Recent Work on the Normativity of Belief

Belief, some say, is normative. To say this is to say, not only that beliefs are subject to normative standards or principles, but that it is part of the essence of belief to be subject to such norms. Call this view, Normativism. Normativism, so characterised, should be distinguished from three related claims. First, that it is part of the concept of belief that it is subject to normative standards or principles. This is not entailed by Normativism, as characterised here. (Compare: it is part of the essence of water, but not part of the concept of water, that water is H 2 O.) Nonetheless, many Normativists accept this further claim. Second, that it is part of what it is to be a belief that it satisfy (or go some way toward satisfying) certain norms. Some make this claim but it is stronger than what we are here calling Normativism, which speaks of subjection not satisfaction. Some opponents of Normativism point out that failure to satisfy candidate norms for belief is widespread (cf. Rey 2007). This might undermine the stronger claim but it does not undermine Normativism as such. Third, Normativism as such is not committed to any specific claim about which norm(s) govern belief. The most common proposal is that belief is essentially subject to a norm of truth (Boghossian 2008; Littlejohn 2012; Millar 1994; Shah and Velleman 2005; Whiting 2010). There are various suggestions for how to formulate this norm but the idea, roughly, is that one ought to believe only what is true. Alternative proposals include that belief is governed by a knowledge norm (Engel 2004; Smithies 2012; Williamson 2000), an evidential norm (Adler 2006), or norms of rationality (Zangwill 2005), such as consistency requirements. Some adopt an inclusive position and suggest that a version of some or all of the proposed norms hold. Wedgwood (2002), for example, takes the fundamental norm to be one of truth, and takes norms of rationality and knowledge to hold as a consequence. In this survey, we will not seek to resolve this internal dispute among Normativists. For the most part, we will refer to norms of truth, indicating alternatives only when it makes a difference to the arguments. 1