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Arbitrary switching and concern for truth

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Peer-reviewed

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Abstract

jats:titleAbstract</jats:title>jats:pThis essay is about a special kind of transformative choice that plays a key role in debates about permissivism, the view that some bodies of evidence permit more than one rational response. A prominent objection to this view contends that its defender cannot vindicate our aversion to arbitrarily switching between belief states in the absence of any new evidence. A prominent response to that objection tries to provide the desired vindication by appealing to the idea that arbitrary switching would involve a special kind of transformative choice: the choice to change one’s epistemic standards, i.e., one’s commitments regarding the relative importance of achieving true belief and avoiding false belief. My first aims here are to argue that this response is unsuccessful and propose an alternative. My secondary aim is to consider how this discussion might bear on more general debates about transformative choice.</jats:p>

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Keywords

Epistemic utility theory, Transformative experience, Arbitrariness, One thought too many, Permissivism, Epistemic consequentialism

Journal Title

Synthese

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1573-0964

Volume Title

202

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC