(no subject)
Many members in this community seem to be in agreement that epistemic justification is essentially normative: we ought to believe that which is, and only that which is, justified.
Why is ought we to believe what is justified? Here is one answer: We ought to believe the truth. A justified belief is more likely to be true. So our we ought to justify our beliefs for consequentialist reasons; we ought to justify our beliefs because that helps use fulfil our (more important and prior) obligation to believe the truth.
But the persistant inquirer now asks: Why ought we to believe the truth?
We might say "We ought to believe truth simply by the definition of truth--truth is that which we ought to believe." But this results in a disconnect with many theories of truth:
Suppose truth is correspondence to reality. Then "We ought to believe in the truth" means "We ought to believe propositions that correspond to reality." But why? Certainly the latter isn't true by definition. Such questions are left open by other theories as well: deflationary theories, convergence theories, etc.
An instrumentalist theory of truth--one that says "The truth is those things which, if believed, are most helpful in satisfying/achieving/acquiring some need/goal/value G"--however, comes ready-made with an answer to the question. Just as justification was instrumentally valuable in helping us to get at a valuable truth, the truth is in turn instrumentally valuable in helping us get at some other valuable end, G.
In fact, it is difficult for me to see how truth can get its normative status in any other way.
[To illustrate the point of the last three paragraphs, consider the case where believing what, e.g. corresponds with reality results in all cases in disorientation, frustration, hopelessness, despair, and suicide. Could we really claim that in such a world we ought to believe the truth?]
Questions:
1. Are there ways to explain the value of epistemic justification without presupposing the value of truth? (Are there purely deontological reasons for justifying our beliefs, for example?)
2. Similarly, is there a deontological (or otherwise non-consequentialist) reason to believe the truth that I'm overlooking?
3. We might try to make the a non-instrumentalist theory of truth provide a consequentialist reason for believing it in other way. Namely, we could do it if we had a non-instrumentalist theory of truth and then could demonstrate independently why believing the truth, as defined under that theory, was helpful in attaining some valuable end G. Can anybody do this?
If the answers to 1-3 are no, then I think that I (and you!) should be an instrumentalist about truth. Note that G has been unspecified, and so instrumentalism here is a very broad framework. However, instrumentalism sits uneasily with a lot of people. I've got a few complications and problems with instrumentalism in mind now that I'm puzzling over, but to make sure I'm not missing any:
4. Why do you reject instrumentalism, if you do? (And if so, and haven't provided a positive answer to any of questions 1-3, how do you rest easy at night?)
x-posted to real_ and vanilla