Reliability, responsibility, and the value of knowledge

In this thesis, I argue that knowledge is true belief where the believer is praiseworthy for the truth of that belief from an epistemic point of view. Praiseworthiness of an act necessitates a responsible agent. My account of act responsibility draws on externalist theories of moral responsibility. I argue that a necessary condition for responsibility is that the act and agent be properly connected, and I propose a value neutral sense of reliability in order to ground that connection. Key to this analysis of knowledge and its value is that the appropriate object on which the value of knowledge resides is the agent as opposed to the belief. This thesis accounts for the value of knowledge over true belief, the value of reliable belief forming process, and the value of a beliefs being true.