 Recent controversies concern not merely the relation between permissibility and optimality, but also the metaphysical basis of each kind of success. In virtue of what is some state, or act, or process, or relation, epistemically permissible? And in virtue of what is it optimal to whatever degree it is? Epistemic consequentialists take the answer to the former question to be determined by appeal to the answer to the latter. For instance, one popular form of epistemic consequentialism claims that a particular way of forming one’s beliefs about the world is epistemically permissible just in so far as it promotes the possession of true belief and the avoidance of false  belief.[9]  Another form of consequentialism, consistent with but distinct from the first, says that a “credence function” (i.e., a function from propositions to degrees of confidence) is optimal just in so far as it promotes a single parameter—overall accuracy—which is measured in such a way that, the higher one’s confidence in true propositions and the lower one’s confidence in false propositions, the greater one’s overall  accuracy.[10]  There are also some forms of epistemic consequentialism according to which optimality involves promotion of ends that are practical rather than simply  alethic.[11]  An important controversy in the recent literature concerns the question of whether epistemic consequentialism is true (see Berker 2013, which develops a line of argument found in Firth 1978 [1998]). Another prominent controversy is carried on among consequentialists themselves, and concerns the question of what values are such that their realization or promotion constitutes optimality.