Lecture 2

null, Matthew McGrath (University of Missouri, Columbia)

•Title: We Have Positive Epistemic Duties

•Date: 12/06

•Time: 14:30-16:30

•Abstract: This lecture examines evidence-uncritical claims about what people should or shouldn’t believe. It argues that in some cases, people should believe certain propositions. To put it more vividly: we sometimes have positive epistemic duties. This position runs contrary to a current trend within epistemology that sees normative epistemology as limited to issuing permissions and proscriptions and never giving us prescriptions. I argue that the acceptance of certain paradigm negative epistemic duties commits us to the existence of positive epistemic duties. Along the way, I argue for a second conclusion. Contrary to the popular view called evidentialism, what we should or shouldn’t believe (in the evidence-uncritical sense) is not merely a function of the evidence we have. It depends as well on our abilities and opportunities.