abstract: This dissertation consists of three essays, each of which closely relates to epistemic norms for rational doxastic states. The central issue is whether epistemic rationality is impermissive or not: For any total evidence E, is there a unique doxastic state that any possible agent with that total evidence E should take (Uniqueness), or not (Permissivism)? “Conservatism and Uniqueness”: Conservatism is the idea that an agent’s beliefs should be stable as far as possible when she undergoes a learning experience. Uniqueness is the idea that any given body of total evidence uniquely determines what it is rational to believe. Epistemic Impartiality is the idea that you should not give special treatment to your beliefs solely because they are yours. I construe Epistemic Impartiality as a meta-principle governing epistemic norms, and argue that it is compatible with Conservatism. Then I show that if Epistemic Impartiality is correct, Conservatism and Uniqueness go together; each implies the other. “Cognitive Decision Theory and Permissive Rationality”: In recent epistemology, philosophers have deployed a decision theoretic approach to justify various epistemic norms. A family of such accounts is known as Cognitive Decision Theory. According to Cognitive Decision Theory, rational beliefs are those with maximum expected epistemic value. How does Cognitive Decision Theory relate to the debate over permissive rationality? As one way of addressing this question, I present and assess an argument against Cognitive Decision Theory. “Steadfastness, Deference, and Permissive Rationality”: Recently, Benjamin Levinstein has offered two interesting arguments concerning epistemic norms and epistemic peer disagreement. In his first argument, Levinstein claims that a tension between Permissivism and steadfast attitudes in the face of epistemic peer disagreement generally leads us to conciliatory attitudes; in his second argument, he argues that, given an ‘extremely weak version of a deference principle,’ Permissivism collapses into Uniqueness. However, in this chapter, I show that both arguments fail. This result supports the following claim: we should treat steadfast attitudes and at least some versions of a deference principle as viable positions in the discussion about several types of Permissivism, because they are compatible with any type of Permissivism. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Philosophy 2016

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation explores intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts that result from differing axiological stances. A stance is one’s orientation towards a subject and one’s axiological stance is one’s orientation towards what they take to be valuable. An axiological stance also influences how one responds to practical reasons. Stances currently enjoy some attention in epistemology and the philosophy of science, but I provide a novel treatment of stances in the practical domain. Comprised of three chapters, this dissertation explores the psychological and normative contributions of one’s stances in normative ethics, then extends this work to the philosophy of religion. In chapter one, I unpack the psychological contribution of axiological stances. I introduce the concept of an axiological stance in the context of the debate surrounding “hard choices,” arguing that an intrapersonal conflict of axiological stances explains the characteristic difficulty of hard choices. In chapter two, I explore the normative side of axiological stances, drawing from Peter Winch. While Winch has been associated with various forms of relativism, I suggest that he is better understood as defending a moral analog to epistemic permissivism. In this chapter, I suggest that a plausible version of his view is an axiological stance permissivism where an axiological stance can modify the weights of one’s normative reasons. Lastly, in chapter three, I address aspects of God’s practical life that may comprise an axiological stance. The normative import of these aspects, I argue, provide a model of God’s practical life that is not objectionably robotic. On such a model, God has some control over what his weightiest reasons are.</p>