A Combinatorial Argument against Practical Reasons for Belief

Analytic Philosophy 59 (4):427-470 (2018)
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Abstract

Are there practical reasons for and against belief? For example, do the practical benefits to oneself or others of holding a certain belief count in favor of that belief? I argue "No." My argument involves considering how practical reasons for belief, if there were such things, would combine with other reasons for belief in order to determine all-things-considered verdicts, especially in cases involving equally balanced reasons of either a practical or an epistemic sort.

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Selim Berker
Harvard University

Citations of this work

Can Pragmatists Be Moderate?Alex Worsnip - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (3):531-558.
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Pursuit and inquisitive reasons.Will Fleisher - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 94 (C):17-30.
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References found in this work

What we owe to each other.Thomas Scanlon - 1998 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
What We Owe to Each Other.Thomas Scanlon - 2002 - Mind 111 (442):323-354.
Why be rational.Niko Kolodny - 2005 - Mind 114 (455):509-563.
Why Suspend Judging?Jane Friedman - 2017 - Noûs 51 (2):302-326.

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