Performance normativity and here-and-now doxastic agency

Matthew Chrisman

doi:10.1007/s11229-017-1641-3

Abstract

Sosa famously argues that epistemic normativity is a species of “performance normativity,” comparing beliefs to archery shots. However, philosophers have traditionally conceived of beliefs as states, which means that they are not dynamic or telic like performances. A natural response to this tension is to argue that belief formation rather than belief itself is the proper target of epistemic normativity. This response is rejected here on grounds of the way it obscures the “here and now” exercise of cognitive agency that I view as central to any account of epistemic normativity and doxastic agency. Although the etiology of a belief can be relevant to its normative status, often so much more is relevant and more centrally so. This generates a dilemma for anyone following Sosa in pursuing the idea that epistemic normativity is a species of performance normativity.

Highlights

Genuine norms, many philosophers assume, are prescriptive in that they tell us primarily what we ought to do
A natural response to this tension is to argue that belief formation rather than belief itself is the proper target of epistemic normativity
If norms of action are the primary concern of ethics, maybe norms of belief should be the primary concern of epistemology

Summary

Introduction

Many philosophers assume, are prescriptive in that they tell us primarily what we ought to do. I suspect this issue of here-and- agency should be viewed as a challenge to develop a more sophisticated and plausible account of the cognitive doings connected to believing rather than as the source of a deep objection to the less revisionary way of addressing the tension between thinking of norms as prescriptive and thinking of epistemology as focused on norms of belief.3 The task of this short paper is not to address this challenge in any more detail but rather to develop a line of criticism of a prominent account of epistemic normativity that I think obscures the challenge in an unfortunate way. I think there is something right about this move, but below I will argue that resting our account of epistemic normativity on the performance norms that apply to belief-formation obscures the here-and- agency that I suggested above is so central to our doxastic lives (and so a proper centerpiece of any account of epistemic normativity)

Against performance normativity applied to belief itself

A problem with the refined performance view

Conclusion