Feldman's Epistemic Obligations

Jones and epistemic obligations

Voluntarism and Epistemic Obligations

1.) Doxastic voluntarism is false.

2.) If doxastic voluntarism is false, then no one has epistemic obligations.

3.) Therefore, no one has epistemic obligations.

Heil 's Assertion of Voluntarism

We have indirect control over what beliefs we form based upon how we go about solving problems, prioritizing problems, etc.

This indirect control is sufficient for epistemic obligations.

Responses:

This type of indirect control is insufficient to show that one has an epistemic obligation to believe or disbelieve, though it may be sufficient to show that one has an obligation to engage in the sort of activities Heil describes.

There are cases of "seeming" epistemic obligation in which Heil 's obligations are irrelevant.

Denying the Second Premise

Epistemic Obligations are just the sorts of things Heil discusses and are not concerned with believing or disbelieving.

This response evades the issue.

Lehrer 's Denial of the Second Premise

One can decide what to accept, if not what to believe.

I find this distinction dubious at best. My epistemic obligations concern what I accept not what I believe.

Feldman's Denial of the Second Premise

There are non-moral, non-prudential obligations that one can have even when one can't fulfill them or one cannot but fulfill them.

House

Class

Objection

Epistemic obligations are of the moral sort, requiring freedom.

Response

The examples are on my side.

There is a clear sense of this sort of obligation.

Objection

These are cases of conditional obligation and as such they can do njot count as unconditional and unfulfillable .

Response

If epistemic obligations are conditional obligations, then perhaps they are conditional on the desire to be epistemically excellent. This still breaks the bond between voluntarism and epistemic obligations.

What are our Epistemic Obligations?

James: believe truths and avoid errors.

Formulations of the Jamesian View

(1) S is epistemically obligated to believe p if p is true and S is epistemically obligated to disbelieve p if p is false.

We sometimes ought to suspend judgement.

Coin toss

We sometimes ought to believe falsehood based upon massive misleading evidence.

Formulations of the Jamesian View

(4) One's goals as a rational believer are to believe things that are true and to avoid believeing things that are false.

This is a statement of appropriate goals, but not of obligations.

Chisholm

For any proposition p and person S, if S considers p then S is epistemically obligated to try his best to bring about that S believes p if and only if p is true.

Plantinga 's Response

This construes epistemic obligations too narrowly. One might well need to avoid cluttering one's mind, search out important truths and etc.

Response

The central question is what attitude should I adopt towards some proposition now. Plantinga 's concerns are jsut irrelevant to this point.

In fact, these are often pragmatic or practical concerns and not epistemic concerns.

Drugs on the market

Second Objection

What counts as trying one's best?

Only perfection?

Nothing?

(6) For any proposition p and person S and time t, if S considers p at t, then S is epistemically obligated to believe p at t if and only if, if S were to follow the best available method for trying to believe truths and avoid believing falsehoods at t, then S would believe p at t.

A concocted method which is successful may not be obligatory.

Feldman's Version

(7) Far any person S and proposition p and time t, S epistemically ought to believe p at t if and only if p is supported by the evidence S has at t.