228 ARGUMENTS: MONOTHEISTIC CONCEPTIONSBeing evidence versus providing evidence
If (P*) is true, any experience not disqualified by it is evidence. It does
not follow that any such experience is taken as evidence by one. Perhaps
no one even considers whether the experience is evidence or takes it to be
such; perhaps everyone falsely believes that it is not evidence. Being
evidence is a necessary but not sufficient condition for providing
evidence. What else is required? One obvious thing is this: in order for an
experience to provide evidence to one, one must believe it to be evidence,
and it must be evidence. But what else?
An honorable tradition tells us this. It is logically possible that there is
a Terrible Tiger Deceiver who produces as-if-there-is-a-tiger experiences
only when there is not a tiger; therefore whether there are tigers or not,
all of our as-if-there-is-a-tiger experiences are unreliable. If Mary has no
reason to think the Terrible Tiger Deceiver hypothesis false, Mary cannot
properly claim to have experiential evidence that there is a tiger in the
garden. Since Mary will have a hard time refuting that hypothesis, it
seems that Mary’s experience provides her no tiger-favoring evidence.
Another, and opposite, perspective says that Mary only need
(nonculpably) to have no reason to think that the Terrible Tiger
hypothesis is true. The notion of non-culpably having no reason is
complex, but we need here only a brief characterization. If a matter is of
enough importance, and there are considerations relative to whether an
experience is reliable, and these considerations are accessible, then one
basing a belief on the evidence that his experience seems to provide
should see if it does so in the light of those considerations. If he does not
do so, his belief is arguably unreasonable; he has not checked out what he
should. The various notions involved here – matter of enough
importance, relevant considerations, accessibility – are hardly lucid. For
our purposes, only two things need be noted: (i) since our concern is
centrally with whether religious experiences are evidence, and so can
provide evidence, for religious belief, we need not enter deeply into a
discussion as to exactly when a particular person is reasonable in
accepting them as evidence, and (ii) if an experience does not run afoul of
any of the canceling factors mentioned in our principle of experiential
evidence, or there isn’t any good reason to think that it does, that greatly
reduces the plausibility of claiming that one who takes them to provide
evidence is unreasonable in virtue of doing so.
Since Mary will have a hard time finding much of substance to say on
behalf of the Terrible Tiger hypothesis – there being no reason to think it
true – it seems that her as-if-there-is-a-tiger experience is evidentially in
order.