Acting Upon Uncertain Beliefs

This paper discusses the conditions under which an agent is rationally permitted to leave some uncertain propositions relevant to her decision out of her deliberation. By relying on the view that belief involves a defeasible disposition to treat a proposition as true in one’s reasoning, we examine the conditions under which such a disposition can be overridden and under which an agent should take into account her uncertainty as to a proposition she believes in the course of a particular deliberation. We argue that, in some contexts, an agent can be faced with the choice of either accepting or not accepting a proposition she believes in the course of her deliberation. We provide a description of such higher-order deliberations within the framework of expected utility theory and draw conclusions regarding the phenomenon of pragmatic encroachment on knowledge.