Probably Possible

Suppose that being amazed that p, being relieved that p, and being happy that p are factive attitudes. Does having such attitudes require one to know that p? Williamson, in the first chapter of Knowledge and Its Limits, argues that the answer is “Yes”. The oddity of the following sentences provides support for his view:

• Sue doesn’t know that you’re a great singer, but she is amazed that you’re one.
• Xuxa is relieved that her son has arrived safely, but she doesn’t know that he has; for all she knows, he died in the war, and people are just trying to keep her away from the awful news.
• They were happy to have found a barn for shelter, but they didn’t know, although they truly believed, that it was a barn; after all, they couldn’t rule out the possibility that it was a barn facade.

One upshot of Williamson’s view is that if some sort of global scepticism is right, then not only is there little that we know about—there’s little that we can be said to be happy about, or amazed about, or relieved about. (The oddity of the above sentences remains if we replace “Sue is amazed that you’re a great singer” with “Sue is amazed about your being a great singer”, “Xuxa is relieved that her son has arrived safely” with “Xuxa is relieved about her son’s safe arrival”, etc.)

Another upshot is that if “knows that p” is context-sensitive, then (perhaps derivatively) so are terms like “happy that p”, “amazed that p”, and “relieved that p”. (Since happiness, amazement, and relief come in degrees, it might be a matter of context how much happiness, for example, is needed for one to be said to be happy. But this is not the kind of context-sensitivity that I’m concerned with here.) Suppose that we start off in a context in which it is correct to say both that Sue knows that you sing well, and also that she is amazed that you sing well. But suppose that standards go up, and we find ourselves in a new context in which it is no longer correct to say the former. Then it is no longer correct to say the latter. If contextualism about knowledge attributions is right, then it seems that whether you can be said to be happy, or amazed, or relieved about something, depends on the epistemic standards operating in the contexts in which such things are said. (And a similar story could be told if subject-sensitive invariantism is correct. If whether one knows that p is subjective-sensitive, then so is whether one is happy that p, or amazed that p, or relieved that p.)

Someone who subscribes to Williamson’s view, but who, unlike Williamson, is either a global sceptic or a contextualist, might well embrace such consequences of the view. The global sceptic isn’t committed to saying, on Williamson’s view, that there’s a dearth of happiness, amazement, or relief in the world, even though she has to say that there’s little that one can be happy, amazed, or relieved about. The contextualist can maintain that in ordinary contexts, one can be said to be happy, amazed, or relieved about lots of things; it’s only in extraordinary contexts that there’s little that one can be said to be happy, amazed, or relieved about.

Now I suppose that if the global sceptic doesn’t find her view that we know very little discomfitting, she would have no qualms holding that there’s little we can be happy, amazed, or relieved about. But what about the contextualist? I find it strange that whether Xuxa can be said to be happy that her son has arrived safely varies with context, such that in one context, we can say that she is happy that her son has arrived safely, but in some other context, we can’t, even though in both contexts, her subjective feeling of happiness, her degree of confidence in her son’s safe arrival, and her justification for thinking that her son has arrived safely, are the same. Perhaps, this won’t seem so strange to me if in both contexts, there is something common that we can say that Xuxa is happy about. But what is it? Of course, in both contexts, we can say that Xuxa is happy in her belief that her son has arrived safely, but it’s not her belief that she’s happy about.

Perhaps, the lesson to draw is as follows. Stalnaker (Inquiry, Ch. 4) and Lewis think that questions about the content of belief and questions about our practice of belief attributions should be separated. Perhaps, questions about the content of happiness and questions about our practice of happiness attributions should likewise be separated. Xuxa is happy, and the content of her happiness seems to be just this: her son’s safe arrival. Whether we can say that she’s happy that he has arrived safely might depend on other things. If Xuxa’s son actually died in the war, but she mistakenly thinks that he has arrived safely, and therefore feels happy, it won’t be correct to say that she’s happy that he has arrived safely. But this doesn’t change that fact that she feels happy, and that the content of her happiness is about her son’s safe arrival.