Abstract
When it comes to epistemic normativity, should we take the good to be prior to the right? That is, should we ground facts about what we ought and ought not believe on a given occasion in facts about the value of being in certain cognitive states (such as, for example, the value of having true beliefs)? The overwhelming answer among contemporary epistemologists is “Yes, we should.” This essay argues to the contrary. Just as taking the good to be prior to the right in ethics often leads one to sanction implausible trade-offs when determining what an agent should do, so too, this essay argues, taking the good to be prior to the right in epistemology leads one to sanction implausible trade-offs when determining what a subject should believe. Epistemic value—and, by extension, epistemic goals—are not the explanatory foundation upon which all other normative notions in epistemology rest.
Highlights
As I see it, the most fundamental question in ethics is “What should I do?”1 The exact wording of this question can take different forms, depending on one’s normative vocabulary of choice (“What do I have most reason to do?,” “What is it rational for me to do?,” “What am I justified in doing?”)
What does the question mean? What would constitute an answer to it? How can we go about figuring out that answer? What would the objective status of such an answer be, were we able to find one? The other branch of ethics—normative ethics—offers substantive answers to our fundamental question, in its various guises
Sometimes these answers take the form of grand theories that distill should-be-done-ness down to a pristine set of necessary and sufficient conditions—the familiar conflicting “-isms” of introductory ethics courses
Summary
As I see it, the most fundamental question in ethics is “What should I do?”1 The exact wording of this question can take different forms, depending on one’s normative vocabulary of choice (“What do I have most reason to do?,” “What is it rational for me to do?,” “What am I justified in doing?”). The other branch of epistemology—normative epistemology, if you will—offers substantive answers to our fundamental question, in its various guises, resulting in the familiar conflicting “–isms” from introductory epistemology courses (Cartesian foundationalism, coherentism, reliabilism, and the like) This way of viewing epistemology is controversial. By thinking about the analogy between ethics and epistemology, we can at once see the degree to which this picture has some quite substantial normative assumptions built into it According to this picture, there are certain epistemic ends or goals that it is epistemically good for us to promote, and the question of what we should believe is determined by how well our believing conduces toward the fulfilling of those goals, or the furthering of those ends. Though, we should be a bit more precise about what, exactly, a consequentialist or teleological approach involves, whether in the case of ethics or epistemology
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