Unbelievable thoughts and doxastic oughts

Theoria 76 (2):112-118 (2010)
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Abstract

From the dictum "ought implies can", it has been argued that no account of belief's normativity can avoid the unpalatable result that, for unbelievable propositions such as "It is raining and nobody believes that it is raining", one ought not to believe them even if true. In this article, I argue that this move only succeeds on a faulty assumption about the conjunction of doxastic "oughts.".

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Author's Profile

Adam C. Podlaskowski
Fairmont State University

References found in this work

Probability and the logic of rational belief.Henry Ely Kyburg - 1961 - Middletown, Conn.,: Wesleyan University Press.
Blindspots.Roy A. Sorensen - 1988 - New York: Oxford University Press.
How truth governs belief.Nishi Shah - 2003 - Philosophical Review 112 (4):447-482.
The paradox of the preface.David C. Makinson - 1965 - Analysis 25 (6):205-207.

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