Abstract
If a subject has a true belief, and she has good evidence for it, and there’s no evidence against it, why should it matter if she doesn’t believe on the basis of the good available evidence? After all, properly based beliefs are no likelier to be true than their corresponding improperly based beliefs, as long as the subject possesses the same good evidence in both cases. And yet it clearly does matter. The aim of this paper is to explain why, and in the process delineate a species of epistemic luck that has hitherto gone unnoticed—what we call propositional epistemic luck—but which we claim is crucial to accounting for the importance of proper basing. As we will see, in order to understand why this type of epistemic luck is malignant, we also need to reflect on the relationship between epistemic luck and epistemic risk.
Highlights
Helen’s roommate Joe has told her that he has bought ice cream and put it in the freezer
The aim of this paper is to explain why, and in the process delineate a species of epistemic luck that has hitherto gone unnoticed—what we call propositional epistemic luck—but which we claim is crucial to accounting for the importance of proper basing
There is no risk involved in rally driving, even though one is quite right to subjectively judge, given that one is unaware of the guardian angel, that it is high-risk. If we apply this distinction to epistemic risk, we find that veritic epistemic luck is in its nature always objectively epistemically risky, since it entails that the target risk event of a false belief is modally close
Summary
Helen’s roommate Joe has told her that he has bought ice cream and put it in the freezer. We can see that in the case of Helen that we encountered at the beginning of this paper, the modal account of luck entails that Helen’s possessing good reasons for her belief that there is ice cream in her freezer is lucky. Given this twist to the case, there aren’t any very close worlds in which Helen forms the belief that there is ice cream in the freezer, via her process of self-indoctrination, where there are no good reasons available for her belief Cases like this illustrate that subjects who have propositionally but not doxastically justified beliefs aren’t always lucky to have good reasons available, since one’s possession of good reasons must be at least somewhat modally fragile in order for it to be lucky that one possesses good reasons. Reasons for B, but where S holds B on the basis of R anyway. In such cases, it’s just lucky thatS has good reasons available for a belief which he would have held anyway
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
