ABSTRACT
This chapter critically examines Crispin Wright’s version of epistemic conservatism. Wright has advanced a number of arguments to show that, in addition to evidential warrant, we have a species of non-evidential warrant, namely, ‘entitlement,’ which forms the basis of a particular view of the architecture of perceptual justification. Some philosophers, however, think that those arguments at most show that entitlement has a pragmatic character. In some of his most recent writings, Wright dismisses the charge. This chapter argues that Wright’s response is inadequate. It will be maintained that the kind of warrant that emerges from Wright’s account is not the standard truth-conducive justification but, what is known as, the deontological conception of justification. Deontological justification has features that make it a better candidate for representing a conservative architecture. These results will be reinforced by showing how the deontological framework can make better sense of a recent theory of justified (reasonable) belief that takes its inspiration from Wright’s conservative account. Finally, I shall compare my deontological gloss on Wright’s conservative account with another recent approach which seeks to promote the epistemic status of entitlement beyond how it is conceived within that account.
