Higher-Order Defeat and Evincibility

One of the ambitions of the past decades of epistemology has been to accommodate the view that ‘higher-order evidence’ that a belief one holds is rationally flawed has a systematic kind of defeating force with respect to that belief. Such a view is committed to two claims. First, it is possible to acquire misleading evidence about the normative status of one’s doxastic states: even if one’s belief is perfectly rational, one might acquire deeply misleading evidence that it is irrational. Second, such evidence has defeating force with respect to the belief, zapping its rational status. My aim is to do two things. First, I outline a view I call normative evincibility, according to which one always has a kind of epistemic access – access that can come in different strengths – to the normative status of one’s doxastic states (intentions, actions, etc.). I show how commitment to higher-order defeat in effect incurs a commitment to a form of normative evincibility. Second, I argue that the idea that it is possible to acquire misleading evidence about the normative status of one’s doxastic states is in tension with evincibility. Hence, there is a deep tension inherent in views committed to a systematic phenomenon of defeat by higher-order evidence.