DOES BELIEF HAVE AN AIM

Abstract

The hypothesis that belief aims at the truth has been used to explain three features of belief: (1) the fact that correct beliefs are true beliefs, (2) the fact that rational beliefs are supported by the evidence and (3) the fact that we cannot form beliefs 'at will'. I argue that the truth-aim hypothesis cannot explain any of these facts. In this respect believing differs from guessing since the hypothesis that guessing aims at the truth can explain the three analogous features of guessing. I conclude that, unlike guessing, believing is not purposive in any interesting sense. Why ascribe an aim to belief? Those who ascribe an aim to belief hope to explain at least three features of belief. 1 First, beliefs are right or wrong, correct or incorrect. Call the basis of this form of normative assessment the standard of correct- ness governing belief. Many writers think we can explain this standard of correctness by supposing that belief has a goal which it is striving towards, or a function which it is seeking to discharge. A correct belief is one which attains its goal and discharges its function. Second, beliefs are rational or irrational, justified or unjusti- fied. These too are normative assessments - rational belief is good belief, irrational belief is bad belief - but they are, to this extent, independent of judgements of correctness: a correct belief can be irrational and an incorrect belief can be rational. Call the basis for this second form of doxastic assessment epistemic norms .M any writers have thought that the standard of correctness for belief and the epistemic norms governing the acquisition of belief are connected as follows: the standard of correctness for belief sets a goal and epistemic norms are instructions about how to reach that goal. 2 Making this connection simplifies our account of the normative assessment of belief. It also removes a worry which many people have about epistemic norms. We are familiar with instrumental or teleological norms from the case of action. The source of the