Self-Aware Believing and Epistemic Akrasia

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This chapter argues that self-awareness will sometimes lead to cases of what is often thought of as rational epistemic akrasia. These are cases where subjects are rational to have a belief, while simultaneously rationally believing that they are not rational to have that belief. It concentrates on a certain kind of akrasia that can be induced by taking higher-order evidence seriously: examples where akratic subjects are rational to expect accuracy and rationality to diverge in their own cases. Using these cases, the chapter rejects arguments for the impossibility of rational akrasia. It also rejects some formal principles that would allow some degree of akrasia, but would place general limits on it. And it rejects the suggestion that akratic beliefs manifest some defect in the subject who has them.</jats:p>