Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T00:08:44.695Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

CAN THE LOTTERY PARADOX BE SOLVED BY IDENTIFYING EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION WITH EPISTEMIC PERMISSIBILITY?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2018

Benjamin Kiesewetter
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Thomas Kroedel argues that the lottery paradox can be solved by identifying epistemic justification with epistemic permissibility rather than epistemic obligation. According to his permissibility solution, we are permitted to believe of each lottery ticket that it will lose, but since permissions do not agglomerate, it does not follow that we are permitted to have all of these beliefs together, and therefore it also does not follow that we are permitted to believe that all tickets will lose. I present two objections to this solution. First, even if justification itself amounts to no more than epistemic permissibility, the lottery paradox recurs at the level of doxastic obligations unless one adopts an extremely permissive view about suspension of belief that is in tension with our practice of doxastic criticism. Second, even if there are no obligations to believe lottery propositions, the permissibility solution fails because epistemic permissions typically agglomerate, and the lottery case provides no exception to this rule.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 241 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bedke, M. S. 2017. ‘Ends to Means.’ Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 12: 6–28.Google Scholar
Chuard, P. and Southwood, N. 2009. ‘Epistemic Norms without Voluntary Control.’ Noûs, 43: 599–632.Google Scholar
Eder, A.-M. A. 2015. ‘No Match Point for the Permissibility Account.’ Erkenntnis, 80: 657–73.Google Scholar
Fantl, J. and McGrath, M. 2002. ‘Evidence, Pragmatics, and Justification.’ Philosophical Review, 111: 67–94.Google Scholar
Foley, R. 1979. ‘Justified Inconsistent Beliefs.’ American Philosophical Quarterly, 16: 247–57.Google Scholar
Foley, R. 1987. The Theory of Epistemic Rationality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Foley, R. 1992. ‘The Epistemology of Belief and the Epistemology of Degrees of Belief.’ American Philosophical Quarterly, 29: 111–24.Google Scholar
Gertken, J. and Kiesewetter, B. 2017. ‘The Right and the Wrong Kind of Reasons.’ Philosophy Compass, 12: 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12412.Google Scholar
Gertken, J. and Kiesewetter, B. Ms. ‘Is There a Liberal Principle of Instrumental Transmission?’ Unpublished manuscript, Humboldt University of Berlin, March 2018.Google Scholar
Gibbard, A. 1990. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. A Theory of Normative Judgment. Oxford: Clarendon Paperbacks (repr. 2002).Google Scholar
Harman, G. 1986. Change in View. Principles of Reasoning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Heylen, J. 2016. ‘Being in a Position to Know and Closure.’ Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, 5: 63–7.Google Scholar
Huber, F. 2014. ‘What is the Permissibility Solution a Solution of? A Question for Kroedel.’ Logos & Episteme, 5: 333–42.Google Scholar
Kelly, T. 2002. ‘The Rationality of Belief and Some Other Propositional Attitudes.’ Philosophical Studies, 110: 163–96.Google Scholar
Kiesewetter, B. 2015. ‘Instrumental Normativity: In Defense of the Transmission Principle.’ Ethics, 125: 921–46.Google Scholar
Kiesewetter, B. 2017. The Normativity of Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Klein, P. 1985. ‘The Virtues of Inconsistency.’ The Monist, 68: 105–35.Google Scholar
Kolodny, N. 2005. ‘Why Be Rational?’ Mind, 114: 509–63.Google Scholar
Kolodny, N. Forthcoming. ‘Instrumental Reasons.’ In Star, D. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kroedel, T. 2012. ‘The Lottery Paradox, Epistemic Justification and Permissibility.’ Analysis, 72: 57–60.Google Scholar
Kroedel, T. 2013a. ‘The Permissibility Solution to the Lottery Paradox – Reply to Littlejohn.’ Logos & Episteme, 4: 103–11.Google Scholar
Kroedel, T. 2013b. ‘Why Epistemic Permissions Don't Agglomerate – Another Reply to Littlejohn.’ Logos & Episteme, 4: 451–5.Google Scholar
Kroedel, T. 2017. ‘The Lottery, the Preface, and Conditions on Permissible Belief.’ Erkenntnis. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-017-9911-5.Google Scholar
Kyburg, H. E. 1961. Probability and the Logic of Rational Belief. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Kyburg, H. E. 1970. ‘Conjunctivitis.’ In Swain, M. (ed.), Induction, Acceptance and Rational Belief, pp. 55–82. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Littlejohn, C. 2012. ‘Lotteries, Probabilities, and Permissions.’ Logos & Episteme, 3: 509–14.Google Scholar
Littlejohn, C. 2013. ‘Don't Know, Don't Believe: Reply to Kroedel.’ Logos & Episteme, 4: 231–8.Google Scholar
Makinson, D. C. 1965. ‘The Paradox of the Preface.’ Analysis, 25: 205–7.Google Scholar
Moran, R. 1988. ‘Making Up Your Mind.’ Ratio, 1: 135–51.Google Scholar
Nelkin, D. K. 2000. ‘The Lottery Paradox, Knowledge, and Rationality.’ Philosophical Review, 109: 373–409.Google Scholar
Nelson, M. T. 2010. ‘We Have No Positive Epistemic Duties.’ Mind, 119: 83–102.Google Scholar
Nozick, R. 1993. The Nature of Rationality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (repr. 1995).Google Scholar
Parfit, D. 2001. ‘Rationality and Reasons.’ In Egonsson, D., Josefsson, J., Petersson, B. and Rønnow-Rasmussen, T. (eds), Exploring Practical Philosophy: From Action to Values, pp. 17–39. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Parfit, D. 2011. On What Matters. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Piller, C. 2006. ‘Content-Related and Attitude-Related Reasons for Preferences.’ Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 81: 155–81.Google Scholar
Rinard, S. 2015. ‘Against the New Evidentialists.’ Philosophical Issues, 25: 208–23.Google Scholar
Rinard, S. 2017. ‘No Exception for Belief.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 94: 121–43.Google Scholar
Rosenkranz, S. 2016. ‘Being in a Position to Know and Closure: Reply to Heylen.’ Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, 5: 68–72.Google Scholar
Rosenkranz, S. 2017. ‘The Structure of Justification.’ Mind. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzw057.Google Scholar
Ryan, S. 1996. ‘The Epistemic Virtues of Consistency.’ Synthese, 109: 121–41.Google Scholar
Schroeder, M. 2012. ‘The Ubiquity of State-Given Reasons.’ Ethics, 122: 457–88.Google Scholar
Shah, N. 2006. ‘A New Argument for Evidentialism.’ Philosophical Quarterly, 56: 481–98.Google Scholar
Shah, N. and Silverstein, M. 2013. ‘Reasoning in Stages.’ Ethics, 124: 101–13.Google Scholar
Skorupski, J. 2007. ‘Buck-Passing about Goodness.’ In Rønnow-Rasmussen, T., Petersson, B., Josefsson, J. and Egonsson, D. (eds), Hommage à Wlodek: Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz, pp. 1–15. http://www.fil.lu.se/hommageawlodek/site/papper/SkorupskiJohn.pdf.Google Scholar
Skorupski, J. 2010. The Domain of Reasons. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Way, J. 2010. ‘Defending the Wide-Scope Approach to Instrumental Reason.’ Philosophical Studies, 147: 213–33.Google Scholar
Way, J. 2012. ‘Transmission and the Wrong Kind of Reason.’ Ethics, 122: 489–515.Google Scholar
Way, J. 2016. ‘Two Arguments for Evidentialism.’ Philosophical Quarterly, 66: 805–18.Google Scholar
Way, J. and Whiting, D.. 2016. ‘Reasons and Guidance (Or, Surprise Parties and Ice Cream).’ Analytic Philosophy, 57: 214–35.Google Scholar
Whiting, D. 2012. ‘Does Belief Aim (Only) at the Truth?’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 93: 279–300.Google Scholar