On latitude in attitude. Multidimensionalism and the right kind of reasons for belief

Abstract

Abstract It has been argued that multidimensionalism about normative support is a promising theory of the latitude exemplified by practical norms governing actions. One might, thus, suspect that a similar form of multidimensionalism might be an adequate explanation of the kind of latitude exemplified in one’s doxastic attitudes and provide further resources to epistemic permissivists regarding epistemic norms governing beliefs. In this paper, I raise some concerns regarding this contention. First, I provide a general theory of how multidimensionalism about normative support can be applied to the so-called right kind of reasons for attitudes, given that the former is commonly coated in contrastivist terms. Second, I offer a theory of how right kind of reasons for intentions could have different dimensions of strength, depending on how they relate to the fittingness and unfittingness of the attitudes in question. Finally, I show that this straightforward way to allow for multiple dimensions of normative strength of right kind of reasons does not translate well to the case of doxastic attitudes.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Philosophical Studies, 2026 · DOI ↗