Choosing for Practical Reasons

Suppose that instead of choosing S1 for no reason at all, Sally chose S1 on practical or non-epistemic grounds. One possible type of practical consideration may be the stakes at hand. The views that I am alluding to are called contextualism33 and subject sensitive invariantism. On the contextualist account, whether an agent’s belief is justified depends on the context of the assessor. For instance, the question whether Sally’s belief that P is justified depends on whether the person making the assessment of Sally’s rationality is Susan or some other person Mark. Subject sensitive invariantism is the view that the question of whether an agent’s belief is justified depends on the context of that agent. Hence, the question of whether a belief that P is justified for Sally depends on Sally’s context. These views have been advanced primarily as a reply to sceptical worries raised by the possibility of evil demons, ‘brains in vats’ and painted donkeys. The thought here is that in the philosophy classroom, we have to take seriously the possibility that an evil demon is deceiving us about the external world and hence are not justified in our beliefs about the external world. However, outside the philosophy classroom, our context changes and we are justified in our ordinary everyday beliefs. While most of such attempts are targeted at knowledge, some recent versions of contextualism or subject sensitivity (Hambourger 1987; Wedgwood 2008; Davis 2015) are about justified belief. A further distinction is between intellectualist versions in which the context of justification or knowledge attribution is determined by which alternatives are made salient in the conversation, and more pragmatist versions where the context of justification is determined by the practical

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stakes at issue. For instance, Hambourger (1987) argues that that we are justified in asserting or believing that P, if we can prudently neglect the possibility of being wrong. Thus, generally when the consequences of being wrong are more severe, it would be prudent to neglect that possibility only if the probability of being wrong was really low. That is to say, that degree of evidential support required to justify belief is very high. Similarly if being wrong is of little consequence, then it would be prudent to neglect this possibility even if there was some significant probability of being wrong. Therefore, the amount of evidence needed to justify belief is proportionally lower.

To see why, the following two cases can be compared34. The first one is called Low Stakes.

Low Stakes: I wish to deposit a cheque, but there is no particular urgency with which I need to do so. I consider going to the bank today. My largely reliable but still imperfect memory tells me that the bank closes at 8pm tonight. On the basis of my recollection, I believe that the bank closes at 8pm tonight.

Contrast this with the next case which I shall refer to as High Stakes:

High Stakes: I wish to deposit a cheque, but I need the cheque to clear in the next 3 days. Therefore I need to deposit it before the bank closes today. My largely reliable but still imperfect memory tells me that the bank closes at 8pm tonight. On the basis of my recollection, I suspend judgment that the bank closes at 8pm tonight and check the internet again to confirm the opening hours.

Plausibly, the higher stakes in High Stakes rightly makes me more cautious about coming to a belief on the basis of my imperfect memory. To be clear, I am not arguing for contextualism. Rather, my aim is to sketch out an at least half-way plausible account according to which practical considerations can affect which epistemic standards an agent may permissibly apply. The thought here is that contextualism about justification might ground some version of permissivism. Practical stakes could affect the relative extents to which an agent values acquiring truths and avoiding falsehoods or her degree of epistemic risk aversion. For instance, if the consequences of acquiring a false belief about a proposition are particularly dire, but the benefits of getting it right are relatively mild, it might be

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more appropriate to have an epistemic standard which recommends suspending judgment given a body of evidence, than one which recommends belief in that proposition. As such, there might be practical stakes which give Sally reason to choose S1 over S2. Thus, Sally’s adoption of S1 here can be rationally permissible in the right circumstances.

In response to this argument, I shall make the following objection: If Sally’s practical reasons, together with the principles of rationality are sufficient for S1 to be a better standard for her than S2, then, she cannot permissibly adopt S2 rather than S1. To see why this would be the case, suppose Sally’s practical reasons, together with the principles of rationality gave her sufficient reason to adopt standard S1 and also gave her sufficient reason to adopt S2 instead. Then her choice of using S1 rather than S2 would be arbitrary in the same way that it would have been if she had no reason to adopt S1 at all. Her practical reasons and the principles of rationality together would still have been too weak to fix S1 as the best epistemic standard for Sally. As would have been the case if Sally had adopted S1 for no reason, adopting S1 when her practical reasons are indeterminate between S1 and S2 require her to go beyond any reasons she has available to her. In doing so, she may as well have flipped a coin or popped a pill. Hence her use of epistemic standard S1 is arbitrary and therefore irrational.

The only way this arbitrariness is avoided is if Sally’s practical reasons fix S1 as being best for her. Similarly, even if Susan’s practical reasons are different, the only way she can avoid the charge of arbitrariness in choosing S2 is if her practical reasons fix S2 for her. Note, however, if for each agent their practical reasons together with the principles of rationality fix which standard is appropriate for her, then more than one epistemic standard is not permissible for her. While this does not preclude all forms of permissivism, this does preclude versions of permissivism which are consistent with intrapersonal permissivism about standards. In the next chapter, I shall discuss versions of permissivism according to which for each agent, only one epistemic standard is rationally permissible.