 Some take the connection between rational preference and rational belief to run very deep indeed. At the far end of the spectrum is the position that the very meaning of belief involves preference. Indeed, recall this manoeuvre in Savage’s theory, discussed earlier in  Section 3.1.  Many question the plausibility, however, of equating comparative belief with preferences over specially contrived prospects. A more moderate position is to regard these preferences as entailed by, but not identical with, the relevant comparative beliefs. Whether or not beliefs merely ground or are defined in terms of preference, there is a further question as to whether the only justification for rational belief having a certain structure (say, conforming to the probability calculus) is a pragmatic one, i.e., an argument resting on the agent’s preferences being otherwise inconsistent or self-defeating. A recent defender of this kind of pragmatism (albeit cast in more general terms) is Rinard (e.g., 2017). Others contend that accounts of rational belief can and should be ultimately justified on epistemic grounds; Joyce (1998), for instance, offers a non-pragmatic justification of probabilism that rests on the notion of overall “distance from the truth” of one’s beliefs. (For further developments of this position, see the entry on  epistemic utility arguments for probabilism.)