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On the epistemic rationality and significance of self-fulfilling beliefs

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Abstract

Some propositions are not likely to be true overall, but are likely to be true if you believe them. Appealing to the platitude that belief aims at truth, it has become increasingly popular to defend the view that such propositions are epistemically rational to believe. However, I argue that this view runs into trouble when we consider the connection between what’s epistemically rational to believe and what’s practically rational to do. I conclude by discussing how rejecting the view bears on three other epistemological issues. First, we’re able to uncover a flaw in a common argument for permissivism. Second, we can generate a problem for prominent versions of epistemic consequentialism. Finally, we can better understand the connection between epistemic rationality and truth: epistemic rationality is a guide to true propositions rather than true beliefs.

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Notes

  1. For discussions of the thought that belief aims at truth, see Shah (2003), and Velleman (2000).

  2. Raleigh (2015, 2017), and Joyce (2007) argue that belief-fulfillable propositions are rational to believe, even when they’re improbable. Dahlback (forthcoming), Drake (2017), Kopec (2015), Peels (2015), Reisner (2007, 2013, 2015), and Velleman (1989) defend the view that belief-fulfillable propositions are rational to believe in cases where their probabilities are unspecified (rather than low). But the principles they employ imply that BFI propositions are rational to believe. Pettigrew (2018), Joyce (2018), and Caie (2013) endorse consequentialist versions of epistemic utility theory that imply that high credences in HCFI propositions are rational to have. Drake (2017), Foley (1991), Reisner (2007, 2013, 2015), Sharadin (2016), and Talbot (2014) all argue that a reason to believe that a proposition would be true if believed, is an epistemic reason to believe the given proposition. This view plausibly implies that if you have a great reason of this kind concerning an improbable proposition, then this proposition is epistemically rational for you to believe.

  3. See Joyce (2007, p. 558). For a similar defense, see Velleman (1989).

  4. For those who endorse views in a similar vein as ERIA, see: Dancy (2000), Fantl and McGrath (2002, 2009), Ganson (2008), Gibbons (2010), Kiesewetter (2011), Lord (2015), Mason (2013), Robertson (2011), Scanlon (2008), and Zimmerman (2008).

  5. That an action is rational to do, on the condition that a particular proposition is probably true, may differ from whether the action is rational simpliciter to do. It is rational for me to go to the emergency room, on the condition that I probably have appendicitis. But it is not rational simpliciter for me to go to the emergency room.

  6. See: Dancy (2000), Fantl and McGrath (2002, 2009), Ganson (2008), Gibbons (2010), Kiesewetter (2011), Lord (2015), Mason (2013), Robertson (2011), Scanlon (2008), and Zimmerman (2008). They all think that your epistemic position (rather than your beliefs) determines what you morally (or rationally) ought to do.

  7. See Fantl and McGrath (2002, p. 78). Ganson (2008) also finds this claim intuitively compelling. Fantl and McGrath make it clear that when they use “justified in believing that p,” they are talking about ex ante (rather than ex post) justification.

  8. See Brown (2008). For related counterexamples, see: Reed (2010), and Roeber (2018). Thanks to an anonymous referee for bringing up this worry for ERIA.

  9. While I won’t be discussing Roeber’s (2018, pp. 177–178) case due to space constraints, the explanation for why his case does not pose a problem for ERIA is the same: the expected utility of the relevant action on the condition that p is true is greater than the expected utility of the action on the condition that p is probably true.

  10. I’m thankful to an anonymous referee for pushing me to clarify why we should think that ERIA holds in general.

  11. The belief version will be used to bear on whether BFI propositions are rational to believe and the credence version will be used to bear on whether high credences in HCFI propositions are rational to have.

  12. See Parfit (2011), and Rinard (forthcoming) for endorsements of this view. Jackson (1991) and Ross (1939) are among those who (in terms of the moral (or deliberative) ‘ought’) accept analogues of Parfit’s view.

  13. For inspiration to use this case, see Arpaly and Schroeder (2014, pp. 72–73).

  14. I’m grateful to an anonymous referee for bringing up this concern about the relationship between ERIA and decision theory.

  15. Thanks to an anonymous referee for pushing me to clarify the argument from ERIA to the stronger conclusion.

  16. Kopec and Titelbaum (2016, p. 197), my emphasis. For similar arguments for intrapersonal belief-permissivism, see: Dahlbeck (forthcoming), Drake (2017), Kopec (2015), Peels (2015), Raleigh (2015, 2017), Reisner (2007, 2013, 2015), and Velleman (1989).

  17. See Berker (2013) for a discussion of the prominence of epistemic consequentialism among epistemologists.

  18. See Ahlstrom-Vij and Dunn (2018). For sympathizers of epistemic consequentialism, see: Ahlstrom-Vij and Dunn (2014), Caie (2013), Goldman (1986), Greaves (2013), Greaves and Wallace (2006), Joyce (2018), Konek and Levinstein (2019), Oddie (1997), Pettigrew (2018), and Singer (2018, 2019).

  19. For the most developed versions of epistemic utility theory and reliabilism, see Pettigrew (2016) and Goldman (1979), respectively.

  20. Those sympathetic with veritism include the following: Alston (2005), Bonjour (1985), Caie (2013), Foley (1993), Goldman (1999), Greaves (2013), Greaves and Wallace (2006), Konek and Levinstein (2019), and Pettigrew (2016, 2018).

  21. For a similar (informal) characterization of epistemic consequentialism, see Greaves (2013).

  22. Greaves (2013), Joyce (2018), Pettigrew (2018), and Raleigh (2017) embrace this verdict (in similar cases) due to their sympathies with epistemic consequentialism.

  23. The modest conclusion tells against versions of epistemic consequentialism endorsed by Caie (2013), Greaves (2013), Greaves and Wallace (2006), Joyce (2018), and Pettigrew (2018). That said, the modest conclusion doesn’t tell against versions of epistemic consequentialism that Konek and Levinstein (2019) and Carr (2017) are sympathetic with.

  24. See Bonjour (1985, pp. 7–8). For similar thoughts see: Cohen (1984), Conee (1992), Horowitz (2019), and Schoenfield (2015).

  25. For further discussion about using the direction of fit metaphor to distinguish practical rationality from epistemic rationality, see Konek and Levinstein (2019).

  26. Antill (2020) also thinks that the expression is ambiguous; it can be understood as saying that the aim of belief is acquiring true beliefs or it can be understood as saying that the aim of belief is believing what is true. With this ambiguity in mind, he argues that Velleman’s (1989) argument for (epistemic) permissivism is unsuccessful.

  27. Even according to truth-aimed epistemology, of course, epistemic rationality will typically guide you to true beliefs. But at a fundamental level, epistemic rationality aims at the (belief-independent) truth.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Nomy Arpaly, Zach Barnett, Jamie Dreier, Louis Gularte, Richard Pettigrew, Wes Siscoe, and an anonymous referee for Synthese. I’m especially grateful to David Christensen and Josh Schechter for their many helpful suggestions.

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    Chad Marxen

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Marxen, C. On the epistemic rationality and significance of self-fulfilling beliefs. Synthese 199, 4243–4260 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02977-6

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