Epistemic Consequentialism and Epistemic Enkrasia

Summary: In this chapter I investigate what the epistemic consequentialist will say about epistemic enkrasia principles: principles that instruct one not to adopt a belief state that one takes to be irrational. I argue that a certain epistemic enkrasia principle for degrees of belief can be shown to maximize expected accuracy, and thus that a certain kind of epistemic consequentialist is committed to such a principle. But this is bad news for such an epistemic consequentialist because epistemic enkrasia principles are problematic.

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In this chapter I investigate what the epistemic consequentialist will say about epistemic enkrasia principles: principles that instruct one not to adopt a belief state that one takes to be irrational. I argue that a certain epistemic enkrasia principle for degrees of belief can be shown to maximize expected accuracy, and thus that a certain kind of epistemic consequentialist is committed to such a principle. But this is bad news for such an epistemic consequentialist because epistemic enkrasia principles are problematic.

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Recommended citation: Askell, Amanda. ‘Epistemic Consequentialism and Epistemic Enkrasia’. In Epistemic Consequentialism, edited by Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij and Jeff Dunn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.