Plantinga's Proper Functioning Analysis of Epistemic Warrant

Plantinga's Proper Functioning Analysis of Epistemic WarrantAuthor(s): James E. TaylorSource: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the AnalyticTradition, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Nov., 1991), pp. 185-202Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4320254 .

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JAMES E. TAYLOR

PLANTINGA'S PROPER FUNCTIONING ANALYSIS

OF EPISTEMIC WARRANT

(Received in revised form 18 June, 1990)

In recent articles and a forthcoming two-volume work, Alvin Plantinga formulates and defends a novel analysis of the concept of epistemic warrant.! He uses the term 'warrant' to designate the quality which, or quantity enough of which, is necessary and sufficient to make true belief knowledge. He argues that no other account of warrant (or justification) succeeds in being sufficient to fill this role. He holds that the primary difficulty with these views is their failure to incorporate as a necessary condition for warrant that one's cognitive equipment function properly in the production of beliefs.

I will argue that there are good reasons for rejecting Plantinga's position as he intends it to be understood. My argument can be stated as a dilemma: (1) If the concept of proper functioning is analyzed in terms of an actual designing process or agent,2 then Plantinga's account is subject to at least one of two types of counterexamples which show that proper functioning is not necessary for warrant. (2) If the concept of proper functioning is not analyzed in terms of an actual designing process or agent, then Plantinga's account either offers no clear advantage over reliabilism, or it is not clearly distinguishable from reliabilism. Hence, (3) Either Plantinga's account is subject to counterexample, or it is not a satisfactory and distinctive alternative to reliabilism. I will now explain and defend (1) and (2).

I

Let us focus on the antecedent of (1) first. What would an analysis of the concept of proper functioning in terms of an actual designing process or agent be like? Plantinga himself provides us with some guidance here. Initially, he says that a cognitive mechanism functions properly if and only if it is "free of ... cognitive malfunction ...

Philosophical Studies 64:185-202, 1991. ? 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.



186 JAMES E. TAYLOR

working the way it ought to work" (1988, p. 32). Moreover, he clearly separates proper functioning from normal functioning, where 'normal' is understood in the statistical sense. It is possible for a cognitive mechanism to be normally or typically such that it malfunctions. Furthermore, a person's cognitive faculties are functioning properly only if their functioning conforms to a certain set of specifications. Plantinga calls this set of specifications the "design plan" for that cognitive equipment (1988, p. 37). Finally, Plantinga makes it clear what he thinks the origin of this design plan is. He says that from a theistic perspective, a perspective that he accepts, ". . . our faculties ... are working properly when they are working in the way they were intended to work by the being who designed them. This ... is the basic root of the idea of proper functioning: an object is functioning properly if and only if it is functioning in the way it was designed to function" (1988, p. 44).

Plantinga's remarks reveal how an analysis of the concept of proper functioning in terms of an actual designing agent might be formulated. However, in (1) I mention an analysis of this concept in terms of either an actual designing agent or an actual designing process. What I have in mind here is any possible impersonal process (if there is one) which has produced and shaped our cognitive equipment and in virtue of which the proper functioning of this equipment can be understood. Just as the most likely candidate for an actual designing agent is a divine being such as the God of theism, the best alternative for an actual impersonal designing process is the evolutionary process unaided by God, that is, the process of natural selection. Though Plantinga believes that the designer of our cognitive faculties is God, he concedes that it is not obvious that the notion of properly functioning cognitive equipment entails theism nor is it clear that there is no correct nontheistic analysis of this concept (1988, p. 45). I think it best to agree with Plantinga about this.3 That is why I stated the antecedent of (1) so as to include an analysis of the concept of proper functioning in terms of either an actual personal agent or an actual impersonal process.

Now regardless of whether the concept of proper functioning, as applied to natural (non-artifactual) things, is analyzed in terms of an actual personal agent or an actual impersonal process, it seems clear that the root idea, as Plantinga emphasizes, is that something functions



PLANTINGA'S ANALYSIS OF EPISTEMIC WARRANT 187

properly if and only if it functions as it was designed to function. This schematic analysis indicates that the proper functioning of an object is tied to the origin of that object's current design plan.4 The most natural way of understanding this is that something functions properly only if it functions as it was intended (most recently) to work. Of course, if the concept of proper functioning is to be given a naturalistic analysis, then this intentional language will have to be reduced to non-intentional language. It is not clear how such an analysis would proceed. At the very least it will need to make the proper functioning of a natural object a matter of some kind of causal relation between the evolutionary process and the object. So whether we are talking about a super- naturalistic or a naturalistic analysis, some natural object can function properly only if its functioning is explained in terms of the agent or process responsible for producing its (most recent) design.

Given these observations about the antecedent of (1), we can see how the consequent of (1) follows from it. That is, we can appreciate some counterexamples to Plantinga's proper functioning account, where proper functioning is analyzed in terms of an actual designing origin. In preparation for the first counterexample, let me summarize the results of the preceding paragraphs. Plantinga holds that (i) necessarily, a belief is warranted for a person only if the belief is produced in that person by means of the proper functioning of her cognitive equipment. If the concept of proper functioning is correctly analyzed in terms of an actual designing personal agent or impersonal process, then (ii) necessarily, a person's cognitive mechanisms can function properly only if they were designed by an actual personal agent or impersonal process. (i) and (ii) jointly entail that (iii) necessarily, a belief is warranted for a person only if the person's cognitive equipment was designed by a personal agent or an impersonal process. Now (iii) is the target of one of the counterexamples I have been promising. Here is the counterexample.

Theodore is like other cognizers in many respects, but unlike them in another. He acquires beliefs as others do; his beliefs are generated by perception, reason, deductive and inductive reasoning, memory, intro- spection, testimony, etc. The operation of his cognitive faculties is just like that of a normal human to whom it is natural to attribute many and various warranted beliefs. However, in spite of the etymology of his



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name, Theodore has not been designed at all, either by a personal agent such as God or by an impersonal process such as evolution. Nor is he the result of a series of purely chance events.5 Instead, his coming to exist was an unintended side-effect of an intentional action. Now perhaps it is a necessary truth that all of God's actions are such that He intends not only the actions themselves but also all the consequences of His actions.6 If so, it would not be possible for Theodore to come to exist as an unintended consequence of one of God's actions. However, it seems possible for Theodore's coming into existence to be an unintended consequence of a finite agent's intentional action; suppose God appointed a powerful but clumsy angel to create a few things (things incapable of warranted belief). In the process, the angel botches one creative attempt and Theodore is the unintended result. Though Theodore has not been designed, given that his cognitive functioning is like that of a normal human, it seems possible that he have warranted beliefs. If this is possible, it follows that (iii) is false. Moreover, since (iii) follows from the conjunction of Plantinga's proper functioning requirement for warrant and the assumption that the concept of proper functioning is analyzed in terms of an actual designing agent or process, then one of these latter claims must be false as well (that is, either (i) or (ii) is false).

An objection to this case is that, though it might be possible for some sorts of things to come into existence without having been intended or designed, it is impossible for an unintended, undesigned person to exist. Moreover, only persons can have beliefs, so only persons can have warranted beliefs. Hence, it is impossible for something undesigned to have warranted beliefs. Now in order to examine the claim that it is impossible for persons to be undesigned, one must know more about what kinds of things persons are. If persons are purely material objects, it is not clear why a person cannot come to exist as an unintended consequence of a finite agent's intentional action as other types of material objects can. So materialism will not help Plantinga here. Suppose instead that persons are, as Plantinga has argued (1974, pp. 65-69), immaterial objects such as Cartesian souls. If (a) necessarily, persons are souls, and (b) necessarily, only God can create souls, and (c) necessarily, God's actions have no unintended side-effects, then it is not possible for persons to come to exist without




having been intended to exist. But why think that only God can create souls? One argument for this is that (d) necessarily, only God can make things of the sort which cannot be made merely by rearranging existing things, and (e) necessarily, souls are of this sort.7 If (a)-(e) are granted, it follows that it is impossible for persons to come to exist unintended, and hence, that the Theodore case is impossible. But it is not clear that each of (a)-(e) ought to be granted. Most, if not all of them, are controversial. An adequate assessment of any of them is impossible here due to space limitations. Suffice it to say that, in the absence of further argument for these considerations, it is reasonable to believe, at least, that the Theodore case has not been shown to be impossible. Since I am not confident about each premise in this argument for the impossibility of unintended persons, I am inclined to believe that, whether persons are material things or immaterial things, it is possible for them to come to exist without having been intended, and hence, without having been designed.

If I am right about this, then it is reasonable to affirm that the Theodore counterexample shows that the nature of our origin, whatever it might be, is not conceptually linked to our capacity to have warranted beliefs. That is, whether the concept of warrant applies to a cognizer's beliefs does not depend on whether that cognizer has been designed. Now there is another sort of counterexample, also intended to show that proper functioning analyzed in terms of actual design is not necessary for warranted beliefs, which focuses on another feature of the analysis of the concept of proper functioning in terms of design. Recall that, according to Plantinga, the root idea of proper functioning is that something functions properly if and only if it functions the way it was designed to function. This analysis can be broken down in the following way: something functions properly if and only if (A) it was designed and (B) it functions the way it was designed to function. The Theodore counterexample focuses on (A) of this analysis as a necessary condition for warrant. The other sort of counterexample to Plantinga's account of warrant is aimed at (B) of this analysis as a necessary condition for warrant.

My instance of this kind of counterexample is based on the central idea in Stephen King's fictional work The Dead Zone. The protagonist (let's alter the story somewhat and call him "Clarence") goes into a



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coma as a result of a severe automobile accident. After an extended period of time, he comes out of his coma, and is able to function normally (and properly) except that he has acquired the capacity for clairvoyance and precognition. This effect of Clarence's accident is clearly not due to a natural process of evolution. Moreover, unless it is assumed that God intentionally causes every event that occurs (an assumption I find quite implausible), it is reasonable to stipulate here that God did not intentionally cause Clarence to acquire these cognitive powers as a result of the accident. From the first time he experiences his new cognitive abilities, it seems convincing that he actually knows the propositions he believes on the basis of his clairvoyant experiences. If this is the case, then Plantinga's account of warrant in terms of an actual design analysis of the concept of proper functioning must be mistaken. This is because we would have a case in which someone has a warranted belief not produced by cognitive faculties functioning as they were designed to function, since they are designed faculties which are malfunctioning.

I will now consider two objections to this counterexample. Accord- ing to the first, what happened to Clarence is best described as the acquisition of a new cognitive process, and if this is the case, the counterexample does not succeed in undermining the proper functioning view of warrant. The second objection to the counterexample is that it is not plausible to think that Clarence's clairvoyant beliefs are warranted.

Given the Dead Zone case as described, it is not entirely clear whether what has occurred to Clarence involves the malfunction of cognitive faculties he already possessed or the acquisition of completely new faculties. Which of these alternatives is the case depends in part on whether one thinks of cognitive faculties as biological entities or as functional entities. Given a biological interpretation, it would be reasonable to suppose that it is a case of the malfunction of an existing faculty. This is because cognitive faculties would be physical structures in the brain on this reading, and the accident could plausibly be supposed to have physically damaged one of these structures, causing it to malfunction. On a functional construal of faculties, it would be better to treat the case as involving the acquisition of a completely new faculty. This is because functional specifications of faculties are purely formal, describ-




ing only the causal relations between inputs, outputs, and intermediate states. Since the clairvoyant process involves new inputs and outputs, it would be a new cognitive faculty on this interpretation.

Now if we adopt the biological understanding, the Dead Zone counterexample is a case of a designed cognitive faculty not operating as it was designed to operate. So given that assumption, the counterexample applies to necessary condition (B) of the proper functioning analysis of warrant. On the other hand, if we presuppose a functional way of viewing cognitive faculties, then we have a case of an undesigned faculty, which would apply to condition (A) of the analysis, like the Theodore counterexample. It would appear that on either assumption, there is a counterexample which the opponent of proper functioning analyses of warrant can fall back on. However, it could be argued that we have been designed in such a way that it is part of our design plan that some undesigned belief-producing mechanisms we can acquire can produce warranted beliefs. That is, it could be claimed by a defender of the proper functioning view of warrant that properly functioning cognitive equipment could involve the appropriate integration of newly- acquired undesigned cognitive mechanisms. Given this, the Dead Zone counterexample could be blocked by insisting on a functional interpretation of cognitive faculties and arguing that it is part of the design plan that newly-acquired undesigned processes such as clairvoyance count as properly functioning mechanisms.

However, even if this is granted, it can be argued that the proper functioning view of warrant, understood in this way, reduces to a version of reliabilism. Here's why. Not every newly-acquired undesigned cognitive faculty would count as part of the design plan. Why should Clarence's clairvoyant ability qualify? Presumably, it qualifies because the design plan, on the liberal construal under consideration, sanctions any cognitive faculties, including those undesigned and acquired, which are reliable and produce beliefs on the basis of the appropriate sorts of grounds.8 Moreover, it seems reasonable that only mechanisms of this sort would quality as part of the design plan. If this is the case, the appeal to proper functioning and design is superfluous: A belief is warranted only if it is produced by a properly functioning cognitive faculty. A cognitive faculty functions properly if and only if it functions as it was designed to function. A cognitive faculty functions as it was



192 JAMES E. TAYLOR

designed to function if and only if it is reliable and produces beliefs on the basis of appropriate sorts of grounds. Hence, a belief is warranted only if it is produced by a reliable cognitive faculty on the basis of an appropriate ground. The appeal to proper functioning and design simply drops out of the picture. These concepts have no explanatory force here.9 If this argument is sound, then whether the clairvoyant faculties are considered biologically or functionally, Plantinga's view is in trouble, either because it is subject to counterexample or because it collapses into a version of reliabilism.

The second objection to the Dead Zone counterexample is that Clarence did not have warranted beliefs on the basis of his initial clairvoyant experiences. In response to this charge, a few more details can be added to the case which will make it more convincing that Clarence's initial clairvoyant beliefs were warranted. First, these beliefs did not just pop into his consciousness out of the blue. They were generated on the basis of vivid, involuntary phenomenological experiences which are such that he "sees" in his mind's eye some current or future event taking place. On the basis of these experiences, he finds himself believing that the event in question is happening or will happen. The strength of his conviction in these cases is at least as great as the firmness with which he believes various propositions about his imme- diate perceptual environment on the basis of normal perceptual experiences of various kinds. Moreover, Clarence's clairvoyant processes are at least as reliable as his normal perceptual processes, which have a normal degree of reliability. Now we would not hesitate to label these normal perceptual beliefs warranted. Why not call the clairvoyant beliefs warranted as well?

At this point someone with internalist intuitions about warrant may object that Clarence is warranted in his normal perceptual beliefs but not in his clairvoyant beliefs (C-beliefs) because he has good reason to think that his perceptual beliefs are reliable, but he does not have good reason to believe that his C-beliefs are reliable. I am inclined to think that this internalist constraint is too strong. However, suppose that we grant that the first few times Clarence forms these beliefs, they are not warranted. Suppose further that we add to the case that he keeps close track of his C-beliefs and after a time has a list of beliefs that are all true. He then comes to believe on the basis of induction that his




C-beliefs are reliably generated. These concessions should satisfy the internalist.

Is the Dead Zone case which includes these suppositions still a successful counterexample to the proper functioning analysis of the concept of warrant? It is quite reasonable to think that it is. The C-beliefs which Clarence continues to form are all based on the sort of clairvoyant experiences described above. Given a biological construal of cognitive faculties, this clairvoyant ability is not part of his design plan (the portion of his brain that was damaged by the accident had been designed to function otherwise and so it is now malfunctioning). Moreover, he would have every one of these C-beliefs even if he did not have the evidence of the reliability of his clairvoyant processes. This is because the psychological ground of his clairvoyant beliefs is not his inductive inference about his C-reliability together with a particular kind of experience; instead, it is the C-process itself. Consequently, he clearly is believing in a way that is not according to design. Further- more, it is clear that these C-beliefs are warranted; They are based on an extremely reliable process and he has excellent evidence that this process is extremely reliable. So the revised Dead Zone case, like the original one, involves someone with warranted beliefs which are produced by a faculty which is not operating as it was designed to operate.10

Let us summarize the main result of this section. If either the Theo- dore counterexample or the Dead Zone counterexample is granted, then either Plantinga's proper functioning analysis of the concept of warrant is false or the concept of proper functioning is not analyzed in terms of an actual designing process or agent. In order to give his account as much latitude as possible, let us, for the sake of argument, temporarily assume that the concept of proper functioning is not analyzed in terms of an actual designing process or agent. However, according to (2) of my argument, if we do adopt this assumption, it follows that Plantinga's view is not a satisfactory and distinctive alternative to reliabilism. Hence, in order to determine whether Plantinga could continue to defend his view as true and distinctive given the above counterexamples, we need to examine the grounds for (2).



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II

Let us pause a moment to reflect on the antecedent of (2) before considering it in its entirety. The concept of proper functioning, as applied to natural objects like cognitive faculties, could fail to be analyzed in terms of an actual designing agent or process in at least three different ways. First, the concept may simply be unanalyzable. It may be a primitive concept which cannot be broken down into simpler concepts. As such, it would not be possible to specify informative necessary and sufficient conditions for it (or even just informative necessary conditions). Secondly, the concept of proper functioning as applied to natural objects may be subject to what can be called an "internal" analysis. Such an analysis would appeal only to conditions internal to a cognizer; it would make no reference to any actual or possible but non-actual designing external cause such as God or evolution. Finally, the concept as applied to natural objects may not be analyzable in terms of an actual designing agent or process, but instead be a metaphorical extension of the concept of proper functioning as applied to artifacts. In this case, though the proper functioning of an artifact would be explicable in terms of the intentions of its, say, human designer, the proper functioning of a natural object is to be understood as the way it would function were it to have been designed (by God for instance, or the evolutionary process) and were it to function as designed." I

The evaluation of premise (2) can now be subdivided into an assessment of Plantinga's proper functioning analysis of the concept of warrant given each of these three alternatives in turn. First, let us consider the suggestion that the concept of proper functioning as applied to natural objects is unanalyzable. If this is the case, then there ought to be no way to express the concept other than by employing the concept itself. For instance, there is arguably no way to express the concept of redness without employing the concept of redness itself. Is the concept of proper functioning like this? It seems undeniable that Plantinga is correct in saying that a cognitive mechanism functions properly if and only if it is "free of ... cognitive malfunction. ... working the way it ought to work" (1988, p. 32). Is the analysans of this analysis an expression of the concept of properly functioning cognitive




equipment which employs other concepts? If it is, as it seems to me to be, then the concept of proper functioning is not primitive. Perhaps the concept of something's working the way it ought to work is a primitive concept. This is doubtful. This concept seems also in need of explanation, and moreover, appears to have one. This explanation appeals, at least in part, to certain conditions internal to the cognizer. But this is just the second alternative way, mentioned above, in which the concept of properly functioning cognitive mechanisms could fail to be analyzed in terms of an actual designing agent or process. So let us now move on to consider this alternative.

What is it for someone's cognitive faculties to work the way they ought to work? Here again we can follow Plantinga's lead and say that a person's cognitive faculties function properly when, and only when, they function in accordance with their design plan. But isn't this just a rehearsal of the same view which was counterexampled in section I? No. Design plans can be considered in isolation from external designing agents or processes. They can be considered as something internal to the cognizer - as instantiations of a set of specifications for ideal cognitive operation. It seems that we can often determine the design plan of a thing just by observing it in operation. For instance, one can find out a lot about the design plan of an automobile simply by observing its operation under various conditions. Moreover, if it is possible for something undesigned to have a design plan, then the defender of a proper functioning view of warrant may be able to skirt the counterexamples described above. Plantinga himself has suggested this (in correspondence):

... perhaps I am wrong (about the Theodore counterexample). Perhaps it is possible for a being to pop into existence by chance. If it is possible, however, I should also think it would be possible for a being with a design plan to just pop into existence as a result of chance. (Aristotle thought that plants and animals had design plans, but not as a result of being actually designed by anyone.) And if a being has a design plan, then there is the possibility of improper function; it functions properly if it functions in accord with its design plan and improperly otherwise.

Is it possible for a being with a design plan to just pop into existence by chance (or as an unintended consequence of some finite agent's intentional action)? That is, can an undesigned thing have a design plan? My inclination is to deny that this is possible. It seems to me to



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be a necessary truth that something can have a design plan only if it was actually designed by some designing agent or process. How else could we explain the distinction between proper functioning and statistically normal or typical functioning? If there is no actual designer, then what is it that makes it the case that some cognitive functioning is proper and some cognitive functioning, although normal, is improper? Is it just a brute fact about the cognizer? This is unsatisfying.

But suppose I am wrong. Suppose it is possible for an undesigned thing to have a design plan. If so, there is no good reason to deny that Theodore and Clarence have design plans and form beliefs in accordance with them. Consequently, if proper functioning is just operating in accordance with the appropriate design plan, then the cases of Theo- dore and Clarence are not counterexamples to the claim that one has warranted beliefs only if one's beliefs are produced by one's cognitive equipment operating properly. Perhaps this is the best way for the proper functioning theory of warrant to be formulated.

But this view of design plans creates problems for one of Plantinga's primary arguments against reliabilism, which he uses in turn as motivation for his proper functioning account. One of the reasons Plantinga rejects reliabilist accounts of warrant is that there are cases in which they would label beliefs warranted which are reliably-produced but which are such that this reliability is accidental. For instance, suppose Jane develops a brain tumor which has as a side-effect that it causes her to believe that she has brain tumor. Jane has no evidence for or against this belief. The belief is reliably-produced and there is no countervailing evidence.12 However, according to Plantinga it is intuitively not warranted. The explanation he gives for this is that, even though the belief is reliably-produced, it is accidental that the process producing the belief is reliable; It's reliability is due to cognitive malfunction. He insists that only processes which are functioning properly in reliably producing beliefs can yield warranted beliefs.

Now given the current internal analysis of proper functioning in terms of design plans, Plantinga's claim that the brain tumor beliefs are produced by improperly functioning cognitive equipment is just the claim that they are generated in a way that is not in accord with Jane's design plan. Given a proper functioning view of warrant, it would follow that these beliefs are not warranted. But here is the crucial




question: what is to prevent it from being the case that, in acquiring the brain tumor, Jane has also acquired a new cognitive design plan? If Jane did acquire a new design plan, or if her existing design plan changed, then her tumor-beliefs could have been produced in a way that was in accordance with her (new) design plan. Now if design plans require actual designers, then the question has an easy answer: the brain tumor belief-forming mechanism was not intended by God (or appro- priately caused by the evolutionary process) to be a part of Jane's cognitive design plan. If, on the other hand, design plans do not require designers (as the view under discussion presupposes), then it is quite mysterious what would make it the case that one set of specifications was Jane's cognitive design plan and the other (licensing beliefs produced by the tumor) was not. If there is no way to discount the possibility that Jane's design plan changed so as to sanction the tumor mechanism, as there appears not to be, then Plantinga's counterexample against reliabilism and the motivation he derives from it for his view of warrant lose their force. If this is the case, then it is unclear what advantages Plantinga's view has over reliabilism.

The preceding considerations indicate that the first two alternative ways in which the concept of properly functioning cognitive mechanisms could fail to be analyzed in terms of an actual designing agent or process have not been promising for the proper functioning view of warrant. For our final assessment of (2), we must consider the premise given the assumption that the notion of proper functioning is used metaphorically when applied to the operation of cognitive mechanisms. On this assumption, a cognitive mechanism functions properly if and only if it functions as it would function were it to have been designed (by God or the evolutionary process) and were it to function the way it would be designed to function (in the case of God, as He would intend; in the case of the evolutionary process, the appropriate non-intentional relation). Let us see what the analysis of the concept of warrant looks like which makes use of the concept of proper function analyzed in this way.

Given this counterfactual analysis of the concept of proper function, the resulting partial analysis of the concept of warrant is that a belief is warranted only if it is produced by a cognitive process which is working the way it would work were it to have been designed and were it to be



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working according to design. This partial account of warrant looks initially promising. For one thing, it avoids the Theodore counterexample directed above against Plantinga's account of warrant involving the concept of proper functioning analyzed in terms of actual design. An undesigned cognizer could have cognitive faculties which function as they would function were they to have been designed and were they to be functioning according to design. Moreover, the present analysis avoids the Dead Zone counterexample as well. Although, by hypoth- esis, Clarence's clairvoyant abilities are not the result of design, it is plausible to think that the faculty responsible for producing his C-beliefs is working the way it would work were it to have been designed and were it to be working the way it would have been designed to work. If God were to design a C-mechanism for a person, He might very well provide one just like Clarence's, and He might very well intend for it to work as Clarence's does.

However, in spite of these advantages of the counterfactual proper functioning account of warrant, there are disadvantages as well. The most troubling of these is that it is completely indeterminate how a cognitive mechanism operates when it is operating as it would were it to have been designed and were it to be operating as designed. Unless it is specified who or what the designer is, there is no fact of the matter about this. I added the parenthetical clause "by God or evolution" above. But perhaps God would cause persons to have a different cognitive design than would the evolutionary process. Moreover, what good reason is there for restricting the possible designers to God and evolution? There are many different kinds of possible designers, such as angels, who would do things differently from the way God would do them. If the possible designer remains unspecified, the account of warrant under consideration is not sufficiently determinate. But there seems to be no good reason to choose one possible designer over another; any of these possible designers would seem to suffice as the counterfactual designer required.

Suppose, however, that we follow Plantinga in stipulating that God is the possible designer in question (see footnote 11). So the resulting partial theory of warrant is that a belief is warranted only if it is produced by cognitive faculties functioning as they would were they to have been designed by God and were they to be operating as He would




intend. But how would God intend our faculties to operate? Though this question is very difficult to answer, some suggestions are more plausible than others. Given that the primary epistemological goal is the acquisition of true beliefs, one plausible answer is this: He would intend for our cognitive faculties to function reliably.13 Are there any other ways in which He would intend them to work for epistemological purposes? Perhaps there are. In discussing the features of the design plan for human cognition (1988, p. 38), Plantinga stresses the crucial role played by experience in our belief formation. It is reasonable to suppose that God would intend for us to form beliefs of certain kinds only on the basis of appropriate kinds of experiences. Plantinga also points out that many of our beliefs are formed on the evidential basis of other beliefs. It seems likely that God would intend only certain kinds of beliefs to be formed given certain evidential bases and not beliefs of other kinds. Moreover, beliefs have varying degrees of strength. God would probably intend that beliefs of different kinds be held with different degrees of firmness.

Let us label this set of cognitive characteristics and any others plausibly required for warrant "C". Given this, we can now employ a line of reasoning analogous to the argument stated in section I of this paper to show that one construal of Plantinga's view reduces to reliabilism. If the members of C are required for warrant, then the partial view of warrant which incorporates the concept of proper functioning analyzed counterfactually boils down to this: A belief is warranted only if it is produced by properly functioning cognitive equipment. Cognitive faculties function properly if and only if they are functioning as they would were they to have been designed by God and were they to be functioning as God would have designed them to function. Cognitive mechanisms are functioning in this latter way if and only it they possess the properties which are members of C. Hence, a belief is warranted only if it is produced by cognitive faculties which instantiate the properties which are members of C. As before, the appeal to proper functioning in the analysis of warrant is unnecessary. Reliability plus the other properties in C and not proper functioning are the concepts doing all the explanatory work. If this is right, although Plantinga may have deepened our understanding of epistemic warrant in other respects,'4 the eliminability of the concept of proper func-



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tioning from the counterfactual analysis makes the view less novel and interesting than it initially seemed to be; this position arguably reduces to a version of reliabilism. Although such a theory might be true, it is not, I take it, all that Plantinga intends for his view to be.15

III

This completes my case for premises (1) and (2). I hope to have established that if the concept of proper functioning is analyzed in terms of an actual designing agent or process, then accounts of warrant employing this concept are, although interesting and novel, subject to at least one counterexample. In addition, I have argued that if the concept of proper functioning is not analyzed in terms of an actual designing process or agent, then either Plantinga's account of warrant does not clearly constitute a superior alternative to reliabilism, or it reduces to a version of reliabilism. In either case, the novelty and distinctiveness of the proper functioning dimension of Plantinga's position is severely diminished. I conclude that Plantinga has not yet formulated an accept- able and distinctive analysis of the concept of epistemic warrant.'6

NOTES

1 See Plantinga 1986, 1987a, 1987b, 1988 and forthcoming. I will direct my criticism against Plantinga's view as presented in Plantinga 1988. At the time of this writing, it is the most recent and complete published exposition of his position. Although the term he uses to designate his analysandum in Plantinga 1988 is 'positive epistemic status'. I will employ the term 'warrant' for this purpose. Plantinga himself uses mostly this latter term in his forthcoming books. These books contain, of course, a more extensive formulation and defense of his account. Ruth Garrett Millikan offers an account of knowledge in Millikan 1984b similar in some respects to Plantinga's. However, it differs enough from his view to warrant labeling Plantinga's view "novel". 2 Analyses of the concept of a properly functioning mechanism in terms of an actual designing process or agent do not, of course, include analyses of this concept in terms of a possible but non-actual designer. I consider the latter sort of analysis, which I call "the counterfactual analysis of proper function", and the partial analysis of the concept of warrant which incorporates the concept of proper function so-analyzed, in section II. This account of warrant in terms of counterfactually-understood proper functioning is not subject to the two types of counterexamples which undermine accounts of warrant in terms of an actual designer. 3 In order to dismiss nontheistic, naturalistic analyses of the concept of proper function, one would at least need to show what is mistaken about the analysis of this concept which Millikan develops in Millikan 1984a, chap. 1. 4 I say "origin of that object's current design plan" because it is possible for an object




to undergo a series of changes in its design plan. Whether it is functioning properly at a given time depends on whether it is functioning in accordance with the design plan it has at that time, not on whether it is functioning in accordance with some design plan or other that it has had but no longer possesses. My thanks to Tom Senor for this point. 5I rule out this origin for Theodore as a concession to Plantinga in light of a remark he made in correspondence: "I don't think it is possible that a person (or anything else) should just pop into existence by chance. I think God is a necessary being, in which case it isn't clear to me either that anything is or that anything could be the result of no more than a series of chance events." See, however, my quotation of his remarks in section II. 6 But see Alston 1988, p. 262: "... it cannot be assumed that God intends to bring about all the consequences of everything He brings about, even though He will, of course, know about them." I Plantinga suggested this sort of argument in correspondence. He couched it in terms of persons, but I believe he takes persons to be souls. He also seems inclined to think only God can make believers (persons or not). However, a fall-back for the Theodore case is that if non-person believers are possible (computers?), they are possibly undesigned even if persons are not. 8 What explains the appropriateness of grounds for a belief is not that they are the kind of grounds assigned to that belief by the design plan but that they are related to the belief in terms of content. For instance, seeming to see something red is an appropriate ground for believing that something red is before one in virtue of the ground's sharing the concept of redness with the belief. Obviously, much more needs to be said about this, but I believe it is reasonable to think that such a content view could be formulated which would make appeal to design unnecessary. ' William Hasker makes a similar point in Hasker (unpublished) as does Steven Sullivan in comments on an earlier version of this paper read at the 1990 Pacific Division APA meetings.

I thank Tom Senor for this reading of the revised Clarence case. As before, the proper functioning view of warrant is not undermined by this new

version of the counterexample if cognitive faculties are construed functionally. How- ever, as before, this construal yields a view which is such that the concepts of design and proper functioning are explanatorily idle. l Plantinga suggests this alternative (stated in terms of God) for the non-theist in the event that there is no good nontheistic analysis of proper function in terms of an actual designing process (1988, pp. 45-46). 12 See Plantinga 1988, pp. 22-23 for a counterexample of this sort. 13 Plantinga states that we must add to his account of warrant the proposition .. . that our faculties have been designed by a being who wishes to enable us to achieve a substantial degree of truth in a substantial portion of the range in which we form beliefs" (1988, p. 44). 1 In addition to arguing that production by properly functioning cognitive equipment is necessary for warranted belief, Plantinga contends that warrant requires belief formation in an appropriate environment (1988, p. 33). He also adds a clause to handle degrees of warrant (1988, p. 34). Nothing I have said in this paper counts against these as features of warrant. 1 Tom Senor points out that, though Plantinga's view may reduce to reliabilism, and may not be superior to other reliabilist views overall, it may avoid the "generality problem" (see Goldman 1979, p. 12, Pollock 1984, and Feldman 1985). If a reliabilist view holds a beliefs degree of warrant to be a function of the reliability of the process- type causing it, the problem is that there is more than one process-type yielding the belief, each varying in reliability. Moreover, the same process-type can generate beliefs having different degrees of warrant. On Plantinga's view, degree of warrant is a function of firmness of conviction instead of degree of reliability (1988, p. 34).



202 JAMES E. TAYLOR

16 Earlier versions of this paper were read at the 1989 Wheaton College Summer Workshop, the 1990 Pacific Division Meetings of the APA and the 1990 Eastern Regional Meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers. I am grateful to the participants of these events who provided helpful comments. I am also indebted to Alvin Plantinga, Tom Senor, Stephen Sullivan and two anonymous referees for Philo- sophical Studies for invaluable written comments.

REFERENCES

Alston, W. P.: 1988, 'Divine and Human Action', in Divine and Human Action, Thomas V. Morris, ed. (Cornell University Press, Ithaca), pp. 257-80.

Feldman, R.: 1985, 'Reliability and Justification', The Monist 68: 159-74. Goldman, A. I.: 1979, 'What is Justified Belief?', in Justification and Knowledge,

George S. Pappas, ed. (Reidel, Dordrecht), pp. 1-23. Hasker, W.: unpublished, 'Plantinga's Reliabilism'. King, S.: 1979, The Dead Zone (New American Library, New York). Millikan, R. G.: 1984a, Language, thought, and Other Biological Categories (The MIT

Press, Cambridge, MA). Millikan, R. G.: 1984b, 'Naturalist Reflections on Knowledge', Pacific Philosophical

Quarterly 65, pp. 3 15-34. Plantinga, A.: 1974, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford). Plantinga, A.: 1986, 'Epistemic Justification', Nous 20, pp. 3-18. Plantinga, A.: 1987a, 'Justification and Theism', Faith and Philosophy 4, pp. 403-26. Plantinga, A.: 1987b, 'Chisholmian Internalism', in Philosophical Analysis: A Defense

By Example, D. F. Austin, ed. (Reidel, Dordrecht), pp. 127-5 1. Plantinga, A.: 1988, 'Positive Epistemic Status and Proper Function', in Philosophical

Perspectives, 2: Epistemology, J. E. Tomberlin, ed. (Ridgeview Publishing Co., Atascadero, CA), pp. 1-50.

Plantinga, A.: forthcoming, Warrant: Current Views and Warrant and Proper Function. Pollock, J.: 1984, 'Reliability and Justified Belief', Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14:

103-14.

Department of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA



Plantinga's Proper Functioning Analysis of Epistemic Warrant

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