CYNTHIA JONES
In the first episode of Justified Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens is reassigned to Kentucky after he shoots Miami mobster Tommy Bucks. Following his exile to the Lexington, Kentucky office, Raylan tells Chief Deputy US Marshal Art Mullen that the shooting in Miami, for which he is in a bit of hot water, was a “justified” shooting.
Raylan is referring to a kind of ethical, or maybe even a legal, justification. His argument is that Bucks drew on him first and so he was well within his duty as a US Marshal to shoot him. And there’s no sense in shooting to wound—if you’re going to draw your gun on a criminal, you shoot to kill.
Philosophers have been much concerned with justification. Justified is about whether it’s justified to shoot someone. Philosophy has mainly been concerned with something that may seem very different—whether it’s justified to believe something.
What Plato Knew
Plato was the first to go on record as claiming that knowledge is “justified true belief” in his dialogue called Meno. But what does it mean to say that knowledge is justified true belief?
Some kinds of knowledge don’t necessarily involve any belief. Knowing how to ride a bike, for instance, isn’t a matter of what you believe but whether you have learned a certain skill. We can take it that Raylan knows how to draw his gun and pull the trigger—this is a skill he has learned, not a belief he accepts. Another kind of knowledge is knowledge by acquaintance. You may know a certain person or a certain city.
The kind of knowledge that Plato thought is ‘justified true belief’ is knowledge of the truth of factual claims. We can talk about whether Raylan Givens, Boyd Crowder, and Ava Crowder know things like: “The working girls at Audrey’s need to be watched over to keep them and their customers out of trouble,” or “Ava shot her husband Bowden over dinner one night with a shotgun.” According to Plato, to know such things is to believe something that is true and to be justified in believing it.
To know some factual claim, you do have to believe it. You can’t know that “Boyd Crowder believes in God between the time he is shot by Raylan and the time his father Bo Crowder kills all of Boyd’s followers at their encampment” unless you believe that statement. Yet merely believing something doesn’t make it true. Just because, for some bizarre reason, you believe a statement like “Robert Quarles is a really good person at heart,” doesn’t mean you know it, mostly because it’s just not true. So you can only know something if you first believe it, you can’t know it if you don’t believe it, and just because you believe it, doesn’t mean you know it.
It’s the Truth!
We can’t know something if it’s false. I can’t know “The Earth is flat” even if I really and truly believe it, because it is false—the Earth is not flat. Notice that this is different from being able to determine whether a statement is true or false. It’s notoriously difficult to ascertain the truth of some kinds of statements, like “God exists”, although we can have evidence for the truth of a claim like “Boyd Crowder believes God exists during most of the first season of Justified.” The evidence for the truth of this latter statement, does not require evidence for the existence of God as this statement is about what Boyd believes regarding the existence of God and not about the actual existence or nonexistence of God. So Plato tells us we can’t know a false statement because knowing requires that the known statement be in fact true.
But believing something and that something being true aren’t enough to know it. For example, I can’t know “Raylan will die in the final season of Justified” unless I have good reasons to believe this is the case. And I don’t. Let’s say I do in fact believe Raylan will die in the final season and it turns out that Raylan does die in the final season—does that mean that I knew it when I first asserted it? No. Even if I believed that Raylan would die in the final season and it turned out that he does die in the final season, I didn’t really know it. My belief would have to be justified. How can it be justified? Most philosophers would say it can be justified only by good evidence.
What if my friend, Linda, a die-hard Justified fan, tells me she believes that Raylan will die in the final season, and she produces some interesting evidence for her belief, including consulting her Ouija board and Tarot cards. Linda’s belief would not amount to knowledge, because not just any sort of evidence will do for justifying beliefs, only good evidence.
People often claim to know things because they have a “gut feeling” about them or because of intuition or faith or some other form of “knowing.” None of these forms of “knowing” really count as knowledge. There is, perhaps, a possible exception in the case of intuition or “gut feelings” about something, although it’s controversial. Sometimes we feel we know something based on intuitions or gut feelings whereas we actually have decent evidence that we either cannot recall or don’t exactly know that we have.
Let’s say, for example, after Ellen May witnesses her boss and pimp, Delroy Baker, killing her friend following the botched armed robbery of a check cashing store (“Loose Ends”), she honestly doesn’t remember seeing the incident because of post-traumatic stress. But for some reasons that she simply can’t articulate, Ellen May is just sure that Delroy is responsible. Can she be said to know “Delroy killed my friend”?
Some would say she knows that Delroy killed her friend because she is justified in believing it, even though the evidence is buried somewhere in her mind, but others might contend that she doesn’t know Delroy killed her friend, as she really lacks the evidence. If we assume that her gut feelings or intuitions count as reliable evidence, then she does know it. But the problem is that gut feelings and intuitions are not reliable or verifiable kinds of evidence. Even though she saw Delroy murder her friend, she couldn’t be said to know that he did.
What Plato Didn’t Know
For over two thousand years most philosophers bought into the idea that knowledge is justified true belief. But in 1963, a very short article by Edmund Gettier questioned the justified true belief account tradition by providing apparent counter-examples.
Gettier’s article, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”, argued that we can have a justified true belief that probably doesn’t count as knowledge (or that most people wouldn’t agree amounts to knowledge). Gettier claimed, and most philosophers who have thought about this now agree with him, to have demonstrated that justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge.
Here’s a variation of the Gettier example.
Suppose Boyd Crowder is told by a very reliable source that Raylan is under investigation by the FBI for a recent shooting and is about to be arrested. Boyd then confides to Ava Crowder that “A Deputy US Marshal from the Lexington office is going to be arrested today for shooting someone.” Unbeknownst to Boyd or Boyd’s source, Deputy US Marshal Rachel Brooks has been under investigation for a different shooting and she is arrested that same day, but, it turns out, Raylan is not.
Did Boyd know that a Deputy US Marshall from the Lexington office would be arrested that day for shooting someone? Most people would say no, because Boyd thought, and had good evidence for, Raylan’s impending arrest, not Rachel’s.
And yet the claim that a Deputy US Marshall would be arrested that day for shooting someone is indeed true, Boyd believes it, and he is justified in believing it because he was given good evidence for the claim. Boyd’s belief thus seems to satisfy the justified true belief criteria for counting as knowledge, although we wouldn’t think that Boyd can actually be said to know it.
Since Gettier’s 1963 article, many philosophers have produced similar, Gettier-type counterexamples to the definition of knowledge as justified true belief. Some have taken the route of the skeptic and argue we can’t really know anything, while others have tried to rescue the justified true belief theory.
The two main ways offered to rescue the justified true belief theory involve either adding a further criterion or re-describing the justification bit in a way that can handle Gettier-type counterexamples. My personal favorites from these theories come from Alvin Goldman and Gilbert Harman, who adopt the path of adding to justified true belief a further condition requiring either the correct causal connection (on Goldman’s analysis) between the belief that turns out to be true and some other true claim (so knowledge cannot be derived from a false claim) or adding ‘inference to the best explanation’ as a fourth criterion (on Harman’s analysis).
So, in order for me to know something, I have to believe it, it has to be true, I have to have justification for my belief, and the belief either has to follow causally from a true claim (Goldman) or the belief has to be the best explanation for the evidence at hand (Harman).
What Raylan Knows
One of Raylan’s strong points as a lawman is his ability to figure out what’s going on in a situation—he’s really good at understanding how the bad guys work. In many instances, he’s pretty sure that someone is involved in a crime, but can he be said to know that a particular bad guy is involved if he isn’t one hundred percent positive or if he lacks any real evidence that he can articulate? Let’s look at a situation where Raylan seems to know what’s going on and evaluate his belief via the justified-true-belief-with-something-added theories of knowledge.
In “Over the Mountain” Raylan is pretty damned sure that the Crowe clan is responsible for the death of Wade Messer and not, as Assistant US Attorney David Vasquez believes, that Boyd Crowder is responsible for the death of Messer. Does Raylan know this? Raylan clearly believes the Crowes are responsible, it is true that the Crowes are responsible, and he seems to have some good reasons for believing it, but are these reasons enough for us to conclude that he knows that the Crowes, and not Boyd, killed Messer?
According to the justified-true-belief-with-something-added theory, in order for Raylan to know that the Crowes killed Messer, his belief either has to be causally connected to the evidence or the belief has to be the best explanation for the facts of the case. It seems that the latter condition is satisfied here. After David Vasquez tells Raylan that Messer, who manages Audrey’s, was an informant for the US Attorney’s office, alerting them to criminal activities of Boyd Crowder, Raylan tells Mullen and Vasquez that Messer is a crappy choice for an informant.
Raylan has a pretty good handle on what Boyd is capable of and assumes, correctly, that Boyd and Messer are playing Vasquez and making a profit from it. Raylan’s evidence is the lack of credible evidence that has followed from Messer’s “informing” on Boyd. Raylan suspects that Messer is loyal to Boyd and not his new employer, Dewey Crowe, who now owns Audrey’s. Raylan thus correctly concludes that the Crowes had more to gain from eliminating Messer than Boyd had to gain—indeed, Messer’s death wasn’t good for Boyd so he wouldn’t have killed him.
In this situation, Raylan is making numerous assumptions, based upon his understanding of the people and the relationships between the people in his hometown. Raylan points to the evidence that Messer has given the US Attorney’s office no real evidence to use against Boyd Crowder, along with his understanding of Boyd himself, to draw the most plausible conclusion, or to make the inference to the best explanation, that Boyd is not responsible for the disappearance and the resultant killing of Wade Messer.
So it’s reasonable to conclude that Raylan knows that Boyd didn’t kill Messer. His further belief that the Crowes are responsible is based upon the evidence that they were likely the ones who had been or could be harmed by Messer’s loyalty to Boyd. Again, while it’s always possible that some hit man from Detroit killed someone in Harlan County, the best explanation for the facts surrounding the death of Wade Messer is that the Crowes were responsible.
Raylan needs more than that for an actual conviction, given the legal requirements for “beyond a reasonable doubt”, but he still can be said to know it on the justified-true-belief-with-something-added theory, even if he can’t prove it.
Unfortunately, for Raylan, his insights regarding the women he dates do not match his insights into the psyches of the criminal element in Harlan County.
What Boyd Knows and What Chief Mullen Knows
Boyd Crowder has a religious or mystical experience of sorts after he faces death at Raylan’s hands. Raylan shoots Boyd in the chest and Boyd finds God. Does Boyd know that God exists? As we saw, this one is too much to tackle here because determining whether Boyd knows this requires that we ascertain the truth of the statement that God exists, which turns out to be a topic of much dispute throughout human existence. But let’s look at another belief asserted by Boyd Crowder.
Boyd, like Raylan, is very good at reading people and he rightly assumes that a fair number of people are completely self-interested and willing to sell him out to the highest bidder. Time and time again, Boyd gets the upper hand on other members of the criminal population, as well as law-abiding citizens, as he always seems to have a backup plan (or at least he always seems to have a few more armed thugs at his disposal). Let’s look at two things Boyd seems to know in relation to his encounters with the St. Cyrs in Season Four.
A former religious leader of sorts himself, Boyd finds that the newcomers, Preacher Billy and Cassie St. Cyr, are cutting into the profit margin of Boyd’s business ventures (drugs and prostitution) and vows to put an end to their “interference” (“Truth and Consequences”). After Cassie demands far more than Boyd is willing to pay to get her brother to move on to a different town, Boyd sends two henchmen, Colton and Jimmy, to shake down the St. Cyrs. Jimmy is bitten numerous times by the rattlesnakes in Preacher Billy’s tent, including on the right cheek, and Colton and Jimmy escape with a dead snake still attached to Jimmy’s face.
Miraculously, Jimmy doesn’t die from the bites, which makes Boyd suspicious. Boyd suspects that Billy’s sister, Cassie, who seems to Boyd to be far more practical than her preacher brother Billy, has been milking the venom out of the rattlesnakes so her brother doesn’t die a horrible death from a rattlesnake bite the way their father died. At the end of “Truth and Consequences” Boyd walks into the revival tent and confronts Billy St. Cyr, bringing along a freshly-caught rattlesnake that he taunts Billy into handling, knowing that his sister Cassie will intervene to stop him and confess to milking the venom from the snakes. The two things Boyd seems to know in this situation are “Cassie St. Cyr milks the venom from the rattlesnakes used in the revival meetings” and “Cassie St. Cyr will confess to milking the rattlesnakes, discrediting her brother, to prevent him from handling the new poisonous snake I brought to the revival tent.” Both of these statements turn out to be true, Boyd seems to believe them both, and he seems to be justified in both his beliefs. Let’s look at the evidence he has for these beliefs.
His evidence for believing Cassie milks the venom from the snakes is a straightforward example of inference to the best explanation. Jimmy didn’t die, despite numerous snake bites, and the best explanation for this is that there was very little venom in the snakes. Since Boyd strongly suspects that Billy St. Cyr is a true believer, he rules out his participation in the milking and rightly concludes Cassie was responsible. There are other possible explanations, like the rattlesnakes in question had bit so many things recently that they were all low on venom or that they were members of a mutated strain of rattlesnakes that produce non-lethal venom or divine intervention, but Boyd’s belief is by far the best explanation of the available evidence. We can conclude that he knows that Cassie is responsible.
Boyd’s belief that Cassie will intervene when he brings a fresh rattlesnake into the revival tent is a bit more contentious, as it relies on someone he doesn’t know well (Cassie) reacting in a certain way in the contrived situation. But Boyd’s general knowledge of people and their motivations is perhaps the strongest evidence he has for his second belief that Cassie will intervene, which turns out to be true.
Did Boyd know she would intervene? Boyd had good evidence for this belief as well, coupled with his talent at swaying people with his convictions, his knowledge of scriptures, and his local charm. It is, however, much harder to say that he knows this second claim and I would argue that even though the belief turned out to be true, there were too many possible confusing variables in this situation to say Boyd knew Cassie would intervene.
Chief Mullen often gives Raylan a sort of sideways look, seemingly indicating that he knows something about Raylan’s shenanigans. There are two different points where the audience is led to believe that Chief Mullen may know that Raylan is involved in illegal activities: the theft of the missing money from the evidence locker (“Blaze of Glory” and “Save My Love”) and the murder of Nick Augustine at an airfield in Kentucky (“Ghosts”). Does Chief Mullen know that Raylan and his ex-wife Winona were involved in the first disappearance of the money from the evidence room? Does Chief Mullen know that Raylan is the insider who was present on the tarmac when Nick Augustine was killed?
In the case of Nick Augustine’s killing, Mullen suspects the truth, but he doesn’t seem to be sure, at least not until Raylan confesses to it. In this instance, Mullen doesn’t actually completely believe Raylan is involved and so he can’t be said to know it until after Raylan confesses (“Shot All to Hell”). After Raylan confesses, he knows it because he believes it, it is true, he is justified in believing it, and it is the best explanation for the facts.
In the case of the disappearance of the money from the evidence room, it is clear that Deputy US Marshall Charlie Weaver is the “real” thief in the end, as we see him driving his new red Mustang into Mexico (“When the Guns Come Out”), but at the end of “Save My Love” Mullen runs into Raylan and Winona exiting the evidence room and seems to suspect something is awry. Perhaps because he just doesn’t want to believe that Raylan is involved in something directly illegal he doesn’t truly believe Raylan is involved, although he has suspicions. It doesn’t seem then that he knows Raylan is involved, as again, he doesn’t completely believe it.
Do Any of Us Really Know Anything?
And so in the end, what can we conclude about knowledge and can we know anything? Skeptics about knowledge claim that knowledge is an illusion and that we can’t really know anything. Although there are several varieties of skepticism regarding knowledge, they all can be said to share the notion that knowledge, as it has traditionally been conceived, just isn’t possible.
Skepticism, like the justified true belief theory, traces its roots to ancient Greek philosophy, although David Hume (1711–1776), a Scottish philosopher, is perhaps the best-known, or at least the most infamous, philosophical skeptic. Hume’s skepticism encompasses many areas, but in relation to knowledge, his skepticism typically took the form of doubting whether we can be absolutely sure of any of our beliefs.
Hume’s most famous form of skepticism concerns cause and effect, which is relevant to his skepticism regarding knowledge. He argues that the evidence we have for causation is causation, thus yielding a circular and unacceptable proof. Generations of philosophy students have been enlightened or frustrated by skeptics like Hume.
There are many responses that can be given to skepticism about knowledge, but the strongest seems to be the appeal to probabilities and what we have already discussed as inference to the best explanation. Absolute knowledge may be reserved for mathematical proofs but inductive knowledge, which is found in scientific explanation as well as the inferences made by detectives and investigators like Deputy US Marshal Raylan Givens, still counts as knowledge.
In other words, Raylan doesn’t need absolute, indisputable proof in order to know which bad guy committed a particular crime. Indeed, absolute, indisputable proof is rarely found in the real world and it is usually reserved for mathematics. But this doesn’t mean we can’t know things, it just means that we should believe what we have the best evidence to believe (inference to the best explanation) and if our beliefs turn out to be true, and they are based on reliable evidence, then we have knowledge, and Raylan can be said to know a few things—excluding anything connected with the women he’s dating.