In this post I would like to examine an objection to evidentialism as it is used as the basis of an argument for why theism is irrational. My claim is that this objection to evidentialism makes such a strong claim that it effectively disallows any rational discussion whatsoever. I’d like to get feedback on my thinking on this issue.

Here are two relevant links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_and_rationality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentialism

Let’s start by talking about the faith vs. reason debate and evidentialism in general terms. Fideism is the view that one is justified in holding some beliefs without evidence or reason, even if such beliefs conflict with evidence and reason. Rationalism is the contrary position, that one may only justify one’s beliefs using evidence and reason, where truth is essential in establishing the standards of evidence and reasoning. Evidentialism is a kind of rationalism in that it holds that epistemic justification for holding a belief lies solely in the strength of evidence presented to justify that belief. Richard Feldman and Earl Conee argue that evidentialism is the primary notion of epistemic justification. Formally, the claim of evidentialism is the following:

A belief B with respect to some proposition P is epistemically justified for some person S at time T if and only if having B toward P “fits” or “accords with” the evidence.

I would like to leave aside the issue of what it means for a belief to “fit” the evidence. This is obviously an important issue, but I want to focus in this post on the idea that evidence is at all relevant to holding a belief, whatever the specific nature of “fitting” the evidence might turn out to be.

The objection to evidentialism I want to consider is that it is self-defeating. The claim is that there is no non-circular argument to be made for the claim of evidentialism itself. According to this criticism, Feldman and Conee simply present the thesis of evidentialism as common sense and then proceed to defend it from objections. Thus, there is no evidence for evidentialism itself, such that there is no evidence to make evidentialism more likely than not. In other words, according to evidentialism, we are as much justified in not believing in evidentialism as we are in believing it.

My response is to argue that this objection can succeed only if we assume that justification must be infallible. However, justification is always fallible. Indeed, the claim that all justification is fallible is a presupposition of evidentialism itself. Thus, even the claim of evidentialism is fallible and susceptible to contrary evidence. However, what distinguishes evidentialism as having a stronger epistemic grounding than anti-evidentialism, including fideism, is that we can point to a long history of success using evidentialism as our primary epistemic assumption, for example, in successfully coping in our everyday lives and in doing science. If the claim that evidentialism is self-defeating is true, then there is no evidence that meets the standards of epistemic justification to justify any belief whatsoever, and we have ended all rational discourse. If instead we allow that evidentialism itself is justified on the basis of its success in allowing us to cope successfully to solve problems in the world, including intellectual problems, then it meets the standard of rational justification that is suitable for offering any belief whatsoever. At this point, the focus then shifts to deciding which evidence is better/best, not whether evidence is at all relevant to justifying beliefs.

I would like to hear what others think about my response to this objection. Thank you in advance.