The End of Epistemology As We Know It 0197743633, 9780197743638

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The End of Epistemology As We Know It

The End of Epistemology As We Know It B R IA N TA L B O T

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Brian Talbot 2024 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Talbot, Brian, author. Title: The end of epistemology as we know it / Brian Talbot. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2024] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Contents: The importance of epistemic norms demands an explanation—Consequentialist vindication—Responding to some fundamental objections—Respect-based vindication—Epistemic norms and action—Social vindication—Tying up loose ends—Speculation about replacement epistemic norms. Identifiers: LCCN 2023033740 | ISBN 9780197743638 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197743645 (epub) | ISBN 9780197743652 Subjects: LCSH: Knowledge, Theory of. Classification: LCC BD 161 . A 48 2024 | DDC 121—dc 23/eng/20231031 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023033740 DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197743638.001.0001 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

Contents Preface 

ix

1. The importance of epistemic norms demands an explanation  1.1. Introduction  1.2. The epistemic norms should matter or be replaced  1.3. Does anything really matter?  1.4. Calls for vindications of epistemic norms 

1 1 3 8 11



1.5. Wrap-​up 

31



1.6. A taste of what is to come 

35

2. Consequentialist vindication  2.1. Introduction 

39 39



46 50



1.4.1. Pointless beliefs  1.4.2. Mundane beliefs  1.4.3. Do mundane beliefs really raise questions?  1.4.4. Interesting beliefs  1.4.5. Conflicts and trade-​offs 



1.5.1. Roadmap and how to read the rest of the book 



2.1.1. Clarifying consequentialism 

2.2. Trade-​offs  2.3. Against maximization 

2.3.1. Satisficing  2.3.1.1. Implications of satisficing consequentialism for epistemology  2.3.1.2. Arguments against satisficing  2.3.2. Scalar consequentialism 



2.4. Summary thus far  2.5. Indirect vindications  2.6. No full vindication of standard norms  2.7. Partial vindication?  2.8. Conclusion  Appendix 

14 18 21 25 27 33

41 52 57 62 66

70 71 75 77 81 82

vi Contents

3. Responding to some fundamental objections  3.1. Introduction  3.2. This is not really epistemology, version 1  3.3. This is not really epistemology, version 2  3.4. Our abilities, or lack thereof 



3.4.1. Doxastic involuntarism  3.4.2. The inability to make trade-​offs  3.4.3. Guidance and norms 

3.5. Metaphysics  3.6. Conclusion 

85 85 86 89 97

97 99 105

106 110

4. Respect-​based vindication  4.1. Introduction  4.2. What is the deontological vindication of norms?  4.3. Respecting mundane beliefs 

112 112 114 120



127



4.3.1. Can’t we find some other account of respect? 



4.4.1. First argument for trade-​offs: Differential importance of beliefs  4.4.2. Second argument for trade-​offs: Beliefs of equal importance  4.4.3. Third argument for trade-​offs: Aggregation  4.4.4. Objection 

4.4. Trade-​offs 





4.5. Conclusion 

124 128 129 132 135

139

5. Epistemic norms and action  5.1. Introduction 

141 141



5.2. Trade-​offs  5.3. Irrelevance to action and Tendency  5.4. Status  5.5. Emotion and belief  5.6. Suboptimal action and suboptimal belief  5.7. Conclusion 

146 155 158 168 171 178

6. Social vindication  6.1. Introduction  6.2. Social vindication unpacked  6.3. Social vindication and nonstandard norms 

179 179 180 184





5.1.1. Examples and specifications of Status and Tendency 

6.3.1. Trade-​offs  6.3.2. Laxer epistemic norms 

143

185 189

Contents  vii

6.4. Interpersonal disagreement and the possibility of error  191 6.5. Social vindication and deviation  193



6.6. Conclusion 

6.5.1. The Razian account  6.5.2. Consent and fairness  6.5.2.1. Consent  6.5.2.2. Fairness  6.5.2.3. Summary 

198 200 200 203 206

208

7. Tying up loose ends  7.1. Introduction  7.2. The master challenge 

209 209 210



7.3. Constitutive norms of belief 

216



7.4. Brute importance 

223



7.2.1. Virtue epistemology and nonstandard norms 



7.3.1. The problem with constitutivism 

210 218

8. Speculation about replacement epistemic norms  8.1. Introduction  8.2. How to vindicate epistemic norms  8.3. Epistemic norms on mundane beliefs  8.4. The epistemic good  8.5. Interesting beliefs  8.6. Replacing knowledge  8.7. Pointless beliefs  8.8. Disagreements with other norms  8.9. Conclusion 

228 228 228 231 234 237 239 241 241 244

References  Index 

247 257

Preface Over a decade ago I taught a seminar on epistemic value and normativity. From that seminar came a paper on one of the ideas that ended up in this book. Things would probably have ended there if Clayton Littlejohn hadn’t written a response to my paper. In thinking about his response, I started seeing that there were deeper and more general things to say. So I wrote another paper. That got rejected by every top-​10 journal that would consider long submissions (some of them rejected it twice). But the referee comments were generally encouraging and helpful. With each rejection, my ideas got bigger and the arguments better, but it also got harder and harder to squeeze things into a reasonable length paper. Julia Staffel told me to write a book instead, and if you know her you know that her advice is always good. I applied for grants to fund writing the book and Richard Pettigrew generously agreed to write letters of support. I didn’t get any of those grants, and I was still (to be honest) iffy about the project, but Richard and Julia’s encouragement made me think that I should do it. Without Clayton, Julia, and Richard, the book would not exist in any form. I owe massive thanks to those who read drafts of this for my book workshop: Clayton Littlejohn, Errol Lord, Jack Woods, Sinan Dogramaci, Alastair Norcross, Bob Pasnau, Chris Heathwood, Matthias Steup, and Mike Huemer. I got terrific advice, feedback, and encouragement from them. Thank you also to the members of writing groups I’ve belonged to: Heather Demarest, Caleb Perl, Rob Rupert, Raul Saucedo, and Julia Staffel. I’ve talked about this stuff to probably every philosopher I’ve known for the last decade, and I can’t remember most of who else I should thank, but some that come to mind that I haven’t already mentioned are Eric Wiland, Daniel Taub, Kathryn Lindeman, Joe Salerno, Ben Levinstein, Dmitri Gallow, Ted Shear, Jennifer Carr, Jason Raibley, and Colin Elliot. Thank you to audiences at the University of Victoria, University of Colorado Boulder, the APA,

x Preface the Formal Epistemology Workshop, the Orange Beach Epistemology Workshop, and the St. Louis University Epistemology Workshop. I owe a massive thanks to the University of Colorado Boulder philosophy department in general for their belief in me as a researcher. Thank you to Peter Ohlin at Oxford University Press; his interest in the book helped keep me going. Thank you to my mom, Ada, Ivan, and Tony Barbata for nonphilosophy help along the way. I could not have written this book without Julia Staffel. She has always been a thoughtful, generous, supportive, reasonable, and understanding partner. I’ve benefited greatly from her example of how to be a good philosopher. And she patiently and helpfully talked with me about almost every single thing in here and lots of stuff that I cut. Thanks also to myself. At no point has any of this been easy, and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. I believe everything I assert in this book and I believe the conjunction of all of it, too.

1

The importance of epistemic norms demands an explanation 1.1.  Introduction The epistemic norms should matter. The ones philosophers typically focus on do not matter enough. So we should replace them. While the replacement norms will agree to some significant extent with more standard epistemic norms, they will vary quite significantly as well. They will permit us to form some seemingly bad beliefs—​beliefs that violate all standard norms by going against our evidence, being incoherent, or even being clearly false—​in order to improve other beliefs. In fact, they will sometimes allow our beliefs to be bad for no reason whatsoever. That paragraph summarizes the project of this book. What does it mean? First, what are epistemic norms? Answering this is complicated by the fact that there is no uncontroversial characterization of the epistemic and by my goal to engage with a wide variety of views. For that reason, I’ll sketch the extension of what I am talking about rather than try to give a definition that all epistemic norms fit. This is only a sketch; anything that looks enough like the examples I’m giving here is probably an epistemic norm as well. Perhaps the most traditional characterization of epistemology is as the study of knowledge. I don’t think that’s how we should think about it, as you’ll eventually see, but it’s a good place to start. Knowledge is one possible epistemic norm—​we might think that our beliefs should be knowledge, or that knowledge is that standard against which we should measure our beliefs. Knowing that p traditionally requires that one’s belief that p be justified. The standards for justification are also epistemic norms. Sometimes philosophers talk about beliefs being warranted rather than justified, or about beliefs The End of Epistemology As We Know It. Brian Talbot, Oxford University Press. © Brian Talbot 2024. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197743638.003.0001

2  The End of Epistemology As We Know It being rational, or theoretically rational (to differentiate these norms from those of practical rationality). These are also epistemic norms. Epistemic norms may have to do with the pursuit of truth, or accuracy, or knowledge, or wisdom, or understanding. Epistemic norms may say that our beliefs should fit the evidence, be coherent with one another, or be reliably formed. The epistemic norms can be norms on full, all-​or-​nothing belief, but they can also be norms on degrees of belief or credences: the norms discussed in the literature on Bayesian rationality—​ norms of probabilism and conditionalization, for example—​are epistemic norms. My goal is to argue that epistemic norms as they are standardly understood by philosophers in the analytic tradition should be jettisoned and replaced with different norms. I’ll call the norms I’m arguing against standard epistemic norms. The standard epistemic norms are not universally endorsed by analytic epistemologists, of course. This book, and my path to this book, was influenced by Michael Bishop and J. D. Trout (2004), Sally Haslanger (1999), Stephen Stich (1990), Jonathan Weinberg (2006), and others who have criticized or rejected standard epistemic norms. But there is a pervasive mainstream set of views in traditional and formal epistemology that I am arguing with. It will be clearer what these are by the end of this chapter, and I’ll also say more about this in later chapters as well. But, briefly, the standard epistemic norms include the intuitive ones; norms centered on truth, accuracy, or knowledge; and norms requiring that our beliefs fit our evidence, are coherent, or are reliably formed. I focus on norms as discussed by analytic philosophers because I was trained in analytic philosophy, and it was hard enough to write a book arguing against the majority of analytic epistemologists. But there are good reasons to think that my arguments have wider scope than that. There’s evidence that the concept of knowledge is more or less culturally universal and that this almost universal concept looks a lot like the concept discussed by analytic epistemologists (for some overviews, see Boyd & Nagel 2014, Machery 2017). I may very well be arguing against an almost universal concept, then. What do I mean when I say that epistemic norms should matter and that norms that do not matter enough should be replaced? I’ll discuss this in the next two sections of this chapter.

The importance of epistemic norms  3

1.2.  The epistemic norms should matter or be replaced I’ll be talking about mattering a lot, and so I need some synonyms or this book will be tedious to read. I’ll interchangeably talk about mattering and importance, about what matters and what is important, and about how much things matter and how important they are. When I talk about what matters, or what is important, I am using these terms stipulatively to refer to something familiar to all of us, that we think about very often in our ordinary lives, and that is discussed in a variety of ways throughout philosophy. Let’s start with some illustrative examples that don’t involve epistemic norms. Every game has rules, and these rules are norms. Let’s think about a bad game—​Chutes and Ladders (Snakes and Ladders to those outside the United States. If you aren’t familiar with this game, in it there are no choices for any player to make or any way for a player to influence the outcome of the game. Typically, nothing turns on the outcome at all. There are plenty of other examples of games like this, such as War or Candyland; you can pick the one you like the least. People can sometimes have good reasons to play such games, typically to amuse young children. But people can also play games like this for no good reason. Let’s imagine that that’s what Abi and Bela are doing. Further, they recognize this and have no interest in the game or its outcome (this is like something out of an absurdist play, but it’s not hard to imagine). It’s Abi’s turn, and she rolls a 6, meaning that, according to the rules of game, she must move six spaces. An alien comes up to Abi and says, “I will murder a random innocent human being unless you move five spaces instead of six.” What should Abi do? Morally, she should move five spaces. According to the rules of the game, however, she should move six spaces. If Abi asked us for advice, we could point out both of these facts. Once she knows what morality and the rules of the game both say, though, she can still ask us, “Yes, but what should I do?” At this point she’d be asking, “Which of these norms should I conform to?” We can give a trivial sort of answer to her question: morally she should do what the moral norms say and, according to the rules of Chutes and Ladders, she should do what the game’s rules say. I call these answers “trivial” because it’s trivial that, according to norms of type x, you ought

4  The End of Epistemology As We Know It to do what norms of type x say. Making these trivial points wouldn’t be really answering Abi’s question. It’s meant to be a substantive question, although in this case it is not a hard one to answer: there’s a nontrivial sense in which she should move five spaces. (This may raise red flags for some philosophers, and I’ll address those concerns in section 1.3; for now, those philosophers should at least be able to recognize that I haven’t said anything surprising, and that this is a very ordinary notion that I’m employing.) In my terminology, the requirements of morality in this case matter more than the rules of this game. (I say “in this case,” but I suspect that’s universally so.) The example need not involve morality. The alien might have said, “Move five spaces or I’ll punch you really hard.” If that were the case, the norms of prudence would be in conflict with the norms of the game. Again, Abi should move five spaces rather than six, because prudence matters more than the norms of this game (in this case). Nor must the example involve rules of games. We can find conflicts between all sorts of norms—​law, prudence, morality, etiquette, religious norms, linguistic rules, and aesthetic norms can each potentially disagree with the other. When they do, we may know what each type of norm says to do but still quite sensibly wonder, “What should I do?” To answer this question substantively, we must determine which particular norm in the particular situation matters more. The Chutes and Ladders example is an extreme case because the norms of this game in this case don’t matter at all. To see what I mean, imagine that Abi rolls six, and then moves five spaces knowingly but for no reason whatsoever. Bela notices and says, “You broke the rules.” Abi says, “So what?” And Bela replies, “You’re right, who cares!” If Abi and Bela are truly playing this bad game for no good reason and have no interest in the outcome, their reactions to the rule violations are completely appropriate. That’s because these rules in this case don’t matter at all. We can imagine cases in which these rules do matter: if one were playing with a child and were trying to model how to follow rules in general, or the child really cared about the game, then rule following might matter; or if one placed a bet on the outcome, the rules might also matter. But in this case they do not matter at all. Whether or not we agree about Chutes and Ladders, we can recognize that some norms don’t matter at all, that the appropriate response

The importance of epistemic norms  5 to some norm violations is to shrug and say, “So what?” Once we see that, we can distinguish questions about importance or mattering from other questions that may sound similar. For one: we might wonder what makes x better or worse according to some type of norms. We see this in some discussions about the value of knowledge—​some of these focus on why knowledge is epistemically more valuable than true belief that falls short of knowledge. These discussions focus on a type of value that is within the epistemic norms. Discussions of within-​norms value are not the same as discussions of what matters, since if the relevant norms don’t matter, then showing that something is better or worse within those norms does not show that that thing matters more or less. We must also distinguish investigation of what matters from investigations of what norms govern which activities. To illustrate: my beliefs can be epistemically justified or unjustified, but my hopes cannot be. One might wonder why that is, why epistemic norms govern or apply to beliefs but not hopes. There’s also discussion in epistemology about whether practical norms apply to or govern beliefs (e.g., Rinard 2019), or about whether epistemic norms only apply to beliefs, or also to actions (e.g., Friedman 2020 discusses whether norms of inquiry are epistemic norms). Relatedly, there are debates about whether or why epistemic norms are categorical—​why they apply (if they do) to our beliefs regardless of our goals or interests (e.g., Kelley 2003). These are questions about when, whether, and why norms govern some things and not others. The question about what epistemic norms do and do not govern is an important one if the epistemic norms are important. But showing that some norms do govern some activity is not the same as showing that these norms matter. That’s because, as the Chutes and Ladders example illustrates, it can be unambiguous that norms do apply to a person at a time but this needn’t mean that conforming to or violating those norms matters at all. The Chutes and Ladders examples illustrate two aspects of importance. These are central to everything I’m going to say for the rest of the book. • When a particular norm that matters more conflicts with a norm that matters less, there is a nontrivial sense in which one ought to comply with the one that matters more.

6  The End of Epistemology As We Know It • When one gratuitously violates a norm—​ violates it for no reason—​the seriousness of the violation, how truly wrong it is, is proportionate to how much the norm matters. The less a norm matters, the more appropriate it is to shrug off gratuitous violations of that norm. To clarify what I mean by “truly wrong,” compare a woman going outside without a corset with lying to one’s spouse. The former might be (let’s imagine) the worst thing one can do from the perspective of Victorian etiquette, and the latter is not the worst thing one can do from the perspective of morality. But the latter still matters more than the former, because it is more truly wrong to violate it. Another crucial point: importance is really a property of specific instances of norms. To illustrate, it is plausible that linguistic norms matter to some extent. We need widespread conformity with these norms in order to keep communication efficient and even possible. The extent to which these norms matters plausibly varies from situation to situation. It is, perhaps, relatively significant that an elementary school teacher speaks properly when in front of their students. But I constantly break linguistic rules when talking in private to my cats; this doesn’t matter at all. I take it that I’ve identified something we are all familiar with, although something that there is not a fully conventional vocabulary for talking about. That lack of vocabulary is why I’m stipulating that I will use “matters” or “important” to refer to this phenomenon. We see discussion of what matters throughout ordinary life. It is not uncommon for people to agree about what is or is not polite, but to disagree about whether they should be polite in a given situation. Similarly, we regularly see disagreements about the importance of grammar or other linguistic rules—​not only about what these rules require (or whether the rules have changed), but also about the significance of violations of grammatical norms. For example, when I was younger, there was a lot of social discussion about what was at the time called “Ebonics” or “African American Vernacular English.” Often all parties to these discussions agreed that a particular Ebonics speaker had violated the linguistic norms of so-​called standard

The importance of epistemic norms  7 American English, and were arguing about what the import of that was, or if it had any at all. More recently, there’s been significant social discussion about the importance of specific laws such as mask mandates during the COVID epidemic. Often, those opposed to mask mandates agree that the rules do require them, but are debating the relative importance of those rules. Now we can see why I say that epistemic norms should matter. If epistemic norms don’t matter at all, then the right reaction to violations of epistemic norms is always, “So what?” Epistemologists, and real people too, spend a lot of time and effort thinking about whether beliefs do or do not conform to epistemic norms. That doesn’t make sense if they don’t take those norms to matter at least somewhat. Even if the epistemic norms we standardly employ do matter somewhat, if there are competing norms that systematically matter more, then we should systematically violate the standard epistemic norms. That follows from what it means for one norm to matter more than another. If this were systematic enough, then in effect we should entirely ignore standard epistemic norms and just follow these competing norms. That’s how I’m going to argue that the epistemic norms should be replaced—​I’m going to show that there are competing norms that systematically matter more. These new, better norms won’t disagree with more standard epistemic norms about every case. Sometimes it does matter that we are correct, coherent, reliable, and so forth. But (as it turns out) quite often it matters more that we are not. To argue that standard epistemic norms systematically don’t matter as much as some competing norms, I am going to consider a series of explanations for why epistemic norms matter (in ­chapters 2, 4, 5, and 6). For each, I’ll argue that that explanation actually tells us to replace the standard norms with some nonstandard ones. This approach makes sense if we think that the importance of epistemic norms demands an explanation. I’ll spend most of the rest of this chapter arguing that it does. But first I need to discuss a question/​concern that will be pressing for some of my readers: does anything really matter? It may seem that everything I say turns on that question, so I had better address that before I talk about anything else.

8  The End of Epistemology As We Know It

1.3.  Does anything really matter? Some think that nothing really matters. Those who think this can agree that some acts are morally right or wrong, legally right or wrong, prudentially right or wrong, etc. But they think that, when these different norms conflict, there’s nothing substantive to say about what we should do. We can give trivial answers: morally, we should do the moral thing; legally, we should do the legal thing; prudentially, we should do the prudent thing; but there’s nothing else to be said beyond these. On this view, if the rules of Chutes and Ladders conflict with our moral duties, then morality says we should break those rules and the rules say we should violate our moral duties, and there’s nothing more to be said. To illustrate the view I have in mind, consider this quote from Richard Feldman: I take it that when people say things such as “Moral oughts trump epistemic oughts” they are not saying that the moral weight of epistemic oughts is less than the moral weight of other moral considerations. I believe that what they are saying is that there is some sort of generic ought that somehow encompasses moral considerations, epistemic considerations, and perhaps others, and then weighs them against one another to come up with an overall assessment. This is not any particular kind of ought. It is just plain ought. . . . It’s this [the just plain ought] that I just don’t understand. Of course, by this I mean to suggest that no one else understands it either. It makes no sense. (Feldman 2000, 692)

Feldman’s “just plain ought” is the sort of thing I’m getting at when I talk about what matters. David Copp expresses a similar view in different words: I will be defending the position that neither morality nor self-​interest [nor any other type of norm] overrides the other, that there are simply verdicts and reasons of these different kinds, and that there is never an overall verdict as to which action is required simpliciter. . . . [I]‌n cases of conflicts between kinds of reasons, there is no fact as to what a person ought simpliciter to do. (Copp 1997, 86–​87)

The importance of epistemic norms  9 Again, the ought simpliciter is the sort of thing I am talking about when I say that, in a nontrivial sense, we should break the rules of Chutes and Ladders and instead do our moral duty. If you think that some norms really do matter more than others, you can read this book as I’ve written it. If, on the other hand, you agree with these authors that nothing really matters, you can read the book almost as I’ve written it but just with some minor changes. Because of this, I don’t need to argue against those who think that nothing really matters. Even if nothing really matters, things matter to us (or to you, to me, to my neighbor, etc.). And that’s all this book needs. Let me explain what I’m talking about and why that’s enough for my purposes. You may have children. If you don’t, you may have met someone with children; put yourself in their shoes. You love your children. But you also know other children, and you recognize that, if those other children had been your children, in most cases you would have loved them just as much as you love your actual children. And they would deserve that love from you just as much as your actual children do. In fact, there’s nothing overall objectively better or more lovable about your children than at least some other children. But you still love your children and not those other children. And that love is a vital and central component of your life. Crucially, your love for your children can survive your recognition of everything I say in this paragraph and continue to be just as vital and central a component of your life. This is much like how importance works if nothing really matters. What do I mean? Assume nothing really matters. For each of us, there are still things that matter to us. These play a crucial and central part in our lives—​in how we think about the world, in how we feel, and in how we choose to plan and act. There may be reasons why these things matter to us in the causal sense of “reasons.” But for some fundamental set of things that matter to us, there’s no reason for them to matter in any nontrivial normative sense: there’s nothing nontrivial to be said in favor of these things, rather than some other things, mattering to us. (Focus on the things that fundamentally matter, because some things matter derivatively—​they matter because of their connection to something else that matters) We can be perfectly aware of that, as I take Feldman and Copp to be, and still these things can continue to matter to us and shape our lives and concerns.

10  The End of Epistemology As We Know It What exactly is involved in something mattering to us? I don’t have a view on this. It may have to do with the connection between what matters to us and our motivations (Street 2017). This is reminiscent of work on reasons internalism, the idea that for something to be a normative reason for A, that thing must be suitably connected to what motivates A. But one can think that mattering has to do with motivation without thinking that reasons have to do with motivation. One can think, for example, that agents can have reasons that don’t motivate them, but these reasons wouldn’t matter to those agents. Mattering may be connected instead to our desires, or perhaps to our commitments or projects (e.g., Woods 2018, Maguire & Woods 2020). I’m not going to take a stand on this. It’s enough to say that, if nothing really matters, and if a norm violation doesn’t matter at all to person A (even derivatively), then the appropriate reaction on A’s part to that violation is to shrug and say, “So what?” That doesn’t mean that others should shrug off A’s violation—​sometimes norms that govern A’s behavior will matter to B but not A. If two norms conflict, then A should, in some appropriately subjective/​personalized sense of “should,” conform to the norm that matters more to A. Again, this doesn’t require that others approve of this or advise A to do so, as it may matter more to them that A conform to the other norm. This subjective reading of “matters” should immediately raise concerns. Who cares about this subjective notion? I suspect that, if this is genuinely your concern, then you really think some things do really matter. That’s fine by me—​all of the core arguments in the book work on either the objective or subjective reading of “matters.” But if you genuinely do think nothing really matters and are still asking, “Who cares?” about the subjective notion of importance, my answer is, “You care.” I am going to try to convince you in this book that the standard epistemic norms don’t matter to you, and that they can be replaced with norms that do matter to you, and that you think they should be so replaced (in the suitably subjective/​personal version of “should”). And, since I’m talking about what matters to you, this is going to be tied into what you care about, are motived by, desire, are committed to, etc. That is, my arguments are going to be tied into what is central and crucial to shaping your life in a way you identify with. If there is nothing that really matters in the objective sense, what more could you want out of

The importance of epistemic norms  11 an argument about norms? But I do have more to offer. Because I will show that, quite generally, the epistemic norms don’t matter to us as a group, or to (for the most part) each of us individually. And so this book is not just an idiosyncratic project about my personal interests or your personal interests, but reflects something more general and shared about what matters to most of us. Another concern about the subjective notion of importance is that we can’t engage in rational debates about it. If the standard epistemic norms do matter to you, how can I change your mind? We don’t really need to worry about this, however. It’s a familiar cliché about romantic relationships that a person will sometimes think they love so and so, but in actuality they love their idea of so and so, and not so and so themselves. Or sometimes A has genuine feelings for B, but B doesn’t merit those feelings by A’s own lights; A is overlooking things that A themselves considers dealbreakers. When we argue with someone about their romantic feelings, we try to show that they don’t have the feelings they think they have, or that those feelings are misplaced by their own lights. We can do just the same thing with regard to subjective importance. In that vein, this book can be read as arguing: “Here are a bunch of reasons why you thought standard epistemic norms mattered to you. But standard epistemic norms don’t have the features that make them matter in this way. Once you see the standard epistemic norms as they truly are, you’ll see either that they never actually mattered to you, or by your own lights they shouldn’t have.” For the rest of this book, when I talk about what matters or what is important, you can read this either objectively or subjectively. This won’t make any difference to the arguments I’m making, and I will largely not differentiate between these two readings.

1.4.  Calls for vindications of epistemic norms I am going to argue for the replacement of standard epistemic norms by nonstandard ones. To argue for this, I am going to consider a series of different explanations for why the epistemic norms matter, and for each I’ll show that some nonstandard norms matter more according to it. I will sometimes call these vindications of epistemic norms, and the

12  The End of Epistemology As We Know It norms that end up mattering (most) according to these explanations will be vindicated by them. This approach requires us to think that the importance of epistemic norms needs an explanation. Why should we think that? Arguing for that is the task of the rest of this chapter. Along the way, I’ll cover concepts that will play crucial roles throughout the book. The call for an explanation of the importance of epistemic norms has a long history. We see it, for example, in Plato’s Meno:1 Socrates. If a man knew the way to Larisa, or anywhere else, and went to the place and led others thither, would he not be a right and good guide? Meno. Certainly. Soc. And a person who had a right opinion about the way, but had never been and did not know, might be a good guide also, might he not? Men. Certainly. ... Soc. Then right opinion is not a whit inferior to knowledge, or less useful in action; nor is the man who has right opinion inferior to him who has knowledge? Here, Socrates raises a puzzle that he then tries to solve: how is that knowledge is better than mere true belief, when both (at first glance) seem to be equally good guides to action? This is really a question about the importance of knowledge, both as a guide to action and as relevant to virtue. Variants of this puzzle have received a great deal of attention in contemporary philosophy, with a number of philosophers trying to explain why knowledge matters more than doxastic states falling short of knowledge (e.g., Zagzebski 2003, Kvanvig 2003). Importantly, these philosophers start with the thought that knowledge does matter more; for many, this is a puzzle, and worthy of writing on, because it’s hard to explain why. If the importance of epistemic norms did not demand an explanation, we could simply just say that knowledge is more important and call it a day.2 Going beyond the Meno problem, a great many 1 Text from http://​class​ics.mit.edu/​Plato/​meno.html, translation by Benjamin Jowett. 2 What I say in this text does not apply to all discussions of the so-​called Meno problem. Some think that it’s a problem just for certain views of the nature of knowledge,

The importance of epistemic norms  13 epistemologists have taken on the task of vindicating epistemic norms, or have taken some particular vindication as the foundation of their account of what the epistemic norms are. We’ll see this throughout the rest of the book—​when I talk about different explanations for why the norms matter, I’ll give examples of philosophers who have endorsed those explanations. This again suggests that epistemic norms need vindication. My own thinking about the importance of the epistemic norms started from thinking about and teaching the Meno problem. And, as we’ll see, I have some concerns that resemble Socrates’ concerns in the Meno—​that it is hard to explain why knowledge, or any other standard epistemic good, matters since we don’t seem to really need it for practical purposes. But the Meno worries don’t capture other crucial ways in which the importance of standard epistemic norms demands explanation. To point to where we are going to go in what follows, I’ll use a different bit of dialog, which are a sort of parable about the standard epistemic norms:3 A: I love books! B: Really, what’s your favorite? A: Oh, I don’t have a favorite. I love Windows 95 for Dummies just as much as The Brothers Karamazov. Upon hearing this response, B should wonder if A really loves books. And, if A does, is this really the right way to love books—​is this the sort of love for books that really matters? Even when A loves the right books, such as The Brothers Karamazov, B should wonder if A really loves them in the right way. As we will see, the standard epistemic norms are a lot like A in this parable. Inasmuch as the truth or other epistemic goods do seem to matter sometimes, the standard epistemic norms have a bizarre and so they need not think that the importance of knowledge generally needs an explanation. Others think it is just a problem about why knowledge is more epistemically valuable than mere true belief and that it need not be about importance (Sosa 2007, Pritchard 2011).

3

My thanks to Daniel Taub for this parable.

14  The End of Epistemology As We Know It relationship to them. The epistemic norms don’t seem to care about what is really important about belief, just as A doesn’t seem to really care about what matters about books. In light of this, we should wonder: why do these norms matter? Even when the standard norms do look good in particular cases, their worrisome features should make us wonder: are they really good norms, or do they just happen to overlap with the norms that truly matter? Nothing I am about to say in the rest of this chapter definitively shows that the standard epistemic norms don’t matter. But, in light of what I am about to discuss, if one were to claim that they did matter, this claim would demand an explanation. The discussion to follow is supposed to raise questions about the importance of all standard epistemic norms. As noted above, that’s supposed to cover a large range of theories, and it would be tedious to discuss each specifically. But one feature that all standard epistemic norms have in common is that they forbid believing things that are obviously false. We can spell this out in a few different ways, but the rough idea is that if there is clear evidence that p is false starting A right in the face, all standard theories forbid believing p. That’s in the nature of evidentialist sort of theories, but we see this in nonevidentialist theories as well. For example, reliabilists would say that the evidence that p is false defeats whatever justification A’s belief that p would have even if it is formed by an otherwise reliable process. This thought that standard epistemic norms forbid believing obvious falsehoods gives us a simple, central idea that we can use to call the importance of these norms into question.

1.4.1.  Pointless beliefs Some beliefs are pointless (I’ll be using this word throughout the book to refer to this phenomenon). This is a widely discussed phenomenon, although under a few different names. Here are some examples of allegedly pointless beliefs: • Beliefs about the number of grains in a random handful of sand (Sosa 2003).

The importance of epistemic norms  15 • Beliefs about how many motes of dust are on my desk (Grimm 2009). • Beliefs about whether an arbitrary space-​time location has a particle in it or not (Talbot 2019). • Beliefs about the full name of Domenico Scarlatti’s maternal grandmother (Goldman 1999). • Beliefs about whether Bertrand Russell was right-​or left-​handed (Kelly 2003). • Beliefs about the number of times “the” is used in a McDonald’s commercial (Zagzebski 2003). • Beliefs about how many people have walked along an arbitrary city block between 11 am and noon (Kitcher 2002). • Beliefs about arbitrary disjunctions, such as, “Either Obama was the 44th president of the U.S. or some goat is named Edna” (adapted from Harman 1986). These examples are supposed to be ones in which true beliefs or knowledge looks “fundamentally valueless” (Zagzebski 2003, 21) or “wholly lacking in value” (Grimm 2009, 248). In my terms, it doesn’t seem to matter whether pointless beliefs are true or false. There are arguments that true beliefs on pointless topics have some importance (e.g., Lynch 2004, Kvanvig 2008). Jon Kvanvig (2008) asks us to imagine two beings, one omniscient, and one who knows everything except the pointless truths (Horwitch 2006 briefly makes a similar argument). Clearly, Kvanvig says, the former is better than the latter in some sense that matters, and so pointless truths must matter. I’m not fully convinced by this argument, but to be conservative, I will assume in the rest of this book that pointless truths matter to some extent. This is conservative because it only ever makes my conclusions harder to prove. If pointless truths do matter, they matter vanishingly little. I’ve argued in other papers that this is effectively infinitely little; even if I am wrong about that, though, the total importance of any set of pointless true beliefs is at most quite small (Talbot 2019, 2021). I will give a simplified argument for this here, as the precise details won’t make a significant different to this book. Consider the following example:

16  The End of Epistemology As We Know It An angel visits you. They hold up a stack of telephone books. These, the angel says, contain every phone number from 1962 that is no longer operable. The angel can put knowledge of all of these phone numbers into your mind. The angel promises you that this knowledge will have no instrumental value or disvalue. The knowledge won’t negatively affect you in any way (e.g. it won’t make it harder for you to remember other things). But you won’t be able to put it to use either—​you won’t be able to use it to win bar bets, for example. The angel also holds up a $5 bill. You can have the phone book knowledge or the $5, but you can’t have both.

The telephone books contain what I take to be pointless knowledge. It’s hard to imagine someone who isn’t extremely wealthy (and thus for whom the $5 has effectively no value) finding this knowledge more important than the $5, even though the $5 is not terribly important. We can make the stack of phone books as big as we like, and this isn’t going to change people’s minds. To bolster this, imagine that the angel offered someone a choice between the phone book knowledge and nothing, and they chose nothing. This, perhaps, would be somewhat irrational, but it’s hard to imagine not shrugging off this rational failure and saying, “So what?” So, when we are forced to choose between any amount of pointless knowledge and a minor amount of some other good that matters, we should choose the other good. And gratuitous losses of any amount of pointless knowledge are appropriately shrugged off. These show that pointless knowledge, if it matters at all, matters incredibly little, and that this is so even when we aggregate any amount of pointless knowledge. This gives rise to a dilemma. It does not matter, or it matters incredibly little, whether or our pointless beliefs are true or not. What does this mean about the epistemic norms when they govern pointless beliefs? Either the epistemic norms do matter to some significant degree when they govern pointless beliefs, or they do not. Let’s say they do matter to some significant degree. Given how clear it seems that having true pointless beliefs doesn’t matter to any significant degree, the significant importance of norms governing them seems quite surprising and demands an explanation. What if we say that the epistemic norms don’t matter to any significant degree when they govern

The importance of epistemic norms  17 pointless beliefs? (Plenty of epistemologists have [effectively] said just that; see Friedman 2017 for an overview and references) This would mean that we need an explanation for why the epistemic norms matter when they govern nonpointless beliefs. Why? The overwhelming majority of things we can possibly believe are pointless.4 In fact, the majority of things we do believe are pointless; we just can’t help forming all sorts of beliefs. To demonstrate, take any subject you are interested in. You think that there are more pointless facts about that subject than there are nonpointless ones.5 I love my wife, and I find more things interesting about her than about anyone else, but most facts about her—​the precise number of hairs on her head, the current distance between her and Cybill Shepherd, the barometric pressure on her 3rd birthday—​don’t interest me in the slightest. If we say that the epistemic norms don’t matter to any significant extent when they govern pointless beliefs, then we are saying that the vast, vast majority of things that epistemic norms apply to don’t matter to any significant extent. This casts the epistemic norms in a bad light, even when they apply to nonpointless beliefs. If epistemic norms ever matter significantly, this demands an explanation. If someone claimed to you: “Such and such norms do not matter 99.99999999% of the time. But every once in a while, they really do matter!” you would want an explanation for the truth of that second claim. So, the pointlessness of so many beliefs (whether or not we agree on which particular ones are pointless) raises pressing questions about when and whether epistemic norms matter significantly and why that is. In the rest of the book, I won’t take a stand on which particular beliefs are pointless. Throughout the book, I will use the term “pointless belief ” stipulatively in the following way: pointless beliefs (or credences) are those beliefs for which it does not matter whether they are true or false, or closer or farther from being true or false; or for which this matters vanishingly little

4 Since there are infinite things we can possibly believe, the term “majority” may be inappropriate here, but hopefully you get the point. 5 The only exception to this is baseball and baseball lovers, who in my experience cannot find a bit of baseball trivia uninteresting.

18  The End of Epistemology As We Know It The way I’ve defined this term, not only does the truth of pointless beliefs not matter, it also doesn’t matter whether these beliefs are closer or farther from the truth. I’ve put things this way because of ideas I’ll discuss in the next subsection.

1.4.2.  Mundane beliefs When you were reading my list of pointless beliefs, the following might have occurred to you: “These won’t look pointless to everyone” (see e.g., Friedman 2017). Having true beliefs about whether Bertrand Russell was right-​or left-​handed mattered to Bertrand Russell’s boxing coach. A city planner would not find beliefs about how many people walk down a given block pointless. I agree: beliefs that are pointless to some will not be pointless at all. At least some beliefs are mundane (this is also a term I’ll use throughout the book). Mundane beliefs are beliefs that are not pointless because of their practical relevance. To get a clearer picture about what I mean, consider the following examples: • Beliefs about where Brian (that’s me!) left his car keys. • Beliefs about who sells Brian’s favorite coffee beans. • Beliefs about which ties Brian has not yet worn this semester. None of these beliefs are pointless to me. To put things roughly (this will require some fixing in a moment), it matters to me whether or not my instances of these beliefs are true or false. And yet to most of you reading this book, these beliefs are pointless—​it doesn’t matter whether these beliefs are true or false when you have them. Versions of these beliefs, but about your car keys, your favorite coffee beans, and what you’ve worn so far this semester, are not pointless to you but are pointless to me (at least I hope that is largely true; if the only people who read this book are people whose car keys I care about, that’s a bit of a disaster). What’s more, if we make my beliefs on these topics no longer practically relevant to me—​if God comes to earth and forbids me from ever making or drinking coffee and from making coffee recommendations to anyone—​they become pointless to me. For these

The importance of epistemic norms  19 examples, what makes the difference between them being pointless or nonpointless for a person at a time is their practical relevance to that person at that time. And this is so for a large class of beliefs, all of which I will stipulatively call mundane beliefs.6 To be clear, not every nonpointless belief need be practically relevant. It may be that some beliefs have significant noninstrumental, or final, importance. I’ll come back this below. But it should be obvious that some beliefs are mundane, and that these are likely the beliefs we spend most of our time, outside of our jobs as philosophers, occupied with. Mundane beliefs raise questions about the importance of standard epistemic norms. At first glance, having true mundane beliefs seems to matter to some significant extent. But that needs qualification. Mundane beliefs are only nonpointless—​they only matter significantly—​because of their practical relevance. We can often do perfectly well, practically speaking, with false mundane beliefs, as long as they are close enough to the truth. Examples of this abound in our everyday life, but I’ll pick a slightly rarified one for the moment because it is relatively clear. Imagine that Chris owns a car but is blind, and for that reason others do all the driving for him. Chris has beliefs about where his car keys are. These are not pointless to Chris, because they have some practical relevance to him. Even though he never uses those keys himself—​in fact, he never even touches them—​he sometimes has to tell others where they are. Let’s say there are three hooks next to each other that the keys can be put on. Chris sincerely believes that the keys are on hook 2. In fact, they are actually on hook 1, two inches to the left. Chris’s belief that they are on hook 2 is false, but good enough for all the practical uses of Chris’s belief. If he tells someone that the keys are on hook 2, they will find the keys just as well as if he had given their true 6 It may seem like the ideas in this paragraph commit me to the subjective notion of importance (section 1.3). They do not. To see why, think about well-​being. Many philosophers endorse more or less subjective accounts of well-​being, which say that, for something to be good for A, A must judge that it is valuable. Even if what is conducive to or constitutive of well-​being is subjective in this way, the importance of well-​being can be objective. That is, we can say that it is objectively important that people’s lives go better or worse, even if what makes them go better or worse is somewhat subjective. Similarly, we can say that it is objectively important that one has valuable true beliefs, even if which beliefs are more or less valuable is partly subjective.

20  The End of Epistemology As We Know It location. Grant for the moment that Chris’s key hook beliefs can be good enough for practical purposes without being true. Now imagine that Chris’s evidence decisively tells him that the car keys are on hook 1, but he still believes that they are hook 2. Or imagine that Chris has some belief which logically entails that the keys are on hook 1, but he still believes that they are on hook 2. Or imagine that Chris forms his belief about the car keys’ location through a process that almost never delivers the truth, and so which is not reliable, but does mostly deliver beliefs that are close enough to the truth for practical purposes. Each of these means that Chris’s belief is not justified according to standard epistemic norms. But it could very well be that his belief would be justified according to some other norm. This alternate norm could still be sensitive to evidence, coherence, or the suitability of belief forming process, but only in ways that get us close enough to the truth. For example, we could have some norm that says that a belief is justified if it is formed by a process that typically produces beliefs that are true or close enough. Does it matter that Chris’s belief violates the standard epistemic norms if it conforms to these alternative norms, which are attuned to practical concerns? If it does, does this violation matter any more than norm violations in pointless beliefs? Every standard epistemic norm says, one way or another, that one should not form an obviously false belief. But there are obviously false beliefs that are just as good as true beliefs for practical purposes. And there are beliefs that are only nonpointless because of their practical significance. And so we have to ask: why would it matter to any significant extent whether or not these beliefs conform to or violate these fairly strict epistemic norms, as long as these beliefs are good enough? This is another way in which the importance of standard epistemic norms demands an explanation. For the rest of this book, I’ll use the term “mundane belief ” as follows: mundane beliefs are beliefs whose truth, or distance from the truth, only matters significantly because of practical relevance

This discussion of mundane beliefs explains why I defined “pointless belief ” as I did. It doesn’t matter that our pointless beliefs are true

The importance of epistemic norms  21 or even that they are close to the truth. The truth of mundane beliefs might not (always) matter, but their closeness to the truth does.

1.4.3.  Do mundane beliefs really raise questions? At this stage of the book, I’m arguing that we should want an answer to the question, “Why do epistemic norms matter?” I’ve argued that mundane beliefs make that question pressing. If you agree—​if you think that the phenomenon I’ve just pointed to does show that we need an explanation for why the standard epistemic norms matter, even if you think you know what that explanation is, then you can skip this subsection. This subsection is for those who worry that there is really nothing that needs explaining here. The first way to argue that mundane beliefs don’t raise questions about the importance of standard epistemic norms is to say that I’ve mischaracterized what is going on in the Chris example. I claimed that Chris’s belief that the keys are on hook 2 is not a pointless belief. But, you might respond, it is pointless. You might argue thusly: not only does the truth of the belief have no practical significance, but it also doesn’t really matter if the belief is closer or farther away from the truth. The actual relevant nonpointless belief, you might say, is his belief that the key is on one the hooks. That belief matters, you might think, but not his belief about which hook it is on. More generally, one might say that whenever a false belief can be good enough for practical purposes, that belief is really pointless and doesn’t matter, but there will always be some related belief that that does matter and that needs to be true for practical purposes. This is a fairly radical claim. If there are many beliefs like this—​that can be good enough for practical purposes even if they are false—​then this “defense” of standard epistemic norms relegates to pointlessness a whole bunch of beliefs that seemed to matter. What’s more, this claim doesn’t really solve the problem. It just passes the buck. Effectively, we would be saying that, when it does not matter that a belief is true or false, nothing about that belief really matters. Why would this be? We certainly seem to use these sorts of beliefs in our theoretical and practical reasoning. If the only beliefs that matter are those whose truth

22  The End of Epistemology As We Know It matters, then we no longer have to explain why the epistemic norms are as strict as they are, but now we must demand an explanation for why the only beliefs that matter are those whose truth matters, and how this grounds the importance of epistemic norms. The second way of trying to get rid of the problem posed by mundane beliefs is to say that, intuitively, it just matters that mundane beliefs are true. If that’s right, then we don’t have to explain why standard epistemic norms are strict as they are with regard to these beliefs. In response, I am going to argue that intuitions don’t favor this response. To be clear, I am not yet trying to prove to you that the standard epistemic norms are mistaken. Rather, what I’m trying to show is that it is not so obvious that it matters that certain mundane beliefs are true (when they are close enough to the truth), and this should make us wonder why norms as demanding as the standard epistemic norms (which tell us to never believe anything obviously false) matter. I’ll start with a personal example. I do need to find my car keys for myself sometimes, but even so, if I believed that my car keys were on hook 2 when in fact they were on hook 1, and I learned that I was mistaken, I would shrug and say, “So what?” (assuming that this didn’t demonstrate some cognitive issue, such as oncoming dementia, that was going to cause other problems). Casual polling of my colleagues supports this.7 This is a pervasive phenomenon. That phenomenon is why we have the idiomatic expression “Same difference” in English (I’m told that the German equivalent is “Gehopst wie gesprungen,” or roughly “Hopped just as jumped”). We typically use this expression when we are talking about something worth talking about—​so, something that is not pointless—​but where being fully accurate seems insignificant. Importantly, this expression gets deployed when we are corrected, so when the variation between our claim and the truth is noticeable. When we are corrected and say, “Same difference,” we are not saying,

7 You may wonder: what if I were looking at the key hooks with goal of grabbing them and I continued to believe that they were on hook 1? Then I would not shrug off my mistake. But that fits what I’ve been saying: the false belief would then no longer be good enough for practical purposes, because it would not help me move my hand to the right location.

The importance of epistemic norms  23 “That’s exactly what I said.” We aren’t disputing that we were mistaken. We are disputing that the mistake really matters. Interestingly, a recent study found that participants were willing to ascribe knowledge to people who have false beliefs, as long as those beliefs were close enough to the truth for practical purposes (Buckwalter & Turri 2020). This is further support for my claims. These were mundane beliefs, and participants either judged that the agents knew because they were close enough to knowing—​suggesting that standards of knowledge worth employing should ignore the falsehood—​or judged that the person did not know but did not want to criticize the agent’s doxastic state for insignificant reasons and so answered as if the agent knew. The idea that a certain degree of falsehood about mundane topics doesn’t matter also explains a common challenge we encounter when teaching philosophy. To illustrate, consider something that can occur when we teach metaphysics at the introductory level. Some philosophers deny that “ordinary” objects exist—​they deny that there are tables, chairs, etc. Getting students excited about this issue should be easy. But it is not always so. A standard way to deny that tables exist is to say instead that there are just collections of atoms arranged table-​ wise. It can be hard to motivate students to want to think about this view. We could chalk this up to students being lazy, but I don’t think that’s an adequate explanation. Often, these same students can be motivated to engage with other questions or views. We have a better explanation. The question “Is there a chair in front of me?” looks mundane, and the difference between “Yes,” and “No, there is just a collection of atoms arranged chair-​wise,” is not a difference that matters for practical purposes. And, if that’s so, even if a student could improve their beliefs on this topic, so what? Why should they, for any sense of “should” that matters? Every philosophy teacher has faced some form of this challenge, no matter what we teach. It is often marked by students asking about the debate or question we are teaching: “What difference does this make?” I see this often when I teach competing theories in ethics or legal philosophy that have very similar extensions (that mostly overlap in what they say is wrong or permissible), and differ only in rare or esoteric cases. These theories look mundane, because they are claims about

24  The End of Epistemology As We Know It what to do. For practical purposes, the difference in their extension can largely be ignored. If these topics really are mundane, and practically irrelevant differences in mundane beliefs are normatively insignificant, it makes sense to not worry about which theory is true: the students would be under no important obligation to improve their beliefs. When we face this challenge, we might get students to engage by showing how the difference between the competing views is practically important. That this can work (and that we expect it to work) reinforces the thought that practically irrelevant differences in the truth of mundane beliefs don’t matter: by showing that there is something practically relevant at stake, we show that students should try to believe the truth, for a sense of “should” that really matters. But we often cannot find practical implications to motivate student engagement. That doesn’t make teaching impossible. Instead, a successful teacher will make the topic look interesting, a term I’ll say more about in the section. They will make it look like the truth matters independently of its practical significance. When we can get students to think that good beliefs about a topic have final importance, then we can motivate students to think that they should improve their beliefs, and this in turn generates greater engagement (albeit not universal engagement—​ that’s asking too much). The challenges of teaching philosophy, and the successful responses to those challenges, are exactly what we should expect if the differences between mundane truth and some falsehoods seem not to matter. To be clear, I’m not saying that the topics we cover are mundane. We should be unsurprised if students are sometimes mistaken about what matters, or even about what matters to them. But the idea that noticeable divergences from mundane truths don’t matter significantly gives us a much more charitable interpretation of student disengagement with philosophy. I’m attributing a very understandable mistake to students, since the topics I’m discussing really do look mundane at first glance. Alternatively, we could say that students do see the difference between true and false views on these topics as mattering, but just don’t care. Attributing this sort of akrasia to students (who, admittedly, are sometimes akratic) is less charitable than my attribution of the more subtle mistake.

The importance of epistemic norms  25 So, if we take what nonepistemologists say seriously, it does seem often to not matter whether mundane beliefs are true or not, as long as they are close enough to the truth for practical purposes. If mundane beliefs are only important for their practical significance, why should norms governing them forbid forming obviously false, but good enough, mundane beliefs? But that’s just what the standard epistemic norms do forbid. And so we must wonder: why do the standard epistemic norms matter, when they don’t seem attuned to what matters about mundane beliefs?

1.4.4.  Interesting beliefs Mundane beliefs have what we might call “instrumental importance”—​they are important for their usefulness. And that suggests that there could be beliefs whose truth has final—​noninstrumental— ​importance. I will call such beliefs, if they exist, interesting beliefs. I happen to think that there are such beliefs. But the main points of this book do not rely on you agreeing. It could very well be that the importance of epistemic norms is just derivative from their connection to practical considerations, as some have suggested. If that’s what you think, then ­chapters 5 and 6 will be most relevant to you. But what if there are beliefs whose truth has final importance? Does that raise additional questions about what standard epistemic norms matter? If there are interesting beliefs, mundane beliefs, and pointless beliefs, this raises the question: why are the epistemic norms governing each of these beliefs the same? After all, these are important to different extents, for different reasons, and in different ways. And yet almost no standard epistemic norms discriminate between beliefs of these types.8 That’s weird. It should make us wonder: when conformity to standard norms seems to matter—​as, I suspect, it does when we focus on interesting beliefs—​does it matter qua conformity with standard norms, or does it just seem like the standard norms matter because they overlap 8 That’s not entirely true: some versions of epistemic utility theory do treat some beliefs as more valuable than others, although this turns out to cause a host of problems for those views (Levinstein 2019, Talbot 2019).

26  The End of Epistemology As We Know It with the norms that really matter? To see what I mean, note that philosophical anarchists think that the law doesn’t really matter. Of course, some laws prohibit murder, and it does matter that we don’t murder people. But, the anarchist replies, those laws don’t matter, they just happen to overlap with a moral norm that matters; there’s nothing about the fact that murdering violates the law that is important. Part of the argument for that is that laws can, and often do, give us terrible advice. Laws don’t, or need not, generally track what really matters. And so, the anarchist thinks, there’s nothing really important about violating laws, qua laws. Similarly, the standard epistemic norms so often seem to track what doesn’t really matter, and this might make us wonder: when my interesting beliefs violate a standard norm, and this seems to matter, does the fact that they violated that norm matter or is what is really important that they also violated some other norm? In the rest of this book, I’ll use “interesting belief ” as follows: interesting beliefs are those belief whose truth has significant noninstrumental importance

It may be that there are beliefs whose truth matters noninstrumentally—​ that are interesting, in my technical sense—​regardless of anyone’s attitude towards those truths. I suspect that many philosophers think that this is so, that there are topics that we should be interested in, whether or not we are (see Roberts & Woods 2007). But it may also be that all interestingness is interestingness to someone. For example, for many years I was intensely curious about whether or not Goldbach’s conjecture was true. As far as I can tell, this was not because of any usefulness of this knowledge—​I would have been perfectly happy to figure this out even if I could never tell anyone about it (although obviously I would have preferred to be able to do so). So that seems interesting in the technical sense—​important beyond its practical significance. At the same time, I don’t believe that everyone else needs to be curious about Goldbach’s conjecture; when I meet people who aren’t, I don’t find anything deficient about them. Perhaps a better example are facts about people you care about. Often we are curious about certain facts about our friends, even when we think that knowing those facts will not help us do anything. And yet we are not curious about similar

The importance of epistemic norms  27 facts about strangers, nor do we think that strangers should be curious about our friends in the way we are. To the extent that I talk about interesting beliefs in this book, I will be open both to there being some objectively interesting beliefs, and also to interestingness being partly or entirely person relative.

1.4.5.  Conflicts and trade-​offs Let’s discuss a final bizarre feature of standard epistemic norms. This is that standard norms forbid so-​called epistemic trade-​offs, even though those seem really great. This will again make us wonder: why do these norms matter? And this will also introduce a pervasive theme of this book. In every chapter, we’ll see that, given the explanation for why epistemic norms are supposed to matter in that chapter, they shouldn’t actually forbid trade-​offs. What are epistemic trade-​offs? Let’s consider examples of a kind of trade-​off case involving what one might call “epistemic bribes” (I’m borrowing this term from Greaves 2013). Consider an example from Fumerton (2001). A researcher can only get their research funded if they sincerely believe in God, despite having insufficient evidence to support this belief. Assuming the funding allows the researcher to learn new things that they could not otherwise have learned, the researcher is faced with a conflict: they can have an evidentially supported religious belief, or they can have more knowledge about their area of research, but they can’t have both. We can think of more realistic examples along these lines. There is evidence to suggest that researchers who are overconfident about their abilities are more likely to make discoveries (Li et al. 2011). Let’s assume that that is so. Being overconfident is taking an epistemic bribe: the overconfidence does not give the researcher greater ability, so the researcher really must choose between having accurate, evidentially supported beliefs about their abilities, or more likely discoveries about their field. In Fumerton’s case, every account of the standard epistemic norms says that believing in God is counternormative—​forbidden by the norms—​no matter how great the benefits are. The same in the overconfidence case: being more confident than your evidence warrants is not epistemically justified

28  The End of Epistemology As We Know It no matter the benefits (there is extensive discussion of this issue; see, e.g., Firth 1981, Foley 1992, David 2001, Fumerton 2001, Jenkins 2007, Greaves 2013, Berker 2013, Caie 2013, Carr 2017). But these examples do not pose the issue starkly enough. Let me teach you a bit of trivia. Oreo and Hydrox cookies are almost indistinguishable. Most people think that Hydrox are knock-​off Oreos. It turns out, however, that Hydrox predate Oreos.9 That’s an actual fact. But it’s a pretty pointless one. Keep that in mind. Imagine that Fumerton’s researcher stands to get a grant from the Oreo company. All that they ask of her is that she ignore the evidence about the invention dates of Hydrox and Oreo cookies (this has no connection to her research, by the way). If she does, she will get a grant that makes her more likely to learn whatever truly important facts you want to imagine. Even so, any belief she forms about these pointless cookie facts will be unjustified according to every standard epistemic theory. Some of the literature on epistemic trade-​offs discusses a different kind of trade-​off, involving self-​fulfilling credences (Caie 2013, Carr 2017). For example, imagine that A is sick, but if they are 100% confident that their health will improve, then it will. Some think that self-​ fulfilling credences like these create epistemic conflicts and possible epistemic trade-​offs. That’s unclear to me. If a person is more confident that their health will improve, and this makes it so that it will, it’s just not obvious to me that they’ve violated any epistemic norm, or done anything else that would constitute a trade-​off (from informal conversations, I’m not completely alone in this). My arguments in this book can be applied to self-​fulfilling credences, but I will tend to not talk about them in order to focus on more clearly counterintuitive stuff. We can now define “epistemic trade-​off:” epistemic trade-​off: Forming or maintaining a belief that is epistemically worse than it could be in order to receive epistemic benefits

We can be flexible in how we interpret “in order to.” An epistemic trade-​off might not be intentional, or explicitly intentional, as the 9 https://​www.mas​hed.com/​223​360/​the-​stra​nge-​hist​ory-​of-​the-​oreo-​and-​hyd​rox-​ coo​kie-​riva​lry/​

The importance of epistemic norms  29 agent may not think about their beliefs in this way, and yet we may still want to call it a trade-​off. Notice two things. For one, epistemic trade-​offs can be terrific to make. This is not under dispute.10 And yet traded-​off beliefs are never justified according to standard epistemic theories.11 Further, forbidding all epistemic trade-​offs seems to treat all beliefs as equally valuable. After all, saying that the researcher’s beliefs about Oreos are not justified by the benefits the researcher stands to receive about actually interesting things seems to be saying that the cost to the Oreo belief is as important as all the benefits involving interesting beliefs. On its face, this makes the epistemic norms look terrible. Imagine that someone was trying to sell some norms to you—​trying to explain why these norms really matter. And, in the course of explaining the norms, they mentioned in passing that the norms never ever allowed anyone to sacrifice anything of the least (relevant) value, no matter how much they stood to gain. This would make these norms a tough sell. The seller would need to provide a very good explanation for why these norms matter. The same goes for the epistemic norms: given that they do not allow traded-​off beliefs to be justified, no matter what, we need some explanation for why they matter.

10 That’s not entirely true. Joyce and Weatherson (2019) argue that trade-​offs are never epistemically beneficial. Making these trade-​offs creates a huge range of epistemically bad beliefs as well, and these outweigh the benefits the agent stands to gain. This seems to ignore the fact that some beliefs are more important than others. We can construct trade-​off cases in which the downsides largely involve pointless beliefs, for example, and the benefits are all clearly more important. 11 This needs qualification. Standard theories allow something like trade-​offs: they allow us to put our energy into investigating whatever questions we like, so that we might end up with less evidence about p in order to get more evidence about q. But this doesn’t affect (according to standard theories) whether one’s beliefs about p can be justified when they go against one’s evidence in order to benefit q, and that’s the sort of trade-​off I am interested in. Further, I’m not the first philosopher to say that trade-​offs should be permissible in some cases. Some think that fallible agents can violate, for example, coherence norms when being coherent is too costly for the agent (Staffel 2019a). So some allow a limited range of trade-​offs. My arguments shows that agents should make trade-​offs in a wider range of cases—​not just to deal with their cognitive limitations, but also when these trade-​offs get them more information, for example. This means that even ideal agents should make trade-​offs in some cases. Richard Pettigrew (2018) recently has said that if trade-​offs are a consequence of his views, he’d accept them as well, as have Kristoffer Ahlstrom-​Vij and Jeffry Dunn (2020). But this is certainly not mainstream.

30  The End of Epistemology As We Know It There’s been a great deal written on this topic, and so you may very well be aware of some attempts to explain why epistemic norms matter that also explains why traded-​off beliefs are not justified. I don’t think any of these work, and that’s something I’ll spend a lot of time discussing in the rest of this book. For now, all I want is for you to recognize this: the fact that standard epistemic norms forbid trade-​offs means that we must give an explanation for why standard epistemic norms matter. Potential epistemic trade-​offs are pervasive in our cognitive lives. Trade-​offs are possible whenever epistemic goods come into conflict—​ whenever we can have good x or good y but not both. Some conflicts of epistemic goods are due to resource constraints. Beings with limited time and cognitive resources, such as limited attention or limited information processing speed, will not be able to attain all of the epistemic goods available to them. In some cases, they will be able to allocate those resources to attain good x or to attain good y, but not both. Some of this happens over the long run. There are too many interesting areas of academic inquiry, for example, and no human can pursue all of them. One can, for example, acquire significant understanding of epistemology, or of primate biology, but not both. These goods are in conflict. Resource constraints also create conflicts in the present moment, not just in the long run. As Jane Friedman (2019) points out, at every moment you are presented with a great amount of sense data, any of which you can use to improve your beliefs about your immediate environment. But you can’t use all of it simultaneously. Further, attending to some of this sense data can take resources away from other reasoning tasks, such as thinking about some philosophical argument. Thus, epistemic goods about various features of your environment are in conflict right now—​you can’t have all of these available goods. These goods are also in conflict with more interesting goods as well—​ for example, in the near-​term, you can know some detail about what is right in front of you or you can have a better credence about some philosophical topic, but not both. Note that these conflicts need not have anything to do with acquiring new beliefs. We can be presented simultaneously with information relevant to a range of credences we currently have, which will correct flaws in those credences; if we cannot use all of it during some period of time, then the accuracies,

The importance of epistemic norms  31 or justification, or fit-​to-​evidence, of these different credences are in conflict. Given these conflicts, we can make epistemic trade-​offs. We have all this evidence, and can’t use all of it. If some of our beliefs fail conform our beliefs to our evidence, then others of our beliefs—​now, or in the future—​will be better. In the rest of this book, I am going to argue that the epistemic norms, if they matter, really must allow trade-​offs. In fact, they have to require them. What do I mean by that? They not only have to see traded-​off beliefs as conforming to the norms (as justified, for example), they also have to say that, when we don’t make trade-​offs, sometimes this means that our beliefs are not justified. This is a radical claim.12 Let’s say that the CEO of Oreo cookies tells our researcher, “Hey, it turns out that Hydrox cookies really were invented before Oreo cookies. But, if you believe that, you won’t get this grant.” And let’s say that the researcher still believes what she’s been told—​what her evidence indicates—​and so believes the truth, that Hydrox cookies predate Oreos. In some cases, I will argue, this belief can’t be justified in the sense that matters.

1.5.  Wrap-​up Here are the key takeaways from this chapter that are necessary to understand the rest of the book, and here is a sketch of where we go from here. It can matter to a greater or lesser degree whether or not we conform to specific norms or normative prescriptions. The less this matters, the more we can appropriately shrug off gratuitous norm violations. When two norms conflict in a situation, we should conform to the specific prescription that matters more in that situation. I will also use the term importance to talk about what matters and how much it matters. For those that deny that anything really matters—​that anything matters in an objective, attitude-​independent way—​everything I say about what

12 A few philosophers beside myself have endorsed a version of this view, saying that if we give a consequentialist vindication of epistemic norms (­chapter 2), the norms have to allow for trade-​offs (Pettigrew 2018, Singer 2018, Driver 2018, Ahlstrom-​Vij & Dunn 2020). I go beyond this to show that this holds for any plausible vindication.

32  The End of Epistemology As We Know It matters or about importance can be restated as about what matters or is important to us, or to you or to me. Epistemic norms should matter. If they never mattered significantly, then it would be fine to violate them for no reason. If they systematically mattered less than competing norms, then we should systematically violate the epistemic norms and conform to the competing ones. Norms that should be treated this way aren’t what those of us studying normative epistemology are looking for. If standard epistemic norms—​ the epistemic norms focused on by mainstream analytic philosophers—​matter less than some competing, nonstandard, epistemic norms, then we should replace the standard epistemic norms with the nonstandard ones (this claim needs a little refinement, but that refinement will come throughout the book). To argue that the standard epistemic norms actually should be replaced, I will consider a number of different accounts of why the epistemic norms matter, and show that, for each account, standard epistemic norms matter less than competing, nonstandard norms. I will sometimes use the term vindications to refer to accounts of why epistemic norms matter. My approach is motivated by the thought that epistemic norms require vindication, that their importance is not brute or unexplainable. Why think that standard epistemic norms require vindication? For one, they treat beliefs on pointless, mundane, and interesting topics too similarly, subjecting them to the same normative standards, which (at the very least) forbid believing things that are obviously false. Even views that allow whether a belief is justified to be stake-​or context-​ sensitive think that what gives beliefs justification is the same for beliefs on all topics, although they may allow that how much justification a belief requires varies from topic to topic. Further: • Most topics are pointless. True beliefs, or beliefs close to the truth, about pointless topics matter either not at all, or vanishingly little; the sum importance of any set of pointless true beliefs is very low at best. • Some topics are mundane. These are nonpointless for a person at a time because of their practical significance. For many mundane topics, it seems to not matter much if we have true or false beliefs

The importance of epistemic norms  33 on the topic, as long as these beliefs are close enough to the truth for practical purposes (which does matter). • Some topics seem interesting. True beliefs on these topics seem to some significant extent noninstrumentally important. We should wonder: why hold beliefs on each type of topic to the same standards, when these beliefs matter for different reasons and in different ways? Why have norms on pointless beliefs at all, given that these truths barely matter (at best)? Given that conformity with most standard epistemic norms seems to matter barely at all (at best), since most beliefs are pointless, why think that conformity with any standard epistemic norms matters more than this? To the extent that this conformity does seem to matter when it comes to mundane and interesting beliefs, is that an illusion because this conformity mimics conformity with more important, nonstandard epistemic norms? Given all of these questions about whether standard epistemic norms matter, their importance demands an explanation—​they need to be vindicated. Further, the fact that standard epistemic norms forbid making epistemic trade-​offs—​they forbid forming one belief poorly in order to reap further epistemic benefits—​should also make us wonder why standard epistemic norms matter. Why forbid this, when trade-​offs can be extremely beneficial and sometimes extremely low cost (e.g., when they involve sacrificing a merely pointless belief)?

1.5.1.  Roadmap and how to read the rest of the book In the next chapter, I am going to discuss one of the most seemingly widespread, and most discussed, views about the vindication of epistemic norms, which I call “epistemic consequentialism.” I will argue that this approach to vindication gives us nonstandard epistemic norms, norms which both require us to make epistemic trade-​offs and are also laxer in many ways than standard epistemic norms (especially with regard to mundane and pointless beliefs). Chapter 2 will give you a better sense of my methodology. It will probably also raise a number of questions about this methodology, although some of you may have

34  The End of Epistemology As We Know It those questions already. In c­ hapter 3, I address fundamental questions about and objections to my project and methods. I do that after I discuss consequentialism because I think the objections and replies make more sense once you’ve seen my arguments in action. In ­chapters 4, 5, and 6, I consider alternative approaches to the vindication of epistemic norms, showing that they too vindicate nonstandard norms. In each chapter, I take the relevant vindication on board and don’t try to argue against it. Rather, I just follow the vindication where it leads. Chapter 7 is a bit different. In it I discuss a sort of “master challenge” that can be applied to any plausible vindication of the epistemic norms that I may have missed. I briefly apply this to virtue-​epistemic vindications. But ­chapter 7 mostly focuses on two alternative accounts of the importance of epistemic norms—​that these norms have some connection to the (constitutive) nature of belief, and that this importance is unexplainable. Instead of taking these views where they lead, I argue that they should be rejected. Finally, c­ hapter 8 discusses some possibilities for what might replace the standard epistemic norms. It’s hard to read a whole book, and you are probably wondering what you don’t need to read. I think you should definitely read the first half of ­chapter 2 (sections 2.1–​2.4). This will help you see how my methodology works, ideas in that chapter reoccur throughout the book, and I suspect that the approach to vindication it discusses is an inevitable part of vindicating the epistemic norms. I would recommend that everyone read ­chapter 3 as well, since some of what I say in responding to fundamental objections in ­chapter 3 will give you a better understanding of how normative epistemology should work. So what can you skip? The second half of c­ hapter 2 (sections 2.5–​2.8), and ­chapters 4, 5, and 6 each discuss different approaches to vindication. Read those that discuss approaches that seem plausible to you, and skip the others. I recommend taking a look at the introduction to each of those chapters to see if the approach discussed there resonates with you. Chapter 7 is only for those who still feel like there must be some way to avoid my arguments and to vindicate epistemic norms. Chapter 8 is for those interested in my views about where we might go after being convinced that standard epistemic norms are not good enough.

The importance of epistemic norms  35

1.6.  A taste of what is to come Readers may suspect at this point that my goal is just to tear epistemology down. But that’s far from the truth. Epistemic norms can matter a great deal. They matter when they capture the right relationship to something that also matters. Standard norms never truly do this. But because epistemic norms can matter, we need to replace standard norms, not just do away with them. In this section, I’ll briefly speculate about what might replace standard norms. This will be partly to give you a sense of the directions the arguments in this book will go, partly to show that my project is not nihilistic, and partly to show how replacements for standard norms will be fairly radical, and not just standard norms with exceptions or tweaks. Nothing in this section is intended as an argument, but rather as illustration and speculation. Nothing in this book depends on what I say in this section. I discuss my own views about what might replace standard norms more in ­chapter 8. To keep this focused, let’s just talk about knowledge. Knowledge, on my view, has no normative role in epistemology (this doesn’t rule out knowledge playing some metaphysical role, however, as I discuss at the end of ­chapter 3). Knowledge is a relationship to the truth. But standard notions of knowledge in philosophy capture a not-​very​important relationship to the truth, and sometimes a quite bad one. There are superior alternatives. I will argue throughout this book that the epistemic norms that matter will be laxer than standard epistemic norms. They will, in some cases, permit believing p when one has more reason to believe ~p. That’s because norms that always forbid us from believing what is not most supported by our reasons capture an unimportant relationship to the truth. Such norms are overly focused on small differences in reasons, but these small differences are not the differences that really matter. (This goes beyond permissivism as typically understood. Permissivists typically think that the evidence might give me more reason to believe p given my prior probabilities or my epistemic standards, but that same evidence might give you more reason to believe ~p given your priors or your standards. But the epistemic norms that matter will allow me

36  The End of Epistemology As We Know It to believe p even when, given my priors and standards, ~p is better supported by my evidence.) Let’s consider an illustrative example. Let’s say that I’m somewhat curious about the color of the walls in my room. There are a vast range of colors they theoretically could be. My evidence most supports the belief that they are a particular shade of gray, Gainsboro. It also supports to a slightly lesser degree that they are a nearby but different shade of gray, Moon. I can tell these two shades apart; none of this is about vagueness or indeterminacy or about the names of the colors. My evidence strongly shows that my walls are not Any Other Color. In this situation, my evidence (in light of my priors and epistemic standards) supports the belief that my walls are not Moon more than it supports the belief that they are Moon. Yet, in some situations, epistemic norms that matter will still permit me to believe that my walls are Moon (they will also permit believing that they are Gainsboro, but not that they are Any Other Color). The difference between Gainsboro and Moon is not important enough for the norms that matter to be sensitive to it. A notion like knowledge that involves a more demanding type of justification than this is not a notion that is particularly important, and should not be included in our norms. This laxness is not just about fit to evidence. Epistemic norms that matter must be laxer in all sorts of ways. They must, for example, permit some degree of incoherence and they must overlook some amount of defeat (such as learning that my beliefs were somewhat unreliably formed). Let’s say I believe (again, against my evidence) that my walls are Moon, and as a matter of fact they actually are Moon, despite looking at the moment more Gainsboro. It is somewhat of an accident that I’ve gotten things right, given that my evidence favors believing that my walls are Gainsboro rather than Moon. So my belief would not be knowledge, both because it is not a justified belief according to standard norms and also because it is accidentally true. But this belief should be counted as a nonaccidentally true belief. It’s no accident, given my reasons for belief, that my walls are Moon rather than Any Other Color. Focusing on this nonaccidentally focuses us on a relationship to the truth that matters more than focusing on the accidentality

The importance of epistemic norms  37 of the walls being Moon rather than Gainsboro, as standard notions of knowledge do. In fact, I suspect that even if my walls turn out to be Gainsboro, my belief that they are Moon is nonaccidentally epistemically good, even though it is not true. That’s because some false beliefs are either just as good as true beliefs on the same topic, or less good but not bad. This is entailed by some approaches to the vindication of epistemic norms (see ­chapter 5), but I speculate in c­ hapter 8 that it is likely to be true given other vindications as well. Nonaccidental truth is just a subset of nonaccidental epistemic goodness, and not a distinctively important subset. So there’s no reason for our norms to focus on nonaccidental truth in particular rather than nonaccidental goodness more generally. If even false beliefs can be epistemically good, then we need to revise our notions of justification and defeat even more: any purely truth-​ oriented notion of a justifier, like evidence or reliability, won’t do and should be replaced with a goodness-​oriented notion. To summarize: if we want a notion like knowledge—​ that of nonaccidentally good belief—​in our system of norms, we should use a notion that matters. This requires replacing standard accounts of justification, defeat, and nonaccidentality. It may even require replacing our notion of epistemic goodness or success. One might wonder if we need to entirely replace knowledge. After all, one might think, knowing that p entails that one has a nonaccidentally good belief. But in fact the norms that matter don’t include knowledge at all. That’s because knowing does not entail being in an important relationship to what matters. The epistemic norms that matter will require thinkers to make epistemic trade-​offs in some cases. That’s so even for ideal thinkers. Imagine that A should have traded off their belief that p, but didn’t, and A thereby knows that p. A has a good belief in a sense. But A’s belief is not properly oriented towards what matters. That’s because, by not making the trade-​off, A has effectively rejected what really matters. A’s belief is no better than a luckily true belief would be (in fact, I suspect it is even worse). In non-​trade-​ off cases, when A knows that q but q is pointless, A is not in a relationship to anything that matters. In both sorts of cases, “knowledge” would not pick out anything that matters. Whatever it is that should replace knowledge will include all instances of knowledge that matter,

38  The End of Epistemology As We Know It and exclude the vast number of instances that don’t matter, and we can do this without seeing knowledge as normative. There will be plenty of cases where A knows that p, and A is doing well by believing p, and the explanation for why this is is largely the same explanation we give when saying why A knows that p. But the explanation for why A knows that p is never really the same explanation as for why A is doing well by believing p. The latter always requires noting that there are no countervailing, trade-​off-​based, reasons to not believe p and that p is worth believing in the first place. In the end, knowledge will have no real role in the norms on belief, except perhaps as a handy rule of thumb or heuristic. But that’s not because we should do away with epistemic norms. It’s because centering epistemic norms around knowledge, or around any standard epistemic notion, does not do the epistemic norms justice. We can do so much better. To do so, we need to see why standard notions fail to capture truly important relationships to what truly matters. We will see that throughout this book, as we see why norms that matter must require epistemic trade-​offs and must be laxer than standard norms. As we see that, we will start to see how we have to reshape our understanding of the epistemic—​we will start to see an exciting landscape of new questions and previously overlooked answers open up.

2

Consequentialist vindication 2.1.  Introduction Epistemic norms should matter. As we saw in the previous chapter, we should wonder whether the norms epistemologists standardly discuss really do matter. If they do, what explains this? This chapter is about one account of why epistemic norms matter, which I will call consequentialism about why epistemic norms matter, or the consequentialist vindication of epistemic norms, or just consequentialism for short. I’ll give a more precise characterization of this family of views in sections 2.1.1 and 2.5, but, roughly put, consequentialist vindications say that epistemic norms matter because of the connection between the norms and the promotion of epistemically good consequences, such as true beliefs or accurate credences. For example, one might say that it matters that we fit our beliefs to the evidence because doing so leads to having more true beliefs. The sort of consequentialism I’ll discuss in this chapter is about the promotion of epistemically good consequences. That’s on the assumption that there is something important about “purely” epistemic goods, at least sometimes. One might instead prefer to explain why epistemic norms matter by pointing to how conformity with them promotes practical goods. I discuss that sort of view in ­chapter 5. I recommend the first half of the present chapter (through section 2.4) to all readers, even those not attracted to consequentialist vindications; the methodology used and norms discussed in this chapter are reoccurring themes throughout the rest of this book. Consequentialism should look initially appealing as an account of why the standard epistemic norms matter. In the previous chapter, I pointed out facts that raise the question, “Why do standard epistemic norms matter?” One is that most beliefs are pointless, and pointless true beliefs either don’t matter at all or matter extremely little. Since epistemic The End of Epistemology As We Know It. Brian Talbot, Oxford University Press. © Brian Talbot 2024. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197743638.003.0002

40  The End of Epistemology As We Know It norms mostly govern pointless beliefs, most requirements of standard epistemic norms—​which seem aimed at giving us true beliefs—​seem at best to barely matter. And this in turn should make us wonder why any epistemic requirements matter to any significant extent. Further, mundane beliefs are nonpointless because of their practical relevance, but for many mundane beliefs, false beliefs can be as practically useful as true ones. Why would the epistemic norms place the same requirements on these mundane beliefs as on those whose truth really does make a difference? Consequentialism can, at first glance, deal with these puzzles. Assume that all true beliefs, even pointless ones, have some importance even if this is minimal. I allowed for this possibility in ­chapter 1. Now ask: what norms on pointless beliefs maximize importance? These are going to be norms aiming at true pointless beliefs. But that doesn’t undermine the importance of norms governing nonpointless beliefs: when norms on interesting beliefs maximize value, they promote more value and thus matter more than norms governing pointless beliefs. This also gives us an explanation for why norms governing mundane beliefs are not satisfied when we are just close enough to the truth for practical purposes. If pointless truth has some importance, then mundane truth has some importance as well, even when it is practically irrelevant, and again norms about maximizing importance won’t be satisfied when our mundane beliefs are “good enough.” But, while consequentialism about why epistemic norms matter looks initially like a good fit for standard epistemic norms, I will argue in this chapter that it actually cannot vindicate them. For one, consequentialist vindications cannot avoid saying that the epistemic norms have to allow, and often require, epistemic trade-​offs.1 And that’s contrary to standard epistemic views. I’m not the first to have noticed this—​this is a long-​standing critique of consequentialist vindications of epistemic norms. I’ll also explore another issue that hasn’t received attention in the literature on epistemic consequentialism. In order to vindicate standard epistemic norms, we need to require that norms maximize important goods. It turns out that this is the wrong 1 There’s a caveat: it may be that consequentialism about epistemology forces us to adopt scalar consequentialism, the view that there are no requirements or permissions. If that’s right, then the norms can’t require trade-​offs. But scalar consequentialism still sees making trade-​offs as preferable to not (in the right circumstances).

Consequentialist vindication  41 approach. We should reject maximizing forms of consequentialism in favor of forms of consequentialism that allow us to sometimes form suboptimal beliefs which violate standard epistemic norms. This is because maximizing consequentialism gives us norms that systematically matter less than the norms endorsed by more lenient forms of consequentialism. Nonmaximizing views have been discussed in the literature on ethical and practical forms of consequentialism, where they are often not very popular. But arguments for these views are rarely put in terms of importance, and arguments for nonmaximizing consequentialism are much stronger when they are put this way. What’s more, key objections to practical forms of nonmaximizing consequentialism turn out to have little force when it comes to epistemic norms. Because of this, the epistemic norms that matter have to allow us to ignore evidence, be incoherent, or just believe clearly false things, even when that brings no benefit whatsoever. This chapter divides into two parts. Each is about a distinct form of consequentialist vindication. One form says that epistemic norms matter because successful conformity with the norms promotes good consequences. I’ll discuss that view through section 2.4. In the rest of section 2.1, I’ll clarify this form of consequentialism about why epistemic norms matter and discuss the methodology that the consequentialist uses to vindicate norms. In section 2.2, I’ll discuss epistemic trade-​offs. In section 2.3, I’ll argue against maximizing forms of consequentialist vindications. I turn to the second form of consequentialist vindication in sections 2.5–​2.8. This says, roughly, that epistemic norms matter because trying to conform to them, or being guided by them, promotes good consequences. In section 2.5, I explain what that means and why one might find it appealing. In sections 2.6 and 2.7, I’ll argue that this approach cannot universally vindicate standard epistemic norms, and that if it does vindicate epistemic norms for some of us, this is just temporary and is something to work against.

2.1.1.  Clarifying consequentialism To give us a clearer sense of what the first half of this chapter is about, let’s consider some instances of consequentialism in contemporary

42  The End of Epistemology As We Know It epistemology. A currently prominent form is accuracy-​first epistemology. This view tries to vindicate epistemic norms by showing how conformity with them promotes accurate credences (“accuracy” has a technical meaning here, but we can ignore that for the moment). For example, and most centrally, it has been shown that any probabilistically incoherent credal state will be less accurate in all possible worlds than some identifiable coherent credal state(s), given the right measures of accuracy. This result is taken to show that we ought to be coherent—​coherence promotes accuracy, which is taken to matter (e.g., Joyce 1998, Pettigrew 2016, Staffel 2019). Accuracy-​first epistemology has been used to defend other epistemic norms, such as the norm of conditionalization, norms of judgment aggregation, and norms for responding to disagreement, and also to explain reliability as a standard for justification (see, for example, Oddie 1997 and Greaves & Wallace 2006 on vindications of conditionalization, Moss 2011 and Staffel 2014 on norms of judgment aggregation, Levinstein 2015 on disagreement, Pettigrew 2018b on reliability). Accuracy-​first epistemology is just one salient example of consequentialism in epistemology.2 It has historically been common to take true belief to be good, and to try to vindicate epistemic norms by showing how conformity with them promotes true belief. For example, Lawrence BonJour says: Knowledge requires epistemic justification, and the distinguishing feature of this particular species of justification, I submit, is its essential or internal relationship to the cognitive goal of truth. . . . A corollary of this conception of epistemic justification is that a satisfactory defense of a particular standard of epistemic justification is showing it to be truth-​conducive, i.e. in showing that accepting beliefs in accordance with its dictates is likely to lead to truth. . . . Without such a meta-​justification, a proposed standard of epistemic justification lacks any underlying rationale. (BonJour 1978, 5)

BonJour is talking about vindicating epistemic norms, and he is saying that we vindicate them by showing how conformity with

2

This paragraph draws on a more in-​depth discussion in Berker (2013).

Consequentialist vindication  43 them leads to epistemically good outcomes. We see a similar idea in William Alston: the evaluative aspect of epistemology involves an attempt to identify ways in which the conduct and the products of our cognitive activities can be better or worse vis-​à-​vis the goals of cognition. And what are those goals? Along with many other epistemologists I suggest that the primary function of cognition in human life is to acquire true beliefs rather than false beliefs about matters that are of interest or importance to us. (Alston 2005, 29)

Mike Huemer (2001) defends phenomenal conservatism, his account of epistemic justification, by saying that conforming to it will, from the standpoint of the believer, be the best way of believing truths and avoiding error (saying also that he draws the type of argument from work by Richard Foley [1987]). Alvin Goldman has given consequentialist justifications for epistemic norms in a number of places, saying, for example, “A process, trait, or action is an epistemic virtue to the extent that it tends to produce, generate, or promote (roughly) true belief ” (Goldman 2001, 31). These authors each defend quite different epistemic views of what the epistemic norms look like—​ Huemer defends a form of internalist foundationalism, Goldman externalist foundationalism, BonJour (in the cited work) coherentism, Alston pluralism—​and none of them have views exactly like the sorts of Bayesianism often endorsed in accuracy-​first epistemology. What these authors have in common is that they say that the right epistemic norms—​the ones that are worth conforming to—​are those conformity with which promotes good outcomes (although in ­chapter 4 I consider an alternative reading of their views). This is consequentialism about why the epistemic norms matter. Note that none of these authors endorses epistemic norms that are themselves explicitly consequentialist. We could imagine, for example, the following as the sole epistemic norm: “One epistemically ought to believe whatever is most likely to produce true beliefs.” This putative norm explicitly talks in terms of consequences. But that’s not the sort of norm typically endorsed by those who give consequentialist vindications. Consequentialism about why epistemic norms matter

44  The End of Epistemology As We Know It can, in principle, vindicate norms that never themselves talk about consequences. In explaining consequentialism, I have repeatedly talked about promoting good outcomes or outcomes that matter. Promotion is a key concept in consequentialist thought that needs a bit of explanation. Promoting value has to do with creating or causing more of it. To illuminate this, contrast it with other philosophically important relationships between norms and value. Deontologists often say that persons have intrinsic value, and that ethical duties have to do with respecting this value (e.g., Darwall 1977, Kamm 1992). How is promoting value different from respecting it? We can illustrate the difference between promoting and respecting value by using an example from Scanlon (1998). Friendship is valuable. If the norms of friendship just had to do with promoting this value, then sometimes it would be the case that we ought to treat the friends we have shabbily in order to spend time going out and making new friends. But that does not fit with the true norms of friendship. While it can be important to make new friends, thus promoting friendship, the norms of friendship say that we have to privilege the friendships we have above making new friends, even when making new friends creates a net increase in the total amount of friendship. The norms of friendship are, in part, about respecting the value of friendship, not just promoting that value. In ­chapter 4, I will discuss the view that epistemic norms matter because they respect epistemic goods. Consequentialist vindications of norms can answer different questions. One question is: why does it matter that individuals conform to the epistemic norms? (By “conform” I mean “successfully conform”) One way of addressing this question is by talking about the actual benefits of norm conformity, another is to talk about the benefits that norm conformity tends to or is expected to bring about. This distinction won’t affect my arguments and I will more or less ignore it. But there are other questions we might ask, such as: why does it matter that individuals try to conform to the epistemic norms? There is an important difference between asking about the importance of norm conformity versus the importance of trying to conform. Conformity is doing what the norms say. When norms are hard to conform to in certain ways, flawed individuals may make things worse by trying to

Consequentialist vindication  45 conform to these norms than by trying to conform to less demanding ones, even if the more demanding norms would be better to actually conform to. In the first half of this chapter (sections 2.1–​2.4) I focus on why it matters that individuals conform to epistemic norms. In the second half (sections 2.5–​2.7), I discuss what norms individuals should try to conform to. We might also be interested in why it matters that groups should adopt certain norms. That is the topic of c­ hapter 6. This chapter is about the promotion of epistemic goods. This assumes that epistemic goods sometimes matter for their own sake, noninstrumentally. If epistemic goods only mattered instrumentally, then the vindication of the epistemic norms would ultimately be a practical one, and practical vindications are the topic of ­chapter 5. In this chapter, I’ll talk as if the epistemic goods are true beliefs and/​or accurate credences. I do this just for convenience, as my arguments apply given almost any notion of the epistemic good. (My own view is that, while true belief and accurate credences are epistemically good, they are epistemically good because they belong to a broader category of good doxastic states, which also includes some false beliefs and inaccurate credences; see c­ hapter 8. But nothing I say in this chapter relies on my own views of epistemic goodness.) The only exception is that my arguments won’t work for any notion of the epistemic good that is (partly) constituted by conformity with standard epistemic norms: for example, they don’t work if fitting our beliefs to the evidence just is the epistemic good. I’ll say more about this in c­ hapter 3. But, briefly, the idea that epistemic goodness is partly constituted by norm conformity is not compatible with consequentialist vindication of norms. Saying, “Justification matters because justification promotes the epistemic good, which is justified belief,” is not genuinely explaining why justification matters. For those that do think there is something good about norm conformity itself, I discuss that idea in c­ hapters 4 and 7. Let’s briefly discuss methodology. In this chapter, I assume consequentialism about why the epistemic norms matter. That means all of the arguments and objections I discuss about what the norms are must, to be successful, be grounded in promotion of goods that matter. We are going to see where that takes us and will not question this consequentialist starting point in this chapter. It may be that you are initially attracted to consequentialism but end up not liking the norms that

46  The End of Epistemology As We Know It the view endorses. That by itself does not give you objections to my arguments, but rather objections to the consequentialist starting point. I won’t respond to these sorts of objections in this chapter. If you end up not liking the implication of consequentialism about epistemology, you can endorse another account of why the epistemic norms matter from one of the other chapters of this book. Intuitions, or our pretheoretic judgments and understanding, play a different role given consequentialism about why epistemic norms matter than they do given other accounts of why epistemic norms matter. Consequentialists do (and must) use intuitions or pretheoretic judgments to shape their account of what is to be promoted: we need these judgments to understand what good outcomes are.3 But that’s as far as intuitions go. If the norms that promote what (intuitively) matters are not themselves intuitive norms, that is not an objection to these norms from the perspective of consequentialism.

2.2.  Trade-​offs An agent can sometimes allow or bring about an epistemic bad in order to realize a greater epistemic good. To use an example from ­chapter 1, being overconfident about one’s abilities as a researcher may lead to discovering new and interesting truths. Taking the bad in order to have the good is making an epistemic trade-​off. Epistemic consequentialism about why epistemic norms matter entails that the epistemic norms must allow—​in fact require—​trade-​offs to some extent.4 What does this mean? Let’s say that the researcher in our example becomes overconfident and thereby learns the interesting truths. If this trade-​off is allowed, then the agent’s overconfident belief is permitted even though it doesn’t fit the evidence, is incoherent, unreliably formed, inaccurate, etc. Imagine instead that the researcher were appropriately confident, making it harder or impossible to learn these 3 We may also need intuitions to decide between different flavors of consequentialism, such as indirect and direct, objective or subjective, act or global consequentialisms. I’m agnostic between these, and so don’t need to discuss these intuitions. 4 Again, a caveat: if scalar consequentialism ends up being the better approach (section 2.3.2) then this would have to be restated slightly.

Consequentialist vindication  47 interesting truths. If trade-​offs are required, then this belief would be impermissible, even if it counted as knowledge by all normal epistemic standards. It is simple to show that, given consequentialism about why epistemic norms matter, the vindicated epistemic norms should require trade-​offs to some extent.5 Pick any trade-​off-​forbidding system of epistemic norms. Add to it reasons to make trade-​offs. Weigh these reasons so that they require trade-​offs when, and only when, making trade-​offs will lead to better consequences than not. (If you like, you can make these reasons sensitive to agents’ capacities, so that they only require trade-​offs when an agent is capable of making them.) Now we have two versions of the norms, the original which is trade-​off​forbidding and the new version which is trade-​off-​requiring. These will disagree only when conformity with the trade-​off-​requiring norms promotes more of what matters. If norms matter because and to the extent that conformity with them leads to better consequences, the trade-​off-​requiring norms will never matter less and sometimes—​ when there’s a beneficial trade-​off to be made—​matter more than the trade-​ off-​ forbidding norms. This shows that we should replace the trade-​off-​forbidding norms with the trade-​off-​requiring ones. After all, we can totally ignore the trade-​ off-​ forbidding norms’ recommendations and never lose with regard to what matters. More generally, from the consequentialist perspective, there is nothing that matters that speaks in favor of any system of trade-​ off-​forbidding norms over some system of trade-​off-​requiring ones. There are a few ways of trying to deny that consequentialism has to endorse trade-​offs. The most obvious is to point out just how counterintuitive the view is. I’m saying that, in some cases, an agent who is in a position to know x with certainty would be unable to have a justified belief that x, if forming that belief had bad enough consequences (Friedman 2019). In fact, I’m saying that that agent would instead be justified in believing not x despite their conclusive evidence to the contrary. This is counterintuitive. But, as I explained above, 5 Here I’m extending an argument I originally made in Talbot (2014). Related arguments have also been made by Greaves (2013), Berker (2013), Singer (2018), and Ahlstrom-​Vij and Dunn (2020).

48  The End of Epistemology As We Know It appeals to these sorts of intuitions are not genuine objections once we accept consequentialism about why the epistemic norms matter. If consequentialists want norms that rule out trade-​offs, they have to show that these norms do not actually promote the good. One way to do this is to say that we should focus on the consequences of trying to conform to the norms, or the consequences of social adoption of the norms, rather than on the consequences of an individual actually conforming to the norms. One might then claim that trade-​ off-​requiring norms are bad because we are too likely to make mistakes when trying to make trade-​offs. I’ll discuss the individual version of this view in sections 2.5–​2.7 of this chapter, and the social-​level version (that things go badly when we think others may try to make trade-​offs) in ­chapter 6. Another way to try to block my conclusion is to claim that not every consequence is relevant to determining which norms matter. If we pick the relevant consequences carefully, we might be able to give a form of consequentialism whose norms are not sensitive to the beneficial consequences of trade-​offs. Many have suggested this. Richard Foley (1992) has proposed that epistemic norms are sensitive only to the current benefits of belief and not to future benefits. Carrie Jenkins (2007) has suggested that the norms on any particular belief might only factor in the consequences for that belief and not the benefits to other beliefs. Jason Konek and Ben Levinstein (2017) have proposed a related version of consequentialism that ignores the causal consequences of beliefs; rather, their form looks (roughly) at the good that the belief constitutes. None of these responses holds water as a form of consequentialist vindication of epistemic norms. Consider Foley’s view first, that the epistemic norms are sensitive to only the current benefits of belief. Translated into an account of why epistemic norms matter, it would say that the norms matter because they generate goods now, but that future benefits are irrelevant to why the norms matter. But, if epistemic goods are important now, then future epistemic goods are important as well and they are important for what we decide now. In fact, we should see future epistemic goods as vastly more important than present epistemic goods, since there are more of them and the present is so fleeting. Any epistemic standards that are sensitive to future goods will matter way more than standards

Consequentialist vindication  49 that are sensitive to just present goods.6 The same argument rules out Jenkins’s suggested form of consequentialism. As an account of why epistemic norms matter, it would say that the epistemic norms on my belief about p matter because conformity with those norms benefits my belief about p. This entails that benefits to my belief that p can make norms matter. But then norms requiring me to form my belief that q in ways that benefit my belief that p can also matter. If norms that require that each belief benefit itself matter, norms that require that beliefs also benefit other beliefs matter way more—​these latter norms can bring about much larger amounts of the relevant good. Konek and Levinstein’s view would say that epistemic norms matter because of the consequences of those norms, but not the causal consequences. But the noncausal consequences are important because of the epistemic goods they contain; why wouldn’t epistemic goods that are caused matter as much or more? For each of these proposed restrictions to consequentialism, the norms of a less restricted form of consequentialism will matter more, and will require trade-​offs. Foley, Jenkins, Konek, and Levinstein do have defenses of their views. Foley is attempting to figure out what matters by looking at our intuitive understanding of epistemic norms. He takes the counterintuitiveness of trade-​offs as showing us something about what is important. But what Foley really shows us is that we either have to endorse trade-​offs, reject consequentialism, or say that only present epistemic goods matters. Foley chooses the latter. But the latter is by far the least plausible of the three; it gives us an account of what matters unrecognizable to anyone as important. Jenkins, Konek, and Levinstein motivate their views by saying that they arise out of the nature of belief. Jenkins says that we can understand the good that beliefs aim for by thinking about the intuitive rationality constraints on belief, which tells us that beliefs must just aim for their own good, not for promoting good more generally. Konek and Levinstein say that beliefs have a “mind to world” direction of fit, and this means that we should evaluate each belief just in light of how it fits the world, and not how it makes the world fit it. These arguments show that Jenkins, Konek, and Levinstein are not really discussing consequentialism in the sense I’m interested in. That’s not a criticism, just 6 Foley’s argument fails for another reason: we can construct cases where trade-​offs are justified in terms of present goods. See, e.g., Fumerton (2001), Berker (2013), and Talbot (2014).

50  The End of Epistemology As We Know It an observation. They are not really interested in explaining why epistemic norms matter by appealing to only the consequences of norm conformity. Rather, they are also interested in understanding epistemic norms in terms of what makes a belief a good belief—​what makes any individual belief a good instance of the type belief. I discuss that approach to epistemic norms in c­ hapters 3 and 7. To summarize: epistemic consequentialists who vindicate norms based on the consequences of conforming to the norms have to say that we should make epistemic trade-​offs. Conformity with norms that allow or require trade-​off gets us more of what matters. Any attempt to avoid this requires norms that exclude from consideration some of what matters. Norms that do this will be systematically overridden by norms that don’t exclude this important stuff from consideration, as the former norms matter less than the latter norms when they disagree (the norms of the two systems might always matter the same amount when they agree). When the norms in a proposed system never matter more than the norms in some competing system, and sometimes matter less, we should reject the proposed system. And so the consequentialist has to reject standard epistemic norms. This means that, for any standard epistemic norm we can think of—​norms requiring coherence, conforming our beliefs to the evidence, etc.—​there will be cases in which one is permitted or obligated to violate that norm.

2.3.  Against maximization Within the consequentialist framework, it’s natural to think that, when conformity with norm A promotes more good than conformity with norm B, only norm A is vindicated. This natural thought might inclines one towards maximizing consequentialist vindications, or just “maximizing consequentialism” for short. Maximizing consequentialist vindications say that the norms that matter are those conformity with which brings about as much or more of the epistemic good than conformity with any other norm. And it turns out that to vindicate standard epistemic norms on consequentialist grounds one needs to use maximizing vindications. But we should reject maximizing consequentialist vindications, at least in the epistemic domain, and because of this we cannot vindicate standard epistemic norms.

Consequentialist vindication  51 I will discuss two alternative consequentialist approaches to vindication, either of which is superior to maximizing, although I won’t try to decide between the two. The first alternative is to give a satisficing consequentialist vindication; I’ll often just refer to this as “satisficing consequentialism.” This vindicates norms by comparing the consequences of conforming to them to the consequences of conforming to other norms. According to satisficing consequentialist vindications, there is a difference in goodness ε such that any norms that bring about consequences within ε of the consequences of the best norms to conform to will be vindicated, and any that bring about consequences more than ε away from the best won’t be. I discuss principled ways of setting ε in the Appendix to this chapter. This is not the only form satisficing vindications could take. One could say bringing about any consequences better than some nonrelative threshold is good enough to vindicate the norms. That would be untenable, however, so I won’t discuss it beyond this paragraph. Imagine we have two options. Both are above the threshold, but one is infinitely better than the other. Norms that require choosing the better option will matter vastly more than norms saying either option is permissible, but threshold views would also vindicate the latter norms.7 Threshold views thus can’t be appropriate accounts of which norms matter and why. For the form of satisficing I’m advocating, however, as long as we set ε properly we never sanction passing on a massively better option. Note that maximizing and satisficing consequentialism, as I am using the terms, are views about vindications, not about the content of norms. Neither requires that the epistemic norms explicitly mention consequences, maximizing, or satisficing at all (as we discussed in section 2.1.1). Rather, the norms that matter can talk about whatever they want—​fit to evidence, probabilistic coherence, reliability, etc.—​as long as conforming with those norms has the right relationship to epistemically good consequences. Also note that maximizing and satisficing vindications are always comparative: we cannot vindicate one norm unless we compare the consequences of conformity with it to the consequences of conforming to other norms. 7 This problem comes from work on satisficing consequentialism in ethics and practical reasoning; see Bradley (2006).

52  The End of Epistemology As We Know It The other form of consequentialist vindication that I’ll be discussing is scalar consequentialist vindication or “scalar consequentialism” for short. Scalar consequentialism in ethics is the view that there are no deontic statuses, that nothing is forbidden, wrong, required, right, etc. Rather, options are just better or worse than each other. Michael Slote (1984) is the first to mention scalar versions of practical/​ethical consequentialism, which have been argued for by Frances-​Howard Snyder and Alastair Norcross (1993, and more recently Norcross 2020). I’ll be discussing the adaptation of this to the realm of epistemic vindication. Scalar consequentialist vindications of epistemic norms say that no deontic epistemic statuses—​like rational, known, justified, permissible, required—​actually matter. So no norms that have to do with these—​no norms that issue requirements or that forbid anything, no norms of rationality or justification—​can be vindicated. I’ll have more to say about what this means in section 2.3.2. My goal in what follows is to show that we should reject maximizing vindications of epistemic norms in favor of either satisficing or scalar ones, and to discuss the implications of doing so for the epistemic norms.

2.3.1.  Satisficing To argue for satisficing consequentialism about epistemology, I will start with some examples from ethics and prudence. I will use these examples as illustrations, not as evidence or to elicit intuitions. My arguments against maximizing consequentialism don’t rely on intuitions about cases, but illustrations can help clarify points, and ethical illustrations are often easier to think about than epistemic ones. Consider three cases: • Chiu sees a drowning child. She can choose to rescue it with an annoyed look on her face, with a neutral look on her face, or not to rescue it. • Oladele is considering donating a significant chunk of their paycheck to charity. They can donate to a very good local charity, to a slightly more effective international charity, or to no one.

Consequentialist vindication  53 • Graham is considering ordering dessert. He’d prefer the fudge cake to the ice cream, but both sound tasty; or he can order nothing, which would leave him greatly disappointed. In each of these cases, the agent has three options: one is best, one is worst, and one is a suboptimal option that is much closer to the best than to the worst. The really important difference in each case is between the worst option and the other two options. The difference between the best and the suboptimal option matters somewhat, but much less. That is, the difference between saving the child with an annoyed look and not saving the child is much more important than the difference between saving with and without the annoyed look. Consequentialist vindications of ethical or prudential norms that stress maximization are problematic because the deontic statuses they vindicate obscure these kinds of facts. Maximizing norms differentiate only between the best option and the other two, by saying that the best option is permissible and the other two are forbidden. By grouping the suboptimal and worst options together, maximizing norms track similarities and differences that matter relatively little. Satisficing vindications, on the other hand, can give us norms that focus on the differences that matter more. Satisficing consequentialism can group the best and suboptimal options together, saying either is permissible, and differentiate between them and the worst by saying that the worst is forbidden. I say “can” because different forms of satisficing will be sensitive to different degrees of difference between options (depending on what ε is) and so some forms may group inappropriately; let’s assume an appropriate ε in what follows. In cases like these three, conformity with the requirements vindicated by maximizing consequentialism matters very little when compared to the requirements vindicated by satisficing consequentialism. If, in our drowning child case, the agent violates maximizing norms, this wrongness may matter very little: the wrongdoing agent may still rescue the child. If, on the other hand, the agent violates satisficing norms, this definitely matters quite a bit, because it means that they let the child die. But, one might say, I’ve just pointed out the badness of norm violation. Isn’t it great if the agent conforms to the maximizing norm? I agree, it is great. But it is not great because they

54  The End of Epistemology As We Know It maximized. It’s great because they saved the child (for example), which is what satisficing norms call for; it’s just a little bit better because they didn’t look annoyed while doing it. So, in cases with a certain structure—​that have a best, worst, and suboptimal option that is close enough to the best—​maximizing and satisficing norms disagree. And, in these cases, conforming with norms that require maximizing rather than norms that require satisficing matters much less than conforming with norms that require satisficing rather than norms that fall short of satisficing. When we look for vindications of epistemic norms, we are seeking explanations for why norms matter significantly. Consequentialist vindications are comparative. Cases with this sort of structure make maximizing vindications look like bad comparative explanations for why norms matter. Maximizing seems initially to matter significantly in these cases, but that’s because maximizing entails satisficing. When one conforms with a maximizing norm in these cases, what explains why this matters significantly is not that one has maximized rather than satisficed, but rather that one has satisficed rather than not. Maximizing and satisficing norms will also disagree in another sort of case. This is when there is a best option and a suboptimal option that is just a bit worse than the best option, but no option that is significantly worse than the best. In such cases, satisficing norms will see all options as permissible, but maximizing norms will only see the best option as permissible. In these types of cases, maximizing norms do not obscure what really matters, because there is nothing that matters much to be obscured. In these cases, conformity with the maximizing norms matters more than conformity with the satisficing norms, but just a bit more, since conformity with the maximizing norms only makes things a bit better. In light of this, I can now state the argument against maximizing consequentialist vindications and in favor of satisficing consequentialist vindications that ignore the right amount of suboptimality (see the Appendix for this chapter on how to determine that amount). Here is that argument: The consequentialist explains how much some norm matters by comparing the consequences of conformity with that norm to the consequences of conforming to another norm instead. The norms vindicated by maximizing and satisficing consequentialism differ in

Consequentialist vindication  55 cases where there are sub-​optimal options that are just a bit worse than the best option. In such cases, there will either be a much worse option as well, or there won’t be. If there is a much worse option, then norms vindicated by maximizing consequentialism matter much less than norms vindicated by satisficing. That’s because, to explain how much a norm matters, we look at the benefits of conforming to it rather than to another, and conforming with maximizing rather than satisficing norms matters much less than conforming with satisficing norms rather than even more lax norms. It matters much less that Chiu saves the child with a smile on her face rather than with a frown than that she saves the child either with a smile or a frown rather than letting it drown. If, on the other hand, there is no much worse option, conformity with maximizing norms rather than satisficing norms matters just slightly more than conformity with satisficing norms (because conformity with the maximizing norm does bring about more good, but there’s only a bit more good to be promoted). Of these two options—​maximizing or satisficing—​neither is such that the norms it vindicates always matter more. So, which approach to consequentialist vindication is the right one? When the maximizing norms matter more than the satisficing ones, this difference will be relatively unimportant. When the satisficing norms matter more than the maximizing ones, this will be relatively important. So, when these norms conflict, then either the satisficing norms track what matters significantly, meaning that they override the maximizing norms in a quite significant way, or the maximizing norms better track what matters, but only in a relatively unimportant way that we can easily shrug off. Overall, satisficing norms look a lot better with regards to what matters.8,9 8 One may wonder: is this also an argument for satisficing consequentialism in ethics? If ethical norms are supposed to matter because conformity with those norms promotes good consequences, then we do have an argument for satisficing consequentialism in ethics. However, many ethical consequentialists do not grant the antecedent of this conditional. They think that consequentialism is attractive in part because it fits our intuitions (for example, it is supposed to be intuitive that “One ought to do what is best.” [ see Portmore 2011]). Further, even if we grant the antecedent, it may be that maximizing consequentialism ends up looking better in ethics than in epistemology. In section 2.3.1.2 I respond to some objections to epistemic satisficing. These responses may not work in ethical contexts. 9 This oversimplifies a bit. If the cases where the satisficing norms better track what matters are fairly rare, maximizing might still be the better approach to vindication, since maximizing norms gives us more of what matters in the real world in the long run. But this is not a plausible picture of the situations we epistemically find ourselves in, as we are about to see.

56  The End of Epistemology As We Know It Let’s apply this logic to epistemic norms. Every epistemic good that could plausibly matter is degreed, either because we can more or less of it (e.g., accurate credence) or because we can get closer or farther from it (e.g., true belief). Because of that, our epistemic decisions will often involve an epistemically best option, at least one suboptimal option that is almost as good as the best, and at least one option that is much worse than the suboptimal option. In fact, these sorts of cases should be pervasive for epistemic goods involving interesting or mundane truths. That’s because, whenever an agent has an option that delivers a significant epistemic good—​which will happen whenever the agent can have a decently accurate credence or belief on a mundane or interesting topic—​there will be a suboptimal option that is close to this because of the degreed nature of epistemic goods. And there will also be at least one much worse option involving an absence of belief or credence, or the presence of a very false belief or very inaccurate credence. To illustrate, let’s say an agent has the option of knowing that their key is on one of the hooks by the door. That’s the best option. Or they can believe that the key is on hook 1, when in fact it is on hook 2. This is close to the truth, but not all the way there. As I discussed in c­ hapter 1, this is worse than the best option, but not in a way that is clearly that important. Finally, one might have the option of having no belief at all about where their keys are, or even perhaps of believing the key is thousands of miles away. The difference between the worst and suboptimal option is much more important than the difference between the best and suboptimal option. In every case like this, norms that satisfice are going to matter much more than norms that maximize. We should thus prefer satisficing norms.10

We can apply the same thinking to deciding between forms of satisficing. Consider the view that the norms that matter will allow almost anything, and only forbid the largest conceivable difference in badness. Call this view max-​satisficing. Max-​satisficing satisficing is focused on the differences that matter the most. But, thankfully, it isn’t the right approach to vindication in the real world. Consider a case in which an option is very bad, but not the worst thing imaginable. Max-​satisficing will allow us to take this option. That means that max-​satisficing will almost always permit terrible choices, because it is very rare that we have the option of doing the worst sort of bad. Because of this, less extreme forms of satisficing deliver more of what matters in the real world than does max-​satisficing. 10 Here’s an intriguing option: we say that we prefer maximizing norms when they better track what matters (i.e., in cases where there is just an optimal and suboptimal

Consequentialist vindication  57 It is important to note here how my argument differs from some standard arguments for satisficing. Some have argued that satisficing norms are better than maximizing norms because, if beings like us try to merely satisfice, this frees up our time and cognitive energy for more productive pursuits, rather than focusing on eking out the maximum total good. That’s not the argument I am making, because it really endorses a tacit sort of maximizing, as it is concerned with optimizing our overall beliefs in the long run. My argument is that satisficing norms matter more than maximizing norms, even if conformity with satisficing norms brings with it no benefits. My argument thus applies to norms governing fully cognitively unbounded beings as well as to norms for lesser cognizers like ourselves. Unbounded beings might do better conforming to norms that maximize than they would conforming to norms that merely satisfice. But they are not, I am arguing, epistemically required to maximize. That’s because it matters much more that they conform to less stringent epistemic requirements than that they conform to requirements that maximize. If this argument works, what would that mean for epistemic norms? I’ll discuss this and then turn to objections against the view.

2.3.1.1. Implications of satisficing consequentialism for epistemology Let’s consider what the epistemic norms vindicated by satisficing consequentialism might look like. These norms allow us to form suboptimal beliefs as long as they are not more than ε worse than the best option available. What exactly these norms look like depends on what ε is. In the Appendix for this chapter, I discuss the procedure for setting ε, which is both complex and depends on things beyond the scope of this book. So I can’t say much specifically about plausible ε levels here. But I can say a few general things about the types of norms that any plausible form of satisficing will vindicate. And I can also say a option, but not a much worse option) and satisficing norms when they matter more (in cases with much worse options). This will, I suspect, give us satisficing norms for mundane and interesting beliefs, as there will almost always be much worse options available. But it might give us maximizing norms for pointless beliefs, as the possible differences in valuable are all extremely small. I suspect that the attractions of this sort of view are better met by scalar consequentialism, but it’s worth keeping this option in mind.

58  The End of Epistemology As We Know It few things about how satisficing consequentialism would interact with some ongoing discussions in epistemology. We should expect ε to be larger than the importance of true pointless beliefs. In fact, we should expect ε to be larger than the combined importance of any set of true pointless beliefs. Why? Individual pointless true beliefs have an importance that is (at most) almost indistinguishable from nothing. Even in the aggregate, the total importance of sets of pointless true beliefs is smaller than the importance of other relatively insignificantly goods, like $5. My objection to maximizing consequentialism is that its norms can be concerned with negligible differences in importance, and when this is so, its norms are not very important. Forms of satisficing consequentialism with very small ε values suffer from the same problem—​they, too, are overly concerned with negligible differences in importance. Sets of pointless truths are negligibly important at most. So, the forms of satisficing consequentialism that gives us epistemic norms that matter will employ ε values that are larger than the total importance of any set of pointless truths. The norms that are vindicated according to these will put no restrictions on pointless beliefs, because these beliefs will not make a big enough difference to what matters. There is an exception: there may be cases in which forming certain pointless beliefs will cause us to form better or worse nonpointless beliefs. In such cases, the norms will place requirements on our pointless beliefs for much the same reasons that the norms require epistemic trade-​offs.11 This has a corollary about mundane beliefs. Our mundane beliefs do matter much more than pointless ones. This is because they have practical relevance for us. What really matters is that these mundane beliefs are good enough for practical purposes. In cases where a mundane belief can be false and still good enough for practical purposes, how important is the difference between truth and a good-​enough falsehood? This additional good looks more or less pointless, and we should

11 It may also be that our pointless beliefs have logical implications for our nonpointless beliefs. But as long as we don’t draw these implications, or are able to be incoherent in the right ways, these don’t generate differences in value that satisficing norms will be sensitive to.

Consequentialist vindication  59 expect it to be about as important as pointless truths.12 In light of that, we should expect the epistemic norms vindicated by satisficing consequentialism to allow us to form false mundane beliefs when those are good enough for practical purposes. And so these norms should allow us to ignore evidence or form incoherent mundane beliefs when this doesn’t have practical implications. I’ll just mention a further possibility for mundane beliefs, which will be discussed more later in the book. The previous paragraph says that satisficing norms will allow false mundane beliefs at least in cases where the belief is close enough to the truth that its falseness makes no practical difference. But we should be open to the possibility that satisficing allows mundane beliefs to be even more false than that—​ false enough to make some practical difference, as long as they enable good enough (but not necessarily optimal) actions. I come back to this later because this is really a question about the interaction between epistemic and practical norms, and that’s the topic of ­chapter 5. While we are speculating: it may be that satisficing norms allow our interesting beliefs to diverge from the truth as well. There may be false interesting beliefs that are close enough to the truth to be good enough. If so, then our interesting beliefs can also permissibly ignore evidence, be unreliably formed, incoherent, and so forth. This depends ultimately on what the appropriate ε is and on exactly how the importance of interesting truths work, so I’ll just mention it here and leave it as a topic for further investigation (I do touch on this again in c­ hapter 8). Let’s briefly discuss some implications of satisficing consequentialism for one currently popular consequentialist approach to epistemology—​accuracy-​first epistemology. Accuracy-​first epistemology takes accuracy to be the sole epistemic good and vindicates epistemic norms by showing that conformity with them promotes accuracy. The foundational building block of current accuracy-​first epistemology is that probabilistically incoherent credences are accuracy dominated—​for any incoherent credal state, there is a coherent version of it that contains credences on all and only the same propositions that is at least as accurate in all possible worlds and more accurate in some. 12 There are some interesting questions about the aggregate value of mundane truths. I discuss one aspect of this in ­chapter 8 and another in Talbot (2022).

60  The End of Epistemology As We Know It Let’s grant that this is so (some measures of accuracy don’t give us this result, but we can ignore that). This gives accuracy-​first epistemologists an argument for coherence as an epistemic norm, and almost every accuracy-​ based argument for other epistemic norms starts from the assumption that rational credences must be probabilistically coherent. These dominance arguments, and thus most vindications of norms given by accuracy-​first epistemologists, require maximizing consequentialism. After all, satisficing consequentialism says, effectively, that the norms can ignore small differences in important values. If credal state A accuracy dominates credal state B, but the difference between A and B in each world is too small (less than ε), then the fact that A dominates B just doesn’t matter enough to generate any requirements. In fact, even if A is much better than B in most possible worlds, but only slightly better than B in some possible worlds, then again the fact that A dominates B can’t generate requirements. That’s because there isn’t a sufficiently important difference between A and B in every possible world. So, given satisficing consequentialism, accuracy-​first epistemology cannot use dominance arguments to vindicate universal norms of coherence, nor can it assume that coherence is required when arguing for other normative requirements.13

13 Let’s consider another implication of satisficing for accuracy-​first epistemology. Current work in accuracy-​first epistemology typically requires that accuracy be measured by what is called a strictly proper scoring rule. Scoring rules are strictly proper iff coherent credal states see themselves as more expectedly accurate (as measured by that rule) than any other particular credal state. One of the standard arguments for strictly proper scoring rules is that any coherent credal state is rational in some situation, and no rational credal state should see any other credal state as better than it (Oddie 1997, Joyce 1998, Greaves & Wallace 2006). So, the argument goes, coherent credal states had better not see any other credal state as more expectedly accurate, or else they would not be rational, and strictly proper scoring rules give us this. The problem with this argument is that it conflates “better” with “required,” which is sensible until we reject maximizing. What we should say is that a rational agent must never see herself as required to adopt another state (while not adopting it). But, if we reject maximizing, this is compatible with a rational agent seeing an alternate credal state as better than hers. So, it is fine to measure accuracy using measures that allow rational agents to see alternate credal states as superior to theirs. This means that we cannot rule out improper scoring rules. While we are in this footnote, I’ll just mention the following: Richard Pettigrew (2016) gives an alternate argument for strictly proper scoring rules, which requires that the epistemic utility of an individual credence in a credal state is unaffected by the other credences in that state. This is problematic if utility measures something that matters. The goodness of one credence can plausibly be affected by the other credences one has.

Consequentialist vindication  61 Finally, let’s consider how satisficing consequentialism intersects with permissivist epistemology. Permissivist evidentialism might look superficially open to satisficing, and so we might think that the rejection of maximization has few costs for permissive evidentialists.14 But that’s not actually so. Permissivism says, roughly, that for some bodies of evidence, there are multiple permissible doxastic states. This might look like satisficing, since it seems to say that multiple doxastic states can all be “good enough.” But most permissivists’ views are actually not consistent with the norms vindicated by satisficing consequentialism. Permissivists tend to be “interpersonal permissivists” (to use a term from Kopec & Titelbaum 2016). They say that different agents can permissibly react differently to the same evidence, but not that the same agent can permissibly react differently to that evidence. The reason that different agents can react differently to the same evidence is that they can have different prior probabilities, different epistemic goals, different standards, or different risk sensitivities. But, given a single set of priors, goals, standards, or sensitivities, permissivists often think that there is just one appropriate reaction. The vindication of this type of evidentialist norm requires maximizing consequentialism. That’s because there will be some cases in which multiple ways of reacting to the evidence will be good enough, from the perspective of satisficing, even holding fixed one’s priors, goals, and standards. And so most permissivists hold views about the epistemic norms that cannot be reconciled with satisficing consequentialism. To combine satisficing consequentialism with evidentialism, we would have to think that an

E.g., having a false belief in a scientific theory that is very close to the truth looks pretty good, unless one also has a true belief in the correct theory, and then that false belief turns out to be either valueless or even disvaluable. 14 Relatedly, reliabilism may seem like a good fit for satisficing, since reliabilism requires only that our beliefs are formed by a sufficiently (rather than maximally) reliable process. But currently accepted forms of reliabilism say that the justification reliably formed beliefs have can be defeated. Standardly, evidence that a belief is false is a defeater. But that will not always be true if we accept satisficing consequentialism. In fact, a standard reliabilist account of defeat is that a reliably produced belief is defeated if one has a different reliable process available that would have produced a different belief. But this will not always count as a defeater according to satisficing norms, since these norms accept some degree of gratuitously bad beliefs. (This is an extension of, and perhaps a solution to, a problem for reliabilism discussed in Beddor 2015.)

62  The End of Epistemology As We Know It agent can be permitted to adopt a credal state that is worse than some alternative in light of the agent’s total evidence, priors, standards, goals, and so forth. I don’t know of anyone who has that view.15

2.3.1.2. Arguments against satisficing Now that we see some of its implications, we will want to find ways to object to satisficing vindications. There are many well-​known arguments against satisficing consequentialism in ethics or the literature about practical reason.16 We can set most of these aside, as they are not germane to satisficing vindications of epistemic norms, as I’ll quickly show, but there is one serious objection that must be addressed. Some objections to satisficing consequentialism attempt to undermine intuitions that seemingly favor the view (e.g., Petit 1984). Since my arguments are just about what matters and do not rely on intuitions (in fact, my views should systematically generate counterintuitive results), I can safely ignore these. There are also many arguments against satisficing, or satisficing-​adjacent views like permissivism, that accuse these views of having counterintuitive implications. As I’ve already argued, consequentialist vindications need not endorse norms that are intuitive or that fit our pretheoretic judgments or concepts, except for our judgments about what matters. So we can set these objections aside as well. Finally, there are quasiconceptual arguments for maximizing. For example, Jamie Drier (2004) says that the norms of rationality are, more or less as a conceptual matter, norms about what is most supported by our reasons, and thus must be maximizing norms. Perhaps that is so, but that doesn’t do anything to show that norms of rationality matter (and, given the argument I’ve just made, it is good evidence they don’t). To illustrate what I’ve said, note that satisficing is open to the “belief toggling” objection that is also often leveled against permissivism (White 2014). If belief x and belief y are both rational for an agent, then it seems like it would be rational for the agent to switch arbitrarily 15 The closest to the view is Ru Ye (2021), who argues that sometimes two beliefs can be equally epistemically good, and it can be permissible to choose or the other for no reason. But satisficing consequentialism goes beyond this to say that it is permissible to choose a worse belief. 16 Although see Tucker (2017) for an interesting defense of satisficing in ethics.

Consequentialist vindication  63 back and forth between x and y. I agree that satisficing can license belief toggling in some cases. The question, though, is, “So what?” Belief toggling is sometimes taken to be obviously not allowable, but this sort of appeal to intuitions should not have traction on those giving consequentialist vindications. Can we explain the problematic nature of belief toggling in some other way? It might be overly epistemically costly for nonideal agents (Woodard 2022), but if it were, satisficing norms would forbid it for those agents. That doesn’t show that it matters that it be forbidden for ideal agents or when it is only a minor cost. The other standard arguments against belief toggling are based on the practical consequences of toggling.17 These are only relevant to vindications of epistemic norms that are based in practical concerns, and that is not what this chapter is about.18 There are also a number of forms of satisficing consequentialism other than the one I have argued for here. These are subject to a range of excellent objections (see, e.g., Bradley 2006), some of which I’ve already mentioned when I set aside threshold satisficing views. But those objections to alternate forms of satisficing consequentialism do not apply to the form of satisficing consequentialism I am discussing, so I needn’t address them. There is an objection to the form of satisficing that I endorse which is, when properly understood, an objection about what matters. This must be addressed, and I will spend the rest of the section doing so. I’ll call this the objection from gratuitous losses.19 Consider an agent who is faced with two options regarding some belief: keep the belief as it is, or worsen it to some degree less than ε for absolutely no reason

17 E.g., White (2014); see Jackson (2021) for discussion of this fact. 18 I do think that, if consequentialism is true in the practical domain, we should not be maximizers there, either. If satisficing consequentialism is attractive in practical domains, then belief toggling is not a problem for it there, either. After all, the attraction of satisficing is that losses less than some ε don’t seem to generate norms that matter, so what if belief toggling causes such losses. When belief toggling causes practical losses greater than that ε, satisficing would forbid it. 19 I heard of this objection, albeit as an objection to a different view, first in a talk by Johanna Thoma that later became part of a paper (Thoma 2018). It is also made in Bradley (2006) against the ethical analog to the form of satisficing I’m discussing. I think that this objection is also partly in the spirit of some of White’s (2014) concerns about permissivism.

64  The End of Epistemology As We Know It whatsoever. It would be permissible, according to norms vindicated by satisficing consequentialism, to make the belief worse. Imagine that this agent faces a similar choice over and over again. If they chose to worsen their belief each time, the long-​term cost would be greater than ε. But each choice is permissible according to norms vindicated by satisficing, since none involves picking an option more than ε worse than the best. An agent can thus permissibly incur a series of such losses that in total are greater than ε. But differences in good greater than ε really matter. So, satisficing vindications license series of decisions that are bad in a way that really matters, whereas maximizing does not, and thus (the objection goes) satisficing fails by its own lights. There are a few things to be said in response. To illustrate the first, let’s think about a fairly standard account of maximizing practical rationality for a moment. Imagine an agent who finds themselves in a series of prisoner’s dilemmas against the same individuals, but who is not in a position to realize that this is what is happening. The maximizing “solution” to a single prisoner’s dilemma is to always defect, but this is the wrong response to certain kinds of iterated prisoner’s dilemmas. If the agent does not realize that they are in such an iterated prisoner’s dilemma, then a series of rational decisions will make them worse off than they could be. Defenders of maximization should say that this is no defect of their view, and I agree. The world can hide information so as to make the rational agent worse off, and that’s not rationality’s fault. To further defend their view, the maximizer will point out that, if the agent realizes that they are (or are likely to be) in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma case, then the rational decision at each iteration of the game becomes different. That’s because each decision affects the outcome of future decisions. This suggests that it is no fault of an account of the norms that individually permissible decisions together lead to overly bad outcomes, when an agent is not in a position to realize their situation. It’s only a criticism of norms that they generate this problem even if an agent were to realize their situation. In light of this, let’s consider a toy epistemic example. Imagine that the accuracy of credences is epistemically good and the credence that p is more accurate the closer it is to 1. We’ll use a simple linear measure of accuracy just to illustrate. And we’ll assume ε is .05. An agent started with a credence that p of .9 and has lowered it gratuitously five times by

Consequentialist vindication  65 .01 each time. The agent is in a position to again lower their credence that p by .01, which would bring them to .84. If the agent is a position to know that they are in this situation—​if they realize that they are about to incur a series of losses which together exceed ε—​then they are also in a position to recover at least some of their losses. That is, their decision is no longer a decision between a credence of .85 and .84, but rather a decision between .9 and .84. Norms that satisfice will not allow the agent to go to .84 in this case. , This illustrates how, more generally, satisficing norms won’t see as permissible series of gratuitous epistemic losses that together exceed ε, when agents are in a position to realize that they are in such a series. That said, maybe we can still construct odd cases in which agents realize they are in a series like this but can’t recover their losses. These would be a problem for satisficing norms. But it is likely worth biting this bullet, since satisficing vindications give us norms that in other cases matter so much more than those we get from maximizing vindications. The objection from gratuitous losses may still seem problematic to you. So let me offer another defense of satisficing consequentialism. The objection from gratuitous losses says that, if we use satisficing vindications, series of choices that are individually permissible can be problematic together. This doesn’t tell us to reject satisficing, however. Instead, it might tell us to reject norms on individual choices in favor of norms governing series of choices, or norms governing long-​term epistemic strategies, or something along these lines. But these should still be given a satisficing vindication. Why? Let’s imagine that we have three possible strategies to decide between. One maximizes the good in the long run. One comes close, but is a bit suboptimal in the long run. And the third is just terrible. We are considering what strategies we are required to adopt. According to a maximizing approach, we must choose the best strategy. According to a satisficing approach, we might choose either the best or the suboptimal strategy. These two approaches disagree on whether we are required to choose the best, and on whether it is permissible to choose the suboptimal strategy. The maximizing approach focuses on differences that matter relatively little; the satisficing approach focuses on differences that matter quite a bit. Adopting the maximizing strategy versus the satisficing one matters significantly less than adopting the satisficing versus the

66  The End of Epistemology As We Know It terrible strategy.20 Can we make an argument from gratuitous losses against satisficing consequentialism about epistemic strategies? It depends on the time frame over which we evaluate epistemic strategies or series of epistemic choices. If we adopt many epistemic strategies over our lifetime, then adopting a series of such strategies, each of which is merely good enough, could lead to too much of a loss. But then we must ask: how do we vindicate norms for adopting series of strategies? This too will involve appeal to something like satisficing vindications. To summarize: there is only one serious objection to satisficing consequentialism that is relevant both to discussion of what matters and to the form of satisficing I am endorsing. That is the objection from gratuitous losses. I’ve argued that agents who realize that they are in the problematic sort of situations won’t be permitted to make overly badly decisions, and that it is fine for norms to allow agents who don’t realize this to make objectively bad choices. We can also respond by saying that the lesson of the objection is that we should really be interested in norms governing series of epistemic choices or epistemic strategies, but the vindication of these is based in satisficing as well.

2.3.2.  Scalar consequentialism Perhaps you are unconvinced by my responses to the objection from gratuitous losses, and so think we must reject satisficing consequentialism. Or perhaps you are dissatisfied with the argument for satisficing consequentialism—​ how can norms that maximize the good matter less, since they promote more good? (The answer is that consequentialism is really about relative good promotion—​it’s differences in value promotion that matter—​and satisficing norms are 20 Notice that norms on strategies may involve ε levels quite a bit larger than those we get when we think about norms as just governing individual beliefs. Epistemic strategies potentially generate quite large gains or losses over our lifetime (or whatever the relevant time span is for evaluating strategies). So, the differences between maximizing strategies and relatively mediocre satisficing strategies can still be vastly outweighed by the differences between the mediocre strategies and the terrible ones, which means that adopting the mediocre strategies could still matter much more than adopting the maximizing strategies.

Consequentialist vindication  67 concerned with the differences that matter more.) So you may want to reject satisficing consequentialism. But the alternative to satisficing that really is in tune with what matters is not maximizing consequentialism. Instead, it’s scalar consequentialism. This is the view that no requirements or deontic statuses (justified, permissible, rational, etc.) matter. All that matters is betterness and worseness. To show that scalar consequentialism is superior to maximizing, I will adopt arguments used by Frances Howard-​Snyder and Alastair Norcross (Howard-​ Snyder & Norcross 1993, Norcross 2020) to advocate for scalar consequentialism in ethics. (Norcross 2020 gives additional arguments for scalar consequentialism, but these don’t translate to the epistemic context in the same way and I won’t discuss them.) The argument starts from the same observations that underwrite the discussion of satisficing: maximizing consequentialism sees deontic statuses like being required as often turning on very small differences in what matters. The argument then notes that deontic status is either binary or comes in degrees. That is, we can say that, for any A and B that are both wrong, either they are both equally wrong, or wrong A can be more or less wrong than wrong B. If wrongness is binary, then according to maximizing consequentialism, rescuing a drowning child with an annoyed look on one’s face, rather than a smile, is just as wrong as letting the child drown. The importance of wrongness can thus never be greater than the importance had by an act that is wrong by the smallest possible margin. So, if wrongness is binary, wrongness has vanishingly little importance. What if wrongness is degreed? If we are consequentialists about what matters, then the difference in wrongness between two options can only be the difference in goodness between these options, because goodness is fundamentally what matters to the consequentialist. But then wrongness does not matter at all. That’s because wrongness is contributing nothing to what matters beyond what is contributed by differences in value. Either way, the argument goes, we should do away with deontic status. It has at most arbitrarily little importance, which will almost always be dwarfed by the importance of the difference in value between the options available to an agent. Norcross and Howard-​Snyder think that this refutes satisficing consequentialism along with maximizing. That’s because, they claim,

68  The End of Epistemology As We Know It satisficing consequentialism will sometimes see wrongness as turning on tiny differences in what matters. To see why they say this, consider a satisficing view that says any option more than 10 worse than the best option is wrong. Consider what it would say about a case with these options: Option A produces 100 utility Option B produces 90 utility Option C produces 89.9 utility According to this form of satisficing, C is wrong, and both A and B are permissible. But, the objection goes, C is just slightly worse than B. So, deontic status can turn on just a tiny difference in value. And so, the argument goes, if we accept satisficing, wrongness would either have arbitrarily little importance or none at all. Satisficing, as I think of it, can respond to this argument. The small difference between B and C does in some sense explain why B is permissible and C wrong. But this is not problematic, because it is really just an epiphenomenon of the fundamental explanation of the importance of the wrongness of C. Satisficing consequentialism explains the importance of wrongness by saying that wrong acts are more than ε worse than the best option. So, what fundamentally makes it matter that C is wrong is the difference between it and A, not the difference between it and B. Since that is not small, the importance of wrongness is not really explained by small differences in what matters. I’m not fully satisfied by this response. The argument for scalar consequentialism says that, if wrongness is degreed, it is redundant and unimportant, because degrees of wrongness are no different from degrees of value. Nothing I’ve said in defense of satisficing responds to that. So, it seems like this defense of satisficing depends on saying that wrongness is binary rather than degreed. If wrongness is binary, then the importance of wrongness is just the importance of the closest a wrong act can be to being permissible—​wrongness can be no more important than the ε value in our definition of satisficing. That is unsatisfying to me. I’d like a notion of wrongness that can be very important, and it seems like satisficing vindications mean having to give that up.

Consequentialist vindication  69 The implications of scalar consequentialism are obvious and radical: no belief is wrong, permissible, required, justified, or rational. One might think, though, that this is only a superficially radical upshot. After all, scalar consequentialism does not deny that the best option is better than all of the other options. And there’s nothing to say in favor of suboptimal options, since (given scalar consequentialism) there’s nothing other than goodness and badness to talk about, and suboptimal options are worse than the optimal option. Doesn’t this essentially give us maximizing consequentialism in a different outfit: the best option is the best, and there’s no reason to prefer a nonbest option? But scalar consequentialism is not a dressed-​down maximizing consequentialism. The best option will often be just marginally better than other options. When it is, the fact that it is the best option scarcely matters according to scalar consequentialism. What matters are differences between options, or the importance of choosing one option rather than other (see also Snedegar 2017). If we focus on options which are such that it matters significantly that we choose them rather than other options, we focus on the options required by some form of satisficing consequentialism. So, when we focus on the evaluations of options that matter to any significant degree, scalar consequentialism looks much more like satisficing consequentialism than maximizing. It is still a nonstandard view. I won’t address any objections to scalar consequentialism. That’s because I haven’t found any that are relevant to scalar consequentialism about what matters. The criticisms I have found effectively concede that, given consequentialism, deontic status don’t really matter; they just quibble about the implications of this for how we articulate consequentialist ethical theories.21 21 Lawlor (2009) admits that quite often the consequentialist “shouldn’t care about whether [people] act permissibly. He is only concerned with how much utility is produced” (104). As far as I can understand him, Lawlor thinks that some options are permissible, contra the scalar consequentialist, but concedes that permissibility doesn’t really matter. That is giving up on permissibility for my purposes. Lang (2013) also seems to concede that deontic status doesn’t matter, and then goes on to argue that lots that traditional consequentialism is concerned with also doesn’t matter, which is supposed to suggest that the fact that deontic status doesn’t matter doesn’t show that we should do away with it. But this modus ponens is really a modus tollens, and here the lesson really is that the consequentialist should ignore all of this stuff that doesn’t matter.

70  The End of Epistemology As We Know It Where does this leave us? We’ve been discussing forms of consequentialism that vindicate epistemic norms by asking how conformity with them promotes epistemic goods (that matter). Maximizing consequentialism vindicates the norms that maximize these goods. But, I’ve argued, this gives us norms that systematically matter less than the norms vindicated by satisficing consequentialism, and potentially norms that matter basically not at all. Satisficing consequentialism does better. It vindicates norms that are much laxer than those of standard epistemic theories. At the very least, these allow our pointless and many of our mundane beliefs to not fit our evidence, be incoherent, be clearly false, etc. Satisficing consequentialism about what matters is also open to criticism. I believe that this can be responded to. But if we aren’t impressed with those responses, then the best approach to consequentialist vindication is scalar. Those attracted to consequentialist vindications should see requirements vindicated in terms of maximization as insignificantly important, whereas scalar consequentialism is entirely focused on what fundamentally matters—​the goodness and badness of consequences. This does away with requirements or deontic statuses entirely. Either way, consequentialist vindications of norms that focus on the importance of norm conformity cannot vindicate standard epistemic norms.

2.4.  Summary thus far It is widely thought that the epistemic norms matter because conformity with them promotes epistemic goods such as true beliefs or accurate credences. Granting that thought, the epistemic norms that matter are not what we think they are. Epistemic norms that require or allow epistemic trade-​offs promote epistemic goods better than norms that rule out trade-​offs. For any trade-​off-​forbidding theory, we can give a trade-​off-​requiring theory that only differs from it when the norms of the trade-​off-​requiring theory matter significantly more. This means that we can safely ignore the norms of any trade-​off-​forbidding theory in favor of the norms of some trade-​off-​requiring theory. We should thus reject all trade-​off-​ forbidding theories.

Consequentialist vindication  71 We should also reject the idea that epistemic norms matter because conformity with them maximizes the good. The argument for scalar consequentialism shows us that focusing on maximizing means that norms either would not matter at all, or would matter only as much as the least important amount of epistemic good. The argument for satisficing consequentialism shows us that, when norms that satisfice differ from the norms that maximize, the satisficing norms mostly matter much more, and only sometimes matter just a little bit less. We should reject maximizing for either scalar or satisficing vindications. Once we reject maximizing explanations of why epistemic norms matter, we have to either say that there are no epistemic norms at all or that the epistemic norms are laxer than standard norms. Going the latter route, we should expect that, at the very least, there are no norms governing pointless beliefs, and that mundane beliefs can gratuitously ignore evidence, be incoherent, and deviate from the truth to the extent that this has no practical significance. We may (and I think do) get even greater deviations from standard norms, depending on the value of ε. My arguments for these conclusions focused on the idea that epistemic norms matter because conformity with them promotes epistemic goods. Some who are attracted to consequentialist vindications prefer a slightly different view. They think that epistemic norms matter because trying to conform to these norms or being guided by these norms—​which do not always involve fully conforming to them—​ promotes the good. That view is the subject of the remainder of the chapter. Nothing in the rest of the book turns on what I say in the next few sections, so if you are not attracted to the view I’m about to discuss, feel free to skip to c­ hapter 3.

2.5.  Indirect vindications Here’s a familiar thought from ethics: it would be great if we were to conform to consequentialist norms—​to perfectly do what they say—​ but if we go around thinking like consequentialists—​if we go around trying to maximize (or even satisfice) the good—​this will make things worse. This might be true for a variety of reasons. It might be too hard

72  The End of Epistemology As We Know It for people like us to think like consequentialists, and when we try, we make serious mistakes that make things worse. It might be too slow for people like us to think like consequentialists, and so when we try to do so, we end up not being able to make good time sensitive decisions. Or, knowing that people think like consequentialists might undermine trust or important institutions, since we couldn’t be confident that people would keep their promises, or that our doctors wouldn’t murder us to give our organs to others. If this is so, what lessons might one draw from this? One possibility is that consequentialism is true as an account of what we should do, but it’s also true that we shouldn’t think like consequentialists. Sometimes this is expressed by saying that consequentialism gives us the criterion of rightness but not a decision procedure. Or one might think that consequentialism is not even a criterion of rightness: one might think that what is right for us to do is determined by the norms that are best for us to use when thinking about what to do, which are not the norms that are best to conform to. In the epistemic context, one might similarly claim that if our thinking about what we should believe is in line with the sorts of norms I’ve argued for in the first half of this chapter, then our beliefs and credences will come out worse than they would if our thinking were guided by some alternative norms. For example, if we try to make good epistemic trade-​offs, we might too often mess up and overall we’ll do worse than if we never tried to make trade-​offs. From this, those inclined towards consequentialist vindications might draw one of two lessons. Some may think that whatever nonstandard norms get vindicated in the ways I described in the first half of this chapter are the epistemic norms, but we shouldn’t think that they are, or we shouldn’t use them to guide our thinking. On this view, we really ought to make epistemic trade-​offs when this is overall beneficial, for example, but we ought not to think that we should. This sees the discussion so far in this chapter as about the criterion of epistemic rightness, but not as giving us an epistemic decision theory. Alternately, some may argue that the nonstandard norms I’ve discussed are not actually vindicated, because they don’t guide us in ways that promote the epistemic good. The norms our beliefs should conform to, on this alternate view, are those the use of which promotes the good. On this view, if trying to make beneficial trade-​offs leads to too many costly errors, then not

Consequentialist vindication  73 only should we not think that we should make these trade-​offs, or not try to make them, we actually shouldn’t even successfully make them. The rest of this chapter is about both of these ideas. One reason to prefer that people be guided by norms other than those that are good to conform to has to do with the social costs and benefits of widespread adoption of consequentialism. If we knew our doctors were committed consequentialists, we might be very nervous about medical checkups. I’m not going to talk about the parallel notion in epistemology here. Chapter 6 is all about this and related thoughts, which have to do with the “social vindication” of epistemic norms. In this chapter, I’m only interested in the costs and benefits for an individual that arise from their being guided by norms. We’ll need labels for the views under discussion. I’ll call the consequentialist approach to vindicating epistemic norms discussed in the first half of this chapter direct vindication and the norms that it vindicates the norms that are directly vindicated. Direct vindications vindicate norms by showing how conformity with them promotes the epistemic good: for example, trade-​off-​requiring norms are directly vindicated because making these trade-​offs is beneficial. In the next few sections, we’ll be concerned with what I will call indirect vindications of epistemic norms. These don’t ask how conformity with the norms promotes the good, but rather ask how being guided by the norms promotes the good, or ask about the benefits of trying to conform to the norms, where being guided by or tying to follow the norms can involve imperfect conformity to them. I call this “indirect” because, on this view, norms are vindicated not by the benefits of what they actually tell us to do, but rather by the benefits of (roughly) our thinking about or using the norms. I picked this term because I think there are analogies to the distinction between direct and indirect consequentialism in ethics, but those analogies are not important to my arguments and readers need not think about them; we can just use these as terms of art. In principle, indirect vindications of norms need not be consequentialist. We might also wonder if the norms that tell us how to respect the good (as discussed in c­ hapter 4) are the norms we should be guided by. That is, we might wonder whether being guided by the norms that tell us how to respect the good ends up with us respecting the good less

74  The End of Epistemology As We Know It than had we been guided by other norms. Or, if we tie epistemic norms to good action, we might think that conforming to certain norms leads to better action, but trying to conform to those norms means we’ll mess us too often. You can read the arguments I am about to make as applying to any indirect approach to vindication, which need not be understood in terms of promoting the good. The question I’m interested in is: will indirect vindication vindicate standard epistemic norms? But there are two ways standard norms could be indirectly vindicated. As already noted, we can distinguish between a criterion of rightness—​an account of what we ought to believe—​and an account of how we ought to go about making decisions about what to believe. One might think that criteria of rightness are directly vindicated, but accounts of how we ought to make decisions are indirectly vindicated. On this view, what we ought to believe and what we ought to think we ought to believe can come apart. Alternately, we might think that criteria of rightness need an indirect vindication as well. On this view, what explains why it matters that we believe what the norms tell us to believe is the goodness of being guided by these norms, even if there are better norms to conform to. Given this, we could think that standard norms are just vindicated as an account of how to make decisions, or both as an account of how to make decision and as criteria of the rightness of our beliefs. I’m most interested in whether indirect vindication gives us standard norms as our criteria of rightness. That’s because the view that standard norms are not criteria of rightness—​that we really ought to make trade-​offs, and that it really is permissible for us to ignore evidence and so forth—​is quite radical whether or not we should be guided by standard norms. But my arguments will apply to both the vindication of standard norms as decision procedures and as criteria of rightness. I will assume that the norms that are directly vindicated are the sorts of nonstandard norms I discussed in the first half of this chapter. If not, then we wouldn’t need to appeal to indirect vindications to try to vindicate standard norms. Here’s how the discussion is going to go. First, I’ll point out that indirect vindications can’t universally vindicate standard epistemic norms—​they can’t vindicate them for all agents in all environments. The defender of nonstandard norms might still hope that standard

Consequentialist vindication  75 norms are vindicated for beings like us in the environments we find ourselves in. This hope flies in the face of typical understandings of indirect consequentialism in ethics and epistemology, and there is little evidence to support it. Ultimately, however, indirect vindication always relies on empirical claims, since it relies on claims about will or won’t work for us, and so I cannot conclusively prove anything about what is vindicated for us.

2.6.  No full vindication of standard norms Indirect vindications cannot universally vindicate standard epistemic norms. If they ever did vindicate standard norms, it would be because when we try, or are willing, to make trade-​offs, or be incoherent, ignore evidence, etc., we mess up too badly. But that cannot be so for all agents in all environments. It’s easy to see this for cognitively unlimited agents. These agents won’t make errors about how to conform to the directly vindicated norms except in cases where they get misleading evidence about the costs and benefits of trade-​offs or about what topics are pointless, mundane, or interesting. If this sort of misleading evidence is rare in an agent’s environment, then standard norms won’t be indirectly vindicated for that agent in their environment. (As a side note, this is the opposite of how discussions of indirect vindications in epistemology often go. More typically, it is said that ideal agents should conform to standard epistemic norms, but limited agents like us are governed by laxer norms, and norms that even license some trade-​offs, because of our inability to cope with the more demanding standard norms [e.g., Staffel 2019a].) We cannot indirectly vindicate standard norms for all limited agents either. Imagine an agent who, due to their cognitive limitations, often mistakes interesting truths for pointless truths, but not vice versa. Imagine further that they generally correctly identify mundane truths as mundane. If the agent is in an environment that is rich with interesting truths, we might want them to employ norms that don’t take into consideration whether or not a truth is interesting, pointless, or mundane; such rules are too likely to tell

76  The End of Epistemology As We Know It them to treat actually interesting beliefs as if they were pointless, which could lead to huge losses. But if that same agent were in an environment that contained few interesting truths, then they might still benefit by trying to distinguish which truths were interesting, pointless, or mundane, because the benefits of focusing their resources on mundane rather than pointless truths would make up for the unlikely losses incurred due to mistaking interesting for pointless truths. More generally, there must be combinations of abilities and environments such that limited agents should be guided by norms requiring some trade-​offs, or allowing them to ignore evidential or coherence norms in some cases. Perhaps, though, the defender of standard epistemic norms could claim that humans in “normal” environments will do better trying to follow standard epistemic norms than the sorts of revisionary norms I’ve argued for. This is a bold empirical claim. For one, humans have a wide range of capacities and operate in a wide range of environments. Think about the differential access to information pre-​and post-​ Internet, or prior to widespread literacy, or the difference in access to good information before and after so many groups engaged in coordinated efforts to spread misinformation electronically. It would be shocking if we all would be better off being guided by the same norms, which coincidentally look exactly like pretheoretically plausible epistemology, in all of these different scenarios. Further, standard epistemic norms tend to be exceptionless—​they tell us to always be coherent or to always conform our beliefs to our evidence, and don’t say “be coherent or attend to the evidence unless . . . .” It is extremely implausible that any sort of exceptionless rule is always better to try to follow than some more nuanced rule. Consider trade-​offs. Perhaps we’d be worse off adopting norms that say, “Make trade-​offs whenever these are beneficial.” But if we adopted norms that said, “Make trade-​offs when doing so was clearly and undeniably a good idea and you are clearly and undeniably capable of succeeding,” we’d be even better off. So the best rule to adopt and use is unlikely to be a rule without exceptions. This is well known in the literature on rules, and accepted by indirect consequentialists in ethics (Hooker 1996). We should not expect indirect consequentialism to vindicate standard epistemic norms for all humans in “normal” environments (see Hazlett 2013 for a related argument).

Consequentialist vindication  77

2.7.  Partial vindication? The best the advocate of standard epistemic norms can hope for is a partial indirect vindication of standard epistemic norms: they can hope that, for a significant enough range of humans in a significant enough range of environments and a significant enough range of situations, those humans will do better if they are guided by standard norms than by the directly vindicated nonstandard norms. I say “significant enough” because a mere “at least someone sometime” sort of claim does not say much in favor of standard norms. I’m going to now argue that we shouldn’t get our hopes up, because this is both empirically implausible and also implausible given how we typically think about indirect vindications of epistemic norms. First note that, if standard epistemic norms were indirectly vindicated for us, this would be something of a tragedy. After all, nonstandard norms are directly vindicated. It’s those norms that are best in touch with what really matters about norm conformity. If standard norms are indirectly vindicated, that’s because there’s something about us and our environment that prevents us from being guided by the directly vindicated norms. That’s a bit tragic. That may not look particularly tragic at first. After all, any form of consequentialism says that what we ought to do is delimited by what our options are, and our options are delimited by some combination of our abilities and our environment. Why, then, do I accuse indirect vindications specifically of being tragic? Let’s talk about practical stuff to illustrate. It’s in my interest to be in good shape. I can be in good shape without exercising every day. If I skip exercising today and just play video games, this is an optimal choice as long as my skipping exercise today doesn’t make me significantly more likely to skip exercising down the road. It might be, however, that given my psychology, were I to skip today I’d be more likely to skip exercising down the road, and this could be overall bad. If that were so, then the best thing for me to do would be to exercise today, even though the best thing for a more capable variant of me to do today would be to just play video games. Direct and indirectly vindicated theories of prudence can agree about this, because the choice to skip exercises has bad consequences for me. So, when do they disagree? For directly vindicated norms to

78  The End of Epistemology As We Know It say I should x and indirect to disagree, x has to be significantly better than my other options in the short run, I have to be capable of doing x, and I have to be capable of doing x now without that causing too many bad consequences down the road. Why would indirectly vindicated norms forbid x in such cases? They would forbid x when, were I to think that doing x was the right thing to do, this would have costs. It’s not the doing of x, it’s how I evaluate doing x, that explains the difference. Turning to epistemology, if indirectly vindicated norms forbid trade-​offs, it’s not because I can’t make a trade-​off now, and not because making a trade-​off now risks bad consequences in the future, but because I can’t think about the goodness of trade-​offs without making mistakes. And that’s a tragedy: according to indirect vindications, we are forced into being governed by inferior norms because of the badness of grasping the truth about what really matters. I don’t say this with the intention of refuting indirect consequentialism. Rather, I want to point out that, even if we do vindicate standard norms via indirect consequentialism, we shouldn’t be happy about this. This will be important for some of the arguments to come. With this in the back of our minds, why would one think that standard epistemic norms are likely to be indirectly vindicated for us to some significant extent? For one, these norms are quite intuitive. We might take this to be evidence that they are good norms for us to be guided by, if we think that these intuitions reflect some sort of evolutionary pressure. Or we might take this as evidence that it would be hard for us to be guided by other norms—​given the intuitiveness of standard norms, were we to try to use other norms, we’d likely make mistakes. Or we might just think that the nonstandard norms I endorse are too complicated for people like us, and standard ones are just less cognitively taxing. Let me focus on the last two points, which are about our cognitive limitations. I’ll grant for the moment that we are cognitively limited in the relevant ways. I’ll later argue that the intuitive evidence for that is actually not very good. Let’s consider a parable, one that’s based on a true story. Let’s say we find out that, in many ordinary contexts, people are not very good at logic, statistics, or probability calculations. That is because our brains are structured in such a way that correct logical, statistical, or probabilistic reasoning escapes us and we make all sorts of errors.

Consequentialist vindication  79 Further, these errors occur even when it would be good to be good at logic, statistics, or probability. How might someone who likes indirect vindications of epistemic norms react to this? One could say, “It turns out that, in these contexts, logic or the rules of statistics or probability are not norms for us. Full stop.” That is, one could say that it’s perfectly fine in these contexts if our beliefs are logically or mathematically incoherent, and that’s the end of the story. But this is not the only thing one might say. We could instead say that logic or math are not normative for us, until we have tools to allow us to do math well or to approximate logical reasoning closely. So, we should teach people how to do logic, statistics, and probability. Further, we should give people methods or tools that can supplement their less-​than-​ideal brains. Sometimes these are as simple as giving them paper and pencil and teaching them what to write down and how to check for errors. Sometimes this requires developing and teaching formal methods to aid in the painstaking task of doing logic and math. Sometimes this requires teaching visualization techniques for working out tough probability questions without calculating the probability using “ordinary” mathematical methods, as those Gigerenzer et al. (2007) advocate for dealing with the base-​rate fallacy (see also the literature on “argument mapping” visualization techniques, e.g., Harrell 2008). Sometimes this might involve easier methods that closely but imperfectly approximate proper reasoning. Once people have these tools, then logic, statistics, and probability become part of the indirectly vindicated norms for us (at least in contexts where we have the time and cognitive energy to use these tools). So, let’s say it turns out that we are limited and do poorly when guided by nonstandard epistemic norms. It would be bizarre if this were the end of the story. Instead, we should ask, “Can we develop tools to help us be guided by, or at least approximate, the directly vindicated epistemic norms?” After all, we’d be better off with these tools. And, once we have them, then standard norms are no longer indirectly vindicated (in contexts in which we have and can use these tools). And this is exactly how those attracted to indirect vindications should think. Throwing up our hands upon discovering possibly remediable cognitive limitations flies in the face of what consequentialism is all about. The indirect consequentialist should, at best, think that

80  The End of Epistemology As We Know It standard norms are vindicated for the moment, but they should take this as a challenge, rather than something to be content with. This is fairly obviously the case when we think about trade-​offs. We will be better off if we develop tools to help us make beneficial trade-​ offs to some extent. But the directly vindicated epistemic norms are also laxer than standard epistemic norms. What could the motivation be for developing tools to help us be laxer in the pursuit of the good? The natural answer is that laxer norms give us the room to devote our attention where it is more beneficial. While that’s an often-​given defense of satisficing norms, it is misleading. It makes what looks like satisficing actually just another sort of epistemic trade-​off. Satisficing consequentialism says that it is permissible to gratuitously cut corners—​to give up goodness for no benefit whatsoever—​and it’s this sort of norm that is directly vindicated. Why should we develop tools to help us do this? It’s because it is a tragedy that we can’t be guided by the norms that are directly vindicated. The laxer norms are the norms that are most in touch with what really matters, and we shouldn’t want our limited ability to think about epistemology to prevent these from being the norms for us. So far in this section I have been granting for the sake of argument that we, as we are, would do better being guided by standard epistemic norms. This is an empirical claim, and not one I can say much about just by doing philosophy. I can, however, speak to at least one seeming bit of evidence that standard norms are the better ones for us: our epistemic intuitions. There does seem to be a pretty significant amount of intuitive convergence on the epistemic norms. One might think that this is strong evidence that these really are the right norms for people like us, in the environments we actually live in, to adopt and use to guide our thinking. Intuitive convergence on the epistemic norms is poor evidence that these norms are really the best rules for us to try to follow. If our intuitions are evidence at all about what will make us successful, this is because they reflect some genetic or cultural adaptation. Or it’s because we are good unconscious learners, and our unconscious has done a good job figuring out what rules work for us. But for either society, our genes, or our unconscious minds to tell us what strategies are good for us to pursue, they would have to “observe” a range of different strategies over a great many trials. I doubt that we, or the societies we

Consequentialist vindication  81 live in, have done anything resembling testing out different possible epistemic rules in the way we would need to for our intuitions to really be reliable. Further, our epistemic intuitions now are fairly similar to the epistemic intuitions had through philosophical history. And a single person’s intuitions later in life tend to be similar to those they had in graduate school. To trust these intuitions to tell us what norms we should be guided by, we have to say that what works best for us, cognitively, does not change as we leave early childhood and adolescence, or has not changed with the development of a huge range of technologies and increased access to information. This should all seem hugely implausible. So we should not expect our intuitions about epistemic rules to be particularly good guides to what rules are actually optimal for us.

2.8.  Conclusion Direct consequentialist vindications explain why epistemic norms matter by looking at the benefits of norm conformity. For these to deliver standard epistemic norms, we have to appeal to maximizing vindications, but these do not genuinely vindicate norms. Proper vindications give us laxer norms, which allow us to sometimes ignore evidence, be incoherent, and so forth. What’s more, even if maximizing vindications were legitimate, they would endorse norms requiring epistemic trade-​offs. So, direct epistemic consequentialist vindications cannot vindicate the standard epistemic norms. Indirect vindications cannot give us universal epistemic norms that look like those of any standard epistemic theory. For one, there will be beings with the right sorts of capacities, or in the right sorts of environments, such that they’ll do better being guided by nonstandard norms. What’s more, it’s almost a truism in indirect consequentialism that exceptionless rules—​like those of standard norms—​are not very good rules. The chance that all human agents in all ordinary human environments should try to follow standard epistemic rules is vanishingly small. The chances that even most of us should are small, given how much variation there is in our abilities and our environments. Even if this were the case at the moment, this would only be a

82  The End of Epistemology As We Know It temporary vindication of standard epistemic norms. Once we develop the right tools to help us conform to the directly vindicated norms, standard norms will no longer be indirectly vindicated for us.

Appendix Satisficing consequentialism says that vindicated norms can ignore differences less than ε in what matters. How do we figure out what ε is? To do so, we consider versions of satisficing consequentialism which each have different ε levels, and we ask which gives us norms that, on the balance, matter more than the others. It’ll help to illustrate this with two toy satisficing theories. Theory A says that ε is 15, and Theory B says that ε is 20. To see which gives us norms that matter more, we need to think about when A and B agree and disagree.

i. Agreement: The difference between the best and all other options is less than 15. A and B agree that all options are permissible. ii. Agreement: The difference between the best and all other options is larger than 20. A and B agree that only the best option is permissible. iii. Disagreement: The differences between the best option and all other options are between 15 and 20. A will forbid at least one option. B will say that all options are permissible. iv. Disagreement: There is a suboptimal option between 15 and 20 worse than the best option, and also an option more than 20 worse than the best. A will forbid the middling option, B will see it as permissible. There’s nothing to clearly differentiate between A and B for type (i) cases. In type (ii) cases, B gives us a notion of wrongness that matters more, even though A and B agree on what is wrong. That’s because the explanation B gives of the wrongness of the worst option is that it is more than 20 worse than the best option; A says that the option is wrong

Consequentialist vindication  83 because it is more than 15 worse. The former matters more, so this is a mark in favor of theory B. How strongly it favors B depends on how much more B’s norms matter than A—​how significant the difference is between 15 and 20, which of course we can’t simply read off these toy numbers—​and how often type (ii) cases arise. In type (iii) cases, A sees at least one option as wrong whereas B sees all options as permissible. In these cases, it is not that great to be permissible according to B, as this is consistent with being at least somewhat bad. So type (iii) cases favor A. How strongly they do depends on how significant the good is that theory B allows us to give up and how often type (iii) cases occur. In type (iv) cases, A and B both forbid some option, but there’s at least one option that A sees as wrong but B does not. These cases partly favor A and partly favor B. Being permissible according to B allows passing up some amount of good; the more we can pass up, the better A’s notion of permissibility looks. But, for the options that A and B agree are wrong, being wrong according to B matters more; the larger the difference between A and B, the more this favors B. There’s no ε that gives us requirements that always matter more than those of any other account. To pick between A and B, we have to weigh the pros and cons of each, think about which sorts of agreement and disagreement cases come up more often, and see which theory comes out mattering more on balance. What does this show us? The larger ε is, the more requirements matter when they do arise. That’s because those requirements are based in differences that matter more. But requirements arise less often, because larger differences are rarer. And so, the larger ε is, the more we are allowed to pass up on goods that matter. If it is rare that agents have options that are really bad, then norms from theories with small ε may matter more. If agents often have very bad options available to them, then larger ε theories look better. But this needs to be balanced by how much good these allow us to pass on. How does this apply to people like us? Most of the things we can think about are pointless, and for these, there is neither any significant amount of good to be required nor any significant amount of good to be passed up on. Pointless beliefs should have next to no impact on how ε is calculated. As I argued in section 2.3.1, we often have

84  The End of Epistemology As We Know It relatively bad options available to us: we can often suspend judgments, form very false beliefs, or remain much less certain than we should be. If that’s right, then epistemic theories with larger ε may be appropriate. “Larger” relative to what? I suspect that this will be relative to the importance of typical mundane beliefs. These likely dominate our thinking, and so will largely determine what an appropriate ε value is.22

22 In writing this, I worried about objections that (it turns out) don’t seem to occur to other people. I’m putting my responses to these objections in this footnote, just in case some reader or another does worry about them, too. Consider two views: Max-​satisficing and nonminimizing. Max-​satisficing sets ε to the largest value possibly relevant to an agent, which is the difference between maximal accuracy and maximal inaccuracy for all the agent’s credences. Max-​satisficing says that only credences that much worse than the best are wrong. Nonminimizing, on the other hand, says a credence is wrong if and only if it is the worst option available to an agent at a moment. Both of these views, at first glance, seem to track the most important differences in value: Max-​satisficing tracks the most important difference possible for an agent, and nonminimizing seems to track the most important difference in the context of a given choice. I have argued that we should want requirements that matter more, and so it might seem that my arguments commit me to either max-​satisficing or nonminimizing as an account of requirements. But these are clearly terrible views. How am I not committed to them? Max-​satisficing only forbids the biggest possible losses for an agent, which are almost never an option. Thus, the disagreements that actually arise between it and more plausible forms of satisficing will almost always be type (iii)—​the plausible form forbids something, max-​satisficing forbids nothing. In type (iii) cases, requirements with lower ε levels matter more. The requirements of max-​satisficing only matter more in type (ii) and (iv) cases, but for these to arise, a maximally terrible loss needs to be an option, which will almost never be the case. So the requirements of max-​satisficing matter considerably less than those of more plausible forms of satisficing in almost all real-​world cases, and so max-​satisficing does not give us an account of rationality which really matters more, when compared to alternatives. What about nonminimizing? Nonminimizing shares the flaw of maximizing consequentialism: it is too sensitive to extremely small differences. Imagine one could choose between the best, the worst, and a credence slightly better than the worst. Why, according to nonminimizing, would it be wrong to choose the worst? Because of the tiny difference between it and the slightly better option. So nonminimizing norms hardly matter at all.

3

Responding to some fundamental objections 3.1.  Introduction The discussion in c­hapter 2 of consequentialist vindications and the nonstandard norms they generate should give you a sense for how things are going to go in the rest of this book. It turns out that any plausible account of why epistemic norms matter is going to vindicate norms allowing for epistemic trade-​offs and will also give us norms that are laxer in some ways than standard epistemic norms. (Don’t worry—​the arguments for this will be interestingly different in each chapter, so this won’t be too repetitive.) There are fundamental objections to epistemic norms that have these features. This chapter is about those objections. Why discuss them at this point in the book? Understanding the objections requires first seeing the sorts of norms I’m arguing for, but I didn’t want to wait too long to address them as they reflect such fundamental concerns about my project. This chapter is important for another reason. In responding to these objections, I’ll say more about my methodology—​more about what we could or should want out of norms, more about when norms are deficient and should be replaced, more about what it is to matter, more about what it means for norms to be epistemic norms, and more about how the norms should be formulated. I think this chapter is essential for anyone reading this book. I’ll discuss three objections and one worry in this chapter. Two of the objections claim, roughly, that I’m not really doing epistemology. The first of these (section 3.2) says that the kind of justification necessary for knowledge is a central epistemic norm, and my arguments cannot be about that. The second objection (section 3.3) says that the reasons we have to conform to nonstandard epistemic norms are the The End of Epistemology As We Know It. Brian Talbot, Oxford University Press. © Brian Talbot 2024. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197743638.003.0003

86  The End of Epistemology As We Know It “wrong kinds of reasons” for belief, and epistemic reasons have to be the right kinds of reasons for belief. Both these objections say that, even if what I’m talking about is important and interesting, it can’t really replace standard epistemic norms. The third objection (section 3.4) has to do with our abilities. Some think that we cannot control our beliefs and so there are really no norms on belief. Others think that there are norms on belief, but that, because our beliefs cannot respond to the kinds of considerations I’m interested in (such as the benefits of epistemic trade-​offs), these sorts of considerations cannot be reasons for belief. The fourth thing I’ll discuss—​the worry—​is about how my arguments interact with work on the metaphysics of reasons and norms (section 3.5). This chapter is not intended to address all objections to my arguments. It just addresses fundamental objections that I suspect might arise immediately and that might stop one from being able to engage with anything else I say in this book. Objections to specific things I say about specific accounts of why norms matter get addressed in the relevant chapters. Other general objections to my approach may arise after having read this book, and I address those in ­chapter 7. One major objection has to do with constitutivist views of epistemic normativity, which I discuss a bit here, but talk about more in ­chapter 7. Another is that there may be no explanation for why standard epistemic norms matter, but they just do. I discuss that in ­chapter 7 as well. Finally, one might object to my arguments by claiming that epistemic norms just don’t have to matter. This whole book is a refutation of that thought: epistemic norms can matter a great deal, and most chapters in this book discusses ways that this can be so (I also come back to this in ­chapter 8). There’s no reason why we should settle for epistemic norms that do not.

3.2.  This is not really epistemology, version 1 When I want to explain to a student what the term “epistemic” means, I often start out by talking about knowledge. When I explain what epistemic justification is, I typically start by talking about the kind of justification needed for a belief to be knowledge. I am not particularly

Responding to some fundamental objections  87 original in this respect. I’ll cite just a couple of examples. In a paper on the connection between justification and the truth, for example, Earl Conee observes, “Epistemic justification is the sort of justification that is a necessary condition for factual knowledge” (1992, 657).1 The Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Epistemology says more or less the same thing (Steup & Neta 2020). This generates an objection to my proposal that nonstandard epistemic norms should replace standard ones. The objection starts like this: Epistemic justification is a paradigmatic epistemic norm.2 Epistemic justification is a necessary ingredient in knowledge, and thus epistemic justification cannot be opposed to, or inimical to, knowledge. The sort of norms I argued for in the previous chapter, and will also argue for in the rest of the book, are opposed and inimical to knowledge. That’s because in trade-​off cases the norms I’m arguing for will require that we form beliefs that cannot be knowledge and that we are in a position to know can’t be knowledge. When we make an epistemic trade-​off, we form a belief about p not because of evidence that p is true, but for the benefits of forming this belief, and so the belief is either going to be false or luckily true at best. And, if norms only require satisficing, they will allow us to sometimes form beliefs that are not fully supported by our evidence, and so that are either false or luckily true at best. Again, we will sometimes be in a position to know that the beliefs endorsed by nonstandard norms cannot be knowledge. Thus, the objection goes, the norms I’m talking about cannot be what epistemic justification is. It may seem that I have an easy response to this objection. I can just say that this is exactly my point: the norms that matter are not the norms of epistemic justification as standardly understood, but so much the worse for epistemic justification. That is to say, if the norms I am arguing for matter more than does epistemic justification, then we should replace epistemic justification with the norms I’m arguing for. But this easy response on my behalf misses the force of the objection. 1 Interestingly, in that paper he says that there are epistemic-​ish notions of justification according to which we ought to make trade-​offs; they just aren’t this notion of justification 2 The objector need not insist that epistemic justification is the only epistemic norm. But, as long as it is at least one of the epistemic norms, the objection seems to get off the ground.

88  The End of Epistemology As We Know It That’s because the objection is not just about epistemic justification, it is also about knowledge. It is saying that knowledge matters in some distinct way, and justification (as a component of knowledge) must also matter in that distinct way. If, the objection goes, I am not speaking to the distinct kind of importance that knowledge, and thus justification, has, then I am missing something. And so, the objection concludes, I can’t be showing that epistemic norms like justification should be replaced. The objection depends on knowledge mattering. Why might knowledge matter? Perhaps knowledge matters because it’s a combination of parts that matter (Kvanvig 2003). If that’s all there is to knowledge mattering, then the objection we’re discussing doesn’t get off the ground. On this view, knowledge would only matter because its parts matter. So, if we can show that the parts don’t really matter or don’t matter enough, then we’ve also shown that knowledge doesn’t really matter (enough). And, if we’ve shown that, then we’ve shown that it’s fine—​in fact, it’s great—​that the norms I’m talking about can’t be the kind of justification relevant to knowledge. So, this objection has to depend on some other account of why knowledge matters. One might instead think that, rather than the importance of knowledge being derivative of the importance of its parts, the parts that constitute knowledge derive their importance from being a part of knowledge and their importance need not be explicable independent of the importance of knowledge. If that’s so, then we can’t just replace justification norms with the kinds of norms I advocated for in c­ hapter 2. Those norms can’t play the role justification plays—​the role of being a part of knowledge. In fact, on this view consequentialism might seem like an odd way of thinking about epistemic norms: it sounds odd to think that knowledge matters because knowledge promotes epistemic goods (wouldn’t we say that knowledge just is an epistemic good?), and if justification matters just as a part of knowledge, it would also be odd to say that justification matters because it promotes the good. I want to stress that this is not universally how people think of the importance of justification in epistemology—​ there are plenty of people who don’t see justification as important just because it is a constitutive part of knowledge (there are, for example, actual epistemic consequentialists). But the view that knowledge is

Responding to some fundamental objections  89 special and justification matters for its constitutive role in knowledge is a view I must engage with. And I do engage with it in later chapters. If one likes this view, one must say either that the importance of knowledge can be explained or that it is inexplicable. Most of the chapters of this book discuss explanations for why epistemic norms matter. In chapters where I do this, I talk about knowledge when it is plausible that it could be special in a way relevant to that chapter (in ­chapters 5, 6, and 7). In each such chapter, I show that knowledge doesn’t really play any important special role, or at least that other things play that role better, and so knowledge should be replaced. There is one chapter in which I address the idea that knowledge inexplicably matters. That’s ­chapter 7. For now, it should not seem obvious that knowledge inexplicably matters, even if you are open to the idea. As I discussed in c­ hapter 1, the claim that knowledge is significantly important but that this calls for no explanation is a surprising one. That’s because knowledge almost never seems to matter much, and so even when it does seem to matter significantly, we should wonder, “Does this stuff matter because it is knowledge, or does it matter because it also conforms to some other, actually important, normative standard?” By the time we finish the book, we’ll see that knowledge and the standard epistemic norms that constitute knowledge are deeply flawed. They are significantly disconnected from so many things that do matter to us. These flaws will make the claim that knowledge has some distinctive, inexplicable importance hard to swallow. So, by the end of this book, we should doubt that knowledge, as standardly understood, is really that important. And this renders dubious any alleged importance that justification, in the sense of the necessary component of knowledge, has any significant derivative importance. If justification is not important because of its necessary connection to knowledge, then it’s fine to replace justification with norms that are not connected to knowledge in this way.

3.3.  This is not really epistemology, version 2 There’s a large literature on the “wrong kinds of reasons,” and especially the wrong kinds of reasons for belief. Work on the wrong kinds of

90  The End of Epistemology As We Know It reasons for belief largely focuses on purely practical reasons for belief, the kinds of alleged reasons you would have upon discovering that, if you believe that I like moths, I’ll give you $5 (that’s a fictitious example, please don’t ask me to pay up the next time you see me). Imagine instead that, if you believe I like moths, I’ll show you how to prove some interesting theorem (sadly this is also a fictitious example). Those who think that $5 is the wrong kind of reason to believe I like moths probably also think that the promise of learning this proof is the wrong kind of reason to believe I like moths. On their view, much of this book is speaking in favor of the wrong kinds of reasons for belief. This gives us two different objections to my views. That’s because those who write on wrong kinds of reasons divide into two camps. Some think that the wrong kinds of reasons for belief aren’t reasons for belief at all, because our beliefs are not responsive to these reasons. This is a kind of inability-​based objection to my views, and I discuss this in section 3.4.2. But others object to the wrong kinds of reasons for belief on grounds other than our inability to respond to them (e.g., Rabinowicz & Ronnow-​Rasmussen 2004, Hieronymi 2005, Schroeder 2010). That second type of objection is the focus of this section. Roughly stated, it says: the epistemic benefits of believing that I like moths really do count in favor of believing that I like moths, but they are not the right kind of reasons for belief, and so are not epistemic reasons. Again it may seem like I have an easy reply. If the benefits of believing I like moths count in favor of this belief, sometimes this will matter more than do the epistemic reasons. And so we should get rid of the epistemic norms and replace them with nonepistemic norms based (partly) in these right kinds of reasons. If you are satisfied with this reply, you should still read the rest of this section, as I’m going to say things here that are relevant to other objections. But first let me say why I’m not fully satisfied with this easy reply. There’s a kind of pluralism about what matters that I think we should be open to. To illustrate what I have in mind, let’s imagine that things work out as follows: Aesthetic norms matter nonderivatively, and matter to some significant extent.

Responding to some fundamental objections  91 The importance of aesthetic norms does not have any necessary connection to pleasure, but what is beautiful does bring people pleasure, and for this reason we always have moral reasons to promote beauty. Aesthetic norms never matter more than moral norms.

I’m not claiming any of this is true, it’s just to illustrate a point. In this scenario, there’s a sense in which we can safely ignore aesthetic norms as long as we pay attention to the moral norms. By stipulation, the importance of aesthetic norms will always be less than the importance of moral norms when morality and aesthetics conflict, and when they agree, we’ll do the aesthetic thing by doing the moral thing. Let’s say we knew all of this. Even so, I think we can still make sense of caring deeply about aesthetics for its own sake, and also caring about morality for its own sake. That’s because aesthetics matters in a different way from the way in which morality matters. For this reason, I don’t think we should get rid of the aesthetic norms or replace them with the moral norms, even though the moral norms systematically override the aesthetic norms. I can’t prove that it makes sense, in this scenario, to care deeply about aesthetic norms and to not replace them with the moral norms, but I suspect that it might and I certainly don’t want to rule this view out. In order to make space for this view, I cannot say that, if some norms x systematically matter more than some norms y, then we should get rid of the y norms (I did say this in c­ hapter 1, but when I did I also said that I would qualify it later on; I’m doing that now). This means that, if I want to show that the standard epistemic norms should be replaced by some nonstandard norms, I can’t just show that the nonstandard norms systematically matter more. It may look like I’m now contradicting everything I said in ­chapters 1 and 2, so let me clarify. In the example I’ve just given, we can make sense of not replacing the aesthetic norms even though the moral norms systematically matter more, because moral and aesthetic matter for fundamentally different reasons. Here I’m using “reasons” in the explanatory sense, not the normative sense. More generally, we can make sense of not rejecting some norms n, even though they systematically matter less than some alternative norms, as long as the n norms do matter significantly and matter for different reasons than the alternative norms.

92  The End of Epistemology As We Know It But here’s what we can’t make sense of: when two systems of putative norms matter for the same reasons, and one of them systematically matters more than the other, we can’t make sense of still caring about the less important norms. That’s because, whatever it is that makes these norms worthwhile, the more important norms have more of that. There’s nothing to speak in favor of these inferior norms. So, when two systems of norms matter for the same reasons, if one systematically matters more than the other, we should replace the inferior ones. In light of this, I don’t think I have an easy response to the wrong kinds of reasons objection. If the wrong kinds of reasons objection works, then the nonstandard norms I’m advocating for are not epistemic norms. And, given the kind of pluralism I’ve just said we should be open to, showing that the epistemic norms are systematically less important than nonepistemic norms is not enough to show that we should get rid of the epistemic norms. What I need to show is that the reasons to make epistemic trade-​offs are not the wrong kinds of reasons for belief, that they are in fact epistemic reasons. In order to motivate this, I will first critique two particular accounts of the wrong kinds of reasons. I’ll also give a general account of what makes norms epistemic, which allows me to respond to all other wrong kinds of reasons arguments that claim that show that the norms I’m interested in are not epistemic. Pamela Hieronymi (2005) argues that the wrong kinds of reasons problem arises from thinking of reasons to phi as considerations that count in favor of phi. On that conception of reasons, the epistemic benefits of making an epistemic trade-​off are reasons to believe, since they clearly do count in favor of the relevant belief. But, she argues, this conception of reasons mischaracterizes what reasons fundamentally are. On her view, reasons are considerations that bear on a question. When you are considering whether or not to believe that I like moths, you could be asking two different questions. One: does Brian like moths? The other: would it be good for me to believe that Brian likes moths? The benefits of forming this belief aren’t relevant to answering the first question. And, Hieronymi says, asking the former type of question is constitutive of believing. That is, to believe that p just is to take oneself to have answered the question, “P?” but not necessarily to have answered the question, “Would it be good to believe p?” The right

Responding to some fundamental objections  93 kind of reasons to believe, Hieronymi says, are those that bear on the questions the answering of which are constitutive of believing, and so they are only reasons that bear on the question of the truth of the belief. Mark Schroeder (2010) has a related view of the right kinds of reasons, albeit a different view of reasons. For Schroeder, reasons to phi are whatever counts in favor of phi. The right kind of reasons are a subset of these: The right kind of reasons with respect to any activity, A, are the reasons that are shared by necessarily anyone who is engaging in A, and just because they are engaging in A. (Schroeder 2010, 38)

What does this tell us about belief? Anyone engaged in the activity of believing will have reasons to believe the truth or what their evidence says is true just in virtue of believing. That’s because the activity of belief has a standard for correctness built into it—​that standard is part of the nature of belief—​and a belief is correct only if it is true. In virtue of this, all believers will have reasons to believe what their evidence supports just because they are believers. Schroeder and Hieronymi’s views are similar, in that they appeal to the nature of belief and say that it is only reasons (or considerations counting in favor of) that connect directly to this nature that are the right kinds of reasons for belief. On these views, the epistemic benefits of believing I like moths are not the right kinds of reasons to believe that I like moths. They answer the wrong question and they are not reasons that anyone forming a belief about whether I like moths would have just in virtue of forming that belief (since not everyone will receive these benefits from me). But Hieronymi and Schroeder’s views of the right kinds of reasons, and any view of the right kinds of reasons for belief that rules out reasons to make epistemic trade-​offs, are not good fits for investigations into what matters. The fact that some activity has some standards built into it, or is constituted in some way, does not necessarily tell us anything about whether or not those standards, that constitution, or the reasons that have to do with them, matter at all. (I discuss the constitutive norms and goals of belief more in ­chapter 7.) There are plenty of activities that are pointless wastes of time, and the right kinds of reasons for these

94  The End of Epistemology As We Know It activities do not matter in the slightest. So distinguishing reasons that are connected to the nature of an activity does not necessarily help us delineate reasons that matter from those that do not. That said, however, when we think about activities that we engage in, we tend to focus on activities that we choose to engage in. When we choose to engage in an activity, that’s evidence that the activity matters. If we choose to engage in an activity quite a lot, that’s pretty good evidence that the activity matters. This, in turn, is evidence that the reasons that have to do with the nature of the activity matter. And so, for many activities, it is worth delineating the reasons that are properly connected to the nature of the activity from the reasons that are not. But now think about belief. We form the vast majority of beliefs involuntarily. I do think we have some voluntary control over our beliefs, although you are welcome to deny this, but even if we do, exercising that control involves effort, and we still form beliefs when we fail to exert this effort. We are constantly and uncontrollably forming beliefs every instant we are conscious, and, for all I know, for many of the instants that we are unconscious. Because of this, we can’t take the fact that we form beliefs as good evidence that the standards built into the activity of forming beliefs matter in the slightest, just as we can’t take the fact that all of us regularly get colds as evidence that the standards built into having a cold matter in the slightest. (One could think that the uncontrollable nature of belief suggests that there’s some evolutionary advantage to this activity; that’s at best some defeasible evidence that these standards might matter, but this isn’t something we should take for granted.) What’s more, believing so often seems to us to be a worthless activity, as I discussed at length in ­chapter 1. This sets it apart from some other involuntary activities, such as falling in love. When we fall in love, that does seem to matter even if (or perhaps partly because) it is not something we choose to do. Even when it does seem that belief might be worthwhile, when we look at the norms that constitute it (if these are the standard norms), it starts to look less and less so (this is in effect argued for throughout this book). This again sets belief apart from something like love, which both seems important on its face and whose importance survives examination of its norms. Focusing on the reasons that have to do with the nature of an activity is only sometimes going to tell us anything relevant to what does or

Responding to some fundamental objections  95 doesn’t matter, and in the case of belief, we’d certainly shouldn’t assume that this is so; we’d need to make a case for it, and neither Schroeder nor Hieronymi does. If we want to categorize norms into types, and to think about something like the wrong kinds of reasons, and we want this to be relevant to what matters, how should we do it? We should divide norms and other normative stuff (values, reasons, etc.) into domains that are unified by their explanation for why the stuff in the domain matters. (For those norms whose importance is brute, or without explanation, there is likely to be some other “flavor” of importance that allows us to categorize them.) Why? When we are thinking about importance, we are concerned ultimately with questions about what matters, how much it matters, and why it matters. We can categorize norms along each of these axes. But the latter categorization—​ based on why norms matter—​is of particular interest. That should make sense: epistemic norms matter for some reason, and so when we are engaged with them, that’s because there is some distinctive type of concern that occupies us. But then any norms that get at that concern should occupy us as well. My view of categorization also makes sense in light of the pluralism I discussed earlier. If there are two systems of norms that matter, and the explanations for why each matters are totally different, then (if we are pluralists) we can’t replace one with the other, even if one systematically matters more than the other. But, if the explanations for why the norms of two systems matter are the same, and the norms of one matter systematically more than the norms of the other, then even if we are pluralists we should replace the less important ones, as we can’t make sense of caring for them rather than the ones who matter more. The idea that norms should be grouped according to why they matter is nowhere near fully fleshed out. The most salient question that remains to be answered is what exactly it takes for norms to matter for the same reason. To answer this, we’d need to think about, for example, how fine-​grained our individuation of these explanations should be. But I am going to leave things in this underdeveloped state. Working this out is not required for the overall project of this book. Over and over throughout the book, when I consider different accounts of why the epistemic norms matter, I’ll take them to each be a unified account, or else they couldn’t be an account for why the epistemic norms, as a single domain of norms, matter.

96  The End of Epistemology As We Know It This view does allow us to make something like the right/​wrong kinds of reasons distinction. Let’s say the epistemic norms matter because they promote sufficiently accurate representation of the world, as discussed in the previous chapter. Let’s assume this matters in a nonpractical way. And let’s say you get offered $5 to believe that I like moths. This gives you a reason to believe I like moths, and this reason does matter, because $5 will help promote your well-​being. But that’s not, we’re assuming, connected to why the epistemic norms matter. And so this is the wrong kind of reason for belief, from the epistemic perspective, and is not an epistemic reason for believing that I like moths. From the standpoint of the epistemic, the standpoint we take when we are concerned with the goods that epistemic stuff is supposed to get us, this isn’t a reason. On the other hand, the fact that you’ll learn a new proof for such and such if you believe that I like moths would be an epistemic reason to believe I like moths. That’s because learning this proof matters in part because it promotes accurate representation of the world. Norms sensitive to these kinds of epistemic trade-​offs are concerned with the same things you are concerned with when you are concerned with the epistemic. Schroeder and Hieronymi’s accounts of the wrong kinds of reasons will often overlap with mine. When we engage in an activity, we often choose to do so because the activity is worthwhile. And this is often because there’s something good about the nature of the activity. And so considerations that are important, but do not connect with the nature of the activity we are engaged in, will have their importance explained in a different way than the importance of the activity. Thus, reasons that are the wrong kind for x according to Schroeder and Hieronymi will also on my view often belong to some other domain of normativity than the norms of x. So far I’ve been focusing on Hieronymi and Schroeder’s accounts of the wrong kinds of reasons, but what I’ve just said gives me a fully general response to any accusation that the reasons I am interested in are not epistemic reasons. In most chapters of this book, I consider a particular view about why epistemic norms matter and argue that, given that view, some nonstandard norms should replace the standard epistemic norms. That’s because these nonstandard norms matter more than the standard norms, in exactly the way that the standard norms are supposed to matter. Because these nonstandard norms matter in the epistemic way, so to speak, they are epistemic norms. Any view

Responding to some fundamental objections  97 that says that these nonstandard norms are not epistemic norms is grouping norms based on factors that are not relevant to what is important, how important it is, or why it is important. And so they will be grouping norms into domains that are orthogonal to questions about importance. (What if these views I reject are grouping norms along metaphysical lines? I discuss in section 3.5 why I think this is orthogonal to questions about importance.)

3.4.  Our abilities, or lack thereof We are limited. There are various ways in which philosophers think that our limitations constrain what we can be obligated or have reason to do. These may seem to give rise to objections to the project in this book. In this section, I’ll respond to those objections.

3.4.1.  Doxastic involuntarism The most general objection to discuss is one made famous by William Alston (1988). The objection goes like this: “ought” implies “can.” This means that any deontic norm telling us what is obligatory or forbidden is only true if we can do what it says, in the right sense of “can.” We do not have the right kind of control over our beliefs for there to be epistemic obligations. It’s not that we are unable to believe what we are allegedly obligated to believe—​we can, for example, have beliefs that are supported by our evidence—​it’s just that we can’t voluntarily do so. Thus, there are no deontic norms governing our beliefs at all. I happen to think that Alston’s argument is based on false premises, since both “ought” implies “can” is false and also we have the right kind of voluntary control over our beliefs.3 If you agree that Alston’s 3 The intuitive evidence against “ought” implies “can” is pretty overwhelming, in my opinion (see Sinnott-​Armstrong 1984 for early intuitive refutations; see Henne et al. 2016 for more recent empirical work showing how unintuitive “ought” implies “can” is, although see Thompson 2023 for an interesting response to this empirical work). And I think that the alleged theoretical motivations for saying “ought” implies “can” don’t really favor the view, as I discuss in section 3.4.3.

98  The End of Epistemology As We Know It argument doesn’t work, you can skip ahead to the next objection (section 3.4.2). But I won’t try to convince you Alston is wrong because I don’t need to (although I do briefly touch on “ought” implies “can” in section 3.4.2). Let’s say we accept Alston’s view. If this is a problem, then it is everyone’s problem in epistemology. It shows the epistemic norms need either to be nondeontic or to govern not our beliefs but rather govern something over which we have the right kind of control. We can reformulate everything we talk about in epistemology in these terms. What would epistemic norms look like if they weren’t deontic? They might be purely evaluative, in that they only tell us what is good or bad to believe, not what is right or wrong. To reformulate the norms I discuss in these terms, you can read “wrong” or “forbidden” as bad, and “not wrong” or “not forbidden” as neutral or good. All other deontic terms can be defined in terms of wrongness, so can be redefined accordingly in terms of goodness and badness.4 Alternately, nondeontic norms might be almost indistinguishable from deontic norms, but rather than stating obligations in the sense that implies can, they might state something like ideal rules—​rules that we cannot voluntarily conform to, and so which cannot state obligations, but that are still important in some way (Henderson 1966). How could rules that we can’t voluntarily conform to be important? We might be able to indirectly get ourselves to conform to them by shaping how we form beliefs.5 Or There are a number of papers arguing that we have (to some extent) the right sort of ability to control our beliefs. (For a sample, see Steup 2000, Ryan 2003, Weatherson 2008, Talbot 2014.) 4 You may wonder: what if we want an account of epistemic norms that evaluates everything as better/​worse, but nothing as good or bad? That would be to say either: no matter how much worse any belief gets, no belief is ever bad, or else no matter how much better it gets, no belief is ever good. For one, that basically commits us to scalar epistemic consequentialism, an extremely radical view already (­chapter 2). But this view, that there is no meaningful difference between good and bad, is even more radical, and I doubt that anyone really accepts this. We do sometimes see epistemic utility theory talk in these terms (using measures that, as standardly stated, assign all nonomniscient credences negative scores), but I suspect that this is really only for the purpose of formal modeling. Models can obscure or elide all kinds of stuff (that’s part of their charm) but that doesn’t mean that that stuff isn’t really important. 5 Alston discusses this possibility but rejects it as he thinks it can’t fit with standard epistemic norms. I think he’s mistaken, but even if he’s right, that isn’t a problem if we are open to nonstandard norms.

Responding to some fundamental objections  99 we might be able to conform to them, just not voluntarily, and it still might be important to note when our beliefs do or do not conform to them whether or not this is voluntary. For example, beliefs that are formed in accord with some ideal rule might be the only proper basis for action, and so it might be worth noting which beliefs do or do not conform to these ideal rules, even if we can’t voluntarily control this. Or it might be worth noting when others’ beliefs do or do not conform to the ideal rules, because this serves some valuable social function (e.g., it tells us who to trust). If the epistemic norms didn’t govern our beliefs, what would they govern? The most obvious candidate is that, roughly, they could govern what we should get ourselves to believe. I’ll return to this in the next section. Whatever shape the standard epistemic norms take so as to avoid Alston’s objection, the norms I’m interested in can take that shape as well. If you are convinced by Alston’s objection, please translate everything I say into the proper terms. Let’s now turn to a worry about our abilities that targets my view directly.

3.4.2.  The inability to make trade-​offs Some philosophers think that we have the ability to conform to standard epistemic norms, in whatever the relevant sense of “ability” is, but we lack that kind of ability to conform to the nonstandard norms that I am talking about. Specifically, we lack that ability to make epistemic trade-​offs.6 It’s not that we can’t form beliefs that end up constituting beneficial epistemic trade-​offs. Rather, these objections go, it’s that our beliefs can’t really respond to these benefits—​we can’t be directly motivated to form beliefs because they are beneficial, or

6 I don’t think these arguments can be well reformulated to say that we don’t have reasons to conform to the laxer norms I advocate for. But, if they can be, my responses below can also be reformulated as well. I argue for laxer norms in each chapter by showing that, from the perspective of what matters, conformity with laxer norms matters as much or more than conformity with more demanding norms. If we can’t have reasons to conform to laxer norms, we can still have reasons to do something related (e.g., get ourselves to conform), and the norms these reasons give us are epistemic norms.

100  The End of Epistemology As We Know It we can’t reason from acknowledgments of these benefits to the formation of these beliefs. For this reason, these philosophers think, we cannot be required to make trade-​offs or perhaps we don’t even have any reasons to make trade-​offs. In what follows, I’ll focus on the stronger statement of the argument—​that we don’t have reasons—​for simplicity, but everything I say can be applied to the weaker statement as well. In responding to these concerns, I will mostly adopt a concessive strategy. I actually think these arguments are all based in false premises, but I don’t need to show that they are: even if these arguments are all perfectly sound, this is irrelevant to my project. So, in the rest of this section, I will talk as if the relevant views about reasons are correct, even though I don’t endorse them. Because I am adopting this concessive strategy, the details of the arguments for these views will not make a difference to my response. But I will briefly give examples of these arguments to give context to my response. Consider first an argument from Niko Kolodny about why there are no “state-​given” reasons for belief, which have to do with the benefits of a belief, and only “object-​ given” reasons, which have to do with the goodness of the object of the belief (i.e., the truth of its content): That p is a reason for A to R only if it is possible for A to reason from the content of the recognition that p is a reason for A to R to R-​ing. . . . If this is correct, then there are no ‘state-​given’ reasons for belief, only ‘object-​given’ reasons for belief. . . . [I]‌t is not possible to reason to a belief from the recognition of a state-​given reason for it: that is, a reason that one does not take to be evidence that it is true. This is not reasoning. (Kolodny 2005, 548–​550)

Or consider a related argument from Nishi Shah, about why the benefits of a belief cannot be reasons for that belief: R is a reason for X to believe that p only if R is capable of disposing X towards believing that p in the way characteristic of R’s functioning as a premise in doxastic deliberation. . . . [T]‌he attractiveness of a belief does not tell for or against the truth of p, and the question of p’s truth occupies the sole focus of our attention in doxastic

Responding to some fundamental objections  101 deliberation. When we ask ourselves the deliberative question whether to believe that p, this question gives way to the question whether p is true, and so the only way for us to answer the former question is by answering the latter. This is the phenomenon of transparency. (Shah 2006, 487)

Even if these arguments work, they ultimately make technical points about how we should state the epistemic norms, and are not germane to what I am really trying to show. Crucially, none of these authors deny that it would be better in an important sense for us to make epistemic trade-​offs. That should be unsurprising: if they could plausibly deny this, then they wouldn’t have to appeal to incapacities to show that we don’t have reasons to make trade-​offs; they’d only need to show that there is nothing attractive about making trade-​offs that would give us those reasons. So, they agree that, when believing that p brings about some great benefits, it would be terrific to believe that p, and terrible if we could not. What they deny is that this gives us reasons to believe p. That’s because (they claim) we can’t respond to these benefits in the right way; for example, we cannot reason to the belief that p via premises about those benefits, or those benefits cannot dispose us in the right way to believe p. But none of these authors deny that we can respond to these benefits in some way: the benefits of beliefs can at least move us to try to get ourselves to form these beliefs, or to set things up so that we come to form these beliefs, for example. And this is why these arguments ultimately don’t have much significance for my project. To see why, let’s consider a parable. Imagine that a hiring committee’s members lack certain capacities. Specifically, they lack the capacity to respond to the qualifications of nonwhite, nonmale candidates in the right way, so that (according to the views of reasons under discussion) these qualifications are not reasons for them to hire these candidates. Instead, the hiring committee members only have the capacity to respond in the right way to the qualifications of white male candidates. Imagine further that the committee members do have the capacity to do the following, however: they can set things up to subvert their incapacities so that candidates get hired in accordance with their actual qualifications. And, further, they are also capable of intending to

102  The End of Epistemology As We Know It do this, planning to do this, executing these plans, and of succeeding in doing this because of their intentions and plans. So, hiring committees do still have reasons, according to the views of reasons under discussion, to intend to set things up in this way, plan to do so, execute these plans, etc. Suppose we knew all of this, and knew also that this entailed that hiring committees lacked reasons to hire nonmale, nonwhite candidates, or to hire the best candidate, or to hire in accordance with justice, etc. And now a hire has occurred. We could say, “Given the committee’s incapacities, the only normative question we can ask is: did they hire the best white male?” But not only is this not the only question to ask, it isn’t even close to being the most important question to ask. What lesson do we learn from this parable? We should not ask, “Did the hiring committee hire who they had most reasons to hire?,” since the committee’s reasons to hire are disconnected from what matters in hiring, due to committee’s incapacities. Rather, we should ask, “Did the hiring committee hire who they had most reasons to get themselves to hire?” (or however we put it). Those reasons reflect what matters about hiring. And the same applies to belief. Take whatever explanation we like for why the norms on belief matter. We can give norms on what we should get ourselves to believe that matter for the same reasons. These latter norms will say that we have reasons to make epistemic trade-​offs. We saw this in ­chapter 2, and I’ll argue for this through the rest of the book. What’s more, both kinds of norms—​the norms on belief and the norms on what we should get ourselves to believe—​are epistemic norms, in the relevant sense of “epistemic.” In section 3.3 I argued that, if we are interested in importance, we should categorize norms according to why they are important. Since the norms on what we should get ourselves to believe matter for the same reasons as the norms on belief, they are both epistemic norms. When there are sufficiently important trade-​offs to be made, these two types of epistemic norms will conflict, as we can’t mutually satisfy them. When they do conflict, conforming with the norms on what we should get ourselves to believe will systematically matter more than conforming with the norms on belief. So, for example, if the norms on belief matter because conforming with them promotes the epistemic good, we can set up norms on what we should get ourselves to believe that only vary from

Responding to some fundamental objections  103 the norms on belief when they promote greater overall epistemic value. Given all of this, the right question to ask when there are trade-​offs to be made is not, “Do we believe what we have reason to believe?” since the reasons for belief can’t track what really matters about believing, given our incapacities. Rather, we should ask, “Do we believe what we have reason to get ourselves to believe?” Put another way, the view of reasons under discussion only means that we should ignore the norms of belief and replace them with the norms of what we should get ourselves to believe. To be clear: sometimes we do want to think about our capacities and incapacities when we think about the epistemic norms. For example, norms requiring logical omniscience may be flawed norms because we are never even going to be vaguely close to logically omniscient. But the incapacity-​ based arguments I’m discussing are based in incapacities that we only have when we very narrowly construe the activities epistemic norms govern. If someone tells us, “It would be amazing to do x, but you can’t do x in this very particular way, so just forget about x entirely,” the right reaction is not to say, “Oh, all right,” the right reaction is to wonder “Why are you fixating on this one very particular way?” To give another illustration: I am a not-​very-​good amateur drummer. If I show up to play without practicing, the best I can possibly do is play poorly. Let’s say we want norms on my musical performances. We could fixate on the reasons I have for hitting certain drums at certain times that exist only in light of the capacities I have just at that specific moment I’m playing. But no musician, myself included, thinks that the norms this gives us are important ones. The norms on my musical performances factor in how much I should have practiced, and how I would be able to play if I had practiced enough. This may mean that norms on musical performances are not really the norms governing playing music, but the norms on musical performances that are sensitive to how the performer should be able to play are clearly the ones that anyone who cares about music cares about. Similarly, if the norms on belief have to ignore much of what matters because they focus on a very narrowly construed activity at which we have extremely limited capacities, then the norms of belief are not the norms that anyone who cares about belief really care about.

104  The End of Epistemology As We Know It To summarize: I will argue throughout the book that, according to whatever it is that explains why epistemic norms matter, it is important to make some epistemic trade-​offs. In response, one might argue that our beliefs cannot respond to the benefits of epistemic trade-​offs in the right way, so epistemic trade-​offs are not reasons for belief. If that’s so, trade-​offs are still reasons to get ourselves to believe things, and these norms—​the norms on what we should get ourselves to believe—​should replace the standard epistemic norms. This is consistent with everything I say in this book with just some slight reformulations. Whenever one philosopher says that a bunch of other philosophers are thinking about the wrong thing, as I just have, we should always ask: why did that wrong thing look worth thinking about in the first place? So, why did the philosophers I’m responding to focus on the connections between our reasons and our incapacities in the way they did? They are ultimately interested in different questions than I am. Much of this discussion comes in the context of work on the metaphysics of reasons and norms. Kolodny, and others writing on state-​vs. object-​given reasons (e.g., Parfit 2018) are interested in what reasons are, and whether or not norms can always be stated in terms of reasons (this is true for Hieronymi and Schroeder as well). If we are trying to answer these sorts of metaphysical questions, then of course it is crucial to think about what exactly some putative reason is or can be a reason for. In the context of this sort of inquiry, it also makes sense to categorize norms along metaphysical lines, and so to draw the line between the epistemic and nonepistemic based on purely metaphysical distinctions. But these metaphysical questions and distinctions, as interesting as they are, are not relevant to whether, why, or how much the norms matter. So they should not significantly shape our investigations into what the epistemic norms should be, as that is fundamentally about what matters. Because discussions of the metaphysics of norms and reasons, and categorizations and arguments based on these discussions, play such a large part in epistemology, I should say a bit more about why they aren’t relevant to whether norms matter, and how it is that I can avoid engaging with them in this book. That’s the topic of section 3.5. But first I want to briefly talk about guidance.

Responding to some fundamental objections  105

3.4.3.  Guidance and norms Feel free to skip this section, as nothing in it is essential for understanding the arguments in the rest of the book. But since this is my book, I thought I’d take a moment to make nonconcessive arguments about the connections between our abilities and norms. In the previous sections, I conceded for the sake of argument that what the norms are is constrained by our abilities in particular ways. But I don’t actually think that’s true. At least, it need not be true for norms that matter. There’s all kinds of intuitive data for and against the principle that “ought” implies “can.” That is too equivocal to get us very far. So we must ask: why would norms matter more if “ought” implies “can” were true? The best answers that I know of have to do with guidance in one form or another. One version of this answer is that norms matter because (or partly because) they guide us, and if norms are not constrained by our abilities, they cannot guide us. Another version is that whether or not we comply with norms is supposed to reveal something about us as agents, and this too requires that norms be constrained by our abilities. I am sympathetic to both of these views, although more to the former than the latter. But neither of them requires a very tight connection between our abilities and the norms. The most obvious way that the obligation to phi can guide us is by guiding us to phi. But this is often one of the least interesting forms of guidance (see Talbot 2016). That’s because it only kicks in when we are in a position to phi. There are plenty of other familiar ways that an obligation to phi can guide. The obligation can steer our plans, so that we work to put ourselves in a position in which phi-​ing happens. That’s what I discussed above when talking about getting ourselves to believe. The obligation might also guide our plans towards approximating the obligation (Staffel 2019). The obligation can guide us after we fail to phi, by guiding us to apologize or make up for what we failed to do. The obligation can guide other people to respond to us in various ways (helping us to phi, criticizing our failure to phi, etc.). This much broader notion of guidance is much more interesting and important than the narrower notion, in my opinion. It explains why

106  The End of Epistemology As We Know It we can reject “ought” implies “can” while still thinking that norms should guide.7 There should still be some connection between our abilities and the norms. If the epistemic norms just said, “Be omniscient,” or “Believe all the worthwhile truths,” they would be bad norms. We can’t plan to be omniscient. Others can’t help us be omniscient. We can plan to move towards omniscience, or to (very distantly) approximate it, but probably other plans (even other plans we can’t fulfill) would be better for us to try to put into effect. The omniscience norm can guide us to feel bad or apologize for our failures, or guide others to criticize our failure, but it’s hard to see what the point of that would be.8 So we want there to be something important about the guidance we’d get from norms even when they can’t be fulfilled, and that requires norms that are somewhat constrained by our abilities. But it does not require that the norms always are fulfillable or that they can always directly motivate us or be responded to.

3.5.  Metaphysics This book is not about metaphysics, and I am going to try to avoid talking about metaphysics entirely. But a lot of work in epistemology is about metaphysics. Further, metaphysical truths often look like interesting truths, in the sense I discussed in ­chapter 1—​they often seem worth knowing independent of their practical value (and I do think they often are). Even so, they are orthogonal to the project of this book.

7 It turns out that we can get this into a normative system even if we accept “ought” implies “can,” but it requires divorcing deontic notions like wrong or obligatory from all these broader forms of guidance—​the deontic notions only have the narrow guidance function (guiding us to do what we are obligated to do), and other notions play the broader role. This makes deontic notions way less important than the nondeontic ones. I discuss this at length in Talbot (2016). That paper is not put in the same terms that I use in this book, but you can interpret it in my current terminology as an argument that, if the deontic norms don’t guide in the broader sense, they should be replaced by norms that do. 8 Side note: I’m actually not confident that there’s any role for apology or reactive attitudes in epistemology. If there is not, then we have slightly less reason to favor views that deny “ought” implies “can.”

Responding to some fundamental objections  107 In this section, I’ll explain why, and I’ll explain how I’m going to avoid talking about metaphysics. It’ll be helpful to have a salient example to illustrate our discussion. So consider knowledge-​first epistemology, popularized by Timothy Williamson: “Knowledge first” is a slogan for epistemology that takes the distinction between knowledge and ignorance as the starting point from which to explain other cognitive matters. It reverses the direction dominant in much twentieth-​century epistemology, which treated belief as explanatorily prior to knowledge, attempting to analyze knowledge as belief that meets further conditions, such as truth and justification. By contrast, a knowledge first epistemologist might treat believing something as treating it as if one knew it. (Williamson 2010, 208)

Given this quote, it should be unsurprising that much work in knowledge-​ first epistemology is work in metaphysics. It is work arguing that analyses or explanations of what things are should in many cases invoke knowledge; for example, we might analyze the nature of belief, or the concept of belief in terms of knowledge rather than analyze knowledge in terms of belief. I picked knowledge-​first epistemology as my central example in this section for two reasons: first, it’s an exciting and fruitful project in current epistemology, and second, I criticize knowledge throughout this book, and so if I can still show that what I say is still compatible with (some of) knowledge-​first epistemology, this should show how what I say is consistent with other metaphysical projects as well. The purely metaphysical aspects of the knowledge-​first project are compatible with everything I will say in this book. I will show that knowledge is, very roughly put, not important. But, when I show this, what I am showing is that it is not important whether a particular belief is or is not knowledge, or that it is often more important that a belief not be knowledge than that it be knowledge. Or I’ll be arguing that, when it looks like it matters that a belief is knowledge, that’s really because when the belief is knowledge it also satisfies some better norm. All of this is compatible with the view that we can’t even say what beliefs are without talking

108  The End of Epistemology As We Know It about knowledge. To use the idea from Williamson’s quote, let’s say that believing something is treating it as if we know it. Assuming that, then we can restate (roughly) my views as: the norms governing when we should treat something as if we know it don’t actually require that we know it or are likely to know it, and in fact often guide us away from knowing. More generally, the metaphysical claims of knowledge-​first epistemology impact how the norms I’m arguing for have to be stated, but don’t affect the ultimate points I want to make about what we should or should not believe. Not all knowledge-​ first epistemology is purely metaphysical. Williamson (2000), for example, thinks that only knowledge can justify belief. Others think that knowledge plays a crucial part in the norms of action (see c­ hapter 5). I take it that these are intended to be claims about norms that matter, and thus are the sorts of things this book is about. If so, then there’s some explanation for why these norms matter. I will engage with possible such explanations throughout the book. Not every explanation for why epistemic norms matter is a good fit for knowledge-​first epistemology. I don’t think epistemic consequentialism is, for example.9 That’s why I didn’t talk about knowledge much in that chapter. But, in the chapters where knowledge-​first ideas look like a potentially decent fit for the view under discussion of why epistemic norms matter, I will discuss and reject knowledge and knowledge-​based norms (­chapters 5, 6, and 7). Sometimes claims in knowledge-​first epistemology look like claims about what matters, but are really about metaphysics. When that’s so, my arguments should be able to take these claims in stride. To illustrate, consider the view that for any type of reasons whatsoever, the only way to possess those reasons is via knowledge (e.g., Lord 2018, Littlejohn forthcoming). This may seem to be extremely central to what matters, since it has implications for all norms. But these implications are about how the norms are stated, not about what the norms that matter ultimately call for. That’s not a criticism of these authors or their views,

9 To illustrate one reason why, consider the view that only knowledge can justify belief. Gettierized true beliefs are not knowledge. If we can treat these as justifiers when we reason, we are going to form more true beliefs than if we don’t treat these as justifiers. Of course, these true beliefs won’t be knowledge, but why think that matters?

Responding to some fundamental objections  109 as I take it that figuring out how norms are stated is central to what they are interested in. To illustrate, assume that all reasons do have to come from knowledge. In light of this, consider the view that epistemic norms matter because of their connection to norms on action, the idea being that we should only act on the basis of epistemically good beliefs (­chapter 5). In the relevant chapter, I’ll argue that in many cases it’s just as good to act on the basis of false beliefs as on the basis of true ones, and the conclusion I’ll draw from this is that epistemic norms shouldn’t always require us to aim at true belief. The idea that only knowledge can give us reasons might seem to rule out my view, since it means that false beliefs can’t give us reasons for action. That’s true, but it only requires a minor amendment to my formulation of the norms. When we have the false, but good enough, belief that p, we also typically know or are in a position to know that we believe p (Lord 2018). So, we can amend my view to say: knowledge that we have a belief that p gives us reason to act as if p when the belief that p is good enough for practical purposes, even if the belief that p is false. This formulation has the implications I’m interested in: the epistemic norms on first order beliefs about the world need not aim at the truth. More generally, metaphysical claims about how reasons or norms work constrain how we state the reasons or norms that matter, but don’t really affect what the norms require or prohibit in significant ways. It should hopefully be clear how my project is compatible with divergent metaphysical views. But I should still say something more general about why I am not going to address metaphysics. In normative philosophy, metaphysical arguments are largely concerned with what is fundamental, as we see in knowledge-​first epistemology, and with whether norms are real, which has to do with whether norms have stance-​independent truth. There are views on these metaphysical issues that would have significant upshots for what matters: e.g., that no norms exist, or that there are no normative truths. But these are not popular views among those doing normative epistemology, for obvious reasons, so I am going to set them aside.10 Beyond this,

10 Of the various forms of antirealism about the norms, nihilism and expressivism are less plausible than some forms of relativism or social constructivism, and the latter views

110  The End of Epistemology As We Know It questions about reality or fundamentality do not have any have a necessary or even evidential connection to whether norms matter, why they matter, or how much they matter. Let’s say it turns out that each of the atoms that constitute my body is more fundamental than I am. Even so, each obviously would still matter less than I do (nor would the importance of each atom be the importance of me divided by the number of atoms). Social conventions are not very fundamental, but many of them quite plausibly matter more than some piece of fundamental gunk that composes a minor part of some boring rock floating out in space. The same goes for the question of whether norms are real or not, in the sense of being objective and mind independent. Social conventions are not real in this sense. Lots of philosophers think that there are standards for goodness of natural kinds, such as “being a good mosquito,” which (if they exist) are real. If you search your heart, I suspect you’ll find a social convention that matters more than the norms of being a good mosquito. This should give you a good sense of why I am not going to discuss metaphysics in this book. Metaphysical questions are relevant to the formulations of the norms, but ultimately, there will be some way of stating the nonstandard norms I advocate for, and those norms, stated in that way, will be epistemic and should replace the standard norms.

3.6.  Conclusion There are many interesting questions. I’m only addressing a limited subset, which have to do with what matters, why it matters, and how much it matters. When we are thinking about norms in light of these questions, we should categorize norms into types according to why they matter. In subsequent chapters, I’ll argue that some nonstandard norms matter more than standard epistemic norms according to some given explanation for why epistemic norms matter. Since the are good enough for me. That may be because I was trained as a lawyer before becoming a philosopher, but it would take a lot to convince me that laws don’t exist, or are not norms, or that there are no truths about what the laws require.

Responding to some fundamental objections  111 importance of these nonstandard norms shares an explanation with the importance of the standard norms, the nonstandard norms are epistemic norms in the sense that we should be focused on. Much work in epistemology is about metaphysical questions. These are important, but they are orthogonal to my overall project. Whenever your preferred metaphysical views rules out my statement of nonstandard epistemic norms, reformulate my statement to be compatible with your views. If that does not work, then standard and nonstandard epistemic norms will govern two different things—​e.g., the standard norms might govern beliefs, whereas the nonstandard norms govern what we should get ourselves to believe. But these norms on different things can still conflict, and the nonstandard norms still matter more and should still replace the standard norms.

4

Respect-​based vindication 4.1.  Introduction In ­chapter 2, I discussed the idea that epistemic norms matter because conformity with them promotes epistemic goods such as true belief. One of the upshots of this view is that the epistemic norms that really matter will require us to make counterintuitive epistemic trade-​ offs—​to believe things contrary to all standard epistemic norms, just because those beliefs bring some other epistemic benefits. Those familiar with discussions of consequentialism in ethics may find this unsurprising. After all, consequentialism is all about doing whatever it takes to promote the good. If we don’t want norms that allow for this, then perhaps we should turn to one of consequentialism’s chief rivals. Deontological ethical theories are attractive in part because they rule out counterintuitive ethical trade-​offs.1 Perhaps deontological approaches can do the same in epistemology. But, since everything in this book comes back to the question of why epistemic norms are supposed to matter, we can’t just talk about deontological epistemic norms—​that is, norms stated in deontological terms (e.g., in terms of duties or obligations). Instead, we will be talking about deontological explanations for why epistemic norms matter. While consequentialist explanations for why epistemic norms matter say that conformity with these norms promotes the good, deontological explanations say that conformity with the norms respects the good, and that’s why conformity with the norms matters. I will argue that deontological vindications of the epistemic norms are at best incomplete. That’s because they cannot tell us that conformity with epistemic norms almost ever matters to any significant 1 Deontological ethical theories don’t typically rule out all trade-​offs, though. I’ll come back to this later in the chapter. The End of Epistemology As We Know It. Brian Talbot, Oxford University Press. © Brian Talbot 2024. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197743638.003.0004

Respect-based vindication  113 extent. Most crucially, they cannot say that it significantly matters whether or not our mundane beliefs conform to epistemic norms at all, because mundane truths or beliefs are not worthy of respect. What’s more, deontological vindications of epistemic norms don’t even solve the problem they seem most suited to solve: they don’t rule out epistemic trade-​offs. In light of this, deontological explanations of why epistemic norms matter should either be abandoned or combined with some other vindication. For example, we might fruitfully combine deontological and consequentialist approaches in epistemology, as is quite common in ethics. The discussion in this chapter will seem very antideontology to some, or at least antirespect. If your takeaway from this chapter is that we should reject deontological vindications of epistemic norms, that is consistent with my goals in this book. But I will note that this not my own takeaway. My arguments about deontological vindications actually come from a sympathetic place: I think that epistemic norms governing some beliefs do get a deontological vindication, although these deontologically vindicated norms are still not standard ones, and also only govern a fairly limited set of beliefs (although see ­chapter 8 for speculation about how to expand the scope of deontological vindications). I think that, very roughly put, sometimes true beliefs have final importance—​importance that is noninstrumental—​and in these cases it matters that we respect this importance (this is rough because the more correct statement might not be in terms of truth). But these respect-​based norms will not be the standard norms, and, further, the vindication of epistemic norms governing most beliefs is (I think) consequentialist. In section 4.2, I’ll say more about deontological vindications of epistemic norms, why they have to be understood as being about respect, and what “respect” means in this context. I’ll show in section 4.3 that they can’t give a satisfactory vindication of norms on mundane beliefs. That’s because mundane beliefs don’t have the right kind of importance. I’ll then go on to argue that deontologically vindicated epistemic norms do not rule out trade-​offs (section 4.4). Those who do not find deontological vindications initially appealing, or appealing as an alternative to consequentialism, can skip this whole chapter.

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4.2.  What is the deontological vindication of norms? What would it mean to give a deontological vindication of epistemic norms? To answer that, we should ask, “What is characteristic of deontology?” Sometimes deontological norms are characterized purely negatively—​for example, as not agent-​neutral, or as not just about consequences. But we cannot give a vindication of norms via a purely negative understanding of deontology. For one, there will be too many norms that fit any such purely negative characterization, most of which should not be vindicated. In addition, purely negative facts about norms don’t tell us why the norms are worth conforming to, or why norm conformity does matter. A common positive characterization of deontological norms is as duty-​based. This might suggest the following view, akin to Rossian pluralism in ethics: the epistemic norms are just a set of epistemic duties. But this by itself won’t do for our purposes. In ethics, the Rossian more or less says that the basic ethical duties are not explained by any more fundamental duty. Understood as a vindication of epistemic norms, a Rossian-​type view would say that it just matters that we conform to the basic epistemic duties, with no further explanation given for the importance of this. Something like this may be plausible in the domain of ethics, but it is not plausible when it comes to epistemology, as discussed in c­ hapter 1. Fortunately, there is a standard, positive characterization of the deontological which we can use to explain why epistemic norms matter (I’ll consider alternative characterizations in section 4.3.1). This characterization says that, while consequentialist vindications of the norms show us that norm conformity promotes the good (as we saw last chapter), a deontological vindication of norms shows us norm conformity respects the good. What does that mean? I’ll be using “respect” as a technical term which refers to what I am about to explain. My usage is not meant to fit with all (or maybe any) of the ways we use “respect” in English. We can start to understand what respect is by looking to Kant: Act in such a way as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of anyone else, always as an end and never merely as a means. (Kant 1785, 29)

Respect-based vindication  115 Here, I take Kant to be stating what it is to respect humanity, or individual humans. Respect involves treating others as valuable in-​and-​of themselves. This notion is pervasive throughout respect-​based ethics: To say that persons as such are entitled to respect is to say that they are entitled to have other persons take seriously and weigh appropriately the fact that they are persons in deliberating about what to do. (Darwall 1977, 38)

That is, respect means giving serious weight to personhood itself (or the fact the someone is a person), which means treating personhood as a thing that is itself valuable and important.2 We see this idea in discussions of respect in applied ethics as well. For example, Tom Regan makes his classic argument for animal rights, and against consequentialist approaches to animal ethics, on the basis of saying that animals deserve respect. In articulating what this means, he says: The difference between the utilitarian-​receptacle view of value and the postulate of inherent value might be made clearer by recalling the cup analogy. On the receptacle view of value, it is what goes in the cup (the pleasures or preference-​satisfactions, for example) that has value; what does not have value is the cup itself (i.e. the individual himself or herself). The postulate of inherent value offers an alternative. The cup (that is, the individual) has a value and a kind that is not reducible to, and is incommensurate with, what goes in the cup. Individual moral agents themselves have a distinctive kind of value, according to the postulate of inherent value. (Regan 2004, 236)

So, respect for persons, or agents, means seeing the person or agent themselves as valuable. Regan talks about inherent value, but I prefer

2 Darwall says “weighing appropriately,” which may seem consistent with “give no weight to.” But tacit in this is that being a person is itself a weighty consideration, so is treated as weighty. If appropriately weighting the fact that someone is a person meant giving no weight to that fact, we wouldn’t say that persons are worthy of respect. For example, appropriately weighting the fact the someone has slightly bushier eyebrows than normal means giving that no weight (in most contexts); we don’t say that this shows that eyebrow size is worthy of respect.

116  The End of Epistemology As We Know It the more general notion of final value, which is noninstrumental but need not be inherent value. What does seeing people as finally valuable involve? Returning to Kant: In the realm of ends everything has either a price or an intrinsic value. Anything with a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent, whereas anything that is above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has intrinsic value. (Kant 1785, 33)

Respect for persons means treating them as having final value, which Kant takes to mean that they cannot be replaced. This means two things: a loss of a person cannot be compensated for by some increase in things with nonintrinsic value, and also humans cannot be treated as equivalent, so a loss of one person cannot be compensated for by the gain of a replacement person. Kant’s view about the value of humans is an extreme one, since he sees them as beyond all price. We see more moderate versions of this idea throughout respect-​based ethics. This idea, in both its extreme and less-​extreme versions, is often discussed in terms of the “separateness of persons,” a formulation attributable to Rawls. In critiquing utilitarianism, Rawls says: On [the utilitarian] conception of society separate individuals are thought of as so many different lines along which rights and duties are to be assigned and scarce means of satisfaction allocated in accordance with rules so as to give the greatest fulfillment of wants. The nature of the decision . . . is not, therefore, materially different from that of an entrepreneur deciding how to maximize his profit by producing this or that commodity, or that of a consumer deciding how to maximize his satisfaction by the purchase of this or that collection of goods. . . . Utilitarianism does not take seriously the distinction between persons. (Rawls 1971, 26–​27)

A more succinct statement of the notion of the separateness of persons: [M]‌orality involves many distinct centers of will (choice) or interests, and these cannot simply be lumped together and traded off against each other. (Vallentyne 2006, 29)

Respect-based vindication  117 The notion of the separateness of persons is that we cannot simply take utility from one person and transfer it to another—​we cannot harm one to benefit another. The separateness of persons and seeing people as finally valuable are inextricably connected. If people were not finally valuable qua people, then what would be valuable instead would be just the well-​being those people contain, or just the value the people create by their actions and interactions. If that were so, then there would be nothing wrong with harming one person to benefit another, as long as total value was increased: people would not matter except as receptacles or producers of value, so all that would matter would be the value they contain or produce, not who contains or produces that value. Once we see people themselves as valuable, we can see what is wrong with taking well-​being from one person to give more to another—​doing so ignores the people and focuses just on their well-​being. So, to make sense of treating people as separate, we have to think that each person is themself valuable. The separateness of persons and respect for persons are two sides of the same coin. Respect in epistemology would work similarly. Assume that what is to be respected is true belief. Respect for true beliefs would involve treating true beliefs as finally valuable, and not as mere means to ends. Respect for true beliefs thus seems to rule out trade-​offs. To give a respect-​based vindication of epistemic norms, we would say that conformity with epistemic norms is how we respect true beliefs. Note that, on this approach, the epistemic norms themselves need not ever explicitly mention respect—​they can be about evidence, or coherence, and so forth—​just as consequentialists don’t think that the epistemic norms must explicitly mention utility or consequences. Conformity with the norms has to manifest respect, but the norms don’t have to talk about respect. For the rest of this chapter, I will focus on respecting true belief. If we want to talk in terms more friendly to discussions of credences or partial beliefs, we could reframe this in terms of respecting accuracy (as Sylvan 2020 does). Or we might instead say that the epistemic norms respect something else—​the evidence, perhaps—​ and my arguments to follow can be adjusted to accommodate these. This approach to epistemology I’ve just sketched has been endorsed or suggested by others. Most recently, Kurt Sylvan argues for the following:

118  The End of Epistemology As We Know It The fundamental normative explanation of why justified beliefs are justified is that they manifest certain ways of valuing fundamental epistemic value. . . . The fundamental way of valuing epistemic value is to respect it. (Sylvan 2020, 11)

The first sentence here is another way of talking about the vindication of epistemic norms, and the second says that that vindication is based in respect. In the rest of the paper, Sylvan gives a Kantian account of respect along the lines I have just discussed. Selim Berker (2013), in criticizing consequentialist approaches to epistemology, has argued that they ignore “the separateness of propositions,” by which he means something analogous to the separateness of persons we’ve just discussed. As I’ve argued, this notion of separateness is part and parcel of respect, and so we should read Berker as saying that propositions should be treated as ends in themselves, or, more plausibly, that truths or true beliefs should (I suspect that Berker’s formulation is more a slogan than a perfectly clear representation of his ideas). Clayton Littlejohn (2013) suggests that those who want to vindicate epistemic norms in terms of the value of true belief could look to base norms in respect for the value of true belief. Tim Scanlon (1998) discusses scientific practices as an example of respect-​based practices. Respect-​based understandings of why epistemic norms matter may be even more widespread than this. In a recent paper, Tsung-​Hsing Ho (2022) argues that many philosophers who seem to be epistemic consequentialists are actually better thought of as endorsing respect-​ based accounts of why the epistemic norms matter. Ho discusses a few who have been cited as consequentialists, such as Alston and Plantinga, and shows how their views are better understood as deontological. The two approaches do have similarities, since both think that the importance of epistemic norms has to do with the importance of true belief, and both think that norm conformity must look truth conducive from the perspective of the believer (if a believer forms beliefs in ways that don’t seem truth conducive to them, they are neither trying to promote true beliefs nor plausibly trying to respect the truth). When we aren’t talking about epistemic trade-​offs, the norms we get via respect-​based and consequence-​based accounts thus look quite similar, and outside of discussions of trade-​offs, it would be unsurprising if the distinction

Respect-based vindication  119 between the views was not explicitly made. And so it would be unsurprising if actually a great many epistemologists turned out to favor deontological accounts of why the epistemic norms matter. To sum up: this chapter will focus on respect-​based epistemology, which tries to vindicate epistemic norms by showing how conformity with these norms respects true beliefs. This has been advocated by at least some philosophers, fits nicely with one of the standard approaches to norms in ethics, and avoids the problems for consequentialist epistemology. This view should look initially quite attractive: it avoids some of the problems for consequentialist epistemology because respecting true beliefs involves treating them as separate—​respect for true beliefs means that we cannot “harm” one belief to “benefit” another. Treating beliefs as separate is treating them as finally valuable ends-​in-​themselves. The account I’ve given of respect in epistemic contexts may look suspicious to you for one reason or another. Or it may look fine now, but once you see what norms it vindicates, you may find yourself questioning it. You may wonder whether there is another way of characterizing respect or of giving deontological vindications of epistemic norms. Rather than addressing every possible alternative, I will give a general argument later that no alternative account of respect or of deontological vindications can vindicate standard epistemic norms (section 4.3.1). This will make more sense after we’ve seen where my initial, fairly standard, account of respect leads us and why. Giving a deontological vindication of epistemic norms involves more than just showing that conformity with these norms respects true belief (or whatever our candidate for respect is). That’s because there is a crucial difference between final value and final importance. Value, as I’m using the term here, is something within a set of norms. We can articulate norms that treat anything we like as if it were a finally valuable, separate end-​in-​itself. For example, we could give norms that respect blades of grass or nail clippings. The fact that conformity with these norms respects blades of grass or nail clippings does not vindicate these norms—​it does not show that they are worth following or that they matter. That’s because blades of grass or nail clippings, while finally valuable from the perspective of the relevant normative system, are not finally important. That is, they don’t really matter in any

120  The End of Epistemology As We Know It noninstrumental way (or in an instrumental way either, I suspect). To give respect-​based vindications of norms, the norms have to not just respect things that are finally valuable within the relevant normative system, but rather the norms have to respect things that really matter in a noninstrumental way. Things with no final importance can be respected, but do not merit respect.

4.3.  Respecting mundane beliefs To vindicate respect-​based epistemic norms, we have to show that beliefs have final importance, and are not just instrumentally important. This means that we cannot give a satisfactory respect-​based vindication of norms governing mundane beliefs. The difference between pointless and mundane beliefs is that mundane beliefs are useful. We discussed this in ­chapter 1, but I’ll briefly remind you of why this is. We can change a topic from pointless to mundane for a person just by varying whether or not it is useful for that person. Pick a random neighbor of mine. Knowledge of their grandmother’s phone number in 1962, which is now out of service, is pointless to me and probably to them as well. But, if I traveled back in time to 1962 and had to warn the grandmother that a robot was out to kill them, knowledge of that phone number would no longer be pointless. Note, though, that it would acquire no noninstrumental importance. If I traveled back in time to 1962, but something about time travel made it impossible for me to call the grandmother, this would remain pointless knowledge. A mundane belief has no more noninstrumental importance than does a pointless belief. And so it is no more important that mundane beliefs are treated as ends-​in-​themselves than that pointless beliefs are.3 If pointless beliefs have no final importance—​an open possibility—​ then mundane beliefs have no final importance either. And so showing that norm conformity respects the mundane beliefs would in no way show that norm conformity matters.

3 I’m focusing here on respect for individual mundane beliefs, and thus on the final importance of individual mundane beliefs. That’s because one of the attractions of

Respect-based vindication  121 It is also an open possibility that pointless beliefs do have some final importance. We know, however, that this is at most extremely little. As discussed in c­ hapter 1, infinitely large sets of pointless beliefs are less finally important than relatively minor other goods, such as $5. If pointless beliefs do have some final importance, then mundane beliefs would as well. So, we could give some respect-​based vindication of epistemic norms governing mundane beliefs. But this would not be a satisfactory vindication. Respecting mundane beliefs would matter about as little as anything that matters can possibly matter.4 This cannot be what anyone who wanted to vindicate epistemic norms was looking for. For one, when epistemologists discuss the justification of beliefs, we very often talk about seemingly mundane beliefs. It is important to us to know whether or not these beliefs are justified and why. It’s hard to imagine that this would be important to us if we took their justification to be only of infinitesimal significance relative to everything else. Further, if this were our only vindication of mundane epistemic norms, these norms would get trumped by any other norms that matter in every case in which the norms conflicted. This is not a satisfactory vindication of norms governing mundane beliefs. I’m talking about the noninstrumental value of particular beliefs. But, one might have thought, the value of particular beliefs is not what we are supposed to respect. Rather, we are supposed to respect truth itself, or accuracy itself, or something like that.5 This would make respect-​based vindications of norms even less successful, however. respect-​based vindications is that they seem to rule out trade-​offs. This requires that the norms treat beliefs as separate, finally valuable individuals. In ­chapter 8, I discuss the speculative possibility that mundane beliefs have final importance as aggregates, rather than as individuals. If true, this would vindicate respect-​ based norms governing aggregate mundane beliefs. But, as I show in that chapter, the norms governing individual mundane beliefs would effectively be the consequentialist ones. 4 You may worry that I am conflating the final importance of x with the importance of respecting x, since I am using the fact that pointless beliefs have minimal final importance to argue that respecting them has minimal final importance. But I take it as a datum that respecting some things matters less than respecting others. Respecting pointless beliefs, even if it matters somewhat, matters less than respecting people. This can only be explained by the lesser final importance of pointless beliefs, and so the importance of respecting x must be correlated with the final importance of x. 5 This was suggested by a referee for an earlier paper on this topic.

122  The End of Epistemology As We Know It That’s because truth or accuracy itself, or truth or accuracy in general, are not worthy of respect. The vast majority of true beliefs—​all the pointless and mundane ones—​have at best vanishingly little final importance. Thus, what truth brings to these beliefs is almost nothing of significance, and so the final importance of truth itself, or truth in general, can be miniscule at best. Vindications of norms in terms of respect for the truth, or in terms of respect for any property possessed just as much by pointless and mundane beliefs as interesting ones, could not satisfactorily vindicate any norms on any beliefs. Truth or accuracy only have significant final importance when instantiated in particular, interesting, beliefs (although see ­chapter 8 for more discussion), and if respect-​based vindications have any hope of working at all, they have to be in terms of respect for particular, interesting, truths or classes of truths. One may wonder if my arguments about respect-​based norms also raise problems for consequentialism. But there are a number of ways open to consequentialists to vindicate norms governing mundane beliefs. The consequentialist could say the following: conformity with epistemic norms governing mundane beliefs tends to promote true mundane beliefs, and promoting true mundane beliefs is good for practical reasons. This is an appeal to instrumental importance, so it is not consistent with respect-​based vindications of norms. While this is partially pragmatic, a consequentialist who goes this route need not be fully a pragmatist. One can also think that epistemic norms governing interesting beliefs are vindicated because these beliefs have nonpragmatic importance. And we do see some consequentialists endorsing a mix of pragmatic and nonpragmatic considerations when discussing the vindications of epistemic norms. Alvin Goldman, for example, says, “Our interest in information has two sources: curiosity and practical concerns” (1999, 3); and Jon Kvanvig says, “In the epistemic domain, there are two fundamental sources of value: practical significance and curiosity” (2013, 153). The consequentialist can also give vindications of mundane norms that are fundamentally based only in nonpractical importance. For one, if we have true mundane beliefs, we will tend to survive and thrive, making us more likely to form true interesting beliefs. Since this is an appeal to instrumental value, it is not open to the respect-​based epistemologist.

Respect-based vindication  123 To summarize: the sorts of deontological approaches to epistemology we are discussing in this chapter say that the epistemic norms matter because they respect true belief (or whatever the relevant epistemic good is). Respecting true belief is treating it as a finally valuable end-​in-​itself. The epistemic norms (on this approach) only matter inasmuch as the beliefs they govern actually have final importance. Mundane beliefs have at most minimal final importance at the individual level, and respecting them matters at most as little as anything that matters can matter. This is not a satisfactory vindication of these norms. What does this mean for the epistemic? One possibility is that we should entirely reject respect-​based vindications of epistemic norms because they fail to deliver what anyone was looking for. But, if we were really sympathetic to deontological vindications of epistemic norms in the first place, we shouldn’t be too quick to go for this. Deontological vindications look attractive because it’s plausible that respect really does matter. If there are beliefs that are worthy of respect—​if there are interesting beliefs, beliefs with significant noninstrumental importance—​we can vindicate norms that tell us how to respect these beliefs. So, another possibility is that there is a class of norms that just govern interesting beliefs or that apply to mundane beliefs only inasmuch as these affect our interesting beliefs. This raises the question of whether or not these are the epistemic norms. I suspect that they are not the only epistemic norms. It may be that both norms vindicated along consequentialist lines and norms vindicated along respect-​based lines are epistemic norms. Both norms matter because of the importance of true beliefs, or accurate representation, or something along these lines. And so it may be that these are sufficiently unified to both count as epistemic. The respect-​based and consequence-​based norms compete to some extent, because both govern interesting beliefs and will sometimes disagree about these. But, perhaps, we can’t do away with either. For one, it may be that, when it comes to interesting beliefs, neither type of norm systematically overrides the other. Or, even if the respect-​based norms do systematically override the consequence-​ based ones when it comes to interesting beliefs, the consequence-​ based norms are needed for mundane beliefs. This opens up a great many interesting questions, such as ones about how we weigh these

124  The End of Epistemology As We Know It norms against each other when they do conflict. This book is not the place to try to work that out. It’s enough for now to point out that this view would definitely give us nonstandard epistemic norms. For one, the consequentialist norms governing at least mundane beliefs would be nonstandard. For another, it turns out that the respect-​based norms governing interesting beliefs have to be nonstandard as well. That is the topic of section 4.4.

4.3.1.  Can’t we find some other account of respect? I have characterized respect in a certain way, and doing so seems integral to my arguments. You may wonder if there is an alternative understanding of respect that avoids my conclusions. Perhaps, for example, we should vindicate epistemic norms somehow in terms of respect for persons, not respect for true beliefs. Or you may wonder if there is something other than respect which can be used to vindicate standard epistemic norms in a deontological or deontology-​adjacent way. For example, maybe we can employ a notion from Hurka (2001) that there is value in properly valuing valuable things (this formulation of Hurka’s notion is adapted from Sylvan 2018), and say that properly valuing epistemic goods requires believing in accordance with the standard epistemic norms. Or we might think that deontological vindications have to do with when believers are praiseworthy for their beliefs (Weatherson 2008) or when they are not blameworthy for them (Booth & Peels 2010). I can’t anticipate or respond to every potential idea here individually, but there’s no need to. In this section, I will give a fully general argument that no alternative account of respect or alternative approach to deontological vindications will vindicate standard epistemic norms. However deontological vindications work, if they are going to vindicate standard epistemic norms, they had better involve treating our beliefs, treating the truth, or treating the things in the world that our beliefs are about, as something other than tools and as nonfungible (nonfungible meaning “not straightforwardly replaceable by things just as good”). Why? The norms for how we should treat fungible means-​to-​ends just are consequentialist norms. The norms for how

Respect-based vindication  125 we should treat fungible means to purely epistemic ends are those discussed in ­chapter 2. The norms for how we should treat beliefs as fungible means to practical ends are discussed in ­chapter 5, when I discuss the practically consequentialist view I call “Tendency.” Neither of these gives us standard epistemic norms (I suppose that’s a spoiler for ­chapter 5). So, to vindicate standard epistemic norms, deontological vindications must require treating beliefs or truths as other than fungible tools. But a vast swath of the relevant things—​beliefs, truths, facts, things in the world that we can have beliefs about—​only matter significantly as fungible tools. (An even vaster swath matter basically not at all.) Plenty of my beliefs, for example, only matter significantly as means to ends. Those beliefs can be replaced with any other belief that would serve those ends just as well with no significant loss, so they are fungible as well. This is true for plenty of beliefs about people: it does not matter at all what razors I use, or what razors anyone believes that I use, except that it gets me well shaved. For beliefs/​truths/​things that matter only as fungible tools, norms that tell us how to treat them as other than fungible tools do not matter. However deontological vindications work, if they can vindicate standard norms, they have to give us different results from consequentialist vindications, and to do to that, they must tell us how to treat beliefs or truths or facts not as fungible tools. And if they do that, they cannot matter when they govern a huge range of our beliefs. To see what I mean, let’s consider two seemingly alternative approaches to deontological vindication. Hurka (2001) argues, roughly, that it is important to properly value important things. This argument is largely about ethics, but Sylvan (2018) applies it to epistemic norms and value as well. Crucially, Hurka argues both that it is important to treat finally valuable things as if they are finally valuable and to treat instrumentally valuable things as if they are instrumentally valuable. That’s no surprise: it is not plausible that there’s something important about treating merely instrumentally valuable things as if they were finally valuable. If our mundane beliefs are instrumentally valuable, then we should treat them as such, which is what consequentialist vindications are about. To vindicate nonconsequentialist norms using Hurka’s idea, we would need to claim that our mundane beliefs

126  The End of Epistemology As We Know It matter for their own sake; unfortunately, they do not. Or consider Booth and Peel’s (2010) view that beliefs that satisfy our epistemic duties are blameless beliefs. Can we be blamed for using our mundane beliefs as means to promote overall epistemic goodness? If not, then for mundane beliefs, the epistemic duties just are those we get from consequentialist vindications. If we can be blamed for using our mundane beliefs as mere means to ends, however, we then must ask: why does this sort of blame matter? The nail clipping norms might see people as blameworthy for not valuing their nail clippings, but this hardly shows that we really should value these clippings. Mundane beliefs matter as means to ends, and blaming people for treating them otherwise is not an important sort of blame. “Vindicating” epistemic norms via appeal to such blame is thus not really vindicating them at all. So, these alternative approaches to deontological vindications either vindicate consequentialist norms for mundane beliefs or they fail to vindicate norms on these beliefs at all. I should flag a view now that I will discuss in ­chapter 5, because early readers of the book wondered about it here. We get clear cases in which our beliefs matter as means-​to-​ends when those beliefs are relevant to how we should act. But some think that beliefs that are relevant to action also matter noninstrumentally. Some think it matters that we act for reasons, that acting for reasons requires epistemically good beliefs, and that acting for reasons matters noninstrumentally (e.g., Lord 2018). Others think that our successes can only be worthy achievements if they are based in good beliefs about our reasons, and that worthy achievement matters noninstrumentally (e.g., Sliwa 2016). Relatedly, some have the parallel view that belief matters noninstrumentally as a basis for appropriate emotions. Given these ideas, one might think that we should treat mundane beliefs not merely as means to ends, suggesting that we can give respect-​based vindications of standard norms governing mundane beliefs. I’ll discuss these views in ­chapter 5, as part of a family of views I call “Status.” I’ll show first that, for a huge range of our actions, it simply does not matter to any significant extent that we act for reasons as long as we are successful, nor does it matter to any significant extent that our successes are achievements. I will also show that, even when achievement or acting for reasons or appropriate

Respect-based vindication  127 emotion does matter, this importance does not vindicate standard epistemic norms. But that will have to wait until c­ hapter 5.

4.4.  Trade-​offs Deontological vindications of norms seem tailor-​made to rule out epistemic trade-​offs. Respecting true beliefs means seeing individual beliefs as separate, which seems to imply that we cannot trade off one belief to benefit others. But that’s not so. Deontological vindications cannot give us norms that entirely rule out epistemic trade-​offs. This may seem ludicrous on its face, since there is an obvious deontological account that does rule out trade-​offs. This is the Kantian take on respect discussed above. Kant, as I have characterized him, says that the people are “above all price” and their value “admits of no equivalent.” By saying that people are above all price, Kant means that there are no instrumental goods that can compensate for a harm to a person. And by saying that people admit of no equivalent, he’s saying that the disvalue of the loss of a human cannot be compensated for the gain of another person. So he means is that we cannot permissibly harm one person at all in order to benefit another, no matter how minor the harm to the one person or how great the benefits to the others. If we say that true beliefs are beyond all price and admit of no equivalent, then we’ve given a view that rules out trade-​offs. In fact, this is the only view that rules out trade-​offs: if beliefs have a price and/​or admit of an equivalent, then there is some benefit to some belief that will justify harm to another. The problem with this Kantian view is that it doesn’t give us epistemic norms that matter. That’s because, as we’ll see, it is disrespectful to treat all beliefs as beyond all price or as admitting no equivalent, and norms that treat them as such will not matter. When we think about respect for the truth in ways that actually are fitted to what matters, the norms that properly respect the truth will require us to make epistemic trade-​offs in some cases. I will consider three arguments, each of which shows that respect-​ based vindications vindicate norms that require epistemic trade-​offs. Each argument is about a different range of trade-​offs.

128  The End of Epistemology As We Know It

4.4.1.  First argument for trade-​offs: Differential importance of beliefs Assume for a moment that some beliefs are more finally important than others. Now consider norms that treat all beliefs as beyond all price and admitting of no equivalent. These are norms that treat all beliefs as having equal final importance, since they treat all beliefs as admitting of no equivalent, even when they are, in fact, less important than others.6 We cannot give a deontological vindication of these norms. For one, they treat some beliefs as more important than they are, and that’s not what respect calls for. For another, they disrespect beliefs with greater final importance by treating them as no more important than lesser beliefs. Imagine that butterflies have some final moral value, as do human beings. Further, imagine that human beings have greater final moral value than butterflies. Moral norms that treated butterflies as beyond all price and admitting no replacement would say that we cannot harm a butterfly to save a human life. These norms would treat humans and butterflies as equal, even though they are not (we are assuming). These could not be vindicated, because these norms would really respect neither butterflies nor humans. So, if beliefs have different levels of final importance, then not all beliefs are really beyond all price or admit of no replacement. And so respect, in the sense that can matter, can’t call for all beliefs to be treated in this way. Some beliefs have to be treated as having a price and as somewhat replaceable—​the norms must see it as acceptable to harm some beliefs in order to benefit beliefs of greater importance. Do some beliefs have more final importance than others? Interesting beliefs have more final importance than mundane or pointless beliefs, since mundane and pointless beliefs have none or next to none. Do some interesting beliefs have less final importance than others? I think so. Curiosity about x is a marker of the importance of beliefs about x and sometimes curiosity seems to come apart from practical value (Goldman 1999, Kvanvig 2013, Talbot 2022). Of the things we are curious about for nonpractical purposes, we are curious about some more than others.



6

We don’t need equality; we could put this in terms of parity as well.

Respect-based vindication  129 I am curious about whether Goldbach’s conjecture is true (which has no instrumental significance to me), but I am less curious about this than about a great many other things—​the meaning of life, the existence of God, and so forth. One might deny that any interesting truth has more final importance than any other. This is an illusion, one might say, brought on by the fact that some have a greater number of (interesting) implications than others, but it is the sum of all these separate and equally valuable implications that has greater final importance, not any one of the truths themselves. That seems implausible to me, but I am not going to try to adjudicate this dispute here. What I have shown in this section is that, if some truths have more final importance than others, deontological epistemology cannot rule out trade-​offs. Respect will sometimes require harming the lesser beliefs to benefit the more important ones; failing to do so is treating these as equally important, which disrespects the truths that matter more. In the next section, I’ll show more that deontological epistemology must allow for trade-​offs even if no belief has no more final importance than any other.

4.4.2.  Second argument for trade-​offs: Beliefs of equal importance Let’s start by talking about respect-​based ethics, which give us a nice way to investigate the notion of respect. Respect sometimes requires saving others’ lives.7 Imagine the sort of case in which that is so; I’m imagining that I can save a child drowning in a shallow pond. The failure to save that child in ordinary situations is a failure to treat that child as having the value they do—​it is disrespectful. Respect also sometimes forbids us from stepping on a toe. Not always; it may be minor enough in some cases to not count as disrespectful. But we can imagine a toe stepping that is intentional and painful enough that it is morally wrong, but just barely so. If you can’t imagine that, then 7 Perhaps one will want to deny this. If so, then think about cases in which it was you wrongfully put this person’s life at risk in the first place. Now respect requires saving their life.

130  The End of Epistemology As We Know It imagine the least wrong wrong you can imagine, and plug that into what I’m about to say. Now imagine that one had to commit the painful intentional toe stepping in order to save that life (not merely as a foreseeable side effect). This is, in effect, making a trade-​off. If we wanted to use a respect-​based approach to ethics to say that this trade-​off was impermissible, how could we do it? We would have to say that we cannot step on the toe to save the life because the person with the toe is beyond all price and irreplaceable. And by “beyond all price and irreplaceable,” we would have to mean something like this: People have effectively infinite final value. When we think about harming one person to save another, we have to factor in the value of the people, and not just the value of the consequences produced. Because people have infinite value, any benefit to one which comes at a cost to another is essentially swamped by the values of the people involved.

Compare this to an alternate (and much more mainstream) approach to respect in ethics. This says that it is permissible to step on the toe to save the life, and in fact it is required. That’s because the failure to do so disrespects the person we could have saved, and stepping on the toe does not disrespect the person whose toe is stepped on. On this latter view, humans are not beyond all price and irreplaceable. Rather, we merely have very great final importance. If humans have great final importance, but not final importance beyond all price, then there is some good done to one person that can outweigh the combination of harm done to another and the final value of that other. My goal here is not to convince you that one or the other of these ethical views is correct. Rather, my goal is to show this: in order to completely rule out trade-​offs in cases involving things of equal final importance, we have to think that their final importance is beyond all price, which is helpful to think about as crudely infinite. Let’s apply this to epistemology. I suspect that no finally important belief is beyond all price. Even if some are, certainly not all are. Here’s how we test this. Take some candidate interesting belief b. I’ve picked, to illustrate, my belief that the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant (which I think is worth knowing, but has no practical value for me). Imagine

Respect-based vindication  131 that a person is dangling over a pit of lava. They will be dropped into that lava unless you take a pill that gives you a false belief about b. What should you do? Here, the “should” is not just a moral should, but rather a should that weighs the level of respect appropriate for the belief against the level of respect appropriate for the person. The answer will generally be obvious—​you should take the pill. If you hesitate, it’s because you’ve picked a b where having a false view will harm a great many other people—​e.g., you are imagining that taking the pill will make you believe you should murder some people. That’s got nothing to do with the final importance of the belief, though. If you put aside instrumental costs of the belief, it should be no contest for almost any b. What does this show us? The final importance of (almost) any belief is less than the final importance of a human being. This is incompatible with these beliefs having final importance that is beyond all price or irreplaceable. If interesting beliefs do not have final importance beyond all price, then in some cases, respect requires that we do some minor harm to one interesting belief in order to greatly benefit another, even when the two beliefs are of equal final importance. One might initially think: “Why are we comparing beliefs to human lives? All we need to show to rule out trade-​offs is that, epistemically speaking, beliefs have value beyond all price.” But that’s not correct. If the epistemic norms treat beliefs as beyond all price, these norms can only be vindicated if this reflects their actual importance. Think back to the ethics example. Consider the debate between two ethical views I mentioned above, one of which says that we cannot step on a toe to save a life and the other which says we ought to do so. Imagine an advocate of the former admitting that human beings actually are not really beyond all price, but claiming that the ethical norms treat them as if they are. Their disputants would—​and should—​think that this is a poor view. If human beings merely have great final importance, then moral norms which forbid us from stepping on a toe to save a life are in fact disrespectful. These norms would treat lives as something that cannot outweigh a painful toe step, which is treating them as less important than they actually are. To defend the strict no-​trade-​offs view in ethics, we have to argue that people really are beyond all price and irreplaceable: we have to make this a claim about their final importance, and not merely their value within the ethical norms. Turning

132  The End of Epistemology As We Know It back to epistemology, if the epistemic norms treated beliefs as beyond all price and irreplaceable, we couldn’t vindicate these norms unless we could defend this as a claim about their final importance. If it’s true as a claim about final importance, then this has implications for how to compare epistemic goods to nonepistemic goods like human lives. But those implications are false, and so interesting beliefs do not all have final importance that is beyond all price and irreplaceable. Thus, their importance does not swamp all possible epistemic benefits. And thus, respect-​based epistemology must require some trade-​offs involving equally important interesting beliefs.

4.4.3.  Third argument for trade-​offs: Aggregation If all interesting beliefs are of equal significance, then the argument above might only show the following: relatively minor harms to one interesting belief can be justified in order to bring about very significant benefits to another interesting belief. What does respect-​based epistemology say about trade-​offs that involve causing great harm to one interesting belief? Respect, as we are understanding it, is incompatible with doing great harm to one person or belief in order to do great benefit to another person or belief, when the two are of equal final importance. That’s because, in essence, the great benefit to one cannot outweigh the combination of great harm to the other plus the final value of the person or belief harmed. But couldn’t we justify doing great harm to one in order to greatly benefit many others? At first glance, the answer is yes: the aggregated benefits to the many can sometimes outweigh the great harm to the one. But some in ethics have tried to argue that we cannot aggregate together reasons to do (or not do) acts affecting multiple people and compare them to reasons to do (or not do) acts affecting a single person. If their arguments can be applied to epistemology, then benefits to many beliefs would not justify great harms to a single (equally important) belief. The best arguments I know of for nonaggregation in ethics all start from the same sort of idea. Consider John Taurek’s famous discussion of a case in which either one person can get a lifesaving medicine or five can:

Respect-based vindication  133 For each of these six persons it is no doubt a terrible thing to die. Each faces the loss of something among the things he values most. His loss means something to me only, or chiefly, because of what it means to him. It is the loss to the individual that matters to me, not the loss of the individual. But should any one of these five lose his life, his loss is no greater a loss to him because, as it happens, four others (or forty-​nine others) lose theirs as well. . . . Five individuals each losing his life does not add up to anyone’s experiencing a loss five times greater than the loss suffered by any one of the five. (Taurek 1977, 307)

Taurek’s thought is that what is important is each person and what matters to them. There is no aggregate that really matters, nor do facts about the aggregation of gains and losses across people (typically) affect what matters to each individual. In a later discussion, Alex Voorhoeve explains further: The nonaggregative approach involves imaginatively placing oneself, one person at a time, in the position of each person who has a claim and viewing the situation through her eyes. On this approach, for each individual taken separately, one takes in what she would have to give up if another person’s competing claim were satisfied. After one has performed this imaginative exercise for all individuals, one at a time, one does not aggregate their claims. Instead, one takes an objective perspective on the importance of each claim taken separately. When one does so, it will appear most important to satisfy the strongest [individual] claim. (Voorhoeve 2014, 68–​69)

Again, what is supposed to fundamentally matter is just each individual, not any sum of individuals or summed well-​being. And because of that, when considering whether or not harm to one person is justified, we cannot add up benefits that would occur to multiple separate people. These ethical arguments don’t translate well into epistemology. Taurek, Voorhoeve, and others who take this line would have us put ourselves in the shoes of the individuals affected and think about what it would be for us to be in their situation (see also Thomson 2008). We

134  The End of Epistemology As We Know It think about how terrible the harm would be for each person harmed, and that’s (it is claimed) how we understand what we are and are not obligated to do. But there’s nothing analogous to think in epistemology. We can’t really think about how bad a belief ’s being false is for that belief, except metaphorically. We can think, however, about how bad a certain belief is for us. But we can also think about how bad a set of beliefs are for us. When we do, it seems obvious that many bad beliefs are together more bad for us than a single bad belief. Taurek has further things to say against aggregation in ethics. Consideration of these shows us not just that arguments against aggregation don’t work in epistemology, but also why what matters in the epistemic domain must aggregate: To me pain and suffering are magnitudes that cannot be added or summed across individuals. They are like physical beauty, boxing skill, or artistic talent. I can compare the boxing skill of Marvin Hagler to the skills of each of these 250 individuals who work as sparring partners in the Middleweight Division. He has greater boxing skill or more boxing skill than any one of them. If someone were to say that when taken or considered together these 250 have greater or more boxing skill than he does I would not know what is being said. (Taurek 2021, 313)

At first glance, it seems like we can say similar things in epistemology. One might think that we can only compare the truth of individual beliefs to each other, but not the truth of individual beliefs to the truth of aggregate beliefs. But this misrepresents what matters in the epistemic domain. Truth qua truth is not what matters. True beliefs about uninteresting things matter less than true beliefs about interesting things and also less than do near-​truths about interesting things. What matters is (roughly put) what beliefs tell us about things that are important. A great many truths can together tell us more about (important parts of) the world than some single truth. In fact, a great many near truths can tell us more together than does some single truth. A scientific theory like Newtonian mechanics that is a collection of idealized claims about the world, each of which is strictly speaking false, can tell us more about

Respect-based vindication  135 the world than a single, completely accurate fact about, let’s say, the speed of light in a vacuum (the general idea behind this example seems accepted in philosophy of science, e.g., Elgin 2017), but I’m not a scientist, so if this particular example is off somehow, you can replace it with one that better illustrates my point). Finally, if we consider the relative significance of having some unified set of interesting true beliefs versus the same number of interesting true beliefs spread out over completely unrelated topics, in some cases the former will be more important than the latter.8 This also shows that sets of good beliefs have importance beyond the sum of their individual constituents. So we can very sensibly discuss aggregate importance in epistemology. Since aggregated beliefs do matter together, then we sometimes ought to do great harm to one belief, even a very interesting one, in order to benefit some sufficiently large set of other beliefs. Respect-​based vindications of epistemic norms require that the norms treat beliefs as no more or less important than they are. In trade-​ off cases involving two beliefs of different final importance, sometimes failing to make a trade-​off treats the lesser belief as more important than it is, and the greater belief as less. Appeal to respect cannot vindicate this. In trade-​off cases involving minor harm to one belief and great benefit to another, failing to make the trade-​off again treats the latter belief as less important than the former, and this cannot be vindicated either. Finally, since aggregated sets of beliefs can have collective final importance, failing to harm one belief to benefit an aggregate will sometimes fail to treat the aggregate as as important as it is. Respect cannot vindicate this. So, respect-​based epistemic norms must require some epistemic trade-​offs.

4.4.4.  Objection One makes an epistemic trade-​off when one harms a belief to reap epistemic benefits. These benefits can take two forms. They might involve 8 This may be reflected in approaches to epistemology that stress understanding, which is more about aggregate good beliefs—​the value of understanding doesn’t seem to be the sum of its parts—​over knowledge (Kvanvig 2003, Elgin 2017).

136  The End of Epistemology As We Know It creating new, good beliefs. Or they might involve benefiting beliefs one already has. The former is never demanded by respect (I’ll explain why in a moment). The latter requires that we already have beliefs we know to be flawed, so they can be benefited. One might wonder: wouldn’t this mean that respect-​based norms never permit trade-​offs, since we have respect-​based reasons to make trade-​offs only when we’ve previously wronged a belief of ours? Further, would respect-​based norms mean that ideal agents never have reasons to make trade-​offs, since ideal agents will never wrong their beliefs? Motivating the objection requires some set up, which is best illuminated by discussing ethics for a moment. Utilitarianism suggests that some people in some situations are morally obligated to have children. After all, having children can increase the overall good in the world. Respect-​based deontological views almost never say that we are obligated to have children, however, even if they accept that it would be great if we did. That’s because we can only respect or disrespect things that already exist. It’s hard to see how conceiving a child could respect something that exists, or how not having children could disrespect something that exists. Turning back to epistemology: if epistemic norms were concerned with promoting epistemic goods, then we would have epistemic reasons to create new, true beliefs that we don’t currently have. But respect-​based norms wouldn’t see us as having these reasons, since forming or failing to form new beliefs would not respect or disrespect anything that currently exists. So, respect-​based reasons to make trade-​offs have to involve benefits to beliefs one already has. And reasons to seek such benefits are possible only when one has beliefs that one knows to be flawed. Ideal agents would never have such beliefs, one might think, so they’ll never have respect-​based reasons to make trade-​offs. And, one might also think, is not permissible for nonideal agents to harm one belief to fix a harm they caused to another, so even if nonideal agents can have reasons to make trade-​offs, these reasons cannot make trade-​offs permissible. I agree that respect-​based reasons have to do with respecting things that already exist. But I don’t think this is a serious issue for anything I’ve said in this chapter. Even if the objection I’ve just stated were entirely correct, it would still be the case that nonideal agents have

Respect-based vindication  137 reasons to make epistemic trade-​offs and these reasons could make these trade-​offs required even if not permitted. That is, if a nonideal agent has flawed beliefs and can only fix these by making a trade-​offs, respect would sometimes demand that they do so even if doing were also wrong. By analogy, if you have to step on my toe to save the life of someone you negligently endangered, one might insist that it is wrong for you to do so because you’ve created this situation, but the toe stepping is still clearly required by respect. The view that we are obligated sometimes to make trade-​offs to fix beliefs that we have harmed, even if these trade-​offs are wrongful in some way, is a nonstandard one, and so consistent with my overall project. But the objection above is not entirely correct. Ideal agents can have respect-​based reasons to make trade-​offs and nonideal agents can make entirely permissible trade-​offs.9 Consider the following example: Denise has a large set S of beliefs about extremely important topics. Each of the beliefs in S is justified. Even so, some of the members of S are false. Denise knows this, although she has no way of telling which ones are false. Denise also has a belief—​that p—​about a topic that is less important than any of the topics of the beliefs in S. Up until now, the belief that p has been justified. Denise acquires new information about p, which would normally require her to slightly revise her belief about p. Denise also discovers that, if she maintains her old belief about p, she will go on to learn which members of S are false and will learn the truth about each. She will not learn this if she does not maintain her belief about p, but that is through no fault of her own.

Denise can have formed all the beliefs in S even if she is an ideal agent who never fails in her epistemic duties. To fail to slightly harm her belief about p in order to fix some of the beliefs in S is to treat each belief in S as less important than p, which disrespects those beliefs. So, she has respect-​based reasons to make the trade-​off. 9 See e.g., Fumerton (2001), Berker (2013), or Talbot (2014) for more discussion of trade-​offs that don’t involve creating new beliefs.

138  The End of Epistemology As We Know It These require her to make the trade-​off but they also make it permissible, since she’s in the position to make the trade-​off through no fault of her own. We can buttress this by noting that this is how respect works in other contexts. Here’s something we see in respect-​based ethics: it is sometimes permissible (that is, respectful) for an agent to do x, even though doing x often enough will eventually and unpreventably bring about some harms. However, if the agent then finds a means of preventing that harm, they are no longer permitted to do x without also preventing the harm, and further they are obligated to make some trade-​offs to acquire the means of preventing the harm. Consider a doctor who treats young children. Let’s assume the children have no guardian, to remove complications having to do with consent. The doctor gives the children a medicine to relieve their extremely painful, but not otherwise dangerous, fevers. This medicine typically has no side effects, but some tiny percentage of patients who take the medicine will be seriously harmed by taking it. Let’s make the doctor extremely prolific, so that they know that eventually one of their patients will be harmed. If we make the risk low enough, the doctor does nothing immoral by giving their patients this medicine. The doctor then comes across a device that detects who the medicine will harm. Acquiring or using the device requires violating some weak duty (e.g., briefly trespassing, or telling a minor lie). Violating this duty would be a way of respecting the value of the patients’ well-​being, and the doctor would be permitted and required to do so. Similarly, it is generally permissible for a judge to sentence those convicted of crimes, even if there is some slight risk of mistake in each case. The judge comes across a device which could detect mistaken guilty verdicts. They would at least be permitted, and probably required, to violate a weak duty to acquire and use this device. What do we learn from these examples? Respect is consistent with taking some risks, and thus with inadvertently doing bad as a result. But, if we acquire a way to prevent these bads via a trade-​off, then it can be disrespectful not to do so. Turning back to Denise’s case: forming justified but fallible beliefs is consistent with respect, even though some of these beliefs will be false. But once she acquires a means to fix these falsehoods, she has respect-​based reasons to do so. And so, as long as ideal agents need not be maximally informed, ideal agents can have

Respect-based vindication  139 respect-​based reasons to make epistemic trade-​offs.10 Nonideal agents can as well. And making these trade-​offs will be permissible at least in cases where the trade-​offs are made to fix justified but flawed beliefs.

4.5.  Conclusion Consequentialist vindications of epistemic norms give us norms requiring epistemic trade-​offs, because consequentialism treats beliefs as mere means to ends. This suggests that the vindication of standard epistemic norms might have to be along deontological lines—​showing how conformity with standard epistemic norms is respectful—​as deontological approaches wouldn’t vindicate norms that treat beliefs as mere means. But that seemingly attractive feature of deontological vindications is their fatal flaw. Mundane beliefs matter only as means to ends, and so the fact that some norms don’t treat them as mere means would not speak in favor of these norms. The deontological approach to vindication has to involve showing that epistemic norms respect something worthy of respect—​worthy of being treated as finally valuable—​and mundane beliefs are not worthy of respect, or at least respecting them does not matter significantly. So deontological vindications cannot show that conformity with epistemic norms governing mundane beliefs matters significantly. This conformity should matter significantly, and so we cannot offer a solely deontological vindication of epistemic norms. We should reject deontological vindications, or, if we are convinced that respect does matter, we should accept that it isn’t the only thing that matters and

10 The Denise example also addresses a question I was asked by Alastair Norcross. He wondered if the advocate of respect-​based deontology could say that whenever we make a trade-​off, we are doing harm, and if we don’t, we are merely allowing harm. If doing is worse than allowing harm, then trade-​offs might never be permissible. For one, I don’t think this is a rejoinder because doing minor amounts of harm is not worse than allowing major harms, and so my arguments for trade-​offs will still show that trade-​ offs are called for in many cases. Further, as the Denise example shows, in at least some cases if we fail to make a trade-​off, we are effectively doing harm. That’s because the relevant bad beliefs are our beliefs, and our continuing to have them is doing rather than allowing harm.

140  The End of Epistemology As We Know It combine deontological vindications with some other kind, such as consequentialist. Even though respect-​based epistemic norms don’t treat beliefs as mere means, they must still allow trade-​offs. That’s because, in order to completely rule out trade-​offs, every epistemic thing worthy of respect (e.g., every interesting true belief) would have to have an importance “beyond all price” —​an effectively infinite importance. I doubt any epistemic thing is beyond all price, and certainly most finally important epistemic things are not. Epistemic norms that fail to allow harm to a belief of lesser importance to benefit a belief of greater importance, or that fail to allow small harms to one belief in order to greatly benefit something equally important, or that fail to allow harms to one belief to benefit many other beliefs, are norms that are disrespectful. They cannot be deontologically vindicated.

5

Epistemic norms and action 5.1.  Introduction It’s plausible that, if our beliefs conform to epistemic norms, then we will be in a position to act better. Perhaps that is why conformity to epistemic norms matters. That view is the topic of this chapter. The view that epistemic norms matter because of their connection to action can take two forms. To see why, let’s think about someone who has an unjustified but true belief about how to get to Larissa versus someone who knows how to get to Larissa (this example comes from the Meno). Both people, if they act on their beliefs, will get to Larissa. One thing we might say in response is, “Both of these people act successfully, and so believing in accordance with the epistemic norms is not necessary in order to act well. But people whose beliefs violate the epistemic norms will tend to act unsuccessfully, and that’s why conforming to the epistemic norms matters.” Or we might instead say, “These two people don’t act equally well. Yes, both are equally successful. But the person who acts on the basis of the unjustified belief acts poorly in some important sense—​they act irrationally or imprudently, and if others are relying on them showing up at Larissa, their actions are morally negligent as well. And that’s why conformity with the epistemic norms matters.” This illustrates two distinct ways one could connect epistemic norms to acting well. I’m going to talk about these for the rest of this chapter, so I’ll give them names: Tendency: Conformity with epistemic norms matters because it tends to promote successful action Status: Conformity with epistemic norms matters because actions on the basis of norm-​conforming beliefs have a special status

The End of Epistemology As We Know It. Brian Talbot, Oxford University Press. © Brian Talbot 2024. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197743638.003.0005

142  The End of Epistemology As We Know It I’ve stated these loosely so they can each capture a family of related views. To fully specify them, we’d have to say which epistemic norms they are concerned with—​justification? knowledge? something else? We’d also have say what sort of evaluation of action is relevant—​is it prudentially good action that is the basis for epistemic significance, morally good action, both, or something else? And we’d also have to say more about what special status Status is concerned with—​permissibility? Reasonableness? Credit-​worthiness? I’ll say a bit more about all of this in the next subsection. The goal of this chapter is to show that, whether we accept some version of Status or of Tendency, if the view we accept can vindicate epistemic norms, then it vindicates nonstandard norms. I’ll also briefly discuss a view similar to Status but that connects the importance of epistemic norms to their role in our emotions (section 5.5); I discuss this in this chapter because my arguments about this view exactly parallel my arguments about Status. Those who do not find Status or Tendency appealing can skip to the next chapter. My arguments start by discussing why the epistemic norms that Tendency and Status vindicate will call for us to make epistemic trade-​offs. I then turn to whether, in cases where there is no relevant trade-​off to be made, the epistemic norms that matter should aim at truth. I argue that they need not to the extent that the truth is practically irrelevant, which is quite often is. Finally, I will argue that, even when the truth is useful, the vindicated epistemic norms way still be somewhat laxer than the standard norms; this argument will appeal to the fairly commonsense idea that norms on action often permit suboptimal acts. Throughout the chapter, I will spend more time talking about Status than Tendency. Tendency is a practically oriented version of epistemic consequentialism—​it says that the norms matter because they promote good action. Because of this, the arguments connecting Tendency to nonstandard norms are not going to be particularly surprising given the discussion in previous chapters. Status differs more from the views I’ve already discussed, and so it needs more attention. And the discussion of Status has some upshots that go beyond epistemology: for one, it shows that, if acting for reasons matters, then we should give a nonstandard account of what it is to act for a reason.

Epistemic norms and action  143 Before we go on, a word of clarification. Readers of earlier drafts of this book came away from this chapter thinking I was endorsing a sort of simple pragmatism, which called on us to believe whatever brings out the practically best outcomes. I am not interested in ruling that view out here, but it’s also not a view I endorse. For one, I happen to think that epistemic goods can have an importance that goes beyond their practical value (see ­chapter 8 for discussion). Even when we think just about practical vindications of epistemic norms, I’m not convinced of simple pragmatism there. I do think that some sort of simple pragmatism is basically right for a huge swath of our beliefs (see section 5.4 of this chapter). But in some cases, there does seem to something important about a status that our beliefs get when we act based on good beliefs. In these cases, I do think it is importantly better to bring about good outcomes while having the right beliefs than just to bring about good outcomes. But, as I will argue, these good beliefs need not be instances of knowledge, or standardly justified, or even true; when they are, their being knowledge, or standardly justified, or true does not really explain why they are good. That’s because the standard epistemic norms are just not oriented towards what really matters, and so they are not really fit to explain the importance of acting on good beliefs.

5.1.1.  Examples and specifications of Status and Tendency In this section, I’ll give a few examples of philosophers who seem to have endorsed Status or Tendency. (I’m going to try to avoid textual exegesis, however.) This will clarify to whom I’m talking and also to illustrate some forms Status and Tendency can take. Tendency can take an extreme form—​that norms of belief only matter because they tend to promote good action. This looks something like a view Kate Nolfi suggests: [N]‌orms of ideal cognitive functioning [epistemic norms] represent those patterns of cognitive processing which most reliably yield beliefs (as output) that are well-​suited to guide our actions across a

144  The End of Epistemology As We Know It variety of different circumstances and in the service of a variety of different ends by supplying a kind of “map” of the facts. (Nolfi 2018)

Some who endorse Tendency endorse a more pluralistic view, however. To see why, note that Tendency can only vindicate epistemic norms if successful action matters. Successful action seems to matter sometimes because achieving our goals matters—​many successes seem to have little inherent significance, but do matter because we want to accomplish them. So, if you are attracted to Tendency, you are likely to be attracted to the view that accomplishing one’s goals matters. Many of us have the goal of believing true things about at least some topics. And so, if one finds Tendency plausible, one is likely to also think that in some cases successful belief formation matters independently of whether the beliefs in question are relevant to action. We see this sort of pluralistic view stated, for example, by Jon Kvanvig and Alvin Goldman: In the epistemic domain, there are two fundamental sources of value: practical significance and curiosity. (Kvanvig 2013, 153) Our interest in information has two sources: curiosity and practical concerns. (Goldman 1999, 3)

This sort of view is called “instrumentalism” by Tom Kelly (2003), who suggests that it is endorsed by many others (Richard Foley [1987, 1992] being a prominent example). The instrumentalist is best thought of as endorsing a combination of epistemic consequentialism (­chapter 2) and Tendency. In this chapter, I’ll just talk about the connection between belief and action. But, since Tendency is a practically focused form of consequentialism, what I say about Tendency here and what I said about epistemic consequentialism in c­ hapter 2 will fit nicely with one another. Let’s turn now to Status. Some forms of Status focus on deontic statuses like wrongness, obligation, or permissibility. I read W. D. Ross as endorsing a view like this: [T]‌he act which a man in any situation [morally] ought to do is that which it would be reasonable for him to do if he wanted to do his duty

Epistemic norms and action  145 in that situation. . . . What he ought to set himself to do . . . is neither that which will in fact produce the result in question, nor that which in the judgement of better-​informed people is likely to produce it, but . . . that [behavior] which on the fullest consideration that he can give to the matter within the time at his disposal would seem most likely to produce the result. (Ross 1951, 156–​157)

I read Ross as saying, “Having justified beliefs matters because what you actually ought to do is partly constituted by what you would believe you ought to do were you to form a justified belief.” This looks like a version of Status—​action based on (possibly counterfactually) justified belief has the status of being morally obligatory.1 Views along these lines, that say that what one ought to do is based on what one would be justified in believing, are advocated by Michael Zimmerman (2009) and by consequentialists who think that what we ought to do is maximize expected utility (Smart 1973). Some endorse versions of Status that talk about nondeontic statuses. These include being based on reasons, being an achievement, or being credit-​worthy. John Hyman (2015) and Errol Lord (2018) say that acting for some reason r requires knowing that r is the case. Views that tie our reasons for action, or what we can treat as a reason for action, to what we know or justifiably believe are also stated by Peter Unger (1978), Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath (2002), John Hawthorne and Jason Stanley (2008), Ram Neta (2009), Clayton Littlejohn (2009), Mikkel Gerken (2011), and Declan Smithies (2012). Others see actions as credit-​worthy or morally worthy only when they are based in knowledge or justified belief (e.g., Greco 2007, Sliwa 2016, Lord 2018). To be clear, some of the philosophers I’ve cited may not actually think that the connection between epistemic norms and action explains why epistemic norms matter. My arguments won’t depend on claims about what any particular philosopher thinks. I’m addressing anyone who does in fact endorse any version of Status or Tendency.

1 We could read this as a version of Tendency, however: “Having justified beliefs matters because those with justified beliefs are more able to do what they ought to do, since what one ought to do is determined by what belief about what you ought to do would be justified.”

146  The End of Epistemology As We Know It

5.2.  Trade-​offs In this section, I’ll be concerned with situations with the following structure: an agent can form a belief that violates the standard epistemic norms, such as one that is clearly false in light of the agent’s evidence, and doing so will enable the agent to have better beliefs in the future. That is, the agent is in a position to trade off one belief for future epistemic benefits. Further, the agent expects to be called on to act on the basis of the initial belief, whether or not they trade it off. If they make the trade-​off and act on the basis of the traded-​off belief, that action will be worse than if they had not made the trade-​off. But the agent also expects to act on the basis of the beliefs that benefit from the trade-​ off, and these actions will go better if they make the trade-​off. Making the epistemic trade-​offs I’ll be talking about will thus have some costs in terms of action but will ultimately have more benefits than costs. I’ll argue that, if either Status or Tendency are true, then in order for the epistemic norms to matter, the norms have to either allow or require epistemic trade-​offs in some range of these types of cases. What range will depend on the details of what makes action more or less good, and I won’t address those details. My argument will focus on moral evaluation of action, but everything I said can be restated in terms of other practical norms, such as the norms on prudence. These types of trade-​off cases are realistically possible, and I’m certainly not the only philosopher to have noticed this. Kate Nolfi points out that: Recent work in psychology indicates that certain sorts of systematic distortions in the way in which our beliefs represent the world might better equip creatures with the kind of cognitive equipment that we have to act successfully. Research on the optimism bias, for example, supplies compelling evidence that we are, as a general rule, more successful in achieving our various ends when our beliefs about ourselves and about our relationship to the world around us are systematically distorted in particular ways. (Nolfi 2018, 192)

John Doris argues that inaccurate beliefs may be beneficial for agency in a variety of ways. One of the most interesting (or perhaps upsetting)

Epistemic norms and action  147 examples is about how cognitive illusions are likely necessary to sustain healthy relationships and to allow those in relationships to continue to do the work necessary to maintain their relationships’ health. To give just a small quote: In relationships, as with illness, people are often motivationally challenged: I’ve had enough. I’m out of gas. I can’t go on. Here, I’m willing to speculate, sturdy perceptions of control have motivational utility: if you don’t think marital outcomes are responsive to effort, how do you get yourself to undertake the effort? By supporting value-​relevant motives, illusions of control may facilitate behavior that helps to realize values. If so, we’ve identified a pathway whereby self-​ignorance supports, rather than impairs, agency. (Doris 2015, 136, underlining is mine)

These two quotes are about forming “bad” beliefs in order to act well, but don’t explicitly discuss trading off bad beliefs for epistemic benefits which then enable good action. More clearly on point, Lisa Bortolotti discusses the practical and epistemic benefits of delusions: [T]‌ he adoption of a delusional belief can be psychologically adaptive . . . the very fact that people believe a more positive version of reality (e.g., “I am now severely disabled, but my girlfriend still loves me” [when in fact the girlfriend had left them]) than the one they have evidence for allows them to manage negative feelings that could become overwhelming, preserve self-​esteem, and overcome anxiety and stress . . . if a belief helps manage negative emotions, protect self-​esteem, and relieve anxiety and stress, it will have positive effects not just on the agent’s wellbeing but also on her capacity to function well epistemically. (Bortolotti 2020, 496)

These discussions are relatively recent. But this idea is not recent. One way of interpreting Hume is that he thought we are not justified in trusting induction, but even so that induction was going to give us accurate belief in a great many cases, which would in turn enable good action. Discussions of “two-​level” utilitarianism (Hare 1981) claim that believing in the true ethical theory can have worse moral consequences

148  The End of Epistemology As We Know It than believing in a (simpler) false theory. This is partly because the true theory is too hard to apply, and so belief in the true theory will prevent us from forming true beliefs about what specifically we should do in certain situations. If these costs are high enough, then belief in the false theory might be worth it. For each of these examples, a person can form a belief that is supposed to be contrary to the epistemic norms—​ that their girlfriend still loves them, that they know induction works, that some nonutilitarian view is correct—​which will in turn lead to other epistemic benefits, which will in turn lead to good action. In each example, the person may be called to act on the basis of their traded-​ off beliefs. And in some of these cases, that action will be worse than the action they would have performed at that moment if they had not made this trade-​off. For example: the person who believes the false moral view will sometimes act immorally on the basis of this view. And yet each of these philosophers claims that overall the trade-​offs lead to better belief and better action in the long run. If Tendency is true, it is easy to see that the vindicated epistemic norms must require trade-​offs in some cases like this. Tendency says that the epistemic norms matter because agents whose beliefs conform to them will tend to act better than agents whose beliefs do not. Agents will clearly do better if they make some epistemic trade-​offs. So, epistemic norms not requiring trade-​offs would clearly be inferior with regard to promoting successful action than some trade-​off-​requiring alternative. So, if Tendency is true, conforming to some trade-​off requiring set of epistemic norms systematically matters more than conforming to the standard epistemic norms. What specific norms are better depends on our view of successful action and how much that matters. But we can construct some set of norms that requires trade-​ offs only when these are more likely to promote important kinds of action. Whenever these norms disagree with standard epistemic norms, they will matter more. And so we can safely ignore the standard epistemic norms in every case. If Tendency is true, the standard epistemic norms should be replaced by these nonstandard ones. We will get a similar result for Status, but getting there requires a more complicated argument. Tendency is a consequentialist view and so it is not surprising that it endorses norms that require trade-​offs. But Status need not be consequentialist. Status looks consistent, at least

Epistemic norms and action  149 in principle, with the idea that actions based on traded-​off beliefs are wrong even if the trade-​offs lead to better consequences. And so I have more arguing to do to show that Status gives us epistemic norms that allow or require trade-​offs. The argument starts by discussing only versions of Status that are about deontic statuses: being wrong, being permissible, being obligatory, and so forth. To make my argument, I’ll talk about a sort of toy example. This just for illustration; I’m not going to rely on intuitions about it. Kayla is a police detective investigating a dangerous serial killer. No officer, Kayla included, can figure out who the killer is, and it is very likely that they will strike again soon. Kayla has promised to meet her spouse at a location of her spouse’s choosing for anniversary dinner tonight. A genie comes to Kayla and offers the following deal: the genie will alter Kayla’s belief about where the dinner is, so that the belief does not fit Kayla’s evidence and is very likely false. As long as Kayla doesn’t scrutinize this belief too hard, it will persist as is (that is, it will remain unfitted to the evidence). If Kayla sincerely maintains her bad belief about the location of the dinner until after the meeting time, the genie will help Kayla figure out who the killer is before the killer strikes again. Version 1: Kayla believes what her evidence tells her about the dinner, thus not making an epistemic trade-​off. She acts on the basis of this belief, arriving at her anniversary dinner as promised. Version 2: Kayla makes the epistemic trade-​off, thus forming a bad belief about where her anniversary dinner is. She acts on the basis of that belief, showing up at the wrong place and breaking her promise.

The specific details of the case are not particularly important. What matters is: in Version 1, Kayla does not make an epistemic trade-​off, and acts on the basis of the belief that is not traded off; in Version 2, Kayla does make an epistemic trade-​off and acts on the basis of the traded-​off belief. Acting on the basis of the traded-​off belief is bad, but this badness is outweighed by the benefits of the making the trade-​off. The vast majority of moral views allow some sorts of moral

150  The End of Epistemology As We Know It trade-​offs—​we can sometimes permissibly break a prima facie duty, for example, or violate a right, in order to achieve something more important. If you don’t like my example, set up the actions in your own Kayla example so that they parallel the kind of trade-​off that your favored moral theory allows in cases not involving bad beliefs. Focus on Kayla’s belief about where her dinner is—​the belief that she can trade off—​and on the status of the action she takes on the basis of this belief in Version 1 and 2. There are four possibilities for the status of this action in Version 1 and 2:

i. Kayla acts permissibly in both Version 1 and Version 2. ii. Kayla acts permissibly in Version 2 (where she made the trade-​ off) but wrongly in Version 1 (where she didn’t). iii. Kayla acts wrongly in both Version 1 and Version 2. iv. Kayla acts wrongly in Version 2 (where she made the trade-​off) but permissibly in Version 1 (where she didn’t). Option (i) says that trade-​offs are permitted but not required; Kayla’s action is based in an acceptable belief in either scenario. Option (ii) says that trade-​offs are permissible and required; Kayla’s actions are wrong when based in the non-​traded-​off belief but permissible when based in the traded-​off belief. Option (iii) says that trade-​offs are required but also that conforming to standard norms is required, so no belief is acceptable. Option (iv) says that trade-​offs are forbidden and not required. Option (iv) is what the standard epistemic norms say, so that’s where we’ll start. It is more important that Kayla catch the killer than that she keep her promise. So, whatever it is that matters about the norms of action, there’s more of it when Kayla makes the trade-​off. This may be because she better fulfills her special obligations, or shows more appropriate regard or respect for human rights and the value of human lives, or does what the best person (forced into Kayla’s situation) would do. This is worth emphasizing: we don’t have to be a consequentialist to think that the benefits of the trade-​off are more important than the costs, since we can say why this is in deontological or virtue-​ethics friendly terms. Speaking loosely, morality wants Kayla to make the epistemic trade-​off. Acting on the basis of the belief she thereby forms is an

Epistemic norms and action  151 unfortunate but basically inevitable consequence of that, and so morality wants that as well. For that reason, it would be bizarre for morality to say that Kayla acts wrongly if she makes the trade-​off and then acts on the basis of the belief she forms. Option (iv), which says that acting on the traded-​off belief is wrong, is thus extremely implausible. But I’m not going to try to convince you of that. I don’t have to. Grant that option (iv) is true and that it is wrong for Kayla to act on the basis of her traded-​off belief, and permissible for her to act on the basis of the non-​traded-​off belief. Even so, there’s something better about her acting on the basis of her traded of belief. And whatever this something is, it is more important than permissibility. That’s a consequence of the trade-​off better reflecting what matters about action. With that in mind, we can compare two versions of Status which differ in what status they are about. One says that epistemically good beliefs are an ingredient in permissibility. Another says that epistemically good beliefs are an ingredient in this something that matters more than permissibility, and Kayla’s acting on her traded-​off belief has that something. The former is compatible with standard epistemic norms, but the latter is not, since it endorses the actions based on Kayla’s traded-​ off belief. But the latter version of Status gives us norms that are systematically more important than the former, since it only disagrees with the standard norms in cases in which making trade-​offs has more of the something that matters more than permissibility. And so, if Option (iv) were true, we should reject the standard epistemic norms, even if conforming to them was necessary for permissible action. My argument relies on morality “wanting” Kayla to catch the killer and miss dinner. Can we deny this by saying that what morality really wants is for Kayla to both catch the killer and make it to dinner? I agree that there is a sense in which this is what morality truly wants: it reflects what is objectively best for her to do. But this is not an option available to Kayla if she has to act based on beliefs, because if she has beliefs that allow her to keep her promise, she can’t have beliefs that allow her to catch the killer (and vice versa). We can always evaluate a person’s actions objectively, in a way that is disconnected from what they do or can believe, but this sort of action evaluation cannot be what Status is about; Status is about the status actions have when they are based on good beliefs. Of the sets of act options based in beliefs that

152  The End of Epistemology As We Know It Kayla has available to her, catching the killer and breaking her promise is what morality wants. Why might one be attracted to saying that it is wrong for Kayla to break her promise due to acting on a traded-​off belief, even if this allows her to catch her killer? After all, it would clearly be permissible for Kayla to knowingly skip dinner, breaking her promise, if she were in the middle of chasing the killer at that moment. We might be attracted to the view that acting on a traded-​off belief is impermissible because there is a difference between the trade-​off case and a case in which Kayla knowingly breaks her promise in order to chase the killer. When Kayla misses dinner due to her epistemic trade-​off, her failure to keep her promise is not because she chose at that moment to break her promise and catch the killer. In fact, she is trying to keep her promise by acting on her belief about where dinner is. So we might think that we can’t justify Kayla’s breaking of her promise by appealing to the importance of catching the killer—​that’s not the choice she’s making when she breaks the promise. This might make Option (iv) seem more appealing. But this way of thinking about what Kayla does, and what justifies what she does, is too narrow in focus. It’s true that what she does when she goes to the wrong place for dinner is not at that moment motivated by her goal of catching the killer. But the action is overall explained by Kayla’s larger-​scale goals, plans, or intentions. We can see the action as unjustified only when we focus on a narrow construal of justification and action, but her action is still justified on a broader construal of what we are evaluating when we evaluate actions. And in this case the broader construal clearly gets at something more important than the narrower construal. Practical evaluation should often be concerned with evaluating actions not in isolation, but as part of what Seth Lazar and Chad Lee-​Stronach call a “campaign,” because campaigns are often what really matter for practical or moral purposes (Lazar and Lee-​Stronach 2019). (I’ll return to this idea in section 5.4.) So much for Option (iv), which says that Kayla acts wrongly when she acts on the basis of her traded-​off belief and permissibly when she acts on the basis of the non-​traded-​off belief. That option is both implausible and does not actually vindicate standard epistemic norms. With this in mind, we can now turn to Option (iii). This says that Kayla is in a dilemma—​no matter what she believes, she’ll act wrongly. This

Epistemic norms and action  153 I suppose makes some sense, because she either acts on a belief that ignores evidence or she acts on a belief that reflects a lack of concern with catching the killer. Even if we like this view, though, we still have to say (for the reasons just discussed) that acting on the basis of the traded-​off belief is more in line with what really matters than acting on the basis of the belief that fits the evidence. And so, even if she does wrong either way, it is preferable for her to make the trade-​off and act on the basis of that belief. This means that Kayla’s action on the basis of her traded-​off belief has a better status—​one that matters more—​than her action based on the non-​traded-​off belief. Versions of Status that tell us how to act with this status give us norms that matter more than those vindicated by versions of Status that just tell us how to act permissibility, and these more important versions of Status gives us norms that tell us to make epistemic trade-​offs. This leaves us with Options (i) and (ii), which both say that trade-​ offs are permissible. In (ii), they are both permissible and required.2 I have a hard time seeing why trade-​offs would be merely permissible, rather than required in some cases, since making these trade-​offs can be such a better fit to doing what we are morally or prudentially obligated to. So, I don’t think Option (i) is plausible, but whether or not it is, both Options (i) and (ii) give us nonstandard norms. Putting this all together, Status means that trade-​offs are called for by the vindicated epistemic norms. Trade-​offs are allowed according to Option (i) and allowed and required according to (ii). They are forbidden according to Options (iii) and (iv), but both of these Options see trade-​offs as preferable to not making trade-​offs. Option (iii) sees making and not making trade-​offs as both forbidden, with making 2 You might wonder: can we accept that Kayla acts permissibly when she breaks her promise, but still say that Status is about standard epistemic norms? We might endorse a version of Status that ties the epistemic norms to something like prima facie permissibility. This would say that there’s something wrong with acting on the basis of beliefs that violate the standard epistemic norms, but this can be overridden (e.g., Brogaard 2014 points out that if you accept Status, you should also accept that this status can be overridden). This does not rescue the standard norms. It means that the standard norms systematically get overridden in trade-​off cases, which means that there are some other norms, which allow trade-​offs, that are better connected to what matters about action in such cases. If the epistemic norms are supposed to matter because of their connection to action, then these alternative norms are superior to the standard epistemic norms, and should replace them.

154  The End of Epistemology As We Know It them as the favored of the forbidden options. Option (iv) sees not making trade-​offs as permissible, but also means that there is some form of evaluation that matters more than permissibility and that calls for making trade-​offs. The argument to this point has discussed only deontic versions of Status. But some versions of Status involve different notions, such as being an achievement, being credit-​worthy, or being based in reasons. It might look like these Statuses are inconsistent with trade-​offs. If Kayla makes her trade-​off, then she fails to achieve anything when acting on this belief, since she does not succeed at all in showing up at the right place for dinner. Even if she somehow did show up at the right place, this would be accidental, and still not an achievement. Similarly, she can’t be acting on her reasons because she doesn’t have reasons to show up at the wrong place; even if she shows up at the right place, this is (arguably) again too accidental to count as being based in her reasons. So, do these forms of Status rule out trade-​offs? They do not. Whatever explains why achievements, or credit-​ worthiness, or acting for reasons matters (if these matter at all) must be intimately tied to what gives actions their deontic status. After all, each of these requires that one does what one should. So, the source of the importance of acting for reasons, for example, is the same as the source of the importance of doing what one should to do. Kayla should act on the basis of her traded-​off belief. So, it is not possible for Kayla to both do what she should and to act based on reasons, or act in a credit-​worthy way, and so forth. Doing what she should is clearly much more important than any of these other statuses. So, when an agent should make an epistemic trade-​off, doing so is more important than any of the relevant nondeontic statuses their action can have. Nondeontic versions of Status may rule out trade-​offs in some sense, but deontic versions of Status require trade-​offs and matter more. If we like nondeontic versions of Status, we should also like deontic versions as well, and these vindicate epistemic norms that require trade-​offs. This leaves open the question of how often epistemic trade-​offs should be permissible or required. I cannot answer without taking too much of a stand about how the norms on action work. I will just flag one relevant subquestion. Kayla’s case is one in which there is no

Epistemic norms and action  155 meaningful possibility of catching the killer without making the epistemic trade-​off and acting on the traded-​off belief. There will also be cases in which one can get the benefits of the epistemic trade-​off in principle without acting on the traded-​off belief. So, for example, Layla might be a detective who can make an epistemic trade-​off like Kayla’s, but will catch the killer before her dinner date. If that’s so, then in principle she can then fix her belief and still make dinner. In practice, of course, this is not really going to happen. (Note the similarity to toxin puzzle cases, in which one benefits from forming an intention but need not act on that intention to receive the benefits [Kavka 1983]) What should we say about such cases? My own view is that trade-​offs should still be justified according to the epistemic norms, but I won’t argue for that here. It’s enough that I’ve shown that the epistemic norms that matter should sometimes call for epistemic trade-​offs; future research can investigate when this is.

5.3.  Irrelevance to action and Tendency I still remember what my grandparents’ phone number was in the 1980s. I know that I will never act on the basis of this belief in any way that matters: my grandparents moved in the mid-​1990s to a new house with a new number, and now they have passed away as well. It is even clearer that you know that you would never act on the basis of that knowledge, were I to transmit it to you. If we know or are in a position to know that a belief is irrelevant to action, then according to Tendency, norms governing that belief do not matter (this point is made by Kelly 2003). Tendency says that it matters that a belief conforms to the epistemic norms because that makes that belief more likely to be the basis for successful action. If we know, or are in a position to know, that a particular belief will not be the basis for action, then there is no explanation for why the norms on that belief would matter at all. This is actually only loosely stating the idea. That statement uses the concept of knowledge, which I ultimately want to reject. It should really be stated using nonstandard epistemic norms, but we don’t have terms for those. From this point forward, I will say “if we can tell” or “if we are in a position

156  The End of Epistemology As We Know It to tell such and such,” where “tell” is referring to whatever nonstandard concept would play the appropriate role. The example in the opening paragraph is an example of a pointless belief. Many pointless beliefs are such that we can tell that they will never affect our actions at all. These would look just like straightforward instances of knowledge of the future, which any nonskeptic will admit we have. We may see this for many interesting beliefs as well. Interesting beliefs are the sorts of beliefs we are curious about to an extent not explained by their relevance to action. There’s nothing about them as a category that guarantees that they will be relevant to action at all. And I suspect that many beliefs that we find interesting don’t connect to action in any significant way. I am interested in whether intelligent life exists on other planets. My beliefs on this topic affect my action in almost no way, because there’s not much I can do based on these beliefs. There are two exceptions. First, I might make assertions based on my belief. Let’s return to this below. Second, I could try to learn more about this topic, and so one my beliefs on this topic might affect inquiry or related behaviors. But much of what I can do to try to inquire further into this topic requires too much effort on my part, and I can attest to the fact I’m not going to do that work regardless of whether or not I believe, or have high or low credences, that intelligent life exists on other planets (perhaps things would be different if I believed that it would be easy to discover this life). Of course, there are some relatively easy ways to conduct inquiry into this topic, such as reading articles I come across. But introspection into my psychology suggests that whether or not I read these articles is unaffected by whether or not I already believe in intelligent extraterrestrials. We very often read about topics that interest us even when we expect what we read to tell us what we already know, or when we already believe that the reading is mistaken. So, it does seem plausible that there are interesting beliefs which we can tell, or are in a position to tell, won’t affect our action except by affecting assertion. What about mundane beliefs? Mundane beliefs are by definition useful or likely to be useful. And so we cannot tell that a mundane belief will not be the basis for action. But we often can tell for given mundane beliefs that believing certain falsehoods makes no practical difference. Let’s say I have moved jobs, and I know that I will never

Epistemic norms and action  157 be back in my old office again. I realize that I left a book in my old office—​just one, in an otherwise empty bookshelf—​and I ask someone to ship it to me. They ask where it is, and I tell them that it is on the top shelf of the bookshelf. However, it might be on the second to top shelf. Even if it were, my false belief is good enough; I can say that it is on the top shelf, and they will do just fine in finding the book even though I’m mistaken. In cases where we can tell that it does not matter, for the purposes of action, whether a mundane belief is false or not, then according to Tendency, norms requiring that belief to be true cannot matter more than laxer norms. These norms won’t tend to produce more successful action. This, in turn, means that norms requiring coherence or fit to evidence won’t matter when the degree of coherence or fit to evidence doesn’t make a practically relevant difference to the truth. What’s the scope of this result? Consider my beliefs about the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. I claimed that this interesting belief could be irrelevant to action for me. But it might affect what I say. It may also indirectly affect how I act, by somehow affecting other beliefs of mine which in turn affect how I act. This suggests that the scope of what I’ve just said is limited, because many beliefs whose truth seems (partly) irrelevant to action might affect what I say or affect my actions indirectly. We can argue about how often this is the case, but such arguments will depend on empirical claims that I’m not in a position to back up. I’ll just flag that it’s not obvious that the possibility of assertion matters all that much to what we believe—​this needs to be argued for. That’s because Tendency only says that norm conformity for beliefs matters when it is relevant to actions that matter, and it’s up for debate how often it matters that we assert properly. Those attracted to Tendency should be attracted to the idea that assertion matters because those we assert to may update their beliefs in light of our assertions, and then act on the basis of those updated beliefs. On this view, when we can tell that others are going to not update on our beliefs, or won’t act on these updates, then the possibility that we will assert the content of our beliefs doesn’t show that the norms on those beliefs matter.3 3 Assertion norms might also play a role in social coordination, as laws do. Norms that play these roles need not do a good job in every particular instance; they can be

158  The End of Epistemology As We Know It So far, all I’ve shown is that, given Tendency, conformity with standard epistemic norms won’t matter in certain cases. This doesn’t obviously show that nonstandard epistemic norms are better, according to Tendency, than standard norms. But that is what I want to argue: I want to argue that the standard norms should be replaced by norms that permit us to believe false things, ignore evidence, be incoherent, etc. when that doesn’t make a practically relevant difference to our beliefs. So, why should laxer norms replace standard epistemic norms? Stricter standard epistemic norms forbid some beliefs that are just as good, with regard to what really matters about epistemic norms, as the beliefs that these standards permit. Forbidding beliefs that are perfectly well suited to what matters means that standard norms are in effect anticonducive to what matters. We should reject normative systems like this. This has only established that, given Tendency, the epistemic norms should be laxer than standard norms in cases where we can tell that the laxity makes no difference to action. Later in this chapter, I’ll argue for a stronger claim: the epistemic norms should be laxer even when that is likely to lead to worse actions. For now, though, let’s turn to Status.

5.4.  Status Status has a much more serious problem than Tendency. Tendency is a quasi-​consequentialist view that says what matters is producing successful action. It’s not surprising that it ends up vindicating quasi-​ consequentialist norms. But at least it does vindicate some norms governing a huge range of our beliefs. If Tendency is quasi-​consequentialist, Status is more like the deontological approaches discussed in ­chapter 4. And, like those approaches, it actually cannot vindicate any epistemic norms governing a wide range of our beliefs at all. justified sometimes because having the norms overall is better in some sense that having other norms. So we might try to argue that assertion norms matter even in particular case where the assertion itself doesn’t really matter. This is connected to issues I discuss in ­chapter 6. So I refer the reader to what I say in that chapter, which can largely be applied to assertion norms as well.

Epistemic norms and action  159 This is because a vast range of our actions only matter as means to ends. When this is so, there is no relevant, important status that can vindicate norms on these beliefs. Imagine that you are at a conference getting coffee. What you want is good coffee. For most of us in this situation, we couldn’t care less what status the act of coffee getting has as long as we succeed at our goals—​we don’t care if the act is prudentially permissible, rational, credit-​worthy, or what-​have-​you. (Of course we don’t want our coffee getting to be morally wrong, but most of our ordinary action occurs in a context in which that is effectively not on the table.) We would not give up any significant amount of coffee or any significant quality of coffee in order to give our coffee-​getting any sort of status (see also Jones 2009). That’s true in a huge range of ordinary cases: when we get gas, when we pull weeds, when we go to the bathroom, when we turn on the heater, etc. Of course, it is not universally true even in ordinary situations. I have become a coffee snob recently, and have spent a lot of time and effort learning how to make espresso. In doing so, I have knowingly sacrificed quality of coffee for achievement—​I concede that there are probably better ways to get better coffee than by making it myself using my elaborate set-​up, but I care about doing it myself, and I do want my coffee to be an achievement, even if it is less good as a result. But many—​likely most—​of our everyday activities are things that only matter instrumentally. These activities are means to ends, and what matters is just that we bring about the end, not how. Status cannot vindicate norms on beliefs only relevant to these sorts of actions. But let’s not give Status up too soon. It does matter to me to some significant extent that, if I make a good cup of coffee, I do so because (roughly speaking) I knew which beans were good, what fineness to grind them, and so forth. So, in the prudential domain, it sometimes matters that our actions have some status or other. And, in the moral domain, it does seem significantly and importantly better for a detective to, for example, catch a criminal because they (roughly speaking) know what the clues point to rather than, like Inspectors Clouseau or Gadget, stumble blindly into success. So, Status does seem to vindicate epistemic norms sometimes. But while certain actions may be better in some significantly important way because they are based in epistemically appropriate beliefs, this does not involve epistemic

160  The End of Epistemology As We Know It appropriateness in any standard sense (i.e., it doesn’t involve knowledge or standard forms of justification). In making my arguments, I’ll focus on the following version of Status: to act for a reason requires that one has an epistemically appropriate mental state. I’m focusing on that view because its advocates often put more demanding requirements on our beliefs than those who advocate other versions of Status—​they often require that we know the facts that are our reasons for action (although not always that we know that they are reasons).4 I will argue that acting for reasons does not require knowledge because it does not require true belief. Once I show that, I can easily show that it doesn’t require justified beliefs in the standard sense of “justified.” It is thus straightforward to apply the arguments I’m making to versions of Status that are interested in different statuses or are less demanding. I’m also going to largely focus on the view that acting for reasons requires knowing the facts that are reasons, rather than knowing of these facts that they are reasons. I will briefly address that latter view at the end of the discussion, however. Let’s consider four versions of a case: No good  There is a child, Jenny, drowning in a pond. Fred thinks a toy, not a child, is in the pond and fishes it out to see if anyone has lost their toy. He thereby rescues the child. Also no good  No one is drowning in a pond. Fred justifiably believes that someone is, however, and tries to rescue them. He rescues no one because there is no one to rescue. Not quite  There is a child, Jenny, drowning in a pond. Fred believes that it is a different child—​Sally—​who is drowning, and fishes her out. He thereby rescues Jenny. Knowledge  There is a child, Jenny, drowning in a pond. Fred knows it is Jenny drowning, and fishes her out. He thereby rescues Jenny. 4 E.g., Hawthorne and Stanley (2008), Hyman (2015), Lord (2018). Littlejohn (2012) requires that our beliefs about these facts are justified which (he thinks) requires that they are true, and I’m just going to lump him in here.

Epistemic norms and action  161 These are toy examples to give us something to talk about, and the argument I want to make is not interested in their details or in your intuitions about the cases. In three of the four cases, I assume that the agent is doing the objectively right thing, the exception being Also no good (where there’s no one to be rescued). The No good case is supposed to be one in which one acts successfully, and does as they objectively should, but whose action has a lesser status because, due to their epistemic deficiencies, the agent is not acting on the reasons that make the action objectively right. Knowledge is supposed to be the minimal pair for No good in which the action does have the better status, and the action is based in the reasons that make it objectively right. Feel free to change the examples as you like to fit with your preferred versions of Status. When philosophers argue that knowledge is required for Status, they focus on the contrast between Knowledge and No good and Also no good (e.g., Littlejohn 2012, Hyman 2015, Lord 2018). The arguments generally start with the claim that objective reasons have to be facts, and in No good and Also no good, Fred lacks a mental connection to that facts that are objective reasons. In the former case it’s in virtue of his false beliefs, and in the latter it’s the combination of his false beliefs and the lack of objective reasons to act. But these arguments do not really show that knowledge is required for Status. Let’s grant for the sake of argument that reasons have to be facts. What we would need in order to establish knowledge-​based forms of Status is that there is an important difference in status between Knowledge and Not quite (Not quite is the case where Fred rescues one child thinking it is a different child). No one discusses contrast cases like these, and in fact there is no important difference between Not quite and Knowledge. Here’s my initial argument. In Not quite, Fred’s nonknowledge mental state is good enough for practical purposes—​it’s good enough to get him to do the objectively right thing. Of course, so is Fred’s mental state in No good (when he thinks he’s rescuing a toy). The difference between No good and Not quite is that Fred’s mental state in No good is mistaken about quite practically significant aspects of the situation. He has no mental connection to the most practically significant aspects of the situation—​that there is a person drowning. In Not quite, however, Fred lacks knowledge but his belief fails to be knowledge

162  The End of Epistemology As We Know It because it is mistaken about practically irrelevant features of the situation (practically irrelevant in this context, at least)—​who specifically is drowning. So, Fred’s action is not based in his knowledge of the reasons in Not quite, but it is still sufficiently connected to what really matters that it must have the same Status as in Knowledge. If it does not, then Status is concerned with things that do not really matter, and cannot vindicate epistemic norms. Surely, one might object, Fred in Not quite does know the morally relevant features of the situation: he knows that someone is drowning, even if he doesn’t know who. It’s that knowledge, one might think, that his action is based on, and so his action is still based in the reasons that make that action objectively right. To respond, I’m going to ask you to consider something that, for all I know, is impossible. Consider a version of Fred who is just like a normal human, but who believes that Sally, not Jenny, is drowning, while somehow not having the more general belief that someone is drowning. That is, this version of Fred has only the false belief that Sally is drowning, and no other relevant true beliefs which could plausibly be the reasons for which he acts. For all I know, this is not possible—​the two beliefs may necessarily come together. Even so, we can still see that this odd, perhaps impossible, Fred is still acting based on the morally relevant features of the case, even though he has no knowledge of those features. The false thing he believes still puts him in touch with the objective reasons for action to the same extent as in Knowledge and in the way that is lacking in No good. If it turns out that in the real world agents like Fred in cases like Not quite always have some knowledge of the morally relevant features, this is just due to the nature of belief or the mind or something like that. It doesn’t have implications for what matters, normatively speaking. That’s because the connection between us and our reasons doesn’t depend on this knowledge, as we see by thinking about how things would be in worlds where that knowledge was missing. So, false beliefs can still capture what matters about a situation, and when they do, those false beliefs can still connect one’s actions to the objective reasons for action. This connection to these reasons can be robust and nonaccidental; the agent who acts on these false beliefs is in no way bumbling into objective rightness. If we think that actions

Epistemic norms and action  163 based on knowledge confer Status, we should also think that some actions based in false beliefs can confer Status as well.5 There’s another way false beliefs can capture what matters. In the Not quite version of the case, Fred’s beliefs are false, but their falseness is about a morally irrelevant feature of the situation. People’s beliefs can also be mistaken about morally relevant features of situations in ways that do not matter to any significant extent. When they are, relevant actions can still have enough of the relevant status. Consider another version of this case (which may again require pretending something impossible): Pretty close  Pretend for the sake of illustration that some lives are more valuable than others. And assume that Sally’s life is very, very, very slightly less valuable than Jenny’s. Fred falsely believes that Sally is drowning, when in fact it is Jenny. Acting on this false belief, Fred rescues Jenny.

In Pretty close, Fred is not fully connected to all of the objective reasons for acting, since there are somewhat different reasons, or weights of reasons, to rescue Sally versus Jenny. But in this version of the case, Fred is still connected to the great majority of the reasons for action. If there’s a difference in Status between his action in this case and his action when he knows the reasons for acting, it is a very minor difference. If we consider versions of Status that require knowledge compared to those that see Status as based in nonfactive mental states, the former cannot really vindicate epistemic norms to any significant extent compared to (some versions of) the latter, as 5 Arguments for knowledge-​based versions of Status sometimes talk about giving explanations for why one someone acted as they did (Littlejohn 2012, Hyman 2015). They take as a datum that explanations must be true. I am fine saying that the facts about objective reasons explain why Fred acted as he did in Not quite. If one insists that this can’t be so, then I can’t see why having an explanation of this sort matters in the normative sense of “matters.” A related view comes from Williamson (2000), who says that appeals to knowledge are also important to explain action, roughly because actions based on knowledge are more robust than those based on mere belief. Those arguments rely on the contrast between cases like No good and Knowledge; in cases like Not quite, where actions are based in false but close enough beliefs, actions will still be robust because counterevidence will typically not point to reasons that favor different actions.

164  The End of Epistemology As We Know It the difference in importance between knowledge and some nonfactive mental states can be quite minor. True beliefs are nice, but even when they are better than false beliefs, they are often not that much better as a basis for action. (You may notice a connection here to the discussion of satisficing consequentialism in ­chapter 2: knowledge-​ focused versions of Status are really interested in maximally good versions of Status, but what really matters are Statuses that are close enough to the best. The argument for that latter point is the same as the argument in ­chapter 2, with one nice bonus. The bonus is that there is no plausible objection from gratuitous losses to the view I’m endorsing here, because the Statuses of multiple actions don’t plausibly aggregate in the same way that the goods and bads of outcomes do.) So false beliefs can put us in touch with all of the reasons for action, or with enough of them, so that actions based in false beliefs can be as good as those based in true beliefs, or close enough to as good—​not merely as successful, in terms of producing good outcomes, but also as well motivated or well based. While in the actual world this may typically, or always, require that we have some true beliefs about the reasons for action, this is an epiphenomenon of what really matters, and the important connection between us and the reasons for action does not rely on these true beliefs. We’ve been discussing the view that acting for reasons requires good beliefs about the facts that are reasons. Let’s turn to views according to which Status requires knowledge of normative facts, such as knowing of the reasons for action that they are reasons for action. To give us something to focus on, we’ll discuss moral worth as the relevant status. Sliwa (2016) says that moral worth requires knowing that one’s action is right. That’s too simple, however. Moral worth, if it matters, must (roughly put) require that we know that our reasons for acting are as significant as they are. To see why, consider Fred saving Jenny when he knows he has reasons for saving her, and he knows that it is the right thing to do, but he thinks the reasons to save her barely make it right, and thus wouldn’t have saved Jenny if he had happened to see a five-​ dollar bill in the other direction. This certainly doesn’t reflect well on Fred, and whatever it is that is supposed to be important about Fred’s saving Jenny because he knew he had reasons for saving her—​for

Epistemic norms and action  165 example, that it is morally worthy action—​is almost totally absent in this case.6 We can use the arguments I’ve already given to show that true beliefs, and thus knowledge, about moral facts are not necessary for moral worth. Consider Pretty close, in which Fred rescues Jenny thinking he’s rescuing Sally, and where Sally’s life is somehow slightly less valuable than Jenny’s. Let’s say Fred knows how valuable Sally’s life is, and thinks that Jenny’s life is equally valuable. So Fred does not know the strength of the reasons for saving Jenny. But his view is close enough to the truth that his action clearly has almost as much moral worth as it would have had he acted with full knowledge of the reasons for action. The difference in importance between acting with knowledge about one’s reasons and acting with false beliefs about one’s reasons can be as slight as we like. So, appeal to statuses like moral worth do not show us that true belief or knowledge is of any significant importance. The same goes for any status that plausibly requires normative knowledge. To emphasize: even when actions based on knowledge are slightly better than those not, this slight difference is not enough to vindicate versions of Status that require knowledge, because these focus on very slight differences rather than the differences that really matter. And, as we’ve also shown, actions based on knowledge are often not at all better than those that are not. Since false beliefs can connect us to the reasons for action, Status does not vindicate standard norms of justification. Standardly, justification has some crucial connection to the truth. For example, evidence that p is evidence that p is true; reliable thought processes are those that reliably produce true beliefs. But, since false beliefs can connect us to reasons for action, inasmuch as epistemic norms are vindicated because beliefs that conform to them put us in touch with reasons for action, the vindicated norms of justification need not involve truth-​ connected notions. Indicators that p is close enough to the truth, even if they also indicate that p is false, should justify our belief that p. That 6 Without getting into textual exegesis, what I am saying here seems consistent with the stated motivation for this view of moral worth. Sliwa quotes Kant, “it is not enough that [i.e., the action] conform with the moral law but it must also be done for the sake of the law; without this that conformity is only very contingent and precarious” (Sliwa 2016, 394, quoting Kant 1785a, emphasis mine).

166  The End of Epistemology As We Know It is, evidence that p is false should be able to sometimes justify believing p. Unreliable beliefs forming processes—​ones that rarely produce the truth but typically produce false beliefs that still put us in touch with our reasons for action—​could also generate justified beliefs. This also has implications for defeat: evidence that one’s belief is false, or learning that one’s belief is unreliably formed, or even incoherence, need not defeat one’s justification for belief, as long as these still allow that one’s belief is close enough to the truth or false about only morally irrelevant features. To summarize: it does seem plausible that sometimes it is better to act based on knowledge, not just because this is more success-​ conducive (as Tendency would say) but because action based on knowledge makes us more connected to the reasons for our actions. But, inasmuch as this is plausible, knowledge is not the only thing that can play this role. False beliefs can as well. And true beliefs can even when they fail to be knowledge because they are not based in evidence or reliably formed. If we are attracted to Status, we should really think that what confers Status is much broader than any standard epistemic notion. This Status-​conferring thing can be analogous to knowledge. But rather than being justified, nonaccidentally true belief, it is justified* nonaccidentally close-​enough-​to-​true belief; “justified” has an asterisk because it is a nonstandard form of justification. Note, though, that even though this Status-​conferring thing is analogous to knowledge, it can be different in every possible way from knowledge. A belief can be false and based in no way on evidence and still fit with this vindicated broader epistemic notion. It is true that instances of knowledge or justified belief as standardly understood will confer Status. But, crucially, this does not show that knowledge or standard justification matter qua knowledge or standard justification. Beliefs that count as knowledge matter, but not strictly speaking because they are knowledge. To see what I mean, consider Thursality. Thursality is like morality. The norms of Thursality differ from the moral norms in just one way: they only make pronouncements about actions on Thursdays. It matters in a sense that actions conform to the Thursality norms. After all, the moral norms matter and any action that conforms to Thursality norms also conforms to the moral norms. What’s more, the explanation for why a given action conforms

Epistemic norms and action  167 to the Thursality norms would involve all the same reasons we’d appeal to when giving an explanation for why that action conforms to the moral norms. But the fact that an action conforms with the Thursality norms does not really explain why the action matters. The Thursality norms just mimic the norms that matter to some significant extent. The same goes for knowledge and standard justification, if we accept Status. Like Thursality norms, knowledge and standard justification norms mimic an important subset of the epistemic norms that really matter. But this is only mimicry of the norms that matter. Knowledge and standard justification ignore all sorts of good reasons for belief, just as Thursality norms ignore all sorts of good moral reasons for action. It matters that we act based on knowledge (assuming it does) not because we are acting based on knowledge but because we are acting based on a belief that conforms to the actually vindicated nonstandard norms. Some may still want to resist my arguments. After all, forms of Status that require knowledge or justification as standardly understood do a good job of fitting the intuitive data and of making sense of much ordinary speech and many ordinary practices. Why shouldn’t we insist that Status does require standardly good beliefs? The arguments I’ve made show how unconcerned standard epistemic norms are with what really matters, practically speaking. Our beliefs fall short of those standards even if they are attuned to the vast majority of what matters. Our beliefs can fall short of standard epistemic norms even if our beliefs are attuned to all practically relevant features of a situation. The standard norms take truth to be the aim of belief about topics with no practical significance whatsoever. And, finally, the standard norms forbid all trade-​offs, no matter how practically valuable. Imagine someone who came to Status with no preconceptions, someone who just thought, “An action is better when it is based on some mental connection to the reasons for that action.” Were we to try to pitch the standard epistemic norms to this person, claiming that they describe what beliefs must be like to have that mental connection to reasons for action, they’d find our pitch baffling given everything I’ve just pointed out. Given the obvious disconnection of the standard epistemic norms from what matters about action, we need some compelling explanation for why Status should involve conformity with standard epistemic norms. Intuitions are not enough.

168  The End of Epistemology As We Know It That’s doubly true because we have an error theory for our intuitions. Instances of knowledge will often give actions status, since knowledge mimics the vindicated epistemic norms. The intuitive forms of Status are relatively simple, often true (albeit for the wrong reasons), and provide helpful rules of thumb. That would explain why we find them intuitive, even if conformity with standard epistemic norms doesn’t really matter. To summarize: Status cannot vindicate norms governing a wide range of belief, because a wide range of beliefs are either irrelevant to action or it doesn’t matter if actions based on these beliefs have status. When it does matter that actions have status, this status need not require true belief, and thus need not require conformity with any standard epistemic norms. If Status vindicates any norms at all, it vindicates nonstandard ones.

5.5.  Emotion and belief A book referee asked whether we might appeal to the connection between appropriate emotions and good beliefs as a way to vindicate standard epistemic norms. My views on this exactly parallel my views about the connection between action and good beliefs, and so I’m going to address this idea in this chapter and keep the discussion fairly brief. The alleged connection between emotion and belief might look either like Tendency or Status. That is, we might say that epistemic norms matter because norm conforming beliefs tend to promote appropriate emotions. Or we might say that epistemic norms matter because emotions can’t be appropriate unless they are based in norm-​ conforming beliefs. I’m going to focus on the latter view. Once we see that it vindicates nonstandard norms, it’ll be relatively easy to see how the former view does as well. The former view is, like Tendency, a quasi-​consequentialist view, and these are typically more prone to vindicating nonstandard norms. The connection between emotion and belief can’t vindicate norms governing a wide range of our beliefs. Pointless beliefs almost never have any connection to important emotions. We can tell that a great

Epistemic norms and action  169 many mundane beliefs won’t as well—​the possible world in which my current belief about the number of radishes in my refrigerator plays any role in any important emotion is so far from the actual world that I can safely ignore it. It’s also quite likely that many interesting beliefs will have no connection to emotions: I’m curious about certain bits of drumming trivia, but I don’t see how these could play a role in my emotions. Exactly which beliefs are irrelevant to our emotions depends on our views about appropriateness, about which emotions are important, and about how emotions are supposed to relate to beliefs, so I’m not going to try to stake any very particular claims. But, as with Status, connections to emotions can’t vindicate any epistemic norms governing a large number of beliefs. Some beliefs will be relevant to our emotions. This can be in two ways. First, beliefs can be directly relevant to one’s emotions—​we have emotional reactions to the contents of the beliefs. For example, learning about some injustice might make one angry. Second, beliefs can be indirectly relevant to one’s emotions. One might need to have beliefs about where to discover news about injustice in order to learn about the injustice that makes one angry. Beliefs that are indirectly relevant to emotions are only means to emotional ends, and are only a fit for a view analogous to Tendency. It’s beliefs that are directly relevant to emotions that we should be focusing on. The norms governing beliefs directly relevant to emotions will be nonstandard. Emotions can be appropriate in the sense that matters even if they are based in false beliefs, as long as these beliefs are either false about emotionally irrelevant features or only slightly off about emotionally relevant features. Because our emotion-​relevant beliefs need not be true, the norms governing them can allow them to ignore evidence, be incoherent, or be unreliably formed to some extent. My argument for all of this is exactly the argument I made about acting for reasons in the previous section, and so I won’t make it again. What about trade-​offs? When I discussed Status and epistemic trade-​offs, my argument was that the norms on action allow certain trade-​offs in action, and when an epistemic trade-​off is connected to what matters about action in a parallel way, the norms should call for that epistemic trade-​offs and allow one to act based on the

170  The End of Epistemology As We Know It traded-​off belief. I’m going to make the same argument about appropriate emotion. Imagine a tourist visiting a church in a foreign country. They try to visit it “off hours” to be respectful. But it turns out that the others in the church are mourning a very sad death. The tourist sees a quite amusing carving in one part of the church. The carving, by itself, would make amusement a fitting emotion. However, the presence of the mourners make some more solemn emotion fitting. Assume that the solemn emotion and amusement are incompatible. The details of the example as I’ve stated it don’t really matter. What we need is a case in which one emotion is fitting in light of some facts about the situation, but an incompatible emotion is fitting in light of other facts, and the latter emotion is more important than the former. Pick the example you like best. Our account of emotions can say one of two things about this example.7 It can say that it is not fitting or appropriate for the tourist to be amused, because fittingness or appropriateness is a function of all the facts about the situation one is in. Or it can say that, in light of all the facts, it is fitting for the tourist to be amused. If this latter is the case, then it doesn’t really matter that they are fittingly amused. What really matters is that they experience the more important solemn emotion. So, on this latter view, it isn’t the connection to fitting emotions that explains why epistemic norms matter, because fitting by itself doesn’t really matter. What matters is the fitting of the most important emotions. Either of these suits my argument. The tourist can feel amused or solemn but not both. Our account of fitting emotions, or of the important kind of fittingness, wants the tourist to feel solemn rather than amused. This is, effectively, an emotional trade-​off—​the tourist should give up one emotion to feel the other. As long as there are appropriate emotional trade-​offs, then the norms governing emotion-​ relevant beliefs must also call for epistemic trade-​offs. Let’s say that the tourist doesn’t realize that the others are mourners. They can only discover this by forming what would normally be a bad belief about the amusingness of the carving. This epistemic sacrifice is what is most in



7

In thinking about this, I found Naar (2021) very helpful.

Epistemic norms and action  171 tune with what matters about appropriate emotions. Failing to make the epistemic trade-​off gives the tourist either an inappropriate emotion or an emotion that is appropriate but not in an important way. So, failing to make the trade-​off cannot enable an importantly appropriate emotion. But making the trade-​off can. The norms that are most in line with what matters about emotion require this epistemic trade-​off. This example involves two incompatible emotions that one can feel at a time. It may be that we also should make epistemic trade-​offs that sacrifice beliefs relevant to an emotion at one time in order to be able to feel more important emotions in the future. Arguing for this would require taking a stand about exactly why and how appropriate emotions matter, which is beyond the scope of this book and of my philosophical knowledge. So I will just flag this as an issue for future research. So, the possible connection between emotions and beliefs can only vindicate nonstandard norms, if it can vindicate any epistemic norms. These are norms that don’t govern a wide range of beliefs, that are laxer when applied to the beliefs they do govern, and that require trade-​offs in some range of situations.

5.6.  Suboptimal action and suboptimal belief If we accept Tendency or Status, then we vindicate nonstandard norms that are laxer than standard epistemic norms (these to some extent allow false beliefs, the ignoring of evidence, incoherence, etc.). At the very least, the norms are laxer in cases where false beliefs enable or lead to the same actions as true belief. In this section I give an argument for an even more radical view, that the vindicated norms will be laxer than standard norms even in some cases where false beliefs only enable or lead to worse action. You find a dollar on the ground. You know that the person standing next to you would benefit from the dollar very slightly more than you. According to common-​sense morality, it is still morally permissible to keep the dollar for yourself. We see something similar according to common-​sense prudential norms: if you very slightly prefer cheesecake to apple pie, it is still prudentially permissible to order apple pie. These acts are suboptimal—​less good than they can be—​but intuitively

172  The End of Epistemology As We Know It permissible. Let’s assume that these intuitions reflect the truth. Imagine that you are forming a belief relevant to one of these decisions, and imagine that this belief will only impact this decision and no others. Let’s say that your evidence indicates that the person standing next to you would benefit slightly more from this dollar, and if you believe according to your evidence, you might give them the dollar. If you don’t fully conform your belief to the evidence, and instead believe that you will benefit more from the dollar, you definitely won’t give the dollar to them. Or, let’s say you have to mail the dollar to the person who would benefit more from the dollar, and if you slightly ignore your evidence you’ll get their address wrong and the dollar won’t get delivered. Here is my contention: the epistemic norms in these cases should allow you to not fully conform these beliefs to your evidence. More generally, if it is sometimes permissible to make suboptimal choices, and the epistemic norms matter because of their connection to action, then it should be sometimes permissible to form suboptimal beliefs that lead to suboptimal choices, and sometimes permissible to make suboptimal choices based on suboptimal beliefs. That is, given the practical permissibility of suboptimal choices, Tendency and Status mean that epistemic norms should permit gratuitous suboptimal belief formation even when we can tell that this has some practical costs. Because I’m arguing for a conditional claim, I’m not going to argue that suboptimal choices are sometimes permissible according to practical norms. But note that this is a pretty standard view in ethics. And I do believe it reflects common-​sense views of prudential rationality. I’m going to take it for granted in this section. I will be talking about what are typically called “supererogatory” and “suberogatory” actions. An action is supererogatory when it is good and better than is required. An action is suberogatory when it is gratuitously bad in some way (the bad is not for the sake of some other good) but not forbidden (Driver 1992). Ultimately, I want to argue that the existence of super-​and suberogatory actions, plus Status or Tendency, means that the vindicated epistemic norms should allow for super-​and suberogatory beliefs. Supererogation gets more discussion in ethics than suberogation. Much of this discussion focuses on so-​called heroic or saintly supererogatory acts: donating a kidney to a stranger, running into a burning building to save a child, etc. These

Epistemic norms and action  173 saintly acts are extremely good, but not required (on many accounts) because they are too personally costly or demanding. But not all supererogatory acts are heroic or saintly. Some are “trifling,” to borrow a term from Chisholm (1963). He says: contributing small change to the Home for Little Wanderers . . . is good and therefore not indifferent; it is neither obligatory nor forbidden; and, in most cases, it is neither saintly nor heroic. The same may be said, perhaps, for being kind to animals, for ordinary politeness, and, as Feinberg notes, for most of those acts which we ordinary call “favours.” (Chisholm 1963, 100)8

Chisholm also says that suberogatory acts may be either “villainous” or trifling. Chisholm suggests that, perhaps, telling A’s boss about A’s illicit activities in a way that costs A their job might sometimes be villainous but morally permissible. I’m not convinced by that example, but the following seems more plausibly to be a trifling suberogatory act: I know that when I speak, I can pitch my voice to be slightly less pleasant than it normally is, which will very slightly annoy others. If the annoyance is slight enough, talking in this manner seems morally permissible, but it is slightly gratuitously bad. When I talk about suboptimal actions in this section, I’m talking about instances of trifling super-​and suberogatory acts, not heroism or villainy. Let’s start with an argument that should make it prima facie plausible that, if there are trifling super-​and suberogatory acts and Tendency or Status are true, then there are super-​and suberogatory beliefs. When acts are super-​or suberogatory, the difference between suboptimal and optimal action is not important enough to generate a moral requirement to do the optimal action, or else there would be such a requirement. Consider cases like the finding a dollar case above. In this case, the difference between forming a suboptimal and an optimal belief is that the suboptimal belief would result in not giving the dollar to the person who benefits from it slightly more. This is suboptimal behavior, but behavior that would normally be permissible. Let’s



8

The Feinberg referenced is Feinberg (1961).

174  The End of Epistemology As We Know It call this behavior objectively permissible—​“objectively” because, if we ignore the agent’s beliefs, it looks permissible. If not giving the dollar is objectively permissible, and epistemic requirements matter because of their connection to moral requirements, then (it seems) the difference in this case between acting based on optimal belief and acting based on suboptimal belief cannot be important enough to generate an epistemic requirement to believe optimally. This should be at least prima facie plausible. Let’s expand the scope of this prima facie argument. Common-​ sense ethics says taking small enough risks to human life can be merely suberogatory. For example, almost no one thinks that it is morally wrong to drive around the block even when one has no reason to do so and even though we all know that this is riskier than sitting on one’s couch. This suggests the following: if what one believes about x could potentially make a big difference to how one acts—​that is, it could make the difference between doing act A and act B, when that difference is really important—​but the risk of the belief making this difference is sufficiently low, then it doesn’t matter what one believes about x. For example, imagine that if one ignores evidence about p there is some chance that one will act on the basis of this belief in a situation where that act would cost someone their life. Imagine further that this upshot of this belief is as unlikely to occur as it is that one will run someone over driving around the block. If the risk of killing someone in the driving case is not important enough to generate a moral requirement not to drive, and the epistemic norms matter because of their connection to moral norms, then a similar level of risky belief formation shouldn’t be important enough to generate an epistemic requirement to not ignore evidence. Again, it doesn’t make sense to subject our beliefs to stricter norms than our actions, if ultimately our beliefs matter just because of their connection to action. These are just prima facie arguments. If we think hard enough, we can find reasons to worry about them. Both arguments say, in effect, “If acting suboptimally, or taking a suboptimal risk in action, is permissible, then why can’t forming a belief that leads to that suboptimal action, or that involves that same level of suboptimal risk, be permissible?” To see why we might worry about this, consider an example:

Epistemic norms and action  175 A forms the epistemically suboptimal belief that the person next to them doesn’t want a dollar at all. They then find a dollar. A knows that they themselves will slightly benefit from the dollar. But A thinks, “Well, I’m not morally required to optimize. So I don’t have to keep this for myself. And the person next to me doesn’t need it.” So they burn the dollar to ashes.

Assume that burning the dollar would have been permissible if it were true that the other person didn’t want the dollar at all. But assume further that the act is not objectively permissible when the other person does want the dollar—​it’s just bad enough not to be suberogatory. In this case, then, because A believed suboptimally and also acted suboptimally in light of this belief, they have performed a behavior that is not permissible. What does this suggest? Suboptimal beliefs will result in objectively permissible behaviors only when an agent doesn’t also intend to behave suboptimally. That is, suboptimal beliefs result in objectively permissible behaviors when the agent intends to behave optimally.9 Thus, suboptimal beliefs look fine, from the standpoint of action, only when there is a tension between the agent’s belief formation and their choices of how to act. This tension is that the agent forms a belief that then prevents them from acting as optimally as they intend. And so, if the epistemic norms license suboptimal beliefs, or the practical norms license acting on suboptimal beliefs, we are in a sense licensing agents to undermine their own agency. This might seem problematic. The undermining of agency in this way won’t always matter enough to be relevant to the norms. We discussed in section 5.4 the idea that often all that matters about action is that we are successful, and not how or why. In such cases, it doesn’t matter whether or not we are successful as agents or not as agents. We can extend this: in some cases, it doesn’t matter that we are as successful as we intended to be, as long as we are successful enough. It needn’t even matter to us, even though these 9 This is overstated. If the belief is slightly suboptimal, but not as suboptimal as it could permissibly be, and the agent intends to act slightly suboptimally, but not as suboptimally as they can permissibly act, then the suboptimal act and suboptimal belief can together still produce an objectively permissible behavior. But there is still some tension, as the person will end up acting more suboptimally than they intended.

176  The End of Epistemology As We Know It cases involve a failure to live up to our own intentions. Often when we intend to behave optimally, we see this as nice but superfluous, so if we fail to be optimal as we intended but do well enough, we shrug off the suboptimality. Undermining our agency when our agency doesn’t matter, or when the level of undermining doesn’t matter, won’t matter. But even when agency really does matter, I’m not convinced that norms of belief that allow for suboptimal belief undermine agency in the important sense. Here I’m going to appeal to ideas that I introduced in my discussion of epistemic trade-​offs (section 5.2). If it is true that suboptimal belief is only acceptable when we expect to subsequently try to behave optimally, then norms of belief that allow suboptimal belief do clearly undermine some component of agency. In the dollar-​ finding case above, the person cannot act as optimally as they want once they find the dollar because they have previously chosen to form a belief suboptimally. Forming suboptimal beliefs undermines what we might call agency in the moment—​it undermines our ability to make our own choice at a certain time about what to do at that time. But that’s not all that agency is about. Being an agent, in the sense that really matters, also has to do with agency over extended periods of time. And properly engaging in that sort of agency often undermines agency in a moment. That’s exactly what we see in cases involving epistemic trade-​offs. And we see this in other sorts of cases as well. We often fully express our agency only by committing ourselves to courses of action in ways that foreclose our agency in the moment down the road. Lara Buchak (2017), for example, argues that our ability to engage in certain kinds of long-​term risky behavior require committing ourselves to continue with courses of action even if we receive some amount of evidence that makes these actions seem irrational to us in the moment. That’s because most difficult long-​term projects will give us some such evidence along the way, and so we’ll generally be unable to pursue these projects without these commitments. These commitments are in tension with agency in the moment, as the agent’s initial commitment is supposed to preclude them from making some of the decisions that, in later moments, would seem appealing to them. Or consider how many of us successfully deal with our tendency to weakness of the will. For many of us, if we always allowed ourselves make decisions at particular moments in light of our reasons at that moment, we would never

Epistemic norms and action  177 exercise, would procrastinate with our work, etc. That’s because at the moments where exercise, work, and so forth are actually to occur, our desires and other motives don’t favor exercise. To actually succeed at our long-​term projects, we actively cultivate a tendency to not engage in deliberation at these moments—​we actively undermine our own agency in the moment. So, proper norms of agency can allow for subversion of agency in the moment. In the examples I’ve just given where undermining one’s own agency is perfectly fine, the person subverts her own agency in the moment in order to pursue longer-​term and more important projects. The norms I’m endorsing, on the other hand, involve forming beliefs that subvert one’s agency in the moment but for no good—​suboptimal beliefs produce no benefits. You may wonder: how can the norms allow this? But if the norms of agency in the moment allow for super-​and suberogation, then the norms of long-​term agency should also allow for super-​and suberogation as well. It should be permissible to pursue suboptimal projects, or to suboptimally pursue optimal projects. And if that suboptimal pursuit involves subversion of agency in the moment, then (to some extent) so be it.10 Let’s summarize: Assume that the norms on action see some suboptimal actions as permissible. Assume (as we are in this chapter) that the norms of belief matter because of belief ’s connection to action. There will then be cases in which suboptimal belief affects action only by making the action suboptimal but still permissible. There will also be other cases in which suboptimal belief could make a big difference to action, but the risk is equivalent to risks that the norms of action allow. In such cases, why should the norms on belief require optimality? It may be true that, in such cases, suboptimal belief formation undermines our future agency in the moment. But, I’ve contended, this often doesn’t matter at all, as in many cases of low-​stakes action 10 You may wonder: the examples I’ve discussed involve intentional subversion of one’s own agency in the moment. Forming suboptimal beliefs won’t always look like this. It may be, then, that the norms of belief allow for super-​and suberogatory beliefs only when these beliefs do express one’s choices. That’s consistent with the view that we don’t have direct control over our beliefs. We have indirect control over our beliefs and over our belief forming processes, and by some age, many of the suboptimal beliefs we form are the product of suboptimal belief forming mechanisms that we have chosen not to improve.

178  The End of Epistemology As We Know It based on mundane beliefs. When it does matter, it is still consistent with long-​term agency, which is what really matters. So, to some extent, the norms of belief should allow for suboptimal belief—​beliefs that gratuitously ignore some amount of evidence, are incoherent to some extent, etc.

5.7.  Conclusion We started the chapter with the thought that conformity with epistemic norms matters because of a connection to practical norms, such as norms of prudence or morality. Some beliefs just aren’t connected to anything practical. Other beliefs are, but their truth is not—​some falsehoods are good enough for successful action, permissible action, worthy action, or for acting for reasons. If epistemic norms matter because of their connection to the practical, then the standard epistemic norms cannot be vindicated for such beliefs. But we can’t expect standard epistemic norms to be vindicated even for beliefs whose truths are practically relevant. That’s because all plausible practical norms want us to make some practical trade-​offs. And so they want us to make epistemic trade-​offs that are effectively equivalent to these practical trade-​offs. And they want, or at least allow, us to act on the basis of traded-​off beliefs. And so, if the epistemic norms matter because they lead to good action, or because they are partly constitutive of good action, then the epistemic norms that are vindicated have to allow or require trade-​offs. Similarly, many plausible practical norms allow us to act suboptimally. These practical norms should allow us to act on the basis of beliefs that lead to permissible suboptimal actions, or that involve risks that are permissible in the domain of action. And so again, if the epistemic norms matter because they lead to good action, or because they are partly constitutive of good action, then the epistemic norms that are vindicated should allow for suboptimal but permissible beliefs. This means that the epistemic norms that are vindicated through their connection to action, or to norms on action, cannot be standard epistemic norms.

6

Social vindication 6.1.  Introduction I’ve discussed consequentialist, respect-​ based, and action-​ based vindications of epistemic norms, arguing that these give us nonstandard epistemic norms which require epistemic trade-​offs and put laxer requirements on beliefs. These three approaches to vindication all have something in common. In this chapter, we’ll look at an approach to vindication that is fundamentally different. To see what I’m talking about, let’s start with an illustration. Recently, Dan Greco and Brian Hedden (2016) and Sinan Dogramaci and Sophie Horowitz (2016) have put forward a new type of argument against epistemic permissivism—​the view that, for some bodies of total evidence, there is more than one epistemically permissible credal state. To slightly simplify, they claim that an important function of epistemic evaluation is identifying reliable sources of information. That is, we identify who is or is not justified in believing that p in order to identify for ourselves and for others who is a reliable testifier about p and also to identify who might be a reliable source of information more generally. Given that function, they argue, permissive epistemic norms don’t make sense. If the norms are permissive, then two thinkers could come to different but equally permissible conclusions based on the same evidence because they endorse different epistemic standards. If that were so, then knowing that someone else has a justified belief would not tell me that I could trust their testimony: they might be employing different evidential standards than I, and my standards might not endorse the conclusion they reach. So, the argument goes, because permissivism is inconsistent with the function of epistemic evaluation, the epistemic norms cannot be permissive. This argument is based in an account of why the epistemic norms matter. But it is not really interested in why conformity to epistemic The End of Epistemology As We Know It. Brian Talbot, Oxford University Press. © Brian Talbot 2024. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197743638.003.0006

180  The End of Epistemology As We Know It norms matters. Rather, it is interested in why it matters that we have epistemic norms or apply these norms to each other. Further, the argument is interested in benefits of having or applying the norms that have to do with social or interpersonal interactions. This chapter is about the general idea that epistemic norms are vindicated by looking at the interpersonal or social benefits of having or applying them. Those who are not interested in this can skip to the next chapter. This approach might seem better suited to the vindication of standard epistemic norms than the approaches discussed in previous chapters. To illustrate, let’s say we agree that it does not matter whether or not some pointless belief of mine conforms to any norms at all. Even so, it might be good for us to have stringent norms on pointless beliefs, or to apply these stringent norms to each other, because doing so will lead to people having better beliefs across the board. By holding our beliefs to high standards even when they are pointless, we might inculcate more generally virtuous belief formation. But, unsurprisingly, I’m going to argue that this approach to vindication is actually more likely to vindicate nonstandard epistemic norms, norms which require trade-​offs and which hold mundane and pointless beliefs to lower standards than interesting beliefs. I say “likely” because ultimately this will turn out to be an empirical question, and so I cannot settle it with a philosopher’s tools. But, even if this approach did vindicate standard norms on its own terms—​by showing that we should have these norms or apply them to each other—​I will argue that it can’t show that it matters that we conform to standard norms. That is, even if we should use and adopt standard norms, we need not, and often should not, follow them.

6.2.  Social vindication unpacked I will call the approach to epistemic norms discussed in this chapter the social vindication of epistemic norms, or just “social vindication” for short. We’ll need a better understanding of what social vindications actually involve in order to make my arguments. I’ll lay out that understanding in this section.

Social vindication  181 Edward Craig’s Knowledge and the State of Nature is the locus classicus for social vindication of epistemic norms: [To determine what knowledge is] we take some prima facie plausible hypothesis about what the concept of knowledge does for us, what its role in our life might be, and then ask what a concept having that role would be like, what conditions would govern its application. (Craig 1990, 2) Human beings need true beliefs about their environment. . . . That being so, they need sources of information that will lead them to believe truths. They have ‘on-​board’ sources, eyes and ears, powers of reasoning, which give them a primary stock of beliefs. It will be highly advantageous to them if they can also tap the primary stocks of their fellows—​the tiger that Fred can see and I can’t may be after me and not Fred—​that is to say, if they act as informants for each other . . . To put it briefly and roughly, the concept of knowledge is used to flag approved sources of information. (Craig 1990, 11)

Craig’s work has inspired many others. For example, Michael Hannon endorses a view much like Craig’s: The heart of this book is a simple but powerful idea: the point of the concept of knowledge is to identify reliable informants. (Hannon 2018, 35)

We also see ideas much like Craig’s suggested by Alan Hazlett (2013), and endorsed by Bernard Williams (2002) and Dan Greco and Brian Hedden (2016). Building from, but going beyond, Craig’s view, Sinan Dogramaci has argued for what he calls “epistemic communism”: I thus take the following as an intuitive premise: the utility of our epistemically evaluative practice is just an instrumental utility it has by helping us get true beliefs. (Dogramaci 2012, 513) Our evaluations [of the rules others use in forming beliefs] have an overall tendency to influence our audience to follow the endorsed

182  The End of Epistemology As We Know It rules . . . [B]‌y actively pressuring everyone to share belief-​forming rules, we make testimony trustworthy in our epistemic community. Because we are each actively and constantly using ‘rational’ in a way that promotes that coordination, we can easily recognize that we are all following the same rules. And if we can recognize such coordination, then we have reason to trust each others’ testimony. (Dogramaci 2012, 520–​524)

Dogramaci’s view is that we don’t just use epistemic evaluation to identify reliable informants. We also use it to create reliable informants (see also Dogramaci 2015). In a paper coauthored with Dogramaci, Sophie Horowitz (2016) seems to endorse this view as well. A related view is given by Steven Reynolds, who says, “The primary purpose of saying that people know is to encourage good testimony” (Reynolds 2002, 142). A variant social vindication view is that epistemic norms are had and applied not just to identify reliable informants, but also to identify when inquiry has been appropriately terminated. On this view, ascribing knowledge about p signals that inquiry into p has terminated appropriately. This is useful both for identifying who to trust about p and also for identifying whether or not we need to look further into p. That latter function is valuable because inquiry is costly, and so it is valuable to be able to stop looking into some questions and put that effort into looking into other questions. Views in this vicinity are endorsed by Klemens Kappel (2010), Christoph Kelp (2011), Krista Lawlor (2013), and Patrick Rysiew (2012). Each of these authors is attempting to explain why it matters that we as a society have the epistemic norms, or why it matters that we use the epistemic norms to evaluate each other’s beliefs. Questions about use of the epistemic norms can be about private or public use of them—​ that is, about the importance of evaluations that we do “in our own heads” versus evaluation that we do out loud. As shorthand, I’ll refer to all of these questions as asking why we adopt or use epistemic norms. As just illustrated, many possible answers to the “Why do we adopt or use the epistemic norms?” question have been given or suggested:

Social vindication  183 • It encourages others to use the norms so that they will be better informants. • Evaluating the person’s belief about p tells us (or others) if they are a good source of information about p. • Evaluating the person’s belief about p gives us (or others) information about whether they are a good source of information about other topics. • Evaluations of others’ beliefs about p signals whether or not inquiry into p has been terminated appropriately. Note a crucial point: the fact that norms help us identify good informants, or encourages being a good informant, or identifies when inquiry is closed, is not really what vindicates these norms. Each of these things does matter, but only as a means to an end. It’s the end that they are a means to that really vindicates the norms. I’m not saying anything controversial here. Each of the authors I’ve just mentioned says this at some point in their work. Each says that fundamentally what matters is true belief—​we want to know who to trust so that we can form more true beliefs, we want to close inquiry on one topic so that we can put that effort into working out the truth about other topics, etc. Because of this, when we ask what epistemic norms are socially vindicated, we should not stop at asking what norms best identify and encourage good informants, or best tell us when inquiry is closed, etc. We really must ask what norms we should adopt or use in order to best promote the relevant end.1 If these are not the norms that best identify reliable informants, for example, then the norms that best identify reliable informants are not socially vindicated. In the rest of this chapter, I will make a simplifying assumption. I will assume that ultimately we adopt or use epistemic norms in order to promote accurate representation of important aspects of the 1 There are some social vindications of epistemic norms that don’t look quite like the ones I’ve discussed. These say that the norms matter because they help us to convince others (Dutilh Novaes 2015, Mercier & Sperber 2017). But convincing others is also just a means to an end, and plausibly to the same ends I’m discussing—​convincing others matters because it helps spread good beliefs. (One might also think it matters because it helps us dominate others; I don’t think that’s much of a vindication, so I won’t discuss it.)

184  The End of Epistemology As We Know It world. In other words, social vindications are in some ways an extension of consequentialist vindications of epistemic norms. This is in line with what those writing about social vindications say. I will go on to argue in the next section that the norms that are socially vindicated are a lot like the norms we discussed in the chapter on consequentialism, not the sorts of standard norms endorsed in the literature on social vindication. You may wonder: am I cheating by treating social vindications as an extension of consequentialism? This is not cheating for two reasons. First, this is also what those talking about social vindications seem to really think. Second, social vindications are not just consequentialist vindications, and so the conclusions I reach don’t follow trivially from my assumption. In the chapter on consequentialism, I discussed why it mattered that individuals conform or try to conform to epistemic norms. In this chapter, I discuss why it matters that we (as a society) adopt and use epistemic norms. This discussion requires different arguments, it’s not just a reiteration of my earlier chapter on consequentialism. Further, my arguments do not really rely on my assumption that what fundamentally matters is promoting epistemic goods; that’s just to make the chapter easier to read and write. Any social vindication is going to rely on some underlying account of what matters. After all, it is obvious that identifying good informants and closing inquiry are not ends in themselves, and so we need an explanation for why norms that help us do this matter. If we wanted to, we could connect this to the importance of action or of respecting the truth. My arguments can be modified to fit these views, and what we’d see is that these views would vindicate norms that look a lot like those discussed in the chapter on action, or in the chapter on deontology.

6.3.  Social vindication and nonstandard norms In the following sub-​sections (6.3.1 and 6.3.2), I’ll argue that social vindications probably should give us norms that resemble the norms I argued for in the chapter on consequentialism: these require some trade-​offs and are laxer than standard norms. Again, I say “probably”

Social vindication  185 because this depends on empirical questions, and I discuss that in section 6.4.

6.3.1.  Trade-​offs Consider norms that require epistemic trade-​offs when the expected benefits outweigh the epistemic costs. If person A conforms to these norms, then they will be a worse source of information about the topics of the beliefs that they trade off. However, they will be a better source of information about the topics of the beliefs that benefit from the trade-​offs. If the trade-​off is a sensible one, then in the long run it promotes important true beliefs, both in individuals and in the community at large. This suggests that socially vindicated norms will require trade-​offs. That argument requires a bit more development, though. To see why, imagine that Moia makes a trade-​off which harms her belief that p in order to create new, good beliefs about q and r, beliefs that Moia would otherwise not have had. In one sense, Moia is now a better source of information overall because she can now speak reliably on more issues. In another sense, she is a worse source of information because the average reliability of her testimony goes down. That’s because she would previously only have spoken about p—​since she had no views on q or r—​and would have spoken reliably. But now she will speak on p, q, and r, and only two of those provide reliable testimony. There are environments in which the average reliability of sources of information about topics they will testify about is more important than how many topics the source can testify reliably about. For example, if we have relatively easy access to lots of potential testifiers, then what matters is average reliability—​we want people to remain silent when they are unreliable because we can typically find someone who will speak reliably on a topic. If access to many potential testifiers is higher cost or infeasible, on the other hand, then do we want each testifier to have more information, even if they have lower average reliability. This means that trade-​offs involving the formation of new beliefs will be socially beneficial only in certain sorts of environments. However, other

186  The End of Epistemology As We Know It kinds of trade-​offs are still beneficial even in environments where average reliability is what we care about. Imagine that Moia trades off her belief about p to improve some other beliefs she already has (these beliefs might either be unjustified or justified but false). If beliefs that are epistemically appropriate can be false, or if people sometimes give testimony based on beliefs they think are epistemically appropriate but which are not, then A can improve the average reliability of their testimony by making trade-​offs. Let’s apply what we’ve just discussed to extant views about social vindication. Start with Dogramaci’s epistemic communism, the view that we publicly use epistemic norms in order to encourage norm conformity, and encouraging norm conformity matters because of the epistemic benefits that brings. Given this view, it looks like we should use epistemic norms that require some trade-​offs in order to encourage others to make these trade-​offs, although which trade-​offs depends on features of our environment. I say “it looks like” because this will be affected by our understanding of others’ capacities, as I will discuss later in this chapter. Next, consider Craig’s idea that we evaluate a person’s belief about p partly in order to get evidence about how reliable their testimony is more generally. Again, it looks like we should employ norms that require some trade-​offs, as those who conform to these norms will be better testifiers. What about views that say we employ epistemic norms to identify when inquiry has been closed appropriately? If we use epistemic norms that allow for trade-​offs, then wouldn’t we sometimes identify q as a settled question when really more inquiry is needed? Perhaps, and if that’s the case, this is a cost. Even so, the use of norms that require trade-​offs also has the benefit of encouraging trade-​offs, and of helping us identify those who are generally reliable sources of information, both of which promote true beliefs. In some cases, the costs of using or having trade-​off-​requiring norms will be worth it.2 Since

2 This is exactly how we have to think if we like social vindications and are not skeptics. If one likes social vindication and is not a skeptic, then one has to think that the norms allow us to believe in the absence of absolute certainty. Any such norms will sometimes misidentify when inquiry is properly closed. They are vindicated because these costs are outweighed by the benefits.

Social vindication  187 true belief promotion is ultimately what vindicates the norms, trade-​ off-​requiring norms can still get vindicated.3 The previous paragraph makes salient a crucial aspect of social vindication. It could turn out that norms that allow trade-​offs are not well suited for the precise thing that a particular advocate of social vindication focuses on. Craig, for example, often focuses on identifying knowers about p in order to identify good sources of testimony about p. If the norms require us to make trade-​offs, then some people who are good sources of testimony about p wouldn’t be identified as knowing p. This would happen in cases where they should have traded off their belief about p but didn’t. So, perhaps, trade-​off requiring norms are not perfectly suited for this one task. But they are better suited for the larger tasks of helping promote true beliefs through society, and that is the task that explains why it matters that we identify good sources of testimony about p. So, even if the more narrow version of this Craigian view, for example, seems to vindicate standard epistemic norms, there’s really a broader view that gives the real explanation for why the norms matter which actually vindicates trade-​off-​requiring norms. But consider now the following view: the point of epistemic norms is to privately evaluate others’ beliefs about p in order to identify good sources of information about p. I don’t know anyone who explicitly endorses this, but we can see hints of it reading between the lines of some work on social vindication. This view does not vindicate norms allowing for trade-​offs. We would never privately apply norms to the belief that p that allow sacrifice of the belief about p, since that would make them a worse source of information about p. And, since the vindication is only concerned with why we privately evaluate others’ beliefs, we don’t need to consider what norms we want to encourage others to follow. Is this the way to go if one wants to vindicate standard 3 I say that perhaps trade-​off-​requiring norms will misidentify questions as settled. That’s because we might use knowledge, rather than justification, as our norms that identifies settled inquiry. The person who makes a trade-​off would have a justified belief but not knowledge, since their belief could only be luckily true at best (Talbot 2014). This would mean, however, that in a case in which one should have traded off the belief that p but did not, one would not be justified and thus could not be identified as knowing p. And so we don’t get the benefit of closing inquiry here. Trade-​off requiring norms could still be worth it, since encouraging and identifying those make trade-​offs promotes true belief in other ways.

188  The End of Epistemology As We Know It epistemic norms? It is not, because it is a bad vindication of norms for the world we actually live in. We would still want both ourselves and others to generally conform to epistemic norms that do require trade-​offs. After all, this makes us all better sources of information. Because of that, we would not want to publicly share the verdicts we reach using norms that don’t require trade-​offs, because we would not want to potentially encourage others to stop making trade-​offs. What’s more, we would only privately use standard norms to evaluate a belief when we want to check if the person is a good source of information about the content of that belief; the norms wouldn’t be as suited to evaluate them as a general source of information. If we lived in a world in which our epistemic interactions with others were just a series of one-​ off interactions, where we didn’t tend to encounter the same sources of information repeatedly, then this would all be fine: all we’d ever want to do is figure out if other people are a good source of information about the one thing they are telling us about, and we wouldn’t care about anything else they could have told us about or about their future reliability. But, fortunately, that’s not what the world is actually like. If our goal is to promote epistemically good outcomes, and we often interact with the same people over and over, then it does not make sense to use norms only to determine whether or not someone is a good source of information about the specific belief evaluated. (It’s also worth noting that, if other people matter, then we should want to encourage a person to make trade-​offs even if we never interact with them again, since this will benefit others.) So, when we ask, “What norms should we adopt and use in order to socially promote epistemically good outcomes?” rather than the narrower question, “What norms should we adopt and use to encourage or identify reliable testimony, or to identify when inquiry is properly closed?” we see that it is likely that the socially vindicated norms require epistemic trade-​offs to at least some degree. Whether the socially vindicated norms in fact do require trade-​offs depends, however, on the extent to which we can expect others to properly conform to these norms. If we encourage others to conform to these norms, but they tend to fail, we may be worse off. That’s because they may make trade-​offs when it is not called for—​when the benefits are outweighed by the costs. Or, if

Social vindication  189 we note that someone has successfully conformed to these norms in one case, but expect that it is generally hard to successfully conform to these norm, then seeing trade-​offs made in one case may be evidence that someone is less reliable overall. I will discuss these possibilities in section 6.4.

6.3.2.  Laxer epistemic norms In the chapter on consequentialism, I argued for either scalar or satisficing vindications of epistemic norms. On the scalar account, there are no vindicated requirements. On the satisficing account, the vindicated requirements are laxer than the requirements of standard epistemic norms. I’m going to set aside the scalar view, as I don’t think it would be socially vindicated: thinking and talking in terms of requirements and permissions is likely simpler and more efficient than thinking just in scalar terms (in ethics, scalar consequentialists seem to agree; see Norcross 2020). So the question I will be concerned with in this section is: does social vindication give us laxer epistemic norms akin to those of satisficing consequentialism? It may, although I do not have a decisive argument to this effect. The argument for satisficing norms in ­chapter 2 was that these norms track what really matters. But that’s not enough to show that these will be socially vindicated. To show that laxer norms are socially vindicated, I have to show that they are more socially beneficial than stricter norms. Social vindication has to take into account that we are nonideal. Nonideal agents who try to conform to laxer norms may overall do better as thinkers than those who try to conform to stricter norms. If we try to conform to norms that put no restrictions on pointless beliefs and see merely “good enough” mundane beliefs as permissible, this can free up cognitive resources that we can put into more important beliefs; if, on the other hand, we tried to conform to stricter norms, we might waste resources that might better have gone elsewhere. If this is so, then it is better to publicly endorse laxer norms rather than stricter norms. And identifying someone whose pointless or mundane beliefs conform to laxer norms gives us evidence that they are an overall better source of information than identifying that their pointless beliefs

190  The End of Epistemology As We Know It conform to stricter norms. Note that this makes the vindication of laxer norms a variant of the vindication for norms requiring trade-​offs. There’s another reason why nonideal agents may do better if the epistemic norms are laxer. Nonideal agents may be more likely to try to conform to laxer norms than to stricter norms. For one, this may seem more achievable. We see this sort of thing in a range of human endeavors. For example, in the literature on productivity in writing, many argue that those struggling with productivity should set very low standards for their daily goals—​sometimes as little as just opening one’s word processing program for a few minutes (e.g., Fogg 2019). Setting out to do at least this tends to lead to doing more, establishing long-​term productive habits. On the other hand, those who set higher standards for themselves then often struggle to even try to meet those standards, accomplishing much less. There have been similar findings in treatment of “diseases associated with smoking, poor diet, and physical inactivity” (Wilson et al. 2015, 474). A meta-​analysis of research on this topic indicates that, while the best thing for patients facing these diseases to do is make a number of simultaneous lifestyle changes, the better treatment plans to recommend include only a “moderate number” of such changes; overly demanding recommendations fail to motivate the patients to try to keep to their treatment plan (Wilson et al. 2015). Additionally, laxer norms better track what actually matters than do more demanding norms, as I argued in c­ hapter 2, and people may be more motivated to try to conform to norms that they see as reflecting something of real significance. Given these possibilities, it may be that we should encourage others to follow laxer rather than stricter norms. And identifying those who conform to laxer norms in one case may give us evidence that they will conform to laxer norms in other cases, and thus will be generally reliable sources of information, whereas identifying someone who conforms to stricter norms in one case might be less evidence that they will conform to the norms more generally. None of these arguments can be decisive. It is clear that trying to conform to laxer norms rather than stricter frees up resources, which can be better spent elsewhere. But this can have other costs, which I’ll discuss below, and those costs may outweigh the benefits. And my second argument is even more speculative. We do know that people

Social vindication  191 can sometimes be more motivated to try to conform to laxer norms and to norms that seem to matter more, but we don’t know how that that will manifest itself in the epistemic domain. Dogramaci and Horowitz argue that excessively high standards can be good, using the example of the standards we set for A+​papers, which are arguably out of reach of some students. We may fall short of what we try to achieve, and it’s better to fall short of a high standard we try to achieve than short of a lower standard. This is possible as well. The question of what norms would ultimately be socially vindicated is not a question that philosophy by itself can adjudicate. My goal in this section has only been to show that, if the empirical facts play out the right way, then standard norms on mundane and pointless beliefs will not be socially vindicated.

6.4.  Interpersonal disagreement and the possibility of error The nonstandard norms I endorse have costs. Imagine for a moment that we all adopt nonstandard norms of the sort I’ve been advocating. What is interesting, pointless, or mundane for you need not be what is interesting, pointless, or mundane for me. If you and I legitimately disagree about what is interesting or mundane, then your past track record of norm conformity won’t be enough to tell me to trust some of your testimony: you might legitimately take the testimony to be about something mundane, whereas I take it be about something interesting, and so you might have ignored evidence as the norms say you may, whereas the norms on that belief for me don’t permit ignoring that amount of evidence (this is a variant of an argument I discussed in the introduction from Greco & Hedden 2016 and Dogramaci & Horowitz 2016; something like this is suggested by Grimm 2009 as well). Further, even if we all agree on the norms, no one will perfectly conform to them. If people make mistakes about when trade-​offs are appropriate, or about the laxity of the standards on a given belief, then this will reduce their usefulness as sources of information. Norms that allow or encourage people to make trade-​offs may make these sorts of mistakes more likely, and this could offset the benefits we get from trade-​offs or laxer standards. Finally, even when we agree about what the norms

192  The End of Epistemology As We Know It require and no one is making any mistakes, the possibility that we disagree or that mistakes are being made requires additional checking and hedging, which are costly.4 Even given these costs, it could turn out to be that we should still adopt and use nonstandard norms that look exactly like the norms I discussed in the chapter on consequentialism. It could be that the benefits of such a set of norms outweigh the costs. These would require trade-​offs whenever beneficial, allow that what counts as pointless, mundane, or interesting varies from person to person, and set laxer standards on our beliefs. But it could also turn out that the costs of adopting and using these norms do outweigh the benefits. Even so, this does not by itself mean that we should adopt and use standard norms. Standard norms do not allow any trade-​offs and subject all beliefs to the same strict standards. Adopting and using these norms forecloses all the benefits we get from less standard norms. Norms somewhere between the fully consequentialist norms and the standard norms are likely the best to adopt and use, given the possibility of disagreement and error. These middle-​ground norms would perhaps require trade-​offs only in very clear cases, thus giving us some of the benefits of trade-​offs while reducing the possibility for error. These middle-​ ground norms would also involve social conventions about what topics were to be treated as pointless, which were to be treated as mundane, and which were to be treated as interesting. I say “treated as” because, for example, the norms would require individuals to form beliefs about some topics that are pointless for them as if those beliefs were mundane. This would eliminate problems associated with disagreement and would also reduce the possibilities for error, while at the same time still allowing a great many beliefs to be held to laxer standards, freeing

4 I suspect that we currently possess social tools to negotiate and signal possible disagreements about the interestingness of various topics, which makes me less worried that society would be able to deal with these were we to adopt nonstandard epistemic norms. We already socially determine the stringency of epistemic standards, or what counts as common knowledge or relevant alternatives, in various conversational contexts and we could adapt these tools to other epistemic tasks as well. And we use already do use things like humor to signal what is worth engaging with or not engaging with seriously at a given time (I got this last idea from a talk by Elizabeth Cantalamessa).

Social vindication  193 up cognitive resources and also making the socially endorsed norms more clearly in line with what actually matters. So, we should expect that social vindications will tell us to adopt and use norms that allow some trade-​offs, and that distinguish between pointless, mundane, and interesting topics and subject beliefs on these to different standards. We should be surprised to learn that the epistemic norms that are socially vindicated for us are the norms of any standard epistemic theory. But this is really an empirical question, and it may turn out that the norms we should adopt and use are the standard epistemic norms. Let’s say they are. In the remainder of the chapter, I’ll argue that, even so, we often should not conform to standard epistemic norms.5

6.5.  Social vindication and deviation Some set of rules can be good to adopt and to apply without exception and yet it can also be that the same considerations that justify adopting and using these rules also favors breaking them. To get a simple illustration, let’s consider the law. Laws are paradigm examples of norms that are supposed to be socially vindicated. Let’s say that it is socially beneficial to have traffic laws much like the ones we currently have. The benefits are that people get where they are going safely and quickly. These laws do not allow for many exceptions, and that is part of their attraction—​overall, things go better if people don’t try to judge for themselves whether or not they are in an exceptional situation when 5 Sinan Dogramaci asked me whether, if we can socially vindicate standard epistemic norms by appealing to the possibility of error and disagreement, then couldn’t we perhaps vindicate standard epistemic norms on an individual level as a form of coordination with our past and future selves. This is a possibility, but it would be very surprising. If we can socially vindicate standard epistemic norms, it’s because it is too costly to implement nonstandard ones. And this is because there is too much disagreement between people about what is interesting, mundane, and pointless, and because we have a wide range of capacities and thus expect others to make errors even when we agree on epistemic values. These are much less likely to be the case for coordination with our past and future selves: there will be much agreement on value, and when there is disagreement, these will tend to more transparent and thus easier to deal with, and for a significant range of one’s life, there’s enough similarity in capacities that if one life stage is unlikely to make errors (and thus should try to make trade-​offs), many other life stages are as well.

194  The End of Epistemology As We Know It driving. Now consider a classic example: you are stopped at a red light in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. You can see for miles in either direction and there is no one around. Does it really matter that you remain stopped at the light, as the law requires, or would it be fine if you broke the law? Breaking the law might involve running the light and continuing in your path. This would give you the same type of benefit that the law is supposed to provide—​arriving at your destination safely and quickly. Or you could break the law by spinning your car in circles in the middle of the intersection until the light turns green, which would be illegal and benefit no one, but would make you no worse off than would following the law. In light of the considerations that explain why we should have the law, it seems to not matter in this case that we break the law either way. We know that, in this particular situation, there are no costs to doing so. And, if we run the light and continue on our way, we know that breaking the law creates better outcomes of the sort that underwrite the vindication of the law. There are epistemic parallels for this situation. Assume that standard epistemic norms are socially vindicated. Even so, a particular person can still know that a particular trade-​off will be overall beneficial with regard to the goods the socially vindicated norms are supposed to provide. Making this trade-​off is like running a red light in the middle of nowhere to get to one’s destination faster. Some person could also know some belief to be pointless both for them and for any people they will encounter. Ignoring evidence when forming that belief is like spinning donuts in the intersection in the middle of nowhere. We can buttress these examples by imagining that we know—​as we often do—​that our behavior will have no appreciable impact on others’ conformity with the socially vindicated norms. The social vindication of the epistemic norms says that it matters that we have the norms, or apply the norms to each other, because this promotes outcomes that matter. If this is a genuine vindication, then it seems that conformity with the norms matters inasmuch as it promotes these same type of outcomes. If there are no significant costs to deviation, then conformity with the socially vindicated norms does not seem to matter. If there are significant benefits to deviation, then deviation from the socially vindicated norms is preferable to conformity.

Social vindication  195 This is a central issue in the philosophy of law. Discussing the philosophy of law will shed light on how we should think about the parallel problem in epistemology. Typically, philosophers of law give vindications of the law in moral terms. Laws that are morally good to have won’t perfectly track the moral facts in every possible situation, however. One reason is that the laws are made for nonideal agents and must be somewhat simplified in order to be usable by them. This creates what Larry Alexander and Emily Sherwin call gaps in the law: situations in which the kind of moral facts that vindicate having a particular law also seem to vindicate deviation from that law (Alexander & Sherwin 2001). This raises the question of whether, or to what extent, the law has authority: whether, or to what extent, those in gap cases morally ought to conform to the law. Some arguments for legal authority trade on the fact that we will often be uncertain whether or not we are in a gap. That’s not surprising—​part of the reason why the laws should not perfectly track the moral facts is that it is hard for us to ascertain the moral facts. But that can’t give the law authority for everyone in every case.6 Some people will know that they are in a gap. That’s because we vindicate laws by asking what rules are best to have, given facts about our society in general (or given facts about relevant subpopulations; laws governing accountants are vindicated in light of facts about accountants in general). If a person is more informed about their situation than people are generally, then they may be able to ascertain that they are in a gap even if a less informed person could not (Alexander & Sherwin 2001). So, we still need to ask: does the law have authority—​should one follow the law, morally speaking—​when one knows one is in a gap? In order to argue that the law does have authority on people who know they are in a gap, one must point to moral reasons to follow the law that in some sense have nothing to do with the action the law commands in that situation. These are typically called “content independent reasons” in this literature. That’s because, if a person is in a

6 It may not give the law authority at all. Some think that ignorance of one’s moral reasons doesn’t change what one morally ought to do (e.g., Weatherson 2019), and some think that we ought to deviate from the law even if we don’t know that we ought to deviate (e.g., Hurd 1991).

196  The End of Epistemology As We Know It gap, then it must be that the law commands x but if the law did not exist, one’s moral reasons would favor y. If we want to say that this person should x because the law commands it, then the reasons to x can’t really have to do with x itself. Let’s apply this to our discussion of socially vindicated epistemic norms. There are some nonstandard epistemic norms such that, were we all to conform to them, this would be best at promoting the epistemic goods relevant to social vindication (again, we are assuming a consequentialist approach to keep things simple). These nonstandard norms will be socially vindicated unless adopting and using them is too costly due to the possibility of errors.7 So, if standard norms get a social vindication, it’s not because these are the best for us to conform to, but because they are more straightforward to use. Just as good systems of laws are morally vindicated but can’t perfectly track the moral facts, socially vindicated standard norms would be vindicated by appeal to epistemic consequences but won’t perfectly track these consequences. And so, if the standard norms are socially vindicated, there will be gaps in the norms: cases in which the socially vindicated norms say one thing, but the norms that are best to conform to say another thing. Some people will sometimes be able to know that they are in such a gap. And so we must ask: to what extent does it matter that one conforms to the socially vindicated epistemic norms when one knows one is in a gap? (We should also ask whether it matters that one conforms to the norms when one is in a gap but doesn’t know it, but I don’t have the space to address that.) If it does matter that one conforms to socially vindicated standard epistemic norms when one knows one is in a gap, this must arise from considerations that have nothing to do with what one believes in this case, because we’ve set up the case so that all of the considerations that do have to do with what one believes in this case favor deviation.

7 Why am I just talking about errors? After all, disagreement about the value of various beliefs is also relevant to social vindication, and this need not involve error—​the same belief can be differently valuable to different people. But, as discussed above, we can socially vindicate nonstandard norms that tell us to treat certain beliefs as pointless, others as mundane, and others as interesting, eliminating disagreement (in a sense). The reason that standard norms would be vindicated rather than these would be because of possible errors in applying these norms.

Social vindication  197 We can import terms to use in this discussion from philosophy of law: (epistemic) gaps: Situations in which the socially vindicated epistemic norms say one thing, but other norms—​conformity with which would matter if there were no socially vindicated norms—​say another (epistemic) authority: Socially vindicated norms have authority for A in some gap iff it matters that A conforms to these norms in this gap deviation: Failing to conform to the socially vindicated norms

In the remainder of this chapter, I will consider arguments for epistemic authority, arguments that it does matter that we conform to the standard norms even when we know we are in a gap. These will be imported from political and legal philosophy, the areas that have historically grappled with this type of question. I won’t consider every possible argument, focusing instead on the most historically important but setting aside ones that wouldn’t make any sense in epistemic contexts—​for example, that we owe a debt of gratitude to the state (Plato’s view), that we have an obligation to follow democratically established rules (Christiano 2004), or that our obligations arise from our relationships to specific other people (Gilbert 1993). My strategy in the remainder of the section is this: I will assume for the sake of argument that the standard epistemic norms are socially vindicated. I will consider a series of principles each of which has the form: if x obtains, then it is more important that A obey the relevant norms than that A deviates. Each of these is saying (in other words) that the norms have authority if x obtains. For example: “If A consents to the rules, then it is more important for A to obey them than to deviate.” I will assume each of these is true. This assumption is just for the sake of argument, since each is controversial. Rather than considering those controversies, I will argue that, when we consider epistemic norms, x obtains at most for a limited set of people or in a limited range of cases. So, even if we accept the account of authority being discussed, the socially vindicated standard epistemic norms only have limited authority: for a range of people and cases, it is not more important that

198  The End of Epistemology As We Know It those people conform to the socially vindicated epistemic norms in those cases, and sometimes it will be more important that they deviate from the norms.

6.5.1.  The Razian account Let’s start with one of the most influential views of legal authority: Joseph Raz’s service conception (1979). Raz points out that, assuming we have a decent enough legal system, certain people will act in accordance with their actual moral reasons more if they surrender their judgment to the law—​that is, if they never even think about whether or not they have reasons to deviate. That can be true even if these people can know, in some particular cases, that they are in a gap. That’s because these people will, in some other cases, think that they know they are in a gap when they in fact they are not. So, thinking about whether to deviate, for these people, leads to too many errors. This, according to Raz, gives the law authority for these people. (There are details of Raz’s account which I’m leaving out, such as his appeal to a certain kind of second order reasons, because they don’t matter for our purposes.) We can apply a similar view to epistemic norms. That would give us: Razian epistemic account:  If A would do better overall by generally deferring to the socially vindicated epistemic norms than by trying to conform to the norms that “really matter,” then it matters that A conforms to the socially vindicated norms when A knows that they are in a gap

I said above that I was just going to assume the truth of the conditionals I discuss, but I do want to say a bit to motivate the plausibility of the Razian view. So let’s consider an example. Abelard’s evidence favors believing p, but if he ignores that evidence (and not otherwise), his beliefs about q, r, and s will improve down the road, which is overall for the best. So, he has the option of making an epistemic trade-​off. Let’s say that Abelard is the sort of person who, if he makes a trade-​off here, will also make many bad trade-​offs as well, coming out overall behind. What should Abelard do? In a sense, we could say he should make the trade-​off, because that’s what is best,

Social vindication  199 and Abelard knows that. But note: what would really be the best would be for Abelard to believe what the evidence says about p and also to get the benefits for q, r, and s. But we don’t say that Abelard should do that, because that’s not an option for him. Similarly, it is not really an option for Abelard to make the trade-​off in this case while also not messing things up in other cases. The options he can really take are: make the trade-​off in this case and make many other costly errors down the road, or not to make the trade-​off in this case, thereby avoiding costly errors down the road. The latter is better than the former. And this (for me) makes the Razian view attractive. A thinker’s choice of which norms to conform to in one particular case need not be, the view points out, just a choice about this case, and we should evaluate these choices with this broader understanding in mind. (Nothing I’m about to say requires that you are convinced of the Razian view at all, and it’s also fine if you are convinced by it for other reasons than those I’ve just given.) Let’s say we accept the Razian view. It has limits, as Raz acknowledges in his own work on legal authority. The view only shows that conformity to standard epistemic norms matters for a limited range of people. These are people such that, if they ever allow themselves to deviate, then they will deviate too much. I suspect that relatively few of us are in this group. Even if I’m wrong about that, it would be shocking if all of us are in it. Presumably some of us can deviate once in a while while avoiding costly errors, even if, were we to try to deviate in every seeming gap case, we’d make too many mistakes. The Razian view allows that deviation is acceptable for people like this in cases like this. That is, it allows that deviation in a case is acceptable when one is able to deviate in that case without also making too many cost errors in other cases. And that is exactly what Raz thinks about the law’s authority: whether or not the law is authoritative for a given person is very much an individual question, and there may very well be people for whom the law is not actually authoritative or has limited authority. These are people who can, by trusting their own judgment, do morally better than they’d do deferring to the law. So, even if we accept the Razian view—​and, as I’ve mentioned, it is not without objectors—​it does not universally say that conformity with socially vindicated norms matters in gap cases.

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6.5.2.  Consent and fairness In this section, I consider a set of related views about why we ought to obey laws in gap cases and see how they might apply to epistemic norms.

6.5.2.1.  Consent I’ll start with consent-​based views. Consent can take one of three forms: explicit consent, tacit consent, and hypothetical consent. Explicit consent requires an explicit signal of consent—​a “yes,” for example. Tacit consent involves no such explicit sign of consent; rather, consent is inferred from one’s other behavior, or lack of some refusal-​ signaling behavior. In hypothetical consent, the person in question neither explicitly nor tacitly consents, but they would have consented in some relevant circumstance. We might think that one or another of these forms of consent is binding, that it matters that we conform to norms we consent to. This needs some qualification, though. Not all consent is valid consent, and it is valid consent that is binding. For example, if someone explicitly agrees to do x, but only under duress, then their consent is nonbinding. I’ll have more to say about what valid consent might involve below. For now, we can spell out the views under discussion as follows: consent-​based approach: If A validly [explicit/​tacitly/​hypothetically] consents to the socially vindicated epistemic norms, then it matters that A conforms to the socially vindicated norms even in gaps

Let’s grant the truth of the consent-​based approach. To what extent do people consent to socially vindicated norms? It should look rare that people give anything like explicit consent to be governed by epistemic norms. It’s hard to imagine what that might even look like. Perhaps a case can be made that this consent occurs in certain domains: it may be that choosing to become a professional philosopher, for example, involves consenting to disciplinary norms of thought. Even then, we seemingly only explicitly consent to these norm’s application within in our professional lives. One could try to dispute this by saying that our employment

Social vindication  201 of epistemic norms is a form of explicit consent to them (we sometimes see people claim that voting is giving consent to the law, for example). This looks more like tacit consent if it is any kind of consent, but in reality it is not any form of consent. In order for one’s behavior to constitute consent at all (much less valid consent), the behavior has to be chosen in the sense that one has to realize that one could have done otherwise. If Fred thinks he is locked in a jail cell, but the cell is actually unlocked, we can’t claim that he has consented to be in the cell just because he has not tried to leave. After all, he would have done exactly the same thing whether or not he consented. We can make a related point about the validity of consent. On many standard understandings, consent is not valid if the alleged consenter is ignorant of facts that, had they been aware of them, would have changed their mind. This will often include ignorance of the availability of better alternatives. It is rare that people meaningfully consider the possibility that they could be governed by nonstandard epistemic norms. Even philosophers who work in epistemology rarely take nonstandard norms seriously as a possible option. If that’s so, then people’s belief-​forming or norm-​applying behavior does not constitute explicit or tacit consent to standard norms, and even if it did, their ignorance would make this consent nonbinding. Here, though, I am employing views that are not universally accepted by those working on consent. Since this isn’t a book on consent, I don’t have the space to try to convince you that what I say is true (although the views I’m relying on are not particularly radical either). Let’s say you are not convinced—​you think that people can and do explicitly or tacitly consent to be governed by standard epistemic norms even when they don’t realize that they have other (and better) options. Even so, some people do not consent to be governed by standard epistemic norms because they refuse to be governed by them. Who? You might read this book as a statement of my refusal to be governed by standard epistemic norms. Anyone convinced by the arguments in this book will likewise refuse to be governed by standard epistemic norms (unless they realize that those norms have authority over them in the Razian sense). This is perfectly compatible with accepting that the standard norms are socially vindicated—​one might be happy that we have and apply these norms socially, but still refuse to conform to these

202  The End of Epistemology As We Know It norms in gaps. Does refusal to be governed by standard norms require deep philosophical engagement with issues about normativity? I doubt it. It likely requires some philosophical thought: mere knowing violation of the norms cannot by itself signal refusal of the norms. That’s because we can knowingly do things that we ourselves consider wrong; when we do, we take the relevant rules to apply to us and to matter, and we violate them even so. I suspect that refusal of epistemic norms must involve the sense—​even if somewhat inchoate—​that these norms don’t really matter, or that some alternative matters more. If we think back to some of the discussion in Chapter 1, where I argued that it is relatively commonplace for people to see certain standard epistemic requirements as not really mattering in certain cases, we may have evidence that refusal of standard epistemic norms is quite widespread. So, either most people fail to give explicit or tacit consent to socially vindicated epistemic norms due to ignorance of other options, or their consent is invalid due to this ignorance, or at least some people refuse to be governed by standard epistemic norms and thus do not explicitly or tacitly consent. Perhaps we can get a more universal argument for the authority of standard epistemic norms by appeal to hypothetical consent. In political philosophy, some argue that if one would have consented to be governed by the laws in the right circumstances (generally, if one were informed and rational), then the laws have authority over one even in the actual circumstances (arguably Kant; also e.g., Pitkin 1965, Rawls 1971). If it were the case that we would consent to standard epistemic norms if we were sufficiently informed and suitably rational, then (on this view) those norms would have authority for us even though we are not actually sufficiently informed or suitably rational. This avoids worries about valid consent and refusal, since the hypothetical us is aware of our other options and does consent even if we actually refuse. And at first glance, the idea that a better version of us would have so consented to socially vindicated norms looks plausible: the socially vindicated norms are the ones that, if adopted, best promote the goods that matter, and so it seems initially plausible that a rational agent would want to be governed by them. If we assume that hypothetical consent can give norms authority, this still does not give the socially vindicated norms universal authority. After all, even if these are the best norms for all of us to adopt

Social vindication  203 and publicly use, that does not give us reasons to agree to conform to the norms. We might accept the Razian view in the previous section, and say that some would agree to conform to the norms because they would make too many mistakes otherwise. But let’s say Kim knows that she can successfully conform to nonstandard norms in (some) gap cases without overly costly mistakes. Why would she consent to conform to the standard norms? Kim might want others to conform to the standard epistemic norms, but that does not clearly give her reasons to do so. We might think that she should conform to the norms in order to get others to do so, but she may very well not have that much influence, and so the benefits of her conformity to the standard norms won’t be worth the costs. If enough other people have already adopted and use the standard epistemic norms, then there is no substantial benefit to Kim also doing so. And, if not enough people have adopted and use the standard epistemic norms, then there’s not enough benefit to Kim conforming to them either. So, if Kim is the kind of person who would do better deviating from socially vindicated norms, then she is the kind of person who would not hypothetically consent to them even if rational and well informed. So, arguably, almost no one does give valid explicit or tacit consent to standard epistemic norms. At least some of us clearly do not, and many of these same people would not give hypothetical consent either. We thus cannot use consent to show that socially epistemic norms universally have authority.

6.5.2.2.  Fairness I’ve just argued that certain agents do not and would not consent to conform to standard epistemic norms, even if they were rational and sufficiently informed. But this may look unfair: they are letting others shoulder the burdens of conforming to standard epistemic norms without helping out themselves. Perhaps it is the unfairness of not conforming to standard norms which makes it important to conform to them. Some theorists have appealed to fairness in order to explain political or social obligations (e.g., Hart 1955, Rawls 1964, Cullity 2006, Brand-​Ballard 2010). Society is a cooperative enterprise that will succeed only if enough of us go along with it, which requires obeying the laws. Others are obeying the laws, and making sacrifices

204  The End of Epistemology As We Know It to do so, and because it would be unfair to benefit from others’ actions without shouldering one’s share of the burden, we all (it is argued) have obligations to obey the law as well. We might perhaps say the same thing about conforming to social epistemic norms.8 However, sometimes deviation from socially vindicated norms is not unfair. To see why I say that, let’s first think about a nonepistemic case. Imagine that there is some tragedy and we need a great deal of blood to help the victims. We have a large group of people who can potentially contribute blood. Let’s imagine further that no one person’s contribution is necessary—​we can save the victims if enough, but not necessarily all, of the potential contributors give blood. This stipulation is important: we only appeal to fairness to explain an obligation to do x when not doing x is relatively impact-​less on its own. If one person’s doing x did make a big difference, then it would be that difference, and not fairness, that grounds the obligation to x. It is plausible in this blood donation case that, if enough people begin to contribute, it is unfair for other individuals to not do so as well, even when these individuals’ contribution is not strictly necessary. Now imagine that Genevieve has some serious and known medical condition which means that her blood cannot be safely transfused into others. Is it unfair if Genevieve does not give blood? In a sense, there is some unfairness here: there’s an unfair distribution of the ability to contribute to this social project. But that’s not the kind of unfairness that creates an obligation to contribute to the social project. Genevieve’s failure to contribute would not be unfair; it’s only the distribution of the ability to contribute that’s unfair. And so fairness can’t give Genevieve an obligation to contribute. To explain this another way: the relevant good is achieved if enough people give usable blood, which some are doing. This (on the unfairness view) is what creates an obligation. But the obligation is to do the thing that, if enough people do it, will bring about the good—​in this case, to give usable blood. If one cannot do this, it’s not unfair to not do so.9

8 It’s not clear if fairness obligations can be imposed on us without our consent, as Rawls argues in his later work (Rawls 1971), and so it may be that if we cannot establish consent to epistemic norms, then we cannot establish fairness-​based reasons to conform to these norms. I’ll set that aside. 9 I’ll just mention, as a side note, that this does not require endorsing “ought” implies “can.” We might think that one can be obligated to do impossible things. But it isn’t unfair that one doesn’t do impossible things.

Social vindication  205 The general lesson to be learned is this: if fairness generates obligations, it does so when there is some valuable project that requires many to contribute, and many are contributing. Fairness then demands that we also contribute. But we have to correctly understand what counts as contributing. In the blood drive case, we could understand contributing as giving blood, but we shouldn’t understand it this way, because giving blood is not really what is needed to achieve the goal. If everyone gave blood, but it was all useless, the good would not be achieved. We should understand contributing as giving usable blood, and it is only unfair not to contribute if one can contribute. To clarify: I’m not saying that contributing requires giving blood that makes a difference. After all, I’ve just agreed that fairness-​based obligations arise even when we don’t make a difference. What I’m saying is that fairness gives us obligations to do the type of thing that, if widely performed, is beneficial. Failure to do this type of action is not unfair when one cannot do actions of that type. With this in mind, let’s turn back to epistemology. Standard norms are socially vindicated when, were we to adopt or publicly use nonstandard norms, there would be too many costly errors. We know that there will be gaps in the standard norms, cases in which it is at least cost-​free for people to deviate from the standard norms and perhaps even overall beneficial. Crucially, when I say “cost-​free” or “beneficial” here, the costs and benefits are the very same ones that we use to socially vindicate the norms. The collective goal is promotion of important epistemic goods such as important true beliefs, and what contributes to that goal is conformity to the norms in non-​gap cases. Conformity in gap cases is unhelpful, by definition (gap cases are those in which the important stuff in virtue of which we socially vindicate the norms doesn’t favor conformity with those norms). So, if one is in a gap case, one cannot contribute to the social project.10 We can partly limit this result by also applying the logic behind the Razian view. For many people, deviation in gap cases would lead to deviation in non-​ gap cases. So, these people can contribute to the collective project by 10 This needs qualification. Standard norms are socially vindicated (if they are) because of the possibility of errors, and also because of disagreement about how important various beliefs are. In cases where we know we are in a gap case, and thus know we are not making an error, deviation can still go against the social goal of promoting true belief. That would be when it signals to others that there is disagreement about what the norms governing specific beliefs requires, which may then signal that others need to

206  The End of Epistemology As We Know It conforming to standard norms in gap cases. However, as we have already discussed, there will be people who can know that their deviation in certain cases will not have overall negative consequences, including that it won’t lead them to (too much) mistaken deviation down the road. For these people in these situations, conformity with standard norms is like donating unusable blood. And thus it is not unfair if these people deviate from the standard epistemic norms.11 It’s worth noting that there is a literature on collective action problems that have the same structure as the blood donation case, where we need sufficient but not universal participation to achieve some worthwhile goal. Some of this literature discusses fairness, but much of it tries to explain obligations to participate in collective projects without appeal to fairness (e.g., Parfit 1984, Nefsky 2015, Talbot 2018). The argument I’ve just given will apply to these non-​ fairness-​based accounts of collective action as well. That’s because each of these views is trying to explain why in collective action problems we each have a duty to take the sorts of actions that together contribute to some goal. That is, these views are trying to explain why we should contribute blood of a usable type in my blood donation case, but not why we should donate blood of a useless type. When one knows one can deviate in a gap case without cost, or beneficially, conformity to socially vindicated norms is not the kind of action that together contributes to the goal of these norms. So, these views won’t say that there is always a duty to conform to standard epistemic norms.

6.5.2.3.  Summary In the discussion so far, I’ve granted the Razian view, the consent-​ based view, and the fairness-​based view of epistemic authority. It bears repeating that the things I’m granting are actually contentious. engage in costly verification processes. A person who knows they are in a gap case of this sort can still contribute to the social project by conforming. 11 There’s some exciting work in formal epistemology and philosophy of science exploring how epistemic groups can benefit from group members having divergent and conflicting epistemic standards. See, e.g., Mayo-​Wilson, Zollman, and Danks (2011), Wu and O’Connor (manuscript).

Social vindication  207 So if one wants to argue that standard norms have authority on these grounds, those arguments will not be easy. Even granting these views, however, none of them can give standard epistemic norms universal authority. At least some people can know that they are in a gap and that their deviation in this gap is cost-​free or overall socially beneficial. Some of these people do not consent in any sense to standard norms, and it will neither be unfair for them to deviate, nor will it be a good idea for them to conform on the Razian view. No account of political/​legal authority will give standard epistemic norms universal authority. Once we see this, we then have to ask: would standard epistemic norms have authority over those who don’t know they are in gaps, but (for example) are rationally highly confident that they are, or should be rationally highly confident? That’s more than I can discuss in this book, but I want to be clear that my focus on people who know they are in gaps is not meant to imply that I think knowledge of this sort is required for norms to fail to be authoritative. I’ll briefly mention something worth considering that I also don’t have the space to explore. Many in ethics and political or legal philosophy think that duties arising from consent or fairness are relatively weak duties—​that these matter relatively little. If that’s correct, we should expect that these duties can be easily overridden. How does that apply to the present content? Let’s say that it does matter that we conform to standard epistemic norms, because that’s how we contribute to a worthwhile social project (aimed at producing important epistemic goods) and we’ve agreed to contribute, or it would be unfair if we do not. The things that make that consent sensible, or that unfairness significant, are the worth of the social project. But that worth can be furthered in some cases by deviation from the social norms. In such some cases, the importance of the goods of deviation may still outweigh the importance of contributing to the project in the ways that are fair or the ways the one agreed to, especially if fairness or consent aren’t all that important. And so, even if the standard norms have authority, it may still matter more in some cases that we deviate from the norms than that we conform to them.

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6.6.  Conclusion Social vindications of epistemic norms explain why it matters that we use or adopt epistemic norms by appeal to the benefits of doing so in interpersonal contexts. These explanations appeal to the importance of identifying and encouraging reliable sources of information or of identifying which lines of inquiry are appropriately closed, and connect the importance of epistemic evaluations to these. Ultimately, these accounts have to be further grounded in something important, such as the importance of promoting accurate representations of important aspects of the world. Because of this, for many kinds of thinkers in many kinds of environments, the norms that will actually be socially vindicated are nonstandard, much like the norms we’ve discussed in previous chapters: they require trade-​offs, they put few restrictions on pointless beliefs, and they subject mundane beliefs to somewhat lax standards. But the possibility that we disagree or will make mistakes about how important different beliefs are, or about when we should make trade-​offs, can make nonstandard norms costly to use and socially adopt. The solution may be norms that are still nonstandard, but only moderately so: norms that tell us to treat some mundane or pointless beliefs as if they were interesting, and to avoid some trade-​offs even though they really are good to make. But perhaps we are generally too prone to error for this to work. Then we can socially vindicate standard epistemic norms. This would mean that it matters that we use and adopt standard epistemic norms. It does not mean that it matters that we conform to standard epistemic norms. And, in fact, for some people in some situations (perhaps a great many people in a great many situations) it won’t matter that they conform to standard epistemic norms, and it might even matter more that they deviate. We considered some attempts to deny this, drawing on the philosophy of political authority. I argued that no plausible view of political authority that could be relevant to epistemic norms gives standard epistemic norms universal authority. So: social vindications of epistemic norms either vindicate nonstandard epistemic norms, or they vindicate using and adopting standard epistemic norms but conforming to nonstandard norms.

7

Tying up loose ends 7.1.  Introduction In the previous chapters, I’ve considered different accounts of the importance of epistemic norms. While each is plausible as an account of why epistemic norms matter, none can vindicate epistemic norms as those norms are standardly understood. Instead, each vindicates nonstandard epistemic norms. I’ve tried to cover the main explanations given by philosophers for why epistemic norms matter. But I can’t cover every possible approach to vindication. In this chapter, I will try to wrap up loose ends as best I can. In part of this chapter, I will articulate a sort of “master challenge” which can be posed against any putative explanation for why standard epistemic norms matter. This master challenge reflects the main strands of argumentation in the previous chapters and shows, for any attempted vindication of standard norms, how I would try to argue that it really vindicates nonstandard epistemic norms instead. I’ll illustrate how this challenge works by briefly applying it to a virtue-​based vindication of epistemic norms. I don’t intend to slight virtue epistemology by not devoting a whole chapter to it. It just turned out that each thing I had to say about virtue epistemology was something I had said about another view in a previous chapter, and so I didn’t have enough original content to make a whole chapter worthwhile for the reader. This master challenge is only relevant to explanations of why epistemic norms matter. But there are views about the importance of epistemic norms that do not really try to explain this importance. Some think that being bound by the epistemic norms is constitutive of being a believer. And some may think it is just an unexplainable fact that the epistemic norms matter. I discuss both views in this chapter. Unlike in previous chapters, I don’t grant either of these views and show that they The End of Epistemology As We Know It. Brian Talbot, Oxford University Press. © Brian Talbot 2024. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197743638.003.0007

210  The End of Epistemology As We Know It really vindicate nonstandard epistemic norms. Instead, I argue that these are not plausible accounts of the importance of epistemic norms.

7.2.  The master challenge Any attempt to explain why epistemic norms matter will explain their importance in terms of some x. Given any attempted explanation, we should ask some versions of the following questions: 1. Can we have x at all for pointless beliefs? If we can have x for pointless beliefs, does this matter? Can we vindicate norms governing pointless beliefs at all? 2. Does x matter for mundane beliefs? Can we vindicate norms governing mundane beliefs at all? 3. Do mundane beliefs have x when they fall short of the truth but are still good enough for practical purposes? If false-​but-​ good-​enough mundane beliefs can’t have x, then why does x matter for mundane beliefs? If they can have x, then shouldn’t the vindicated norms allow us to believe clearly false things (thus ignoring evidence, being incoherent, etc.) when these falsehoods are good enough for practical purposes? 4. Can we get more of x by making trade-​offs? If not, is x really the fundamental explanation for why norms matter—​is there something deeper, which we can get more of by making trade-​offs? If we can get more of what fundamentally matters by making trade-​ offs, shouldn’t the norms allow or require trade-​offs sometimes? These questions should all be familiar from previous chapters. To illustrate what each component of the master challenge is about, let’s apply the challenge to a virtue-​epistemic account of why epistemic norms matter.

7.2.1.  Virtue epistemology and nonstandard norms Much has been written by virtue epistemologists on what is often called the Meno problem—​the problem of explaining why knowing that p is

Tying up loose ends  211 better than having a mere true beliefs that p (a true belief which is not an instance of knowledge). Some of this seems intended as an attempt to show why conformity with epistemic norms matters, by showing why beliefs that conform to epistemic norms are better in an important way than beliefs that do not. (Not all discussion of the Meno problem is about vindicating norms. Some of it sees the Meno problem as just about the nature of purely epistemic value—​why knowledge is epistemically better than mere true belief—​and is not interested in whether or not epistemic value matters [Sosa 2007, Pritchard 2011].) Here is an influential virtue-​theoretic response to the Meno problem which might be appealed to to vindicate epistemic norms. It starts by saying that a true belief is a successful belief, and successful beliefs are good. It is even better to be successful because of one’s skill or virtue or ability. This requires not only deploying skill/​virtue/​virtue and being successful, but also being successful because (in a nondeviant sense of “because”) of one’s skill or virtue or ability. This latter bit explains why Gettier cases are not instances of knowledge; in Gettier cases, one believes skillfully, and has a true belief, but it’s partly luck and not just one’s skill that explains one’s success. Sometimes the additional good of being successful because of one’s skill is seen as the good of achievement (Greco 2010, Miracchi 2015); others talk about one’s belief being credit-​worthy (Riggs 2002, Greco 2003). I’ll just talk about achievement, but what I say should apply to all variants of this sort of virtue-​ epistemic view (e.g., Wedgwood 2017). To see this as a vindication of epistemic norms, we would say knowing matters because knowing is a kind of achievement, which is important, and we can say that justifiably believing matters because it is partly constitutive of achievement.1 There’s something quite plausible about this view as applied to certain beliefs. The standard example used to support it in the literature is the example of an archer: hitting the target matters to the archer, but it also matters that they hit the target due to their own skill. When we look at philosophers, it seems that many of us value answering philosophical questions for ourselves—​that is, through our own skill (we 1 We might instead say that justifiably believing matters because it promotes successful belief, but we shouldn’t start with that idea in mind, as it looks too much like consequentialism.

212  The End of Epistemology As We Know It should wonder if this is healthy or proper, but I’ll set that worry aside). This suggests that there is something important about achieving epistemic success in the way that the virtue epistemologists discuss. But note that the archer case has a particular feature: for the archer, hitting the target is typically something they value partly noninstrumentally. Similarly, believing philosophical truths is typically something that we philosophers value noninstrumentally as well. The virtue-​epistemic view looks plausible as an explanation of why knowledge matters for interesting truths, truths whose importance is not merely instrumental. But, as we’ll see, it does not work so well for pointless or mundane truths. And it has a hard time with trade-​offs as well. Let’s walk through the list of questions in our master challenge. Question 1: Can our pointless beliefs constitute achievements? Does it matter when they do?

Here’s a bit of pointless knowledge: either Obama was president in 2012 or there is a goat named Sue. You have this knowledge. Is that an achievement? There are two possible answers. First: no. Achievement might be a thick concept with both descriptive and normative components, and it might be that for something to be an achievement, it must be genuinely important to some significant degree. Your pointless knowledge is not important, and thus is not an achievement on this view. Second: yes. But if it is, then clearly not all achievements matter. Either way, the virtue theoretic view cannot explain why pointless knowledge matters, and so cannot explain why it matters that pointless beliefs should conform to the epistemic norms. Question 2: Does achievement matter for mundane beliefs? Can we vindicate norms governing mundane beliefs at all?

Here I’ll draw on ideas similar to those I discussed in the chapter on respect (­chapter 4) and in the chapter on action (­chapter 5). Our mundane beliefs matter as means to ends. Quite often, if we are successful at those ends, it is not important that those successes are achievements. That may not universally true, but it only needs to be sometimes true for my argument to work. Here are some things I did today: I took a

Tying up loose ends  213 shower, I brushed my teeth, I made myself scrambled eggs. Success at each of those things mattered to me. But as far as I can tell, I put no value on these successes being achievements or not. How can I tell? If given the choice between slightly better eggs that do not count as an achievement and slightly worse ones that do, I’d take the better eggs every time. I’m not like that with every ordinary task of mine. There are successes I value like the archer values hitting the target: as a coffee snob, it is important to me that the coffee I make is an achievement, and if given the choice between making my own coffee or having coffee made for me that was slightly better than my own, I would (often) choose to make my own coffee. Only when success matters noninstrumentally does achievement matter to any significant degree (Pritchard 2009). For a huge range of our ordinary beliefs, success at these beliefs matters but achievement does not, just as for a huge range of our ordinary tasks, success matters but achievement does not. If that’s correct, then the virtue epistemic view can’t vindicate norms for a huge range of mundane beliefs. Question 3: Let’s say I’m wrong and the virtue epistemic view can vindicate norms for mundane beliefs. Can mundane beliefs be an achievement when they fall short of the truth but are still good enough for practical purposes? If false-​but-​good-​enough mundane beliefs can’t be achievements, then why does being an achievement matter for mundane beliefs? If they can be achievements, then shouldn’t the vindicated norms allow us to believe clearly false things (thus ignoring evidence, being incoherent, etc.) when these falsehoods are good enough for practical purposes?

Beliefs that are false, but good enough for practical purposes, still enable success. That’s just what it means for a belief to be good enough for practical purposes. We can have skills aimed at true belief, but we can also have skills aimed at producing false-​but-​good-​ enough beliefs.2 Success in action via such a belief would not be any 2 For certain activities, part of being good is knowing when and how to not optimize, and satisficing skillfully (I got this idea from video game commentators Nick Plott and Dan Stemkoski).

214  The End of Epistemology As We Know It less of an achievement than success via a true belief, since it would be not through luck but through our skills that we succeed. Success in forming good enough false beliefs can also be as skillful as success in forming true beliefs. Mundane beliefs matter because of their practical significance. Succeeding at forming a mundane belief should not require forming a true belief, but rather forming a belief that is close enough to the truth for practical purposes. And if that’s correct, then forming such a belief through skill should count as an achievement. And so the virtue epistemic view should endorse ways of forming beliefs that are often not truth conducive, as long as they skillfully get us close enough to the truth. Note that question 3 includes the subquestion: “If false-​but-​good-​ enough mundane beliefs can’t be achievements, then why does being an achievement matter for mundane beliefs?” False-​but-​good-​ enough beliefs can be achievements, but I’m going to discuss this subquestion anyway just to help make clear what it is asking. Let’s say we worked up some notion of achievement such that actions based on false-​but-​good-​enough beliefs couldn’t be achievements and that skillfully forming these beliefs couldn’t be an achievement either. This notion of achievement would not vindicate nonstandard norms on mundane beliefs. But it couldn’t really vindicate any norms, because it is not a notion of achievement that tracks what matters. We know that some false beliefs are good enough to enable exactly as much success as true beliefs would, and that this success would be just as nonaccidental. The difference between successes via these false beliefs and via true beliefs has nothing to do with skill or ability. And the formation of good-​enough false beliefs can reflect just as much on our abilities as the formation of true beliefs. A notion of achievement that somehow saw successes via these false beliefs as lesser than successes via true belief would be out of line with what seems to matter about achievement. And a notion of achievement according to which these false beliefs were less skillfully formed would similarly be out of line with what mattered. It would be like saying successes only count as achievements if one is wearing a fancy hat. We couldn’t use these sorts of notions of achievement to genuinely vindicate norms.

Tying up loose ends  215 Question 4: Can we get more achievements by making epistemic trade-​offs than by not? If so, shouldn’t the virtue epistemic view license making trade-​offs?

We can achieve more by making trade-​offs than by not. What’s more, epistemic achievement matters because epistemic success matters, and we can also get more epistemic successes by making trade-​offs than by not. And so we’d expect that, if epistemic norms matter because success and achievement matter, then norms allowing (or requiring) trade-​offs will matter more than those that do not. Even so, the virtue epistemologist may try to claim that the epistemic norms still should not license epistemic trade-​offs. Consider a person who makes an epistemic trade-​off: they ignore their evidence about p in order to reap other epistemic benefits down the road. Focus just on their belief that p. That belief cannot be an achievement, because even if it turns out to be true, this was not through the skill of the believer. If knowledge matters, this belief that p cannot matter in the way knowledge matters. Further, the virtue epistemologist might say, this shows us that making trade-​offs is not exhibiting the epistemically relevant sorts of skills. And so we can’t even say that the belief is skillfully formed. At most, traded-​off beliefs can sometimes be successful, but, the virtue epistemologist might claim, they cannot exhibit any of the other merits that virtue epistemology is about. But if virtue epistemology can rule out trade-​offs like this, this undermines its ability to actually vindicate norms. Virtue epistemology is predicated on the notion that success matters. And yet the notion of skill or virtue that must be employed to rule out trade-​offs is a notion of skill or virtue that is actually antithetical to success. When a person can make a worthwhile trade-​off but does not, they will achieve less success and less skill-​based success in the long run.3 This “virtuous” person is not really aimed at the good, because they won’t

3 The specification of skill-​based success is important here. Effective cheaters succeed more often. But this sort of success is not skill-​based, so if we think achievement matters, this does not vindicate cheating. But trade-​off makers do achieve more in the long run.

216  The End of Epistemology As We Know It allow themselves to do what it takes to be successful overall. Imagine an archer who was about to shoot at a target. They realize that, if they take this shot in a way that is likely to succeed, they’ll tear tendons and end their career. If they do take this shot and hit the target, that will be a kind of achievement on their part. But that fact does not make it important in any way to take that shot and hit the target. To be clear, I am not saying that there’s something worthwhile about this achievement, but which is outweighed by the costs. Rather, I’m saying that there is no way in which taking this shot has positive importance qua achievement. Taking this shot is actually antiadmirable, from the perspective of archery, because it demonstrates a disvaluing of archery. Similarly, an unwillingness to make beneficial trade-​offs is antiadmirable from the epistemic perspective because it demonstrates a disvaluing of the truth. To make a similar argument in another way, consider the traditional notions of virtue from ethics. Virtues are stable character traits that we typically have to cultivate. A sign of something’s being a virtue is that one ought to cultivate it. Should those who love the truth cultivate a stable disposition to never make trade-​offs, if they could instead cultivate a disposition to make trade-​offs when that is net beneficial? No. Since no one who values cognitive success or loves the truth would want to cultivate the alleged virtue of not making trade-​offs, this is not actually a virtue. And thus beliefs formed via this vice should not be seen as better as a result, even if they still counted as achievements. This discussion of virtue epistemology has been quick. But each of the arguments I’ve made draws on arguments and ideas from other chapters, and I don’t want to belabor these points. This should illustrate how the master challenge works and how to apply the questions it asks to specific views that explain why epistemic norms matter. Let’s now turn to two views that dodge this master challenge. The first explains epistemic norms by appeal to the nature of belief. The second says that epistemic norms inexplicably matter.

7.3.  Constitutive norms of belief Many epistemologists think that, roughly put, belief has a certain nature and because of this nature belief is governed by certain norms (e.g.,

Tying up loose ends  217 Wedgwood 2002, Shah 2003, Shah & Velleman 2005, Lynch 2009). Or they think that being a believer has a certain nature, and to count as a believer, one must take oneself to be governed by certain norm. This view is sometimes called constitutivism, as it posits belief, believing, or being a believer as constituted in such a way that they are governed by certain norms. (I discussed this sort of view a bit in ­chapter 3.) It is easy to give a constitutivist explanation for why the epistemic norms are standard epistemic norms. I’ll just borrow one from Ralph Wedgwood (2002). Let’s say that the nature of belief is to aim at truth, which is to say each belief itself has this aim. As Wedgwood puts it, this gives us a “correctness standard” for belief, which is built into its nature—​a belief is correct if and only if it is true—​and when we have beliefs, we are committed to these correctness standards, so that we ought to not believe things that are not correct. From this, we can generate more subjective notions of justification, of how well the belief is doing given the believer’s information with regard to the aim: a believer is believing reasonably, or justifiably, if they are (roughly put) believing in a way that from their perspective is appropriate for forming a correct belief. And we can explain why trade-​offs are not on the table: each belief aims at its own truth, not at the truth of any other belief, and so the norms that govern each belief need not take into consideration benefits for any other belief. One might also adopt a partly constitutivist view, saying that the nature of belief rules certain considerations out as relevant to what we should believe, but that the rest of the explanation of why the norms of belief matter is not constitutivist. Jason Konek and Ben Levinstein (2017), for example, seem to endorse consequentialist vindications of epistemic norms, but say that, because of the nature of belief, only certain consequences are relevant to what we should believe. Constitutivism in epistemology is not obviously trying to explain why the norms of belief matter. But constitutivist ideas get deployed quite often in discussions of what the epistemic norms are or what they cannot be. For example, Hieronymi (2005) and Shah (2006) draw on them to explain why certain kinds of reasons are not the right kinds of reasons for belief, or are not reasons for belief at all (see c­ hapter 3). I presume that many of these authors do take the epistemic norms to matter, and so if constitutivist considerations partly explain or limit

218  The End of Epistemology As We Know It what the norms are, we’d expect them to have some connection to why the norms matter. And constitutivism in ethics is sometimes an attempt to answer the question, “Why be moral?” which is naturally interpreted as a question about the importance of being moral. If constitutivism in epistemology is an attempt to answer, “Why be epistemically rational?” (or something like this), that’s naturally interpreted as a question about the importance of epistemic norms. So I think it is reasonable to address constitutivism as a view about the importance of the epistemic norms. Those constitutivists who are not interested in vindicating epistemic norms should not take anything I am about to say as a criticism of their view. In the previous chapters, I took each view of why the norms matter on board and largely tried to not argue against it. Rather, I showed instead how that view leads to nonstandard norms. That is not going to be my approach to constitutivism. That’s for two reasons. First, I can’t see how it would work. Second, I just don’t think constitutivism has any hope as an account of why the norms matter. That’s going to be what I argue: I’m going to argue constitutivism is not itself an account of why the norms matter and so needs to be married to some other account. And if constitutivism is supposed to give us standard epistemic norms, then it can’t be married to any other account of why the norms matter, since none of those vindicate standard epistemic norms.

7.3.1.  The problem with constitutivism The constitutivist claims that standard epistemic norms govern belief in virtue of the nature of belief (or govern believers in virtue of the nature of believers, but I’m just going to ignore that to keep my sentences simpler). What does “govern” mean here? To illustrate, note that my hopes and dreams cannot be epistemically justified or unjustified—​ those norms just don’t apply to my hopes and dreams. Norms govern some x just in case x can conform to or violate those norms. So, at a minimum, the constitutivist says that it is possible for beliefs to violate or conform to standard epistemic norms in virtue of the nature of belief.

Tying up loose ends  219 By itself, this is not a claim about what matters. It is perfectly consistent to say, “Norms n govern activity a, but there’s nothing important whatsoever about whether or not activity a conforms to or violates n norms.” That’s the whole point of talking about whether or not norms matter: we talk about whether or not norms matter because we recognize that all sorts of norms govern all sorts of activities, and we want to know which norms we should follow and which we can shrug off. To illustrate, almost no one denies that the laws of Nazi Germany governed citizens of that state at that time (with the exception of some old-​ school natural law theorists), but almost no one thinks that this fact vindicated these laws or that it was important that citizens conformed to them. So, by telling us why standard epistemic norms govern belief, the constitutivist has not yet told us whether or not these norms matter. The constitutivist might acknowledge this and start looking for an explanation of why epistemic norms matter that is not rooted in the nature of belief. That’s what I think they should do. Those explanations will be the ones I’ve discussed in this book so far, so they would end up vindicating nonstandard norms. But perhaps the constitutivist wants to try to try to find their explanation for why the norms matter in the fact that they come from the nature of belief. How might they do that? One thing they could say is, “We all recognize beliefs as important. And that means that we recognize norms that come from the nature of beliefs as important as well.” At first glance, this seems plausible. I find it plausible that it is important to have true interesting beliefs, and so it seems like I value belief. But any argument along these lines is insufficient. First, let’s temporarily concede for the sake of argument that we all, at the moment, think that beliefs are important. And let’s say that we also think that there are norms that are tied to the nature of belief. This may mean we are tacitly committed to thinking that the norms coming from the nature of belief are important. But, until we’ve thought long and hard about alternatives to these norms, and whether these are preferable to the norms that come from the nature of belief, our tacit commitment to the importance of the norms of belief is relatively little evidence that these norms actually matter. I’ve showed in this book that the standard epistemic norms don’t respect the truth, promote the truth, connect well to action, or (probably) play a valuable

220  The End of Epistemology As We Know It social role well. If the norms that come from the nature of belief are the standard epistemic norms, this makes the norms that stem from the nature of belief look pretty bad. In fact, once we recognize how deficient the norms that come from the nature of belief are, we should say one of two things. We should either say that belief is not a very good activity, as it is governed by bad norms, or we should say that belief matters for reasons largely disengaged from its constitutive norms.4 To see what this might mean, note that some have thought that our body parts have constitutive functions. Even if they are right, we can (and often do) value body parts for reasons that are significantly disconnected from those functions. For example, if it turned out that procreation was the constitutive function of the genitals, people who want not to have children would probably still find value in their genitals. Or, to give a different example, if you’ve ever played a child’s board game, you’ve engaged in an activity that, by its nature, is governed by certain rules (you don’t count as playing the game if you aren’t governed by its rules). For almost every child’s game, the rules serve to make the game boring and to rule out any role for skill. Most adults who play children’s games know that the rules of these games really don’t matter, but they can still value playing these games. When they do, what matters is entertaining the child, and maybe teaching them valuable life lessons, and if breaking the rules furthered that, they’d do it in a heartbeat. So, even if it initially seems that we value belief, if the norms that arise from the nature of belief are flawed with respect to what matters, then we should either give up on belief or value belief for reasons not connected to its constitutive norms. To vindicate norms arising from the nature of belief, the constitutivist still owes us an explanation for why those constitutive norms on belief are important. Another route they could go is to say, “Belief is a thing we do. If one does x, it’s important to do x well. So it’s important to believe well, which means conforming to the norms of belief.” But again, this does not work without some additional account of what matters. If the norms of belief are bad norms, believing well might not be believing well 4 The arguments here and in the rest of this section draw heavily from Haslanger (1999) and Enoch (2006, 2011).

Tying up loose ends  221 according to the constitutive standards on belief, but rather believing in accord with nonstandard norms like those I’ve discussed. Speaking well might, in some cases, flout the norms of speech, because there are reasons to speak that are disconnected from the constitutive nature of speech. But if believing well has to be tied to the constitutive norms of belief, then it is not important to believe well. It’s only important to do x well if x is worth doing. If believing involves conforming to bad norms, then believing really looks like it is not worth doing, and thus not worth doing well. Why not instead have some other mental state that better serves the roles belief is not cut out to play? For example, we could have representational states that don’t each aim at being true, but rather each aim at our whole credal state being more accurate (or more accurate in ways that matter). These would be constituted by norms that better promote important accurate representation of the world, or would better serve action, and so are better suited to play the role of representing the world or enabling good action than belief.5 Let’s consider one additional defense of constitutive norms. This connects constitutive norms of belief to attributive notions of goodness, which say that good people are good by the people standards, good ice cream is good by the ice cream standards, etc. Good beliefs are good by the belief standards, one might say, which are the standards of standard epistemic norms (see e.g., Littlejohn 2018). Perhaps those standards often do not matter, or don’t matter enough, as I’ve shown at great length in this book. Even so, one might think we still care about them sometimes. In a related discussion, Mark Schroeder (2010) points out that the standards for being a good assassin are bad standards, unless you are in the market for an assassin. Can we say that the standards

5 A referee asked whether we might need beliefs because of the role belief plays in emotions. I’m sympathetic to the idea that emotions might need mental states that are more like belief than like credence. That is, emotions might require committal representations that the world is a certain way, not just mental states saying that it might be a certain way (I’m not convinced this is true, though). But that doesn’t show that emotions need belief itself, if standard norms play a constitutive role in belief. There can be committal states that represent the world as being a certain way but which are governed by different norms. Some of these can play the role in emotion that belief normally does. And as I discussed in ­chapter 5, the connection between belief and emotion would vindicate nonstandard norms. So, if belief by its nature is governed by standard norms, belief is not well suited to play an important role in emotion.

222  The End of Epistemology As We Know It for good belief—​which are the standard epistemic norms—​matter when we are in the market for a good belief? We can say this, but it’s hardly a satisfying vindication of epistemic norms. That’s because no one is almost ever in the market for a good belief. A relatively uncontroversial reading of the constitutive standards for belief is that each belief aims at being true, but only at its own truth; no belief is interested in whether your other beliefs are true or false. We are in the market for a good belief about p when we share this aim, when we too, care about whether our belief that p is true regardless of what the epistemic costs are.6 People rarely have this aim. When we think we want good beliefs, what we really want are beliefs that satisfy better epistemic norms—​we want true beliefs that fit in with our other epistemic goals. We only think we want good beliefs, in the sense of beliefs that satisfy the constitutive norms of belief, because it typically is not salient how the aim of belief is so contrary to all the aims we actually have. So, if we try to vindicate standard epistemic norms by saying they tell us how to form good beliefs, and that good belief does matter when we are in the market for good beliefs, then we have said that conformity with the standard epistemic norms matters at best just a few times in our lives. This does not really vindicate these norms. To sum up: constitutivism is not by itself an account of why the norms of belief matter. Nor can the constitutivist appeal to the fact that belief is, by its nature, governed by standard norms in order to vindicate those norms. That’s because this fact is either a mark against belief, given how flawed the standard epistemic norms are, or it shows that belief is important for reasons largely disconnected from its nature. These latter two thoughts look appealing in light of the arguments in previous chapters which show how poorly suited standard epistemic norms are for a variety of important roles. If you are convinced that 6 Why do we need to share this aim to be in the market for a good belief? Imagine that you are thinking like an epistemic consequentialist—​you want to maximize the overall accuracy of your important beliefs. In this case, you would generally be looking for true beliefs, and true beliefs will often happen to be good beliefs (in the attributive sense of “good” we are discussing). But you are not actually in the market for good beliefs. It wouldn’t really matter to you whether or not a belief was a good belief—​that it conformed to the standard epistemic norms that determine what are true beliefs—​ so long as it fit with your goals. You’d prefer, in fact, that a given belief be false if that promoted your overall goal.

Tying up loose ends  223 we can’t have beliefs without embracing standard epistemic norms, then you should be anti-​belief—​you should want to replace beliefs with a better attitude constituted by better norms (which would be in our power, since having beliefs would require embracing their norms, which we can choose to not do).

7.4.  Brute importance Standard epistemic norms are badly suited to play a variety of important roles. When we try to explain why standard epistemic norms matter, we instead vindicate nonstandard norms. What if we gave up? What if we said that the importance of epistemic norms is brute—​that it has no explanation? This gives us a way to defend standard epistemic norms. Sure, those norms don’t properly promote the good, or respect the good, or have an important connection to action, or (probably) serve a valuable social function. But perhaps they don’t need to: perhaps they just matter, despite their lack of connection to anything else that matters. We do have to accept that there is some amount of brute importance—​explanations of importance have to bottom out someplace. But we have so many attractive explanations for why the epistemic norms matter. Abandoning all of these, and abandoning the project of explaining why epistemic norms matter wholesale, is a drastic move. The only motivation for this move is that, when we try to explain why the epistemic norms matter, we don’t vindicate the epistemic norms we wanted to vindicate—​we don’t vindicate the intuitive epistemic norms. Is this a good motivation for invoking brute importance? The failure to vindicate intuitive epistemic norms is only a good motivation for appealing to brute importance if we have better reasons to think that our intuitions capture something important than to think that the importance of epistemic norms can or should be explained. In favor of the latter, we have the fact that so many philosophers over so much of philosophical history have offered vindications of epistemic norms or thought that these norms demanded vindication. And we have the fact that it clearly would matter to have norms that promote

224  The End of Epistemology As We Know It accurate representation of the world, or respect the value of these accurate representations, or play a valuable role in action, or play vital social roles like identifying reliable informants. What’s the case for trusting our intuitions? Intuitions about knowledge and justified belief seem widespread, and largely in agreement, across cultures and times. In discussing this phenomenon, Jennifer Nagel and Kenneth Boyd say: The words “know” and “think” are heavily used by ordinary people: they are the 8th and 12th most common verbs in English, and their counterparts are similarly common in other languages. All of the languages in the World Loanword Database—​a broad sampling of languages from every inhabited continent—​report a word for “know” and “think,” both in the sense that embeds a propositional complement. . . . It is claimed that these verbs have the rare status of being “lexical universals,” or terms with a precise (and typically one-​ word) translation in every natural language. . . . From an early age, it is natural for human beings to make sense of others by thinking (and talking) about what they know, and what they don’t know. . . . To date, there is no robust evidence that the epistemic intuitions of different demographic groups are deeply at odds with each other. (Boyd & Nagel 2014, 110–​111, 115)

Let’s grant that there are shared epistemic standards and intuitions across humans and human cultures. This initially looks like good evidence that there is something important that these intuitions are about. The preponderance of these is good evidence for two different possibilities. Either there is some adaptive pressure—​and here I also include pressures on cultures, not just genes—​favoring these sorts of norms or intuitions, or these intuitions are really on to something of importance. If it’s the former, these intuitions are about norms that serve some function, or they wouldn’t be adaptive, and so we should still reject the brute normativity view. It’s important to note that the adaptive pressure explanation for our intuitions is consistent with my claim that standard epistemic norms don’t fulfill any function as well as other norms would. Adaptive pressures very often don’t produce optimal results. We see this in the legal sphere—​laws are often shaped by

Tying up loose ends  225 adaptive pressures on societies, but no society has produced optimal laws. Adaptive pressures on norms won’t result in optimal norms as long as more optimal sets of norms never get any serious uptake, and so never get a chance to compete with alternative views. The sorts of nonstandard norms I’ve been discussing are more nuanced and complicated than standard norms. It wouldn’t be surprising if no previous societies had given them a try. And if any tendency towards acceptance of standard norms is genetically influenced, it also would be unsurprising if most societies didn’t widely and seriously consider nonstandard norms. And so we shouldn’t be surprised by the intuitive dominance of standard epistemic norms, even if these norms were the result of adaptive pressure. If the intuitive dominance of epistemic norms is due to adaptive pressure, this does not speak in favor of the brute importance of standard epistemic norms. But the widespread intuitiveness of norms favoring standard theories does also support the hypothesis that these intuitions track something of real importance. So, we might still hope that these intuitions are significant evidence in favor of the brute importance of standard epistemic norms. But we should not hold on to this hope. To explain why, I will contrast epistemology with ethics, a domain in which I think appeal to brute importance in light of our intuitions is quite attractive. A great many ethicists appeal to brute importance, such as those who discuss respect, or think that well-​being is not just hedonic or subjective. They do so to because they cannot accommodate our intuitions about what is morally good or morally wrong just based on consequences or by appeal only to the importance of pleasure or desire satisfaction. I think this is a methodologically legitimate attempt to fit the intuitive data. These theorists could turn out to be wrong—​ for example, we might learn that the intuitions on which their claims are based are biased, or we might be able to give no coherent account of the relevant moral notions. But at the present time, it is legitimate to say that certain things just inexplicably matter if that’s the best way of explaining our moral intuitions. But that’s because intuitions about moral wrongness or moral goodness are also intuitions about what matters. Think how bizarre it would be for most ordinary people to say, “x is morally wrong but that doesn’t matter at all.” If

226  The End of Epistemology As We Know It professional ethicist A says, “Such and such act is wrong,” and ethicist B says, “99% of the time, who cares if anyone does that act?” then B is typically giving an objection to A’s view. This (and the related alleged connection between moral judgments and motivation) generates a lot of work in metaethics. You don’t have to buy a necessary connection here (I don’t)—​some people may and do have moral judgments that are not associated with judgments about importance. But that is relatively rare. Because it is rare, it legitimates the appeal to brute normativity in ethics: if there are things that we judge to be morally wrong, and this is typically associated with the sense that this matters, and we can’t explain why it matters that we do or don’t do these wrong acts, it is legitimate to posit that there is something that inexplicably matters. Epistemic judgments are different. Here I am going to briefly rehearse ideas from c­ hapter 1. Almost no one thinks that almost any instance of knowledge matters. It is incredibly easy to elicit in ordinary people, “x is an instance of knowledge but that doesn’t matter,” or “y fails to be knowledge but that doesn’t matter.” The vast majority of things that can be known are not worth knowing and almost everyone agrees about that, including almost every epistemologist. If epistemologist A says, “Such and such a way of forming beliefs is epistemically unjustified,” and B says, “For 99% of the things you could form beliefs about, who cares if they are unjustified in this way?” B is not giving an objection within the context of discourse about standard epistemic norms. The discussion around pointless beliefs in epistemology is largely about whether they are completely unimportant or just have about as little positive importance as anything can have. But this phenomenon—​of not caring much what epistemic norms tell us—​is not limited to pointless beliefs. We see just the same thing in mundane beliefs, although this has not received as much discussion in epistemology. Here, knowledge initially seems to matter, but when you look closely, that’s really not the case. Largely, no one cares if a mundane belief is Gettierized when that has no practical implications, or if a mundane belief falls short of the truth but is good enough for practical purposes (see e.g., Buckwalter & Turri 2020). There are exceptions, of course. Our failure to know certain mundane things might reflect some larger cognitive bias that reflects larger problems. But that’s not

Tying up loose ends  227 because knowledge matters itself, but rather because failures to know might be diagnostic of something else that matters. What I am saying here will not surprise many epistemologists, who don’t think knowledge matters when it is pointless (e.g., Goldman 1999, Sosa 2007) or at all (Kvanvig 2003, Papineau 2021). And we see this when we teach. To get students interested in epistemology, we have to talk about big-​ ticket, consequential applications of epistemic norms—​global skepticism, moral knowledge, knowledge in the courtroom, politics, or public policy. Everyday epistemology (setting aside skepticism) looks mostly pretty boring to most students. That’s not so in ethics. It’s really easy to get students excited about ethics by talking about low-​key, pedestrian ethical issues—​who to be friends with, small-​scale purchasing decisions, driving on the shoulder to avoid traffic, performance enhancing drugs in school settings, etc. Let’s bring this all together. Epistemic intuitions are widely shared and some epistemic standards, like knowledge, look culturally universal. These intuitions give us the standard epistemic norms. This initially looks like evidence that standard epistemic norms really do matter. Since there seems to be no explanation for why they matter that really does vindicate these standard epistemic norms, we might take this as evidence that standard epistemic norms have brute importance. That’s what we do in other areas of philosophy, such as ethics, when something seems to matter and we can’t explain why. But the evidence does not really favor the brute importance of epistemic norms. We should take intuitions about norm violations to be evidence about what matters when those intuitions are systematically (even if not universally) correlated with intuitions that norm conformity or norm violations matter. Judgments that conforming to or violating standard epistemic norms matters are the exception, rather than the rule. The universality of standard epistemic norms is better evidence that these norms were good enough at fulfilling some adaptive function, and that no better alternative has been given enough attention to truly compete. If we take our intuitions about standard norms seriously, then they really suggest that epistemic norms should fulfill some function, that that’s why they matter. And so we should reject the thought that they have brute importance. And so we should reject standard epistemic norms.

8

Speculation about replacement epistemic norms 8.1.  Introduction What might replace the standard epistemic norms? This chapter will speculate, without much argument, about that. To briefly summarize my speculative view: the epistemic norms have to do with epistemic goods that matter for their own sake (there are other norms of belief, but they are nonepistemic). The epistemic goods that matter for their own sake are quite different from epistemic goods as we typically think about them in philosophy. Because the epistemic norms are about goods that matter for their own sake, the vindication of these norms is respect-​based, as discussed in ­chapter 4. But, even so, the norms on a huge range of beliefs are effectively those we get from consequentialist vindications (­chapter 2). We likely have to completely replace or rethink every component of standard epistemic theories, rather than amending them or including them as one part among many in the epistemic norms that matter. I will try to keep things short, as you’ve probably just waded through some significant chunk of a fairly dense book. Nothing I’ve said before this point depends on anything in this chapter. I’m going to speak assertively throughout this chapter, even though a lot of this is really just speculation rather than things I am extremely confident about, because constantly hedging would be tedious for both you and me.

8.2.  How to vindicate epistemic norms The most uncontroversial way norms on belief can matter is because of some connection between good belief and successful action. But The End of Epistemology As We Know It. Brian Talbot, Oxford University Press. © Brian Talbot 2024. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197743638.003.0008

Speculation about replacement epistemic norms  229 I don’t think that is the only way norms of belief can matter. I think that some epistemic goods matter significantly for their own sake. (I’ll come back to what that stuff is below.) Put another way, some epistemic stuff matters independently of its connection to other types of values, such as practical or aesthetic values. This is clearest for interesting topics. I’m genuinely curious about whether there is intelligent life on other planets, and answering this question would matter significantly to me. If I could, I would sacrifice at least some amount of nonepistemic good to learn this. And many of us are genuinely curious about some aspects of philosophy that we think have no practical significance, or are curious even when we think the truth may be costly in all nonepistemic respects. Many people, for example, are curious about the meaning of life, and to some extent this matters to us beyond its practical value, since many of us see this as worth knowing even if it is practically harmful. I don’t think that this curiosity is a mistake or frivolous. Rather, it reflects the significant importance of our beliefs on these topics in a way that can only be purely epistemic (i.e., not practical, aesthetic, etc.). If we are interested in what matters, then we should categorize norms into types based on the explanation for why they matter (see ­chapter 3). Practically based explanations for why norms on belief matter are too different from explanations based in the importance of epistemic stuff for its own sake. So, practically based vindications of norms and epistemically based vindications give us different categories of norms. The norms that have to do with the epistemic stuff that matters for its own sake have a better claim to the title “epistemic,” and it’s these I’ll focus on. At the level of individual beliefs, mundane beliefs don’t matter for their own sake, or at least not enough to vindicate norms (­chapter 4). What this initially suggests is that mundane beliefs are outside the domain of epistemology, since any vindication of norms governing mundane beliefs would seem to be based on their importance to action.1 But I don’t think that’s correct. 1 To be fully precise, I should admit that even if the epistemic norms are just explained by the importance of interesting beliefs, we could still get epistemic norms governing mundane beliefs to the extent that good mundane beliefs are instrumentally valuable for forming good interesting beliefs. That’s going to be limited, however, so I’m going to ignore it.

230  The End of Epistemology As We Know It I suspect that mundane beliefs matter for their own sake at the collective level. That is, very roughly put, I suspect that having what I’ll call an overall accurate picture of the world around us matters for its own sake, in addition to being instrumentally important. “Picture” may sound like what matters is just a snapshot of the world at a moment, but that’s not what I have in mind—​the picture is about aspects of the past and future as well.2 The importance of this overall picture of the world around us is why skepticism is such a gripping concern: it would be terrible to not know or have justified beliefs about anything in the world around us.3 That would be terrible even if, as some have argued, skepticism makes no practical difference and/​or our beliefs about the world around us are practically justified (e.g., Hume 2016, Rinard 2022). Not having any knowledge or justified beliefs about the world around us would be terrible even if we could still know all sorts of interesting things, such as facts about a priori philosophy or math and so forth. It would be terrible even if it didn’t prevent us from having profound aesthetic experiences. So, the awfulness of skepticism is evidence of the importance of an epistemically good and justified picture of the world around us. But it’s easy to learn the wrong lesson from the fact that skepticism would be so awful, if true. The wrong lesson would be that individual mundane beliefs about the world around us matter for their own sake. But, as I’ve argued, there’s too much evidence against that. The right lesson to learn from skepticism is that our overall picture of the world, which is a collection of largely mundane beliefs, matters for its own sake. That’s how we reconcile the thought that having no mundane knowledge would be importantly terrible for its own sake with the thought that no individual bit of mundane knowledge is important for its own sake. I suspect that worries about skepticism explain why it’s so easy for epistemologists to think that stuff like knowledge, true belief, or standard forms of justification matters. It’s natural to move from the awfulness of skepticism to the thought that knowledge or justified beliefs matter. But the fact that it 2 Thanks to Ted Shear for helping me think about this more clearly. 3 I first discussed this in a great paper having to do with comparisons of value between mundane and interesting beliefs (Talbot 2022). The issues that paper addresses are not really discussed in this book at all, and if you find this book interesting, you should definitely read the paper.

Speculation about replacement epistemic norms  231 would be awful if there was no oxygen anywhere doesn’t show that any individual oxygen molecule matters, and the same goes for individual bits of knowledge or justified beliefs. In sum: I suspect that the epistemic norms are those that are vindicated by appeal to the importance epistemic stuff has for its own sake. The epistemic things that matter for their own sake are interesting beliefs and our overall picture of the world around us. Our overall picture of the world around us is likely made up largely of mundane beliefs, although it might not include all or only mundane beliefs. Let’s see what the vindicated norms might look like in light of this.

8.3.  Epistemic norms on mundane beliefs The right normative relation—​the one that matters the most—​to things that matter for their own sake is respect. So, we should give respect-​based vindications of norms governing the epistemic stuff that matters for its own sake. If our overall picture of the world matters for its own sake, then we should give respect-​based vindication of norms governing it. If you are anything like me, you find it irksome when a philosopher casually undermines the significance of their own arguments at the end of a paper. It may seem I’m doing that right now by undermining my arguments from ­chapter 4 (that we can’t give respect-​based vindications of norms governing mundane beliefs). But I wouldn’t do that to you. While our overall picture of the world around us merits respect, the norms governing individual mundane beliefs are the ones we get from consequentialist vindications. To say how that works, I have to use an analogy. Bear with me. Any good cookbook should talk a lot about substitutions, especially for ingredients that are hard to find or expensive. Yes, sometimes I do want to make the exact dish the author’s grandmother would have made. And for that I need to know the ingredients that she would have used. But sometimes I just want to make a good version of the dish, and to do that, substitutions are perfectly fine. A good cookbook should tell me which ones work well enough. The notion of “well enough” is key. In some dishes, certain substitutions are effectively just as good as what the actual recipe calls for, even though they are not really correct.

232  The End of Epistemology As We Know It Where I grew up, refried beans (which I love) are made with pinto beans. It turns out that you can swap these for cannellini beans and it’s just as good. Other substitutions are less good but good enough. Refried beans were traditionally made with lard. I am a vegetarian, so I substitute for this by melting a little butter over the beans at the end; that’s not quite as good, but it’s still fine. So, when I want refried beans, I can make these kinds of substitutions and I’m still satisfied. These are examples of substitutions of ingredients, but we also can substitute techniques for each other. Cutting corners in some technical aspects of cooking can fine. Sometimes doing so is justified by the benefits—​one might cut corners on one part of a recipe in order to get another part right. Sometimes, though, we just gratuitously cut corners because we are lazy—​I rarely want to julienne, so I almost never do, even when julienned vegetables would be somewhat better. Within limits, this can be perfectly acceptable as well. But notice these are all substitutions at the level of individual components of a dish. When I want refried beans, replacing the dish with another won’t do, even if that replacement dish is just as tasty or even tastier. And this also means that certain ingredient substitutions are off the table. Substituting chickpeas for pinto beans in a refried beans recipe makes a tasty dish, but it isn’t refried beans, and if I want refried beans, the chickpea substituted version is not satisfying.4 How does this shed light on epistemic norms? The relationship we have to some particular dishes is like the respect relationship. To respect something, we have to see it as valuable for its own sake and therefore not straightforwardly replaceable even by equally good things (­chapter 4). When we want a particular dish, we want that dish, and that dish cannot be substituted with other dishes, even equally good ones. To respect our overall picture of the world, we can’t see it as straightforwardly replaceable. I think this is plausible: the thought 4 There’s also a great version of the analogy for those who play large open world video games (I played a lot of Elden Ring while writing this chapter), but I suspect fewer of my readers will understand that one. For the select few, the analogy is this: we often want to beat a particular game, rather than an equally good game, but this is compatible with seeing many components of the game as skippable, fungible (dropping one side-​quest to do another), or to be satisficed (we’re ok with beating some bosses via cheesing). So, our relationship to many components of these games is consequentialist, while our relationship to the whole game is one of respect.

Speculation about replacement epistemic norms  233 of being seriously out of touch with the world around me, even at little practical cost, and even in order to know a lot more about philosophy, seems like a serious mistake. But to respect a dish is not to respect (all of) its ingredients. It’s perfectly fine to substitute ingredients that are (in the right ways) equally good, or that are not equally good but are good enough. It’s perfectly fine to cut corners technically when doing so is overall beneficial to the final product, or even sometimes when this makes things just a bit worse. This is not unique to recipes: it is very often the case that respect for some whole is perfectly consistent with, or requires, treating its parts as if they don’t matter for their sake. These components can largely be treated as fungible means-​to-​ends. Effectively, the norms governing components of a dish are satisficing consequentialist norms even when we respect the dish as a whole. So, respect for our overall picture of the world is compatible with a lack of respect for the individual components of that picture. If we should respect our overall picture of the world, the norms governing individual mundane components of that picture are still those we get via satisficing consequentialist vindications (unless they are those we get via scalar consequentialist vindications). I did say that sometimes what we want when we cook is a perfect recreation of, for example, grandma’s recipe. When we do, nothing short of that will do, and substitutions, trade-​offs, and corner-​cuttings are ruled out. But that is quite rare, and it’s definitely not analogous to what matters about our overall picture of the world. It would be great to know everything worth knowing about the world around us. But plenty of stuff far short of that is also extremely good. That had better be the case, or none of us has ever done well in representing the world around us. What matters is having a basically accurate picture of the world around us. More accuracy is better, but the picture can still be good even if there are plenty of gaps in it or it is partly composed of falsehoods. A colorblind person can have a decently accurate picture of the world around them—​they can be doing well in this respect—​ even though their color beliefs are systematically off. And this is true even though facts about color are (often) not pointless. So, the good of our overall picture of the world that is to be respected, the good that matters for its own sake, is not the good of total accuracy, but rather a much laxer good. This further shows that norms governing individual

234  The End of Epistemology As We Know It mundane beliefs must be laxer than standard norms, since false individual mundane beliefs are consistent with a good overall picture of the world around us. So, we can give a genuinely epistemic vindication of norms governing mundane beliefs—​that is, a vindication that is not based in the importance of practical stuff, and that belongs to the same category as our vindication of norms governing interesting beliefs. The general accuracy of our overall picture of the world merits respect. And this vindicates norms governing the individual components of that picture. But the norms vindicated for those individual beliefs are effectively consequentialist and thus nonstandard (more or less the norms discussed in c­ hapter 2).

8.4.  The epistemic good How should we understand epistemic goodness? We can’t say that truth is the epistemic good. For our overall picture of the world, the relevant good—​the thing that matters for its own sake—​is a good of collected beliefs. We could treat this collection as a massive conjunction, but even so the good couldn’t be the truth, since false conjunctions of mundane beliefs can still be epistemically good. Of course, completely true sets of mundane beliefs are good. But they aren’t the only things that are good. Think about philosophical hedonism: the good for the hedonist is not unending bliss—​even though that is really good—​ but rather some more general notion that includes unending bliss. Epistemology needs some account like this of what goodness is for pictures of the world around us.5 5 We also need to investigate which beliefs about aspects of the world around us are part of the picture of the world around us that matters. Many things in my vicinity are (it seems to me) part of the overall picture of the world around me that matters, but beliefs about things in your vicinity (for most of my readers) tend to be pointless for me. What’s more, many facts about the world in my vicinity are pointless even to me: I could know all sorts of pointless facts about the precise fiber count of my carpet, how many striations there are in the wood grain on my desk, and so forth, but no number of such beliefs contributes meaningfully to whatever it is that collectively matters. To understand epistemic goodness, we need to think about whether there is something that explains why certain facts are an important part of this picture and others are not.

Speculation about replacement epistemic norms  235 Can we use collective-​level epistemic notions that we already possess, like understanding, to talk about the goodness of overall pictures of the world? Understanding is typically sketched as something like knowledge of causes or explanations, and that’s not what our overall picture of the world is really about. I have a decent picture of the room around me—​what color the walls are, how large the room is, where things are located in it—​but I do not have, nor do I particularly care about, much sense of the causes or explanations of most of these facts.6 More generally, understanding typically involves some deeper insight into what is understood rather than mere representation of its superficial components. But if we want to vindicate epistemic norms governing mundane beliefs, too much emphasis on deep stuff won’t do. Most of our mundane beliefs, and the pictures of the world they give us, are fairly superficial and often that is (or better be) good enough. One might wonder whether epistemic goodness at this collective level is something that must be composed out of individually true parts. That is, one might think that, while an overall picture of the world can be good despite being composed partly of false beliefs, these false beliefs never make the picture better; it’s only the true parts of the overall picture that do. This is prima facie implausible. If I have slightly false beliefs about the colors of the walls in my room, this seems to make my picture of the world around me better than it would have been had I no beliefs about the colors of these walls. But maybe that’s too fast. There is work arguing (very roughly put) that we can measure how good false beliefs are in terms of the true beliefs they bring along with them (e.g., Oddie 1986, Niiniluoto 2020, Schoenfeld 2022). For example, let’s say I think my walls are the shade of grey called Moon but they are really the nearby shade of grey Gainsboro, and my false belief is better than having no beliefs about the wall’s colors. One might want to explain this by saying that my false belief brings along with it the belief that “My walls are closer to gray than to red,” or “My walls are some shade of gray or another,” which are both true. And so, one might

6 Some talk about understanding in terms of knowledge of conceptual or probabilistic relationships, but I don’t see these as particularly relevant to my picture of the room around me either.

236  The End of Epistemology As We Know It think, the epistemic good at the level of individual mundane beliefs really is truth. I don’t think that’s correct. Before I say why, it’s worth noting that we would still get quite nonstandard norms on mundane beliefs even if it were correct. After all, I could improve my overall picture of the world by forming the false belief that my walls are Moon, since that would bring with it other true beliefs, and consequentialist norms don’t require forming the best sets of beliefs. But I think questions about what epistemic value really is are interesting, so I want to figure them out even if that doesn’t make much of a difference to the content of our norms. I think that false mundane beliefs can themselves be epistemically good, and are not just good in virtue of the true beliefs they bring along with them. To see why, consider a variant of an argument from ­chapter 5. Imagine a version of me who falsely believes that my walls are Moon, but does not have the true beliefs, “My walls are closer to gray than red,” or “My walls are some shade of gray or another.” This me has no views on these questions whatsoever. This being may turn out to be impossible, but that’s fine; thinking about them still helps us understand something about the possible versions of me.7 The version of me who falsely believes that my walls are Moon but doesn’t have any true beliefs about their color is better off, epistemically speaking, than a version who has no views about the color of my walls. The version with false beliefs is more in touch with the way the world is because of their false beliefs than is the version with no beliefs.8 So, false beliefs 7 Why think that understanding this impossible scenario can help us understand value in possible scenarios? If this scenario is impossible, it’s impossible because it involves beliefs than cannot be possibly disentangled from one another. But I don’t see why this impossible version of belief—​one where my beliefs about the specific color of my walls can be disentangled from my beliefs about the general color they are, or what colors they are not close to—​would be good or bad in totally different ways than beliefs as they actually are. If my false belief can be good when it does not bring with it other true beliefs, why couldn’t it also be good in the same way when it does bring with it these other true beliefs—​the other true beliefs might make it even better, but they wouldn’t (as far as I can tell) nullify the goodness that is independent of them in the impossible world. 8 One might wonder about the extent to which pictures of the world can include vague or underspecified beliefs in them. Perhaps I can’t picture a room with gray walls without picturing a room with some walls of some particular shade. If so, then these sorts of beliefs might not be able contribute to the goodness of the picture. But perhaps I’m using the notion of “picture” too literally. This is too far out of my philosophical wheelhouse

Speculation about replacement epistemic norms  237 can by themselves contribute to the epistemic good. This isn’t to try to refute previous work arguing that we can measure the goodness of false beliefs in terms of how many true beliefs they bring along with them. This is potentially a good way of measuring epistemic goodness, but that does not make it a correct account of what that goodness actually is. So, we need a new conception of epistemic goodness that captures what matters about our overall picture of the world around us. This cannot be fully understood in terms of truth.

8.5.  Interesting beliefs Can false interesting beliefs be epistemically good? Often, it does seem like only the truth is good enough for questions we are genuinely curious about. But that may be an artifact of the data we focus on. For mundane topics, there are often a range of beliefs one could have that are quite close to the truth, and we can clearly see how close to the truth they are—​we have a strong intuitive sense in some cases about what is good enough. But it may be that interesting topics often present themselves as choices between a few significantly different answers. For example, I’m interested in whether there is intelligent life on other planets, and this presents itself as a yes/​no question. There’s no “close enough” there. Philosophical questions are also often framed as choices between a handful of starkly different views. The PhilPapers 2020 survey asks, for example, “Free will: compatibilism, no free will, or libertarianism?”9 Again, there’s no “close enough” to the truth here. But the fact that in these sorts of binary cases false beliefs are clearly bad rather than good does not settle the question of whether false interesting beliefs that are close to the truth could still be good. Further, it’s often not clear what closeness in these contexts exactly involves, or how close to each other two ideas are. Indirect ethical consequentialism for me to have worthwhile views on it (there is some connection to the speckled hen literature that starts with Chisholm 1942).

9

https://​sur​vey2​020.phi​lpeo​ple.org/​sur​vey/​des​ign/​questi​ons

238  The End of Epistemology As We Know It is largely extensionally identical to Rossian pluralism in ethics; in fact, competing philosophical theories on most topics largely agree in their extension. But I suspect that, if Rossian pluralism were true, we’d still hesitate to say that indirect consequentialism is very close to the truth. And so the examples we often focus on, especially as philosophers, may not be fruitful for finding out whether false interesting beliefs are sometimes still good. But I do think it may be the case that false interesting beliefs can be good. I’ll pick a possible example from my own philosophical work, to avoid stepping on anyone else’s toes. I’m genuinely curious about the value of pointless beliefs. I’m confident that they either have no value, infinitesimal value, or something like diminishing marginal value that asymptotically approaches a very low total.10 The first two possibilities (no or infinitesimal value) do seem to me quite close. And I am tempted by the thought that, if one of these two were the case, then believing the other would still be good enough. If false beliefs on interesting topics are ever good rather than bad, then we need a revisionist account of epistemic goodness for all interesting beliefs. Ideally this would allow us to give a relatively unified account of the epistemic good that would capture both the goodness of overall pictures of the world and the goodness of individual interesting beliefs. Even if it ends up that interesting beliefs are only good when true, the norms governing these beliefs should still permit knowingly forming false beliefs to some extent. For individual mundane beliefs, that’s because the norms governing them are effectively those vindicated by satisficing or scalar consequentialism. The norms governing individual interesting beliefs, on the other hand, are vindicated via respect. But respect for a good is also consistent with nonoptimal behavior regarding that good. We see this all over ethics, where respect for other people is consistent with nonoptimal treatment of them (e.g., taking very small risks to others’ lives more or less gratuitously by driving). We see it in my cooking example above, where valuing a dish for its own sake is

10 See Talbot (2019, 2021); see also Talbot (2022) for an account of how to make diminishing utility work in epistemic contexts.

Speculation about replacement epistemic norms  239 consistent with not trying to make it perfectly. And so for interesting beliefs we still need to replace the standard notions of justification and defeat with laxer notions. (The respect-​based norms will of course also require trade-​offs in some cases, as I argued in c­ hapter 4.) A final question about interesting beliefs is whether some of them are objectively interesting. It can’t be that all interesting beliefs are objectively interesting. There are questions I am interested in for their own sake that should not matter for everyone. My relationship to the people and things around me is not the relationship most others have to these same people and things, and so while it might matter that I have knowledge about these people and things, that knowledge couldn’t matter for everyone. Thinking that what is interesting can vary from person to person, and may in fact be somewhat subjective, does not require thinking that what matters is purely subjective. It could be objectively important that people have true beliefs about whatever it is that happens to interest them, even if there is no particular thing that they objectively should be interested in.11 Are there things we objectively should be interested in? When I originally wrote this chapter, I tended to think that there were. But between the early and final drafts of it, I have become much less confident about this, so I just leave it as a question for future research.

8.6.  Replacing knowledge In sketching my positive view in ­chapter 1, I said that we should replace knowledge with something else. In fact, I think we should replace every component of knowledge with something else. We can see why that is now in light of everything I’ve discussed throughout the book. Knowledge is supposed to be successful belief, whose success is due to being formed in accordance with the epistemic norms. Some false beliefs can count as epistemic successes. The replacement for 11 As noted in a previous chapter, we see this in the literature on well-​being: desire-​ satisfaction theorists can think that well-​being is objectively important, but that what gives people well-​being depends on their subjective desires.

240  The End of Epistemology As We Know It knowledge would thus have to be nonfactive—​there’s no reason to focus just on successful true beliefs. The notion of nonaccidentality would have be rethought in terms of nonaccidental goodness, rather than nonaccidental truth. And we’d need nonstandard notions of justification, since standard justifiers such as reliability or evidence are purely aimed at truth but the truth is not the only way for belief to be successful. (The relevant notion of justification would also be laxer because epistemic norms allow gratuitous suboptimality, such as ignoring evidence for no reason, some degree of incoherence for no reason, etc.) We’d also need a new notion of defeat, since showing that a belief is incoherent with other beliefs or likely false need not show it is bad. But we would need to replace the notion of knowledge even if only true beliefs counted as cognitive successes. The vindicated epistemic norms call for trade-​offs, as I’ve argued throughout this book. When we fail to make a trade-​off that we should have made, even if the resultant non-​traded-​off belief is an instance of knowledge, the belief fails to have the right relationship to the epistemic good. Thus, knowledge as standardly understood has no place in the epistemic norms. Knowledge, at least on nonpointless topics, is always a sort of cognitive success, but it is sometimes a cognitive success achieved in the wrong way. When it is, it is not the kind of success that should be singled out (at least not in a positive way). This sort of knowledge is no better than accidental or unjustified cognitive success, and in fact is worse in some ways. Even when an instance of knowledge is a cognitive success achieved in the right way, it is not important because it is knowledge. In order for it to be important that a belief is nonaccidentally successful, the belief must be one that we should have formed, and so it must be the case that we should not have made a trade-​off instead. This requirement needs to be a component of whatever replaces knowledge. If we want in our norms something that is supposed to play the role that knowledge currently plays in standard norms—​a notion of an important non-​accidental cognitive success achieved in virtue of believing in the right way—​this cannot be knowledge and has to be a revisionist notion.

Speculation about replacement epistemic norms  241

8.7.  Pointless beliefs Pointless beliefs never matter enough for their own sake for this to make a normative difference. This may be because pointless beliefs never matter at all. But, even if they do matter a bit, the vindicated norms permit suboptimality. I discuss this in c­ hapters 2, 5, and 6, and I’ve just said above (section 8.5) why I think this is the case for respect-​ based norms governing interesting beliefs. Whatever importance pointless beliefs might have for their own sake, it is so minimal that giving up any amount of “good” pointless beliefs will always be a permissible form of suboptimality. The epistemic norms should not say anything about pointless beliefs whatsoever, except to the extent that these have some instrumental value.

8.8.  Disagreements with other norms I think that the epistemic norms we should conform to—​the ones that are important to conform to—​are those we get via respect-​ based and consequentialist vindications. But the other approaches to vindication do also vindicate norms. Vindications like those discussed in ­chapter 5 (on action) give us nonepistemic norms governing beliefs. Other approaches to vindications give us norms not that we should conform to, but rather that we should be guided by as individuals (the second half of ­chapter 2) or that we should use socially (­chapter 6). It could turn out that all of these norms are somewhat different (and in fact I don’t see any way for practically based norms on belief to fully agree with epistemic norms on belief). I will briefly address disagreements in these norms. Not all normative disagreements are resolvable. The norms that we should socially adopt may be different from the norms we should conform to. If that’s so, it matters that we socially adopt the one and conform to the other. This would mean that we shouldn’t socially adopt the norms that we ought to conform to, nor should we conform to the ones we should socially adopt. There’s no resolution to this—​we’ll either conform to the wrong norms or adopt the wrong norms or both. These

242  The End of Epistemology As We Know It disagreements are really about different questions, and we should expect that there is no single “all things considered” answer. Conflicts between norms we should both conform to—​i.e., between epistemic norms on belief and practical norms on belief—​will often be resolvable, however. That is, there will be something that we all things considered should do. (It may be that there is more than one permissible option in many such cases. And I also believe in dilemmas in the sense that I think there will be cases in which none of our options are permissible, even all things considered permissible. Even in dilemmas, however, one option will be less wrongful, or at least preferable, to the other) As I’ve already stated, I think that sometimes purely epistemic norms will win out over other types of norms. Sometimes we should, all things considered, have epistemically good beliefs even when such beliefs are morally, aesthetically, or practically costly. Even when the epistemic norms do lose out, I think there is something regrettable about having to conform to the norms that win (as discussed in ­chapter 3). Since I think that the epistemic norms are “purely” epistemic, in the sense that their importance is explained by the degree to which epistemic goods matter for their own sake, this might suggest that the epistemic norms are wholly divorced from the nonepistemic—​that there is no practical or moral encroachment on the epistemic. I am of two minds on this question, however. It may be the case that there is no genuinely practical or moral encroachment on the epistemic. The data that supports practical or moral encroachment heavily relies on intuitions about cases and it should be clear by now that these have little role in telling us what matters about the epistemic.12 However, even if there is no practical or moral encroachment on the epistemic, it will often look like there is. The most commonly discussed instances of such encroachment involve mundane beliefs. The epistemic norms on individual mundane beliefs are relatively permissive, and in the encroachment cases we often discuss, the mundane beliefs in question are not very important to our overall 12 There is also experimental evidence that these intuitions are not widely shared outside of philosophy, suggesting that we should not take them terribly seriously (e.g., Rose et al. 2019).

Speculation about replacement epistemic norms  243 picture of the world. For example, beliefs about when a bank closes are very close to epistemically insignificant (they mostly matter for practical reasons), and so the purely epistemic norms on such beliefs will permit a great deal of slop. Practical norms on such beliefs will not permit slop when the stakes are high. And so there will not be much in the way of conflict in such cases: the practical norms demand that we suspend judgment, let’s say, about when the bank closes given our evidence, and the epistemic norms don’t care much one way or the other, so all things considered we ought to suspend, which has no significant epistemic cost. That looks a lot like what we get if we believe in pragmatic encroachment. There might in fact be something like practical and moral encroachment on the epistemic, however, even if the importance of epistemic norms is explained in purely epistemic terms. Assume that my speculations in this chapter are correct and the epistemic norms are fundamentally about respect. To respect something is to treat it as important for its own sake. But, crucially, to respect something involves treating it as as important as it is, not more. If a butterfly is less valuable than a human, then it does not disrespect the butterfly to kill it in order to save a human life. It might be that, if a true belief matters for its own sake but matters less than (let’s say) a human life, then sacrificing the true belief to save the human life would not be to disrespect the true belief. If that were so, then the epistemic norms, which are supposed to show us how to respect the importance of epistemic goods, might permit (or even require) sacrificing the true belief in this case because of the greater importance of the human life. This might mimic the sort of stakes sensitivity that we see in standard discussions of encroachment. Consider again our beliefs about when the bank closes. Perhaps the failure to suspend judgment on this when the practical stakes are high is treating the epistemic good of a true belief on this topic (or the increase in overall accuracy of our picture of the world) as more important than the practical goods in question. And, if this epistemic good is not actually more important, then this would not be how one respects the importance of the epistemic good. On this view we also get a phenomenon recently argued for by Alexandra Lloyd (2022 and manuscript): in some cases moral stakes could make the epistemic standards laxer, rather than stricter. Lloyd

244  The End of Epistemology As We Know It discusses the harms we can do to victims of sexual assault by not believing what they tell us in the face of counterevidence. Grant that, ordinarily, it would be unjustified to trust the testimony of one stranger over contradictory testimony from another. However, Lloyd argues, the moral harm of not believing a victim of sexual assault, even when they are a stranger to us, is greater than the potential harm of believing them (in certain cases). And so, she claims, it should be easier to be epistemically justified in believing this testimony. This is what one would expect if respecting epistemic goods is treating them as as important as they are. If the moral harm of disbelief is much greater than the epistemic harm of false belief in a particular case, then a high bar for epistemic justification would treat the truth of that belief as more valuable than it actually is; we’d expect instead that respect-​based epistemic norms would permit belief with less evidence. Even if this is so, however, there’s no risk of collapsing the epistemic norms into the practical. Epistemic goods are sometimes much more important than practical goods, even than moral goods. At the mundane level, the thing to be respected is our overall picture of the world, and that (I suspect) matters a great deal for its own sake. Significant harm to that is a great epistemic cost, and avoiding such great costs will be demanded by respect even when this requires giving up moral goods.

8.9.  Conclusion Epistemic norms can matter significantly. They can matter for a variety of different reasons, although I tend to think they matter because they tell us how to respect epistemic goods that are important for their own sake. Even if I’m wrong about that, we can give some explanation for why the epistemic norms matter significantly. Once we can, we should not be content with epistemic norms that do not matter enough. However we explain why epistemic norms matter, we do not vindicate standard epistemic norms. We are left with a choice: insist on the standard epistemic norms or replace them. Given the choice between norms that don’t matter and ones that do, it is almost tautological that we should work with the ones that matter. Even if the standard norms matter a bit, the nonstandard ones matter more, and they matter more

Speculation about replacement epistemic norms  245 in whatever way the standard norms are supposed to mater. Given a choice between conflicting norms that matter for the same reasons, we should take the ones that matter more. Once we are open to giving up the standard norms, we are suddenly faced with an abundance of exciting philosophy to be done. We begin to see that familiar notions like knowledge, truth, accuracy, evidence, coherence, reliability, and so forth might have to be jettisoned. Our current epistemic practices, or our intuitions, or our psychological predispositions need not constrain our search for their replacements. We can finally pick the right tool for the jobs epistemic norms are supposed to do, the tool that is actually properly oriented towards what matters.

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Index For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. accidental, 36–​37, 211 accuracy, 41–​42, 59–​60, 233–​34 accuracy–​first epistemology (see consequentialist vindication: examples of; consequentialist vindication: satisficing: and Bayesian or accuracy–​first epistemology) achievement, 210–​16. See also action; virtue epistemology and false beliefs, 213–​14 and knowledge, 211 and mundane beliefs, 212–​14 and pointless belief, 212 and trade–​offs, 215–​16 action achievement or credit, 154, 159–​60, 212–​14 acting for reasons, 154, 160–​64 deontic and nondeontic evaluation of, 150–​53 and long–​term evaluation, 152, 176–​77 suboptimal, 171–​78 and suboptimal belief, 175 and trade–​offs, 146–​55 undermining agency, 175–​77 attributive good, 49–​50, 221–​22 authority. See social vindication: authority Bayesian epistemology. See consequentialist vindication: examples of; consequentialist vindication: satisficing: and Bayesian or accuracy–​first epistemology

belief as a bad activity, 93–94, 219–22 control over, 99–104, 105–6 does not show endorsement of epistemic norms, 200–1 and emotion, 168–71, 221n.5 and trade–​offs, 170–71 the nature of and epistemic reasons, 92–95, 100–1, 102–3, 216–23 brute importance. See mattering: brute coherence. See standard epistemic norms; truth consent. See social vindication: authority: and consent consequentialist vindication and action (see Tendency) combined with deontological vindication, 123–24 in ethics specifically, 55n.8 examples of, 41–43 and ideal agents, 57, 75 indirect consequentialist vindication explained, 72–73 indirect nonconsequentialist vindication, 73–74 motivated, 72–73 temporary vindication of standard norms, 77–80 and tradeoffs, 48 as tragic, 77–78 no universal vindication of norms, 75–76 and instrumental importance, 124–26 maximizing, 50 problems with, 53–56

258 Index consequentialist vindication (cont.) and mundane beliefs, 39–40 and pointless beliefs, 39–40, 58 satisficing, 51 and action, 171–78 argument for, 54–56 and Bayesian or accuracy–​first epistemology, 59–60 and dominance, 59–60 and ideal agents, 57 implications of, 57–62 and interesting beliefs, 54 and mundane beliefs, 58–59, 122, 236–37 objection from gratuitous losses, 63–66 objections to, 55–56n.9, 62–64, 67–68, 84n.22 vs. permissivism, 61–62 and pointless beliefs, 58 and reliabilism, 61n.14 and respect, 231–33 response to objections to, 64–66, 68, 84n.22 and strict propriety, 60–61n.13 value of ε, 58, 82–84 scalar, 52, 66–70 argument for, 67 defined, 52 implications of, 69 constitutive norms, 93–94, 216–23. See also belief: the nature of and epistemic reasons deontological vindication. See also respect combined with consequentialist vindication, 123–24 indirect deontological vindication, 73–74 and instrumental importance, 124–26 deviation. See social vindication: deviation disrespect. See respect: disrespect doxastic voluntarism. See voluntarism emotion. See belief: and emotion

epistemic norms. See epistemic norms should matter; epistemology; standard epistemic norms epistemic norms should matter, 7, 86, 244–45 epistemic trade-​offs. See trade-​offs epistemic value. See knowledge; mattering: vs. value; picture of the world around us; truth epistemology what is it, 1–2, 86–97, 102–3, 228–31, 241–44 evidence. See standard epistemic norms; knowledge; truth fairness. See social vindication: authority: and fairness false beliefs. See truth final importance. See mattering: noninstrumental importance gaps. See social vindication: gaps in norms governing, 4–5 distinguished from mattering, 4–5, 218–19 epistemic norms governing beliefs vs. norms governing something else, 98–99, 101–3 guidance, 72–73, 105–6. See also social vindication: use of norms vs. conformity with ideal agents. See consequentialism:, and ideal agents; consequentialism: satisficing: and ideal agents; trade–​offs: and ideal agents importance. See mattering incoherence. See standard epistemic norms; truth indirect consequentialism. See consequentialism: indirect indirect consequentialism. See consequentialist vindication: indirect instrumental importance, See mattering: instrumental importance

Index  259 interesting beliefs, 25–27 and objective value, 239 as a problem for standard epistemic norms, 25–26 can false interesting beliefs be good, 237–39 defined, 26 and Tendency, 156 intuitions, 45–46, 47–48, 167–68, 223–25, 227 don’t tell us about optimal cognition, 80–81 involuntarism, 97–99. See also belief: control over justification. See also standard epistemic norms is it about good promotion, 88–89 is it about knowledge, 87–89 knowledge and achievement, 211 and acting for reasons, 160–64 doesn’t matter, 35–38, 88–89, 240 knowledge-​first epistemology, 107–9 Meno problem, 12–13, 210–12 should be replaced, 35–38, 166–67, 239–40 and trade-​offs, 87, 240 master challenge for standard epistemic norms. See standard epistemic norms: master challenge for mattering aggregate importance, 133–35, 230–31 brute importance, 11–31, 223–27 explained, 5–6 and the individuation of normative domains, 95, 228–29 instrumental importance, 18–19, 125, 159, 212–13 mattering to us, 9–10, 239 how to argue about what matters to us, 10–11 why the difference between objective and subjective importance is not important to this book, 10–11

noninstrumental importance, 26–27, 45, 51, 90–91, 124–26, 128, 159– 60, 211–12, 228–29, 230–31 objective (see mattering: mattering to us) pluralism about, 90–92, 95, 241–44 and replacement of norms, 7, 91–92, 244–45 subjective (see mattering: mattering to us) vs value, 4–5, 119–20, 131–32 whether anything really matters, 8–11 maximizing and action (see action: suboptimal) consequentialism (see consequentialist vindication: maximizing) and respect (see respect: and doing well enough) means to ends. See mattering: instrumental importance Meno problem. See knowledge: Meno problem metaphysics as orthogonal to the importance of norms, 106–10 of reasons, 104 moral encroachment. See pragmatic encroachment mundane beliefs, 18–21 and achievement, 212–14 defined, 20 false mundane beliefs being good enough, 19–20, 22–24, 236–37 (see also consequentialist vindication: satisficing: and mundane beliefs; truth: false beliefs are good enough) and noninstrumental importance, 125–26, 229–31 problems for the vindication of standard epistemic norms, 19–20, 21–25 and respect, 120–27, 231–34 and Tendency, 156–57 when false mundane belief are good enough these are really pointless beliefs, 21–22

260 Index nonaccidental. See accidental; achievement objective importance. See interesting beliefs: and objective value; mattering: mattering to us “ought” implies “can”, 97–98, 105–6. See also belief: control over permissivism, 35–36, 179 and satisficing, 61–62 picture of the world around us, 230–31, 233–34 and epistemic goodness, 234–37 and truth, 235–37 vs. understanding, 235 pluralism. See mattering: pluralism about pointless beliefs, 14–18 and achievement, 212 defined, 17 how much do they matter, 15–16 not governed by epistemic norms, 58, 120–21, 241 problem for the vindication of standard epistemic norms, 16–17 and respect, 120–21 and satisficing, 58 and Tendency, 156 pragmatic encroachment, 242–44 probabilism. See consequentialist vindication: satisficing: implications of; standard epistemic norms promotion, 44 vs. respect, 44, 114–17, 136 reliability. See standard epistemic norms; truth replacement. See mattering: and replacement of norms; standard epistemic norms: replacement norms respect, 44, 243 and aggregate value, 132–35 for beliefs of different importance, 120–21, 128–29 for beliefs of equal importance, 129–32

“beyond all price” (see respect: and irreplaceability) and deontological vindication, 114–20 (see also deontological vindication) disrespect, 128, 129–30, 131–32 and doing well enough, 231–33, 238–39 examples of respect–​based vindications, 117–19 explained, 114–17, 124–27 and the future, 136 and instrumental importance, 124–26 and irreplaceability, 116, 127–28, 129–32 and mundane beliefs, 120–27, 231–34 objects of respect, 117, 119–20, 121– 22, 124–27 and pointless beliefs, 120–21 vs. promotion, 44, 114–17, 136 and recipes, 231–33 and separateness, 116–17 and tradeoffs, 117, 127–35 for the truth itself, 121–22 satisficing consequentialism. See consequentialist vindication: satisficing scalar consequentialism, See consequentialist vindication: scalar service conception of authority. See social vindication: authority: Razian account social vindication and abilities, 190–92, 199, 202–3, 204–5 authority, 195–97 and collective action, 206 and consent, 200–3, 204n.8 defined, 197 Razian account, 198–99, 205–6 and strength of reasons, 207 as derivative from other vindications, 183–84, 187–88

Index  261 deviation defined, 197 vindicated, 199, 202–3, 204–6, 207 disagreement and error, 191–93, 198–99, 205–6n.10 as an empirical question, 185–86, 189–91, 193–94 examples, 179, 181–82 explained, 179–84 gaps in norms, 195–97, 205–6 defined, 197 and lax norms, 189–91 and terminating inquiry, 182, 186–87 and trade-​offs, 185–89 use of norms vs. conformity with, 193–207 standard epistemic norms. See also knowledge; truth defined, 2, 14 master challenge for, 210–16 replacement norms, 35–38, 47, 69, 102–3, 148, 158, 167–68, 244–45 summary of the problems vindicating, 32–33, 167–68, 223–27 Status acting for reasons, 160–64 defined, 141 and instrumental importance, 159 and knowledge of normative facts, 164–65 moral worth, 164–65 philosophers who may have endorsed it, 144–45 and satisficing, 163–64 and trade-​offs, 148–54 strict propriety. See consequentialist vindication: satisficing: and strict propriety suberogation. See action: suboptimal subjective importance. See mattering: mattering to us supererogation. See action: suboptimal swamping problem. See knowledge: Meno problem

Tendency and beliefs that don’t affect action, 155–58 and consequentialism, 144 defined, 141 and instrumentalism, 144 and interesting beliefs, 156 and mundane beliefs, 156–57 philosophers who may have endorsed it, 143–44 and pointless beliefs, 156 and trade-​offs, 148 testimony, 157, 179, 181–82, 191–92. See also social vindication and trade-​offs, 185–86 Thursality, 166–67 trade-​offs, 27–31 and achievement, 215–16 and action, 146–55 and consequentialism, 46–50 defined, 28 and emotions, 170–71 examples, 27–28, 29n.11, 30–31, 146–48 and ideal agents, 135–39 and irreplaceability (see respect: and irreplaceability) and knowledge, 87, 240 our ability to make them, 99–104 as a problem for the vindication of standard epistemic norms, 29, 102–3 and respect, 117, 127–35 aggregate importance, 132–35 respecting beliefs of differential importance, 128–29 respecting beliefs of equal importance, 129–32 the separateness of propositions, 116–17 and social vindication, 185–89 and Status, 148–54 and Tendency, 148 and virtue, 215–16

262 Index truth. See also knowledge; standard epistemic norms closeness to, 56, 237–38 false beliefs can be good enough, 19–20, 22–24, 37, 58–59, 156–57, 160–64, 213–14, 233–34, 235–37, 238, 239–40 is not the epistemic good, 234–37 mattering qua truth, 134–35 (see also pointless belief) and our picture of the world around us (see picture of the world around us, and truth)

unexplained importance. See mattering: brute value of knowledge. See knowledge vindication. See also epistemic norms should matter; mattering: explained; mattering: and the replacement of epistemic norms defined, 11–12 virtue epistemology, 210–16 voluntarism, 97–99. See also belief: control over wrong kinds of reasons, 89–97, 99–104 correct account of, 95–97