Epistemic Value and the Jamesian Goals

In Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij & Jeff Dunn (eds.), Epistemic Consequentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

William James famously tells us that there are two main goals for rational believers: believing truth and avoiding error. I argues that epistemic consequentialism—in particular its embodiment in epistemic utility theory—seems to be well positioned to explain how epistemic agents might permissibly weight these goals differently and adopt different credences as a result. After all, practical versions of consequentialism render it permissible for agents with different goals to act differently in the same situation. Nevertheless, I argue that epistemic consequentialism doesn’t allow for this kind of permissivism and goes on to argue that this reveals a deep disanalogy between decision theory and the formally similar epistemic utility theory. This raises the question whether epistemic utility theory is a genuinely consequentialist theory at all.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Epistemic Consequentialism.Jeffrey Dunn - 2015 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Epistemic Consequentialism.Philip Percival - 2002 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 76 (1):121–151.
Epistemic consequentialism.Robert Stalnaker - 2002 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 76 (1):153–168.
Collective epistemic goals.Don Fallis - 2007 - Social Epistemology 21 (3):267 – 280.
The Right in the Good: A Defense of Teleological Non-Consequentialism in Epistemology.Clayton Littlejohn - 2018 - In Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij & Jeff Dunn (eds.), Epistemic Consequentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 23-47.
Epistemic Value.Patrick Bondy - 2015 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:0-0.
Moderate Epistemic Expressivism.Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 163 (2):337-357.
Why There are No Epistemic Duties.Chase B. Wrenn - 2007 - Dialogue: The Canadian Philosophical Review 46 (1):115-136.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-06-14

Downloads
798 (#17,433)

6 months
83 (#45,418)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Sophie Horowitz
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Citations of this work

Good Guesses.Kevin Dorst & Matthew Mandelkern - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 105 (3):581-618.
Permissivism, Underdetermination, and Evidence.Elizabeth Jackson & Margaret Greta Turnbull - 2024 - In Clayton Littlejohn & Maria Lasonen-Aarnio (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence. New York: Routledge. pp. 358–370.
An Epistemic Non-Consequentialism.Kurt L. Sylvan - 2020 - The Philosophical Review 129 (1):1-51.

View all 15 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Philosophy 76 (297):460-464.
Knowledge and its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 64 (1):200-201.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2005 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (2):452-458.
A nonpragmatic vindication of probabilism.James M. Joyce - 1998 - Philosophy of Science 65 (4):575-603.
The Uniqueness Thesis.Matthew Kopec & Michael G. Titelbaum - 2016 - Philosophy Compass 11 (4):189-200.

View all 24 references / Add more references