Cambridge University
Faculty of Philosophy
PhD, 2014
Cambridge, England
Areas of Interest
Epistemology
Meta-Ethics
  •  23
    New Work on Biosignatures
    Mind. forthcoming.
    The search for extraterrestrial life centres on the search for ‘biosignatures’. Yet there is little agreement within the scientific community with respect to what exactly it is for something to be a biosignature. Existing accounts are presented and criticised. An alternative is provided that resolves problems with existing accounts by distinguishing clearly between types and tokens.
  •  57
    Why Moral Paradoxes Support Error Theory
    Journal of Philosophy 120 (9): 457-483. 2023.
    Moral error theory has many troubling and counterintuitive consequences. It entails, for example, that actions we ordinarily think of as obviously wrong are not wrong at all. This simple observation is at the heart of much opposition to error theory. I provide a new defense against it. The defense is based on the impossibility of finding satisfying solutions to a wide range of puzzles and paradoxes in moral philosophy. It is a consequence of this that if any moral claims are true, then a lot of …Read more
  •  82
    Is the Norm on Belief Evaluative? A Response to McHugh
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 128-145. 2016.
    We respond to Conor McHugh's claim that an evaluative account of the normative relation between belief and truth is preferable to a prescriptive account. We claim that his arguments fail to establish this. We then draw a more general sceptical conclusion: we take our arguments to put pressure on any attempt to show that an evaluative account will fare better than a prescriptive account. We briefly express scepticism about whether McHugh's more recent ‘fitting attitude’ account fares better.
  •  12
    What are Paradoxes?
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 9 (1): 154-171. 2023.
    According to a standard view, paradoxes are arguments with plausible premises that entail an implausible conclusion. This is false. In many paradoxes the premises are not plausibleprecisely becausethey entail an implausible conclusion. Obvious responses to this problem—including that the premises are individually plausible and that they are plausible setting aside the fact that they entail an implausible conclusion—are shown to be inadequate. A very different view of paradox is then introduced. …Read more
  •  39
    Constitutivism about Epistemic Normativity
    In Christos Kyriacou & Robin McKenna (eds.), Metaepistemology: Realism & Antirealism, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 173-196. 2018.
    According to constitutivists about epistemic normativity, epistemic normativity is explained by the nature of belief. Specifically, it is explained by the fact that, as a matter of conceptual necessity, belief stands in a normative relation to truth. We ask whether there are persuasive arguments for the claim that belief stands in such a relation to truth. We examine and critique two arguments for this claim. The first is based on the transparency of belief. The second is based on Moore-paradoxi…Read more
  •  30
    The Repugnant Conclusion is a controversial theorem about population size. It states that a sufficiently large population of lives that are barely worth living is better than a smaller population of high quality lives. This is highly counter-intuitive. It implies that we can improve the world by trading quality of life for quantity of lives. Can it be defended? Christopher Cowie explores these questions and unpacks the controversies surrounding the Repugnant Conclusion. He focuses on whether the…Read more
  •  32
    Arguing About Extraterrestrial Intelligence
    Philosophical Quarterly 73 (1): 64-83. 2022.
    Avi Loeb has defended the hypothesis that the interstellar object, ‘Oumuamua, detected in 2017, is in fact an extraterrestrial artefact. His hypothesis has been widely rejected by the scientific community. On examination however it is not clear why. The puzzle is at the level of argument structure. The scientific community's responses to Loeb's hypothesis appear to point to explanations of ‘Oumuamua's properties that are mere possibilities. Yet this is something that Loeb does not contest. I app…Read more
  •  301
    A new argument for moral error theory
    Noûs 56 (2): 276-294. 2022.
    Traditional arguments for moral error theory are based on identifying a problem with the metaphysics of moral properties. I provide a new argument that is based on the inconsistency of first‐order moral judgments. I illustrate this using impossibility results in population axiology.
  •  24
    Moral judgments attempt to describe a reality that does not exist, so they are all false. This troubling view is known as the moral error theory. Christopher Cowie defends it against the most compelling counter-argument, the argument from analogy: Cowie shows that moral error theory does not compromise the practice of making epistemic judgments.
  •  41
    Do constitutive norms on belief explain Moore’s Paradox?
    Philosophical Studies 177 (6): 1685-1702. 2020.
    In this article I assess the prospects for a particular kind of resolution to Moore’s Paradox. It is that Moore’s Paradox is explained by the existence of a constitutive norm on belief. I focus on a constitutive norm relates that relates belief to knowledge. I develop this explanation. I then present a challenge to it. Norm-based explanations of Moore’s Paradox must appeal to a ‘linking principle’ that explains what is wrong with violating the constitutive norm. But it is difficult to articulate…Read more
  •  41
    Comparisons between morality and other 'companion' disciplines - such as mathematics, religion, or aesthetics - are commonly used in philosophy, often in the context of arguing for the objectivity of morality. This is known as the 'companions in guilt' strategy. It has been the subject of much debate in contemporary ethics and metaethics. This volume, the first full length examination of companions in guilt arguments, comprises an introduction by the editors and a dozen new chapters by leading a…Read more
  •  152
    Companions in guilt arguments
    Philosophy Compass 13 (11). 2018.
    Arguments for some controversial positions in metaethics—typically moral scepticism or the moral error theory—are sometimes thought to overreach. They appear to entail sceptical or error‐theoretic views about non‐moral branches of thought in a sense that is costly or implausible. If this is true, those metaethical arguments should be rejected. This is the companions in guilt strategy in metaethics. In this article, the contemporary use of the companions in guilt strategy is explored and assessed…Read more
  •  95
    Does the repugnant conclusion have any probative force?
    Philosophical Studies 174 (12): 3021-3039. 2017.
    In engaging with the repugnant conclusion many contemporary philosophers, economists and social scientists make claims about what a minimally good life is like. For example, some claim that such a life is quite good by contemporary standards, and use this to defend classical utilitarianism, whereas others claim that it is not, and use this to uphold the challenge that the repugnant conclusion poses to classical utilitarianism. I argue that many of these claims—by both sides—are not well-founded.…Read more
  •  80
    Revisionist Responses to the Amoralism Objection: A Reply to Julia Markovits
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (3): 711-723. 2016.
    Some subjectivist views of practical reasons entail that some people, in some cases, lack sufficient reasons to act as morality requires of them. This is often thought to form the basis of an objection to these subjectivist views: ‘the amoralism objection’. This objection has been developed at length by Julia Markovits in her recent book Moral Reason. But Markovits—alongside many other proponents of this objection—does not explicitly consider that her objection is premised on a claim that her op…Read more
  •  97
    Epistemic Disagreement and Practical Disagreement
    Erkenntnis 79 (1): 191-209. 2014.
    It is often thought that the correct metaphysics and epistemology of reasons will be broadly unified across different kinds of reason: reasons for belief, and reasons for action. This approach is sometimes thought to be undermined by the contrasting natures of belief and of action: whereas belief appears to have the ‘constitutive aim’ of truth (or knowledge), action does not appear to have any such constitutive aim. I develop this disanalogy into a novel challenge to metanormative approaches by …Read more
  •  242
    Why Companions in Guilt Arguments Won't Work
    Philosophical Quarterly 64 (256): 407-422. 2014.
    One recently popular strategy for avoiding the moral error theory is via a ‘companions in guilt’ argument. I focus on those recently popular arguments that take epistemic facts as a companion in guilt for moral facts. I claim that there is an internal tension between the two main premises of these arguments. It is a consequence of this that either the soundness or the dialectical force of the companions in guilt argument is undermined. I defend this claim via (i) analogy with philosophical debat…Read more
  •  272
    Good News for Moral Error Theorists: A Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (1): 115-130. 2016.
    Moral error theories are often rejected by appeal to ‘companions in guilt’ arguments. The most popular form of companions in guilt argument takes epistemic reasons for belief as a ‘companion’ and proceeds by analogy. I show that this strategy fails. I claim that the companions in guilt theorist must understand epistemic reasons as evidential support relations if her argument is to be dialectically effective. I then present a dilemma. Either epistemic reasons are evidential support relations or t…Read more
  •  113
    A New Explanatory Challenge for Nonnaturalists
    Res Philosophica 91 (4): 661-679. 2014.
    According to some contemporary nonnaturalists about normativity (e.g., Parfit, Scanlon, Dworkin), normative facts exist in an ontologically non-committing sense. These nonnaturalists face an explanatory burden. They must explain their claim that normative facts exist in such a sense. I identify criteria for an adequate explanation, and extract five distinct candidate explanations from the writings of these authors (based on causal efficacy, analogy with modality, fundamentality, domain-relativit…Read more
  •  272
    In defence of instrumentalism about epistemic normativity
    Synthese 191 (16): 4003-4017. 2014.
    According to epistemic instrumentalists the normativity of evidence for belief is best explained in terms of the practical utility of forming evidentially supported beliefs. Traditional arguments for instrumentalism—arguments based on naturalism and motivation—lack suasive force against opponents. A new argument for the view—the Argument from Coincidence—is presented. The argument shows that only instrumentalists can avoid positing an embarrassing coincidence between the practical value of belie…Read more
  •  65
    Conservatism in Metaethics: A Case Study
    Metaphilosophy 46 (4-5): 605-619. 2015.
    Metaethicists typically develop and assess their theories—in part—on the basis of the consistency of those theories with “ordinary” first-order normative judgment. They are, in this sense, “methodologically conservative.” This article shows that this methodologically conservative approach obstructs a proper assessment of the debate between internalists and externalists. Specifically, it obstructs one of the most promising readings of internalism. This is a reading—owed to Bernard Williams—in whi…Read more