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In order to motivate the claim that epistemic rationality is normative, some authors have argued that epistemic rationality has to do with responding to factive sufficient epistemic reasons one has—call this the Owned Reasons Thesis. However, this strategy seems to come at a cost. Indeed, rationality is typically understood as an internal norm, which has to do with responding correctly to apparent (factive or non-factive) reasons—call this the Owned Apparent Reasons Thesis. While it is plausible that factive reasons are normative, it is far from clear that apparent reasons are normative. So, it seems that the Owned Apparent Reasons Thesis faces a special challenge: while the Owned Reasons Thesis can explain the normativity of epistemic rationality, the Owned Apparent Reasons Thesis can't. How can we solve this puzzle? In order to solve this problem, I develop and justify an epistemic version of the theory of the second best. I will argue that, relative to the epistemic theory of the second best, the Owned Apparent Reasons Thesis faces no special challenge in explaining the normativity of epistemic rationality.
