Do epistemic reasons bear on the ought simpliciter?

Abstract

Are epistemic reasons normative in the same sense as, for instance, moral reasons? In this paper I examine and defend the claim that epistemic reasons are normative only relative to an epistemic standard. Unlike moral reasons they are not substantially normative, because they fail to make an independent contribution to obligations or permissions simpliciter. After presenting what I take to be the main argument for this view, I illustrate that the argument has often been defended by examples which controversially presuppose strong epistemic obligations or pragmatic reasons for belief. Opponents of the argument often deny the existence of obligations and reasons of these kinds. I therefore examine whether the argument can withstand that line of critique by employing new examples. 214

Epistemic Blame and the Normativity of Evidence

“… 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).…”

Are epistemic reasons normative?

“…3333This is the view proposed by Maguire and Woods (2020): epistemic reasons are like “chess‐based reasons” (217) – institutional reasons provided by the rules of the “game of belief”. Côté‐Bouchard and Littlejohn (2018) and Mantel (2019) seem to take a similar view.…”

“…Similarly, Steglich‐Petersen maintains that “it is doubtful whether epistemic reasons have normative ‘force’” (2011, 26), and Cowie suggests that “epistemic reasons for belief – as opposed to normative reasons for belief – are not necessarily normative” (2014, 4014). In the same vein, Côté‐Bouchard and Littlejohn hold that epistemic reasons “lack robust normative authority” (2018, 160) and according to Mantel, “epistemic reasons are not substantially normative” (2019, 215). Maguire expresses an analogous kind of scepticism when he argues that “so‐called right kind of reasons for affective attitudes”, i.e.…”

“…55Some authors maintain that some reasons count in favour of responses only relative to certain standards, and they distinguish such standard‐relative reasons from “robustly normative” (Côté‐Bouchard & Littlejohn, 2018, 151), “substantially normative” (Mantel, 2019, 215), “authoritatively normative” (Maguire & Woods, 2020, 217), or “genuinely normative” (cf. Paakkunainen, 2018) reasons (see below for a discussion of this view).…”

“…3). This view is increasingly popular, see Olson (2011, 84–85), Côté‐Bouchard and Littlejohn (2018, 159–160), Woods (2018), Cowie (2019, 59); Lord and Sylvan (2019), Mantel (2019, 215); Maguire and Woods (2020, §4).…”