Sensitivity Actually∗

A number of prominent epistemologists claim that the principle of sensitivity “play[s] a starring role in the solution to some important epistemological problems ” (DeRose 2010: 161; also Nozick (1981)). I argue that traditional sensitivity accounts fail to explain even the most basic data that are usually considered to constitute their primary mo-tivation. To establish this result I develop Gettier and lottery cases involving necessary truths. Since beliefs in necessary truths are sen-sitive by default, the resulting cases give rise to a serious explanatory problem for the defenders of sensitivity accounts. It is furthermore argued that attempts to modally strengthen traditional sensitivity ac-counts to avoid the problem must appeal to a notion of safety—the primary competitor of sensitivity in the literature. The paper con-cludes that the explanatory virtues of sensitivity accounts are largely illusory. In the framework of modal epistemology, it is safety rather than sensitivity that does the heavy explanatory lifting with respect to Gettier cases, lottery examples, and other pertinent cases.