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  1. Evidentialists’ Internalist Argument for Pragmatism.Tsung-Hsing Ho - 2021 - Logos and Episteme 12 (4):427-436.
    A popular evidentialist argument against pragmatism is based on reason internalism: the view that a normative reason for one to φ must be able to guide one in normative deliberation whether to φ. In the case of belief, this argument maintains that, when deliberating whether to believe p, one must deliberate whether p is true. Since pragmatic considerations cannot weigh in our deliberation whether p, the argument concludes that pragmatism is false. I argue that evidentialists fail to recognize that the (...)
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  • Epistemic Reasons, Transparency, and Evolutionary Debunking.Nicole Dular & Nikki Fortier - 2021 - Philosophia 49 (4):1455-1473.
    Recently, evidentialists have argued that only they can explain transparency--the psychological phenomena wherein the question of doxastic deliberation of whether to believe p immediately gives way to the question of whether p--and thus that pragmatism about epistemic reasons is false. In this paper, we provide a defense of pragmatism. We depart from previous defenses of pragmatism which argue against the evidentialist explanation of transparency or the fact of transparency itself, by instead arguing that the pragmatist can provide a sound explanation (...)
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  • The Aim of Belief and Suspended Belief.C. J. Atkinson - 2021 - Philosophical Psychology 34 (4):581-606.
    In this paper, I discuss whether different interpretations of the ‘aim’ of belief—both the teleological and normative interpretations—have the resources to explain certain descriptive and normative features of suspended belief (suspension). I argue that, despite the recent efforts of theorists to extend these theories to account for suspension, they ultimately fail. The implication is that we must either develop alternative theories of belief that can account for suspension, or we must abandon the assumption that these theories ought to be able (...)
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  • A Case for Machine Ethics in Modeling Human-Level Intelligent Agents.Robert James M. Boyles - 2018 - Kritike 12 (1):182–200.
    This paper focuses on the research field of machine ethics and how it relates to a technological singularity—a hypothesized, futuristic event where artificial machines will have greater-than-human-level intelligence. One problem related to the singularity centers on the issue of whether human values and norms would survive such an event. To somehow ensure this, a number of artificial intelligence researchers have opted to focus on the development of artificial moral agents, which refers to machines capable of moral reasoning, judgment, and decision-making. (...)
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  • Fictional persuasion, transparency, and the aim of belief.Ema Sullivan-Bissett & Lisa Bortolotti - 2017 - In Ema Sullivan-Bissett, Helen Bradley & Paul Noordhof (eds.), Art and Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 153-73.
    In this chapter we argue that some beliefs present a problem for the truth-aim teleological account of belief, according to which it is constitutive of belief that it is aimed at truth. We draw on empirical literature which shows that subjects form beliefs about the real world when they read fictional narratives, even when those narratives are presented as fiction, and subjects are warned that the narratives may contain falsehoods. We consider Nishi Shah’s teleologist’s dilemma and a response to it (...)
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  • Deontological evidentialism and ought implies can.Luis R. G. Oliveira - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (10):2567-2582.
    Deontological evidentialism is the claim that S ought to form or maintain S’s beliefs in accordance with S’s evidence. A promising argument for this view turns on the premise that consideration c is a normative reason for S to form or maintain a belief that p only if c is evidence that p is true. In this paper, I discuss the surprising relation between a recently influential argument for this key premise and the principle that ought implies can. I argue (...)
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  • (1 other version)Another Defence of Owen’s Exclusivity Objection to Beliefs Having Aims.Ema Sullivan-Bissett & Paul Noordhof - 2017 - Logos and Episteme 8 (1):147-153.
    David Owens objected to the truth-aim account of belief on the grounds that the putative aim of belief does not meet a necessary condition on aims, namely, that aims can be weighed against other aims. If the putative aim of belief cannot be weighed, then belief does not have an aim after all. Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen responded to this objection by appeal to other deliberative contexts in which the aim could be weighed, and we argued that this response to Owens failed (...)
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  • Epistemic instrumentalism and the reason to believe in accord with the evidence.Nathaniel Sharadin - 2018 - Synthese 195 (9):3791-3809.
    Epistemic instrumentalists face a puzzle. In brief, the puzzle is that if the reason there is to believe in accord with the evidence depends, as the instrumentalist says it does, on agents’ idiosyncratic interests, then there is no reason to expect that this reason is universal. Here, I identify and explain two strategies instrumentalists have used to try and solve this puzzle. I then argue that we should find these strategies wanting. Faced with the failure of these strategies, I articulate (...)
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  • Weighing the Aim of Belief Again.Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen - 2017 - Logos and Episteme 8 (1):141-145.
    In his influential discussion of the aim of belief, David Owens argues that any talk of such an ‘aim’ is at best metaphorical. In order for the ‘aim’ of belief to be a genuine aim, it must be weighable with other aims in deliberation, but Owens claims that this is impossible. In previous work, I have pointed out that if we look at a broader range of deliberative contexts involving belief, it becomes clear that the putative aim of belief is (...)
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  • Nothing but the Evidential Considerations?Nathaniel P. Sharadin - 2016 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (2):343-361.
    A number of philosophers have claimed that non-evidential considerations cannot play a role in doxastic deliberation as motivating reasons to believe a proposition. This claim, interesting in its own right, naturally lends itself to use in a range of arguments for a wide array of substantive philosophical theses. I argue, by way of a counterexample, that the claim to which all these arguments appeal is false. I then consider, and reply to, seven objections to my counterexample. Finally, as a way (...)
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  • Pragmatic Reasons for Belief.Andrew Reisner - 2018 - In Daniel Star (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press.
    This is a discussion of the state of discussion on pragmatic reasons for belief.
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  • Moral Reasons for Moral Beliefs: A Puzzle for Moral Testimony Pessimism.Andrew Reisner & Joseph Van Weelden - 2015 - Logos and Episteme 6 (4):429-448.
    According to moral testimony pessimists, the testimony of moral experts does not provide non-experts with normative reasons for belief. Moral testimony optimists hold that it does. We first aim to show that moral testimony optimism is, to the extent such things may be shown, the more natural view about moral testimony. Speaking roughly, the supposed discontinuity between the norms of moral beliefs and the norms of non-moral beliefs, on careful reflection, lacks the intuitive advantage that it is sometimes supposed to (...)
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  • In defence of instrumentalism about epistemic normativity.Christopher Cowie - 2014 - Synthese 191 (16):4003-4017.
    According to epistemic instrumentalists the normativity of evidence for belief is best explained in terms of the practical utility of forming evidentially supported beliefs. Traditional arguments for instrumentalism—arguments based on naturalism and motivation—lack suasive force against opponents. A new argument for the view—the Argument from Coincidence—is presented. The argument shows that only instrumentalists can avoid positing an embarrassing coincidence between the practical value of believing in accordance with one’s evidence, and the existence of reasons so to believe. Responses are considered (...)
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  • (1 other version)Transparency, Doxastic Norms, and the Aim of Belief.Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen - 2013 - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 32 (3):59-74.
    Many philosophers have sought to account for doxastic and epistemic norms by supposing that belief ‘aims at truth.’ A central challenge for this approach is to articulate a version of the truth-aim that is at once weak enough to be compatible with the many truth-independent influences on belief formation, and strong enough to explain the relevant norms in the desired way. One phenomenon in particular has seemed to require a relatively strong construal of the truth-aim thesis, namely ‘transparency’ in doxastic (...)
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  • The Illusion of Exclusivity.Conor McHugh - 2013 - European Journal of Philosophy 23 (4):1117-1136.
    It is widely held that when you are deliberating about whether to believe some proposition p, only considerations relevant to the truth of p can be taken into account as reasons bearing on whether to believe p and motivate you accordingly. This thesis of exclusivity has significance for debates about the nature of belief, about control of belief, and about certain forms of evidentialism. In this paper I distinguish a strong and a weak version of exclusivity. I provide reason to (...)
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  • Reasons for Belief, Reasons for Action, the Aim of Belief, and the Aim of Action.Daniel Whiting - 2013 - In Clayton Littlejohn & John Turri (eds.), Epistemic Norms: New Essays on Action, Belief, and Assertion. New York: Oxford University Press.
    Subjects appear to take only evidential considerations to provide reason or justification for believing. That is to say that subjects do not take practical considerations—the kind of considerations which might speak in favour of or justify an action or decision—to speak in favour of or justify believing. This is puzzling; after all, practical considerations often seem far more important than matters of truth and falsity. In this paper, I suggest that one cannot explain this, as many have tried, merely by (...)
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  • (1 other version)The No Guidance Argument.Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen - 2013 - Theoria 79 (1):279-283.
    In a recent article, I criticized Kathrin Glüer and Åsa Wikforss's so-called “no guidance argument” against the truth norm for belief, for conflating the conditions under which that norm recommends belief with the psychological state one must be in to apply the norm. In response, Glüer and Wikforss have offered a new formulation of the no guidance argument, which makes it apparent that no such conflation is made. However, their new formulation of the argument presupposes a much too narrow understanding (...)
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  • A new argument for evidentialism?Masahiro Yamada - 2010 - Philosophia 38 (2):399-404.
    In his “A new argument for evidentialism” (Shah, Philos Q 56(225): 481–498, 2006 ), Nishi Shah argues that the best explanation of a feature of deliberation whether to believe that p which he calls transparency entails that only evidence can be reason to believe that p. I show that his argument fails because a crucial lemma that his argument appeals to cannot be supported without assuming evidentialism to be true in the first place.
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  • How to be a teleologist about epistemic reasons.Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen - 2011 - In Andrew Reisner & Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen (eds.), Reasons for Belief. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 13--33.
    In this paper I propose a teleological account of epistemic reasons. In recent years, the main challenge for any such account has been to explicate a sense in which epistemic reasons depend on the value of epistemic properties. I argue that while epistemic reasons do not directly depend on the value of epistemic properties, they depend on a different class of reasons which are value based in a direct sense, namely reasons to form beliefs about certain propositions or subject matters. (...)
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  • (1 other version)Justifying the principle of indifference.Jon Williamson - 2018 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 8 (3):559-586.
    This paper presents a new argument for the Principle of Indifference. This argument can be thought of in two ways: as a pragmatic argument, justifying the principle as needing to hold if one is to minimise worst-case expected loss, or as an epistemic argument, justifying the principle as needing to hold in order to minimise worst-case expected inaccuracy. The question arises as to which interpretation is preferable. I show that the epistemic argument contradicts Evidentialism and suggest that the relative plausibility (...)
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  • (1 other version)Is Evidence Normative?Frank Hofmann - 2020 - Philosophia 49 (2):1-18.
    This paper defends the view that in a certain sense evidence is normative. Neither a bit of evidence nor the fact that it is evidence for a certain proposition is a normative fact, but it is still the case that evidence provides normative reason for belief. An argument for the main thesis will be presented. It will rely on evidentialist norms of belief and a Broomean conception of normative reasons. Two important objections will be discussed, one from A. Steglich-Petersen on (...)
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  • Explaining doxastic transparency: aim, norm, or function?Ema Sullivan-Bissett - 2018 - Synthese 195 (8):3453-3476.
    I argue that explanations of doxastic transparency which go via an appeal to an aim or norm of belief are problematic. I offer a new explanation which appeals to a biological function of our mechanisms for belief production. I begin by characterizing the phenomenon, and then move to the teleological and normative accounts of belief, advertised by their proponents as able to give an explanation of it. I argue that, at the very least, both accounts face serious difficulties in this (...)
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  • (1 other version)Justifying the Principle of Indifference.Jon Williamson - 2018 - European Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    This paper presents a new argument for the Principle of Indifference. This argument can be thought of in two ways: as a pragmatic argument, justifying the principle as needing to hold if one is to minimise worst-case expected loss, or as an epistemic argument, justifying the principle as needing to hold in order to minimise worst-case expected inaccuracy. The question arises as to which interpretation is preferable. I show that the epistemic argument contradicts Evidentialism and suggest that the relative plausibility (...)
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  • Aims and Exclusivity.Ema Sullivan-Bissett - 2017 - European Journal of Philosophy 25 (3):721-731.
    If belief has an aim by being a intentional activity, then it ought to be the case that the aim of belief can be weighed against other aims one might have. However, this is not so with the putative truth aim of belief: from the first-person perspective, one can only be motivated by truth considerations in deliberation over what to believe. From this perspective then, the aim cannot be weighed. This problem is captured by David Owens's Exclusivity Objection to belief (...)
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  • Epistemic Ought is a Commensurable Ought.Anthony Robert Booth - 2011 - European Journal of Philosophy 22 (4):529-539.
    I argue that the claim that epistemic ought is incommensurable is self-defeating. My argument, however, depends on the truth of the premise that there can be not only epistemic reasons for belief, but also non-epistemic reasons for belief. So I also provide some support for that claim.
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  • (1 other version)Is Evidence Normative?Frank Hofmann - 2021 - Philosophia 49 (2):667-684.
    This paper defends the view that in a certain sense evidence is normative. Neither a bit of evidence nor the fact that it is evidence for a certain proposition is a normative fact, but it is still the case that evidence provides normative reason for belief. An argument for the main thesis will be presented. It will rely on evidentialist norms of belief and a Broomean conception of normative reasons. Two important objections will be discussed, one from A. Steglich-Petersen on (...)
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  • Defending Shah’s Evidentialism from his Pragmatist Critics: the Carnapian Link.Robert Hudson - 2016 - Contemporary Pragmatism 13 (2):143-168.
    In an important 2006 paper, Nishi Shah defends ‘evidentialism’, the position that only evidence for a proposition’s truth constitutes a reason to believe this proposition. In opposition to Shah, Anthony Robert Booth, Andrew Reisner and Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen argue that things other than evidence of truth, so-called non-evidential or ‘pragmatic’ reasons, constitute reasons to believe a proposition. I argue that we can effectively respond to Shah’s pragmatist critics if, following Shah, we are careful to distinguish the evaluation of the reasons for (...)
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  • The transparent failure of norms to keep up standards of belief.Ema Sullivan-Bissett & Paul Noordhof - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (5):1213-1227.
    We argue that the most plausible characterisation of the norm of truth—it is permissible to believe that p if and only if p is true—is unable to explain Transparency in doxastic deliberation, a task for which it is claimed to be equipped. In addition, the failure of the norm to do this work undermines the most plausible account of how the norm guides belief formation at all. Those attracted to normativism about belief for its perceived explanatory credentials had better look (...)
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  • From Impossibility to Evidentialism?Alex Worsnip - 2021 - Episteme 18 (3):384-406.
    It's often said that it is impossible to respond to non-evidential considerations in belief-formation, at least not directly and consciously. Many philosophers think that this provides grounds for accepting a normative thesis: typically, some kind of evidentialism about reasons for belief, or what one ought to believe. Some also think it supports thinking that evidentialist norms are constitutive of belief. There are a variety of ways in which one might try to support such theses by appeal to the impossibility-claim. In (...)
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  • Do We Need Reasons for the Normativity of Belief?Marco A. Joven-Romero - 2018 - Kritike 12 (1):162-200.
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