Abstract
A recent view in contemporary epistemology holds that practical reasoning is governed by an epistemic norm. Evidence for the existence of this norm is provided by the ways in which we assess (justify, judge and criticize) our actions and reasoning on the basis of whether certain epistemic conditions are satisfied. Philosophers disagree on what this norm is—whether it is knowledge, justified belief or something else. Nobody however challenges the claim that practical reasoning is governed by such a norm. I argue that assuming the existence of an epistemic norm of practical reasoning is neither the only nor the best way to accommodate the available data. I introduce and defend an alternative account that avoids the assumption. According to this account, the relevant epistemic assessments of action and reasoning are instrumental assessments relative to the regulation conditions of a non-epistemic norm.
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Notes
Usually philosophers characterize this norm in terms of conditional or bi-conditional claims having the following structure:
(EN) it is appropriate for S to use p as a premise in her practical reasoning if and only if C
where p is some proposition, C is some epistemic condition with regard to p, such as ‘S knows that p’, ‘S justifiedly believes that p’ or ‘S is warranted to believe that p’. See, for example, Hawthorne (2004, 29–30), Hawthorne and Stanley (2008) and Williamson (2005, §§ 4 and 5). Some philosophers suggest slightly different formulations of the norm. Some use “rational”, “permissible” or “warranted” instead of “appropriate”. Other variants change “to use p as a premise in her practical reasoning” to “to rely on p in one’s practical reasoning” or “to treat p as a reason for action” (on the difference between these formulations see Gerken 2011, fn2). Some endorse only one of the directions of the biconditional. Since I want to remain as neutral as possible on specific features of the norm, I am open to revising (EN) as one prefers. Further discussions in the paper don’t depend on specific formulations.
While arguments based on epistemic assesments of action and practical reasoning are the most popular and most discussed in contemporary literature, it is worth mentioning that these are not the only arguments provided in support of epistemic norms of practical reasoning. Other arguments supposed to motivate these norms move from independent theoretical assumptions. A thorough discussion of these arguments would take us too far afield. However it is important to mention at least one of them, provided by Fantl and McGrath (2009, ch.3). Roughly, the main strategy of Fantl and McGrath consists in two steps: first, they defend a doxastic version of epistemic principles restricted to reasons for believing; second, they defend epistemic principles of reasons for action by appeal to bridge principles such as the following Unity Thesis: “if p is warranted enough to be a reason you have to believe q, for any q, it is warranted enough to be a reason you have to ϕ, for any ϕ” (2009, 73). For discussions and criticisms of this argument see, for example, Brown (2010), Cohen (2012), Reed (2012). For what concerns the general strategy, like Dustin Locke (2014, 88, fn.6), I think that the trouble with so-called ‘theoretical’ arguments in support of epistemic norms of practical reasoning is that they all seem to rest on theoretical assumptions that are at least as controversial as the norms themselves.
My account has some similarities with an account of epistemic norms of assertion suggested by Whiting (2013). However there are several important differences between the two. First, his account of epistemic norms of assertion relies on a truth norm of assertion, while my account is deduced directly from the nature of normative reasons and their role in practical reasoning; second, his account is based on the notions of ‘being a reason’ and ‘having a reason’ and presupposes the view according to which having a reason involves there being a reason that one possesses. This is a disputed assumption (see, for example, Schroeder 2008). My account doesn’t rely on this distinction. Third, his account cannot be easily adapted to an account of norms of practical reasoning; similarly, in order to adapt my account to norms of assertion, important modifications of the account are needed.
The notion of norm-regulation was first coined by Pollock and Cruz (1999), ch.5, §3. The distinction between a norm and its regulation has been widely discussed by Engel. See in particular Engel (2007, §3, 2008, §4). The present characterization of norm regulation slightly diverges from that used by other authors. See Fassio (2014) for a discussion.
Two remarks are in order here. First, the qualification “in many circumstances” is necessary because, at least for some norms, there may be circumstances in which an agent ends up conforming to it without satisfying all the mentioned regulation-conditions, such as in cases in which a subject conforms to a norm by mere chance (I will come back to this point below). Second, in all the sentences in this paragraph “must” does not express a normative notion. These must-claims are anankastic conditionals expressing necessary conditions for certain facts or events being the case, as in the sentences “If you want sugar in your soup, you must ask the waiter” or “if the train goes to Edinburgh it must pass through Sterling”.
Another way of describing regulation conditions is in terms of steps facilitating the pursuit of what we have reason to do. See, for example, Raz (2005, 5). These conditions can be further distinguished in subtypes: Raz distinguishes between means, preconditions and facilitating conditions to do what reasons require. In Fassio (2014) I provide a classification of the various types of regulation conditions necessary to follow a norm.
The idea that norms require mere conformity to satisfaction conditions and not also compliance (involving recognition of the norm, intention to follow it, motivation, and so on) has been recently defended in connection with epistemic norms by Littlejohn (2013, §3). For convincing arguments in this direction, see for example, Thomson (1991, 293) and Gardner (2007, ch 4).
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for reminding me of cases in which it is relatively easy to follow norms even when most or all regulation conditions are not satisfied.
Such variability is stronger for the regulation of some norms than for others, and may be stronger for a subset of regulation conditions (e.g., for those necessary to put oneself in position to satisfy a norm).
Means in a means-end instrumental relation should be understood quite broadly, as circumstances or actions that help to cause or constitute a desirable end, or facilitate or constitute a precondition for its realisation (see Kolodny and Brunero 2016, §2).
More precisely, I conceive the latter type of assessment as concerning conditions that in the closest possible worlds lead to norm satisfaction. In general, this safety condition doesn’t require that the means are conducive to norm satisfaction in all similar possible worlds. In most circumstances one may be deemed as taking the good means to a valuable end even though these means do not necessarily lead to that end. The important point is that they are reliable means to that end. As Kolodny and Brunero observe, “Means are also often probabilistic. Something may also count as a means to an end even if it is not guaranteed to help to bring about the end, but only has some chance of doing so” (2016, §2). However there may be exceptions to this general rule. Prudential considerations may affect how strict our assessments are. For example, in cases in which following a certain norm is deemed particularly important, our standards of evaluation become very demanding. I’ll be back to this point in Sect 3, response to objection 3.
For a characterization of the dependence of instrumental reasons on source reasons see, for example, Raz (2005). For an overview and discussion of instrumental transmission see also Kolodny and Brunero (2016, §2). I want to remain neutral here on the debated issue of the normative nature of instrumental rationality. My point here is that the instrumental reasons an agent has in a context are determined by and dependent on other independent normative reasons from which they acquire their normative force merely in virtue of being means to desirable ends. This point is compatible with very different accounts of instrumental rationality.
Thanks to Robin McKenna for directing my attention to this point. Two other ways in which instrumental reasons are dependent on the normative force of further norms are (1) that the defeasibility of the source reasons is fully transmitted to instrumental reasons and (2) that when source reasons can be realized in multiple ways, we have sufficient instrumental reasons to realize any one of the conditions that facilitate the realization of the desirable end, but not necessary reasons to satisfy one of those conditions rather than another. For a discussion of these properties of instrumental reasons see in particular Raz (2005, §1).
For example, someone may be criticised for not making any effort to comply with a promise (this regardless of whether she happens to keep the promise by accident or not). In such a case, the criticism is not necessarily a clue to the existence of a norm requiring the agent to make efforts to keep promises. The criticism may well concern a regulation condition of a further promise-keeping norm, providing an instrumental assessment of an attitude that in most circumstances is necessary for norm-conformity.
Examples making reference to legal norms, and in particular to street regulations, are quite standard in the relevant literature. For two very recent examples, see Baker-Hytch & Benton (2015, §5.1), Simion (2016). Other typical examples are norms governing linguistic practices and games (e.g., Kelp and Simion forthcoming; Williamson 2000, ch.11) and moral norms such as promise-keeping (e.g., Williamson forthcoming). If the reader doesn’t find the present example sufficiently convincing, she or he is free to substitute whatever she/he takes as a clear example of a norm involving objective conditions of satisfaction.
Note that this strategy is not deployed exclusively in the debate about epistemic norms of action. Philosophers have used similar argumentative strategies for arguing that assertion and belief are governed by epistemic norms. The most representative example is Williamson (2000, Ch.11).
Here some remarks are in order. First, that it is not raining may also not be the only or the decisive reason for Mary about whether to take an umbrella. (RN) merely states the conditions required to use a proposition as a premise in practical reasoning; it doesn’t exclude that other propositions can be used as premises in the same reasoning. These propositions would be (or express) other pro tanto reasons for or against F-ing. Second, I conceive (RN) as a pro tanto norm, which can be occasionally overridden by other considerations. If p is a reason to F, then S ought to use p as a premise in her reasoning about whether to F if there are no overriding reasons for not doing so. Here is a case in which there is such an overriding reason: suppose that the weather being sunny is a reason for you not to take an umbrella. You pro tanto ought to use the proposition that it’s sunny as a premise in your deliberation about whether to take an umbrella. However, suppose an evil demon will kill you if you use the proposition that it’s sunny as a premise in your reasoning. Then you ought all things considered not to use that proposition as a premise, even if it is a reason relevant to whether to F. For a similar case see Crisp (2005).
Compare to Way (2015): “Reasons are meant to guide us to act, believe, desire, or otherwise respond. But to be guided by reasons just is to engage in reasoning, broadly construed. So it is hard to see how reasons could fail to be appropriate premises for reasoning towards ϕ-ing” (1). Following Way, we may conceive reasoning in a broad sense, not limited to reflective cases. On this point see also Arpaly and Schroeder (2012). Thanks to Daniel Whiting for encouraging me to clarify this point.
Many claim that a reason for action just is a premise of sound practical reasoning. For example, according to Setiya, “When a fact is a reason for A to F in the normative or justifying sense, it need not be a reason for which she acts; she may not even be aware of it. But the fact is a premise for sound reasoning to a desire or motivation to F whose further premises are available to A” (Setiya 2014, 221). For an overview and defense of the view that reasons are premises of good reasoning (i.e., reasoning involving good patterns of reasoning from correct premises to a conclusion) see Way (2015). One can also try to derive (RN) from the premise that subjects aim to act only on the basis of normative reasons (Whiting 2014).
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for bringing this possible objection to my attention.
For an overview of the debate opposing perspectivalists and objectivists see, for example, Alvarez (2016, §2).
A terminological note: Fantl and McGrath call favoring reasons what here, following many other philosophers, I call normative reasons. These are reasons there are for someone to F, and bear on whether one ought to do something in an objective sense, independently of the subject’s epistemic position and possessed information. Fantl and McGrath contrast favoring reasons with justifying and motivating ones, which are reasons one has to F that are less objective than the former and depend on the possessed information. See Fantl and McGrath (2009, 173–176).
Lackey (2007, §4), makes a similar point when she argues against the notion of secondary propriety.
For example he writes that “my purpose is to establish that knowledge is conceptually connected to practical interests” (2005, 89).
According to Hawthorne and Stanley, “our ordinary folk appraisals of the behavior of others suggest that the concept of knowledge is intimately intertwined with the rationality of action”(2008: 571). Fantl and McGrath write that the principle they call (KJ)—If you know that p, then p is warranted enough to justify you in F-ing, for any F – “articulates broader connections between the concepts of knowledge and justification than those typically recognized” (Fantl and McGrath 2009, 84). Another philosopher defending a constitutive conceptual connection between action/practical reasoning and knowledge is Hyman (1999, 2015, ch.7), whose view is, roughly, that to know is to be able to be guided by the fact that p. However it is not clear whether this connection is or implies a normative action-knowledge principle. See Hawthorne and Stanley (2008, fn7).
“[W]e operate with a conception of deliberation according to which, if the question whether p is practically relevant, it is acceptable to use the premise that p in one’s deliberations if one knows it and (at least in very many cases) unacceptable to use the premise that p in one’s practical reasoning if one doesn’t know it” (2004, 30, my italics).
It is worth mentioning some other reasons indicating that epistemic norms such as the Knowledge Action Principle don’t express mere contingent patterns of assessment but conceptually constitutive principles. First, many defenders of epistemic norms of action use these norms to support pragmatic encroachment, the view that knowledge constitutively depends on pragmatic factors. In particular, the form of pragmatic encroachment defended by philosophers such as Stanley and Fantl and McGrath involves conceptual constitutive dependence of knowledge from practical factors (see, e.g., quotes in fn 28 and 29). However, if norms of action aren’t conceptually constitutive principles (or at least conceptually necessary) it is hard to see how something would follow from them about the concept of knowledge. Second, there is an on-going debate on the idea that there is a common epistemic norm which would provide appropriateness conditions for assertion, practical reasoning and belief (for an overview see, for example, Benton 2014, §2a; Brown 2012a; Gerken 2014; Fassio forthcoming). Philosophers supporting commonality tend to think that there is some deep connection between these norms (e.g., McKenna 2016; Montminy 2013; Smithies 2012). This debate presupposes a modal similarity between the various norms. Many of the arguments for commonality would be ineffective if, for example, we conceived the norms of belief and assertion as necessary and constitutive of these attitudes and practices (or their concept), but the norm of practical reasoning as expressing a merely contingent, instrumental evaluation. However many take the norms of belief and assertion to be necessary and constitutive principles (for the constitutivity of the norm of belief see, for example, Shah and Velleman 2005; Wedgwood 2002; for the norm of assertion see, for example, Williamson 2000, ch.11).
For a similar statement see Gao (2016), 4 and fn. 5. As Gao puts it, the epistemic norm of practical reasoning is “an exceptionless principle valid for every possible premise of a practical reasoning” (fn 5).
Some philosophers make the same point in terms of identification conditions. According to Ichikawa, these norms are “general principles relating knowledge and action … identifying knowledge with propositions held appropriately as reasons for action” (Ichikawa 2012, 54). Others put this point in terms of determination. For example, Jackson (2012), §1 argues that the Action-Knowledge principle defended by Hawthorne and Stanley is intended by the two authors to be a principle which would fully determine (possibly in concert with one’s desires) what it is rational for one to do.
Some contemporary debates strongly indicate that these norms are understood as universally valid in this way. In particular, a typical strategy to criticize these norms consists in the appeal to possible counterexamples (e.g., Brown 2008a; Crisp 2005; Gao 2016; Gerken 2011; Reed 2010; Schiffer 2007). This strategy would be ineffective if these norms were not supposed to be universally valid. The responses of defenders of epistemic norms to these counterexamples confirm that they consider such norms as exceptionless. For example, Fantl and McGrath take cases like Brown’s Surgeon to stand in important tension with their project (2009, 61–62; 2012, 70). Other philosophers, such as Hawthorne and Stanley (2008, 582), appeal to a distinction between conformity to the norm and excusable and blameless violation. These replies indicate that the norm is supposed to apply to all instances of practical reasoning in an exceptionless way.
For example, according to Littlejohn, “the notion of propriety we are concerned with is epistemic, not practical” (2012, 192). Hawthorne and Stanley (2008, 571, 581–582) contrast the Knowledge Action Principle to decision theoretic principles grounding rationality. For an insightful discussion and references see also Gao (2016, 4). For a discussion of different sources of normativity see, for example, Broome (2013), 26–27 and Ch.7. A case suggested by Crisp (2005) indicates that upholders of epistemic norms are actually committed to assuming that these norms are relative to specific independent non-practical standards. Crisp suggests a case in which you know that 2 + 2 = 4, but a demon informs you that the next time you use that belief as a premise in practical reasoning, he will subject you to a painful death. It seems that it would not be practically rational for you to deploy the proposition that 2 + 2 = 4 as a premise in your practical reasoning. Rather, all practical normative standards require you not to use your belief that 2 + 2 = 4 as a premise in your reasoning, even if you know it. If there is a norm that requires you to rely on what you know (or on some other epistemic condition), this seems to be relative to epistemic or sui generis rationality standards.
One may still insist that, while instrumental norms are not epistemic in this narrow sense, to the extent that they concern epistemic conditions they are still epistemic in a wider sense. However this sense is quite uninteresting and shallow. An instrumental assessment appealing to epistemic conditions is ‘epistemic’ in the same sense in which an instrumental reason to jump (say, for avoiding an obstacle) is a ‘jumpistic’ reason.
For a statement of the project and an overview of the literature see for example (Gerken 2015, §1).
The possibility of normative conflicts can be proved in general for any two conditional norms which require, forbid or permit the same action but whose conditions are extensionally different. Consider any two norms N1 and N2, where N1 permits one to F iff C1 and N2 permits one to F iff C2 and such that C1 is extensionally different from C2. In cases in which one condition is the case but the other is not, one norm will permit one to F, while the other will forbid it. This is also the case of (RN) and the knowledge norm. Suppose, for example, that p is a reason for S to F, but S doesn’t know p. In this case, (RN) will permit her to rely on p in her deliberation whether to F while (RN) will not.
Indeed if this were the right explanation, it would make more sense to challenge the agent by saying directly that the restaurant was not to the right, without mentioning that it was to the left. That the restaurant was to the left would be relevant only to the extent that it implies the falsity of the proposition that the restaurant was to the right, which in turn makes the proposition unknown, and thus inappropriate to use as a premise in practical reasoning.
Bear in mind that an excuse is a type of defense that admits the violation of a norm but points to factors that rationalize the subject’s norm violation. On the contrary, a justification is a defence pointing to conditions indicating the conformity to the norm. If knowledge is the norm of action, a defense pointing to the fact that the subject didn’t act on p because she didn’t know p stresses that certain conditions required by the norm are satisfied (in particular, the conditions relative to p). Thus this defense is a justification; it cannot be an excuse, which involves an admission that the norm was violated. On the distinction between justification and excuse see, for example, Duff (2006), Gardner (2007, ch. 4–6), Kelp and Simion (forthcoming), Littlejohn (forthcoming).
Here it is worth mentioning that a justification for not violating a certain norm can be partial, restricted to the performance of a specific action. For example, an agent could point to the fact that she didn’t violate the norm by F-ing in a certain circumstance. In this case, the subject would be justified to F. But she could be violating the same norm by doing something else. In the case considered in the main text, the subject could be violating the knowledge norm even if she doesn’t know that it was going to rain and didn’t act on this proposition (for example if the subject knows the different proposition that [it was likely that it was going to rain] and should have taken the umbrella on the basis of this known proposition). All this is compatible with the present argument, which considers exclusively the status of B’s claim as a defence for her action. This claim sounds like an excuse, while if knowledge were the norm of action, it couldn’t sound like an excuse, only like a (at least partial) justification. Thanks to an anonymous referee for pressing me to clarify this point.
B could have also answered: “Ok, what I did was inappropriate, but for all I knew that was the right thing to do”. This answer is a rationalization and excuse of one’s action. B is clearly not defending her action or insisting that what she did was appropriate.
I admit here that there are several possible ways of filling some details of the case, and in some of these ways intuitions about whether the subject’s defense counts as an excuse are clearer than others. I just observe that all that my argument needs is some possible reading of the case in which B’s specific claim clearly sounds like an excuse. These possible cases would be sufficiently problematic for the knowledge norm. This is because the absence of knowledge that p can only justify the subject for not relying on p in her reasoning; it cannot excuse her for that, since excuses involve admission of wrongdoing, and by not relying on p in absence of knowledge that p the subject doesn’t violate the knowledge norm (on the contrary, she complies with it). Thanks to an anonymous referee for encouraging me to consider this point.
Brown seems to endorse a similar view in Brown (2008a, 2012b), even if she doesn’t develop it. She writes: “my own preferred view is that the full range of data is best explained by supposing that the epistemic position required to rely on a proposition in practical reasoning varies with context” (2012b, 45). Gerken (2011) explains this variability in terms of an epistemic norm involving a contextual variable in its scope.
Notice also that these practical factors are multifarious and relatively vague. Therefore there may be specific situations in which it would be potentially impossible for a subject to discriminate which specific factors obtain in her context. However, according to epistemic accounts, such factors determine what an epistemic norm requires in a given context. If such accounts were right, there may be situations in which an agent is not in a position to determine what the epistemic norm requires from her due to the inaccessibility of these factors. This would constitute a violation of a minimal accessibility constraint on norms, and would eventually imply a violation of the ‘ought implies can’ principle (provided that accessibility is sometimes necessary to follow the norm). My account easily avoids this problem: such factors affect only the regulation conditions to follow (RN). They do not determine what (RN) requires, which is a contextually-invariant condition.
Philosophers widely disagree on intuitions elicited by cases involving epistemic assessments of action. These very often deeply contrasting and unstable intuitions may eventually be considered as a further clue that epistemic assessments do not concern satisfaction conditions of norms, but rather contingent and variable conditions necessary to follow norms in different circumstances.
It is worth mentioning here another respect under which epistemic assessments are context sensitive in a way affecting the strength of criticizability and blamability of agents. As argued in §1.1, some assessments of epistemic conditions concern whether the agent would conform to the norm in relevantly similar circumstances. The strength of such assessments is affected by how similar these circumstances are and the frequency of norm-conformity in such circumstances. For example it seems less appropriate to criticize and blame flyers that ignore a no-smoking regulation on a plane but smoke very rarely than those who tend to smoke frequently, regularly and everywhere. This is because the former comply with the norm in most relevantly similar circumstances more than the latter.
One may doubt here that my account of contextually variable epistemic assessments would fare any better than a ‘hybrid knowledge’ account combining a knowledge norm of action and a distinction between assessments relative to regulation conditions and to satisfaction conditions. In order to address this worry, first consider how my account explains the various epistemic assessments (which, I remember, are instrumental evaluations relative to regulation conditions). Assuming that one should rely only on propositions that are true (or are reasons), when it is particularly important not to fail to comply with this norm (as in Brown’s Surgeon case), the subject should strive to achieve a very high degree of evidence before relying on p, higher than that required for knowledge. By contrast, when it is particularly unimportant to comply with the norm (e.g., in the case illustrated by Gerken 2011, 535–536; 2015, 144), the subject may eventually rely on evidence which is insufficient for knowledge, though it is enough to make a belief rational. A similar explanation is not available to the hybrid knowledge view for cases in which it seems fine for the subject to rely on a proposition supported by a relatively low degree of evidence insufficient to know the relevant proposition. Relying on a proposition based on evidence insufficient for knowledge is not a proper way of following a knowledge norm, even in relatively relaxed contexts. This disposition does not constitute a regulation condition of a knowledge norm, neither in actual, nor in most similar circumstances. Therefore the hybrid knowledge view, differently from my account, is unable to explain all the contextually variable epistemic assessments considered by Brown and Gerken. Thanks to an anonymous referee for encouraging me to consider this point.
On the modal constitutive status of epistemic norms see Sect. 1.3.
For explicit claims that epistemic norms are constitutive of knowledge, see for example Fantl and McGrath (2009, 84), Hawthorne and Stanley (2008, 571), Stanley (2005, pp. 9, 85 and 89). Pragmatic Encroachment on knowledge has been defended by, for example, Fantl and McGrath (2009), Hawthorne (2004), Stanley (2005). For criticisms see, for example, Brown (2008b), DeRose (2005), MacFarlane (2005), Neta (2007), Reed (2010), Williamson (2005). This list is merely exemplary and obviously incomplete.
Notice that a similar problem may not arise for assertion, as that type of speech act is often conceived as bearing constitutive relations with epistemic notions such as belief and knowledge. If many philosophers don’t see any problem in characterizing assertions as speech acts expressing one’s beliefs or knowledge, it is far more contentious, for example, to provide a characterization of the essence or concept of action as that type of thing that is appropriate if and only if it is grounded on knowledge, and to ascribe a constitutive sensitivity of practical notions to epistemic factors.
This implies that in an extremely friendly environment in which one always encounters only true information it doesn’t make sense to assess one’s epistemic position relative to propositions one uses as premises in reasoning. This seems to match intuitions about specific cases: consider a situation in which an angel makes whatever I believe true, and it is common knowledge that this is the case. In this situation it makes little sense to assess my epistemic position with respect to a proposition that I use as a premise in my reasoning. While this fits my account well, it constitutes a further problem for epistemic accounts arguing for conceptually constitutive epistemic norms. These views take data from ordinary epistemic assessments as modally robust, appropriate in any world, including epistemically friendly worlds.
A related question is why knowledge is the most common epistemic standard of assessment, much more common than, for example, justified belief. A possible explanation, provided by Gerken (2015, §3), is that in normal cases knowledge-level warrant is frequently necessary and very frequently sufficient for the epistemic permissibility of S’s acting on p. We refer to knowledge by default, since it is also the most ordinarily used epistemic notion.
Notice also that relying on probability considerations can be more or less excusable depending on specific practical circumstances. If it is very important to do the right thing, then using probabilities as premises in our reasoning seems inopportune, while if not too much is at stake or it is relatively urgent to act (no matter whether correctly or not), acting on probabilities is fully excusable.
Here is an example of how the two replies work. Given the available information, at t1 stock A could lead to higher gains or higher losses than stock B. Since I want to maximise my gains but also not lose too much, I decide to buy both A and B. At time t2, stock A has gained more than B. In this case it seems I was rational in relying on my partial information at t1. Reply 1: what I did was wrong. I could have earned more by only buying stock A. But I did the best thing given what I knew. So I am blameless for my action. If I had only bought stock A I would be blameworthy because, even though I would have done the right thing, I would have not tried to follow (RN) by considering the reasons I had given my limited evidence. Reply 2: My decision to buy both A and B at t1 was the result of using the available information about the stock market—the trends of the stocks in the past year, events which may affect the stock market… —as premises in my reasoning.
For similar considerations see Hill and Schechter (2007, 117–118). The present explanation is related to what said in §2.1 about the influence of contextual practical factors on assessments relative to regulation conditions. If stakes are high, one will be more careful in considering whether one’s epistemic position is good enough to take a certain proposition as a reason and use it as a premise in one’s reasoning. Since in lottery cases stakes are high (one could earn a lot of money by keeping the winning ticket), the subject would be criticizable if she relied on a mere partial belief that the ticket is a loser.
For a similar defence of a truth-norm of assertion see Whiting (2013). One could provide an argument for similar norms of assertion and belief moving from (RN) and the idea that assertion and belief have respectively the role of communicating and possessing appropriate premises for reasoning. However it is unclear whether this strategy would favour truth or knowledge norms.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Jie Gao, Arturs Logins, Robin McKenna, Jacques Vollet, Daniel Whiting and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Versions of this paper were presented at the Workshop “Epistemic Norms of Action, Assertion and Belief” at the University of Geneva (2014), the SIFA Conference 2014 at the University of L’Aquila, and the Leuven Epistemology Conference 2015 on Epistemic Norms. Thanks to the audiences for their helpful feedback. The work on this paper was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation research projects ‘Knowledge-Based Accounts of Rationality’ (100018_144403 / 1) and ‘The Unity of Reasons’ (P300P1_164569 / 1).
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Fassio, D. Is there an epistemic norm of practical reasoning?. Philos Stud 174, 2137–2166 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0792-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0792-2