Do non-philosophers think epistemic consequentialism is counterintuitive?

Abstract

Direct epistemic consequentialism is the idea that X is epistemically permissible iff X maximizes epistemic value. It has received lots of attention in recent years and is widely accepted by philosophers to have counterintuitive implications. There are various reasons one might suspect that the relevant intuitions will not be widely shared among non-philosophers. This paper presents an initial empirical study of ordinary intuitions. The results of two experiments demonstrate that the counterintuitiveness of epistemic consequentialism is more than a philosophers' worry-the folk seem to agree!

Lay intuitions about epistemic normativity

“…For guesses and hypotheses, maximization of the epistemic good is given more weight than evidence, whereas for beliefs neither factor is dominant. Andow's (2016a) results might seem to conflict with ours. All the cases used in Andow's paper fall into one of two categories: cases in which a researcher can change some equipment or cases in which a researcher can make an assumption (in which it is never mentioned that there is evidence and sometimes even stated that there is not).…”

“…Lay intuitions are not an a priori matter but an empirical matter to be investigated using methods similar to those used in the social sciences. Recently, some progress has been made in investigating lay intuitions about epistemic consequentialism (Andow 2016a). Andow's findings lend some support to the claim that lay intuitions are consistent with certain philosophers' intuitions to the effect that it is not epistemically acceptable to believe something that one has no independent reason to believe simply because doing so will increase the positive epistemic consequences.…”

“…In summary, even though both changing the equipment and making the assumption increased the epistemic good (the number of correct results), participants found a change of equipment more permissible than changing the research by making an assumption. Andow's (2016a) experiments leave some important questions unanswered. Andow sets up his experiments with reference to ethical trolley cases.…”

“…We might broaden this speculative hypothesis using Andow's (2016a) results with the addition of a slightly different deontic theory for assumptions as follows:…”

Luck and the value of communication

“…essays inGrajner and Schmechtig 2016;Ahlstrom-Vij and Dunn 2018). While a rejection of epistemic consequentalism isn't uncontroversial, nor is it without recent support (e.g Berker 2013Berker , 2015Andow 2017;Littlejohn 2018;Snow 2018;Roberts et al 2018;Sylvan 2020…”