Against Skepticism about the Value of Knowledge

This paper argues that a number of recent arguments for scepticism
about the value of knowledge (henceforth value scepticism) fail. Five
challenges that value sceptics have claimed every satisfactory account
of the value of knowledge would have to satisfy are identified. It is
shown that none of the challenges is fully legitimate as each
challenge rests on a mistaken value-theoretic assumption. A change in
focus is proposed from necessary conditions for satisfactory accounts
of the value of knowledge (the value sceptics’ challenges) to
sufficient such conditions. Two proposals are made: first, that an
account of the value of knowledge will be satisfactory if it shows
knowledge to be valuable for its own sake; second, that such an
account will be satisfactory if it identifies a distinctive role that
knowledge plays in our everyday lives. It is argued that accounts of
both types are still live options in the debate on the value of
knowledge. The virtue-theoretic account of the value of knowledge is
defended against Pritchard’s objections as a live option for
explaining the for-its-own-sake value of knowledge. It is also argued,
pace Kvanvig, that the value of knowledge may well be explained in
terms of knowledge’s being the norm for a certain type of speech act.
The case for knowledge’s being valuable in some way is reinforced by
the observation that if it came down to a choice between the
virtue-theoretic or, alternatively, the knowledge-norm account of the
value of knowledge on the one hand, and value scepticism on the other,
the very fact that the virtue-theoretic/knowledge-norm account can
explain why knowledge is valuable may provide a strong reason in its
favour. Finally a new account of the value of knowledge is presented.
The central thesis here is that knowledge is the achievement that
cognitive agents are sometimes after when pursuing the truth.