Epistemic Reasons as Right-Kind Reasons

Chapter 7 takes up the question of how we can determine whether some putative reasons for or against belief count as epistemic or not. It is argued that this is a special case of a much broader question as to how we can determine whether some putative reasons for or against any attitude count as bearing on the distinctive rationality of that kind of attitude, and that answers to the narrower question about belief should be informed by answers to the broader question about attitudes in general. The object-given/state-given theory is introduced as a prominent candidate to answer the general question, but shown to be inadequate. The alternative idea that the right-kind/wrong-kind distinction for each attitude derives from the nature of that attitude is defended and illustrated with representative cases. Finally, the implications of this account of the right-kind/wrong-kind distinction are drawn out for the case of belief by showing how different plausible theories of the nature of belief can result in different plausible answers to which of the reasons against belief identified in Chapter 6 are genuinely epistemic.