Believing Against the Evidence

McCormick, Miriam Schleifer

doi:10.4324/9780203579146

Cited by 32 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…Instead, it is open for them to argue that there are less explicit ways of believing directly for practical reasons than deciding to believe. For instance, McCormick (2015) has argued that the way we control beliefs is sometimes analogous to the way we control many actions that are less than fully voluntary, intentional, or conscious. One of her examples is taking each individual step for a reason while going for a walk (ibid., 82).…”

Section: Considermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Parfit, 2011, Appendix A;Pojman, 1985). The 'new style arguments' can be viewed as advancements on the earlier ones, for they share the same spirit.3 We can distinguish between moderate pragmatism and radical pragmatism Leary (2017), McCormick (2015,. andReisner (2008Reisner ( , 2009Reisner ( , 2018 are moderate pragmatists: they argue that at least some reasons for belief are practical Rinard (2015Rinard ( , 2017Rinard ( , 2019a.…”

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confidence: 99%

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On believing indirectly for practical reasons

Schmidt

2021

Philos Stud

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It is often argued that there are no practical reasons for belief because we could not believe for such reasons. A recent reply by pragmatists is that we can often believe for practical reasons because we can often cause our beliefs for practical reasons. This paper reveals the limits of this recently popular strategy for defending pragmatism, and thereby reshapes the dialectical options for pragmatism. I argue that the strategy presupposes that reasons for being in non-intentional states are not reducible to reasons to act. Pragmatists who want to preserve a motivational constraint on reasons therefore have exactly two options: either arguing that there are irreducible reasons for being in non-intentional states (new pragmatism); or arguing that we can believe directly for practical reasons (traditional pragmatism). I argue that the prospects for the former option are dim because irreducible reasons to be in states are hard to square with the motivational constraint on reasons. Returning to the more traditional route of arguing for pragmatism by defending a version of doxastic voluntarism therefore seems to be the more promising way for pragmatists to go.

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Section: Considermentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

On believing indirectly for practical reasons

Schmidt

2021

Philos Stud

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“… 2 For recent accounts with similar implications, cf. Bondy ( 2018 ), Cowie ( 2014 ), Mantel ( 2019 ), McCormick ( 2015 , 2020 ), Papineau ( 2013 ). Of these, only McCormick identifies explicitly as a pragmatist (like Rinard).…”

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confidence: 99%

“… 16 In the terminology employed by Fischer and Ravizza ( 1998 ) and McCormick ( 2015 ), we might say that they lost their ownership over the relevant belief-forming mechanisms. …”

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confidence: 99%

Epistemic Blame and the Normativity of Evidence

Schmidt

2021

Erkenn

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The normative force of evidence can seem puzzling. It seems that having conclusive evidence for a proposition does not, by itself, make it true that one ought to believe the proposition. But spelling out the condition that evidence must meet in order to provide us with genuine normative reasons for belief seems to lead us into a dilemma: the condition either fails to explain the normative significance of epistemic reasons or it renders the content of epistemic norms practical. The first aim of this paper is to spell out this challenge for the normativity of evidence. I argue that the challenge rests on a plausible assumption about the conceptual connection between normative reasons and blameworthiness. The second aim of the paper is to show how we can meet the challenge by spelling out a concept of epistemic blameworthiness. Drawing on recent accounts of doxastic responsibility and epistemic blame, I suggest that the normativity of evidence is revealed in our practice of suspending epistemic trust in response to impaired epistemic relationships. Recognizing suspension of trust as a form of epistemic blame allows us to make sense of a purely epistemic kind of normativity the existence of which has recently been called into doubt by certain versions of pragmatism and instrumentalism.

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“…One philosopher that has applied the account of Fischer and Ravizza on believing is McCormick (2011McCormick ( , 2015. McCormick argues that reasons-responsiveness applies very well to mechanisms that produce beliefs.…”

Section: Guidance Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Control Over Believing and Doxastic Responsibility

Visala

2022

Front. Psychol.

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Believing Against the Evidence

Cited by 32 publications

References 0 publications

On believing indirectly for practical reasons

On believing indirectly for practical reasons

Epistemic Blame and the Normativity of Evidence

Control Over Believing and Doxastic Responsibility

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