Abstract
Thomas Kroedel argues that the lottery paradox can be solved by identifying epistemic justication with epistemic permissibility rather than epistemic obligation. According to his permissibility solution, we are permitted to believe of each lottery ticket that it will lose, but since permissions do not agglomerate, it does not follow that we are permitted to have all of these beliefs together, and therefore it also does not follow that we are permitted to believe that all tickets will lose. I present two objections to this solution. First, even if justication itself amounts to no more than epistemic permissibility, the lottery paradox recurs at the level of doxastic obligations unless one adopts an extremely permissive view about suspension of belief that is in tension with our practice of doxastic criticism. Second, even if there are no obligations to believe lottery propositions, the permissibility solution fails because epistemic permissions typically agglomerate, and the lottery case provides no exception to this rule.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 241-261 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Episteme |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Sept 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |
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