Abstract
The normative force of evidence can seem puzzling. It seems that having conclusive evidence for a proposition does not, by itself, make it true that one ought to believe the proposition. But spelling out the condition that evidence must meet in order to provide us with genuine normative reasons for belief seems to lead us into a dilemma: the condition either fails to explain the normative significance of epistemic reasons or it renders the content of epistemic norms practical. The first aim of this paper is to spell out this challenge for the normativity of evidence. I argue that the challenge rests on a plausible assumption about the conceptual connection between normative reasons and blameworthiness. The second aim of the paper is to show how we can meet the challenge by spelling out a concept of epistemic blameworthiness. Drawing on recent accounts of doxastic responsibility and epistemic blame, I suggest that the normativity of evidence is revealed in our practice of suspending epistemic trust in response to impaired epistemic relationships. Recognizing suspension of trust as a form of epistemic blame allows us to make sense of a purely epistemic kind of normativity the existence of which has recently been called into doubt by certain versions of pragmatism and instrumentalism.
Highlights
Do epistemic norms provide us with normative reasons for compliance? Such norms tell us, very roughly, that we should believe what we have sufficient evidence for, and that we should refrain from believing what we lack sufficient evidence for
Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen and Mattias Skip‐ per argue “that evidence for p speaks in favor of believing p only in context where there is a practical reason to pursue the aim of coming to a true belief as to whether p” (2019, 9), and that “it is strictly speaking false to say that evidence by itself constitutes a normative reason for belief” (2020, 114)
For according to (1), it must merely be possible to be blameworthy for such non-compli‐ ance: there must be some possible cases in which we are blameworthy in virtue of the fact that we violate purely evidential norms in order for evidence to provide us with epistemic reasons for belief
Summary
Do epistemic norms provide us with normative reasons for compliance? Such norms tell us, very roughly, that we should believe what we have sufficient evidence for, and that we should refrain from believing what we lack sufficient evidence for. Purely evidential considerations—evidential considerations that are not pragmatic reasons—do not constitute reasons for belief” (2015, 219) To illustrate this view, consider a case in which you happen to. Pro‐ ponents of ANE argue that mere evidence does never provide us, by itself, with a (normative) reason for belief. Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen and Mattias Skip‐ per argue “that evidence for p speaks in favor of believing p only in context where there is a practical reason to pursue the aim of coming to a true belief as to whether p” (2019, 9), and that “it is strictly speaking false to say that evidence by itself constitutes a normative reason for belief” (2020, 114). Maguire and Woods (2020) have recently denied that purely epistemic norms provide us with rea‐ sons.. The paper shifts the dialectical burden to proponents of ANE and connects debates within contemporary epistemology
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