Presented By: Department of Philosophy
Graded Incoherence for Accuracy-Firsters
Julia Staffel, Washington University in St. Louis

Proponents of accuracy-first epistemology claim that the most fundamental epistemic end is to have degrees of belief that are as accurate, i.e. as close to the truth, as possible. Other epistemic norms or goods are only valuable to the extent that they help promote this end. In this paper, we show how accuracy-firsters can defend a version of the norm that it is better to have less, rather than more incoherent credences. This result is an attractive addition to the norms that accuracy-firsters have already argued for, for example that our credences should be coherent, rather than incoherent.