Rationality and epistemic paradox

Abstract

This paper provides a new solution to the epistemic paradox of ‘belief-instability’, a problem of rational choice which has recently received considerable attention (versions of the problem have been discussed by — among others — Tyler Burge, Earl Conee, and Roy Sorensen). The problem involves an ideally rational agent who has good reason to believe the truth of something of the form:

[A_p] p if and only if it is not the case that I accept or believe p.

Belief in the latter claim, so the problem runs, must render the agent unable to come to a stable, rationally defensible decision about whether to accept p itself, since each decision can in the event clearly be seen to be unwise. The solution defended in the present paper suggests that in its most serious form the problem beguilingly — but erroneously — assumes that rational agents are always allowed to assume their own rationality when deciding how they should choose.