Against epistemic reasons for pointless beliefs

It is tempting to think that whenever one has evidence for a proposition, one thereby has epistemic reason to believe it. Yet we often have evidence bearing on propositions that it would be pointless to believe. Such cases generate a familiar “too few reasons” problem for epistemic instrumentalism, but they are also puzzling for broader families of views that connect reasons to value or derive deontic verdicts from the comparative weight of normative reasons. This paper argues from three independently plausible principles that we should reject the existence of epistemic reasons for pointless beliefs and relies on this to motivate a version of epistemic instrumentalism. It also addresses the worry that even when it comes to uninteresting propositions it seems irrational to believe against one’s evidence, by explaining how this irrationality is compatible with the absence of epistemic reasons bearing on such propositions.