, since a peer's dissent is treated as evidence
• relativism, since each conclusion is true for the one who holds it

Answer: conciliationism, since a peer's dissent is treated as evidence

Conciliationism treats the disagreement as higher-order evidence about one's own reliability; the steadfast view denies that it has this force. Neither position claims that the data support both conclusions, which is what separates the debate from relativism.

A committee publishes a report stating that a bridge is safe. Each member relied on a different specialist section and no individual member is in a position to assert the whole finding. A non-summative account of group knowledge holds that

• the group knows nothing, since knowledge can only be held by individual minds
• each member secretly knows the whole finding, since each signed the report
• the report is true only if a majority of members would have reached it working alone, which no committee of this kind could reasonably be expected to do
• the group can know what no individual member knows, because the knowledge is held by the procedure that combines their work

Answer: the group can know what no individual member knows, because the knowledge is held by the procedure that combines their work

The summative view analyses group knowledge as a fact about the members; the non-summative view treats the group as a knower in its own right, in virtue of a division of labour and a procedure for aggregating it. The dispute matters for responsibility: if the procedure knows, it is the procedure that can be at fault.

A doctor decides not to mention a study to a patient, on the ground that the patient will misunderstand it and worry unnecessarily. What makes this an instance of epistemic paternalism is that

• the doctor's judgement about the study's quality may turn out to be mistaken
• the patient has a legal entitlement to see any document held about her case
• the study's findings are uncertain, so no one is in a position to pass them on responsibly, whatever their own view of the matter may be at present
• the doctor interferes with what the patient can find out, for the sake of the patient's own epistemic good, without her consent

Answer: the doctor interferes with what the patient can find out, for the sake of the patient's own epistemic good, without her consent

The three elements are interference, the beneficiary's own good, and the absence of consent — the same structure as paternalism about action, transposed to inquiry. The standard objection is that it withdraws from the patient the very evidence she would need in order to assess whether the doctor's judgement about her was sound.