ABSTRACT
The instrumental conception of the nature of epistemic reasons and rationality is the view that epistemic rationality is instrumental rationality in the service of achieving the epistemic goal, which is roughly the goal of acquiring true beliefs and avoiding false ones. This chapter sets out two arguments against the instrumental conception.
First, there is the Too Few Reasons objection. This is the objection that there are clear cases in which subjects have epistemically rational or irrational beliefs, but where the instrumental conception cannot explain the existence of the epistemic reasons in question because, in these cases, there is no value in acquiring a true belief or avoiding a false one.
The second objection to the instrumental conception is that if all rationality, including epistemic rationality, is instrumental in nature, then a vicious regress is generated in any case of rational belief or action. The regress arises because of the following restriction on instrumental rationality: it is instrumentally rational for a subject, S, to adopt means M, for achieving goal G, only if it is epistemically rational for S to think that M is an appropriate means for achieving G.
