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| Paper IPM / Philosophy / 14605 |
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| Abstract: | |
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Epistemic akrasia refers to the possibility of forming an attitude that fails to conform to one's best judgment. In this paper I will be concerned with the question whether epistemic akrasia is rational and I will argue that it is not. Addressing this question, in turn, raises the question of the epistemic significance of higher-order evidence (HOE). After examining some of the views on this subject, I will present an argument to show why HOE is relevant to the epistemic status of the pertinent first-order beliefs. This helps to show why a standard argument for the rationality of epistemic akrasia does not work. Finally, I shall try to show how considerations involving Da-vidson's theory of radical interpretation bear on the question of the rationality of epistemic akra-sia.
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