Process Reliabilism is Permissive (and Plausible)

Abstract

The debate between permissivists and impermissivists – which concerns the question of whether there is at most one epistemically rational doxastic attitude to adopt toward a proposition given a body of evidence – has been a focus of discussion in the literature. However, this debate has occurred almost exclusively within an internalist context. I aim to change that by introducing an externalist perspective into the debate. In particular, I will consider what a process reliabilist should think about the debate. Since process reliabilists do not typically talk about evidence, I will show how the debate can be translated into process reliabilist terms. In light of this translation, I will argue that process reliabilists should be permissivists. I will also argue that process reliabilism is a plausible version of permissivism because it can successfully respond to common objections to permissive views.