Are epistemic reasons normative?

Abstract

According to a widely held view, epistemic reasons are normative reasons for belief -much like prudential or moral reasons are normative reasons for action. In recent years, however, an increasing number of authors have questioned the normativity of epistemic reasons.In this article, I discuss an important challenge for anti-normativism about epistemic reasons and present a series of arguments in support of normativism. The challenge for anti-normativism is to say what kind of reasons epistemic reasons are if they are not normative reasons. I discuss various answers to this challenge and find them all wanting. The arguments for normativism each stress a certain analogy between epistemic reasons and normative reasons for action. Just like normative reasons for action, epistemic reasons provide partial justification; they provide premises for correct reasoning; they constitute good bases for the responses they are reasons for; and they are reasons for which agents can show these responses without committing a mistake. In each case, I argue that the relevant condition is plausibly sufficient for the normativity of a reason, and that normativism is in any case in a much better position to explain the analogy than anti-normativism.

Forever fitting feelings

“…(McPherson, 2018), (Wodak, 2019), and (Woods, 2018). 29 For recent arguments that fittingness lacks authoritative normativity, see, e.g., (Rinard, 2019) and (Maguire, 2018); for recent defenses of its authoritative normativity, see (Howard and Leary, fc) and (Kiesewetter, 2021). 30 A third possibility, recently suggested by Selim Berker (fc), is that, other things equal, fittingness is neither requiring nor merely permissive.…”

Two challenges for ‘no-norms’ theism

“…For instance, Errol Lord's account holds that ‘[one is] irrational because [they] violate a requirement generated by possessed reasons’ (Lord (2017), 1123). Similarly, Benjamin Kiesewetter argues that epistemic reasons are normative in nature, since ‘just like practical normative reasons, epistemic reasons (i) provide partial justification for the responses they are reasons for; they (ii) constitute premises for good reasoning and (iii) are good bases for adopting these responses; relatedly, they (iv) can be the reasons for which agents give the response without thereby making any kind of mistake’ (Kiesewetter (2022), 687). Kiesewetter argues that each of these similarities contributes to a pair of serious problems for any anti-normative view of epistemic reasons; as he writes: Conditions (i)–(iv) can be understood as instances of having property P. In each case .…”

Reasons for Belief and Aretaic Obligations

“…You may think it plausible that when you are obligated to believe that p this is at least partly because you have an undefeated reason to believe that p (cf. Kiesewetter 2021). However, this "plausible" assumption has a lot of contentious terms packed into it.…”