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Arbitrariness and Uniqueness
Author(s) -
Meacham Christopher J. G.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/papq.12384
Subject(s) - arbitrariness , uniqueness , epistemology , philosophy , mathematics , mathematical analysis
Evidential Uniqueness is the thesis that, for any batch of evidence, there's a unique doxastic state that a subject with that evidence should have. One of the most common kinds of objections to views that violate Evidential Uniqueness are arbitrariness objections – objections to the effect that views that do not satisfy Evidential Uniqueness lead to unacceptable arbitrariness. The goal of this paper is to examine a variety of arbitrariness objections that have appeared in the literature, and to assess the extent to which these objections bolster the case for Evidential Uniqueness. After examining a number of different arbitrariness objections, I'll conclude that, by and large, these objections do little to bolster the case for Evidential Uniqueness.