A Counterexample to Epistemic Uniqueness?
Can a body of evidence ever permit one to take different rational attitudes toward a proposition (belief, disbelief, agnosticism)? Epistemic Uniqueness says 'no.' Roughly, it goes like this:
Epistemic Permissivists disagree. According to Permissivism, in some cases, one's total evidence permits different rational attitudes toward P.
In a recent Paper, Matthew Kopec defends the following counterexample to Uniqueness (the following is an adaptation of Titelbaum's presentation of the counterexample). Suppose God reveals himself to you and tells you this: "If you believe it will rain tomorrow, I'll guarantee that it rains. On the other hand, if you believe it won't rain tomorrow, I'll guarantee that it won't rain." So you've just learned (from God!) that whether you believe "it will rain tomorrow" or whether you disbelieve it, your belief will be true (it's not clear what will happen if you suspend belief about it). Intuitively, your total evidence permits you to believe the relevant P or disbelieve it (or remain agnostic, I guess). How could it be irrational to believe something (or disbelieve it) when you know that your belief (or disbelief) is guaranteed to be right? And it seems like both doxastic attitudes are open to you. What could make it epistemically rational to, say, believe rather than disbelieve? So it seems like you're total evidence permits different rational attitudes. But this result is incompatible with Uniqueness. Hence, Uniqueness must be false.
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Kopec, "A Counterexample to the Uniqueness Thesis."
Titelbaum, "The Uniqueness Thesis."
- Epistemic Uniqueness: for any body of evidence, E, and any proposition, P, E permits at most one rational attitude toward P (i.e., given E, it is either rational to believe P, disbelieve P, or suspend judgment about P, but not more than one).
Epistemic Permissivists disagree. According to Permissivism, in some cases, one's total evidence permits different rational attitudes toward P.
In a recent Paper, Matthew Kopec defends the following counterexample to Uniqueness (the following is an adaptation of Titelbaum's presentation of the counterexample). Suppose God reveals himself to you and tells you this: "If you believe it will rain tomorrow, I'll guarantee that it rains. On the other hand, if you believe it won't rain tomorrow, I'll guarantee that it won't rain." So you've just learned (from God!) that whether you believe "it will rain tomorrow" or whether you disbelieve it, your belief will be true (it's not clear what will happen if you suspend belief about it). Intuitively, your total evidence permits you to believe the relevant P or disbelieve it (or remain agnostic, I guess). How could it be irrational to believe something (or disbelieve it) when you know that your belief (or disbelief) is guaranteed to be right? And it seems like both doxastic attitudes are open to you. What could make it epistemically rational to, say, believe rather than disbelieve? So it seems like you're total evidence permits different rational attitudes. But this result is incompatible with Uniqueness. Hence, Uniqueness must be false.
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Kopec, "A Counterexample to the Uniqueness Thesis."
Titelbaum, "The Uniqueness Thesis."
There is some evidence which is suppressed in this example. There are only a limited amount of desires that I can have about it raining tomorrow. I can desire no rain, rain all day, or a partially rainy day. If I desire no rain and know my belief determine if it will rain or not, then my evidence is that it will not rain. If I desire rain and know my belief determines if it will rain or not, then my evidence is that it will rain. If I am not sure if I want it to rain, then I should not be sure if it will rain or not. Perhaps there is a way to strengthen the example to get around this objection, but I am not sure how to do that.
ReplyDeleteWhat if I don't have any preferences (or can't discern what they are)? Nonetheless, I decide to flip a coin and believe "it will rain" if the coin lands heads. In that case, no other facts about how my attitudes might lead me to believe are relevant. I could have believed differently, even though, as luck would have it, I end up believing in accordance with the coin flip. But an alternative landing of the coin would have permitted a different belief-state, or so Kopec would say, I imagine. The point is this: believing in accord with the coin flip seems to exclude any "hidden" evidential factors from creeping into the case. No?
DeleteI agree that flipping a coin would exclude any hidden evidential factors such as desire. In the case of no preferences, it seems to me that Persons S would have to suspend judgement. If Person S decides what to believe based off a coin flip, then it is 50/50, thus must also suspend judgement. (If he is committed to following through with the consequence of the coin flip).
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