•  1111
    The Bootstrapping Objection
    Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 20 (4): 612-631. 2013.
    If our mental attitudes were reasons, we could bootstrap anything into rationality simply by acquiring these mental attitudes. This, it has been argued, shows that mental attitudes cannot be reasons. In this paper, I focus on John Broome’s development of the bootstrapping objection. I distinguish various versions of this objection and I argue that the bootstrapping objection to mind-based accounts of reasons fails in all its versions.
  •  606
    John Greco claims that knowledge is a kind of achievement. The value achievements have (as such) shows, according to Greco, why knowledge is better than mere true belief. I argue that, for a variety of reasons, it is not always good to know. Furthermore, it is wrong to think that achievements are always good – think of achieving what is bad. Greco is mistaken twice; this leaves the idea that knowledge is a kind of achievement intact.
  •  554
    Ewing's Problem
    European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 3 (1): 0-0. 2007.
    Two plausible claims seem to be inconsistent with each other. One is the idea that if one reasonably believes that one ought to fi, then indeed, on pain of acting irrationally, one ought to fi. The other is the view that we are fallible with respect to our beliefs about what we ought to do. Ewing’s Problem is how to react to this apparent inconsistency. I reject two easy ways out. One is Ewing’s own solution to his problem, which is to introduce two different notions of ought. The other is the v…Read more
  •  472
    Morality's Place: Kierkegaard and Frankfurt
    Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 64 (2/4). 2008.
    The aim of this paper is to look at Søren Kierkegaard's defence of an ethical way of life in the light of Harry Frankfurt's work. There are salient general similarities connecting Kierkegaard and Frankfurt: Both are sceptical towards the Kantian idea of founding morality in the laws of practical reason. They both deny that the concerns, which shape our lives, could simply be validated by subject-independent values. Furthermore, and most importantly, they both emphasize the importance of reflecti…Read more
  •  412
    Beware of Safety
    Analytic Philosophy 60 (4): 01-29. 2019.
    Safety, as discussed in contemporary epistemology, is a feature of true beliefs. Safe beliefs, when formed by the same method, remain true in close-by possible worlds. I argue that our beliefs being safely true serves no recognisable epistemic interest and, thus, that this notion of safety should play no role in epistemology. Epistemologists have been misled by failing to distinguish between a feature of beliefs — being safely true — and a feature of believers, namely being safe from error. The…Read more
  •  280
    ‘Kinds of Practical Reasons: Attitude-Related Reasons and Exclusionary Reasons’
    In C. E. Mauro J. A. Pinto S. Miguens (ed.), Analyses, . pp. 98-105. 2006.
    I start by explaining what attitude-related reasons are and why it is plausible to assume that, at least in the domain of practical reason, there are such reasons. Then I turn to Raz’s idea that the practice of practical reasoning commits us to what he calls exclusionary reasons. Being excluded would be a third way, additional to being outweighed and being undermined, in which a reason can be defeated. I try to show that attitude-related reasons can explain the phenomena Raz appeals to equally w…Read more
  •  178
    In the first part of the paper, I discuss Benatar’s asymmetry argument for the claim that it would have been better for each of us to have never lived at all. In contrast to other commentators, I will argue that there is a way of interpreting the premises of his argument which makes all of them come out true. (This will require one departure from Benatar’s own presentation.) Once we see why the premises are true, we will, however, also realise that the argument trades on an ambiguity that render…Read more
  •  169
    Desiring the truth and nothing but the truth
    Noûs 43 (2): 193-213. 2009.
    No Abstract
  •  169
    Doing what is best
    Philosophical Quarterly 50 (199): 208-226. 2000.
  •  129
    Normative Practical Reasoning
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 75 (1). 2001.
    Practical reasoning is a process of reasoning that concludes in an intention. One example is reasoning from intending an end to intending what you believe is a necessary means: 'I will leave the next buoy to port; in order to do that I must tack; so I'll tack', where the first and third sentences express intentions and the second sentence a belief. This sort of practical reasoning is supported by a valid logical derivation, and therefore seems uncontrovertible. A more contentious example is norm…Read more
  •  122
  •  111
    Content-Related and Attitude-Related Reasons for Preferences
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 59 155-182. 2006.
    In the first section of this paper I draw, on a purely conceptual level, a distinction between two kinds of reasons: content-related and attitude-related reasons. The established view is that, in the case of the attitude of believing something, there are no attitude-related reasons. I look at some arguments intended to establish this claim in the second section with an eye to whether these argument could be generalized to cover the case of preferences as well. In the third section I argue agains…Read more
  •  101
    One of the guiding ideas of virtue epistemology is to look at epistemological issue through the lens of practical philosophy. The Gettier Problem is a case in point. Virtue epistemologists, like Sosa and Greco, see the shortcoming in a Gettier scenario as a shortcoming from which performances in general can suffer. In this paper I raise some doubts about the success of this project. Looking more closely at practical philosophy, will, I argue, show that virtue epistemology misconceives the signif…Read more
  •  90
    Particularism and the structure of reasons
    Acta Analytica 21 (2): 87-102. 2006.
    I argue that particularism (or holism) about reasons, i.e., the view that a feature that is a reason in one case need not be a reason in another case, is true, but uninterestingly so. Its truth is best explained by principles that govern a weaker notion than that of being a reason: one thing can be ‘normatively connected’ to something else without its being a reason for what it is normatively connected to. Thus, even though true, particularism about reasons does not support the particularist’s g…Read more
  •  71
    Treating Broome Fairly
    Utilitas 29 (2): 214-238. 2017.
  •  64
    Two accounts of objective reasons (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2). 2003.
    GE Moore vehemently defended the view that what actually happens and not what we, even reasonably, expect to happen, determines what we ought to do. ‘The only possible reason that can justify any action’, Moore writes, ‘is that by it the greatest possible amount of what is good absolutely should be realized’. Moore is an objectivist about reasons and duties: The world and not our view of it gives us reasons to act; the way the world is, and not the way we think it is, determines what we ought to…Read more
  •  60
    Evidentialism, Transparency, and Commitments
    Philosophical Issues 26 (1): 332-350. 2016.
  •  52
    Norm-reasons and evidentialism
    Analysis 79 (2): 202-206. 2019.
    It has been argued by Clayton Littlejohn that cases of insufficient evidence provide an argument against evidentialism. He distinguishes between evidential reasons and norm-reasons, but this distinction can be accepted by evidentialists, as we argue. Furthermore, evidentialists can acknowledge the existence of norm-reasons stemming from an epistemic norm, like the norm that one should not believe a proposition if one has only insufficient evidence for it. An alternative interpretation of evident…Read more
  •  48
    Reliabilist responses to the value of knowledge problem
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 79 (1): 121-135. 2009.
    After sketching my own solution to the Value of Knowledge Problem, which argues for a deontological understanding of justification and understands the value of knowing interesting propositions by the value we place on believing as we ought to believe, I discuss Alvin Goldman's and Erik Olsson's recent attempts to explain the value of knowledge within the framework of their reliabilist epistemology.
  •  47
    Comment on Keith Lehrer and Vann McGee's Solution of Newcomb's Problem
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 40 (1): 221-228. 1991.
    Keith Lehrer's notion of acceptance and its relation to the notion of belief is analyzed in a way that a person only accepts some proposition p if she decides to believe it in order to reach the epistemic aim. This view of acceptance turns out to be untenable: Under the empirical claim that we don't have the power to decide what to beheve it follows that we cannot accept anything. If reaching the truth is the epistemic aim acceptance proves ill-formed, it is impossible to pursue the aim of truth…Read more
  •  42
    Comment on Keith Lehrer and Vann McGee's Solution of Newcomb's Problem
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 40 (1): 221-228. 1991.
    Keith Lehrer's notion of acceptance and its relation to the notion of belief is analyzed in a way that a person only accepts some proposition p if she decides to believe it in order to reach the epistemic aim. This view of acceptance turns out to be untenable: Under the empirical claim that we don't have the power to decide what to beheve it follows that we cannot accept anything. If reaching the truth is the epistemic aim acceptance proves ill-formed, it is impossible to pursue the aim of truth…Read more
  •  29
    Preface
    with Johannes Brandl and Wolfgang Gombocz
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 40 1-2. 1991.
  •  27
    Comment on Keith Lehrer and Vann McGee's Solution of Newcomb's Problem
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 40 (1): 221-228. 1991.
    Keith Lehrer's notion of acceptance and its relation to the notion of belief is analyzed in a way that a person only accepts some proposition p if she decides to believe it in order to reach the epistemic aim. This view of acceptance turns out to be untenable: Under the empirical claim that we don't have the power to decide what to beheve it follows that we cannot accept anything. If reaching the truth is the epistemic aim acceptance proves ill-formed, it is impossible to pursue the aim of truth…Read more
  •  23
    Schwierige metaethik
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 70 (1): 241-252. 2006.