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176Elusive freedom? A reply to Helen BeebeePhilosophical Review 113 (3): 411-416. 2004.I defend my earlier argument for incompatibilism, against Helen Beebee’s reply. Beebee’s reply would allow one to have free will despite that nothing one does counts as an exercise of that freedom, and would grant one the ability to do A even when one’s doing A requires something to happen that one cannot bring about and that in fact will not happen.
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168Confessions of a utopophobeSocial Philosophy and Policy 33 (1-2): 214-234. 2016.:Ideal theorists in political philosophy seek to describe a perfect political society, and to evaluate political principles by reference to their consequences in a world where everyone complies with the principles. I argue that ideal theory is not needed to set goals for practical inquiries, nor to define justice, nor to enable rankings of injustices. Nor is it useful to theorize about very different kinds of society that might occur in the far future. Ideal theory tempts us to make each of thre…Read more
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161You pass an electron through an inhomogeneous magnetic field (this is produced by a type of magnet, but don’t worry about the details). The field causes the electron to swerve. It is found that all electrons swerve by the same amount, and half of them swerve up, while the other half swerve down. See a video illustration of this.
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150Reply to Walter Block on Ethical VegetarianismStudia Humana 10 (1): 41-50. 2021.I address Walter Block’s recent criticisms of my book, Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism. Methodologically, Block relies too much on appeals to contentious and extreme assumptions. Substantively, most of his objections are irrelevant to the central issue of the book. Those that are relevant turn on false assumptions or lead to absurd consequences. In the end, Block’s claim to oppose suffering cannot be reconciled with his indifference to a practice that probably causes, every few years, more su…Read more
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148Values and morals: Outline of a skeptical realismPhilosophical 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.
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134Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology‐ By Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood (review)Philosophical Books 49 (4): 388-390. 2008.No Abstract
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133Weak Bayesian coherentismSynthese 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
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130A Defense of the GivenPhilosophical 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
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128Epistemology: 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
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126Phenomenal ConservatismInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2013.Phenomenal Conservatism Phenomenal Conservatism is a theory in epistemology that seeks, roughly, to ground justified beliefs in the way things “appear” or “seem” to the subject who holds a belief. The theory fits with an internalistic form of foundationalism—that is, the view that some beliefs are justified non-inferentially (not on the basis of other beliefs), and that […]
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124Self-Locating BeliefsIn Paradox Lost: Logical Solutions to ten Puzzles of Philosophy, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 219-243. 2018.Beauty is put to sleep and woken up either once or twice, depending on the flip of a coin; after each waking, she will fall asleep and forget having woken. Upon waking, what should be her credence that the coin came up heads? Some say 1/2; others say 1/3. I propose that evidence supports a theory for you when your having that qualitative evidence would be more likely if the theory were true than if it were false. This view supports the “1/3” answer to the Sleeping Beauty problem. It also has app…Read more
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120Rawls's Problem of StabilitySocial 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.
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114Gun Rights as Deontic ConstraintsSocial Theory and Practice 45 (4): 601-612. 2019.In earlier work, I argued that gun prohibition is unjustified because it violates an individual right to self-defense. Here, I defend that argument against objections posed by Nicholas Dixon and Jeff McMahan to the effect that the right of citizens to be free from gun violence counterbalances the right of self-defense, and that gun prohibition does not violate the right of self-defense because it renders everyone overall safer.
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112Van Inwagen’s Consequence ArgumentPhilosophical Review 109 (4): 525. 2000.Peter van Inwagen has presented a compelling argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism, which he calls “the Consequence Argument.” This argument depends on a controversial inference rule, “rule beta,” which says.
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112Epistemological egoism and agent-centered normsIn 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.
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108Arbitrary foundations?Philosophical Forum 34 (2). 2003.Foundationalism has often been charged with the defect of endorsing “arbitrary” foundations. On the most obvious interpretations of the term “arbitrary,” this objection transparently begs the question. A more sophisticated interpretation reveals the objection as resting on a conceptual confusion between reasons why a belief is justified and reasons that the believer has for the belief.
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107Logical Properties of WarrantPhilosophical Studies 122 (2): 171-182. 2005.Trenton Merricks argues that on any reasonable account, warrant must entailtruth. I demonstrate three theses about the properties ofwarrant: (1) Warrant is not unique;there are many properties that satisfy the definition of warrant. (2) Warrant need not entail truth; there are some warrant properties that entailtruthand others that do not. (3) Warrant need not be closed under entailment, even if knowledge is. If knowledge satisfies closure, then some warrant properties satisfy closure while othe…Read more
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105People want things, and they tend to act in such a way as to get the things they want, to the best of their ability.1 Sometimes our wants conflict with each other, so that we are forced to choose between different things that we want. When this happens, we normally choose the thing that we want more, over the thing that we want less. Behaving in this way is what we call “rational”; more specifically, it is “instrumentally rational.” Instrumental rationality consists in choosing the means that be…Read more
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103A Direct Realist Account of Perceptual AwarenessDissertation, Rutgers University. 1998.In the first chapter, I explain the concept of awareness and the distinction between direct and indirect awareness. Direct awareness of x is understood as awareness of x which is not based on awareness of anything else, and the "based on" relation is understood as a particular way in which one state of awareness can be caused by another state of awareness when the contents of the two states are logically related.
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92Informal 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
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90The Duty to Disregard the LawCriminal Law and Philosophy 12 (1): 1-18. 2018.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. Though the practice is widely condemned by courts, the arguments against jury nullification are surprisingly weak. I argue that, pursuant to the general ethical duty to avoid causing unjust harms to others, jurors are oft…Read more
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79Is Political Authority an Illusion?: A DebateRoutledge. 2021.What gives some people the right to issue commands to everyone else and force everyone else to obey them? And why should people obey the commands of those with political power? These two key questions are the heart of the issue of political authority, and, in this volume, two philosophers debate the answers. Michael Huemer argues that political authority is an illusion and that no one is entitled to rule over anyone. He discusses and rebuts the major theories supporting political authority's rig…Read more
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79Is Benevolent Egoism Coherent?Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 3 (2). 2002.Michael Huemer argues that there is a tension between two principles putatively essential to Rand's ethics: the principle of egoism, which states that the only reason for doing (or not doing) anything is that it will serve (or frustrate) one's own interests; and the principle that one must not sacrifice others. Huemer considers several arguments that Rand offers for the second principle but finds that each involves either implausible empirical assumptions or assumptions that conflict with egoism…Read more
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70Review of Erik Olsson, Against Coherence: Truth, Probability, and Justification (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (5). 2006.
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67When All Else Fails: The Ethics of Resistance to State Injustice (review)The Philosophers' Magazine 85 114-116. 2019.
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67On Liberty and Cruelty: A Reply to Walter BlockStudia Humana 11 (1): 32-42. 2022.A standard argument for ethical vegetarianism contends that factory farming – the source of nearly all animal products – is morally wrong due to its extreme cruelty, and that it is wrong to buy products produced in an extremely immoral manner. This article defends this argument against objections based on appeal to libertarian political philosophy, the supposed benefit to animals of being raised for food, and nonhuman animals’ supposed lack of rights.
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64The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (review)Philosophical Review 113 (2): 279-283. 2004.The free will literature is sufficiently voluminous that even philosophers already working in the area can profit from the Handbook. Beyond the survey articles, it provides a boon in the shape of summary statements and defenses, by several prominent writers on free will, of theories that they have developed at greater length elsewhere. It is, of course, impossible to discuss every article in the book; here I shall mention only a handful of the more salient.
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64The Problem of Memory KnowledgePacific Philosophical Quarterly 80 (4): 346-357. 1999.When one recalls that P, how is one justified in believing that P? I refute the three most natural answers to this question: a memory belief is not justified by a belief in the reliability of memory; a memory experience does not provide a new, foundational justification for a belief; and memory does not merely preserve the same justification a belief had when first adopted. Instead, the justification of a memory belief is a product of both the initial justification for adopting it and the justif…Read more
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56Alternative Self-Defeat Arguments: A Reply to MizrahiLogos and Episteme 5 (2): 223-229. 2014.I address Moti Mizrahi‟s objections to my use of the Self-Defeat Argument for Phenomenal Conservatism (PC). Mizrahi contends that other epistemologicaltheories can be supported by parallel self-defeat arguments. I argue that the self-defeat arguments for other theories either (a) are compatible with PC and thus present no problem, or (b) have a false premise, unlike the self-defeat argument for PC.
Boulder, Colorado, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |