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Andrew Sepielli

University of Toronto, Mississauga
  •  Home
  •  Publications
    25
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  •  Events
    4
  •  News and Updates
    18
  •  Philosophical Views

 More details
  • University of Toronto, Mississauga
    Department of Philosophy
    Associate Professor
Rutgers - New Brunswick
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2010
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Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics
Normative Ethics
American Pragmatism
Areas of Interest
Metaphilosophy
Philosophy of Cognitive Science
19th Century Philosophy
Value Theory
Criminal Law
  • All publications (25)
  •  1694
    Subjective and Objective Reasons
    In Daniel Star (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
    Objective and Subjective ConsequentialismSubjective and Objective ReasonsMoral Uncertainty
  •  1483
    Subjective Normativity and Action Guidance
    In Mark Timmons (ed.), Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Vol. II, Oxford University Press. 2012.
    Objective and Subjective ConsequentialismSubjective and Objective ReasonsMoral PhenomenologyTryingMo…Read more
    Objective and Subjective ConsequentialismSubjective and Objective ReasonsMoral PhenomenologyTryingMoral Uncertainty
  •  1048
    Decision-making under moral-uncertainty
    In Aaron Zimmerman, Karen Jones & Mark Timmons (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Moral Epistemology, Routledge. 2018.
    Subjective and Objective ReasonsNormative Ethics, MiscellaneousMoral UncertaintyEpistemology
  •  964
    Moral uncertainty and fetishistic motivation
    Philosophical Studies 173 (11): 2951-2968. 2016.
    Sometimes it’s not certain which of several mutually exclusive moral views is correct. Like almost everyone, I think that there’s some sense in which what one should do depends on which of these theories is correct, plus the way the world is non-morally. But I also think there’s an important sense in which what one should do depends upon the probabilities of each of these views being correct. Call this second claim “moral uncertaintism”. In this paper, I want to address an argument against moral…Read more
    Sometimes it’s not certain which of several mutually exclusive moral views is correct. Like almost everyone, I think that there’s some sense in which what one should do depends on which of these theories is correct, plus the way the world is non-morally. But I also think there’s an important sense in which what one should do depends upon the probabilities of each of these views being correct. Call this second claim “moral uncertaintism”. In this paper, I want to address an argument against moral uncertaintism offered in the pages of this journal by Brian Weatherson, and seconded elsewhere by Brian Hedden, the crucial premises of which are: that acting on moral uncertaintist norms necessarily involves motivation by reasons or rightness as such, and that such motivation is bad. I will argue that and are false, and that at any rate, the quality of an agent’s motivation is not pertinent to the truth or falsity of moral uncertaintism in the way that Weatherson’s and Hedden’s arguments require.
    Moral MotivationSubjective and Objective ReasonsMoral Uncertainty
  •  867
    How Moral Uncertaintism Can Be Both True and Interesting
    Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 7. 2018.
    Reasons and RationalityNormative Ethics, MiscellaneousSubjective and Objective ReasonsMoral Uncertai…Read more
    Reasons and RationalityNormative Ethics, MiscellaneousSubjective and Objective ReasonsMoral Uncertainty
  •  776
    Moral Realism without Moral Metaphysics
    In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Volume XI, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
    Representation, MiscPragmatism, MiscMoral Realism, MiscConceptual and Nonconceptual ContentMoral Obj…Read more
    Representation, MiscPragmatism, MiscMoral Realism, MiscConceptual and Nonconceptual ContentMoral Objectivity
  •  639
    Should You Look Before You Leap?
    The Philosophers' Magazine 66 89-93. 2014.
    Action Theory, MiscMoral UncertaintyRule-Following
  •  601
    What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do…
    Noûs 47 (1): 521-544. 2013.
    n/a.
    Moral UncertaintySubjective and Objective ReasonsEpistemology of DisagreementReasons and Rationality
  •  484
    Consequentialism and the Evaluation of Action qua Action
    In Jussi Suikkanen & Antti Kauppinen (eds.), Methodology and Moral Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Moral Reasoning and MotivationArguments for Consequentialism
  •  475
    Pragmatism and Metaethics
    In Tristram McPherson & David Plunkett (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaethics, Routledge. pp. 582-594. 2017.
    Pragmatism, MiscMeta-Ethics, Misc20th Century American Pragmatism, Misc
  •  439
    Pragmatist Quietism: A Metaethical System
    Oxford University Press. 2022.
    The claim that there are objective ethical truths has attracted its share of doubters. Many have thought that such truths would require an extra-ethical foundation or vindication—in metaphysics, or the philosophy of language, or epistemology—and have worried that no such thing is available. Pragmatist Quietism argues that, on the contrary, there are objective ethical truths, and that these neither require nor admit of a foundation or vindication from outside of ethics. Recognizing that the idea …Read more
    The claim that there are objective ethical truths has attracted its share of doubters. Many have thought that such truths would require an extra-ethical foundation or vindication—in metaphysics, or the philosophy of language, or epistemology—and have worried that no such thing is available. Pragmatist Quietism argues that, on the contrary, there are objective ethical truths, and that these neither require nor admit of a foundation or vindication from outside of ethics. Recognizing that the idea of an ethical realm untethered from inquiry into reality, meaning, and knowledge may strike us as mysterious, this book offers a comprehensive meta-ethical worldview within which this jarring proposal may be ensconced. The key moves are, first, the assimilation of normative-ethical inquiry to the sorts of debates that many have labelled 'merely verbal' or 'non-substantive', and second, the adoption of pragmatism—the approach to inquiry and explanation on which we endeavour to guide our thinking by considerations of value, rather than aiming to correctly represent the world.
    Moral RealismMoral DisagreementPragmatismTheories of RepresentationMetaontology, Misc
  •  396
    Quietism and Counter-Normativity
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Penultimate draft; forthcoming in Ergo
    Moral Realism, MiscMeta-Ethics, MiscMoral ConceptsPragmatism, Misc
  •  380
    Normative uncertainty for non-cognitivists
    Philosophical Studies 160 (2): 191-207. 2012.
    Normative judgments involve two gradable features. First, the judgments themselves can come in degrees; second, the strength of reasons represented in the judgments can come in degrees. Michael Smith has argued that non-cognitivism cannot accommodate both of these gradable dimensions. The degrees of a non-cognitive state can stand in for degrees of judgment, or degrees of reason strength represented in judgment, but not both. I argue that (a) there are brands of noncognitivism that can surmount …Read more
    Normative judgments involve two gradable features. First, the judgments themselves can come in degrees; second, the strength of reasons represented in the judgments can come in degrees. Michael Smith has argued that non-cognitivism cannot accommodate both of these gradable dimensions. The degrees of a non-cognitive state can stand in for degrees of judgment, or degrees of reason strength represented in judgment, but not both. I argue that (a) there are brands of noncognitivism that can surmount Smith’s challenge, and (b) any brand of non-cognitivism that has even a chance of solving the Frege–Geach Problem and some related problems involving probabilistic consistency can also thereby solve Smith’s problem. Because only versions of non-cognitivism that can solve the Frege–Geach Problem are otherwise plausible, all otherwise plausible versions of noncognitivism can meet Smith’s challenge
    Moral SemanticsMoral ExpressivismPhilosophy of Probability, MiscMoral NoncognitivismMoral Uncertaint…Read more
    Moral SemanticsMoral ExpressivismPhilosophy of Probability, MiscMoral NoncognitivismMoral Uncertainty
  •  294
    Moral Uncertainty and the Principle of Equity among Moral Theories1
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86 (3): 580-589. 2013.
    Moral UncertaintySubjective and Objective Reasons
  •  195
    What to do when you don’t know what to do
    Oxford Studies in Metaethics 4 5-28. 2009.
    Decision Theory and EthicsMoral Uncertainty
  •  188
    How to Challenge Common-Sense Morality (handout)
    ConsequentialismNormative Ethics, Miscellaneous
  •  178
    Book ReviewsTed Lockhart,. Moral Uncertainty and Its Consequences.New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. 232. $55.00 (review)
    Ethics 116 (3): 601-604. 2006.
    Value TheoryMoral Uncertainty
  •  128
    Review of David Enoch, Taking Morality Seriously (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 2012.
    Moral NonnaturalismTranscendental ArgumentsMoral Realism, Misc
  •  93
    'Along an imperfectly-lighted path': practical rationality and normative uncertainty
    Nobody's going to object to the advice "Do the right thing", but that doesn't mean everyone's always going to follow it. Sometimes this is because of our volitional limitations; we cannot always bring ourselves to make the sacrifices that right action requires. But sometimes this is because of our cognitive limitations; we cannot always be sure of what is right. Sometimes we can't be sure of what's right because we don't know the non-normative facts. But sometimes, even if we were to know all of…Read more
    Nobody's going to object to the advice "Do the right thing", but that doesn't mean everyone's always going to follow it. Sometimes this is because of our volitional limitations; we cannot always bring ourselves to make the sacrifices that right action requires. But sometimes this is because of our cognitive limitations; we cannot always be sure of what is right. Sometimes we can't be sure of what's right because we don't know the non-normative facts. But sometimes, even if we were to know all of the non-normative facts, we'd still not be sure about what's right, because we're uncertain about the normative reasons those facts give us. In this dissertation, I attempt to answer the question of what we're to do when we must act under fundamentally normative uncertainty. It's tempting to think that, in such circumstances, we should do what we regard as most probably right. I argue that this view is mistaken, for it is insensitive to how degrees of actions' values compare across different normative hypotheses; if an action is probably right, but, if wrong, is terribly, terribly, wrong, it may be rational not to do that action. A better answer is that we should do the action with the highest expected value. I spend the first part of the dissertation providing arguments for and rebutting arguments against this view of action under normative uncertainty. I spend the next part of the dissertation explaining what degrees of value are, and showing how they can be compared across normative hypotheses. In the remaining parts of the dissertation, I consider two questions related to our primary question -- first, what is one required, or obligated, to do under normative uncertainty; and second, what is it rational for one to do when one is not only normatively uncertain in the way we've been discussing, but also uncertain about what it is rational to do under this sort of normative uncertainty.
    Moral Uncertainty
  •  79
    The Law’s ‘Majestic Equality’
    Law and Philosophy 32 (6): 673-700. 2013.
    Anatole France’s The Red Lily is best known for this ironic aphorism: ‘The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.’ The laws mentioned in this aphorism are open to two criticisms. The first criticism is that they forbid conduct that oughtn’t to be forbidden. The second criticism is that they unfairly place greater burdens of compliance on some than on others. It may be onerous for the poor to comply wi…Read more
    Anatole France’s The Red Lily is best known for this ironic aphorism: ‘The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.’ The laws mentioned in this aphorism are open to two criticisms. The first criticism is that they forbid conduct that oughtn’t to be forbidden. The second criticism is that they unfairly place greater burdens of compliance on some than on others. It may be onerous for the poor to comply with the law against, say, sleeping under bridges; not so for the rich. It is this second criticism that I read France as expressing, and it is the reach of this criticism that I explore in this essay. Specifically, I want to ask whether the second criticism may apply to a law even if the first criticism does not – whether there can be laws that are good in the sense that they forbid behavior that genuinely ought to be forbidden, but that are nonetheless unfair in the distribution of compliance burdens they yield. Some examples may tempt us to say ‘no.’ It may be more burdensome for thrill-seekers than for the rest of us to comply with laws against speeding, but that does not make speeding laws unfair. But I argue that the answer is ‘yes.’ Good laws can, and surprisingly often do, yield unfair distributions of compliance burdens. I conclude the essay by showing how remedies for this sort of unfairness might work.
    Egalitarianism, MiscThe Nature of Law and Legal SystemsDistributive Justice, MiscCriminal Law, Misc
  •  60
    The Thin/Thick Dilemma
    Moral Realism and Irrealism
  •  33
    Holly M. Smith, Making Morality Work
    Ethics 130 (1): 141-144. 2019.
    Value Theory
  •  29
    What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do…
    Noûs 48 (3): 521-544. 2014.
  •  28
    Moral Realism without Moral Metaphysics
    Oxford Studies in Metaethics 11. 2016.
    This chapter explores the possibility of a metaphysically deflationist, explanatorily robust version of moral realism. The view has no truck with inquiries into the naturalness, constitution, or reducibility of moral properties, and purports to dissolve, rather than solve, the “placement problem.” But it offers a general explanation from outside the ethical domain of how we can accurately represent the world in moral thought and talk; this distinguishes it from some versions of expressivism and …Read more
    This chapter explores the possibility of a metaphysically deflationist, explanatorily robust version of moral realism. The view has no truck with inquiries into the naturalness, constitution, or reducibility of moral properties, and purports to dissolve, rather than solve, the “placement problem.” But it offers a general explanation from outside the ethical domain of how we can accurately represent the world in moral thought and talk; this distinguishes it from some versions of expressivism and constitutivism, and from quietism. It is often claimed that defenders of non-quietist moral realism “owe us” an account of what moral properties are like, how they fit into the world described by science, how we can “reach out to them” in thought and language, and how they can exert an influence on us so we can know of them. It is not clear, this chapter argues, that the robust realist is under any such obligation.
    Meta-Ethics
  •  4
    Book Reviews (review)
    Ethics 116 (3): 601-604. 2006.
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