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

285 Pages·2012·0.83 MB·English

by  Bruce R. Reichenbach

B r u c e r. re i c h e nBa c h
e pi st e m i c
obl i g a t i o n s
T r u T h
in d i v i d ua l i s m

li m iTs
and the

B e l i e f
of
epistemic obligations
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epistemic obligations
Truth, Individualism, and the Limits of Belief
Bruce R. Reichenbach
Baylor University Press
© 2012 by Baylor University Press
Waco, Texas 76798-7363
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reichenbach, Bruce R.
Epistemic obligations : truth, individualism, and the limits of
belief / Bruce R. Reichenbach.
284 p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 263) and index.
ISBN 978-1-60258-623-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Responsibility. 2. Belief and doubt. 3. Epistemics. I. Title.
BJ1451.R45 2012
121’.6--dc23
2012007965
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper with a
minimum of 30% post-comsumer waste recycled content.
To my teachers, mentors, and colleagues
Stuart Hackett, Arthur Holmes, Henry Veatch,
Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, Larry Crockett,
and Melville Stewart
whose influence as Christian philosophers helped shape
the ways I think and sharpened my philosophical ideas.
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Contents
Preface ix
1 The Challenge of Epistemic Obligations 1
2 Epistemic Obligations 29
3 Grounds for Epistemic Obligations 51
4 Epistemic Obligations and Justification 85
5 Belief Voluntarism 115
6 Belief 175
7 Epistemic Obligations and Accountability 213
Notes 243
Bibliography 263
Index 269
vii
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Preface
The other day I attended the reading of a paper with col-
leagues from another department. The prediscussion
turned to the question framed by my writing project: do we
have a right to believe whatever we want? Without blinking
an eye, one colleague replied that of course we have the right
to believe whatever we wanted—so long as we do not hurt
anyone else. The response was not unlike that given by many
of my students when I posed the same question in class, and
it accorded with the prevalent do-no-harm utilitarian ethic
that predominates in popular culture.
When I followed up her response with the question
whether we had any obligations to believe the truth, she
immediately responded that there was no truth. Her response
piqued my curiosity. How, I wondered, did she grade her
multiple-choice tests? If a student put down an answer and
she marked it wrong, could not the student object to her
evaluation on the grounds that there is no truth? The stu-
dent, she replied, was under obligation to put down the
correct answer in the context of the test. Whatever my col-
league determined was correct was the answer to be placed
on the test, regardless of the fact that there was no true
ix