The epistemic and zetetic irrationality of incessant checking in OCD

Incessant checking is one of the most common compulsive behaviors used to relieve the anxiety caused by obsessions in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It is agreed that this behavior can be practically irrational, since it only reduces anxiety temporarily and may interfere with one’s daily goals. But what about their irrationality as inquirers? Is there something irrational in what OCD checkers believe about their own inquiries, or in the way they carry them out? In this paper, I take a closer look at these questions. I argue that we must distinguish between those who keep inquiring despite holding incorrect beliefs about their prospects for success in inquiry, and those who do so despite holding correct beliefs about those prospects. In the first case, the failure occurs at the level of belief (i.e. the failure is epistemic), while in the latter case it occurs at the level of inquiry (i.e. the failure is zetetic). Distinguishing between these two scenarios allows for a finer-grained understanding of incessant checking in OCD than existing accounts provide. It also brings into view a dimension of insight that is not captured by standard clinical assessments, namely, whether the agent correctly evaluates her prospects for success in inquiry.