This paper compares two alternative explanations of pragmatic encroachment on knowledge (i.e., the claim that whether an agent knows that p can depend on pragmatic factors). After reviewing the evidence for such pragmatic encroachment, we ask how it is best explained, assuming it obtains. Several authors have recently argued that the best explanation is provided by a particular account of belief, which we call pragmatic credal reductivism. On this view, what it is for an agent to believe a proposition is for her credence in this proposition to be above a certain threshold, a threshold that varies depending on pragmatic factors. We show that while this account of belief can provide an elegant explanation of pragmatic encroachment on knowledge, it is not alone in doing so, for an alternative account of belief, which we call the reasoning disposition account, can do so as well. And the latter account, we argue, is far more plausible than pragmatic credal reductivism, since it accords far better with a number of claims about belief that are very hard to deny.

for very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. For generous help in formalizing the proof in the appendix, I am grateful to James Joyce and John Kolassa, and especially to Robert Berk, who showed me how a much longer version of the proof could be simplified to its present form. But my greatest debt of all is to Larry Temkin for invaluable comments on many earlier drafts of the article and for countless illuminating discussions.

In Rethinking the Good, Larry Temkin argues for a principle that he calls the Narrow Person-Affecting View. In its simplest formulation, this principle states that a first outcome can be better than a second outcome only if there is someone who fares better in the first outcome than in the second. Temkin argues that this kind of principle gives us reason to reject the Transitivity Thesis, according to which, if A is better than B, and B is better than C, then A must be better than C. In this paper, I argue that the various formulations which Temkin has offered of the Narrow Person-Affecting View all face serious problems. I then propose an alternative view that captures the spirit of Temkin’s formulations while avoiding their difficulties. I conclude by arguing that, even if we accept such a person-affecting view, we needn’t reject the Transitivity Thesis.