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1375Rational Epistemic AkrasiaAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 49 (2): 113-24. 2012.Epistemic akrasia arises when one holds a belief even though one judges it to be irrational or unjustified. While there is some debate about whether epistemic akrasia is possible, this paper will assume for the sake of argument that it is in order to consider whether it can be rational. The paper will show that it can. More precisely, cases can arise in which both the belief one judges to be irrational and one’s judgment of it are epistemically rational in the sense that both are supported by…Read more
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957The Enkratic RequirementEuropean Journal of Philosophy 21 (2): 320-333. 2011.: Agents are enkratic when they intend to do what they believe they should. That rationality requires you to be enkratic is uncontroversial, yet you may be enkratic in a way that does not exhibit any rationality on your part. Thus, what I call the enkratic requirement demands that you be enkratic in the right way. In particular, I will argue that it demands that you base your belief about what you should do and your intention to do it on the same considerations. The idea is that, if you base you…Read more
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230Peter Baumann and Monika Betzler, eds., Practical Conflicts (review)Philosophical Review 116 (4): 654-656. 2007.This volume contains contributions on different aspects of practical conflicts by: Peter Baumann Monika Betzler Ruth Chang Jon Elster Barbara Guckes Christine M. Korsgaard Isaac Levi Alfred R. Mele Joseph Raz Henry S. Richardson Peter Schaber J. David Velleman Nicholas White.
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138Explaining the Value of TruthAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 46 (2): 105-115. 2009.Truth is a value in that sense that a belief is good (or successful, or correct) just in case it is true. But it does not follow that truth is a good-making property, nor does it follow that the nature of truth explains its value. Instead, this paper argues that the nature of belief explains its value.
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132Moral worth and accidentally right actionsAnalysis 81 (3): 389-396. 2021.The reasons view holds that morally worthy actions are right actions motivated by the reasons that make them right. Opponents object that such actions are only accidentally right, and it is widely held that morally worthy actions cannot be accidentally right. My aim here is to defend the reasons view from this objection by considering conditional reasons. Once these reasons are in view, actions motivated by the reasons that make them right will no longer appear accidentally right. Keywords: Mora…Read more
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72Moral rationalism and psychopathy: Affective responses to reasonPhilosophical Psychology 30 (7): 855-877. 2017.Evidence suggests that psychopaths’ notoriously immoral behavior is due to affective rather than rational deficits. This evidence could be taken to show that, contrary to moral rationalism, moral norms are not norms of reason. Rationalists could reply either that psychopaths’ behavior is in fact primarily due to rational deficits or that affects are involved in responding to rational norms. Drawing on the work of Antonio Damasio and colleagues, I argue the latter is the better defense of moral r…Read more
Johnson City, Tennessee, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Action |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |