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309The Weight of Reasons: A Framework for EthicsOxford University Press. forthcoming.The book develops, defends, and applies an account of weighing reasons to resolve various issues in ethics. It tells you everything you ever wanted to know about weighing reasons and probably a lot of stuff you didn't want to know too. The excerpt provided here is the Table of Contents, the Introduction, and Chapter 1.
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403Withhold by Default: A Difference Between Epistemic and Practical RationalityPhilosophical Studies. forthcoming.It may seem that epistemic and practical rationality weigh reasons differently, because ties in practical rationality tend to generate permissions and ties in epistemic rationality tend to generate a requirement to withhold judgment. I argue that epistemic and practical rationality weigh reasons in the same way, but they have different "default biases". Practical rationality is biased toward every option being permissible whereas epistemic rationality is biased toward withholding judgment's be…Read more
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220The All or Nothing Ranking Reversal and the Unity of MoralityOxford Studies in Normative Ethics. forthcoming.Supererogatory acts are, in some sense, morally better their non-supererogatory alternatives. In this sense, what is it for one option A to be better than an alternative B? I argue for three main conclusions. First, relative rankings are a type of all-in action guidance. If A is better than B, then morality recommends that you A rather than B. Such all-in guidance is useful when acts have the same deontic status. Second, I argue that Right > Wrong: permissible acts are always better than t…Read more
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192Douglas Portmore, Opting for the Best: Oughts and Options(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. xvii + 324 (review)Utilitas 35 (3): 242-244. 2023.Portmore wrote a good book, and I wrote a short thing about that book.
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220Parity, Pluralism, and Permissible PartialityIn Eric Siverman & Chris Tweed (eds.), Virtuous and Vicious Partiality, Routledge. forthcoming.We can often permissibly choose a worse self-interested option over a better altruistic alternative. For example, it is permissible to eat out rather than donate the money to feed five hungry children for a single meal. If we eat out, we do something permissibly partial toward ourselves. If we donate, we go beyond the call of moral duty and do something supererogatory. Such phenomena aren’t easy to explain, and they rule out otherwise promising moral theories. Incommensurability and Ruth Ch…Read more
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150Phenomenal conservatism and evidentialism in religious epistemologyIn Kelly James Clark & Raymond J. VanArragon (eds.), Evidence and religious belief, Oxford University Press. 2011.
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305Review of: Daeley, Justin J. Why God Must Do What is Best: A Philosophical Investigation of Theistic Optimism (review)European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (4): 314-318. 2022.Daeley wrote good book. I wrote a tolerable review.
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616Parity, moral options, and the weights of reasonsNoûs 57 (2): 454-480. 2022.The (moral) permissibility of an act is determined by the relative weights of reasons, or so I assume. But how many weights does a reason have? Weight Monism is the idea that reasons have a single weight value. There is just the weight of reasons. The simplest versions hold that the weight of each reason is either weightier than, less weighty than, or equal to every other reason. We’ll see that this simple view leads to paradox in at least two ways. We must complicate the picture somehow. …Read more
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280A Holist Balance ScaleJournal of the American Philosophical Association 9 (3): 533-553. 2023.Scale-based models of weighing reasons face challenges concerning the context sensitivity of weight, the aggregation of weight, and the methodology for determining what the weights of reasons are. I resolve these challenges.
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644Too far beyond the call of duty: moral rationalism and weighing reasonsPhilosophical Studies 179 (6): 2029-2052. 2021.The standard account of supererogation holds that Liv is not morally required to jump on a grenade, thereby sacrificing her life, to save the lives of five soldiers. Many proponents defend the standard account by appealing to moral rationalism about requirement. These same proponents hold that Bernie is morally permitted to jump on a grenade, thereby sacrificing his life, to spare someone a mild burn. I argue that this position is unstable, at least as moral rationalism is ordinarily defended…Read more
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496Weighing Reasons AgainstOxford Studies in Metaethics. forthcoming.Ethicists increasingly reject the scale as a useful metaphor for weighing reasons. Yet they generally retain the metaphor of a reason’s weight. This combination is incoherent. The metaphor of weight entails a very specific scale-based model of weighing reasons, Dual Scale. Justin Snedegar worries that scale-based models of weighing reasons can’t properly weigh reasons against an option. I show that there are, in fact, two different reasons for/against distinctions, and I provide an account …Read more
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525Philosophers use disagreement as a way to discover truth. It is constructive. It can lead one to refine one's own position and/or better understand the opposing position. When you are comfortable with the people you disagree with, it can be a fun way to learn. It can even build community. Yet students often see disagreement as divisive. There are winners and losers, and it's not much fun when you are losing. Rarely do students actively use it as a tool for better understanding their own p…Read more
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722The dual scale model of weighing reasonsNoûs 56 (2): 366-392. 2021.The metaphor of weighing reasons brings to mind a single (double-pan balance) scale. The reasons for φ go in one pan and the reasons for ~φ go in the other. The relative weights, as indicated by the relative heights of the two pans of the scale, determine the deontic status of φ. This model is simple and intuitive, but it cannot capture what it is to weigh reasons correctly. A reason pushes the φ pan down toward permissibility (has justifying weight) only insofar as it pushes the ~φ pan up to…Read more
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534Divine Satisficing and the Ethics of the Problem of EvilFaith and Philosophy 37 (1): 32-56. 2020.This paper accomplishes three goals. First, it reveals that God’s ethics has a radical satisficing structure: God can choose a good enough suboptimal option even if there is a best option and no countervailing considerations. Second, it resolves the long-standing worry that there is no account of the good enough that is both principled and demanding enough to be good enough. Third, it vindicates the key ethical assumption in the problem of evil without relying on the contested assumption that Go…Read more
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494Experience as evidenceIn Maria Lasonen-Aarnio & Clayton Littlejohn (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence, Routledge. 2019.This chapter explores whether and when experience can be evidence. It argues that experiences can be evidence, and that this claim is compatible with just about any epistemological theory. It evaluates the most promising argument for the conclusion that certain experiences (e.g., seeming to see) are always evidence for believing what the experiences represent. While the argument is very promising, one premise needs further defense. The argument also depends on a certain connection between re…Read more
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314Dogmatism and the Epistemology of Covert SelectionIn Nathan Ballantyne & David Dunning (eds.), Reason, Bias, and Inquiry: The Crossroads of Epistemology and Psychology, Oxford University Press. 2022.Perceptual dogmatism is a prominent theory in epistemology concerning the relationship between perceptual experience and reasonable belief. It holds that, in the absence of counterevidence, it is reasonable to believe what your perceptual experience tells you. Thus, if you are not aware of your experience’s casual history, then it doesn’t matter. Critics object that the causal history does matter: when a perceptual experience is caused in certain ways, it is unreasonable to trust what it tell…Read more
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490How to Explain MiscomputationPhilosophers' Imprint 18 1-17. 2018.Just as theory of representation is deficient if it can’t explain how misrepresentation is possible, a theory of computation is deficient if it can’t explain how miscomputation is possible. Nonetheless, philosophers have generally ignored miscomputation. My primary goal in this paper is to clarify both what miscomputation is and how to adequately explain it. Miscomputation is a special kind of malfunction: a system miscomputes when it computes in a way that it shouldn’t. To explain miscomput…Read more
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527Why open-minded people should endorse dogmatismPhilosophical Perspectives 24 (1): 529-545. 2010.Open-minded people should endorse dogmatism because of its explanatory power. Dogmatism holds that, in the absence of defeaters, a seeming that P necessarily provides non-inferential justification for P. I show that dogmatism provides an intuitive explanation of four issues concerning non-inferential justification. It is particularly impressive that dogmatism can explain these issues because prominent epistemologists have argued that it can’t address at least two of them. Prominent epistemol…Read more
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234Perceptual Justification and Warrant by DefaultAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 87: 445-63 87 (3): 445-63. 2009.As I use the term, ‘entitlement’ is any warrant one has by default—i.e. without acquiring it. Some philosophers not only affirm the existence of entitlement, but also give it a crucial role in the justification of our perceptual beliefs. These philosophers affirm the Entitlement Thesis: An essential part of what makes our perceptual beliefs justified is our entitlement to the proposition that I am not a brain-in-a-vat. Crispin Wright, Stewart Cohen, and Roger White are among those who endorse…Read more
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210Evidential support, reliability, and Hume's problem of inductionPacific Philosophical Quarterly 90 (4): 503-519. 2009.Necessity holds that, if a proposition A supports another B, then it must support B. John Greco contends that one can resolve Hume's Problem of Induction only if she rejects Necessity in favor of reliabilism. If Greco's contention is correct, we would have good reason to reject Necessity and endorse reliabilism about inferential justification. Unfortunately, Greco's contention is mistaken. I argue that there is a plausible reply to Hume's Problem that both endorses Necessity and is at least as g…Read more
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49Transmission and Transmission Failure in EpistemologyInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 1. 2010.This encyclopedia entry provides an introduction to the literature on transmission failure.
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69No Justified Higher-Level Belief, No ProblemJournal of Philosophical Research 36 283-290. 2011.It is somewhat popular to claim that an argument justifies its conclusion only if the subject has a justified belief that the premise supports the conclusion. Andrew Cling gives a novel argument for this requirement, which he calls “(JCC).” He claims that any otherwise plausible theory that rejects (JCC) is committed to distinguishing arbitrarily between arguments that provide doxastic justification for their conclusions and those that don’t. In this paper, I show that Cling’s argument fails, an…Read more
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1166Acquaintance and Fallible Non-Inferential JustificationIn Brett Coppenger & Michael Bergmann (eds.), Intellectual Assurance: Essays on Traditional Epistemic Internalism, Oxford University Press. pp. 43-60. 2016.Classical acquaintance theory is any version of classical foundationalism that appeals to acquaintance in order to account for non-inferential justification. Such theories are well suited to account for a kind of infallible non-inferential justification. Why am I justified in believing that I’m in pain? An initially attractive (partial) answer is that I’m acquainted with my pain. But since I can’t be acquainted with what isn’t there, acquaintance with my pain guarantees that I’m in pain. Wh…Read more
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621When Transmission FailsPhilosophical Review 119 (4): 497-529. 2010.The Neo-Moorean Deduction (I have a hand, so I am not a brain-in-a-vat) and the Zebra Deduction (the creature is a zebra, so isn’t a cleverly disguised mule) are notorious. Crispin Wright, Martin Davies, Fred Dretske, and Brian McLaughlin, among others, argue that these deductions are instances of transmission failure. That is, they argue that these deductions cannot transmit justification to their conclusions. I contend, however, that the notoriety of these deductions is undeserved. My stra…Read more
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1466Seemings and Justification: An IntroductionIn Seemings and Justification: New Essays on Dogmatism and Phenomenal Conservatism, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 1-29. 2013.It is natural to think that many of our beliefs are rational because they are based on seemings, or on the way things seem. This is especially clear in the case of perception. Many of our mathematical, moral, and memory beliefs also appear to be based on seemings. In each of these cases, it is natural to think that our beliefs are not only based on a seeming, but also that they are rationally based on these seemings—at least assuming there is no relevant counterevidence. This piece is an introd…Read more
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83Hermeneutics as a … Foundationalism?Dialogue 45 (4): 627-46. 2006.It is commonly assumed, at least by continental philosophers, that epistemological hermeneutics and foundationalism are incompatible. I argue that this assumption is mistaken. If I am correct, the analytic and continental traditions may be closer than is commonly supposed. Hermeneutics, as I will argue, is a descriptive claim about human cognition, and foundationalism is a normative claim about how beliefs ought to be related to one another. Once the positions are stated in this way, their putat…Read more
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809How to think about satisficingPhilosophical Studies 174 (6): 1365-1384. 2017.An agent submaximizes with motivation when she aims at the best but chooses a less good option because of a countervailing consideration. An agent satisfices when she rejects the better for the good enough, and does so because the mere good enough gets her what she really wants. Motivated submaximization and satisficing, so construed, are different ways of choosing a suboptimal option, but this difference is easily missed. Putative proponents of satisficing tend to argue only that motivated subm…Read more
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130The dangers of using safety to explain transmission failure: A reply to Martin SmithEpisteme 9 (4): 393-406. 2012.Many epistemologists hold that the Zebra Deduction fails to transmit knowledge to its conclusion, but there is little agreement concerning why it has this defect. A natural idea is, roughly, that it fails to transmit because it fails to improve the safety of its conclusion. In his ‘Transmission Failure Explained’, Martin Smith defends a transmission principle which is supposed to underwrite this natural idea. There are two problems with Smith's account. First, Smith's argument for his transmissi…Read more
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1107On what inferentially justifies what: the vices of reliabilism and proper functionalismSynthese 191 (14): 3311-3328. 2014.We commonly say that some evidence supports a hypothesis or that some premise evidentially supports a conclusion. Both internalists and externalists attempt to analyze this notion of evidential support, and the primary purpose of this paper is to argue that reliabilist and proper functionalist accounts of this relation fail. Since evidential support is one component of inferential justification, the upshot of this failure is that their accounts of inferential justification also fail. In Sect. 2,…Read more
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197Agent causation and the alleged impossibility of rational free actionErkenntnis 67 (1). 2007.Galen Strawson has claimed that "the impossibility of free will and ultimate moral responsibility can be proved with complete certainty." Strawson, I take it, thinks that this conclusion can be established by one argument which he has developed. In this argument, he claims that rational free actions would require an infinite regress of rational choices, which is, of course, impossible for human beings. In my paper, I argue that agent causation theorists need not be worried by Strawson's argument…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
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Supererogation |
Normative Ethics |
Maximizing and Satisficing Consequentialism |
Moral Rationality |
Epistemology |
Divine Goodness |
The Argument from Evil |
Areas of Interest
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Normative Ethics |
Reasons and Rationality |
Moral Normativity |
Epistemology |
Divine Goodness |
The Argument from Evil |