Welfarist Pluralism: Pluralistic Reasons for Belief and the Value of Truth

This paper outlines a new pluralistic theory of normative reasons for belief, welfarist pluralism, which aims to explain how there can be basic alethic/epistemic reasons for belief and basic pragmatic/non-alethic reasons for belief that can combine to determine what one ought to believe. The paper shows how this non-derivative first-order pluralism arises from a purely welfarist account of the foundations of theoretical normativity, thereby combining foundational pragmatism with non-derivative pluralism about normative reasons for belief. In addition, this paper outlines how welfarist pluralism provides a new and potentially attractive account of the value of truth (or its indicators), namely that the value of truth (or its indicators) is its direct contribution to individuals’ personal good or wellbeing.