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1255Vulnerability in Social Epistemic NetworksInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 28 (5): 1-23. 2020.Social epistemologists should be well-equipped to explain and evaluate the growing vulnerabilities associated with filter bubbles, echo chambers, and group polarization in social media. However, almost all social epistemology has been built for social contexts that involve merely a speaker-hearer dyad. Filter bubbles, echo chambers, and group polarization all presuppose much larger and more complex network structures. In this paper, we lay the groundwork for a properly social epistemology that g…Read more
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1065Trust in a social and digital worldSocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 1 (8): 1-8. 2019.
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423Nietzsche's virtues: curiosity, courage, pathos of distance, sense of humor, and solitudeIn Christoph Halbig & Felix Timmermann (eds.), The Handbook of Virtue and Virtue Ethics, . 2021.
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612Vectors of epistemic insecurityIn Ian James Kidd, Quassim Cassam & Heather Battaly (eds.), Vice Epistemology, Routledge. 2020.Epistemologists have addressed a variety of modal epistemic standings, such as sensitivity, safety, risk, and epistemic virtue. These concepts mark out the ways that beliefs can fail to track the truth, articulate the conditions needed for knowledge, and indicate ways to become a better epistemic agent. However, it is our contention that current ways of carving up epistemic modality ignore the complexities that emerge when individuals are embedded within a community and listening to a variety of…Read more
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477Humility in networksIn Mark Alfano, Michael Patrick Lynch & Alessandra Tanesini (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Humility, Routledge. 2021.What do humility, intellectual humility, and open-mindedness mean in the context of inter-group conflict? We spend most of our time with ingroup members, such as family, friends, and colleagues. Yet our biggest disagreements —— about practical, moral, and epistemic matters —— are likely to be with those who do not belong to our ingroup. An attitude of humility towards the former might be difficult to integrate with a corresponding attitude of humility towards the latter, leading to smug tribalis…Read more
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962Ethical pitfalls for natural language processing in psychologyIn Morteza Dehghani & Ryan Boyd (eds.), The Atlas of Language Analysis in Psychology, Guilford Press. forthcoming.Knowledge is power. Knowledge about human psychology is increasingly being produced using natural language processing (NLP) and related techniques. The power that accompanies and harnesses this knowledge should be subject to ethical controls and oversight. In this chapter, we address the ethical pitfalls that are likely to be encountered in the context of such research. These pitfalls occur at various stages of the NLP pipeline, including data acquisition, enrichment, analysis, storage, and shar…Read more
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392Morality is fundamentally an evolved solution to problems of social cooperationCritique of Anthropology. forthcoming.
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49A cross-cultural assessment of the semantic dimensions of intellectual humilityAI and Society 34 (4): 785-801. 2019.Intellectual humility can be broadly construed as being conscious of the limits of one’s existing knowledge and capable of acquiring more knowledge, which makes it a key virtue of the information age. However, the claim “I am humble” seems paradoxical in that someone who has the disposition in question would not typically volunteer it. Therefore, measuring intellectual humility via self-report may be methodologically unsound. As a consequence, we suggest analyzing intellectual humility semantica…Read more
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1363The philosophical basis of algorithmic recourseFairness, Accountability, and Transparency Conference 2020. forthcoming.Philosophers have established that certain ethically important val- ues are modally robust in the sense that they systematically deliver correlative benefits across a range of counterfactual scenarios. In this paper, we contend that recourse – the systematic process of reversing unfavorable decisions by algorithms and bureaucracies across a range of counterfactual scenarios – is such a modally ro- bust good. In particular, we argue that two essential components of a good life – temporally extend…Read more
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66Vices of Other Minds: Review of Cassam’s Vices of the MindEthical Theory and Moral Practice 23 (5): 875-879. 2019.
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49The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Humility (edited book)Routledge. 2021.Humility is a vital aspect of political discussion, social media and self-help, whilst recent empirical research has linked humility to improved well-being, open-mindedness and increased accuracy in assessing persuasive messages. It is also a topic central to research and discussion in philosophy, applied ethics and religious studies. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Humility is the first collection to present a comprehensive overview the philosophy of humility, whilst also covering impor…Read more
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536Knowledge From Vice: Deeply Social EpistemologyMind 129 (515): 887-915. 2020.In the past two decades, epistemologists have significantly expanded the focus of their field. To the traditional question that has dominated the debate — under what conditions does belief amount to knowledge? — they have added questions about testimony, epistemic virtues and vices, epistemic trust, and more. This broadening of the range of epistemic concern has coincided with an expansion in conceptions of epistemic agency beyond the individualism characteristic of most earlier epistemology. We…Read more
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81Guest Editors' Introduction: Examining Moral Emotions in Nietzsche with the Semantic Web Exploration Tool: NietzscheJournal of Nietzsche Studies 50 (1): 1-10. 2019.Five years ago, the Journal of Nietzsche Studies published a special issue on Nietzsche and the affects. In it, Aurelia Armstrong wrote generically about the passions, Michael Ure discussed Schadenfreude, Joanne Faulkner addressed disgust, and Joseph Kuzma focused on eroticism.1 In subsequent issues, authors have discussed love,2 emotion in general,3 resentment,4 compassion,5 honor and empathy,6 and affect in general.7 This special section on emotions and reactive attitudes is a chance to take s…Read more
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16Shame for Kantians, and OthersCriminal Justice Ethics 37 (3): 275-286. 2018.In Naked, Krista K. Thomason offers a multifaceted account of shame, covering its nature as an emotion, its positive and negative roles in moral life, its association with violence, and its provoca...
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2036Can Real Social Epistemic Networks Deliver the Wisdom of Crowds?In Tania Lombrozo, Joshua Knobe & Shaun Nichols (eds.), Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy, Volume 1, Oxford University Press Uk. 2014.In this paper, we explain and showcase the promising methodology of testimonial network analysis and visualization for experimental epistemology, arguing that it can be used to gain insights and answer philosophical questions in social epistemology. Our use case is the epistemic community that discusses vaccine safety primarily in English on Twitter. In two studies, we show, using both statistical analysis and exploratory data visualization, that there is almost no neutral or ambivalent discuss…Read more
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336Krista K. Thomason, Naked: The Dark Side of Shame and Moral Life, Oxford University Press, 2018.Criminal Justice Ethics. forthcoming.In Naked, Krista K. Thomason offers a multi-faceted account of shame, covering its nature as an emotion, its positive and negative roles in moral life, its association with violence, and its provocation through invitations to shame, public shaming, and stigmatization. Along the way, she reflects on a range of examples drawn from literature, memoirs, journalism, and her own imagination. She also considers alternative views at length, draws a wealth of important distinctions, and articulates many …Read more
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1514Constructing and validating a scale of inquisitive curiosityIn Ilhan Inan, Lani Watson, Dennis Whitcomb & Safiye Yigit (eds.), The Moral Psychology of Curiosity, Rowman & Littlefield International. 2018.We advance the understanding of the philosophy and psychology of curiosity by operationalizing and constructing an empirical measure of Nietzsche’s conception of inquisitive curiosity, expressed by the German term Wissbegier, (“thirst for knowledge” or “need/impetus to know”) and Neugier (“curiosity” or “inquisitiveness”). First, we show that existing empirical measures of curiosity do not tap the construct of inquisitive curiosity, though they may tap related constructs such as idle curiosity a…Read more
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71The epistemic function of contempt and humor in NietzscheIn Michelle Mason (ed.), The Moral Psychology of Contempt, Rowman & Littlefield International. 2018.Interpreters have noticed that Nietzsche, in addition to sometimes being uproariously funny, reflects more on laughter and having a sense of humor than almost any other philosopher. Several scholars have further noticed that Nietzschean laughter sometimes seems to have an epistemic function. In this chapter, I therefore assume that Nietzsche is a pluralist about the functions of humor and laughter, and seek to establish the uses he finds for them. I offer an interpretation according to which he …Read more
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520Development and validation of a multi-dimensional measure of intellectual humilityPLoS ONE 12 (8). 2017.This paper presents five studies on the development and validation of a scale of intellectual humility. This scale captures cognitive, affective, behavioral, and motivational components of the construct that have been identified by various philosophers in their conceptual analyses of intellectual humility. We find that intellectual humility has four core dimensions: Open-mindedness (versus Arrogance), Intellectual Modesty (versus Vanity), Corrigibility (versus Fragility), and Engagement (versus …Read more
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1106Technological Seduction and Self-RadicalizationJournal of the American Philosophical Association (3): 298-322. 2018.Many scholars agree that the Internet plays a pivotal role in self-radicalization, which can lead to behaviours ranging from lone-wolf terrorism to participation in white nationalist rallies to mundane bigotry and voting for extremist candidates. However, the mechanisms by which the Internet facilitates self-radicalization are disputed; some fault the individuals who end up self-radicalized, while others lay the blame on the technology itself. In this paper, we explore the role played by technol…Read more
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815Ethical issues of 'morality mining': When the moral identity of individuals becomes a focus of data-miningIn Hakikur Rahman & Isabel Ramos (eds.), Ethical Data Mining Applications for Socio-Economic Development, Igi Global. pp. 1-21. 2013.
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335A research program for empirically informed ethicsIn Empirically Informed Ethics, Springer. pp. 3-27. 2013.
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92Character as Moral FictionCambridge University Press. 2013.Everyone wants to be virtuous, but recent psychological investigations suggest that this may not be possible. Mark Alfano challenges this theory and asks, not whether character is empirically adequate, but what characters human beings could have and develop. Although psychology suggests that most people do not have robust character traits such as courage, honesty and open-mindedness, Alfano argues that we have reason to attribute these virtues to people because such attributions function as self…Read more
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9Implications for virtue epistemology from psychological science: Intelligence as an interactionist virtueIn Heather Battaly (ed.), Handbook of Virtue Epistemology, Routledge. pp. 433-445. 2018.This chapter aims to expand the body of empirical literature considered relevant to virtue theory beyond the burned-over districts that are the situationist challenges to virtue ethics and epistemology. We thus raise a rather simple-sounding question: why doesn’t virtue epistemology have an account of intelligence? In the first section, we sketch the history and present state of the person-situation debate to argue for the importance of an interactionist framework in bringing psychological resea…Read more
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150Current Controversies in Virtue Theory (edited book)Routledge. 2015.Virtue is among the most venerable concepts in philosophy, and has recently seen a major revival. However, new challenges to conceptions of virtue have also arisen. In _Current Controversies in Virtue Theory_, five pairs of cutting-edge philosophers square off over central topics in virtue theory: the nature of virtue, the connection between virtue and flourishing, the connection between moral and epistemic virtues, the way in which virtues are acquired, and the possibility of attaining virtue. …Read more
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11Extending the situationist challenge to reliabilism about inferenceIn Abrol Fairweather & Owen Flanagan (eds.), Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, Synthese Library. pp. 103-122. 2014.
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92Sensitivity Theory and the Individuation of Belief-Formation MethodsErkenntnis 70 (2): 271-281. 2009.In this paper it is argued that sensitivity theory suffers from a fatal defect. Sensitivity theory is often glossed as: (1) S knows that p only if S would not believe that p if p were false. As Nozick showed in his pioneering work on sensitivity theory, this formulation needs to be supplemented by a further counterfactual condition: (2) S knows that p only if S would believe p if p were true. Nozick further showed that the theory needs a qualification on the method used to form the belief. Howev…Read more
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88Ethics, morality, and game theoryGames 9 (2). 2018.Ethics is a field in which the gap between words and actions looms large. Game theory and the empirical methods it inspires look at behavior instead of the lip service people sometimes pay to norms. We believe that this special issue comprises several illustrations of the fruitful application of this approach to ethics.
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343Swanton, Christine. The Virtue Ethics of Hume and Nietzsche.Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015. Pp. 248. $99.95Ethics 126 (4): 1120-1124. 2016.This book has a noble aim: to free virtue ethics from the grip of the neo- Aristotelianism that limits its scope in contemporary Anglophone philosophy. Just as there are deontological views that are not Kant’s or even Kantian, just as there are consequentialist views that are not Bentham’s or even utilitarian, so, Swanton contends, there are viable virtue ethical views that are not Aristotle’s or even Aristotelian. Indeed, the history of both Eastern and Western philosophy suggests that the majo…Read more
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46A cross-cultural assessment of the semantic dimensions of intellectual humilityAI and Society 34 (4): 785-801. 2019.Intellectual humility can be broadly construed as being conscious of the limits of one’s existing knowledge and capable of acquiring more knowledge, which makes it a key virtue of the information age. However, the claim “I am humble” seems paradoxical in that someone who has the disposition in question would not typically volunteer it. Therefore, measuring intellectual humility via self-report may be methodologically unsound. As a consequence, we suggest analyzing intellectual humility semantica…Read more
CUNY
Alumnus, 2011
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Normative Ethics |
19th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Social Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Language, Miscellaneous |
PhilPapers Editorships
Skepticism about Character |