There are no epistemic norms of inquiry

Abstract

Abstract An objection to the reason-responsive consequentialist view is that it answers the wrong question: the view is an account of rationality simpliciter, not epistemic rationality. In this chapter, I argue that the same grounds which led us to posit a distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic norms of belief should make us skeptical of the existence of a distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic norms of inquiry. In the case of belief, we may have good grounds to hold that all reasons for belief are epistemic; that ordinary language tracks a distinct type of epistemic rationality; or that the notion of epistemic rationality is needed to play key theoretical roles associated with the concept of rationality. But none of these arguments generalize to motivate the existence of a distinctively epistemic type of rational inquiry, and in fact, I argue, several of these arguments tell against the existence of epistemic norms governing inquiry. I conclude by sketching an alternative Gibbardian picture of inquiry on which rational inquiry is an all-things-considered affair.