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Varieties of epistemic instrumentalism

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Abstract

There exists a family of views concerning the foundations of epistemic normativity that all travel under the heading “epistemic instrumentalism”. These views are unified by their attempt to explain epistemic normativity in terms of instrumental normativity. Very roughly, they all say that we have reason to respond to truth-related considerations when forming and maintaining doxastic attitudes since regulating our doxastic attitudes in this way helps us satisfy our aims, interests, or goals. Thus, according to epistemic instrumentalists, truth-related considerations constitute reasons for belief, but they only do so because regulating our beliefs on their basis is an effective way to satisfy our ends. I will first try to clarify the question that epistemic instrumentalism is supposed to answer. I will then identify a plausible normative commitment and show that the main varieties of epistemic instrumentalism fail to vindicate it. I will conclude by arguing that this provides us with prima facie grounds for rejecting epistemic instrumentalism.

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Notes

  1. I’ll have more to say about this question below (Sect. 1.3).

  2. I do not mean to suggest that taking on a goal suffices to generate a normative requirement to carry out the means necessary for realizing that goal. Agents can, after all, adopt bad goals. Someone might have the goal of stealing a large sum of money from their neighbor. In such a case we do not want to say that the agent ought to, say, break into their neighbor’s house. All I mean to suggest here is that there are some normative requirements whose authority over us depends upon the aims or goals that we have adopted. This does, however, introduce a worry concerning the instrumentalist’s explanatory ambitions. If agents can adopt bad goals then it would seem that there needs to be some non-instrumentalist normative principle(s) guiding goal adoption itself (for an argument along these lines see: Korsgaard 1997). Moreover, these supplemental normative principles may not be as unproblematic vis-à-vis philosophical naturalism as the instrumental principle seems to be (I will say more about this below). While this may be true, I do not think it poses a serious problem for the present inquiry. First, as we will see below (Sect. 4), there are versions of epistemic instrumentalism that do not make appeal to particular goals had by agents. Rather, such views appeal to the fact that we have any goals at all. Thus, such views do not risk grounding epistemic normativity in a particular goal that is itself suspect (like the above goal of stealing a large sum of money from a neighbor). Second, for instrumentalist views that do make appeal to a particular goal, the goal in question is usually a “cognitive” goal, i.e. one that involves acquiring true beliefs and avoiding false beliefs (views of this kind will be considered in Sects. 23). It seems unlikely that such a goal would run afoul of further, non-instrumentalist, normative principles (e.g. those of morality). Thus, even if there are non-instrumentalist normative principles, the proponent of epistemic instrumentalism can still claim victory insofar as she has shown that an agent’s epistemic reasons are contingent upon the adoption and retention of a particular cognitive goal.

  3. There is another way of unpacking the claim that beliefs “aim” at truth which says that, insofar as an agent is deliberating about whether or not to believe p, that agent has the intentional, personal-level goal of believing p if and only if p is true. In other words, the activity of conscious belief formation has this truth-oriented aim as its “constitutive” aim or goal. Given that the goal in question is an intentional, personal-level goal had by an agent, I would count such a view as a version of instrumentalism. However, such a view seems ill-equipped to answer the explanatory question. First, most of our beliefs are not formed via explicit deliberation. Nevertheless, truth-related considerations can sometimes constitute reasons for or against such beliefs. Second, it seems that truth-related considerations can constitute reasons for us to take on beliefs that we don’t already possess. Such beliefs may pertain to issues that we haven’t deliberated about and do not plan to deliberate about. For a criticism of various attempts to utilize “constitutivist” strategies to explain epistemic normativity see: Côté-Bouchard (2016). For a criticism of a defense of epistemic instrumentalism that makes appeal to the personal-level version of the “aim of belief” thesis see: Côté-Bouchard (2015, Sect. 4).

  4. This example is offered by Kelly (2007) in response to Leite’s (2007) reply to Kelly’s (2003).

  5. The support relation described here is sometimes described as an “evidential” support relation. I will thus use ‘evidence’ and ‘truth-related considerations’ interchangeably.

  6. Normative reasons are often characterized as considerations that, in some objective sense, “count in favor of” actions or attitudes. They are frequently contrasted with “motivating” reasons, i.e. the reasons for which an agent adopted an attitude or carried out an action. Much of the focus on normative reasons in the metanormative literature is motivated by commitment to what is known as the “reasons-first” program. According to this program, the concept of a normative reason is the most basic or central normative concept. It is then a further question whether or not the concept of a normative reason can itself be analyzed or reduced; a question that reasons-firsters themselves disagree about. Nevertheless, the “reasons-first” program has recently been subject to a number of criticisms. I won’t survey this literature here, but for some recent critical discussion see: Howard (2019) and Wedgwood (2015).

  7. For instance, Maguire (2018) argue that the kind of normative support for affective attitudes (e.g. attitudes such as admiration, fear, envy, and relief) should not be understood in terms of normative reasons, but rather in terms of facts that make such attitudes “fitting”.

  8. Note that the existence of normative support for some action performed or attitude adopted is insufficient to justify an agent in her performance of the action or adoption of the attitude. The agent must also connect her action or attitude with the relevant support in some way, e.g. by “basing” her attitude on that support.

  9. One could argue that the “strangeness” here is actually traceable to a conceptual confusion on the part of the first agent. For instance, one could say that beliefs just are those attitudes that should be regulated on the basis of truth-related considerations; the latter, in other words, is “constitutive” of the attitude of belief. I do not mean to rule this out at this juncture. The point to emphasize here is that, as I have mentioned, the constituitivst must argue for this claim. The question posed by the interlocutor may be strange, but strangeness doesn’t suffice to establish conceptual error. Also, even if beliefs do have a constitutive standard of correctness that is truth-involving, that claim, in and of itself, doesn’t seem to help us with the question of when and why we should form that attitude, so understood, in any particular instance.

  10. I am here assuming a cognitivist view about normative judgments. However, I mean to beg no questions against the non-cognitivist. It seems that the very move to non-cognitivism is often motivated by the thought that cognitivist realism vis-à-vis a certain class of normative judgments is not naturalistically acceptable. However, epistemic instrumentalism seeks to offer a naturalistically acceptable account of judgements concerning our epistemic reasons for belief. We should thus first assess the view on its own merits. If we find that the view is not tenable, we can then proceed to consider alternative ways of understanding judgments concerning our epistemic reasons for belief.

  11. So, for instance, Cowie (2014) describes epistemic instrumentalism as a view about the “explanatory grounds” of epistemic normativity, i.e. as a view which provides “an explanation of what it is in virtue of which there is reason to believe in accordance with one’s evidence” (p. 4004). Cowie follows Schroeder (2007) in offering aims, interests, and goals not as justifying considerations, but rather as “background conditions”, i.e. as conditions for the existence of normative reasons which occupy some role in a metaphysical explanation. Sharadin (2018) similarly describes epistemic instrumentalism as a view that “explains why facts about what is evidence for what constitute, or ground, facts about what we have reason to believe.” (p. 3792).

  12. This is sometimes presented as the “too few reasons” objection to epistemic instrumentalism. For discussion see: Côté-Bouchard (2015), Sharadin (2018) and Steglich-Petersen (2018).

  13. I borrow the term “warranting reason” from Abramson and Leite (2017).

  14. Here I differ from Steglich-Petersen (2018) who construes epistemic norms as guaranteeing nothing more than permissibility.

  15. This is not to say that there aren’t circumstances where adopting a certain belief is required. Perhaps a doctor who is aware of the connection between Koplik spots and measles and is presented with a patient with Koplik spots is required to believe that the patient has measles. In such a case there may be moral or professional reasons that obligate belief. It is a further question whether or not moral or professional reasons can themselves be understood instrumentally. Here I am concerned exclusively with instrumentalism about epistemic normativity (see note 2 above).

  16. A note of clarification regarding the connection between Evidence Norm and the concept of epistemic rationality. This norm does not imply that an agent is irrational if she possesses strong, undefeated, evidence for p but nevertheless does not believe p (although there may be cases where such an agent is irrational, e.g. when she consciously entertains the question whether p and considers the evidence). However, given the notion of a “warranting” reason, the norm does imply that any time an agent does form a belief on the basis of undefeated evidence, that belief is “rational” in the sense that it is based on good reasons. Whether or not this is compatible with an instrumentalist conception of epistemic rationality will depend on whether believing in this way always furthers some goal(s) had by the agent. I will argue below (Sects. 2, 4, and 5) that it is not plausible that it does.

  17. One might worry that this norm actually does not track our commonsense normative commitments, and that some other evidence norm should be used as a test for extensional adequacy. I’ll return to this issue below (Sect. 6).

  18. My division of the instrumentalist position into these four groups is partly influenced by: Kornblith (2002, Chapter 5). I diverge with Kornblith only when it comes to the fourth variety of instrumentalism; a version which has only recently been articulated and defended. Also, Lockard (2013) is sensitive to a distinction between “intellectualist” and “pragmatist” forms of epistemic instrumentalism. However, Lockard does not distinguish between different versions of “intellectualist” epistemic instrumentalism. The versions of epistemic instrumentalism considered in Sects. 23 below count as “intellectualist” by Lockard’s criteria, while the version considered in Sect. 4 counts as “pragmatist”.

  19. Unless noted otherwise, from here on out I will be concerned with the metanormative interpretation of the explanatory question in its refined form: For any given case where a truth-related consideration C constitutes a reason for S to believe p, why does C do so?

  20. Kelly doesn’t explicitly specify the precise form of normative support he has in mind when speaking of epistemic “reasons” for belief. He appeals to observations about our “ordinary thought and talk” (p. 621) about epistemic reasons and concludes that we do not treat epistemic reasons as “hypothetical” reasons; i.e. as reasons that depend upon possession of certain goals and interests. For the purposes of bringing Kelly into dialogue with the way I’ve set things out here, I suggest we understand Kelly’s observations as expressing commitment to something like Evidence Norm. I don’t propose this as a reading of Kelly (in fact I think Kelly is committed to something stronger than Evidence Norm), but rather as a way of showing that the variety of instrumentalism that Kelly is concerned with could be offered in an attempt to answer the explanatory question while also vindicating Evidence Norm.

  21. Kelly (2003, p. 621).

  22. This is, of course, an empirical question at the end of the day, but the claim that all individuals possess such a goal is clearly doubtful. Hilary Kornblith, an avowed instrumentalist, puts the point nicely: “It is important to note…that any attempt to gain universal applicability by appeal to goals that all humans in fact have will almost certainly run afoul of the facts. Human beings are a very diverse lot; some of us are quite strange. It is hard to imagine making a plausible case for any particular goal or activity that is genuinely universally valued.” Kornblith (2002, p. 150).

  23. Kelly (2003, p. 625).

  24. I am not aware of anyone who has defended this version of epistemic instrumentalism. However, Kate Manne has defended a view about practical reasons that bears some resemblance to this approach (Manne 2016). According to Manne’s “democratized” Humean position, an agent’s reasons for action may be explained by the desires had by individuals other than that agent herself.

  25. I will return to this issue momentarily.

  26. This is not to say that there aren’t cases where S has a reason to φ in virtue of the fact that φ-ing would further the goals of someone else. This can happen when S stands in some kind of special relation to this other agent (e.g. as friend, spouse, co-worker, etc.). Even when S bears no special relation to this other agent (except, perhaps, as co-member of the moral community), there may be cases where S has reason to φ in virtue of the fact that φ-ing would further this person’s goals, e.g. when S can save this person’s life with minimal effort and without putting herself in danger. One way of developing the view currently under discussion would be to appeal to the norms that are binding on us insofar as we are members of epistemic communities. As members of such communities, we stand as potential testifiers and informants for others on a wide range of topics and issues. Given this, one could try to argue that the agent in my example does have a (warranting) reason to believe p when she possesses evidence that supports the truth of p even though she has no interest in the truth of p. The explanation for this would be that, even though she lacks interest in the truth of p, there is someone else in her community who is interested in p’s truth, and given that S stands as a potential informant for this person regarding p, she thereby has a warranting reason to believe p. In response to this line of thought I would like to offer two points. First, it’s still unclear why the above considerations generate a warranting reason for S to believe p in the case at hand. Even if there is someone in S’s community who harbors the (rather idiosyncratic) cognitive goal of attaining any truth whatsoever, why does S have reason to facilitate satisfaction of this goal? Our standing as potential testifiers might generate epistemic reasons for belief that outstrip our personal aims, interests, and goals, but why do such considerations generate reason to believe any proposition whose truth someone else just so happens to be interested in? Second, and I think more to the point in the present context, the above proposal will only work as a defense of “other agents + cognitive goal” if someone else in the community actually does take on the unrestricted cognitive goal of believing any truth whatsoever. Absent this goal the explanation will not work; the requisite explanans will not exist. As I will argue momentarily (and as Kelly has argued), it’s unlikely that anyone actually holds the unrestricted goal to believe any truth whatsoever. Thank you to an anonymous reviewer for requesting clarification on this point.

  27. What makes an agent’s motivational structure “undistorted” will also vary depending on the particular view. The locus classicus for views in this neighborhood is perhaps Brandt (1979). According to Brandt, some consideration constitutes a reason for some subject to φ only if φ-ing would promote a goal or desire that this subject would have after undergoing cognitive psychotherapy. Thus, on Brandt’s view, an idealized agent’s motivational structure counts as “undistorted” in virtue of having survived cognitive psychotherapy.

  28. Kornblith (2002, Chapter 5).

  29. I say Kornblith-inspired here in order to make clear that I do not attribute to Kornblith himself the intention of utilizing his instrumentalist position to answer the kind of question that I have organized this discussion around.

  30. One might worry that, given that this agent is like the rest of us vis-à-vis the amount of control she exercises over her doxastic life, the more restricted evidential norm actually would not best serve her interests (thanks to an anonymous reviewer for raising this objection). The underlying idea here seems to be that a norm can’t best serve the interests of some agent if conforming to that norm is not possible for the agent. This does not, however, undermine the present argument. Conformity to the more restricted evidential norm clearly is possible; one conforms to it whenever one forms a belief on the basis of evidence that pertains to a matter of prior interest, a common enough occurrence. In order to undermine the argument one must hold that a norm can’t best serve the interests of some agent if flouting that norm is unavoidable for the agent. However, first, it’s not obvious that flouting the more restricted evidential norm is unavoidable. For instance, we can imagine that the agent in my example is particularly adept at avoiding evidence about matters that aren’t of interest. Second, even if it is the case that, given this agent’s constitution and overall evidential situation, running afoul of the more restricted evidential norm is likely, it doesn’t seem to follow from this that adopting and following some other norm would better serve her interests. Perhaps there are certain occasions where, despite her best efforts, this agent forms a belief on the basis of evidence that pertains to a matter that isn’t of interest. Nevertheless, it still seems possible that the restricted evidential norm could, by and large and on the whole, serve her interests better than any alternative.

  31. Kornblith (2002, p. 150).

  32. This example is given by Kelly (2003).

  33. Taylor and Brown (1988, p. 197).

  34. Côté-Bouchard (2015, pp. 350–51).

  35. Thanks to two anonymous reviewers for pressing me to say more about this possibility.

  36. This strategy is suggested by William Alston (2005) where he argues that the fundamental epistemic goal is to “acquire true rather than false beliefs about matters that are of interest or importance to us.” (p. 29).

  37. Versions of this strategy are pursued in Olson (2014) and Leite (2007).

  38. See Paakkunainen (2018) for a very helpful critical discussion of the appeal to the distinction between “genuinely” and not “genuinely” normative reasons in the epistemic domain. I am in agreement with Paakkunainen that the distinction lacks motivation in this domain “beyond the ad hoc motivation of salvaging instrumentalist or teleologist views from counterexamples.” (p. 123).

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Adam Leite for helpful comments and discussion on several previous drafts. Many thanks also to the following individuals for helpful feedback and suggestions: Kate Abramson, Gary Ebbs, Jim Hutchinson, Daniel Linsenbardt, Kirk Ludwig, Sean Murphy, Kirsten Pickering, Andrew Smith, Levi Tenen and Ivan Verano.

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Buckley, D. Varieties of epistemic instrumentalism. Synthese 198, 9293–9313 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02634-y

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