The prescriptive and the hypological: A radical detachment

Abstract

My aim in this paper is to introduce and motivate a general normative framework, which I call feasibilism, and to sketch a view of the relationship between the prescriptive and the hypological in the epistemic domain by drawing on the theoretical resources provided by this framework. I then generalise the lesson to the moral domain. I begin by motivating feasibilism. A wide range of norms appear to leave uncharted an important part of the normative landscape. Across different domains we need norms more directed at the subject, and less dependent on how the world beyond our control plays out. In the beginning of this paper I briefly outline two broad ways of seeking such subject-directed norms: perspectivism and feasibilism. According to feasibilism, the ultimate reason why more objectivist norms are inadequate on their own is not that they fail to take into account the limits of an agent’s perspective, but that they are not sensitive to limits on what ways of choosing, acting, and believing are feasible in a given situation. I think of these ways of choosing, acting, and believing in terms of an agent’s dispositions. This paper focuses on a gnosticist implementation of feasibilism. Such a view supplements a knowledge norm with a norm urging one to only be in doxastic states that are manifestations of the most knowledge-conducive feasible dispositions – that is, a norm urging one to be in doxastic states that are reasonable. But how should we think about the normative statuses of knowledge versus reasonableness? By drawing on two general hypotheses about the relationship between succeeding (e.g. knowing) and manifesting dispositions conducive to success (e.g. reasonable belief), I argue for a view on which the prescriptive and the hypological come radically apart. The result is that an epistemic analogue of a thesis that many have assumed to hold in the moral realm should be rejected. This thesis is Only Blameworthy for Wrongs: we can only ever be blameworthy for acts that are morally wrong. I argue that on the picture presented, we can be epistemically blameworthy for doxastic states that do not violate any prescriptive epistemic norms. I then generalise the considerations to the moral realm, arguing against Only Blameworthy for Wrongs.