justification a concept of broad scope that spans epistemology and ethics and has as special cases the concepts of apt belief and right action. The concept has, however, highly varied application. Many things, of many different sorts, can be justified. Prominent among them are beliefs and actions. To say that X is justified is to say something positive about X. Other things being equal, it is better that X be justified than otherwise. However, not all good entities are justified. The storm’s abating may be good since it spares some lives, but it is not thereby justified. What we can view as justified or unjustified is what we can relate appropriately to someone’s faculties or choice. (Believers might hence view the storm’s abating as justified after all, if they were inclined to judge divine providence.)
Just as in epistemology we need to distinguish justification from truth, since either of these might apply to a belief in the absence of the other, so in ethics we must distinguish justification from utility: an action might be optimific but not justified, and justified but not optimific. What is distinctive of justification is then the implied evaluation of an agent (thus the connection, however remote, with faculties of choice). To say that a belief is (epistemically) justified (apt) or to say that an action is (ethically) justified (‘right’ – in one sense) is to make or imply a judgment on the subject and how he or she has arrived at that action or belief. Often a much narrower concept of justification is used, one according to which X is justified only if X has been or at least can be justified through adducing reasons. Such adducing of reasons can be viewed as the giving of an argument of any of several sorts: e.g., conclusive, prima facie, inductive, or deductive. A conclusive justification or argument adduces conclusive reasons for the possible (object of) action or belief that figures in the conclusion. In turn, such reasons are conclusive if and only if they raise the status of the conclusion action or belief so high that the subject concerned would be well advised to conclude deliberation or inquiry. A prima facie justification or argument adduces a prima facie reason R (or more than one) in favor of the possible (object of) action or belief O that figures in the conclusion. In turn, R is a prima facie reason for O if and only if R specifies an advantage or positive consideration in favor of O, one that puts O in a better light than otherwise. Even if R is a prima facie reason for O, however, R can be outweighed, overridden, or defeated by contrary considerations RH. Thus my returning a knife that I promised to return to its rightful owner has in its favor the prima facie reason that it is my legal obligation and the fulfillment of a promise, but if the owner has gone raving mad, then there may be reasons against returning the knife that override, outweigh, or defeat. (And there may also be reasons that defeat a positive prima facie reason without amounting to reasons for the opposite course. Thus it may emerge that the promise to return the knife was extracted under duress.) A (valid) deductive argument for a certain conclusion C is a sequence of thoughts or statements whose last member is C (not necessarily last temporally, but last in the sequence) and each member of which is either an assumption or premise of the argument or is based on earlier members of the sequence in accordance with a sound principle of necessary inference, such as simplification: from (P & Q) to P; or addition: from P to (P or Q); or modus ponens: from P and (P only if Q) to Q. Whereas the premises of a deductive argument necessarily entail the conclusion, which cannot possibly fail to be true when the premises are all true, the premises of an inductive argument do not thus entail its conclusion but offer considerations that only make the conclusion in some sense more probable than it would be otherwise. From the premises that it rains and that if it rains the streets are wet, one may deductively derive the conclusion that the streets are wet. However, the premise that I have tried to start my car on many, many winter mornings during the two years since I bought it and that it has always started, right up to and including yesterday, does not deductively imply that it will start when I try today. Here the conclusion does not follow deductively. Though here the reason provided by the premise is only an inductive reason for believing the conclusion, and indeed a prima facie and defeasible reason, nevertheless it might well be in our sense a conclusive reason. For it might enable us rightfully to conclude inquiry and/or deliberation and proceed to (action or, in this case) belief, while turning our attention to other matters (such as driving to our destination).
See also EPISTEMOLOGY , ETHICS, SKEPTI- CIS. E.S.