Why There are No Epistemic Duties

Dialogue: The Canadian Philosophical Review 46 (1):115-136 (2007)
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Abstract

An epistemic duty would be a duty to believe, disbelieve, or withhold judgment from a proposition, and it would be grounded in purely evidential or epistemic considerations. If I promise to believe it is raining, my duty to believe is not epistemic. If my evidence is so good that, in light of it alone, I ought to believe it is raining, then my duty to believe supposedly is epistemic. I offer a new argument for the claim that there are no epistemic duties. Though people do sometimes have duties to believe, disbelieve, or withhold judgment from propositions, those duties are never grounded in purely epistemic considerations

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Chase Wrenn
University of Alabama

Citations of this work

No Exception for Belief.Susanna Rinard - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (1):121-143.
The Duty to Object.Jennifer Lackey - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (1):35-60.
Inferences and the Right to Privacy.Jakob Mainz - forthcoming - Journal of Value Inquiry:1-19.

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References found in this work

Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Mind and World.John McDowell - 1994 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Inquiries Into Truth And Interpretation.Donald Davidson - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.

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