  However, this proposal must address several problems. For instance, it seems doubtful that a rational life can be based on hypotheticals without a large web of background beliefs (see Frede 1979 and Bett 1989). Without them, the skeptic seems unable to decide which hypotheses to suppose and when to suppose them. And even if such a life is possible, it is not clear how it would be practically distinguishable from, and so preferable to, a life based wholly on belief. If the skeptic regards as hypothetical the very same things we ordinarily believe, then skepticism seems unmotivated. (See Thorsrud 2010 and Perin 2013 for other objections.) Perhaps one could defend the possibility of a radically skeptical life of this kind by saying that, while its development requires starting with beliefs, over time an increasing number of background beliefs may be substituted with hypotheses, and that the benefits of the skeptical life are of a second-order, affecting the ease with which the skeptic can change the guiding assumptions of her life.