Ramsey + Moore = God ?
Juan Comesaña of Certain Doubts points out a very short paper which purports to prove that every rational being should believe they are omniscient and infallible (i.e. they have the epistemic powers of a god). The proof is based on the Ramsey test for conditionals (”If p then q” is acceptable to a subject S iff, were S to accept p and consider q, S would accept q.) and the requirement that rational beings avoid Moore-paradoxical beliefs.
I was going to defer posting about this until I had figured out how to resolve this problem, but the problem is more subtle than I had initially thought. The Ramsey test seems OK to me. In my opinion, the paper’s fantastic result is a vivid rendering of the difficulties surrounding Moore-paradoxical statements. And I’m not sure what is the correct way to resolve this issue.
Anyway, the post at Certain Doubts has more discussion on the topic.
All the more proof that the word “belief” should be stricken from the English language!