untrustworthy, and thereby shows that the disposition to trust CNN’s reporting is highly improper, this new evidence does not defeat the ex post justifiedness of Nyambi’s belief that Russian forces bombed civilian targets in Syria, even though, as we’ve stipulated, and unbeknownst to Nyambi, it is his disposition to trust CNN’s reporting which explains his having that belief. It’s tempting to suppose that, in the case I’ve just described, Nyambi’s belief that Russian forces bombed civilian targets in Syria must be based on something other than merely his disposition to trust CNN’s reporting perhaps it’s based on – his apparent recall of hearing this news reported on Al-Jazeera. But our stipulations about the case rule this out: the case is such that Nyambi’s belief is the exercise of a disposition to accept what he actually hears on CNN and not the exercise of any disposition to accept what he apparently recalls hearing on Al-Jazeera. Even if Nyambi actually has the latter disposition, we stipulate that his belief about Russian forces does not result from the exercise of that disposition. If this stipulation is not consistent with the rest of our stipulations about the case, then that very fact is something that the dispositionalist needs to explain. The dispositionalist might try to explain such an inconsistency by modifying (D1) in something like the following way: (D1’) basing C on R involves the agent’s exercising a disposition to C when both of the following conditions obtain: R, and the rest of the agent’s beliefs cohere with the proposition that R justifies C’ing. Here’s how this version of dispositionalism might handle our present case. Nyambi’s beliefs don’t cohere with the proposition that his belief about Russian
untrustworthy, and thereby shows that the disposition to trust CNN’s reporting is highly improper, this new evidence does not defeat the ex post justifiedness of Nyambi’s belief that Russian forces bombed civilian targets in Syria, even though, as we’ve stipulated, and unbeknownst to Nyambi, it is his disposition to trust CNN’s reporting which explains his having that belief. It’s tempting to suppose that, in the case I’ve just described, Nyambi’s belief that Russian forces bombed civilian targets in Syria must be based on something other than merely his disposition to trust CNN’s reporting – perhaps it’s based on his apparent recall of hearing this news reported on Al-Jazeera. But our stipulations about the case rule this out: the case is such that Nyambi’s belief is the exercise of a disposition to accept what he actually hears on CNN and not the exercise of any disposition to accept what he apparently recalls hearing on Al-Jazeera. Even if Nyambi actually has the latter disposition, we stipulate that his belief about Russian forces does not result from the exercise of that disposition. If this stipulation is not consistent with the rest of our stipulations about the case, then that very fact is something that the dispositionalist needs to explain. The dispositionalist might try to explain such an inconsistency by modifying (D1) in something like the following way: (D1’) basing C on R involves the agent’s exercising a disposition to C when both of the following conditions obtain: R, and the rest of the agent’s beliefs cohere with the proposition that R justifies C’ing. Here’s how this version of dispositionalism might handle our present case. Nyambi’s beliefs don’t cohere with the proposition that his belief about Russian
The-Basing-Relation.docx