•  123
    Weak Bayesian coherentism
    Synthese 157 (3): 337-346. 2007.
    Recent results in probability theory have cast doubt on coherentism, purportedly showing (a) that coherence among a set of beliefs cannot raise their probability unless individual beliefs have some independent credibility, and (b) that no possible measure of coherence makes coherence generally probability-enhancing. I argue that coherentists can reject assumptions on which these theorems depend, and I derive a general condition under which the concurrence of two information sources lacking indiv…Read more
  •  7952
    A liberal realist answer to debunking skeptics: the empirical case for realism
    Philosophical Studies 173 (7): 1983-2010. 2016.
    Debunking skeptics claim that our moral beliefs are formed by processes unsuited to identifying objective facts, such as emotions inculcated by our genes and culture; therefore, they say, even if there are objective moral facts, we probably don’t know them. I argue that the debunking skeptics cannot explain the pervasive trend toward liberalization of values over human history, and that the best explanation is the realist’s: humanity is becoming increasingly liberal because liberalism is the obj…Read more
  •  34
    Fumerton’s Principle of Inferential Justification
    Journal of Philosophical Research 27 329-340. 2002.
    Richard Fumerton’s “Principle of Inferential Justification” holds that, in order to be justified in believing P on the basis of E, one must be justified in believing that E makes P probable. I argue that the plausibility of this principle rests upon two kinds of mistakes: first, a level confusion; and second, a fallacy of misconditionalisation. Furthermore, Fumerton’s principle leads to skepticism about inferential justification, for which reason it should be rejected. Instead, the examples Fume…Read more
  •  193
    The problem of defeasible justification
    Erkenntnis 54 (3): 375-397. 2001.
    The problem of induction and the problem of Cartesian/brain-in-the-vat skepticism have much in common. Both are instances of a general problem of defeasible justification . I use the term "defeasible justification" to refer to a relation between a piece of evidence.
  •  12849
    In the practice of jury nullification, a jury votes to acquit a defendant in disregard of the factual evidence, on the grounds that a conviction would result in injustice, either because the law itself is unjust or because its application in the particular case would be unjust. The practice is widely condemned by courts, which strenuously attempt to prevent it. Nevertheless, the arguments against jury nullification are surprisingly weak. I argue that, pursuant to the general ethical duty to avoi…Read more
  •  123
    Epistemology: Contemporary Readings (edited book)
    Routledge. 2002.
    This comprehensive anthology draws together classic and contemporary readings by leading philosophers on epistemology. Ideal for any philosophy student, it will prove essential reading for epistemology courses, and is designed to complement Robert Audi's textbook _Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction_. Themes covered include, perception, memory, inductive inference, reason and the a priori, the architecture of knowledge, skepticism, the analysis of knowledge, testimony. Each section begins …Read more
  •  92
    Informal student evaluations of faculty were started in the 1960's by enterprising college students.(1) Since then, their use has spread so that now they are administered in almost all American colleges and universities and are probably the main source of information used for evaluating faculty teaching performance.(2) There is an enormous literature on the subject of student evaluations of faculty (SEF).(3) The following is a summary of some developments in that literature that should be of spe…Read more
  •  198
    Précis of ethical intuitionism (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78 (1): 192-196. 2008.
    I summarize the main conclusions of my 2005 book, Ethical Intuitionism, for the book symposium in this issue
  •  6240
    I argue that it is morally wrong for a lawyer to pursue a legal outcome that he knows to be unjust, such as the acquittal of a guilty client or the triumph of the wrong side in a lawsuit.
  •  194
    Non-egalitarianism
    Philosophical Studies 114 (1-2). 2003.
    Equality of welfare among persons has no intrinsic value. This follows from three axiological principles: (i) a principle of the indifference of the distribution of utility across time within an individual’s life, (ii) a strong supervenience principle for value, and (iii) a principle of the additivity of value across disjoint time periods. (iii) is the most likely target for attack by the egalitarian; but the rejection of (iii) creates decision-theoretic paradoxes.
  •  286
    Is critical thinking epistemically responsible?
    Metaphilosophy 36 (4): 522-531. 2005.
    Three ways of approaching controversial issues are: (i) To accept the conclusions of experts on their authority; (ii) to evaluate the relevant evidence/arguments for ourselves; and (iii) to simply withhold judgement. The received view recommends strategy (ii). But (ii) is normally epistemically inferior to (i) and (iii), since we are justified in believing that it is less reliable at producing true beliefs and avoiding false ones.
  •  3320
    A paradox for weak deontology
    Utilitas 21 (4): 464-477. 2009.
    Deontological ethicists generally agree that there is a way of harming others such that it is wrong to harm others in that way for the sake of producing a comparable but greater benefit for others. Given plausible assumptions about this type of harm, this principle yields the paradoxical result that it may be wrong to do A, wrong to do B, but permissible to do (A and B).
  •  3030
    In defence of repugnance
    Mind 117 (468): 899-933. 2008.
    I defend the 'Repugnant' Conclusion that for any possible population of happy people, a population containing a sufficient number of people with lives barely worth living would be better. Four lines of argument converge on this conclusion, and the conclusion has a simple, natural theoretical explanation. The opposition to the Repugnant Conclusion rests on a bare appeal to intuition. This intuition is open to charges of being influenced by multiple distorting factors. Several theories of populati…Read more
  •  143
    Values and morals: Outline of a skeptical realism
    Philosophical Issues 19 (1): 113-130. 2009.
    I propose a skeptical form of moral realism, according to which, while there are objective values, many of the evaluative properties appealed to in common sense moral thinking, particularly “thick” evaluative properties, may be illusory. I suggest that “immorality” may be an example of a thick evaluative term that denotes no real property.
  •  268
    Against Equality and Priority
    Utilitas 24 (4): 483-501. 2012.
    I start from three premises, roughly as follows: (1) that if possible world x is better than world y for every individual who exists in either world, then x is better than y; (2) that if x has a higher average utility, a higher total utility, and no more inequality than y, then x is better than y; (3) that better than is transitive. From these premises, it follows that benefits given to the worse off contribute no more to the world’s value than equal-sized benefits given to the better off.
  •  590
    Ethical Intuitionism
    Palgrave Macmillan. 2005.
    This book defends a form of ethical intuitionism, according to which (i) there are objective moral truths; (ii) we know some of these truths through a kind of immediate, intellectual awareness, or "intuition"; and (iii) our knowledge of moral truths gives us reasons for action independent of our desires. The author rebuts all the major objections to this theory and shows that the alternative theories about the nature of ethics all face grave difficulties.
  •  25
    The drug laws don’t work
    The Philosophers' Magazine 41 71-75. 2008.
    Illegal drugs are not inherently unclean, any more than alcohol, tobacco, or canola oil. All of these are simply chemicals that people choose to ingest for enjoyment, and that can harm our health if used to excess. Most of the sordid associations we have with illegal drugs are actually the product of the drug laws: it is because of the laws that drugs are sold on the black market, that Latin American crime bosses are made rich, that government officials are corrupted, and that drug users rob oth…Read more
  •  119
    Rawls's Problem of Stability
    Social Theory and Practice 22 (3): 375-395. 1996.
    Rawls addresses the problem of the stability of his conception of justice by arguing that it could become the focus of an “overlapping consensus,” in which individuals with diverse moral, philosophical, and religious views all accept the Rawlsian conception for different reasons. Using the example of Christian fundamentalists, I show that, subject to constraints that Rawls himself delineates, no such consensus is possible.
  •  1656
    Phenomenal Conservatism and the Internalist Intuition
    American Philosophical Quarterly 43 (2): 147-158. 2006.
    Externalist theories of justification create the possibility of cases in which everything appears to one relevantly similar with respect to two propositions, yet one proposition is justified while the other is not. Internalists find this difficult to accept, because it seems irrational in such a case to affirm one proposition and not the other. The underlying internalist intuition supports a specific internalist theory, Phenomenal Conservatism, on which epistemic justification is conferred by ap…Read more
  •  3387
    Causation as simultaneous and continuous
    with Ben Kovitz
    Philosophical Quarterly 53 (213). 2003.
    We propose that all actual causes are simultaneous with their direct effects, as illustrated by both everyday examples and the laws of physics. We contrast this view with the sequential conception of causation, according to which causes must occur prior to their effects. The key difference between the two views of causation lies in differing assumptions about the mathematical structure of time
  •  232
    Lexical priority and the problem of risk
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91 (3): 332-351. 2010.
    Some theories of practical reasons incorporate a lexical priority structure, according to which some practical reasons have infinitely greater weight than others. This includes absolute deontological theories and axiological theories that take some goods to be categorically superior to others. These theories face problems involving cases in which there is a non-extreme probability that a given reason applies. In view of such cases, lexical-priority theories are in danger of becoming irrelevant t…Read more
  •  2894
    When is parsimony a virtue
    Philosophical Quarterly 59 (235): 216-236. 2009.
    Parsimony is a virtue of empirical theories. Is it also a virtue of philosophical theories? I review four contemporary accounts of the virtue of parsimony in empirical theorizing, and consider how each might apply to two prominent appeals to parsimony in the philosophical literature, those made on behalf of physicalism and on behalf of nominalism. None of the accounts of the virtue of parsimony extends naturally to either of these philosophical cases. This suggests that in typical philosophical …Read more
  •  230
    Apology of a modest intuitionist (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78 (1): 222-236. 2008.
    No Abstract
  •  176
    The Puzzle of Metacoherence
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (1): 1-21. 2010.
    Moore’s paradox supports the principle of “metacoherence”, i.e., that if one categorically believes that P, one is committed to accepting that one knows that P. The principle raises puzzles about how, when one has justification for P, one also has justification for the claim that one knows P. I reject a skeptical answer as well as a bootstrapping answer, and I suggest that we typically have independent justification for the claim that we know P.
  •  124
    A Defense of the Given
    with Evan Fales
    Philosophical Review 108 (1): 128. 1999.
    The “doctrine of the given” that Fales defends holds that there are certain experiences such that we can have justified beliefs about their “contents” that are not based on any other beliefs, and that the rest of our justified empirical beliefs rest on those “basic beliefs.” The features of experience basic beliefs are about are said to be “given.” Fales holds that some basic beliefs are infallible, having a kind of clarity that guarantees their truth to the believer. In addition, some basic bel…Read more
  •  107
    Epistemological egoism and agent-centered norms
    In Trent Dougherty (ed.), Evidentialism and its Discontents, Oxford University Press. pp. 17. 2011.
    Agent-centered epistemic norms direct thinkers to attach different significance to their own epistemically relevant states than they attach to the similar states of others. Thus, if S and T both know, for certain, that S has the intuition that P, this might justify S in believing that P, yet fail to justify T in believing that P. I defend agent-centeredness and explain how an agent-centered theory can accommodate intuitions that seem to favor agent-neutrality.
  •  2687
    Skeptical hypotheses such as the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis provide extremely poor explanations for our sensory experiences. Because these scenarios accommodate virtually any possible set of evidence, the probability of any given set of evidence on the skeptical scenario is near zero; hence, on Bayesian grounds, the scenario is not well supported by the evidence. By contrast, serious theories make reasonably specific predictions about the evidence and are then well supported when these prediction…Read more
  •  360
    Does probability theory refute coherentism
    Journal of Philosophy 108 (1): 35-54. 2011.
    Recent results in probability theory have cast doubt on the coherence theory of justification, allegedly showing that coherence cannot produce justification for beliefs in the absence of foundational justification, and that there can be no measure of coherence on which coherence is generally truth-conducive. I argue that the coherentist can reject some of the assumptions on which these theorems depend. Coherence can then be held to produce justification on its own, and truth-conducive measures o…Read more