Can there Be Epistemic Reasons for Action?

2006 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Robert Booth
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Basing Relation

In this paper I consider whether there can be such things as epistemic reasons for action. I consider three arguments to the contrary and argue that none are successful, being either somewhat question-begging or too strong by ruling out what most epistemologists think is a necessary feature of epistemic justification, namely the epistemic basing relation. I end by suggesting a "non-cognitivist" model of epistemic reasons that makes room for there being epistemic reasons for action and suggest that this model may support moral realism.

The Causal-Doxastic Theory of the Basing Relation

2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Allen Korcz
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Causal Analysis ◽  
Basing Relation ◽  
Fundamental Component ◽  
Adequate Theory ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Scant Attention

The epistemic basing relation is the relation which must hold between a person's belief and the adequate reasons for holding that belief if the belief is to be epistemically justified by those reasons. Although the basing relation is a fundamental component of any adequate theory of epistemic justification, it has received scant attention in the literature. In this paper, I propose a novel causal analysis of the basing relation, one which helps to characterize an intemalist element which, I shall argue, is required of any successful account of epistemic justification, and which confirms current trends away from coherentist and reliabilist theories of justification.

Teleological Reasons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas W. Portmore
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Do So

A teleological reason to φ is a reason to φ in virtue of the fact that φ-ing would either itself promote a certain end or is appropriately related to something else that would promote that end. And teleological reasons divide into direct and the indirect kinds, depending on whether the first or second of these two disjuncts applies. Thus, supposing that our end is to maximize utility, the fact that my killing one to save two would maximize utility is a direct teleological reason for me to do so, whereas the fact that my killing one to save two is prohibited by the code of rules whose universal acceptance would maximize utility is an indirect teleological reason for me to refrain from doing so. This chapter discusses various types of reasons, such as epistemic reasons (that is, reasons to believe), and whether all, some, or none of them are teleological. The chapter pays particularly close attention to the issue of whether all practical reasons (that is, reasons for action) are teleological.

Epistemic basing relation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Bondy
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Causal Relation ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Causal Account ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Basing Relation ◽  
Dispositional Account ◽  
Fourth Kind

The epistemic basing relation is the relation that holds between beliefs and the reasons for which they are held. It is important to understand this relation if we want to have a full account of epistemic justification, because it sometimes happens that people possess good reasons for their beliefs, but fail to hold their beliefs on the basis of their good reasons. In cases like that, it seems, beliefs are not fully justified. In addition to possessing good reasons for our beliefs, we must also hold our beliefs on the basis of our good reasons. It is tempting to think that the basing relation is some sort of causal relation, something along the following lines: a subject S’s belief that P is based on a reason R if and only if R is at least part of what causes or causally sustains S’s belief. However, this analysis is subject to important and well-known objections, such as the causal deviance problem: sometimes reasons cause beliefs in ways that are too strange or indirect (that is, they deviate from the normal ways that reasons cause beliefs), and in cases like that, a reason will cause a belief but the belief will not be based on the reason. A main alternative to the causal account is the doxastic account, according to which whether S’s belief that P is based on a reason R depends on whether it seems to S that R is a good reason for believing P. Another alternative is the dispositional account, which roughly holds that S’s belief that P is based on a reason R just in case S is disposed to revise or give up the belief that P if S loses R. A fourth kind of account appeals to what subjects would say in defense of their beliefs if they were asked to give their reasons for holding them.

scholarly journals Reasons in the Scientonomic Ontology

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 15-31
Author(s):  
Kye Palider
Keyword(s):  
Central Area ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Basing Relation ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Theory Acceptance

The question of how we come to accept new theories is a central area of inquiry in scientonomic discourse. However, there has yet to be a formal discussion of the subjective reasons an agent may have for accepting theories. This paper explores these epistemic reasons and constructs a historically sensitive definition of reason. This formulation takes an abstractionist stance towards the ontology of reasons and makes use of a composite basing relation. The descriptive and normative components of reasons are fully formulated in scientonomic terms through the application of the newly introduced notion of implication, and its separation from the notion of inference. In addition, the paper provides scientonomic definitions for sufficient reason, support, and normative inference. The fruitfulness of this formulation of reasons is illustrated by a few examples. Suggested Modifications [Sciento-2019-0009]: Accept the following definition of implication: Implication ≡ a logical transition from one theory to another. [Sciento-2019-0010]: Accept the following definitions of sufficient reason, reason, support, and normative inference: Sufficient Reason ≡ an agent takes theory A to be a sufficient reason for (accepting) theory B iff the following four conditions are met: (1) The agent accepts A. (2) The agent accepts that A→B. (3) The agent employs ε. (4) The agent accepts (ε, A, A→B) →ε (Should accept B). Support ≡ an agent takes theory A to be supporting theory B iff the agent accepts A and accepts that A→B. Reason ≡ an agent takes theory A to be a reason for theory B iff the agent accepts that A→B, employs ε, and accepts (ε, A, A→B) →ε (Should accept B). Normative Inference ≡ An agent takes theory A to normatively infer theory B iff the agent accepts A, accepts that A→B, and accepts (ε, A, A→B) →ε (Should accept B). [Sciento-2019-0011]: Provided that modification [Sciento-2019-0010] is accepted, accept the sufficient reason theorem and its deduction from the definition of sufficient reason and the second law: Sufficient Reason theorem: a theory becomes accepted by an agent, when an agent has a sufficient reason for accepting it. Accept the following question as a legitimate topic of scientonomic inquiry: Theory Acceptance without Sufficient Reason: how do theories become accepted without a sufficient reason, i.e. in the cases of circularity or theories without a reason?

The Unity of Reasons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Reasons For Belief ◽  
Special Case

This chapter is concerned with the question of what unifies reasons for action and reasons for belief, sometimes called practical and epistemic reasons. According to some views, reasons for belief are a special case of reasons to do something, and so epistemic reasons are a special case, very broadly speaking, of practical reasons. According to other views, reasons for action are a special case of reasons to draw some conclusion, and so practical reasons are a special case of epistemic reasons. This chapter considers some of the evidence that bears on whether either of these claims is correct, or whether instead practical and epistemic reasons have something else in common.

Evolution and the Normativity of Epistemic Reasons

2009 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 213-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Street
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reason ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action

Creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic but praiseworthy tendency to die before reproducing their kind.- Quine (1969)We think that some facts - for example, the fact that someone is suffering, or the fact that all previously encountered tigers were carnivorous – supply us with normative reasons for action and belief. The former fact, we think, is a reason to help the suffering person; the latter fact is a reason to believe that the next tiger we see will also be carnivorous. But how is the reason-giving status of such facts best understood? In particular, is it best understood as ultimately “conferred” upon these facts by our own evaluative attitudes, or do at least some facts possess normative reason-giving status in a way that is robustly independent of our attitudes? This is the modern, secular version of Plato's “Euthyphro question” - couched here in the philosophically useful, though not essential, language of normative reasons.

The Range of Reasons

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Whiting
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Reasons For Belief ◽  
First Order ◽  
Underlying Principle ◽  
Comprehensive Framework ◽  
Order Commitment

This book contributes to two debates and it does so by bringing them together. The first is a debate in metaethics concerning normative reasons, the considerations that serve to justify a person’s actions and attitudes. The second is a debate in epistemology concerning the norms for belief, the standards that govern a person’s beliefs and by reference to which they are assessed. The book starts by developing and defending a new theory of reasons for action, that is, of practical reasons. The theory belongs to a family that analyses reasons by appeal to the normative notion of rightness (fittingness, correctness); it is distinctive in making central appeal to modal notions, specifically, that of a nearby possible world. The result is a comprehensive framework that captures what is common to and distinctive of reasons of various kinds: justifying and demanding; for and against, possessed and unpossessed; objective and subjective. The framework is then generalized to reasons for belief, that is, to epistemic reasons, and combined with a substantive, first-order commitment, namely, that truth is the sole right-maker for belief. The upshot is an account of the various norms governing belief, including knowledge and rationality, and the relations among them. According to it, the standards to which belief is subject are various, but they are unified by an underlying principle.

scholarly journals Reasons and Basing in Commonsense Epistemology: Evidence from Two Experiments

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Research ◽  
Causal Theory ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Basing Relation

I accomplish two things in this paper. I explain the motivation for including experimental research in philosophical projects on epistemic reasons and the basing relation. And I present the first experimental contributions to these projects. The results from two experiments advance our understanding of the ordinary concepts of reasons and basing and set the stage for further research on the topics. More specifically, the results support a causal theory of the basing relation, according to which reasons are causes, and a dualist theory of epistemic reasons, according to which reasons include both psychological and non-psychological items.

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