This is a survey of recent debates concerning the normativity of belief. We explain what the thesis that belief is normative involves, consider arguments for and against that thesis, and explore its bearing on debates in metaethics.

Some authors have called into question the normativity of logic, using as an argument that the bridge principles for logical normativity (MacFarlane, In what sense (in any) is logic normative for thought, 2004 )? are just by-products of general epistemic principles for belief. In this paper, I discuss that suggestion from a formal point of view. I show that some important bridge principles can be derived from usual norms for belief. I also describe some possible ways to block this derivation (...) by modifying the epistemic norms or weakening the bridge principles. Finally, I discuss different philosophical interpretations of these results. (shrink)

Should I believe something if and only if it’s true? Many philosophers have objected to this kind of truth norm, on the grounds that it’s not the case that one ought to believe all the truths. For example, some truths are too complex to believe; others are too trivial to be worth believing. Philosophers who defend truth norms often respond to this problem by reformulating truth norms in ways that do not entail that one ought to believe all the truths. (...) Many of these attempts at reformulation, I’ll argue, have been missteps. A number of these different reformulations are incapable of carrying out a central role a truth norm is meant to play, that of explaining justification. The truth norm I’ll defend, however, avoids the implausible results of a prescription to believe all the truths, but doesn’t thereby fail to explain justification. This norm, introduced by Conor McHugh, states that if one has some doxastic attitude about p—i.e. if one believes, disbelieves, or suspends judgement about whether p—then one ought to believe that p if and only if p is true. (shrink)

Doxastic normativism is the thesis that norms are constitutive of or essential to belief, such that no mental state not subject to those norms counts as a belief. A common normativist view is that belief is essentially governed by a norm of truth. According to Krister Bykvist and Anandi Hattiangadi, truth norms for belief cannot be formulated without unpalatable consequences: they are either false or they impose unsatisfiable requirements on believers. I propose that we construe the fundamental norm of belief (...) as a knowledge norm, rather than a truth norm. I argue that a specific kind of knowledge norm—one that has a subject's obligation to believe that p depend on her being in a position to know that p—might avoid the well-known formulation problems with truth norms. (shrink)

This paper is about the alethic aspect of epistemic rationality. The most common approaches to this aspect are either normative (what a reasoner ought to/may believe?) or evaluative (how rational is a reasoner?), where the evaluative approaches are usually comparative (one reasoner is assessed compared to another). These approaches often present problems with blindspots. For example, ought a reasoner to believe a currently true blindspot? Is she permitted to? Consequently, these approaches often fail in describing a situation of alethic maximality, (...) where a reasoner fulfills all the alethic norms and could be used as a standard of rationality (as they are, in fact, used in some of these approaches). I propose a function α, which accepts a set of beliefs as inputand returns a numeric alethic value. Then I use this function to define a notion of alethic maximality that is satisfiable by finite reasoners (reasoners with cognitive limitations) and does not present problems with blindspots. Function α may also be used in alethic norms and evaluation methods (comparative and non-comparative) that may be applied to finite reasoners and do not present problems with blindspots. A result of this investigation isthat the project of providing purely alethic norms is defective. The use of function α also sheds light on important epistemological issues, such as the lottery and the preface paradoxes, and the principles of clutter avoidance and reflection. (shrink)

Normativists about belief hold that belief formation is essentially rule- or norm-guided. On this view, certain norms are constitutive of or essential to belief in such a way that no mental state not guided by those norms counts as a belief, properly construed. In recent influential work, Kathrin Glüer and Åsa Wikforss develop novel arguments against normativism. According to their regress of motivations argument, not all belief formation can be rule- or norm-guided, on pain of a vicious infinite regress. I (...) argue that the regress of motivations argument is unsuccessful: an appeal to the notion of blind rule-following, drawn from a plausible interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following, stops the regress of motivations in its tracks. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn a recent paper, Alexander Greenberg defends a truth norm of belief according to which if one has some doxastic attitude towards p, one ought to believe that p if and only if p is true. He responds, in particular, to the ‘blindspot’ objection to truth norms such as da: in the face of true blindspots, such as it is raining and nobody believes that it is raining, truth norms such as da are unsatisfiable; they entail that one ought to (...) believe p, but if one does believe p, they entail that it is not the case that one ought to believe p. In this paper, it is argued that Greenberg’s response to the blindspot objection is unsatisfactory. (shrink)

Analytic Philosophy, Volume 62, Issue 3, Page 295-311, September 2021.

In a much-discussed article, Gillian Russell claimed that “logic isn’t normative”: according to her, the usual bridge principles for logic are just derived from general principles for truth and falsity, such as “believe the truth” or “avoid falsity.” For example, we ought to believe tautologies just because we ought to believe the truth. Russell argues that this rejection of logical normativity can avoid the collapse objection for logical pluralism, which typically presupposes the normativity. In the last part of his new (...) book Logical Pluralism and Logical Consequence, Erik Stei responds that even if logic is normative in this weak derivative sense, the collapse objection re-emerges. His main point is that the collapse argument can still work even if the bridge principles are derivative (they just need to be true). In this paper I will argue against Stei’s point. I will show that there is a possible strategy which maintains the derivative normativity of logic and provides a non-trivial logical pluralism. The key to my approach is the possibility of having different normative sources for different logics. I will argue that the distinction between classical and relevant logic can be understood in this way. (shrink)

Much of the discussion on the normativity of belief rests on the presupposition that there is a single fundamental truth norm governing belief that explains all of its normative features. Building on the committive conception of belief proposed by some normativists, this article takes issue with this presupposition. In particular, it is argued that belief, construed as cognitive commitment, is governed by three fundamental-cum-irreducible norms, which I call the “entitlement norm,” the “fulfillment norm” and the “escapability norm,” and it is (...) shown that each of them concerns a particular normative feature of belief. Taken together, these norms can explain all the normative features of belief without leading to implausible consequences. The discussion also shows that the relationship between the truth norm and the evidence norm is more complicated than is usually conceded by normativists. (shrink)

That it can explain the phenomenon of transparency, namely the fact that if you resolve whether p, you have thereby resolved whether to believe that p, was originally put forward as a great virtue of normativist conceptions of belief. However, non-normativists have convincingly shown that the permissive version of the truth norm of belief, which is one of the most plausible and promising versions of it, cannot in fact accommodate this phenomenon. Alarmed by this situation, in this paper I re-assess (...) the transparency phenomenon and its relation to different versions of the truth norm of belief. I argue that, contrary to how it appears, it is not even clear that the most tenable injunctive versions of the truth norm explain this phenomenon. I then argue that the transparency phenomenon consists of two distinct aspects which should be, but have not been, distinguished. What I call the ‘question-shifting’ aspect is explained by the truth norm, irrespective of how it is formulated, while what I call the ‘answer-shifting’ aspect is explanatorily empty and does not require any explanation, be it normative or otherwise. Therefore, understood properly, explaining transparency does remain a strength of normativist accounts of belief, and has no implications for which particular formulation of the truth norm we may adopt. (shrink)

Much of the recent literature on the normativity of belief has focused on undermining or defending narrow scope readings of doxastic norms. Wide scope readings are largely assumed to have been decisively refuted. This paper will oppose this trend by defending a wide scope reading of the norm of belief. We shall argue for the modest claim that if it is plausible to regard belief as constitutively normative (in the minimal sense that false belief is eo ipso defective), then a (...) modified version of the wide scope reading of the norm of belief should be preferred to the narrow scope reading. (This is subject to certain attractive conditions relating to the holism involved in the fixation and confirmation of belief.). (shrink)

The notion of an ideal reasoner has several uses in epistemology. Often, ideal reasoners are used as a parameter of (maximum) rationality for finite reasoners (e.g. humans). However, the notion of an ideal reasoner is normally construed in such a high degree of idealization (e.g. infinite/unbounded memory) that this use is unadvised. In this dissertation, I investigate the conditions under which an ideal reasoner may be used as a parameter of rationality for finite reasoners. In addition, I present and justify (...) the research program of computational epistemology, which investigates the parameter of maximum rationality for finite reasoners using computer simulations. (shrink)

That falsity is a defect in belief can be captured with a prohibitive norm holding that truth is the necessary condition for permissibility of belief. Furthermore, such a formulation avoids the difficulties encountered in earlier literature that offered prescriptive norms. The normativity of belief thesis is widely discussed in the literature. I criticise bi-conditional formulation of the norm of the normativity of belief thesis which holds that truth is both the necessary and sufficient condition for the permissibility of belief formation. (...) I argue that the part which holds that truth is the sufficient condition for the permissibility of belief formation is redundant. The argument follows from clarifying the key ideas at stake in the normativity of belief thesis, namely, that false belief is a defect and that the normativity thesis is supposed to distinguish the concept of belief from other cognitive attitudes and the slogan that belief aims at truth. (shrink)