James Joyce's article “A Nonpragmatic Vindication of Probabilism” introduced an approach to arguing for credal norms by appealing to the epistemic value of accuracy. The central thought was that credences ought to accurately represent the world, a guiding thought that has gone on to generate an entire research paradigm on the rationality of credences. Recently, a number of epistemologists have begun to apply this same thought to full beliefs, attempting to explain and argue for norms of belief in terms of (...) epistemic value. This paper examines these recent attempts, showing how they interact with work on the accuracy of credences. It then examines how differing judgments about epistemic value give rise to distinct rational requirements for belief, concluding by considering some of the fundamental questions and issues yet to be fully explored. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn a series of articles, Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen and Nick Zangwill argue that, since propositional attitude ascription judgements do not behave like normative judgements in being subject to a priori normative supervenience and the Because Constraint, PAs cannot be constitutively normative.1 I argue that, for a specific version of normativism, according to which PAs are normative commitments, these arguments fail. To this end, I argue that commitments and obligations should be distinguished. Then, I show that the intuitions allegedly governing all normative (...) judgements do not even purport to hold for commitment-attributing judgements.RÉSUMÉDans une série d'articles, Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen et Nick Zangwill font valoir que, puisque les jugements d'attribution d'attitude propositionnelle ne se comportent pas comme des jugements normatifs en étant soumis à la survenance normative a priori et à la contrainte du Parce que, les AP ne peuvent être constitutivement normatives. Je soutiens que, pour une version spécifique du normativisme, selon laquelle les AP sont des engagements normatifs, ces arguments échouent. À cette fin, je soutiens d'abord que les engagements et les obligations devraient être séparés. Ensuite, je démontre que les intuitions qui régiraient prétendument tous les jugements normatifs ne prétendent même pas s'appliquer aux jugements attributifs d'un engagement. (shrink)

According to ethical objectivism, what a person should do depends on the facts, as opposed to their perspective on the facts. A long-standing challenge to this view is that it fails to accommodate the role that norms play in guiding a person’s action. Roughly, if the facts that determine what a person should do lie beyond their ken, they cannot inform a person’s deliberations. This paper explores two recent developments of this line of thought. Both focus on the epistemic counterpart (...) to ethical objectivism, according to which what a person should believe depends on the facts, as opposed to their perspective on the facts. The suggestion in each case is that epistemic objectivism faces a distinctive problem in accommodating guidance. Insofar as objectivism concerning the epistemic domain stands or falls with objectivism concerning the ethical domain, this is a problem for objectivism more generally. In this paper, I show that those arguments are not successful. The upshot is that the objectivist – whether ethical or epistemic – need not reject the idea that norms serve a guiding function. (shrink)

It is common to hear talk of the aim of belief and to find philosophers appealing to that aim for numerous explanatory purposes. What belief 's aim explains depends, of course, on what that aim is. Many hold that it is somehow related to truth, but there are various ways in which one might specify belief 's aim using the notion of truth. In this article, by considering whether they can account for belief 's standard of correctness and the epistemic (...) norms governing belief, I argue against certain prominent specifications of belief 's aim given in terms of truth, and advance a neglected alternative. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have argued that there is a basic problem in the no-guidance argument against content normativism. The problem is that the argument restricts the essential normativity of intentional states to the formation of these states being guided by certain norms. But it is suggested that the essential norm-governedness of intentional states can be equally plausibly construed as the assessability of these states by norms, which does not imply complying with them. Although I concur with the problem diagnosed (...) in the no-guidance argument, I take issue with the alternative conception of normativity which is put forward. In its stead, I argue that considering intentional states as commitments whose discharging requires complying with certain norms is preferable because it both respects the insight provided while remaining unscathed by the problems besetting this conception of normativity. (shrink)

An explanation is given of why it is in the nature of inquiry into whether or not p that its aim is fully achieved only if one comes to know that p or to know that not-p and, further, comes to know how one knows, either way. In the absence of the latter one is in no position to take the inquiry to be successfully completed or to vouch for the truth of the matter in hand. An upshot is that (...) although knowledge matters because truth matters this should not be understood to mean that knowledge matters because true belief matters. (shrink)

An explanation is given of why it is in the nature of inquiry into whether or not p that its aim is fully achieved only if one comes to know that p or to know that not-p and, further, comes to know how one knows, either way. In the absence of the latter one is in no position to take the inquiry to be successfully completed or to vouch for the truth of the matter in hand. An upshot is that (...) although knowledge matters because truth matters this should not be understood to mean that knowledge matters because true belief matters. (shrink)

A conception of the relation between reasons for belief, justified belief, and knowledge is outlined on which a belief is justified, in the sense of being well‐founded, only if there is an adequate reason to believe it, reasons to believe something are constituted by truths, and a reason to believe something justifies one in believing it only if it is constituted by a truth or truths that one knows. It is argued that, contrary to initial appearances, perceptual justification does not (...) pose a problem for this view. The discussion touches upon the relation between believing for reasons and reflective knowledge. (shrink)

Some philosophers have argued that a standard of correctness is constitutive of the concept or the essence of belief. By this claim they mean, roughly, that a mental state is a belief partially in virtue of being correct if and only if its content is true. In this paper I provide a new argument in support of the constitutivity of the correctness standard for belief. I first argue that the standard expresses a conceptual necessity. Then I argue that, since conceptual (...) necessities are such in virtue of some concept, the standard must also be necessary in virtue of some concept. Finally, I provide an argument by exclusion to the effect that the standard is necessary in virtue of the concept of belief. (shrink)

An increasingly popular view in contemporary epistemology holds that the most fundamental norm governing belief is knowledge. According to this norm one shouldn’t believe what one doesn’t know. A prominent argument for the knowledge norm appeals to the claim that knowledge is the most general condition of epistemic assessment of belief, one entailing all other conditions under which we epistemically assess beliefs. This norm would provide an easy and straightforward explanation of why we assess beliefs along all these various epistemic (...) dimensions. This article argues that this line of argument is ultimately unsuccessful. I show that the main premise of the argument actually supports the opposite conclusion: the norm of belief requires a condition weaker than knowledge. Furthermore, I argue that if we hold on to the assumption that knowledge is the most general condition of belief’s epistemic assessment, the fundamental norm of belief is factive: one is not permitted to believe a proposition p if it is not true that p. (shrink)