Matthew Vermaire: "The Non-Ethics of Belief"

Matthew Vermaire, FAU Erlangen: "The Non-Ethics of Belief"

Abstract
It’s commonly supposed that epistemology can be understood in close structural parallel with ethics: as ethics is about what (one ought) to do, epistemology is about what (one ought) to believe. In this paper I show that there is an important limit to such parallelisms. In reasoning to belief, agents are concerned not primarily with questions about belief itself, but with questions of what is the case. Recognizing this undermines some common parallelisms between belief and action, while suggesting others, in ways that can reorganize and clarify epistemological discussions. In particular, I argue here, it allows us to better understand involuntarism about belief, and to see how involuntary believing could nevertheless be the site of personal activity and rationality.