2. The challenge

Kiesewetter (Reference Kiesewetter2017, Reference Kiesewetter2020) defends a view according to which rationality consists in responding correctly to one’s (possessed or available)Footnote ² reasons. The argument for the normativity of rationality seems straightforward once such a view is established:

That is, if we always ought to respond correctly to our reasons, then what rationality (on this conception) requires of us is just what we ought to believe, desire, feel, or intend:

One objection to this conception of rationality comes from objectivism about “ought”: sometimes we cannot know whether we ought to φ, but we are still rational if we respond correctly to our possessed or accessible reasons while ignoring reasons that are unavailable to us (Broome Reference Broome2007: 253). Defenders of rationality as reasons-responsiveness argue that we should reject the first assumption of this “quick objection”, as Broome calls it: we can always know what we ought to do, because what we ought to do is determined by the reasons that are possessed by us or available to us (Lord Reference Lord2018: ch. 8, Kiesewetter Reference Kiesewetter2017: ch. 8). This is subjectivism about “ought” and reasons. It is in line with the idea that not doing what we ought to do normally implies personal criticizability. For if one could have known that φing was impermissible, then one is, at least when one lacks an excuse, criticizable for φing.Footnote ³

I stay neutral about whether we can successfully defend (RO) against the quick objection by endorsing subjectivism, as Kiesewetter and Errol Lord do. The challenge I spell out here arises from a more fundamental assumption in the debate about the normativity of rationality:

How can anyone reasonably call (RC) into question? It might be argued that (RC) is an obvious analytical truth. Doing what you ought to do just means that you give the response (or one of the responses) that your reasons favor most, and to give this response for those reasons that favor it. To give this response for these reasons is to respond “correctly” to them. Thus, to do what you ought to do just means that you respond correctly to your reasons. However, note that, if we spell out how the claim is understood by its main proponents, then it is not trivial anymore:

Recent discussions in epistemology call (RC*) into doubt. For they question the normativity of epistemic reasons – which are right-kind reasons when it comes to belief. Moreover, I will argue in section 4 that this challenge can be generalized to all right-kind reasons.

Let us begin by characterizing right-kind reasons. None of the features I describe in what follows are uncontroversial, as I mention in the footnotes at the end of each paragraph. However, they still allow us to get a good grip on this category of reasons.

First, right-kind reasons are those reasons that bear on the distinctive rationality of an attitude. Beliefs, for instance, are subject to epistemic rationality. Epistemic reasons are those reasons that bear on this kind of rationality. Beliefs might also be subject to practical rationality: it might be practically, but not epistemically, rational to believe that your friend will get the job, if this belief allows you to boost your friend’s self-confidence by being more supportive, while you lack sufficient evidence that they will get it (say, you don’t know who else has applied). However, practical rationality is not distinctive for belief, because actions and maybe other attitudes are also subject to practical rationality. Reasons bearing only on the practical rationality of belief, but not on its epistemic rationality, are thus “of the wrong kind” in this specific sense: they don’t bear on belief’s distinctive rationality, which is epistemic.Footnote ⁴

Second, epistemic reasons and other reasons of the right kind (for other attitudes) are characterized by the fact that they are reasons for which you can clearly adopt an attitude: they are those normative reasons that can also clearly be your motivating reasons. For instance, it is clearly possible to believe that your friend will get the job for the reason that your friend is the best candidate (and the application system is fair), but it is not clearly possible to believe that your friend will get the job for the reason that this belief would make you more supportive. It seems somehow difficult to adopt your belief for such practical reasons. This is why they seem to be, intuitively, “of the wrong kind” and not bearing on belief’s epistemic rationality.Footnote ⁵

Finally, right-kind reasons are sometimes conceived of as being co-extensive with object-given reasons for an attitude (see Parfit Reference Parfit, Egonsson, Josefsson and Rønnow-Rasmussen2001: 21–22). Object-given reasons for an attitude are reasons that indicate (or constitute) facts about the attitude’s object rather than about the attitude itself. For example, object-given reasons for beliefs are (or are provided by) evidence, because evidence indicates the truth of the object of the belief, i.e., the truth of the belief’s propositional content. Scientific reports on climate change are thus object-given reasons for belief: they indicate that human-induced climate change takes place. By contrast, that I feel less existential angst if I do not believe in climate change is a (wrong-kind) state-given reason not to believe in climate change. It is not evidence against climate change. This fact does not indicate that the belief is false, and so does not bear on belief’s constitutive aim of truth. By contrast, object-given reasons support the attitude, or make it rational to have the attitude, by indicating that or making it likely that the attitude fulfills its constitutive aim.Footnote ⁶

To see how we might doubt (RC*), note first how it is denied by pragmatists about what we ought to believe. For pragmatists, there will be cases where our right-kind reasons all favor a specific response but in which it is not true that we ought to give the response. For example, our epistemic reasons might be insufficient to justify believing in God’s existence, but since – as we can stipulate – it would be better for us to believe in God than not to believe in God (no matter whether God actually exists), our practical or wrong-kind reasons for belief favor believing in God (see Pascal Reference Pascal1670: §233; James Reference James1896). It might be true, according to pragmatists, that we ought to believe in God, even though the correct response to our right-kind reasons (here: the epistemic reasons) would be not to believe in God. Currently, there is a debate about whether we can weigh or compare right- and wrong-kind reasons to determine what one ought to believe, all-things-considered, in such cases (for proposals, see Howard Reference Howard2020; Meylan Reference Meylan2021; Reisner Reference Reisner2008; Reference Reisnerforthcoming). If we sometimes ought all-things-considered to believe what is favored by our practical or wrong-kind reasons, rather than by our epistemic or right-kind reasons, then there is a sense in which (RC*) is false. So, pragmatists will deny (RC*) in this sense.

One could object that pragmatists must grant that there is another sense in which (RC*) is true: one ought epistemically not to believe in God if one’s epistemic reasons for belief in God are insufficient. So, epistemic reasons are normative for epistemic rationality (Paakkunainen Reference Paakkunainen, McHugh, Way and Whiting2018). I don’t think this response should convince pragmatists yet. I agree that, if this is all that defenses of the normativity of rationality wish to defend, then (RC*) cannot be doubted. However, they in fact wish to defend more, and moreover, I think that they should aim to defend more. For defenses of the normativity of rationality endorse the idea that irrationality is personally criticizable (Kiesewetter Reference Kiesewetter2017: ch. 2; Kauppinen Reference Kauppinen2021: 540–542; Lord Reference Lord2018: 4; Parfit Reference Parfit2011: 123; Way Reference Way2009: 1). Importantly, the criticism that is appropriate when someone is irrational is supposed to be different from merely criticizing a system for malfunctioning and from criticizing a bad move in a game. The idea is that one doesn’t merely fail relative to the game of rationality when one violates rational requirements. Rather, one fails independently of whether one cares about being rational and independently of whether one has practical reason to be rational. Regarding epistemic rationality, what the debate asks is whether epistemic rationality is an independent source of normative reasons, such as prudence or morality, rather than merely a standard according to which we can rank beliefs. For such standards might lack significance independently of our prudential or moral reasons for scoring high in the relevant ranking. Asking for the normativity of epistemic rationality is to ask whether criticizing a belief as “irrational” has more significance than criticizing a move in chess as bad, relative to the standards of good chess. This is why arguing that one always ought epistemically to respond correctly to epistemic reasons isn’t yet sufficient for defending the normativity of rationality.Footnote ⁷

Importantly, this challenge doesn’t depend on the controversial view that we can weigh or compare epistemic and practical reasons, or right-kind and wrong-kind reasons, to reach an all-things-considered verdict about what to believe.Footnote ⁸ This view would only serve to doubt the pro toto normativity of epistemic rationality – that is, whether we always ought to be epistemically rational. In spelling out the challenge, I instead follow the radical pragmatists: they doubt whether epistemic reasons are normative reasons at all (McCormick Reference McCormick, McKain and Stapleford2020; Rinard Reference Rinard2017; Reference Rinard2022). They doubt even the pro tanto normativity of rationality, i.e., whether we always have a normative reason to be rational. If epistemic reasons aren’t normative, then wrong-kind reasons are the only candidates for normative reasons for belief. According to radical pragmatists, if there is no practical value in holding an epistemically rational belief, then epistemic reasons for this belief have no normative force.Footnote ⁹ On this view, epistemic rationality can only be derivatively normative whenever there are practical reasons to be rational, or – as I put this view – only when epistemic reasons have some practical “backup.” In themselves, epistemic reasons aren’t normative – or so the challenge from radical pragmatism claims.Footnote ¹⁰

In their extensive defenses of rationality as responding correctly to reasons, Kiesewetter and Lord devote much space to engaging with two challenges:

1. (a) Showing that any irrational incoherence between one’s attitudes guarantees a failure to respond to reasons (Kiesewetter Reference Kiesewetter2017: chs. 9 and 10; Lord Reference Lord2018: ch. 2), and

2. (b) Arguing that the notions of “ought” and “reason” are subjective or perspective-dependent (Kiesewetter Reference Kiesewetter2017: ch. 8; Lord Reference Lord2018: ch. 8).

Neither author considers the normativity of right-kind reasons within these books, however. Yet if the doubts about their normativity are well-motivated, then the current literature on the normativity of rationality neglects an important challenge. Indeed, the challenge seems at least as important for defending the normativity of rationality as are (a) and (b).Footnote ¹¹

Indeed, the whole modern debate, beginning with works from Parfit, Scanlon, and Kolodny, takes for granted the normativity of epistemic reasons and right-kind reasons for intention and desire. Yet pragmatist accounts of epistemic evaluation are older than the recent debate on rationality (see Stich Reference Stich1990; Meiland Reference Meiland1980). Nevertheless, such views never informed this debate. As Laura Callahan (Reference Callahan2023: 6) observes, the literature on rationality assumed that the normativity of epistemic reasons just doesn’t fall within the scope of their discussions. However, asking the normative question about rationality (“why be rational?”) is to ask about the broader significance of epistemic and other kinds of rational evaluation to our lives – just as asking the normative question about morality (“why be moral?,” see Korsgaard Reference Korsgaard1996) is to ask about the broader significance of morality to our lives. The challenge coming from radical pragmatism should therefore fall within the scope of the debate on the normativity of rationality.

One might object that the challenge arising from pragmatism has already been met. For instance, Kiesewetter (Reference Kiesewetter2022) defends the normativity of epistemic reasons. However, the features of normative reasons he identifies – providing partial justification, being premises in good reasoning, and being good bases for responses – are unlikely to convince someone with pragmatist inclinations. Pragmatists would just deny that epistemic reasons provide partial justification in the absence of a wrong-kind reason to comply with your right-kind reasons. And they would argue that the fact that right-kind reasons are good for reasoning or basing doesn’t imply that we ought always to conform to the verdict of right-kind reasons. It isn’t obvious how to meet such pragmatist replies, without ending up throwing intuitions at each other.

Before moving on, let me highlight why structuralist views about rationality should also care about this challenge. As Alex Worsnip (Reference Worsnip2021) has recently argued, the view that there is a substantive kind of rationality – that is, one that consists in a kind of reasons-responsiveness – is compatible with the view that there is also a separate structural kind of rationality that consists in a kind of coherence. To illustrate the difference between both kinds of rationality, Worsnip (Reference Worsnip2021: 5–6) contrasts a case in which a person, Tom, believes against his evidence that he is Superman, that Superman can fly, but that he (Tom) cannot fly, with another case in which another person, Tim, believes against his evidence that he is Superman, that Superman can fly, and that he (Tim) can fly. According to Worsnip, Tim is structurally more rational yet substantively more irrational than Tom. For Tim seems consistent in his beliefs while harboring two beliefs against his evidence, whereas Tom is inconsistent in his beliefs albeit merely harboring one belief against his evidence. So, intuitively, there are two distinct kinds of rational failure.

Philosophers who are interested in the normativity of coherence should also be interested in the normativity of right-kind reasons. This is because if coherence is normative, it is plausibly normative because it provides us with right-kind reasons for certain responses. According to Worsnip (Reference Worsnip2021), coherence provides us with right-kind reasons for structuring our deliberations, and according to Eva Schmidt (Reference Schmidt2023; Reference Schmidt2024), incoherence provides us with right-kind reasons for suspending judgment. If right-kind reasons weren’t normative reasons, then such defenses of the normativity of coherence wouldn’t do. Any theorist of rationality will thus have an interest in the normativity of right-kind reasons, for any defense of the normativity of rationality, whether understood as reasons-responsiveness or as coherence, must appeal to the idea that rationality provides us with normative right-kind reasons.Footnote ¹²

I conclude that, if right-kind reasons weren’t normative, then neither of the two dominant approaches to rationality – as reasons-responsiveness and as coherence – would vindicate the normativity of rationality. Since the normativity of right-kind reasons can no longer be taken for granted, given recent meta-epistemological discussions, we need to make the normative force of right-kind reasons intelligible. That is, we need to consider the normative question about rationality as reasons-responsiveness: “Should we respond correctly to our reasons?”

I now present a main argumentFootnote ¹³ for doubts about the normativity of right-kind reasons that motivate this question while also defending it against the most intuitive objections (sections 3–4). I then discuss how drawing on specific debates in meta-epistemology can allow us to engage seriously yet critically with this argument (section 5).

3. Motivating the doubts

I first discuss the argument against the normativity of epistemic reasons before generalizing it to all right-kind reasons in section 4. Here is an early statement from the epistemic instrumentalist literature on how cases of trivial belief cast doubt on the normativity of epistemic reasons:

The argument seems to run, roughly, as follows:

The Argument from Trivial Belief

1. (1) Sometimes, S has decisive (accessible) epistemic reasonFootnote ¹⁴ to believe that p but S wouldn’t be criticizable if they failed to believe that p.

2. (2) If such cases as described in (1) are possible, then epistemic reasons aren’t normative.

3. (3) Thus, epistemic reasons aren’t normative.Footnote ¹⁵

The conclusion (3) means that epistemic reasons aren’t normative on their own: they’re normative only if one has a practical reason to form a true belief about p, i.e., if there’s some practical “backup”.Footnote ¹⁶ This is precisely what radical pragmatists claim. There are various ways of replying to this argument. However, as I will show now, the common replies are unlikely to convince a pragmatist. My point is not that, if we’re pragmatists, then we wouldn’t be convinced by these replies. After all, what kind of argument could convince a committed pragmatist?Footnote ¹⁷ Rather, my point is that the replies shouldn’t even convince someone who is inclined toward pragmatism.

The first reply is to doubt (1) by arguing that S is criticizable for failing to form a belief in light of decisive epistemic reasons: sufficient evidence provides reasons for belief, and it can even create a duty to believe (see Simion Reference Simion2024a; Reference Simion2024b). We might further support this by appealing to recent accounts of epistemic blame to defend the idea that there is a sense in which we might fault S for failing to respond correctly to their epistemic reasons (Boult Reference Boult2021; Reference Boultforthcoming a; Brown Reference Brown2020; Reference Brown2020a). If there are positive epistemic obligations, then we’re normally criticizable for not believing p when our evidence sufficiently supports p, at least when we consider whether p or attend to whether p (Kiesewetter Reference Kiesewetter2017: 184–185). It’s not necessary for epistemic criticizability that there’s a reason to form a true belief about p. This would allow us to say that S is, after all, criticizable for not forming a trivial belief.Footnote ¹⁸

While I think that this strategy must be part of a promising overall reply to the argument from trivial belief, I don’t think it’s convincing without a specific theoretical backup (to which I return in section 5). Without such backup, a pragmatist may remain unconvinced.

The pragmatist can argue that any talk of positive epistemic obligations merely reflects the fact “that S’s general psychological disposition did not make him form the belief” (Steglich-Petersen Reference Steglich-Petersen, Steglich-Petersen and Reisner2011: 22) but that “we would not regard S as having failed to do something he ought to have done” (ibid. 23). The proper functioning of our cognitive system might well involve that we believe p in response to sufficient evidence for p when we consider whether p. However, this need not give rise to a normative “ought” to believe. Indeed, functionalist accounts of epistemic normativity have been proposed to doubt the normativity of epistemic reasons (Olson Reference Olson, McHugh, Way and Whiting2018: 114–116; Papineau Reference Papineau and Chan2013). These views are therefore unlikely to convince someone with pragmatist inclinations that epistemic reasons are normative. What is lacking from these accounts is some deeper explanation of why a person is normatively at fault for improper functioning. Moreover, even if this view is further backed up by an argument that the person is epistemically blameworthy for improper functioning, the pragmatist can legitimately doubt whether such blame is directed at the person: it’s more akin to “criticizing” an organ or sub-personal system for malfunctioning. Contrast blame, which paradigmatically comes as resentment or indignation. Such responses seem out of place in response to mere epistemic failings (see Piovarchy Reference Piovarchy2021; Smartt Reference Smartt2023). This is especially plausible when it comes to not forming trivial beliefs. Yet if we never seriously criticize people for distinctively epistemic mistakes, epistemic reasons don’t seem to be normative.

I wish to emphasize that, ultimately, I think that there is a good reply to such skepticism about positive epistemic duties and the possibility of epistemic blame: I think that we can be genuinely blameworthy for improper functioning. However, my aim in this paper is to spell out a neglected challenge to the normativity of rationality, and what kind of response this challenge calls for. So I postpone my own reply for another occasion.Footnote ¹⁹

Next, one might doubt (2). Why would the possibility of blameless trivial belief that is supported by excellent epistemic reasons imply that epistemic reasons aren’t normative? One might look for other explanations why S is blameless that are compatible with the claim that epistemic reasons are genuinely normative reasons.

First, one might argue that there are only epistemic prohibitions, but no positive epistemic obligations. That is, if you lack sufficient epistemic reasons for believing p, then you aren’t permitted to believe that p. This is compatible with saying that there are permissions to believe what is sufficiently supported by epistemic reasons, but no obligations to hold specific beliefs. Indeed, it seems that we don’t have an obligation to clutter our minds with all of the trivial implications of our beliefs that are well-supported by epistemic reasons (Harman Reference Harman1986: 12). In response to this, Steglich-Petersen (Reference Steglich-Petersen, McHugh, Way and Whiting2018) himself suggests a permissivist view: as long as p is a wholly trivial issue, there’s no obligation to believe p, even if we consider whether p; nevertheless, we’re still prohibited from holding beliefs that aren’t evidentially backed.

However, appealing to permissivism in this way again doesn’t amount to a satisfactory defense of the normativity of epistemic reasons. This is because there are also trivial cases of holding a belief without sufficient evidence. Suppose you have sufficient evidence about the latest celebrity gossip, but you nevertheless jump to the conclusion that, say, Leonardo DiCaprio was seen in Santa Monica yesterday. Let’s stipulate that this belief lacks sufficient evidential support and that holding this belief would never cause any problems (e.g., you will never tell anyone about it, and it will never come in handy for, say, solving a crime). From a pragmatist point of view, saying that such a trivial belief is prohibited is just as implausible as saying that lacking a trivial belief that is sufficiently supported by evidence is prohibited. For, again, the pragmatist will ask: what would be the point of criticism or blame for holding a belief that we know has no practical disvalue or bad consequences whatsoever? In this scenario, permissivism implies an epistemic prohibition. Yet the pragmatist’s intuition that one isn’t criticizable for violating this prohibition remains in place. So permissivism, on its own, isn’t a satisfying reply to our challenge: it rightly doesn’t convince someone with pragmatist inclinations.

Second, we might reject (2) by saying that S is excused for not responding correctly to their epistemic reasons in trivial cases. That is, an excusing factor explains S’s blamelessness, but S still failed to respond correctly to normative epistemic reasons. However, we might wonder why S would be excused. Is it because S’s (lack of) belief has no bad practical consequences? If this is so, then wrong-kind reasons would be relevant for epistemically excusing a person for belief. This kind of excuse would be quite different from, say, being excused due to non-culpable ignorance, which is the common kind of epistemic excuse in externalist accounts of epistemic justification (Littlejohn Reference Littlejohnforthcoming; Williamson Reference Williamson, Dorsch and Dutantforthcoming). Introducing this type of epistemic excuse would thus require substantial argument. Moreover, why should the fact that a (lack of) belief isn’t practically bad count as an epistemic excuse? More intuitively, the absence of wrong-kind reasons for complying with epistemic norms affects whether you’re normatively obligated or prohibited to believe in the first place, rather than providing an excuse.

Third, we could try to preserve the normativity of right-kind reasons by retreating to a view that merely endorses the pro tanto normativity of rationality. This would commit one to the more moderate pragmatist position mentioned in section 2 according to which both right- and wrong-kind reasons determine what one ought to believe. However, it is difficult to see how this could help in replying to Steglich-Petersen’s case, given that there aren’t any wrong-kind reasons against belief and decisive right-kind reasons in favor. It seems that, epistemically, S ought to believe that the number of dust specks is even – it is just that this epistemic “ought” is normatively insignificant if there is no wrong-kind reason to be rational. It could be argued that the epistemic demand to believe that p in trivial cases is just a pro tanto normative epistemic demand that is very easily outweighed by practical reasons. However, as Charles Côté-Bouchard and Clayton Littlejohn (Reference Côté-Bouchard, Littlejohn, Kyriacou and McKenna2018: 162–163) have pointed out, an analogous argument could be made about the rules of etiquette in cases where there’s no prudential or moral reason to comply with etiquette. Yet such an argument would hardly convince someone who doubts whether etiquette by itself provides us with normative reasons. So in the present dialectical context, the argument wouldn’t amount to a satisfactory response to the radical pragmatist.

Finally, one might doubt (2) by saying that it implausibly imposes a condition on genuine normativity from the practical domain which just doesn’t apply in the epistemic domain.Footnote ²⁰ On such a view, blame and personal criticism are at home in ethics, but not in epistemology. Again, such a reply shouldn’t yet convince the pragmatist. For they take prudential and moral reasons to be paradigmatic reasons with genuine normative significance. Substantial disanalogies between practical reasons and epistemic reasons, such as the impossibility of personal epistemic criticism or blame, would call into doubt whether epistemic reasons are normative. A reply that is helpful dialectically must instead defend important analogies between epistemic and practical reasons. This would allow one to defeat the pragmatist at their own game, as it were. Alternatively, one might challenge the assumption that practical reasons are paradigmatic cases of normative reasons. The difficulty with this reply, however, is that it just rejects the pragmatist’s starting point. It is therefore unlikely to meet the pragmatist’s concerns.Footnote ²¹

It’s not feasible to discuss all possible replies to Steglich–Petersen’s argument. There surely is an intuition that subjects in trivial belief cases aren’t criticizable. As Susanne Mantel puts it, they do not “deserve the interesting kind of criticism that is warranted when they fail to conform to substantially normative reasons” (Mantel Reference Mantel2019: 223). Yet if there is some appropriate connection between criticizability or blameworthiness and normative reasons, then it follows from such cases that epistemic reasons aren’t normative. We might try to reply to this argument by weakening the link between criticizability and normative reasons – say, by committing to permissivism, allowing for certain kinds of epistemic excuses, endorsing a weighing account, or by rejecting parallels to practical reasons. Yet none of these strategies seems very promising within the current dialectic. Each of them fails to challenge the pragmatist at their own game. There might be other strategies that I am unaware of. What matters here is that such appeals to criticizability are intuitively powerful to motivate our challenge insofar as epistemologists who deny the normativity of epistemic reasons and those who defend it both support their views by appealing to personal criticizability.Footnote ²²

Hille Paakkunainen (Reference Paakkunainen, McHugh, Way and Whiting2018) has argued that doubts about the normativity of epistemic reasons aren’t well-motivated: any argument against the normativity of epistemic reasons must employ a dubious distinction between normative reasons and ‘genuinely’ normative reasons. However, the challenge I spell out here need not assume such a distinction. First, it could be read as arguing that epistemic reasons aren’t normative at all, thus committing to nihilism about normative epistemic reasons (see footnote Footnote 10). According to the radical pragmatist view, the overall verdict of epistemic reasons or epistemic rationality is at best like the verdict of game rules: as long as I have some practical reasons to play proper chess, the rules of chess provide me with normative reasons to move the pawn only in certain ways; but in the absence of a practical reason to engage in the game, the rules of the game don’t provide me with normative reasons at all. All normative reasons are practical, on such a view.Footnote ²³

Furthermore, Paakkunainen herself appeals to the idea that one is criticizable and fails as an epistemic agent if one doesn’t respond correctly to one’s epistemic reasons in her reply to Steglich-Petersen’s trivial belief case (cf. ibid. 135). She thus grants some connection between personal criticizability and normative reasons. This makes her view vulnerable to Steglich-Petersen’s argument. Thus, any argument that shows that we aren’t criticizable (in the sense relevant to identifying normative reasons) in virtue of failing to respond correctly to our epistemic reasons is a serious threat to the very idea of epistemic normativity.Footnote ²⁴

What my discussion shows is that Steglich-Petersen’s argument has some initial plausibility, and so should be taken seriously, at least if one doesn’t yet assume a full-blown theory about the normativity of epistemic reasons. I conclude that doubts about the normativity of epistemic reasons are well-motivated and call for a comprehensive reply.

4. Generalizing these doubts

In this section, I argue that our challenge can be generalized to right-kind reasons for desires, emotions, and intentions. If I am right, then we cannot take the normativity of right-kind reasons for granted in defending the normativity of rationality. Rather, we need an account of blameworthiness and criticizability for not responding correctly to right-kind reasons. My argument is that there are cases analogous to those of trivial belief when it comes to other attitudes that give rise to an argument analogous to the argument from trivial belief.

Consider, first, desires. There is some initial difficulty in finding cases of wholly trivial desires. My desire to scratch my neck because it is itching is not clearly a desire that does not matter. The fact that my neck is itching can be an excellent reason both of the right kind and of the wrong kind to desire to scratch my neck. This is because the desire to scratch is both directed at a desirable action and might itself have the good consequence that I scratch my neck, thereby getting rid of an unpleasant sensation of itching. One might think that it always matters whether I have desires that are supported by right-kind reasons because desires with desirable content help us to achieve what is desirable. It would follow that we cannot construct a case of a trivial desire as we have constructed cases of trivial belief, and thus right-kind reasons for desire might more plausibly be genuinely normative reasons. For it seems that we cannot formulate the same challenge for the rationality of desire as we can formulate for the rationality of belief.

However, note first there are clearly counterproductive yet rational desires. Suppose that your itching neck provides you with a reason to desire to scratch your neck (it would be pleasant for a moment), but that you should resist acting on this desire because scratching would just make the itching worse in the long run. Although your desire to scratch is rational (after all, the momentary pleasure is a good consequence of scratching your neck), it might be rational for you to desire not to desire to scratch your neck. It could even be rational to get rid of this desire by telling yourself (falsely) that momentary pleasure is completely worthless. Would you be blameworthy if you were successful in getting rid of the desire? Intuitively, it does not seem so. And yet your right-kind reasons to desire to scratch your neck were decisive: the desire is a fitting response to the momentary pleasure of scratching. Therefore, it seems that right-kind reasons for desire are normatively irrelevant when there are wrong-kind reasons not to have the desire. Thus, even if there were no truly trivial desires, we could still doubt the normativity of right-kind reasons for desire by constructing conflict cases.

Furthermore, there are truly trivial desires – desires that do not matter at all – which are supported by right-kind reasons for desire. Suppose that X is desirable but that what you desire is impossible. In such a case, your right-kind reasons are still decisive for desiring X. Suppose, for example, that you know that it is desirable to walk on Pluto: you could enjoy an awesome otherworldly landscape while walking there. Yet, for some reason, you do not desire to walk on Pluto. Are you blameworthy for lacking this desire? After all, you cannot walk on Pluto. What, then, is the point of desiring it? Not desiring it might rob you of the pleasure of imagining how nice it is to walk there. But we might well stipulate that you have better things to do than engaging in such imaginative projects, or that they just aren’t fun for you. In cases where your desire does not have any benefit, it is unclear why anyone should regard you as criticizable for lacking the desire. Thus, intuitively, right-kind reasons for desire don’t seem to matter independently of a practical reason to pursue desiring what is supported by right-kind reasons (that is, desiring what you know to be desirable). This is analogous to the challenge for the normativity of epistemic reasons from the last section, where it seemed that epistemic reasons do not matter independently of a practical reason to comply with one’s epistemic reasons.

Next, consider intentions. Initially, we face a similar difficulty as we did with desires. The intention to brush your teeth this morning is not wholly trivial: without it, you would not have brushed your teeth. Similarly, my intention to scratch my neck because it is itching matters to some degree (assuming in this case that scratching isn’t bad in the long run, but it is rather also what I should do all things considered). I might plausibly be prudentially criticizable for not having such intentions. It thus might seem that right-kind reasons for intention always matter, and so there are no trivial cases when it comes to intention: right-kind reasons for intention always indicate that having the intention contributes to performing a good action.

To get a truly trivial intention into focus, consider an action that you ought to perform in the future. Suppose that attending a conference in a year would be the right action for you. The reasons for attending might include, for example, the opportunity for rich academic exchange, for presenting your ideas, and for making important contacts. It is rational for you to intend now to attend the conference in a year. Yet there is nothing lost if you do not yet intend to go to the conference. You might be akratic right now: you know you should attend the conference, but you do not intend to attend. However, it is still a year until the conference takes place, and thus another year until it matters whether you intend to attend the conference. You have plenty of time to overcome this akrasia. Since it does not yet matter whether you intend to attend the conference, it seems that you are not blameworthy for being akratic. That is, you are not blameworthy for not intending what you ought to do – that is, for not having an intention that seems to be decisively supported by right-kind reasons. Again, it seems, intuitively, that the right-kind reasons for intention only matter if there is some wrong-kind reason to comply with the right-kind reasons – which is often absent in the case of future-directed intentions.

Is it plausible that you have decisive right-kind reasons for intending to attend the conference that only takes place in a year? Kiesewetter (Reference Kiesewetter2017: 190–192) argues that your right-kind reasons are not decisive in this case. He argues that you do not yet have decisive right-kind reasons to intend to attend the conference. Rather, intending to attend becomes decisively supported by right-kind reasons as soon as you must intend to attend in order to ensure that you will attend. At some point, you must form an intention, or else you won’t attend the conference.

The main problem with Kiesewetter’s view is that it doesn’t explain why the intention suddenly becomes decisively supported by right-kind reasons when you must intend in order to perform the right action. Let us assume that, as the conference draws nearer, and you need to take steps to ensure that you attend, nothing relevant to the deontic status of your attending has changed. No further reasons to attend have appeared on the horizon. Nevertheless, you now have, according to Kiesewetter, decisive right-kind reasons to intend to attend the conference. You would be blameworthy if you fail to intend this, now that you must. But how can right-kind reasons become decisive while remaining the same set of reasons? Kiesewetter’s view implicitly assumes that right-kind reasons for intention gain their normative force only when there is some wrong-kind reason to comply with them – here, the wrong-kind reason that you must form an intention to ensure that you attend. This amounts to granting that right-kind reasons for intention have no such force on their own. I thus conclude, pace Kiesewetter, that the future-intention case is analogous to the trivial belief case in relevant ways.

Furthermore, there are conflicts between right-kind and wrong-kind reasons for intention. Gregory S. Kavka’s (Reference Kavka1983) toxin puzzle is such a case that involves a beneficial intention that lacks support by right-kind reasons. Conversely, there are also cases in which it would be bad to intend to do something, but where doing it is decisively supported by right-kind reasons. For instance, you might have decisive reason to go to the beach tomorrow. But suppose that, if today you intend to go to the beach tomorrow, then you will suffer immensely. This doesn’t affect your reasons to go to the beach tomorrow, since you won’t suffer in virtue of going there, but rather in virtue of your intention today. You can safely adopt the intention only tomorrow (if you can) and thereby avoid the harm today. Plausibly, you should actively ignore your right-kind reasons for intention when you ask what you ought to intend today.

Here the normative import of the right-kind reasons for intention is intuitively unclear. If there are no wrong-kind reasons to comply with your right-kind reasons, then right-kind reasons seem to be normatively insignificant. In some cases, there might still be some wrong-kind reasons to comply with your right-kind reasons, but these will often be outweighed by the wrong-kind reasons against compliance. Again, the right-kind reasons don’t seem to have any normative significance independently of the wrong-kind reasons to comply with the right-kind reasons. The challenge for the normativity of epistemic rationality seems to carry over to the normativity of the rationality of desire and intention.

Finally, consider cases of various emotions. There can be conflicts between right-kind and wrong-kind reasons for emotion. Sometimes fearing a danger can be rational but counterproductive. In these cases, it seems that rationality is normatively relevant only insofar as there is something good about being rational. If there is nothing good about being rational – say, one’s rational fear would not help one to avoid the danger, and it is rather just disturbing and distracting – then it seems that the mere fact that your fear would be rational does not have any normative significance in the situation at hand. Again, it seems that the rationality of fear is only normative if there is a wrong-kind reason to fear rationally.

Things are a bit trickier with emotions that imply pleasure, like happiness. Although here conflict cases can arise (e.g., when rationally feeling happy is counterproductive), it is hard to see how feeling happy can lack any support by wrong-kind reasons, thus being truly trivial happiness. It seems that one always has a wrong-kind reason to (cause oneself to) feel happy because feeling happy is pleasurable. However, we might imagine a person who is in a depressed mood. For this person, it is impossible to make themselves feel happy. If you only have a normative reason to do something if you can do it, then this person has no normative reason to make themselves feel happy – that is, they don’t have any wrong-kind reason to (cause themselves to) be happy. Now suppose that they experience a joyful event that rationally requires them to feel happy. In this case, it seems the person has decisive reasons of the right kind to be happy without having any wrong-kind reason to (cause themselves to) be happy. Again, it seems that the person is blameless. Note that this is not because the person is exempted from responsibility. A depressed mood does not exempt you from rational requirements to be happy in the face of happy events (only depression would). Rather, the person seems blameless because they have no wrong-kind reason to make themselves happy. Again, right-kind reasons seem to be normatively irrelevant in the absence of a wrong-kind reason to comply with them.

I have argued that there are cases of desires, intentions, and emotions that are structurally analogous to cases of trivial belief or at least analogous to conflict cases: there can be decisive right-kind reasons for attitudes that are not favored by any wrong-kind reasons (trivial attitude cases), and there can be cases in which the right-kind reasons for an attitude seem to be rendered normatively irrelevant by decisive wrong-kind reasons not to comply with them (counterproductive rational attitudes). Thus, the relevant cases can be generalized to all attitudes, and every time it seems that only the wrong-kind reasons do the normative work, while the right-kind reasons are normatively irrelevant by themselves.

Since a mere failure to comply with right-kind reasons for attitudes doesn’t seem to make a person blameworthy or personally criticizable in the way we would expect from normative reasons, they don’t seem to be normative reasons. That is, if rationality was normative, then subjects would often be blameworthy or personally criticizable when they lack trivial attitudes that are supported by decisive right-kind reasons, and when these subjects comply with their wrong-kind reasons but not with their decisive right-kind reasons in conflict cases. The challenge assumes a connection between normative reasons and blameworthiness:

(NB) is compatible with the view that right-kind reasons aren’t normative although we are often blameworthy when we don’t respond correctly to them. This blameworthiness would then just derive from not complying with wrong-kind reasons that decisively favor compliance with right-kind reasons in these cases (cf. Kauppinen Reference Kauppinen2023: 141). In such cases, one wouldn’t be blameworthy merely for not responding correctly to right-kind reasons. Cases of trivial and counterproductive attitudes seem to show that we cannot be blameworthy merely for violating the requirements of rationality. It seems false that we should comply with rational requirements for their own sake. Rather, it seems that we should only comply with them if there is some wrong-kind (or practical) reason to (ensure that we) comply with them.Footnote ²⁵

Thus, the challenge for the normativity of rationality is a challenge not only for the epistemic rationality of belief but also for the rationality of attitudes more generally. I will now return to the question of what a satisfactory reply to this challenge would involve.

5. How to reply?

Replying to the challenge for the normativity of rationality spelled out in this paper is beyond its scope. However, I wish to point out which debates we must lead for developing such a reply. This will allow us to see how theorists of rationality can engage in a fruitful exchange with pragmatists, and how recent debates must develop to inform the theory of rationality.

Most importantly, we might be able to defend the normativity of rationality against the radical pragmatist’s challenge by appealing to the possibility of blameworthiness or criticizability for mere rational failure. This would require us to spell out how we can be blameworthy when we hold trivial and practically beneficial attitudes that are nevertheless irrational. Blameworthiness for a mere rational failure in such cases would plausibly reveal the normativity of right-kind reasons, and thus give us a more complete account of the normativity of rationality. Theorists of rationality can here appeal to the literature on epistemic blame (Boult Reference Boult2021; Reference Boultforthcoming a; Brown Reference Brown2020; Reference Brown2020a; Schmidt Reference Schmidt2024a; Reference Schmidtforthcoming a) and epistemic accountability (Kauppinen Reference Kauppinen2018) in order to develop a more general notion of blameworthiness for irrationality. It could already be sufficient to argue that a serious kind of personal criticism is appropriate for distinctively rational mistakes, if the label “blame” is meant to be reserved for reactions like resentment and indignation. For instance, it might be sufficient to argue, in the spirit of the works of Boult and Kauppinen, that we are appropriate targets of reducing epistemic trust and other modifications of our epistemic relationships in virtue of our failures to respond correctly to epistemic reasons (but see Smartt Reference Smartt2023 for criticism of the view).

Analogously, other forms of reducing trust and relationship modification could be appropriate when we hold trivial or practically beneficial desires, intentions, and emotions because they lack sufficient support by right-kind reasons, even though we might not deserve strong moral reactions for such distinctively rational mistakes. For instance, there arguably is a sense in which the interpersonal relationship to the emotionally irrational is impaired. Those who don’t feel fear when they face danger will sometimes be reckless, and so they don’t make good partners for adventures; those who don’t feel happy at joyous events might make bad friends in good times; those who don’t love someone who is loveable don’t make good romantic partners; and so on. Such platitudes are, of course, at best starting points for developing an account of rational criticizability, which must extend to govern all kinds of attitudes. Intuitions against the possibility of epistemic blame and, more generally, against the possibility of blame for irrational attitudes, are what drives pragmatist doubts about the normativity of rationality. Therefore, a dialectically helpful response to the pragmatist involves an account of personal criticizability or blame for irrational attitudes. Here substantial work is required to develop accounts of epistemic accountability into broader accounts of rational accountability.Footnote ²⁶

Without such an account, appeals to criticizability that are already common in the debate could backfire against the normativist about rationality. To see how, consider Kiesewetter’s (Reference Kiesewetter2017: ch. 2) argument that the kind of personal criticizability implied by ascriptions of irrationality can only be captured by assuming that one has violated decisive normative reasons. Other authors also point out that the criticizability of irrationality motivates the intuition that rationality is normative (see Kauppinen Reference Kauppinen2021: 540–542; Lord Reference Lord2018: 4; Parfit Reference Parfit2011: 123; Schmidt Reference Schmidt2020b; Way Reference Way2009: 1). In light of the present challenge, however, these arguments wouldn’t establish that rationality implies responding correctly to right-kind reasons. They would only establish that rationality implies responding correctly to normative reasons. If right-kind reasons weren’t normative, then the only candidates for such normative reasons would be wrong-kind reasons for attitudes. Appeals to criticizability would then establish that rationality implies responding correctly to wrong-kind reasons. Far from allowing us to defend the normativity of right-kind reasons, these arguments suggest a radical pragmatist account of rationality, as endorsed by Susanna Rinard (Reference Rinard2017; Reference Rinard2022). Thus, the traditional arguments from criticizability threaten to backfire and serve to cast further doubt on the normativity of rationality. To avoid such backfiring, they must be supplemented by an account of the kind of personal criticism or blame that is legitimate if we fail to comply with right-kind reasons for attitudes.

Furthermore, a full reply to the challenge for the normativity of right-kind reasons will involve an account of the source of this normativity. In epistemology, there is a long-standing debate about why epistemic norms are authoritative, or why we ought, in some normatively significant sense of “ought,” to comply with epistemic norms and reasons. Accounts roughly divide into constitutivist accounts, which argue that the nature of belief and theoretical reasoning give rise to an authoritative epistemic “ought,” and instrumentalist accounts, which argue that epistemic normativity derives instead from our shared epistemic interests or goals.Footnote ²⁷

More recently, social epistemological accounts about the foundations of epistemic normativity are on the rise. They claim, roughly, that epistemic norms have a distinctive kind of normative authority because we depend on each other in our intellectual endeavors, and so we have reason to uphold a valuable practice of epistemic accountability in which we also criticize trivial or practically beneficial beliefs that are epistemically irrational.Footnote ²⁸

These social accounts could be helpful for replying to the neglected pragmatist challenge for the normativity of rationality – which also constitutes an argument in favor of these views. For they allow us to draw an overall picture of epistemic normativity that reveals how distinctively epistemic norms matter for our lives in communities more broadly. Rather than relying on some unconditional value of compliance with epistemic norms in each particular case, social accounts instead highlight the value of a social epistemic practice in which we value truth unconditionally (cf. Williams Reference Williams2002). My suggestion is that a full account the normativity of right-kind reasons requires similar accounts about the source of the normativity of right-kind reasons more generally. A social direction might be helpful here as well.

At the moment, we lack both an account of the kind of personal criticism and blame that is appropriate when we fail to comply with right-kind reasons for attitudes, and an account of the source of the normative authority that could make it intelligible why we (should) adhere to a social practice of holding each other accountable for (non-)compliance with right-kind reasons for attitudes. That is, we lack a full account of why we should respond correctly to our reasons. However, we are not without guidance: there is excellent work in epistemology about distinctively epistemic kinds of blame and accountability, as well as on the sources of epistemic normativity. Theorists of rationality must engage in generalized versions of these debates in meta-epistemology. On the other side, epistemologists must make their insightful work fruitful for thinking about norms for attitudes more broadly. This requires them to extend their perspective to our whole mental lives. While tradition has consigned separate spaces to epistemologists and ethicists, it is now time for a broader study of mental normativity in all its facets.Footnote ²⁹