Mind & Moral Psychology: Grace Helton (Princeton)

I will argue that certain results from experimental psychology, can, at least in principle, be used as part of a surgical challenge to particular proposed norms of rationality. Specifically, I will argue that if the ‘Spinozan’ view of belief formation is correct, then we should reject a certain plausible epistemic norm of belief formation. The challenge raised by the 'Spinozan' view is distinctive because the evidence for the Spinozan view is only derivable from carefully controlled experiments, not from a priori considerations, introspection, or casual observation of reasoners. Thus, a result confirmable (if at all) only via experimental psychology plausibly constrains our epistemic norms. To make this argument, I draw in part on an epistemic version of the claim that 'ought' implies 'can.'