Der epistemische Konsequentialismus versteht epistemische Rationalität instrumentell, d. h. eine Überzeugung ist genau dann gerechtfertigt, wenn sie unserem epistemischen Ziel (z.B. der Vermehrung wahrer Überzeugungen) dient. Eine zentrale Herausforderung für diese Position sind sogenannte Trade-Off Fälle: Was, wenn eine offensichtlich falsche Überzeugung dazu führt, dass wir insgesamt mehr wahre Überzeugungen haben? Ist diese falsche Überzeugung dann gerechtfertigt? Der epistemische Konsequentialismus scheint dies bejahen zu müssen, was intuitiv höchst problematisch ist. Einige halten die mit Trade-Off Fällen verbundenen Probleme für so gravierend, dass sie eine instrumentalistische Position eindeutig widerlegen. Im Gegensatz dazu argumentiert der Vortrag für zweierlei: Erstens gibt es trotz der Trade-Off Fälle gute Gründe, am epistemischen Konsequentialismus festzuhalten. Zweitens lassen sich aus einer detaillierten Analyse dieser Fälle wertvolle Lehren für eine konsequentialistische Position ziehen. Durch gezielte Modifikationen und Präzisierungen kann sie gegen die verschiedenen Trade-Off Einwände immunisiert werden. Dazu sind insbesondere drei Anpassungen erforderlich: (a) Der Konsequentialismus muss als internalistische Position ausgestaltet werden, (b) das epistemische Wahrheitsziel muss in bestimmter Hinsicht modifiziert und (c) um eine spezifische Variante des epistemischen Ziels des Verstehens ergänzt werden. Eine konsequentialistische Position, die (a)–(c) in ihre Theorie integriert, kann sämtliche in der Literatur diskutierten Trade-Off Einwände erfolgreich umgehen.

According to the Balancing View of Ought (BV), an agent A ought to ϕ if and only if A’s reasons for ϕ-ing outweigh any competing set of reasons. Applied to belief, (BV) implies that we ought to believe p whenever the reasons for believing p are stronger than any competing set of reasons. However, we often seem permitted to refrain from believing what we have the strongest reasons to believe. For instance, we are not required to believe all the trivial implications of our evidence, even though they are strongly supported by epistemic reasons. I argue that (BV) can accommodate this permissivist intuition if we recognize that reasons for believing p not only compete with reasons for disbelieving p or suspending judgment about p, but also with reasons against forming any doxastic attitude toward p at all. Unlike more radically permissivist views, the resulting framework explains not only why we are typically permitted to refrain from forming evidentially supported beliefs, but also why doing so is epistemically impermissible when we attend (or ought to attend) to the relevant evidence in order to determine whether p is true.

Proponents of the view that there is an ought simpliciter struggle when it comes to explaining how epistemic reasons relate to the reasons the ought simpliciter is to be based on. In one crucial respect, epistemic reasons are too much like moral and prudential ones, and in another, they are too much like reasons arising from social norms (like rules of etiquette). In my talk, I will suggest a way out of this dilemma that consists of two components: First, epistemic normativity is best taken to be purely evaluative. As a consequence, epistemic reasons do not directly enter into deliberations on what we should believe all-things-considered. Second, we always have moral pro tanto reasons to believe in accordance with our evidence. These moral reasons suffice to explain our intuitions regarding the general (albeit often low) significance of evidential considerations for what we ought simpliciter to believe.

This talks pursues a meta-epistemological approach to the classic internalism vs. externalism debate about epistemic rationality. Dogramaci (2012) advocates for the view that ascriptions of rationality serve what I call the policing purpose, that is ascriptions of epistemic rationality have the function of encouraging others to follow correct belief-forming rules. I argue that accepting this policing purpose supports a modest kind of externalism. This modest externalism respects intuitions regarding the new evil demon case and differs from established externalist theories like reliabilism or knowledge-first epistemology. The main idea is that the fittingness of S being policed by others is not solely a matter of S’s actual psychology. Therefore, as internalism suggests a strong link between epistemic rationality and S’s psychology, that is S’s (accessible) mental states, the metaepistemological approach that links epistemic rationality to epistemic policing does not favour internalism, but externalism.