This article gives an overview of some recent debates about the relationship between reasons and rational requirements of coherence - e.g. the requirements to be consistent in our beliefs and intentions, and to intend what we take to be the necessary means to our ends.

This paper presents a new argument to defend the normativity of meaning, specifically the thesis that there are no meanings without norms. The argument starts from the observation inferentialists have emphasized that incompatibility relations between sentences are a necessary part of meaning as it is understood. We motivate this approach by showing that the standard normativist strategy in the literature, which is developed in terms of veridical reference that may swing free from the speaker’s understanding, violates the ought-implies-can principle, but (...) ours does not. In addition, our approach is superior because, unlike the representationalist approach, it can be extended from declarative sentences to non-representational uses of language. In this paper, however, we only formulate the argument for the base case that involves incompatibility relations between declarative sentences. The goal is not to derive norms from something that is not normative, but to explicate the distinctive type of normativity that is built into meaning as it is understood by language-users. The explication proceeds in two steps. (1) For any sentence s a speaker understands, there is an incompatible sentence s’ the speaker understands to be incompatible with s. (2) In virtue of understanding this incompatibility of meanings, she ought not to be committed to both s and s’. This prohibition is not derived from instrumental practical reason, nor is it based on representational correctness, but its source is the incompatibility of meanings. (shrink)

Consider the following 'principles':2(Norm of Belief Schema) Necessarily, a belief of is correct (relative to some scenario) if and only if p (at that scenario) — where 'p' has the aforementioned content .(Generalized Norm of Belief) Necessarily, for all propositions , a belief of is correct (relative to some scenario) if and only if is true (at that scenario).Both 'principles' appear to capture the aim(s) of belief. (NBS) particularizes the aims to beliefs of distinct content-types. (GNB) generalizes these aims of (...) beliefs as truth. Properly understood, the instances of (NBS) appear to be at least approximately true as does (GNB). Of course, one might harbor concerns about whether these are mere .. (shrink)

This paper disputes the widespread assumption that beliefs and desires may be attributed as theoretical entities in the service of the explanation and predic- tion of human behavior. The literature contains no clear account of how beliefs and desires might generate actions, and there is good reason to deny that principles of rationality generate a choice on the basis of an agent’s beliefs and desires. An alter- native conception of beliefs and desires is here introduced, according to which an attribution (...) of belief is, in a certain sense, an assertion on the believer’s behalf and an attribution of desire is, in a certain sense, a command on the desirer’s behalf. In terms of this conception of the attribution of beliefs and desires, we can begin to understand how attributions of beliefs and desires can be explanatory, although we still cannot expect the attribution of beliefs and desires to generate predictions based on an assumption of rationality. Finally, the reality of beliefs and desires is likened to the reality of money; it is the reality of things governed by objective norms. (shrink)

Psychological studies on fictional persuasion demonstrate that being engaged with fiction systematically affects our beliefs about the real world, in ways that seem insensitive to the truth. This threatens to undermine the widely accepted view that beliefs are essentially regulated in ways that tend to ensure their truth, and may tempt various non-doxastic interpretations of the belief-seeming attitudes we form as a result of engaging with fiction. I evaluate this threat, and argue that it is benign. Even if the relevant (...) attitudes are best seen as genuine beliefs, as I think they often are, their lack of appropriate sensitivity to the truth does not undermine the essential tie between belief and truth. To this end, I shall consider what I take to be the three most plausible models of the cognitive mechanisms underlying fictional persuasion, and argue that on none of these models does fictional persuasion undermine the essential truth-tie. (shrink)

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)

Contemporary views of truth-directedness endorse what I shall call the Common-Element Argument. According to this argument, there is something in common between judgment and other attitudes like assumption and imagination: they all regard their contents as true. Since this regarding-as-true feature is not distinctive of judgment - the argument goes - it can’t explain its truth-directedness. On this ground, theorists have been motivated to endorse an inflationary view that tries to capture truth-directedness by appealing to some further feature: intentions, second-order (...) representations, sub-personal mechanisms, or subjugation to norms are the most discussed candidates for fulfilling this role. In this paper I will argue that the Common-Element Argument is unsound. It rests on a false premise, namely that there is some common element such as a regarding-as-true component between judgment and other cognitive attitudes. I shall reject Velleman’s and Railton’s defenses of the Common-Element-Argument. Then I will discuss three influential inflationary accounts of truth-directedness: Railton’s account, Velleman’s teleological account, and Shah and Velleman’s conceptualist account. I shall argue that they all face a phenomenological and an explanatory challenge. Finally, I shall sketch a deflationary view of truth-directedness that evades these challenges. (shrink)

Our purpose in this paper is to contribute to a practice-based characterization of scientific inference. We want to explore whether Brandom’s pragmatist–inferentialist framework can suitably accommodate several types of ampliative inference common in scientific reasoning and explanation (probabilistic reasoning, abduction and idealisation). First, we argue that Brandom’s view of induction in terms of merely permissive inferences is inadequate; in order to overcome the shortcoming of Brandom’s proposal, we put forward an alternative conception of inductive, probabilistic reasoning by appeal to the (...) notion of degrees of commitment. Moreover, we examine the sorts of inferential commitments operative in other types of ampliative inferences, such as abduction or reasoning involving idealizations and assumptions. We suggest that agents engaging in these forms of reasoning often undertake restricted inferential commitments, whose scope and reach are more limited that in the case of the commitments associated with full beliefs. (shrink)

It is commonplace to claim that it is good to believe the truth. In this paper, I reject that claim and argue that the considerations which might seem to support it in fact support a quite distinct though superficially similar claim, namely, that it is bad to believe the false. This claim is typically either ignored completely or lumped together with the previous claim, perhaps on the assumption that the two are equivalent, or at least that they stand or fall (...) together. Such assumptions, I argue, are mistaken. While it is not always good to be right, it is always bad to be wrong. This is an interesting and overlooked asymmetry, which calls for further investigation. (shrink)

The view that truth is the norm of assertion has fallen out of fashion. The recent trend has been to think that knowledge is the norm of assertion. Objections to the knowledge view proceed almost exclusively by appeal to alleged counterexamples. While it no doubt has a role to play, such a strategy relies on intuitions concerning hypothetical cases, intuitions which might not be shared and which might shift depending on how the relevant cases are fleshed out. In this paper, (...) I reject the knowledge view on principled grounds. More specifically, by appeal to a principle which is motivated independently of the debate over the norms of assertion and which is already accepted by many proponents of the knowledge view, I show the knowledge view to be false while simultaneously accounting for why it might seem to be true. In doing so, I provide a novel defence of the unfashionable truth view. (shrink)

What is a normative reason for acting? In this paper, I introduce and defend a novel answer to this question. The starting-point is the view that reasons are right-makers. By exploring difficulties facing it, I arrive at an alternative, according to which reasons are evidence of respects in which it is right to perform an act, for example, that it keeps a promise. This is similar to the proposal that reasons for a person to act are evidence that she ought (...) to do so; however, as I explain, it differs from that proposal in two significant ways. As a result, I argue, the evidence-based account of reasons I advance shares the advantages of its predecessor while avoiding many of the difficulties facing it. (shrink)

Abstract: According to deflationism, grasp of the concept of truth consists in nothing more than a disposition to accept a priori (non-paradoxical) instances of the schema:(DS) It is true that p if and only if p.According to contextualism, the same expression with the same meaning might, on different occasions of use, express different propositions bearing different truth-conditions (where this does not result from indexicality and the like). On this view, what is expressed in an utterance depends in a non-negligible way (...) on the circumstances. Charles Travis claims that contextualism shows that ‘deflationism is a mistake’, that truth is a more substantive notion than deflationism allows. In this paper, I examine Travis's arguments in support of this ‘inflationary’ claim and argue that they are unsuccessful. (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)

What does the aesthetic ask of us? What claims do the aesthetic features of the objects and events in our environment make on us? My answer in this paper is: that depends. Aesthetic reasons can only justify feelings – they cannot demand them. A corollary of this is that there are no aesthetic obligations to feel, only permissions. However, I argue, aesthetic reasons can demand actions – they do not merely justify them. A corollary of this is that there are (...) aesthetic obligations to act, not only permissions. So, I conclude, the aesthetic asks little of us as patients and much of as agents. (shrink)

Adherents as well as detractors of the normativity of mental content agree that its assessment crucially depends on the assessment of a principle for believing what is true. In this paper, I present an alternative principle, which is based on possession conditions for pure thinking or mere entertaining. I argue that the alternative approach has not been sufficiently emphasised in the literature and has two important merits. First, it yields a direct analysis of the normativity of mental content, which is, (...) furthermore, independent of arguably non-normative notions such as truth. Second, the approach suggests new and challenging lines of response to central non-normativist objections. (shrink)

It is often argued that belief is partly constituted by a norm of truth. Most recent discussions have assumed that the norm is deontic concerning what may or ought to be believed. I criticize two proposals, one canvassed by Krister Bykvist and Anandi Hattiangadi, and the other defended by Daniel Whiting. Instead, I argue in favour of an evaluative norm, according to which we would do well to believe the truth. I show that an evaluative norm fares better than its (...) deontic competitors with respect to the demandingness of truth, the aim of truth, and epistemic blame. -/- On soutient souvent que la croyance est en partie constituée par une norme de vérité. La plupart des discussions récentes ont supposé que la norme est déontique concernant ce qui peut ou doit être cru. Je critique deux propositions, l’une mise de l’avant par Krister Bykvist et Anandi Hattiangadi, et l’autre défendue par Daniel Whiting. Je plaide plutôt en faveur d’une norme évaluative selon laquelle nous ferions bien de croire la vérité. Je montre qu’une norme évaluative réussit mieux que ses concurrentes déontiques en ce qui a trait au caractère exigeant de la vérité, au but de la vérité et au blâme épistémique. (shrink)

Foundational theories of mental content seek to identify the conditions under which a mental representation expresses, in the mind of a particular thinker, a particular content. Normativists endorse the following general sort of foundational theory of mental content: A mental representation r expresses concept C for agent S just in case S ought to use r in conformity with some particular pattern of use associated with C. In response to Normativist theories of content, Kathrin Glüer-Pagin and Åsa Wikforss propose a (...) dilemma, alleging that Normativism either entails a vicious regress or falls prey to a charge of idleness. In this paper, I respond to this argument. I argue that Normativism can avoid the commitments that generate the regress and does not propose the sort of explanation required to charge that its explanation has been shown to be problematically idle. The regress-generating commitment to be avoided is, roughly, that tokened, contentful mental states are the product of rule-following. The explanatory task Normativists should disavow is that of explaining how it is that beliefs and other contentful mental states are produced. I argue that Normativism, properly understood as a theory of content, does not provide this kind of psychological explanation, and therefore does not entail that such explanations are to be given in terms of rule-following. If this is correct, Normativism is not the proper target of the dilemma offered by Glüer-Pagin and Wikforss. Understanding why one might construe Normativism in the way Glüer-Pagin and Wikforss must, and how, properly understood, it avoids their dilemma, can help us to appreciate the attractiveness of a genuinely normative theory of content and the importance of paying careful attention to the sort of normativity involved in norm-based theories of content. (shrink)

Belief normativism is roughly the view that judgments about beliefs are normative judgments. Kathrin Glüer and Åsa Wikforss suggest that there are two ways one could defend this view: by appeal to what might be called ‘truth-norms’, or by appeal to what might be called ‘norms of rationality’ or ‘epistemic norms’. According to G&W, whichever way the normativist takes, she ends up being unable to account for the idea that the norms in question would guide belief formation. Plausibly, if belief (...) normativism were true, the relevant norms would have to offer such guidance. I argue that G&W’s case against belief normativism is not successful. In section 1, I defend the idea that truth-norms can guide belief formation indirectly via epistemic norms. In section 2, I outline an account of how the epistemic norms might guide belief. Interestingly, this account may involve a commitment to a certain kind of expressivist view concerning judgments about epistemic norms. (shrink)

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)

Many philosophers have argued that logical pluralism is not compatible with the normativity of logic. They developed different versions of the collapse argument: if two logics are correct, then the weaker one will be normatively irrelevant. In this paper, I argue that the collapse argument is based on a controversial premise: the assumption that every logic can be characterized by the same bridge principle. I provide a solution to the collapse argument based on the modification of this premise, maintaining both (...) logical pluralism and the normativity of logic. (shrink)

Despite the recent backlash against epistemic consequentialism, an explicit systematic alternative has yet to emerge. This paper articulates and defends a novel alternative, Epistemic Kantianism, which rests on a requirement of respect for the truth. §1 tackles some preliminaries concerning the proper formulation of the epistemic consequentialism / non-consequentialism divide, explains where Epistemic Kantianism falls in the dialectical landscape, and shows how it can capture what seems attractive about epistemic consequentialism while yielding predictions that are harder for the latter to (...) secure in a principled way. §2 presents Epistemic Kantianism. §3 argues that it is uniquely poised to satisfy the desiderata set out in §1 on an ideal theory of epistemic justification. §4 gives three further arguments, suggesting that it (i) best explains the objective normative significance of the subject's perspective in epistemology, (ii) follows from the kind of axiology needed to solve the swamping problem together with modest assumptions about the relation between the evaluative and the deontic, and (iii) illuminates certain asymmetries in epistemic value and obligation. §5 takes stock and reassesses the score in the debate. (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)

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 (...) elsewhere. (shrink)

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 (...) endeavour. These difficulties are a function of seeking an explanation of transparency at the agential level, either with the subject aiming at truth, or being guided by a norm of truth. I adopt a motivational account of belief, one which severs the connection between belief and truth, and supplement this with an account of actual world beliefs. My alternative explanation is found at the sub-intentional, non-agential level, secured by biology. This explanation casts transparency not as related to the nature of deliberation over what to believe, but rather as contingently characterizing the beliefs of some believers, namely those with a particular biological history. My explanation thus parts company with what has come before along two dimensions: it moves away from transparency being something related to the agent’s aims or commitments, and it understands it as a contingent phenomenon. I close by considering an objection to my view—that transparency must not be understood as a contingent phenomenon—and a nearby alternative position which avoids this consequence. I respond to this objection and give reasons not to endorse the nearby alternative. I conclude that my explanation does not face the difficulties of those offered by teleologists and normativists, and, that by moving away from agential explanations, and casting transparency as contingent, we can provide a successful explanation of it. (shrink)

Epistemic instrumentalists seek to understand the normativity of epistemic norms on the model practical instrumental norms governing the relation between aims and means. Non-instrumentalists often object that this commits instrumentalists to implausible epistemic assessments. I argue that this objection presupposes an implausibly strong interpretation of epistemic norms. Once we realize that epistemic norms should be understood in terms of permissibility rather than obligation, and that evidence only occasionally provide normative reasons for belief, an instrumentalist account becomes available that delivers the (...) correct epistemic verdicts. On this account, epistemic permissibility can be understood on the model of the wide-scope instrumental norm for instrumental rationality, while normative evidential reasons for belief can be understood in terms of instrumental transmission. (shrink)

There is an interesting contrast between permissions to act and permissions to believe. Plausibly, if it is permissible to believe something from a perspective with incomplete evidence, it cannot become impermissible to believe it from a second perspective with complete evidence. In contrast, it seems that something permissible to do for an agent in a perspective with limited evidence can become impermissible in a second perspective in which all the relevant evidence is available. What is more, an agent with incomplete (...) evidence may be permitted to do something that she knows would be impermissible if she occupied a perspective of complete evidence. In this paper, I argue that this contrast is explained by a disanalogy between the role played by belief in epistemic deliberation and the role played by action in practical deliberation. Epistemic deliberation may be closed by adopting other attitudes than belief, whereas in general, practical deliberation can only be closed by endorsing some course of action. Thus, when there are pressures to close some practical deliberation, agents have to make a decision about what to do even if they lack relevant information. By contrast, lacking relevant evidence, agents may always refrain from forming a belief and close instead their epistemic deliberation by adopting some other attitude. (shrink)

Our purpose in this paper is to contribute to a practice-based characterization of scientific inference. We want to explore whether Brandom’s pragmatist–inferentialist framework can suitably accommodate several types of ampliative inference common in scientific reasoning and explanation (probabilistic reasoning, abduction and idealisation). First, we argue that Brandom’s view of induction in terms of merely permissive inferences is inadequate; in order to overcome the shortcoming of Brandom’s proposal, we put forward an alternative conception of inductive, probabilistic reasoning by appeal to the (...) notion of degrees of commitment. Moreover, we examine the sorts of inferential commitments operative in other types of ampliative inferences, such as abduction or reasoning involving idealizations and assumptions. We suggest that agents engaging in these forms of reasoning often undertake restricted inferential commitments, whose scope and reach are more limited that in the case of the commitments associated with full beliefs. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that beliefs are constitutively normative from two kinds of objection. After clarifying what a “blindspot” proposition is and the different types of blindspots there can be, I show that the existence of such propositions does not undermine the thesis that beliefs are essentially governed by a negative truth norm. I argue that the “normative variance” exhibited by this norm is not a defect. I also argue that if we accept a distinction between subjective and objective norms (...) there need be no worrying tension between doxastic norms of truth and doxastic norms of evidence. I show how a similar approach applies to the attitude of guessing. I then suggest that if we distinguish between practical and theoretical rationality, we will prefer a negative form of norm that does not positively oblige us to form beliefs. I finish by considering an alternative possible subjunctive form of norm that would also avoid problems with blindspots but suggest this has a non-intuitive consequence. (shrink)

I argue that if there are nondisabled reasons to believe p, then there cannot be nondisabled reasons to believe something incompatible with p. I first defend a restricted version of the view, which applies only to situations where the relevant agent has complete evidence. Then, I argue for a generalized version of the view, which holds regardless of the agent's evidence. As a related result, I show that, given plausible assumptions, there cannot be nondisabled reasons to believe something false.

I argue that if there are nondisabled reasons to believe p, then there cannot be nondisabled reasons to believe something incompatible with p. I first defend a restricted version of the view, which applies only to situations where the relevant agent has complete evidence. Then, I argue for a generalized version of the view, which holds regardless of the agent's evidence. As a related result, I show that, given plausible assumptions, there cannot be nondisabled reasons to believe something false.

In this paper I take up the question of the nature of the doxastic attitudes we entertain while inquiring into some matter. Relying on a distinction between two stages of open inquiry, I urge to acknowledge the existence of a distinctive attitude of cognitive inclination towards a proposition qua answer to the question one is inquiring into. I call this attitude “hypothesis”. Hypothesis, I argue, is a sui generis doxastic attitude which differs, both functionally and normatively, from suspended judgement, full (...) belief, credences, and acceptance. In closing, I point to the epistemological significance of hypothesis. More specifically, I contend that holding an attitude of hypothesis enables us to respond rationally to peer disagreement, and I suggest that such an attitude offers a suitable articulation of the view, originally put forward by Philip Kitcher, that cognitive diversity in inquiry has epistemic benefits. (shrink)

According to doxastic normativism, part of what makes an attitude a belief rather than another type of attitude is that it is governed by a truth-norm. It has been objected that this view fails since there are true propositions such that if you believed them they would not be true, and thus the obligation to believe true propositions cannot hold for these. I argue that the solution for doxastic normativists is to find a norm that draws the right distinction between (...) those true propositions we are obliged to believe (“ordinary non-tricky propositions”) and those we are not (“tricky propositions”). I develop a norm which I argue does exactly this, and further argue that it can be used to salvage the idea that belief is constitutively normative. (shrink)

An action-oriented epistemology takes the idea that our capacity for belief subserves our capacity for action as the starting point for epistemological theorizing. This paper argues that an action-oriented epistemology is especially well-positioned to explain why it is that, at least for believers like us, whether or not conforming with the epistemic norms that govern belief-regulation would lead us to believe that p always bears on whether we have normative reasons to believe that p. If the arguments of this paper (...) are successful, then an action-oriented approach has a kind of explanatory power that has proved elusive, and so merits serious and sustained philosophical attention that it has yet to receive. (shrink)

There seem to be things we ought not to believe and others we are permitted to believe. Belief is treated as a normative phenomenon both in everyday and academic discourse. At the same time, normativity can be seen as a threat to a naturalistic understanding of the world. Whilst naturalistic claims are of descriptive nature, norms are prescriptive. It is usually held that they cannot be reduced to statements of fact. This problem is also pertinent to the normativity of belief. (...) How is such a phenomenon to be understood within a naturalist framework? -/- Sullivan-Bissett provides a naturalistic account of epistemic normativity in which she explains epistemic normativity in terms of biological functions of belief-producing mechanisms. Importantly, her account is error-theoretic: She argues that we mistake doxastic strategies, which are at best normative in a hypothetical sense, to be categorical epistemic norms. -/- In continuation of Sullivan-Bissett’s account, I draw attention to one of the belief-producing mechanisms which is responsible for bringing about these mistaken beliefs. I claim that normative conformity – a social-learning mechanisms – brings about our beliefs in the existence and categorical validity of epistemic norms. Keeping with the evolutionary perspective employed by Sullivan-Bissett, I answer questions about the function and phylogeny of our mistaken beliefs in epistemic normativity by means of normative conformity and in line with Sullivan-Bissett’s account. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the “Ought Implies Can” (OIC) principle, as it is employed in epistemology, particularly in the literature on epistemic norms, is open to counterexamples. I present a counterexample to OIC and discuss several objections to it. If this counterexample works, then it shows that it is possible that S ought to believe that p, even though S cannot believe that p. If this is correct, then OIC, considered from an epistemic point of view, is false, (...) since it is supposed to hold for any S and any p. (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)

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.

Beliefs can be correct or incorrect, and this standard of correctness is widely thought to be fundamental to epistemic normativity. But how should this standard be understood, and in what way is it so fundamental? I argue that we should resist understanding correctness for belief as either a prescriptive or an evaluative norm. Rather, we should understand it as an instance of the distinct normative category of fittingness for attitudes. This yields an attractive account of epistemic reasons.

What ought you believe? According to a traditional view, it depends on your evidence: you ought to believe (only) what your evidence supports. Recently, however, some have claimed that what you ought to believe depends not on your evidence but simply on what is true: you ought to believe (only) the truth. In this paper, we present and defend two arguments against this latter view. We also explore some of the parallels between this debate in epistemology, and the debate in (...) ethics about whether how you ought to act depends on your epistemic position, or on all the facts. (shrink)

According to the fitting-attitudes account of value, for X to be good is for it to be fitting to value X. But what is it for an attitude to be fitting? A popular recent view is that it is for there to be sufficient reason for the attitude. In this paper we argue that proponents of the fitting-attitudes account should reject this view and instead take fittingness as basic. In this way they avoid the notorious ‘wrong kind of reason’ problem, (...) and can offer attractive accounts of reasons and good reasoning in terms of fittingness. (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)

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)

I apply recent research on the links between belief, truth and pragmatism based on Williams statement that “beliefs aim at truth,” to the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance, in which agents act contrary to their private beliefs because they believe that other agents believe the contrary. I consider three positions; an epistemic position, a pragmatic position, and a third position coordinating the first two. I apply them to pluralistic ignorance while considering the recent study of Bjerring, Hansend and Pedersen. I conclude (...) that a purely epistemic approach is better for understanding pluralistic ignorance. (shrink)

Pluralistic ignorance is usually analyzed in terms of social norms. Recently, Bjerring, Hansen and Pedersen describe and define this phenomenon in terms of beliefs, actions and evidence. Here I apply a basic epistemic approach to belief – believers consider their beliefs to be true –, a basic pragmatic approach to belief – beliefs are useful for believers – and a mixed epistemic-pragmatic approach – believers consider their believes to be true and such considerations are useful – to pluralistic ignorance phenomena. (...) For that, I take the definition given by Bjerring et al..Keywords: Truth, pragmatism, epistemic belief, pragmatic belief. (shrink)

More than ever, it is in vogue to argue that no norms either play a role in or directly follow from the theory of mental content. In this paper, I present an intuitive theory of intentionality (including a theory of mental content) on which norms are constitutive of the intentional properties of attitude and content in order to show that this trend is misguided. Although this theory of intentionality—the teleological theory of intentional representation—does involve a commitment to representational norms, these (...) norms are not problematic in the way critics have suggested they would be. In particular, these norms do not guide thinking by motivating intentional agents to (intentionally) accord with them; as a result, no obvious vicious regress threatens the theory. In the final section of this paper, I argue that accepting this teleological theory of intentionality need not commit one to thinking that intentionality is the product of natural selection. (shrink)

It is widely maintained that doxastic norms that govern how people should believe can be explained by the truism that belief is governed by the correctness norm: believing p is correct if and only if p. This approach fails because it confuses two kinds of correctness norm: (1) It is correct for S to believe p if and only p; and (2) believing p is correct qua belief if and only if p. Only can (2) be said to be a (...) truism about belief, but it cannot ground doxastic norms. (shrink)