Higher-Order Defeat and Evincibility

Abstract

Abstract Does ‘higher-order evidence’ that one’s belief is rationally flawed defeat its status as rational (as justified, as knowledge)? Such a view is committed to two claims. First, it is possible to acquire misleading evidence about the normative status of one’s doxastic states. Second, such evidence has defeating force with respect to the belief. My aim is to do two things. First, I outline a view I call normative evincibility, according to which one always has a kind of epistemic access to the normative status of one’s doxastic states (intentions, actions, etc.). I show how commitment to higher-order defeat incurs a commitment to a form of normative evincibility. Second, I argue that the idea that it is possible to acquire misleading evidence about the normative status of one’s doxastic states is in tension with evincibility. Hence, there is a deep tension inherent in views committed to defeat by higher-order evidence.

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