8. Explanatory promises

In chapter 1 and elsewhere, you claim that a successful epistemological theory

will help explain the Aristotelian Principle and the success of Ameliorative

Psychology. It’s not at all clear that you have kept these explanatory promises.

Let’s begin with the Aristotelian Principle, which says that in the long run,

good reasoning tends to lead to good outcomes. According to Strategic

Reliabilism, good reasoning involves the efficient allocation of robustly reliable

reasoning strategies to problems of significance. So the excellent reasoner

will tend to have true beliefs about significant matters.We take it to be a true empirical hypothesis that true beliefs about significant matters tend to

be instrumentally valuable in achieving good outcomes. People and institutions

can more easily achieve their goals insofar as they have a true picture of

relevant parts of the world. The explanation for the instrumental value of

significant truth is likely to be complex (Kornblith 2002). But as long as

significant truth is instrumentally valuable, the account of good reasoning

provided by Strategic Reliabilism helps us to understand (i.e., plays a role in

the explanation of) the Aristotelian Principle.

Strategic Reliabilism also helps us to understand the success of Ameliorative

Psychology in at least three ways. First, Strategic Reliabilism is a

general account of reasoning excellence, and so it applies to science. The

fact that science displays excellent reasoning—that it involves robustly

reliable reasoning strategies for solving significant problems—is part of

the explanation for the characteristic pragmatic and epistemic success of

science. In this way, Strategic Reliabilism helps us to understand the epistemic

and pragmatic success of Ameliorative Psychology. Second, Strategic

Reliabilismcan be used to explain the success of the recommendations

of Ameliorative Psychology. For example, the recommendation that Goldberg’s

Rule be used to make tentative diagnoses of psychiatric patients on

the basis of a MMPI profile is successful because it is cheap, its reliability is

unsurpassed and it tackles a problem that is significant for certain people.

(On the other hand, it is not particularly robust, since its conditions

of application are fairly restricted. But highly reliable reasoning strategies

whose ranges are restricted to mostly very significant problems can

nonetheless be excellent.) There is a third way in which Strategic Reliabilism

can explain the success of Ameliorative Psychology: it can do so

by helping it to be more successful. Ameliorative Psychology is not a

monolith. There are occasionally disagreements about how to evaluate

certain reasoning strategies. As we showed in chapter 8, Strategic Reliabilism

provides a framework for understanding reasoning excellence, and

so it can be used to assess the prescriptive recommendations made by

Ameliorative Psychologists. So Strategic Reliabilism can be used to improve

Ameliorative Psychology by identifying some of its less successful

recommendations.

In chapter 1 and elsewhere, you claim that a successful epistemological theory

will help explain the Aristotelian Principle and the success of Ameliorative

Psychology. It’s not at all clear that you have kept these explanatory promises.

Let’s begin with the Aristotelian Principle, which says that in the long run,

good reasoning tends to lead to good outcomes. According to Strategic

Reliabilism, good reasoning involves the efficient allocation of robustly reliable

reasoning strategies to problems of significance. So the excellent reasoner

will tend to have true beliefs about significant matters.We take it to be a true empirical hypothesis that true beliefs about significant matters tend to

be instrumentally valuable in achieving good outcomes. People and institutions

can more easily achieve their goals insofar as they have a true picture of

relevant parts of the world. The explanation for the instrumental value of

significant truth is likely to be complex (Kornblith 2002). But as long as

significant truth is instrumentally valuable, the account of good reasoning

provided by Strategic Reliabilism helps us to understand (i.e., plays a role in

the explanation of) the Aristotelian Principle.

Strategic Reliabilism also helps us to understand the success of Ameliorative

Psychology in at least three ways. First, Strategic Reliabilism is a

general account of reasoning excellence, and so it applies to science. The

fact that science displays excellent reasoning—that it involves robustly

reliable reasoning strategies for solving significant problems—is part of

the explanation for the characteristic pragmatic and epistemic success of

science. In this way, Strategic Reliabilism helps us to understand the epistemic

and pragmatic success of Ameliorative Psychology. Second, Strategic

Reliabilismcan be used to explain the success of the recommendations

of Ameliorative Psychology. For example, the recommendation that Goldberg’s

Rule be used to make tentative diagnoses of psychiatric patients on

the basis of a MMPI profile is successful because it is cheap, its reliability is

unsurpassed and it tackles a problem that is significant for certain people.

(On the other hand, it is not particularly robust, since its conditions

of application are fairly restricted. But highly reliable reasoning strategies

whose ranges are restricted to mostly very significant problems can

nonetheless be excellent.) There is a third way in which Strategic Reliabilism

can explain the success of Ameliorative Psychology: it can do so

by helping it to be more successful. Ameliorative Psychology is not a

monolith. There are occasionally disagreements about how to evaluate

certain reasoning strategies. As we showed in chapter 8, Strategic Reliabilism

provides a framework for understanding reasoning excellence, and

so it can be used to assess the prescriptive recommendations made by

Ameliorative Psychologists. So Strategic Reliabilism can be used to improve

Ameliorative Psychology by identifying some of its less successful

recommendations.