A Problem for Deontic Doxastic Constitutivism

Deontic Doxastic Constitutivism is the view that beliefs are constitutively governed by deontic norms. This roughly means that a full account and understanding of the nature of these mental attitudes cannot be reached unless one appeals to some norm of this type. My aim in this article is to provide an objection to such a conception of the normativity of belief. I argue that if some deontic norm is constitutive of belief, then the addressees of such a norm are committed to a potentially infinite number of norms. Furthermore, if addressees are in the position to fulfill all such norms, they must also be able to hold a potentially infinite number of logically independent beliefs. Both these consequences are problematic if compared with limited human capacities to act and believe.