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Why There May Be Epistemic Duties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2014

SCOTT STAPLEFORD
SCOTT STAPLEFORD*
Affiliation:
St. Thomas University
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Abstract

Chase Wrenn argues that there are no epistemic duties. When it appears that we have an epistemic duty to believe, disbelieve or suspend judgement about some proposition P, we are really under a moral obligation to adopt the attitude towards P that our evidence favours. The argument appeals to theoretical parsimony: our conceptual scheme will be simpler without epistemic duties and we should therefore drop them. I argue that Wrenn’s strategy is flawed. There may well be things that we ought to do on epistemic grounds alone.

Selon Chase Wrenn, il n’existe aucun devoir épistémique. En apparence, certes, nous avons le devoir épistémique de croire, de ne pas croire ou de suspendre notre jugement eu égard à une proposition P. Pourtant, en réalité, notre devoir moral consiste à adopter face à P l’attitude appropriée en fonction des preuves qui nous sont présentées. L’argument s’appuie sur le principe de parcimonie théorique: notre schéma conceptuel serait plus simple sans la notion de devoir épistémique et pour cette raison nous ne devrions pas y avoir recours. Dans ce texte, je montre que la stratégie de Wrenn est erronée. Il pourrait s’avérer qu’il y ait des choses que nous devrions faire uniquement sur une base épistémique.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 63 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2015 

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