Epistemic Obligations: Truth, Individualism, and the Limits of Belief

2 Epistemic Obligations

29 2 Epistemic Obligations Philosophical literature is not altogether clear on exactly what epistemic obligations are. Whereas moral obligations apply to persons with respect to their actions, epistemic obligations apply to persons with respect to their beliefs. Roderick Chisholm attempts to specify carefully our epistemic obligations in terms of doxastic requirements (an obligation to believe). Two of his definitions are particularly relevant. D2 p imposes a doxastic requirement =Df There is a doxastic state such that p requires one to be in that state or p requires one not to be in that state. And in his typically careful manner, Chisholm specifies a doxastic state as D1 S is a doxastic state =Df Either S is a believing; or S is the withholding of a believing; or S is the preferring of one believing to another believing, or of a believing to a withholding, or of a withholding to a believing, or of a withholding to a withholding.1 But what is it that we are obligated to be believing or withholding our believing from, or what believing are we to be 30 Epistemic Obligations preferring to another? As agents, in believing we do not consciously intend to hold false beliefs, or undertake critical thinking or justificatory endeavors for our beliefs in order to arrive at falsehood.2 Beliefs, one might say, “aim at truth.”3 Consequently, epistemic obligations have to do with connecting our beliefs with or reflecting the truth—to be in an appropriate relation to the truth. And if we are obligated to be in a particular doxastic state with regard to the truth, what is this appropriate relation? One can find the idea of epistemic obligations in William James, and before him notably in William Clifford. In James’ discussion of epistemic imperatives, he affirms the obligation to know the truth and avoid error.4 James sees Clifford before him as stressing the primacy of avoiding error. But James counsels that we need to keep both commandments. “Believe truth! Shun error!—these . . . are two materially different laws; and by choosing between them we may end by coloring differently our whole intellectual life. We may regard the chase for truth as paramount, and the avoidance of error as secondary; or we may, on the other hand, treat the avoidance of error as more imperative, and let truth take its chance.”5 For James the appeal of truth is so great that he is willing to risk error (“being duped”) in order that he may believe the truth. Risking error and believing the truth are not two sides of the same coin, but two different things. By avoiding error we are not thereby believing the truth, and by not believing the truth we are not thereby avoiding error. Further, it is not that we do one rather than the other, but that we both avoid error and believe the truth in ways that result in epistemic excellence. But exactly what is involved in doing both? What is the appropriate doxastic state with respect to true and false beliefs? Before we answer this question, it is important to note a significant difference between Clifford and James, a point that will become more important in chapter 4. Clifford’s injunction has less to do with believing the truth and avoiding error than with having sufficient evidence for one’s beliefs. “Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, Epistemic Obligations 31 we weaken our powers of self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence. . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”6 Clifford is an evidentialist when it comes to believing. James, on the other hand, while not rejecting evidence but affirming its role for what is amenable to evidential considerations, puts the epistemic obligation in terms of certain doxastic states of believing truth and avoiding error. In this chapter we will pursue the Jamesian quest, postponing our detailed consideration of Clifford and justification based on evidence to chapter 4. BELIEVING WHAT IS TRUE For the moment, let us focus on the obligation to believe what is true. The starting point in determining our epistemic obligations is that we have an obligation to believe true propositions . But this is ambiguous. One understanding would be that for any given proposition, if it is true then we are obligated to believe it.7 This is an unlikely interpretation of epistemic obligations...