An Instrumentalist Account of How to Weigh Epistemic and Practical Reasons for Belief

Abstract

When one has both epistemic and practical reasons for or against some belief, how do these reasons combine into an all-things-considered reason for or against that belief? The question might seem to presuppose the existence of practical reasons for belief. But we can rid the question of this presupposition. Once we do, a highly general ‘Combinatorial Problem’ emerges. The problem has been thought to be intractable due to certain differences in the combinatorial properties of epistemic and practical reasons. Here we bring good news: if we accept an independently motivated version of epistemic instrumentalism—the view that epistemic reasons are a species of instrumental reasons—we can reduce The Combinatorial Problem to the relatively benign problem of how to weigh different instrumental reasons against each other. As an added benefit, the instrumentalist account can explain the apparent intractability of The Combinatorial Problem in terms of a common tendency to think and talk about epistemic reasons in an elliptical manner.

Epistemic Blame and the Normativity of Evidence

“…Next to Rinard’s view, recent instrumentalists about reasons for belief commit to ANE. Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen and Mattias Skipper argue “that evidence for p speaks in favor of believing p only in context where there is a practical reason to pursue the aim of coming to a true belief as to whether p ” ( 2019 , 9), and that therefore “it is strictly speaking false to say that evidence by itself constitutes a normative reason for belief” ( 2020 , 114). Similarly, Maguire and Woods ( 2020 ) have recently denied that purely epistemic norms provide us with reasons.…”

“…Instrumentalists merely claim that evidence gains its normative authority from practical considerations (cf. Cowie, 2014 , 4004–5; Steglich-Petersen & Skipper, 2019 , 11). I am not here interested in subtle differences between the versions of pragmatism and instrumentalism I consider.…”

“… 9 In later works, Steglich-Petersen accepts that the reason to form a belief about p must in fact be a reason to form a true belief about p (see esp. the formulations of the norms of belief in Steglich-Petersen & Skipper, 2019 , 2020 ). …”

“…For recent defenses and elaborations along the lines of (b), cf. Howard ( 2020 ), Maguire and Woods ( 2020 ), Meylan ( 2020 ), Reisner ( 2008 ), Rinard ( 2017 ), Steglich-Petersen and Skipper ( 2019 ). For verdicts along the lines of (a), cf., next to Heil ( 1992 ), Berker ( 2018 ) Feldman ( 2000 , 680–681), Kelly ( 2003 , 619), Pojman ( 1993 ).…”

An instrumentalist unification of zetetic and epistemic reasons

“…In any such counterexample, there must be an evidence-based reason for a person to believe that p, but no reason for that person to come to (or have) a true belief as to whether p. But presumably, on any account of epistemic reasons, evidence counts in favor of believing p in virtue of making it sufficiently likely that one will believe the truth by believing p. So how could evidence for p be a reason for believing p in virtue of making it likely that one will thereby believe p truly, if there is no reason to come to a true belief as to whether p? 24 21 Steglich-Petersen (2018) and Steglich-Petersen & Skipper (2019;2020). See also Steglich-Petersen (2006;2011; for earlier versions.…”