ABSTRACT
Having abandoned the instrumental conception of the nature of epistemic reasons and rationality in the previous chapter, this chapter goes on to argue that we can nevertheless retain an instrumental account of the normativity of epistemic reasons. We do often need to have true beliefs in order to succeed in doing things we care about or that we ought to care about. When it is important that we get true beliefs, it is important to take the appropriate means to achieve that goal. And the appropriate means to take is to believe what the evidence supports.
The chapter argues that a similar view proposed by Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen is on the right track but needs to be refined. Then it explains the difference between instrumental and non-instrumental types of derivative value and suggests that the value of having epistemically rational beliefs is instrumental. Finally the chapter responds to the Swamping Problem for monistic accounts of value in a domain by rejecting key assumptions underlying that problem.
