Is belief evaluation truth sensitive? A reply to Turri

A key question about the value of truth in epistemology is whether the truthfulness of some proposition is (or should be) a factor in our evaluation of beliefs. The traditional view—evidenced in introductory texts (e.g., Moser et al. in The theory of knowledge. Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 77–79, 1998) and academic journals (e.g., Wedgwood in Philos Phenomenol Res 65(2):349–369, 2002, p. 350)—is that the truth of a belief should not impact our evaluations of it. Recent work has raised empirical objections to this default position of truth-insensitivity by suggesting that our ordinary belief evaluations assign considerable weight to the truth value of the believed proposition. If correct, this work grants truth a larger role in our epistemology—suggesting that it serves both as an element of our ordinary epistemic evaluations and as an intuitive norm for belief evaluation (Turri in Synthese 192(12):4009–4030, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0727-z, Philos Phenomenol Res 93(2):348–367, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12218). However, this position is not convincing. In this paper, I argue that this empirical work, while revelatory of some interesting features of belief evaluation, falls far short of demonstrating that belief evaluation is truth-sensitive, or that truth-sensitivity is intuitive.

Duke Scholars

Author Daniel Elliot Weissglass DKU Faculty