Scots Philosophical Association

University of St. Andrews

Evans Off Target

Author(s): F. C. T. Moore
Source: The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 98 (Jan., 1975), pp. 58-59
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Scots Philosophical Association and the
University of St. Andrews

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58

DISCUSSIONS
EVANS OFF TARGET
BY F. C. T. MOORE
In his recent paper "Aristotle on Relativism", PQ 24 (1974), 193-203,
Mr J. D. G. Evans reminds us of the Aristotelian puzzle (Nicomachean
Ethics r 4) about whether the object of wishing (of Pou'5X)lS, the faculty
concerned with the ultimate grounds for action) is the good (in which case
a person who chooses wrongly does not wish what he wishes), or what
appears good to each person (in which case, on Evans's account of Aristotle,
there would be no way of evaluating different wishes). Aristotle's solution
is that in the case of the good man the object of his wish (that which appears
good to him) is the same as the unqualified object of wish (that which is
good), whereas in other cases these two do not coincide.
Evans illustrates his comments on Aristotle's solution by the analogy of
shooting at targets. To avoid the paradoxes by which unsuccessful shooting
would be proved not to be shooting at all (since all shooting is necessarily
directed at the target), and all shooting would be proved successful (since
all shooting is necessarily directed at its target), Evans claims that we should
distinguish for any shot its target (the "qualified target") from the target
(the "unqualified target"): only in some cases (namely, cases of successful
shooting) do these coincide. But this treatment of unsuccessful shooting is
not only implausible, as Evans concedes (p. 201): it is absurd. For an unsuccessful shot is precisely not one which hits a target (even a "qualified
target").
The distinction between qualified and unqualified targets is not itself
absurd: it is the distinction between what a person is aiming at, and what
what he takes to be the target, and what really
he is to aim at-between
is the target. But it is entirely separate from the distinction between successful and unsuccessful shots: a successful shot is one that hits the (qualified
or unqualified) target, and an unsuccessful shot is one that does not. Mistaking the target does not make a man a worse shot, and if he hits what he aims
at, he is not unsuccessful in shooting, but unsuccessful in identifying the
target.
In the case of wishing (the Aristotelian pou6X6]7l), the parallels would
be as follows: the unqualified target would correspond to the unqualified
good (that which is determined as good in some way independently of a
particular wisher), and the qualified target to the qualified good (that which
is determined as good simply by being the object of a particular man's wish)
-while wishes would be "successful" and "unsuccessful" according as the
man attained the good or not, or attained his object or not.
Evans assimilates the (plausible) claim that there is a distinction between successful and unsuccessful wishing which should be preserved by
any account of wishing, to the question-begging claim that there is an
independent criterion by which a person's ultimate goals (the objects of his
wishing) could be judged correct or incorrect (and by which he could there-

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EVANS

OFF TARGET

59

this simply begs

fore be considered successful or otherwise in his po6X7mcqL);
the question in favour of the realist.
We need not quarrel with Evans's claim that Aristotle's own solution
to his puzzle is realist, but Aristotle does not beg the question in the way
Evans would make him. For Aristotle, the paradox of the relativist position
is not that it would preserve no distinction between successful and unsuccessful wishing, but that by it the good would not be the natural object
of desire, but only the apparent good in each case would be the natural
object of desire, so that contrary goals could both be the natural object of
desire. Aristotle's notion of a natural object of desire (p6asL 3ouX7y6v)may
itself be held to be question-begging, but that is another question.
University of Birmingham

ALMEDER ON TRUTH AND EVIDENCE

BY WILLIAME. HOFFMANN

In his recent paper "Truth and Evidence", Robert Almeder attacks an

assumption that is central to the discussions of the classical definition of
knowledge that have been precipitated by the Gettier counter-examples.'
This is the assumption that evidence sufficient for knowledge does not entail
truth. Almeder correctly argues that this assumption is essential to every
analysis of knowledge which begins by accepting counter-examples such as
Gettier's, and then argues that this assumption is false. I shall argue that
this assumption is true, that Almeder's arguments attacking it are mistaken,
and that the rejection of this assumption leads to highly counter-intuitive
results.
To see that the rejection of the assumption that evidence sufficient for
knowledge does not entail truth leads to counter-intuitive results, imagine
the following two cases. The first case finds Jones sitting in the lobby of
the hotel where he resides and focusing his attention on a point a few feet
in front of him on the floor. For no particular reason, Jones begins to wonder
if the floor at that point will support him, as it has so many times before,
or if he will go crashing through the floor if he walks across that point.
Having nothing better to do, Jones attempts to answer his query by watching
people, many of whom are obviously heavier than he, tread across this point.
After several hours without seeing a plank bow or hearing one creak despite
heavy traffic, Jones walks over to the point, cautiously tests it by tapping
his foot, then confidently walks across it. The second case is exactly like
the first in every relevant detail except that it occurs at a different place
and time, our man is named Smith, and that when Smith begins to walk
across the observed point, owing to some freak accident, the floor caves in.
Engineers later attempting to find the cause of the accident are unable to
explain the structural failure.
Putting aside the difficulty of defining knowledge, in the first case Jones
clearly knew that the floor would support him; that is, Jones had knowledge
1The Philosophical Quarterly, 24 (October 1974), 365-8. See also Edmund L. Gettier,
"Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", Analysis, 23 (1963).

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