Is Epistemic Normativity Value-Based?

Dialogue ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHARLES CÔTÉ-BOUCHARD
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Normative Authority ◽  
In Virtue Of

What is the source of epistemic normativity? In virtue of what do epistemic norms have categorical normative authority? According to epistemic teleologism, epistemic normativity comes from value. Epistemic norms have categorical authority because conforming to them is necessarily good in some relevant sense. In this article, I argue that epistemic teleologism should be rejected. The problem, I argue, is that there is no relevant sense in which it is necessarily good to believe in accordance with epistemic norms, including in cases where the matter at hand is completely trivial. Therefore, if epistemology is normative, its normativity won’t come from value.

Epistemic Consequentialism

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Expected Utility ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Formal Epistemology ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Rule Consequentialism ◽  
Epistemic Utility ◽  
Traditional Epistemology ◽  
Epistemic Consequentialism ◽  
In Virtue Of

An important issue in epistemology concerns the source of epistemic normativity. Epistemic consequentialism maintains that epistemic norms are genuine norms in virtue of the way in which they are conducive to epistemic value, whatever epistemic value may be. So, for example, the epistemic consequentialist might say that it is a norm that beliefs should be consistent in virtue of the fact that holding consistent beliefs is the best way to achieve the epistemic value of accuracy. Thus epistemic consequentialism is structurally similar to the familiar family of consequentialist views in ethics. Recently, philosophers from both formal epistemology and traditional epistemology have shown interest in such a view. In formal epistemology, there has been particular interest in thinking of epistemology as a kind of decision theory where instead of maximizing expected utility one maximizes expected epistemic utility. In traditional epistemology, there has been particular interest in various forms of reliabilism about justification and whether such views are analogous to—and so face similar problems to—versions of rule consequentialism in ethics. This volume presents some of the most recent work on these topics as well as others related to epistemic consequentialism, by authors that are sympathetic to the view and those who are critical of it.

scholarly journals Knowledge and reasoning

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Simion
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Drop Out ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning ◽  
Epistemic Function ◽  
In Virtue Of

AbstractThis paper develops a novel, functionalist, unified account of the epistemic normativity of reasoning. On this view, epistemic norms drop out of epistemic functions. I argue that practical reasoning serves a prudential function of generating prudentially permissible action, and the epistemic function of generating knowledge of what one ought to do. This picture, if right, goes a long way towards normatively divorcing action and practical reasoning. At the same time, it unifies reasoning epistemically: practical and theoretical reasoning will turn out to be governed by the same epistemic norm—knowledge—in virtue of serving the same epistemic function: generating knowledge of the conclusion.

The Epistemic Norms of Action

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Knowledge Norm ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Epistemological Principle ◽  
Knowledge Norms

Chapter 6 concerns the normative relationship between action and knowledge ascriptions. Arguments are provided against a Knowledge Norm of Action (KNAC) and in favor of the Warrant-Action norm (WA). According to WA, S must be adequately warranted in believing that p relative to her deliberative context to meet the epistemic requirements for acting on p. WA is developed by specifying the deliberative context and by arguing that its explanatory power exceeds that of knowledge norms. A general conclusion is that the knowledge norm is an important example of a folk epistemological principle that does not pass muster as an epistemological principle. More generally, Chapter 6 introduces the debates about epistemic normativity and develops a specific epistemic norm of action.

scholarly journals Value and Epistemic Normativity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Owens
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Engagement ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Human Good ◽  
Good For

Many writers have sought to ground epistemic normativity in the value of knowledge or truth, or else in the value of successful agency. Here it is proposed that epistemic norms derive their authority from the fact that it is good for us to subject ourselves to such norms by forming beliefs. And being subject to the relevant norms may be good for us whether or not conformity to those norms is good for us. In particular, beliefs serve our interest in being subject to the norms that govern our emotions. Unless I believe that Tom stole my bike, I can hope or fear that he did, but I cannot be pleased or angry that he did. Having the capacity for this sort of emotional engagement with things that matter to us is a human good, even though we may suffer from the exercise of that capacity.

Social Epistemic Normativity: The Program

Episteme ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 364-383
Author(s):  
Sanford C. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
In Virtue Of

AbstractIn this paper I argue that epistemically normative claims regarding what one is permitted or required to believe (or to refrain from believing) are sometimes true in virtue of what we owe one another as social creatures. I do not here pursue a reduction of these epistemically normative claims to claims asserting one or another (ethical or social) interpersonal obligation, though I highlight some resources for those who would pursue such a reduction.

scholarly journals TESTIMONIAL ENTITLEMENT, NORMS OF ASSERTION AND PRIVACY

Episteme ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Nickel
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Norms Of Assertion ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Testimonial Belief ◽  
The Right ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Normative Status

AbstractAccording to assurance views of testimonial justification, in virtue of the act of testifying a speaker provides an assurance of the truth of what she asserts to the addressee. This assurance provides a special justificatory force and a distinctive normative status to the addressee. It is thought to explain certain asymmetries between addressees and other unintended hearers (bystanders and eavesdroppers), such as the phenomenon that the addressee has a right to blame the speaker for conveying a falsehood but unintended hearers do not, and the phenomenon that the addressee may deflect challenges to his testimonial belief to the speaker but unintended hearers may not. Here I argue that we can do a better job explaining the normative statuses associated with testimony by reference to epistemic norms of assertion and privacy norms. Following Sanford Goldberg, I argue that epistemic norms of assertion, according to which sincere assertion is appropriate only when the asserter possesses certain epistemic goods, can be ‘put to work’ to explain the normative statuses associated with testimony. When these norms are violated, they give hearers the right to blame the speaker, and they also explain why the speaker takes responsibility for the justification of the statement asserted. Norms of privacy, on the other hand, directly exclude eavesdroppers and bystanders from an informational exchange, implying that they have no standing to do many of the things, such as issue challenges or questions to the speaker, that would be normal for conversational participants. This explains asymmetries of normative status associated with testimony in a way logically independent of speaker assurance.

Epistemic Normativity

True Enough ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Z. Elgin
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Epistemic Agency

Epistemic norms are norms of responsible epistemic agency. They are the norms that would emerge from the deliberations of legislating members of a quasi-Kantian realm of epistemic ends. Such legislators must be, in a political sense, free and equal in their deliberations.

What Is an Institution?

2007 ◽  
pp. 5-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Searle
Keyword(s):  
Physical Structure ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Collective Intentionality ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Institutional Fact ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Creation ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Typical Point

The author claims that an institution is any collectively accepted system of rules (procedures, practices) that enable us to create institutional facts. These rules typically have the form of X counts as Y in C, where an object, person, or state of affairs X is assigned a special status, the Y status, such that the new status enables the person or object to perform functions that it could not perform solely in virtue of its physical structure, but requires as a necessary condition the assignment of the status. The creation of an institutional fact is, thus, the collective assignment of a status function. The typical point of the creation of institutional facts by assigning status functions is to create deontic powers. So typically when we assign a status function Y to some object or person X we have created a situation in which we accept that a person S who stands in the appropriate relation to X is such that (S has power (S does A)). The whole analysis then gives us a systematic set of relationships between collective intentionality, the assignment of function, the assignment of status functions, constitutive rules, institutional facts, and deontic powers.

Acerca del supuesto fundamentalismo de Wittgenstein en Sobre la certez

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
José M. Ariso Salgado
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
On Certainty ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Basic Beliefs

RESUMENAl analizar si Ludwig Wittgenstein mantiene una posición fundamentalista en Sobre la certeza, suele discutirse si la citada obra se adapta al modelo de fundamentalismo propuesto por Avrum Stroll. Tras exponer las líneas básicas de dicho modelo, en esta nota se mantiene que Sobre la certeza no se adapta al modelo de Stroll debido al importante papel que Wittgenstein concede al contextualismo. Además, se añade que Wittgenstein no puede ser calificado de fundamentalista porque no reconoce ninguna propiedad que, sin tener en cuenta la diversidad de casos particulares, permita justificar de forma conjunta todas nuestras creencias básicas.PALABRAS CLAVEWITTGENSTEIN, FUNDAMENTALISMO, CONTEXTUALISMO, CERTEZAABSTRACTDid Wittgenstein hold a foundationalist position in On Certainty? When this question is tackled, it is often discussed, whether On Certainty fits in the foundationalist model devised by Avrum Stroll. After expounding the main lines of this model, I hold that On Certainty does not fit in Stroll’s model, because of the important role Wittgenstein attaches to contextualism. Furthermore, I add that Wittgenstein cannot be seen as a foundationalist –or a coherentist–, because he does not admit any feature in virtue of which the whole of our basic beliefs are justified without considering circumstances at all.KEYWORDSWITTGENSTEIN, CERTAINTY, FOUNDATIONALISM, CONTEXTUALISM

The Uniqueness of God in Anselm’s Monologion

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Tapp
Keyword(s):  
Successful Attempt ◽  
Central Case ◽  
In Virtue Of

In this paper, Anselm’s argument for the uniqueness of God or, more precisely, something through which everything that exists has its being (Monologion 3) is reconstructed. A first reading of the argument leads to a preliminary reconstruens with one major weakness, namely the incompleteness of a central case distinction. In the successful attempt to construct a more tenable reconstruens some additional premises which are deeply rooted in an Anselmian metaphysics are identified. Anselm’s argument seems to depend on premises such as that if two things have the same nature, then there is one common thing from which they have this nature and in virtue of which they exist. Furthermore it appears that infinite regresses are excluded by the premise that if everything that exists is through something, then there is something through which it is “most truly”.

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