Volume 75, Issue 2, September 2007
Adam Leite
Pages 456-464
Epistemic Instrumentalism and Reasons for Belief
A Reply to Tom Kelly’s “Epistemic Rationality as Instrumental Rationality: A Critique”
Tom Kelly argues that instrumentalist aeeounts of epistemie rationality fail beeause what a person has reason to believe does not depend upon the eontent of his or her goals. However, his argument fails to distinguish questions about what the evidence supports from questions about what a person ought to believe. Once these are distinguished, the instrumentalist ean avoid Kelly’s objeetions. The paper
concludes by sketehing what I take to be the most defensible version of the instrumentalist view.