Downwards Propriety in Epistemic Utility Theory

Abstract

Abstract Epistemic utility theory is often identified with the project of axiology-first epistemology—the project of vindicating norms of epistemic rationality purely in terms of epistemic value. One of the central goals of axiology-first epistemology is to provide a justification of the central norm of Bayesian epistemology, Probabilism. The first part of this paper presents a new challenge to axiology-first epistemology: I argue that in order to justify Probabilism in purely axiological terms, proponents of axiology-first epistemology need to justify a much stronger claim about epistemic value—what I label ‘Downwards Propriety’—than any they have offered a justification for. The second part of this paper offers an argument that this challenge cannot be met given a purely accuracy-based account of epistemic value: that there is no hope for providing a purely axiological justification of Downwards Propriety if accuracy is the fundamental source of epistemic value.