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379A noncontextualist account of contextualist linguistic dataActa Analytica 20 (2): 56-79. 2005.The paper takes as its starting point the observation that people can be led to retract knowledge claims when presented with previously ignored error possibilities, but offers a noncontextualist explanation of the data. Fallibilist epistemologies are committed to the existence of two kinds of Kp -falsifying contingencies: (i) Non-Ignorable contingencies [NI-contingencies] and (ii) Properly-Ignorable contingencies [PI-contingencies]. For S to know that p, S must be in an epistemic position to rul…Read more
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Paul Warren TaylorIn Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, Vol. 2, Gale Cengage Learning. pp. 302-304. 2008.
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35Russellizing Russell: A reply to his “a critique of Lehrer's coherentism”Philosophical Studies 66 (1). 1992.
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14InconsistencyGrazer Philosophische Studien 40 (1): 113-130. 1991.The relationship between inconsistency and Lehrerian coherence is scrutinized. Like most coherence theorists of epistemic justification, Lehrer contends that consistency is necessary for coherence. Despite this contention, minimally inconsistent belief-sets prove coherent and rationally acceptable on Lehrer's account of coherence. Lehrer is left with the following dilemma: If consistency is necessary for coherence, then (i) he must revise his account of coherence accordingly and, more importantl…Read more
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Tierethik, Tierrechte, und moralische IntegritätIn Rainer Ebert (ed.), Tierrechte – Eine interdisziplinäre Herausforderung, Harald Fischer Verlag. pp. 105-133. 2007.
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Ethical ExtensionismIn Engel Jr Mylan (ed.), Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, Vol. 1, Gale Cengage Learning. pp. 396-398. 2008.
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875The mere considerability of animalsActa Analytica 16 89-108. 2001.Singer and Regan predicate their arguments -- for ethical vegetarianism, against animal experimentation, and for an end to animal exploitation generally -- on the equal considerability premise (EC). According to (EC), we owe humans and sentient nonhumans exactly the same degree of moral considerability. While Singer's and Regan's conclusions follow from (EC), many philosophers reject their arguments because they find (EC)'s implications morally repugnant and intuitively unacceptable. Like most p…Read more
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41Review of Practical Ethics, 3rd Edition by Peter Singer1 (review)American Journal of Bioethics 11 (12): 73-75. 2011.The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 12, Page 73-75, December 2011
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133Coherentism and the epistemic justification of moral beliefs: A case study in how to do practical ethics without appeal to a moral theorySouthern Journal of Philosophy 50 (1): 50-74. 2012.This paper defends a coherentist approach to moral epistemology. In “The Immorality of Eating Meat”, I offer a coherentist consistency argument to show that our own beliefs rationally commit us to the immorality of eating meat. Elsewhere, I use our own beliefs as premises to argue that we have positive duties to assist the poor and to argue that biomedical animal experimentation is wrong. The present paper explores whether this consistency-based coherentist approach of grounding particular moral…Read more
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Review of Mark Devries’s documentary film "Speciesism: The Movie"The Philosophers’ Magazine (65): 123-124. 2014.
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138The Commonsense Case for Ethical VegetarianismBetween the Species: A Journal of Ethics 19 (1): 2-31. 2016.The article defends ethical vegetarianism, which, for present purposes, is stipulatively taken to be the view that it is morally wrong to eat animals when equally nutritious plant-based foods are available. Several examples are introduced to show that we all agree that animals deserve some direct moral consideration and to help identify and clarify several commonsense moral principles—principles we all accept. These principles are then used to argue that eating animals is morally wrong. Since yo…Read more
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282Personal and doxastic justification in epistemologyPhilosophical Studies 67 (2): 133-150. 1992.
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1814VegetarianismEncyclopedia of Global Bioethics. 2016.Ethical vegetarians maintain that vegetarianism is morally required. The principal reasons offered in support of ethical vegetarianism are: (i) concern for the welfare and well-being of the animals being eaten, (ii) concern for the environment, (iii) concern over global food scarcity and the just distribution of resources, and (iv) concern for future generations. Each of these reasons is explored in turn, starting with a historical look at ethical vegetarianism and the moral status of animals.
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797Epistemic LuckInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 1-41. 2011.Epistemic luck is a generic notion used to describe any of a number of ways in which it can be accidental, coincidental, or fortuitous that a person has a true belief. For example, one can form a true belief as a result of a lucky guess, as when one believes through guesswork that “C” is the right answer to a multiple-choice question and one’s belief just happens to be correct. One can form a true belief via wishful thinking; for example, an optimist’s belief that it will not rain may luckily tu…Read more
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244The problem of other minds: A reliable solutionActa Analytica 11 87-109. 1996.Paul Churchland characterizes the "epistemological problem" in philosophy of mind as the problem "concerned with how we come to have knowledge of the internal activities of conscious, intelligent minds." This problem is itself divided into two separate, but related problems: (1) the problem of self-consciousness -- that of determining how one comes to have knowledge of one's own mental states, and (2) the problem of other minds -- that of explaining how one can ever come to know that something o…Read more
DeKalb, Illinois, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Religion |
Applied Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |