•  2148
    A Plea for Epistemic Excuses
    In Julien Dutant Fabian Dorsch (ed.), The New Evil Demon Problem, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
    The typical epistemology course begins with a discussion of the distinction between justification and knowledge and ends without any discussion of the distinction between justification and excuse. This is unfortunate. If we had a better understanding of the justification-excuse distinction, we would have a better understanding of the intuitions that shape the internalism-externalism debate. My aims in this paper are these. First, I will explain how the kinds of excuses that should interest epist…Read more
  •  2138
    Fake Barns and false dilemmas
    Episteme 11 (4): 369-389. 2014.
    The central thesis of robust virtue epistemology (RVE) is that the difference between knowledge and mere true belief is that knowledge involves success that is attributable to a subject's abilities. An influential objection to this approach is that RVE delivers the wrong verdicts in cases of environmental luck. Critics of RVE argue that the view needs to be supplemented with modal anti-luck condition. This particular criticism rests on a number of mistakes about the nature of ability that I sh…Read more
  •  1836
    Defeating phenomenal conservatism
    Analytic Philosophy 52 (1): 35-48. 2011.
    According to the phenomenal conservatives, beliefs are justified by non-doxastic states we might speak of as ‘appearances’ or ‘seemings’. Those who defend the view say that there is something self-defeating about believing that phenomenal conservatism is mistaken. They also claim that the view captures an important internalist insight about justification. I shall argue that phenomenal conservatism is indefensible. The considerations that seem to support the view commit the phenomenal conservativ…Read more
  •  1789
    Being More Realistic About Reasons: On Rationality and Reasons Perspectivism
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 99 (3): 605-627. 2018.
    This paper looks at whether it is possible to unify the requirements of rationality with the demands of normative reasons. It might seem impossible to do because one depends upon the agent’s perspective and the other upon features of the situation. Enter Reasons Perspectivism. Reasons perspectivists think they can show that rationality does consist in responding correctly to reasons by placing epistemic constraints on these reasons. They think that if normative reasons are subject to the right e…Read more
  •  1756
    Stop Making Sense? On a Puzzle about Rationality
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 257-272. 2018.
    In this paper, I present a puzzle about epistemic rationality. It seems plausible that it should be rational to believe a proposition if you have sufficient evidential support for it. It seems plausible that it rationality requires you to conform to the categorical requirements of rationality. It also seems plausible that our first-order attitudes ought to mesh with our higher-order attitudes. It seems unfortunate that we cannot accept all three claims about rationality. I will present three way…Read more
  •  1662
    The unity of reason
    In Clayton Littlejohn & John Turri (eds.), Epistemic Norms: New Essays on Action, Belief, and Assertion, Oxford University Press. 2013.
    Cases of reasonable, mistaken belief figure prominently in discussions of the knowledge norm of assertion and practical reason as putative counterexamples to these norms. These cases are supposed to show that the knowledge norm is too demanding and that some weaker norm ought to put in its place. These cases don't show what they're intended to. When you assert something false or treat some falsehood as if it's a reason for action, you might deserve an excuse. You often don't deserve even that
  •  1605
    Defeaters as Indicators of Ignorance
    In Jessica Brown & Mona Simion (eds.), Reasons, Justification, and Defeat, Oxford University Press. 2021.
    In this paper, we propose a new theory of rationality defeat. We propose that defeaters are "indicators of ignorance", evidence that we’re not in a position to know some target proposition. When the evidence that we’re not in a position to know is sufficiently strong and the probability that we can know is too low, it is not rational to believe. We think that this account retains all the virtues of the more familiar approaches that characterise defeat in terms of its connection to reasons to bel…Read more
  •  1602
    Moore's paradox and epistemic norms
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (1). 2010.
    We shall evaluate two strategies for motivating the view that knowledge is the norm of belief. The first draws on observations concerning belief's aim and the parallels between belief and assertion. The second appeals to observations concerning Moore's Paradox. Neither of these strategies gives us good reason to accept the knowledge account. The considerations offered in support of this account motivate only the weaker account on which truth is the fundamental norm of belief
  •  1597
    Objectivism and Subjectivism in Epistemology
    In Veli Mitova (ed.), The Factive Turn in Epistemology, Cambridge University Press. forthcoming.
    There is a kind of objectivism in epistemology that involves the acceptance of objective epistemic norms. It is generally regarded as harmless. There is another kind of objectivism in epistemology that involves the acceptance of an objectivist account of justification, one that takes the justification of a belief to turn on its accuracy. It is generally regarded as hopeless. It is a strange and unfortunate sociological fact that these attitudes are so prevalent. Objectivism about norms and justi…Read more
  •  1503
    How and Why Knowledge is First
    In A. Carter, E. Gordon & B. Jarvis (eds.), Knowledge First, Oxford University Press. pp. 19-45. 2017.
    A defense of the idea that knowledge is first in the sense that there is nothing prior to knowledge that puts reasons or evidence in your possession. Includes a critical discussion of the idea that perception or perceptual experience might provide reasons and a defense of a knowledge-first approach to justified belief.
  •  1445
    Who Cares What You Accurately Believe?
    Philosophical Perspectives 29 (1): 217-248. 2015.
    This is a critical discussion of the accuracy-first approach to epistemic norms. If you think of accuracy (gradational or categorical) as the fundamental epistemic good and think of epistemic goods as things that call for promotion, you might think that we should use broadly consequentialist reasoning to determine which norms govern partial and full belief. After presenting consequentialist arguments for probabilism and the normative Lockean view, I shall argue that the consequentialist framewo…Read more
  •  1434
    Must we act only on what we know?
    Journal of Philosophy 106 (8): 463-473. 2009.
    What relation is there between knowledge and action? According to Hawthorne and Stanley, where your choice is p-dependent, it is appropriate to treat the proposition that p as a reason for acting iff you know that p (RKP). In this paper, I shall argue that it is permissible to treat something as a reason for action even if it isn't known to be true and address Hawthorne and Stanley's arguments for RKP.
  •  1422
    The Right in the Good: A Defense of Teleological Non-Consequentialism in Epistemology
    In Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij & Jeff Dunn (eds.), Epistemic Consequentialism, Oxford University Press. pp. 23-47. 2018.
    There has been considerable discussion recently of consequentialist justifications of epistemic norms. In this paper, I shall argue that these justifications are not justifications. The consequentialist needs a value theory, a theory of the epistemic good. The standard theory treats accuracy as the fundamental epistemic good and assumes that it is a good that calls for promotion. Both claims are mistaken. The fundamental epistemic good involves accuracy, but it involves more than just that. The …Read more
  •  1411
    The Externalist’s Demon
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 39 (3): 399-434. 2009.
    In this paper, I defend externalist accounts of justified belief from Cohen's new evil demon objection. While I think that Cohen might be right that the person is justified in believing what she does, I argue that this is because we can defend the person from criticism and that defending a person is a very different thing from defending a person's attitudes or actions. To defend a person's attitudes or actions, we need to show that they met standards or did not violate norms. Intuitions about wh…Read more
  •  1386
    When Ignorance is No Excuse
    In Philip Robichaud & Jan Willem Wieland (eds.), Responsibility - The Epistemic Condition, Oxford University Press. pp. 64-81. 2017.
    Ignorance is often a perfectly good excuse. There are interesting debates about whether non-culpable factual ignorance and mistake subvert obligation, but little disagreement about whether non-culpable factual ignorance and mistake exculpate. What about agents who have all the relevant facts in view but fail to meet their obligations because they do not have the right moral beliefs? If their ignorance of their obligations derives from mistaken moral beliefs or from ignorance of the moral signifi…Read more
  •  1328
    On Treating Something as a Reason for Action
    Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (1): 1-5. 2008.
    No abstract.
  •  1291
    Reasons and Theoretical Rationality
    In Daniel Star (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
    A discussion of epistemic reasons, theoretical rationality, and the relationship between them. Discusses the ontology of reasons and evidence, the relationship between reasons (motivating, normative, possessed, apparent, genuine, etc.) and rationality, the relationship between epistemic reasons and evidence, the relationship between rationality, justification, and knowledge, and many other related topics.
  •  1247
    Justification, knowledge, and normality
    Philosophical Studies 177 (6): 1593-1609. 2020.
    There is much to like about the idea that justification should be understood in terms of normality or normic support (Smith 2016, Goodman and Salow 2018). The view does a nice job explaining why we should think that lottery beliefs differ in justificatory status from mundane perceptual or testimonial beliefs. And it seems to do that in a way that is friendly to a broadly internalist approach to justification. In spite of its attractions, we think that the normic support view faces two serious ch…Read more
  •  1084
    ‘Ought’, ‘Can’, and Practical Reasons
    American Philosophical Quarterly 46 (4): 363-73. 2009.
    Some recent defenses of the 'ought' implies 'can' (OIC) principle try to derive that principle from uncontroversial claims about reasons for action. Reasons for action, it's said, are reasons only for 'potential' actions, which are actions that an agent can perform. Given that 'ought' implies 'reasons', it seems we have our proof of OIC. In this paper, I argue that this latest strategy for defending OIC fails.
  •  1080
    Truth, knowledge, and the standard of proof in criminal law
    Synthese 197 (12): 5253-5286. 2020.
    Could it be right to convict and punish defendants using only statistical evidence? In this paper, I argue that it is not and explain why it would be wrong. This is difficult to do because there is a powerful argument for thinking that we should convict and punish defendants using statistical evidence. It looks as if the relevant cases are cases of decision under risk and it seems we know what we should do in such cases (i.e., maximize expected value). Given some standard assumptions about the v…Read more
  •  1042
    Evidence and armchair access
    Synthese 179 (3): 479-500. 2011.
    In this paper, I shall discuss a problem that arises when you try to combine an attractive account of what constitutes evidence with an independently plausible account of the kind of access we have to our evidence. According to E = K, our evidence consists of what we know. According to the principle of armchair access, we can know from the armchair what our evidence is. Combined, these claims entail that we can have armchair knowledge of the external world. Because it seems that the principle of…Read more
  •  995
    A note concerning justification and access
    Episteme 10 (4): 369-386. 2013.
    Certain combinations of attitudes are manifestly unreasonable. It is unreasonable to believe that dogs bark, for example, if one concedes that one has no justification to believe this. Why are the irrational combinations irrational? One suggestion is that these are attitudes that a subject cannot have justification to have. If this is right, we can test claims about the structure of propositional justification by relying on our observations about which combinations of attitudes constitute Moorea…Read more
  •  927
    Externalism Explained
    In Luis R. G. Oliveira (ed.), Externalism about Knowledge, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
    This is a defence of externalism about knowledge and also about justification. In this paper, I argue that an important virtue of externalism about these notions is that externalism about justification helps to explain the value of (i.e., importance of) knowledge. I also develop and expand upon some of my earlier arguments for externalism that drew upon what's now known as 'morally loaded cases'. The virtue of externalism is that it's the only view that can both allow for certain kinds of catego…Read more
  •  913
    Just do it? When to do what you judge you ought to do
    Synthese 195 (9): 3755-3772. 2018.
    While it is generally believed that justification is a fallible guide to the truth, there might be interesting exceptions to this general rule. In recent work on bridge-principles, an increasing number of authors have argued that truths about what a subject ought to do are truths we stand in some privileged epistemic relation to and that our justified normative beliefs are beliefs that will not lead us astray. If these bridge-principles hold, it suggests that justification might play an interest…Read more
  •  849
    Skeptical Thoughts Concerning Explanationism and Skepticism
    Symposion: Theoretical and Applied Inquiries in Philosophy and Social Sciences 1 (1): 77-87. 2014.
    According to the explanationist, we can rely on inference to best explanation to justifiably believe familiar skeptical hypotheses are false. On this view, commonsense beliefs about the existence and character of familiar, medium-sized dry goods provides the best explanation of our evidence and so justifies our belief that we're not brains-in-vats. This explanationist approach seems prima facie plausible until we press the explanationist to tell us what the data is that we're trying to explain…Read more
  •  777
    What is Rational Belief?
    Noûs. forthcoming.
    A theory of rational belief should get the cases right. It should also reach its verdicts using the right theoretical assumptions. Leading theories seem to predict the wrong things. With only one exception, they don't accommodate principles that we should use to explain these verdicts. We offer a theory of rational belief that combines an attractive picture of epistemic desirability with plausible principles connecting desirability to rationality. On our view, it's rational to believe when it's …Read more
  •  776
    On the coherence of inversion
    Acta Analytica 24 (2): 127-137. 2009.
    In this paper, I shall evaluate a strategy recently used to try to demonstrate the impossibility of behaviorally undetectable spectrum inversion. After showing that the impossibility proof proves too much, I shall identify where it goes wrong. In turn, I shall explain why someone attracted to functionalist and representationalist assumptions might rightly remain agnostic about the possibility of inversion.
  •  766
    Justified Belief and Just Conviction
    In Jon Robson & Zachary Hoskins (eds.), Truth and Trial, Routledge. forthcoming.
    Abstract: When do we meet the standard of proof in a criminal trial? Some have argued that it is when the guilt of the defendant is sufficiently probable on the evidence. Some have argued that it is a matter of normic support. While the first view provides us with a nice account of how we ought to manage risk, the second explains why we shouldn’t convict on the basis of naked statistical evidence alone. Unfortunately, this second view doesn’t help us understand how we should manage risk (e.g., t…Read more
  •  754
    Are Epistemic Reasons Ever Reasons to Promote?
    Logos and Episteme 4 (3): 353-360. 2013.
    In trying to distinguish the right kinds of reasons from the wrong, epistemologists often appeal to the connection to truth to explain why practical considerations cannot constitute reasons. The view they typically opt for is one on which only evidence can constitute a reason to believe. Talbot has shown that these approaches don’t exclude the possibility that there are non-evidential reasons for belief that can justify a belief without being evidence for that belief. He thinksthat there are in…Read more
  •  752
    Evidence and its Limits
    In Conor McHugh Jonathan Way & Daniel Whiting (eds.), Normativity: Epistemic and Practical, Oxford University Press. 2018.
    On a standard view about reasons, evidence, and justification, there is justification for you to believe all and only what your evidence supports and the reasons that determine whether there is justification to believe are all just pieces of evidence. This view is mistaken about two things. It is mistaken about the rational role of evidence. It is also mistaken about the rational role of reasons. To show this, I present two basis problems for the standard view and argue that it lacks the resou…Read more