scholarly journals Accuracy and epistemic conservatism

Analysis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 658-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Steinberger
Keyword(s):  
Utility Theory ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Methodological Principle ◽  
Epistemic Risk ◽  
Epistemic Utility ◽  
Epistemic Conservatism

Abstract Epistemic utility theory (EUT) is generally coupled with veritism. Veritism is the view that truth is the sole fundamental epistemic value. Veritism, when paired with EUT, entails a methodological commitment: norms of epistemic rationality are justified only if they can be derived from considerations of accuracy alone. According to EUT, then, believing truly has epistemic value, while believing falsely has epistemic disvalue. This raises the question as to how the rational believer should balance the prospect of true belief against the risk of error. A strong intuitive case can be made for a kind of epistemic conservatism – that we should disvalue error more than we value true belief. I argue that none of the ways in which advocates of veritist EUT have sought to motivate conservatism can be squared with their methodological commitments. Short of any such justification, they must therefore either abandon their most central methodological principle or else adopt a permissive line with respect to epistemic risk.

scholarly journals Epistemic Value and the Jamesian Goals

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Horowitz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Theory ◽  
Utility Theory ◽  
William James ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Epistemic Utility ◽  
Consequentialist Theory ◽  
Epistemic Consequentialism

William James famously tells us that there are two main goals for rational believers: believing truth and avoiding error. Horowitz argues that epistemic consequentialism—in particular its embodiment in epistemic utility theory—seems to be well positioned to explain how epistemic agents might permissibly weight these goals differently. After all, practical versions of consequentialism render it permissible for agents with different goals to act differently in the same situation. Nevertheless, Horowitz argues that epistemic consequentialism doesn’t allow for this kind of permissivism and goes on to argue that this reveals a deep disanalogy between decision theory and the formally similar epistemic utility theory. This raises the question whether epistemic utility theory is a genuinely consequentialist theory at all.

Accuracy, Ratification, and the Scope of Epistemic Consequentialism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Joyce
Keyword(s):  
Utility Theory ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Healthy Patient ◽  
Degrees Of Belief ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Epistemic Utility ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Epistemic Consequentialism ◽  
Wrong Action

Joyce focuses on trade-off objections to epistemic consequentialism. Such objections are similar to familiar objections from ethics where an intuitively wrong action (e.g., killing a healthy patient) leads to a net gain in value (e.g., saving five other patients). The objection to the epistemic consequentialist concerns cases where adopting an intuitively wrong belief leads to a net gain in epistemic value. Joyce defends the epistemic consequentialist against such objections by denying that his version of epistemic utility theory is properly thought of as a species of epistemic consequentialism, and given this, does not condone the problematic trade-offs. His argument turns on distinguishing between treating degrees of belief as final ends and treating them as a basis for estimation.

scholarly journals Can All-Accuracy Accounts Justify Evidential Norms?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. G. Meacham
Keyword(s):  
Utility Theory ◽  
Utility Functions ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Degrees Of Belief ◽  
Epistemic Utility

Meacham takes aim at the epistemic utility theory picture of epistemic norms where epistemic utility functions measure the value of degrees of belief and where the norms encode ways of adopting non-dominated degrees of belief. He focuses on a particularly popular subclass of such views where epistemic utility is determined solely by the accuracy of degrees of belief. Meacham argues that these types of epistemic utility arguments for norms are (i) not compatible with each other (so not all can be correct), (ii) do not solely rely on accuracy considerations, and (iii) are not able to capture intuitive norms about how we ought to respond to evidence.

Epistemic value

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Greco ◽  
Luis Pinto de Sa
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Process Reliabilism ◽  
Mere True Belief

Epistemic value is a kind of value possessed by knowledge, and perhaps other epistemic goods such as justification and understanding. The problem of explaining the value of knowledge is perennial in philosophy, going back at least as far as Plato’s Meno. One formulation of the problem is to explain why and in what sense knowledge is valuable. Another version of the problem is to explain why and in what sense knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief or opinion. This article looks at various formulations of the value problem and various accounts of the value of knowledge in ancient and modern philosophy. The article then considers some contemporary discussions of the value problem, including the charge that reliabilist accounts cannot account for the value of knowledge over mere true belief. Various virtue-theoretic accounts of epistemic value are discussed as possible improvements over process reliabilism, and the epistemic value of understanding (as compared to knowledge) is considered.

The Truth Fairy and the Indirect Epistemic Consequentialist

2020 ◽  
pp. 344-360
Author(s):  
Daniel Y. Elstein ◽  
C.S.I. Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Epistemic Consequentialism

Friends of Wright-entitlement cannot appeal to direct epistemic consequentialism (believe or accept what maximizes expected epistemic value) in order to account for the epistemic rationality of accepting Wright-entitled propositions. The tenability of direct consequentialism is undermined by the “Truth Fairy”: a powerful being who offers you great epistemic reward (in terms of true beliefs) if you accept a proposition p for which you have evidence neither for nor against. However, this chapter argues that a form of indirect epistemic consequentialism seems promising as a way to deal with the Truth Fairy problem. The relevant form of indirect consequentialism accommodates evidentialism but allows for exceptions in the case of anti-sceptical hypotheses. Since these are the kind of propositions to which Wright-entitlement is supposed to apply—i.e. cornerstone propositions—indirect consequentialism is entitlement-friendly.

scholarly journals Virtue Perspectivism, Normativity, and the Unity of Knowledge

Daímon ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Modesto Gómez Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Epistemic Status ◽  
Personal Agency ◽  
Binding Problem ◽  
Unity Of Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Perspective

It will be argued that personal agency, far from lacking epistemic value, contributes to knowledge in a substantial way. To this end, it will be claimed that what Sosa calls an epistemic perspective is necessary to solve the binding problem in epistemology at the three junctures at which it can occur: as the Pyrrhonian question of whether one can rationally endorse one’s epistemic rationality; as the problem of the epistemic status of guessing; and as the enquiry into the contribution of the agential perspective for evading coincidental luck. Our aim has been that of elucidating and expanding Sosa’s virtue perspectivism.

scholarly journals JAMESIAN EPISTEMOLOGY FORMALISED: AN EXPLICATION OF ‘THE WILL TO BELIEVE’

Episteme ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Pettigrew
Keyword(s):  
Utility Theory ◽  
William James ◽  
Epistemic Utility ◽  
Full Belief ◽  
The Will ◽  
Suspension Of Judgment ◽  
Doxastic States

ABSTRACTFamously, William James held that there are two commandments that govern our epistemic life: Believe truth! Shun error! In this paper, I give a formal account of James' claim using the tools of epistemic utility theory. I begin by giving the account for categorical doxastic states – that is, full belief, full disbelief, and suspension of judgment. Then I will show how the account plays out for graded doxastic states – that is, credences. The latter part of the paper thus answers a question left open in Pettigrew (2014).

scholarly journals A Problem for Credal Consequentialism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Caie
Keyword(s):  
Utility Theory ◽  
Utility Functions ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Degrees Of Belief ◽  
Utility Values ◽  
Epistemic Utility ◽  
Trade Offs

Caie focuses on an epistemic utility theory picture of epistemic norms where epistemic utility functions measure the value of degrees of belief, and rationality consists in maximizing expected epistemic utility. Caie argues that in a wide variety of cases this view says that all degreed beliefs are rational, or none are, or it issues no verdicts. This is, roughly, because an agent’s degrees of beliefs will often not encode the appropriate dependence hypotheses that are needed so that various beliefs have expected epistemic utility values. Caie thus argues the unintuitive verdicts of epistemic utility theory are not limited to the byzantine examples of epistemic trade-offs, but are much more widespread.

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