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We generally take it to be a good thing for people to have true beliefs and a bad thing for people to have false beliefs. As such, it would seem that true beliefs are valuable and therefore truth is valuable. But what does it mean to value truth? Furthermore, what sort of value does truth have? Both of these questions are addressed by Paul Horwich and Michael Lynch, and though they differ with regard to the nature of truth, they give fairly similar answers to these two questions. Horwich believes that what it means to value truth is given by the VT principle: “it is desirable to believe what is true and only what is true” (Horwich, “The Value” 347). Lynch offers a similar principle called TE: “it is prima facie good that one believes all and only what is true” (Lynch, “The Values” 226). These and other characterizations express the same basic idea that it is good or desirable to believe what is true and bad or undesirable to believe what is not true. But is this goodness intrinsic or extrinsic? If truth has intrinsic value, then its value is inherent; it is valuable for its own sake apart from any of our goals (e.g., ethical, aesthetic, hedonistic) and desirable even when it conflicts with these goals (Horwich, Truth 62). On the other hand, if truth has extrinsic value, then its value is externally determined. One such extrinsic value is instrumental value, and if truth has instrumental value, it is valuable insofar as it helps us to achieve other ends. If it does not help us achieve these ends, then it lacks instrumental value. Both Horwich and Lynch take truth to always have intrinsic value even when it lacks instrumental value. On the contrary, I will defend the view that truth does not have intrinsic value. Instead, truth is only instrumentally valuable and so not all true beliefs are valuable. I will consider the arguments that Horwich and Lynch put forward to defend their claim, offer criticisms, and provide reasons for believing that truth is only instrumentally valuable.
Why should we believe that truth is more than instrumentally good and hence intrinsically valuable? Both Horwich and Lynch propose many reasons. First, Horwich claims that people generally believe that knowledge is valuable for its own sake. He writes, “there is widespread sentiment to the effect that certain items of knowledge are desirable regardless of any practical use to which someone might decide to put them” (Horwich, “The Value” 351). However, Horwich himself offers an instrumental explanation for why this is the case. He claims, “it is presumably because most truths are useful in practical inference … that our society, simplifying for the sake of effectiveness, inculcates a general concern for truth for its own sake… [This explains] our tendency to believe that there is such a fact [that truth is valuable for its own sake]” (Horwich, “The Value” 351). But if this is true, then we have no reason to take the supposed fact that most people believe knowledge to be valuable for its own sake as support for the claim that truth is intrinsically valuable.
Second, Lynch claims that “there are times in most of our lives when we simply want to know for no other reason than the knowing itself” (Lynch, “Minimalism” 502). Thus, truth is often sought for its own sake without considering practical concerns and so it must have intrinsic value. Furthermore, since truth can be sought for its own sake, one can justify many types of academic inquiry such as “ancient history, metaphysics, and esoteric areas of mathematics – fields that may not be expected to have any pragmatic payoff” (Horwich, “The Value” 351). Horwich believes that such fields of inquiry are obviously justified, and since they could only be justified if truth were intrinsically valuable, truth must have intrinsic value.
However, one can simply deny that such fields of inquiry are justified in this way. For example, researchers in each of these fields enjoy their work and so it satisfies their interests and the interests of those who follow their work. Similarly, satisfying our various curiosities brings us pleasure and so it is not without practical value. Furthermore, contrary to Horwich’s assumption, these fields of inquiry do have practical value beyond a mere satisfaction of interests. Most researchers take themselves to be pursuing inquiry that is practically useful or may in the future turn out to be so. For example, ancient history teaches us about ourselves and from its lessons we can act more wisely in our own day. Metaphysics seeks to understand what the world fundamentally is like and the various answers it gives do have practical implications (e.g., I should live my life one way if God exists and another way if God does not exist). Finally, many once esoteric areas of mathematics have been discovered to practically apply to other fields (e.g., physics, computer science). Thus, it seems that one can justify each of these fields of inquiry, and our supposedly non-practical curiosity, by reference to purely instrumental considerations. Thus, truth need not be intrinsically valuable.
Third, Lynch claims that “unless truth has more than instrumental value, there would be nothing wrong with believing trivial falsehoods… [But] the falsity of a proposition is in fact a terminal objection to believing it” (Lynch, “Minimalism” 502). Lynch is not claiming that it is morally wrong to believe a false proposition. Instead, the supposed wrongness of believing a false proposition has to do with epistemic or cognitive wrongness. Lynch takes the purpose of our cognitive capacities to be the attainment of truth for the sake of truth. He writes, “truth is a goal of inquiry in the sense of being a proper end of our epistemic practices” (Lynch, “The Values” 226). Since our epistemic practices are properly aimed at truth, then it is “correct” to believe true and only true propositions (Lynch, “The Values” 228). Thus, beliefs are properly evaluated, that is, judged to be correct or incorrect, only with regard to whether or not they are true.
However, this view seems too narrow. Given what we know about our evolutionary past, it seems that the purpose of our cognitive capacities is not to attain truth for its own sake, but to attain truth for our sake. That is, the function of our cognitive capacities may be to attain truth, but as part of a larger biological system, they are ultimately ordered to helping us survive and flourish in our environment. So while a belief may be “correct” with regard to our cognitive capacities alone because it accords with the truth, it may not be correct or best for us with regard to our surviving and flourishing which is its ultimate end.
Such a claim seems incompatible with Lynch’s insistence that inquiry (i.e., trying to figure out what to believe) can only be understood as aiming at true beliefs (Lynch, “The Values” 230). He writes that “an activity whose aims don’t include true belief isn’t bad inquiry: it is not inquiry at all” (Lynch, “The Values” 238). Lynch suggests that instead such practices would be akin to “wishful thinking” since the epistemic agent would not be aiming at the truth (Lynch, “The Values” 239). But the person that takes truth to only be instrumentally valuable can accept this claim. One can say that the agent who is engaging in inquiry and seeking the truth is doing so for instrumental reasons. However, when not aiming at the truth, one may not be engaging in inquiry, but one is still using one’s cognitive capacities correctly with regard to their overall function within the larger system. Such rationalization or selective justification may be criticized from the standpoint of ideal rationality. But such rationality is not always ideal for our overall wellbeing and this is what our cognitive capacities are supposed to serve.
Lynch even seems to concede as much by admitting in a footnote that beliefs are only prima facie correct since there may be other norms operating on belief. “Justification and rationality, for example, are normative, and they operate over belief. Moreover, they can conflict with the norm of truth – what is justified isn’t always true. Nor is believing what is false always irrational” (Lynch, “The Values” 228). But if this is the case, then in accordance with my argument above, one can have “correct” beliefs that are not true since the norm of truth may be defeated by other norms.
This criticism can also be brought out by another claim Lynch makes. When considering whether inquiry itself is valuable, he admits that he cannot give a non-circular answer since doing so would presuppose the value of inquiry: the question “asks us to provide an epistemic reason, an argument, and a justification for the practice of giving reasons, arguments, and justifications. And that obviously can’t be done, for those activities are constitutive of inquiry, whose aim is the formation of true beliefs” (Lynch, “The Value” 239). But there is no need to appeal to an epistemic reason when one can justify inquiry by instrumental reasons. Clearly, inquiry is generally very useful in helping us to achieve our aims because having true beliefs related to our goals will help us to satisfy these goals. So it seems that inquiry is justified by its ability to help us acquire true beliefs related to practical aims and not justified for its own sake. If it were, we should be doing wrong by ceasing to engage in inquiry in any circumstance and this is not true. I only do wrong if I cease inquiry in certain circumstances (e.g., I am liable for the knowledge such inquiry would achieve). Thus, contrary to Lynch’s claim that a proposition’s being false is a terminal reason to reject it and hence truth is intrinsically valuable, it is possible to have “correct” beliefs that are not true, and this correctness relates to their instrumental value.
Fourth, both Horwich and Lynch claim that that our intuition that it would be good to know all things as God does supports the claim that truth is intrinsically valuable. Horwich writes that we are inclined “to think that a ‘perfect being’ would be omniscient” (Horwich, “The Value” 357). Lynch similarly claims that “it is prima facie good to be omniscient… it is good to be God, as it were” (Lynch, “The Values” 226). However, this claim is at least equally and perhaps better supported by saying that truth is only instrumentally valuable. [1] Consider the traditional formulation of a perfect being as being all good, all powerful, and all knowing. If that being was not all good, then we wouldn’t value its having all knowledge since such knowledge could be used for evil. Similarly, if that being was not all powerful, then such a being could not use its knowledge to do everything good that it wished to accomplish.
Some people use such considerations to explain the problem of evil. The open theist claims that God lacks knowledge since, given that God is all powerful, God would prevent any evil that God knew about and knew how to prevent. Similarly, if God lacks power, then God knows how to prevent all evil but simply cannot do so. Thus, it appears that we have compelling reasons to believe that omniscience is valuable only insofar as it is related to perfect power and perfect goodness, and therefore it is only instrumentally valuable. Indeed, even the most trivial of true propositions is instrumentally valuable to a being that needs to providentially govern all things with certainty of success. Thus, the intuition that omniscience is valuable provides better support for the claim that truth is only instrumentally valuable.
Fifth, Lynch suggests that if truth’s value could be explained by something else such as its instrumentality, “then if I had two beliefs b1 and b2 with identical instrumental value, I should not prefer to believe b1 rather than b2” where b1 is true and b2 is false (Lynch, “Minimalism” 502). Since we would prefer the true belief to the false belief, truth must have value apart from its instrumentality. He offers the following examples to illustrate this point. Consider whether it would be good to believe truly or falsely concerning some extremely abstract mathematical propositions. Suppose that we knew that these propositions would never have any instrumental value whatsoever. Then, “if we were forced to choose between believing truly or falsely about the matter, we would surely prefer the former” (Lynch, “Minimalism” 502).
Lynch also cites thought experiments like one’s being deceived unknowingly by Descartes’ evil demon. He observes that being in the demon world would be experientially and consequentially the same as being in the actual world, even though one’s beliefs would largely be false in one world and largely true in the other. The same can be said of living in a “Russell world” in which the world began two minutes ago and almost all of my past beliefs are false. However, my false beliefs about the past in the “Russell world” have the same consequences as my true beliefs in the actual world and so they are instrumentally identical. Since we would prefer to live in the actual world and have true beliefs, this non-instrumental difference is what matters and that is why we are disturbed by being “undetectably wrong” (Lynch, “Minimalism” 503).
Considering the abstract mathematical propositions first, it is not obvious to me that we should prefer to guess correctly. Excluding the possibility in which our being “forced” to choose has practical implications, it seems at least as plausible that many people will simply not care whether they have a true belief or not in these circumstances. The belief is too trivial to have any significance and so it does not matter if one knows it to be true or not. [2] Such a case is different from the evil demon and “Russell world” scenarios since knowing the truth in these circumstances would make a practical difference. If I knew that I was deceived by an evil demon or living in a “Russell world”, I would live my life differently because these truths are very significant. [3] In order for Lynch’s argument to work, he needs us to prefer a true but trivial belief to a false but trivial belief of identical instrumental value. That is, he needs us to prefer a true belief over a false belief even when knowing that a belief is true does not, would not, and could not, make a difference in how we live our lives. Again, it seems that that most people would simply not care if such a belief were true or not. They would not desire to know the truth and we would not find anything particularly wrong with them if they held such a belief that was false. [4] This shows that the value of truth really depends upon the content of belief and not on whether it is true. If we take the belief to be about something valuable, then knowing its truth or falsity will be valuable as well. If the belief is trivial and hence the truth it contains is trivial, then it seems that we will not regard its truth as valuable. Thus, whether a belief is valuable depends upon its instrumental importance and hence the value of its truth is also a matter of instrumentality.
Sixth, Lynch suggests that we still seek the truth even when there will be negative consequences and hence it is not instrumentally valuable. Considering a cheating spouse, Lynch writes that “people often wish to know the truth about a spouse’s infidelity even when there is an excellent chance that nothing productive will come of it” (Lynch, “Minimalism” 502). However, while something good may not come of it, it seems that in these situations people believe that something good will come of it. At the very least, knowing the truth about this infidelity will end the uncertainty and worries about what may or may not be happening behind one’s back. Furthermore, knowing the truth may strengthen the relationship in the long run or end the marital relationship for the eventual good of all parties. Thus, the spouse hopes that the truth will be instrumentally good, even though it may not in fact be good. In all similar cases, it seems that one can easily offer this sort of explanation, and hence we do not need to appeal to any intrinsic value in truth to explain this occurrence.
Given the foregoing arguments, I conclude that neither Lynch nor Horwich has provided any compelling reasons for believing that truth is more than instrumentally useful. However, the most obvious and I believe compelling reason for limiting truth’s value to instrumentality is that there are true beliefs that are not valuable. This can be understood in two ways. First, there are truths that we wish were not true and hence do not value. These beliefs directly conflict with our goals and desires. Consider the example of spousal infidelity. Suppose that your wife is cheating on you. If you could choose the option to remain in ignorant bliss and live happily ever after or choose to know the truth and thereby experience pain and suffering for the rest of your life, then it seems to me that you may be better off not knowing the truth. Thus, not all truths are desirable. [5] Second, there are also beliefs that we do not wish to know whether they are true or false. Whatever the case may be, it is of no importance to us. [6] These beliefs indirectly conflict with our goals and desires. They are “too trivial to be worth finding out about or worth remembering” and so would keep us from more important pursuits (Horwich, “The Value” 348). For example, one might suggest that knowing the average length of grass on the lawn in front of my apartment does not appear to be either useful or intrinsically valuable. Hence, it is not desirable to know all truths.
In response, Horwich and Lynch claim that the value of many truths can be overridden by other concerns. We value many different things and quite often our different goals will conflict with each other. Since we cannot satisfy them all, we must choose some over others and thereby sacrifice some values for the sake of others. For example, suppose a situation in which obtaining some information would be very dangerous. Horwich suggests that in this situation it would not be a bad thing, all things considered, if no investigation were undertaken or if the investigation led to a wrong answer (Horwich, “The Value” 348). Thus, there may be cases in which it is good to believe something even though it is false. Similarly, considering cases in which the truths to be acquired are too trivial or too complicated, both Lynch and Horwich suggest that finding out the truth may be too costly and not worth the effort. Hence, it may not be desirable, all things considered, to pursue and believe all truths (Horwich, “The Value” 348; Lynch, “Minimalism” 500-1). So “while it is always good that one believe only the truth, it is not always good, all things considered” (Lynch, “The Values” 227). Thus, the truth remains valuable even when that value is overridden by other concerns.
The difficulty with this response is that if truth is intrinsically valuable, then it seems that we should be doing something wrong by letting other concerns overrule our pursuit of it. Consider the moral case in which humans can be regarded as instrumentally valuable or as valuable for their own sake. If taken to be instrumentally valuable, then a human’s rights can be violated for the sake of some greater end (e.g., the greatest happiness in society). However, if humans have value for their own sake, then we morally wrong them by violating these rights. In other words, their worth is inviolable and no overall assessment can make violating this worth morally correct. Similarly, if truth is only instrumentally valuable, then we do nothing wrong by not seeking or not believing it if, given an overall assessment, it is not worth it. [7] However, if truth is intrinsically valuable, then it must be sought and believed at all costs if we are to avoid committing some sort of cognitive or epistemic wrong.
At times Lynch seems to admit this. For example, he writes that “the recognition that p is true is a decisive reason to believe it” (Lynch, “The Values” 230). But it is difficult to reconcile this claim with his and Horwich’s claim that all things considered, it might be better to have a false belief. In order to join these two competing claims one could suggest that it is permissible to abandon truth only if seeking and believing the truth conflicted with an equal or greater intrinsic value of some other kind (e.g., happiness). However, Lynch and Horwich allow non-intrinsically-valuable considerations to overrule truth (e.g., one’s time, one’s resources). Such considerations may be a means to a greater intrinsic value, but if truth is competing with these on the same level then it seems more plausible that it also is a means to a greater end. Thus, it is more reasonable that truth is only instrumentally valuable.
In the end, I must admit that, like Lynch, these arguments are not conclusive. Lynch writes that his reasons do not prove that we are “correct to believe that truth is more than instrumentally good: what they show is that for many people, the idea that truth is good is part of a tacit folk-theoretic conception of truth” (Lynch, “Minimalism” 505). [8] However, I have shown that such considerations are consistent with believing truth to only be instrumentally valuable. Given the additional reasons I put forward, I also conclude that it is more plausible to hold that truth is not intrinsically valuable and that its value comes from instrumental reasons only.
Footnotes
[1] David also notices the relationship between knowledge and power and points out that Lynch has not distinguished between what is good for God and what is good for us (David 298). Lynch responds that “We don’t need to do theology to understand why caring about believing the truth as such is good for us… [W]e only need to think about the role that caring about truth plays in human flourishing” (Lynch, “Replies” 333). However, such a response is compatible with truth being valuable only as a means to our flourishing.
[2] David makes this same point when considering trivial truths that we acquire without cost: “Do we really care about believing trivial truths that come for free? In the end, this is of course a personal question. But I suspect quite a few people will say: Not at all” (David 298). Similarly, there is an “introspective conviction, which I think quite a few people have, that they simply don’t care about believing trivial truths and simply don’t care about believing free trivial truths either” (David 298).
[3] David offers a different objection: “The expected response, namely that I prefer to live in the normal world, indicates at best that I want my beliefs, the beliefs I actually have, to be true, that I want to live in the world in which the beliefs that I actually have are true. This does not indicate that I want to believe whatever is true” (David 297).
[4] Papineau similarly writes: “Consider people who aim deliberately to mislead themselves… Are these people acting wrongly? Of course, they aren't doing what they need to, if they want their beliefs to be true. But by hypothesis they don't want their beliefs to be true. So is there any other sense in which they are proceeding improperly? It is not obvious to me that there is” (Papineau 24).
[5] Papineau agrees: “it can sometimes be quite proper… not to be moved by the aim of truth” (Papineau 24).
[6] David goes even further in denying Lynch’s claim: even if we restrict ourselves to “non-trivial, important, and humanly graspable propositions[,] there are still way too many truths of that sort for me to have that many wants” (David 299).
[7] One might go further in saying that no wrong is committed by not seeking the truth in any case. For example, Papineau believes the claim that “there is always some reason to seek the truth, even if it can be overridden” to be “implausible” (Papineau 25).
[8] Elsewhere, Lynch also writes: “I don’t claim that these arguments show that truth has intrinsic worth… I like to think it does have such value, but I am pessimistic that any argument could prove the point” (Lynch, “Replies” 334).
Works Cited and Consulted
David, Marian. “On ‘Truth is Good’.” Philosophical Books 46.4 (2005): 292-301. Wiley Online
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Horwich, Paul. Truth. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford, 1998. Print.
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Lynch, Michael. “Minimalism and the Value of Truth.” The Philosophical Quarterly 54.217
(2004): 497-517. Wiley Online Library. Web. 29 April 2011.
---. “Replies to Critics.” Philosophical Books 46.4 (2005): 331-42. Wiley Online Library. Web. 7
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---. “The Values of Truth and the Truth of Values.” Epistemic Value. Ed. Adrian Haddock, Alan
Millar, and Duncan Pritchard. New York: Oxford, 2009. 225-42. Print.
McGrath, Matthew. “Lynch on the Value of Truth.” Philosophical Books 46.4 (2005): 302-310.
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Papineau, David. “Normativity and Judgement.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 73.1
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