Axiological non-evidentialism

null, Dr Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen (Yonsei University)

The core idea behind non-evidentialist responses to scepticism is that acceptance of anti-sceptical hypotheses (e.g., I’m not a brain-in-vat) enjoy a positive epistemic standing without evidence. The aim of this talk is to introduce and discuss two fundamental issues concerning non-evidentialism: the question of value and the issue of generosity.

One major issue confronting non-evidentialists is that it remains unclear how, in the absence of evidence, acceptance of anti-sceptical hypotheses can enjoy a positive epistemic standing. I suggest that this issue is linked to a fundamental question of value: it is unclear how acceptance of anti-sceptical hypotheses can enjoy a positive epistemic standing because it is unclear how such acceptance can be epistemically good. I address the question of value by introducing a pluralist axiology for non-evidentialism. The axiology incorporates two dual epistemic goals: attain truth and avoid error, and attain meta-cognitive coherence and avoid meta-cognitive incoherence. Meta-cognitive coherence is a certain higher-order epistemic good that is realized when a subject can coherently regard beliefs as warranted. I suggest that meta-cognitive coherence is a natural epistemic good to embrace given the kind of higher-order conception of scepticism that some non-evidentialists buy into (including, e.g., Crispin Wright). Taking on board meta-cognitive coherence as an epistemic good puts the non-evidentialist in a position to address the issue of value: accepting anti-sceptical hypotheses is epistemically good because it promotes meta-cognitive coherence. 

The issue of generosity emerges because the non-evidentialist account appears to apply to pairs of incompatible propositions—including, e.g., anti-scepticial hypotheses and their negations. If so,  non-evidentialist epistemology might be thought too indiscriminate and too generous. I argue that there is a certain sense in which non-evidentialism is generous but, likewise, that this is not surprising. My argument is based on considerations concerning key features of meta-cognitive coherence and the idea that it goes naturally with a form of epistemic relativism.