Simon Blackburn, conceptual priority, and the problem of explaining knowledge and truth

In his paper “Reason, Virtue and Knowledge” (2001), Simon Blackburn sets the bar high for what he takes to be required for a virtue-theoretic account of knowledge, truth and justification to amount to more than a mere “fig leaf for reliabilism.” On Blackburn’s view, for an account of VE to be properly VE, then epistemic virtue must have explanatory priority within the account; this is to say, the central epistemic concepts of knowledge, justification and truth must be explained in terms of intellectual virtue, and not the other way around.
The task of upholding the priority of virtue would require a “right-to-left” reading of the following equivalencies, the “right-to-left” upholding of which are in “ascending order of ambitiousness. ”

(1) A proposition is probable (justified) in a circumstance C if and only if an epistemically virtuous agent in C would have confidence in it.

(2) A true proposition is known to be true by an agent S in circumstance C if and only if S in C exhibits epistemic virtues in accepting it.

(3) A proposition is true if and only if an epistemically virtuous agent would accept it, if he exercised the virtues appropriately.

Blackburn suggests these equivalencies as candidates for comprising a proper epistemic model analogous to the manner in which central ethical concepts (right action, justified action, etc.) are cashed out in virtue ethics.
For example:
1. An action produces (or tends to produce, or is such to produce) the greatest balance of benefit over harm or any alternative if and only if it is the action that would be performed by a virtuous agent.
2. An action is the right action to perform in the circumstances if and only if a virtuous agent would perform it in the circumstances.

While it is tempting to read the former equivalencies in such a way that we find ourselves learning a bit about what virtue requires given antecedent conceptions of knowledge, probability and truth, this is exactly what must not be done, Blackburn thinks, for any virtue theory worthy of calling itself such.

I think that Blackburn’s suggestion has quite a few problems. For starters, it is not clear to me what the motivation would be for pursuing this project (within virtue epistemology) other than for the sake of pursuing a project that analogously models virtue ethics. I think that, as a general rule, such a project should raise a cautionary flag: pursuing a theoretical project in epistemology should never have a goal which might be incompatible with the project of discovering what is really the case. Blackburn thinks that a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic concepts must have a particular structure of conceptual priority to be “worthy of calling itself such.” Blackburn appears to not even consider the possibility that an epistemic theory could be successful whilst employing the use of intellectual virtues, and whilst not defending their conceptual priority within an account. I see no good reason to rule out, prima facie, that such an account could successfully come to grips with the nature of epistemic concepts, even if it isn’t “worthy” of being called a virtue theory (by virtue of modeling virtue ethics in such a way that conceptual priority is given to the virtues within the account).

This aside, I want to raise a problem that I think is probably irresoluble if Blackburn’s strategy is used. The problem has to do specifically with how he thinks that knowledge and truth are to be explained within his account. Recall Blackburn’s equivalencies:

(2) A true proposition is known to be true by an agent S in circumstance C if and only if S in C exhibits epistemic virtues in accepting it.

(3) A proposition is true if and only if an epistemically virtuous agent would accept it, if he exercised the virtues appropriately.

Whilst there is much to be said about Blackburn’s own solution for how these priorities can be defended by incorporating a deflationist account of truth (in conjunction with a “use” theory of meaning), what I think stands out as particularly crucial is a problem Blackburn brings up in his analysis of (2) and (3). Blackburn says: “The difficulty is that if truth is described in terms of what a virtuous agent would accept, knowledge cannot be similarly defined on pain of eliminating the distinction between the two. ” Certainly, collapsing knowledge into truth is a move that must be avoided. Blackburn surmises that there is some space between what a virtuous person does accept, and what a virtuous person would accept, and that this distinction might be able to adequately capture the difference between what truth is and what knowledge is. Blackburn writes: “[This distinction would] deliver the idea that truth is what you would get to by investigating virtuously, whereas knowledge is what you have got when you have investigated virtuously. ” I will address this claim shortly. But first, it should be noted that Blackburn thinks that, although this proposed definitional distinction is disputable, there is a positive upshot in it, in that it “does at least reflect the idea that there is normally no gap between aiming at knowledge and aiming at truth. ”
Three important questions emerge here: (1) Is it plausible to think that a virtue account could define knowledge and truth in such a way that they differ only in the respect that one “has been” and the other “would be” accepted by an intellectually virtuous agent? (2) Is Blackburn correct to think that this distinction reflects the idea that there’s normally no gap between aiming at knowledge and truth? (3) Is it the case that there is normally no difference between aiming at knowledge and aiming at truth?
Blackburn seems to answer each of these questions with a “yes”, and my inclination is to respond to each with a “no.” For the sake of keeping this post short(er) than it would be otherwise, I’ll address the first:

Is it plausible to think that a virtue account could define knowledge and truth in such a way that they differ only in the respect that one “has been” and the other “would be” accepted by an intellectually virtuous agent?

One way to pursue this line of inquiry would be to consider an inverting the terms and seeing how it looks. If an inversion of the terms with the definitions looks at all plausible, then this would amount to, prima facie, a strike against thinking that the relevant respect by which knowledge and truth differ is captured by the distinction Blackburn suggests. And so, let us ask whether (invertedly) knowledge could be what you would get to by investigating virtuously, and that conversely, truth is what you have got when you have investigated virtuously. It’s not false that you would be said to have knowledge if you would have investigated virtuously, even though (it would follow) you’d also have truth; similarly, it wouldn’t be false that once you have investigated thoroughly, you would have truth, even though you what you’d also have would be knowledge. Additionally, it’s not the case even that most cases of what you would get by investigating virtuously would preclude knowledge, nor that most cases (or any!) of what you do have when investigating virtuously would preclude truth.
What could be motivating Blackburn’s distinction here, then? The reasonable way to interpret his motivation, I think, is to suppose that Blackburn thinks that something “happens” once one has virtuously inquired, such that the truth that he only would have attained (in the counterfactual case) now becomes knowledge, by virtue of being the output of virtuous investigation. I’m guessing this to be the motivation because, surely, it isn’t rooted in his thinking that truth isn’t what you’d get when you have investigated virtuously (given that knowledge implies truth). And so, for Blackburn to be recognizing these terms as interestingly different, he must be thinking that there is something awry about claiming knowledge to be what you would get if you investigated virtuously (given that this is how he defines truth and presents it as differing in definition from knowledge).
At the end of the day, I think the prospects of adequately explaining what is relevantly different between truth and knowledge can’t be done if the conceptual priority of virtue is to be defended as Blackburn wants to do. And so, maybe we should conclude that a virtue account “worthy of calling itself such” should be, perhaps, abandoned for a virtue theory that’s not as worthy in that respect (but which can clearly discern how knowledge differs from truth.)