The Epistemic vs. The Practical

This chapter defends a Dualism of Theoretical and Practical Reason: what we epistemically ought to believe and what we practically ought to believe may come apart, and both are independently authoritative. In particular, I argue that it’s not the case that epistemic reasons bear on what we ‘just plain ought’ to believe just to the extent we have practical reason to believe epistemically correctly. Why? Because epistemic reasons give rise to authoritative demands independently of the practical pay-off of believing accordingly, as shown by the fact that it can be fitting to epistemically ‘blame’ us just because we fail to believe as we epistemically ought, even if we don’t have sufficient practical reason to believe so. The chapter also argues that we don’t need to come up with what we ‘just plain ought’ to believe, among other things because contrary responsibility responses can be simultaneously fitting in conflict cases.