A permissivism you can rely on

Abstract

Standards permissivism claims that multiple agents can be equally rational in holding different doxastic attitudes to the same proposition while having the same evidence because of differences in their epistemic standards. I argue that a successful account of standards permissivism should meet two explanatory goals. First, it should explain how we can regard epistemic standards that lead to different doxastic attitudes from one’s own as no less expectedly accuracy-conducive overall. Second, it should explain why we have reason to stick to our own standards when we regard other rational standards as no less expectedly accuracy-conducive. I consider and reject two accounts of standards permissivism that seem to satisfy these goals—Robert Mark Simpson’s (2017) cognitive abilities account and Laura Frances Callahan’s (2021) epistemic existentialism account—before proposing my own. I argue that the commitments and choices individuals have made in regard to their particular epistemic standards can give non-arbitrary reasons to stick to those standards, because such choices have refined and filled in those standards and molded each individual’s cognitive abilities such that their standards are the most expectedly accuracy-conducive for them. Nonetheless, they can regard other agents’ different standards as no less expectedly accuracy-conducive overall, because other agents have filled in and become more adept with their own standards that meet certain minimal criteria of rationality.