Conceptual engineering for epistemic norms

Abstract

ABSTRACTWhat makes an epistemic norm distinctively epistemic? According to the received view in the literature, if a norm N regulates the epistemic properties required for permissibly phi-ing, then N is an epistemic norm.This paper is involved in conceptual engineering. It has two aims: first, it argues that the received view should be abandoned, in that it fails to identify epistemic and only epistemic requirements, and it misses fit with the general normative landscape. At the same time, I argue, the failure of the received view is no reason for skepticism about ‘the epistemic’ as a sui generis normative domain.This paper’s second and central aim is an ameliorative aim: it proposes a novel approach to individuating epistemic norms. In a nutshell, according to the ameliorative proposal I will develop here, epistemic norms are to be individuated by their association with distinctively epistemic values.