Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:25:44.794Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Are There Any Epistemic Consequentialists?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2020

Tsung-Hsing Ho*
Affiliation:
National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Selim Berker argues (1) that epistemic consequentialism is pervasive in epistemology and (2) that epistemic consequentialism is structurally flawed. (1) is incorrect, however. I distinguish between epistemic consequentialism and epistemic instrumentalism and argue that most putative consequentialists should be considered instrumentalists. I also identify the structural problem of epistemic consequentialism Berker attempts to pinpoint and show that epistemic instrumentalism does not have the consequentialist problem.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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

Ahlstrom-Vij, K. and Dunn, J. (2014). ‘A Defence of Epistemic Consequentialism.’ Philosophical Quarterly 64(257), 541–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alston, W.P. (2005). Beyond Justification: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Berker, S. (2013 a). ‘Epistemic Teleology and the Separateness of Propositions.’ Philosophical Review 122(3), 337–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berker, S. (2013 b). ‘The Rejection of Epistemic Consequentialism.’ Philosophical Issues 23(1), 363–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berker, S. (2015). ‘Reply to Goldman: Cutting Up the One to Save the Five in Epistemology.’ Episteme 12(2), 145–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonjour, L. (1985). The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bonjour, L. and Sosa, E. (2003). Epistemic Justification: Internalism vs. Externalism, Foundations vs. Virtues. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
David, M. (2001). ‘Truth as the Epistemic Goal.’ In Steup, M. (ed.), Knowledge, Truth, and Duty: Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility, and Virtue, pp. 151–69. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driver, J. (2018). ‘The ‘Consequentialism’ in ‘Epistemic Consequentialism’.’ In Ahlstrom-Vij, K. and Dunn, J. (eds), Epistemic Consequentialism, pp. 113–22. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dunn, J. and Ahlstrom-Vij, K. (2017). ‘Is Reliabilism a Form of Consequentialism?’ American Philosophical Quarterly 54(2), 183–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Firth, R. (1998). In Defense of Radical Empiricism: Essays and Lectures. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Goldman, A.I. (1979). ‘What is Justified Belief?’ In Pappas, G. (ed.), Justification and Knowledge, pp. 123. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Goldman, A.I. (1986). Epistemology and Cognition. Vol. 98. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, A.I. (2002). Pathways to Knowledge: Private and Public. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A.I. (2015). ‘Reliabilism, Veritism, and Epistemic Consequentialism.’ Episteme 12(2), 131–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greaves, H. (2013). ‘Epistemic Decision Theory.’ Mind 122(488), 915–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greco, J. (1999). ‘Agent Reliabilism.’ Philosophical Perspectives 13, 273–96.Google Scholar
Hurka, T. (2001). Virtue, Vice, and Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, C.S. (2007). ‘Entitlement and Rationality.’ Synthese 157(1), 2545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Littlejohn, C. (2012). Justification and the Truth-Connection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettigrew, R. (2018). ‘Making Things Right: The True Consequences of Decision Theory in Epistemology.’ In Ahlstrom-Vij, K. and Dunn, J. (eds), Epistemic Consequentialism, pp. 220–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Piller, C. (2016). ‘How to Overstretch the Ethics-Epistemology Analogy: Berker's Critique of Epistemic Consequentialism.’ In Schmechtig, P. and Grajner, M. (eds), Epistemic Reasons, Norms and Goals, pp. 307–22. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plantinga, A. (1993). Warrant and Proper Function. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rønnow-Rasmussen, T. (2002). ‘Instrumental Values – Strong and Weak.’ Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 5(1), 2343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, D.J. (2018). ‘How to be an Epistemic Consequentialist.’ Philosophical Quarterly 68(272), 580602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sylvan, K. (2018). ‘Veritism Unswamped.’ Mind 127(506), 381435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sylvan, K.L. (2020). ‘Reliabilism Without Epistemic Consequentialism.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100(3), 525–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar