Alireza Kazemi

Belief normativists claim that certain mental phenomena are best explained by holding that belief is constituted by a truth norm. These phenomena include deliberative transparency, according to which the deliberative question whether to believe that p is necessarily and immediately settled by answering the question whether p, and Moore's paradox, which concerns the impossibility or sheer absurdity of believing that p while judging that not-p. Critics of normativism have argued that the normative explanation of such phenomena fails because it presupposes an implausibly strong motivation through adherence to norms. I call this the motivation problem for the normative explanation of deliberative transparency and Moore’s paradox. The motivation problem can be easily extended to the normative explanation of all psychological phenomena involving belief that inevitably happen or fail to happen. Therefore, this problem can greatly diminish the explanatory promise of belief normativism. In this paper, building on a specific version of belief normativism called normative dispositionalism, I provide a solution to the motivation problem. The upshot is that properly understood, belief normativism need not worry about the motivation problem in claiming to be the best explanation of deliberative transparency and Moore’s paradox.

Some philosophers have suggested that an analogue of Moore’s paradox can be formulated for the case of inference, and that this reformulated paradox would have to be explained by any acceptable account of the nature of inference. In this paper, I critically discuss the current formulations of Inferential Moore’s Paradox (IMP) and suggest some improvements. I then provide an argument for the thesis that inference is conceptually governed by a normative standard of correctness and offer what I think is the best formulation of this standard. Finally, I show how inference’s conceptual standard of correctness can be deployed to explain IMP.

Several philosophers have argued that intention is conceptually governed by a normative standard of correctness. Intention normativism is supposed to be the practical counterpart of belief normativism, which is widely discussed in the literature. In this paper, I discuss the extant formulations of the norm of intention and find all of them wanting. I then suggest and defend a new formulation of the norm of intention. I argue that the suggested formulation is immune to the problems that beset other candidates for the norm of intention.

Jane Friedman has famously argued that there are cases where the norms of inquiry—the zetetic norms—come into conflict with certain widely accepted epistemic norms and that this calls for reconsidering the place of such familiar epistemic norms. I discuss this alleged tension and show that it has all the features of the paradigmatic examples of the so-called wrong kind of reasons. If this is correct, then like other cases where we have the wrong kind of reasons, such reasons cannot require a change in the way we practice epistemology. I also show how skepticism about the wrong kind of reasons can provide a novel way to argue that there is no tension between the zetetic norms and familiar epistemic norms.

Jane Friedman has famously argued that there are cases where the norms of inquiry—the zetetic norms—come into conflict with certain widely accepted epistemic norms and that this calls for reconsidering the place of such familiar epistemic norms. I discuss this alleged tension and show that it has all the features of the paradigmatic examples of the so-called wrong kind of reasons. If this is correct, then like other cases where we have the wrong kind of reasons, such reasons cannot require a change in the way we practice epistemology. I also show how skepticism about the wrong kind of reasons can provide a novel way to argue that there is no tension between the zetetic norms and familiar epistemic norms.

Seyyed Mohsen Eslami and Alfred Archer have argued for what they call the cautionary account of supererogation. According to this account, an action is supererogatory iff it involves exercising caution in doing the right thing in cases where the agent's self-interest gets into conflict with the interests of others. They argue that further to be interesting in its own right, this account can solve some problems that bedevil other accounts. In this note, I argue that caution cannot explain supererogation. The main reason is that we can plausibly speak about required, forbidden, and supererogatory caution. Therefore, caution cannot be what makes some actions supererogatory. I also show that we can think about cases where we intuitively have supererogation without the presumed caution.

Implicit attitudes are the unconscious and automatic evaluations people make about objects, persons, and groups. These attitudes have been the subject of much discussion in the social and cognitive psychology literature of the past three decades. This paper explores whether it is justified to hold that implicit attitudes, seen as theoretical entities posited by empirical psychology, are real. We approach this question by drawing on the realism-antirealism debate in philosophy of science. To this end, we compare implicit attitudes with commonsense belief/desire psychology, which, among other things, deploys explicit attitudes to explain behavior. We argue that the traditional arguments for and against realism about commonsense psychology do not apply to the case of implicit attitudes. However, we mount an alternative argument for realism about implicit attitudes, based on the criteria offered by entity realism, namely modifiability, non-redundancy, and robustness. We show that this framework is nicely applicable to implicit attitudes. However, it does not yet justify our belief in these attitudes. In order to take implicit attitudes as real within this entity realist approach, the reproducibility of each implicit measure as well as the correlation between different measures must be increased.

In a recent paper in this journal, Ulf Hlobil has argued for an account of deontic notions in terms of good reasoning. He suggests that we should first explain permissibility in terms of good practical inference and we can then explain other deontic notions based on it. I argue that this specific way of explaining deontic notions by good reasoning is unmotivated and also leads to implausible consequences. I also show that if we instead start by explaining obligation in terms of good reasoning and then explain other deontic notions based on it, these problems vanish.

The global rollout of Covid-19 vaccination has amplified concerns regarding vaccination hesitancy, which presents a formidable challenge for public health authorities. While widespread vaccination is imperative for containing the virus, hesitancy arises from multiple factors, including apprehensions about potential long-term vaccine side-effects and misconceptions about vaccination. This has prompted discussions about the feasibility of mandating Covid-19 vaccination, especially for specific groups like healthcare professionals and the general public. This paper critically examines the tension between a paternalistic approach and individual autonomy, advocating for a balanced strategy that considers both public health imperatives and individual rights. Drawing insights from existing literature, the study emphasizes the need for a nuanced and pragmatic approach to address vaccine hesitancy effectively.

Summary Background The principle of maximization, which roughly means that we should save more lives and more years of life, is usually taken for granted by the health community. This principle is even more forceful in crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, where we have scarce resources which can be allocated only to some patients. However, the standard consequentialist version of this principle can be challenging particularly when we have to reallocate a resource that has already been given to a patient. Methodology Engaging in thought experiments, conceptual analysis, providing counterexamples, and appealing to moral intuitions, we challenge the standard consequentialist version of the maximization principle and make a case for adopting an alternative deontological version. Discussion In certain cases, the standard consequentialist version of the maximization principle is shown to yield intuitively immoral results. The deontological version of this principle is preferable because it can retain the merits of the standard consequentialist version without falling prey to its problems. Conclusion Compared to the standard consequentialist version, the deontological version of the maximization principle can better guide the ethical decisions of the health community, even in cases where we face a scarcity of resources.

A number of philosophers have argued that there is a basic problem in the no-guidance argument against content normativism. The problem is that the argument restricts the essential normativity of intentional states to the formation of these states being guided by certain norms. But it is suggested that the essential norm-governedness of intentional states can be equally plausibly construed as the assessability of these states by norms, which does not imply complying with them. Although I concur with the problem diagnosed in the no-guidance argument, I take issue with the alternative conception of normativity which is put forward. In its stead, I argue that considering intentional states as commitments whose discharging requires complying with certain norms is preferable because it both respects the insight provided while remaining unscathed by the problems besetting this conception of normativity.

I develop and defend a novel norm-based explanation of Moore’s paradox in thought, according to which the sheer absurdity we intuitively feel in judging an instance of Moore’s paradox stems from violating the constitutive norm of belief inexplicably, i.e., in a way that cannot be made sense of through the categories of mistake, ignorance, cheating, akrasia, and flouting. I highlight the ways my explanation is different from other normative proposals and argue that this explanation is not subject to the problems that beset other normative explanations of Moore’s paradox. The normative explanation of Moore’s paradox proposed here can also shed light on absurdity in norm-constituted practices in general.

Abraham’s Dilemma is the conjunction of three jointly inconsistent propositions: God’s commands are never morally wrong, God has commanded Abraham to kill his innocent son, and killing innocent people is morally wrong. Drawing on an overlooked point from the Qur’an regarding the content of the command as well as a conceptual analysis of intentional action, this paper proposes a novel solution to the dilemma by discarding proposition in a new way. Current approaches to rejecting proposition tend to appeal to epistemic failure on the side of Abraham. In my approach, which draws on the so-called accordion effect in intentional action, God’s command is interpreted in such a way that God has not commanded Abraham to kill his son nor has Abraham tried to do so, although the challenging and difficult nature of the test and thus Abraham’s status as the ‘father of faith’ are retained.

ABSTRACTIn a series of articles, Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen and Nick Zangwill argue that, since propositional attitude ascription judgements do not behave like normative judgements in being subject to a priori normative supervenience and the Because Constraint, PAs cannot be constitutively normative.1 I argue that, for a specific version of normativism, according to which PAs are normative commitments, these arguments fail. To this end, I argue that commitments and obligations should be distinguished. Then, I show that the intuitions allegedly governing all normative judgements do not even purport to hold for commitment-attributing judgements.RÉSUMÉDans une série d'articles, Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen et Nick Zangwill font valoir que, puisque les jugements d'attribution d'attitude propositionnelle ne se comportent pas comme des jugements normatifs en étant soumis à la survenance normative a priori et à la contrainte du Parce que, les AP ne peuvent être constitutivement normatives. Je soutiens que, pour une version spécifique du normativisme, selon laquelle les AP sont des engagements normatifs, ces arguments échouent. À cette fin, je soutiens d'abord que les engagements et les obligations devraient être séparés. Ensuite, je démontre que les intuitions qui régiraient prétendument tous les jugements normatifs ne prétendent même pas s'appliquer aux jugements attributifs d'un engagement.

Much of the discussion on the normativity of belief rests on the presupposition that there is a single fundamental truth norm governing belief that explains all of its normative features. Building on the committive conception of belief proposed by some normativists, this article takes issue with this presupposition. In particular, it is argued that belief, construed as cognitive commitment, is governed by three fundamental-cum-irreducible norms, which I call the “entitlement norm,” the “fulfillment norm” and the “escapability norm,” and it is shown that each of them concerns a particular normative feature of belief. Taken together, these norms can explain all the normative features of belief without leading to implausible consequences. The discussion also shows that the relationship between the truth norm and the evidence norm is more complicated than is usually conceded by normativists.

I argue for a commitment-discharging condition of reasoning, according to which to engage in reasoning is to discharge the theoretical and practical commitments one has undertaken. I highlight the ways in which this condition is distinct from other proposals, particularly the Taking Condition, and argue that it can explain certain intuitions about reasoning that otherwise remain elusive. In particular, I argue that the commitment-discharging condition can provide a unified account of attitude-formation and premise-discharging reasoning as well as practical and theoretical reasoning. It also provides a novel way to evade the regress that bedevils many accounts of inference.

That it can explain the phenomenon of transparency, namely the fact that if you resolve whether p, you have thereby resolved whether to believe that p, was originally put forward as a great virtue of normativist conceptions of belief. However, non-normativists have convincingly shown that the permissive version of the truth norm of belief, which is one of the most plausible and promising versions of it, cannot in fact accommodate this phenomenon. Alarmed by this situation, in this paper I re-assess the transparency phenomenon and its relation to different versions of the truth norm of belief. I argue that, contrary to how it appears, it is not even clear that the most tenable injunctive versions of the truth norm explain this phenomenon. I then argue that the transparency phenomenon consists of two distinct aspects which should be, but have not been, distinguished. What I call the ‘question-shifting’ aspect is explained by the truth norm, irrespective of how it is formulated, while what I call the ‘answer-shifting’ aspect is explanatorily empty and does not require any explanation, be it normative or otherwise. Therefore, understood properly, explaining transparency does remain a strength of normativist accounts of belief, and has no implications for which particular formulation of the truth norm we may adopt.