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I don& #39;t like the epistemic value literature. A rant! https://twitter.com/cecilymwhiteley/status/1252188625028231168">https://twitter.com/cecilymwh...
Too little of this discussion reflects the difficulty of trying to make sense of what people are talking about when they use words like & #39;good& #39;, & #39;better& #39;, & #39;best& #39;. Are we talking about good simpliciter? The thinker& #39;s good? Attributive goodness? Something else? Doesn& #39;t say? Delete.
Too much of the discussion assumes that each true belief realises something & #39;good& #39; and that this whatever it is might be increased if a belief is also knowledge. But this is silly. We have little reason to believe that such beliefs realise any additional good not had by credences
Moreover, the std explanation as to why such beliefs realise a good is that they& #39;re accurate, but this is something they share in common with non-doxastic states (according to the standard phil of mind), so no story about the distinctive value of belief...
... unless we identify some good making feature that beliefs have that these other states of mind wouldn& #39;t have. And that feature would, by hypothesis, not be accuracy. So, the explanations of the dodgy explanantes are just poor.
My favourite flaw in this lit though is this. I once asked one of the prominent contributors to this debate whether the beliefs we form if we& #39;re in Nozick& #39;s experience machine might realise the relevant good if true.
No, he said. Oh, so what& #39;s the good? Having the truth? Yes, he said. Oh, and what& #39;s having the truth? Is it knowing? Possibly, they said. Well, that& #39;s why I& #39;m not a veritist and that& #39;s one reason it& #39;s a bit silly to work on a & #39;problem& #39; built on the assumption of veritism.
If even the most basic parameters of the problem aren& #39;t at all understood, maybe we don& #39;t need endless papers on the n-ary value problems.
Having said that... I also feel badly because as a referee, I feel some obligation to help papers on this topic find their way into a journal because I feel the obligation to suppress my scepticism about the whole discussion. (I try to quiet my non-std opinions.) So, it goes on.
