•  11
    The consequence argument and ordinary human agency
    Synthese 203 (3): 1-11. 2024.
    Brian Cutter (Analysis 77: 278-287, 2017) argues that one of the most prominent versions of the consequence argument—viz., Peter van Inwagen’s (An Essay on Free Will. Oxford University Press, 1983) ‘Third Formal Argument’—does not support an incompatibility thesis that every paradigmatic compatibilist would reject. Justin Capes (Thought 8: 50-56, 2019) concedes Cutter’s conclusion concerning van Inwagen’s Third Formal Argument and tries to meet the important challenge that Cutter issues at the e…Read more
  •  2
    Strokes of Luck
    In Duncan Pritchard & Lee John Whittington (eds.), The Philosophy of Luck, Wiley-blackwell. 2015.
    This essay aims to reorient current theorizing about luck as an aid to our discerning this concept's true philosophical significance. After introducing the literature's leading theories of luck, it presents and defends counterexamples to each of them. It then argues that recent luck theorists' main target of analysis—the concept of an event's being lucky for a subject—is parasitic on the more fundamental notion of an event's being a stroke of luck for a subject, which thesis serves as at least a…Read more
  •  14
    The Elusive God (review)
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 84 (4): 820-822. 2010.
  •  101
    In this paper, we argue that Richard Foley’s account of rational belief faces an as yet undefeated objection, then try to repair one of Foley’s two failed replies to that objection. In §§I-III, we explain Foley’s accounts of all-things-considered rational belief and responsible belief, along with his replies to two pressing objections to those accounts—what we call the Irrelevance Objection(to Foley’s account of rational belief) and the Insufficiency Objection (to his account of responsible beli…Read more
  • Hiddenness, evidence, and idolatry
    In Kelly James Clark & Raymond J. VanArragon (eds.), Evidence and religious belief, Oxford University Press. 2011.
  • Lenient accounts of warranted assertability
    In Clayton Littlejohn & John Turri (eds.), Epistemic Norms: New Essays on Action, Belief, and Assertion, Oxford University Press. 2013.
  •  22
    Involuntarism impugned?
    Synthese 200 (5): 1-11. 2022.
    Blake Roeber argues that examples of a certain neglected kind cast doubt on the following piece of epistemological orthodoxy: your acquisition of a particular belief couldn’t itself be a directly voluntary action. In this paper, I undermine and then rebut Roeber’s anti-involuntarism conclusion. After arguing for the denial of one of the premises on which Roeber’s conclusion is based, I articulate a plausible pro-involuntarism explanation of Roeber’s focal example.
  •  8
    Unsettledness and the intentionality of practical decisions
    Philosophical Explorations 25 (2): 220-231. 2022.
    Say that a ‘practical decision’ is a momentary intentional mental action of intention formation. According to what I’ll call the ‘Decisional Prior Intention Thesis’ (‘DPIT’), each practical decision is intentional at least partly in virtue of the representational content of some previously acquired intention. DPIT is entailed by the following widely endorsed thesis that I’ll call the ‘General Prior Intention Thesis’ (‘GPIT’): each intentional action is intentional at least partly in virtue of th…Read more
  •  24
    Unsettledness and the intentionality of practical decisions
    Philosophical Explorations 25 (2): 220-231. 2022.
    Say that a ‘practical decision’ is a momentary intentional mental action of intention formation. According to what I’ll call the ‘Decisional Prior Intention Thesis’, each practical decisio...
  • Blameworthiness, Willings, and Practical Decisions
    Philosophical Inquiries 9 49-56. 2021.
    What kinds of things can we be morally responsible for? Andrew Khoury offers an answer that includes (i) an argument for the impossibility of blameworthiness for overt action, and (ii) the assertion that “willings are the proper object of responsibility in the context of action”. After presenting an argument for the inconsistency of Khoury’s answer to our focal question, I defend the following partial answer that resembles, but differs importantly from, Khoury’s answer: one can be blameworthy …Read more
  •  16
    Is Fallible Knowledge Attributable?
    Acta Analytica 37 (1): 73-83. 2021.
    Here are two prima facie plausible theses about propositional knowledge: a belief could still constitute knowledge even if the belief is justified in a way that’s compatible with its being either false or accidentally true; each instance of knowledge is related to its subject in a way similar to that in which each intentional action is related to its agent. Baron Reed develops and defends a novel argument for the incompatibility of and. In this paper, I clarify and critically assess Reed’s incom…Read more
  •  41
    In Without Justification,[1] Jonathan Sutton undermines the orthodox view that a justified belief needn’t constitute knowledge; develops a battery of arguments for the unorthodox thesis that you justifiedly believe P iff you know P; and explores the topics of testimony and inference in light of his equation of justification and knowledge (J=K). This book is essential reading at epistemology’s cutting edge. In §I, we’ll take an extended tour of the book, raising various questions and objections a…Read more
  •  1737
    The Fall of the Mind Argument and Some Lessons about Freedom
    In Joseph Campbell, Michael O'Rourke & Harry S. Silverstein (eds.), Action, Ethics and Responsibility, Mit Press. pp. 127-148. 2010.
    This chapter offers a new criticism of the Mind argument that is both decisive and instructive. It introduces a plausible principle (γ) that places a requirement on one’s having a choice about an event whose causal history includes only other events. Depending on γ’s truth-value, the Mind argument fails in such a way that one or the other of the two main species of libertarianism is the best approach to the metaphysics of freedom. Libertarians argue the compatibility of freedom and indeterminism…Read more
  •  79
    Stump on the Nature of Atonement
    In Kelly James Clark & Michael Rea (eds.), Science, Religion, and Metaphysics: New Essays on the Philosophy of Alvin Plantinga, Oxford University Press. pp. 144-151. 2012.
    In “The Nature of the Atonement”, Eleonore Stump explores the problem of human sin that the atonement is meant to solve, helpfully uncovering important adequacy conditions for theories of atonement. She then uses those conditions to critically evaluate Anselmian and Thomistic theories of atonement, arguing (among many other interesting things) that the Thomist has a leg up on the Anselmian when it comes to the atonement-motivating problem of human sin (pp.11-12 of ms.). I argue for two claims in…Read more
  •  1
    Lenient Accounts of Warranted Assertability
    In Clayton M. Littlejohn & John Turri (eds.), Epistemic Norms: New Essays on Action, Belief and Assertion, Oxford University Press. pp. 33-58. 2014.
  • Replies to Long and Tucker
    In Justin McBrayer Trent Dougherty (ed.), Skeptical Theism: New Essays, Oxford University Press. pp. 76-84. 2014.
  • Deliberation
    In Meghan Griffith, Neil Levy & Kevin Timpe (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Free Will, Routledge. pp. 590-599. 2017.
  • Gettiered Belief
    In Rodrigo Borges, Claudio de Almeida & Peter David Klein (eds.), Explaining Knowledge: New Essays on the Gettier Problem, Oxford University Press. pp. 15-34. 2017.
  •  30
    As thinkers in the market for knowledge and agents aspiring to morally responsible action, we are inevitably subject to luck. This book presents a comprehensive new theory of luck in light of a critical appraisal of the literature's leading accounts, then brings this new theory to bear on issues in the theory of knowledge and philosophy of action.
  •  128
    Classical Invariantism (CI): The truth-value of a given knowledge-ascribing (-denying) sentence is (a) invariant across conversational contexts and (b) independent of how important it is to the subject (S) that the relevant proposition (P) be true.
  •  23
    Direct Blameworthiness for Non-conduct?
    Philosophia 47 (4): 1087-1094. 2019.
    Peter Graham argues against the prima facie plausible thesis that one can be directly blameworthy only for one’s conduct—that is, only for one’s actions or omissions to act. Because this thesis serves as a premise in a challenging recent argument for the revisionist conclusion that we’re at most rarely directly blameworthy for anything, Graham’s argument holds out a promise of contributing to a defense of a wide range of commonsense ascriptions of blameworthiness. After reconstructing Graham’s a…Read more
  •  45
    Practical Decision and the Cognitive Requirements for Blameworthiness
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 43 (1): 119-135. 2019.
    Midwest Studies In Philosophy, EarlyView.
  •  50
    Moral Blameworthiness, Quality of Will, and Akratic Action
    Journal of Value Inquiry 54 (3): 365-370. 2020.
  •  41
    Do We Decide Intentionally?
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 96 (4): 822-827. 2018.
    ABSTRACTIn a recent article in this journal, Joshua Shepherd presents and rejects a new argument for the sceptical conclusion that everyday decisions aren't intentional actions. After relating his focal argument to a different argument for the same conclusion that is presented and rejected by Alfred Mele, I defend these arguments from extant criticisms, and develop new objections that shed light on the intentionality of typical decisions.
  •  155
    Defending Klein on Closure and Skepticism
    Synthese 151 (2): 257-272. 2006.
    In this paper, I consider some issues involving a certain closure principle for Structural Justification, a relation between a cognitive subject and a proposition that’s expressed by locutions like ‘S has a source of justification for p’ and ‘p is justifiable for S’. I begin by summarizing recent work by Peter Klein that advances the thesis that the indicated closure principle is plausible but lacks Skeptical utility. I then assess objections to Klein’s thesis based on work by Robert Audi and An…Read more
  •  14
    Misleading Dispositions and the Value of Knowledge
    Journal of Philosophical Research 35 241-258. 2010.
    Gettiered beliefs are those whose agents are subject to the kind of epistemologically significant luck illustrated by Gettier Cases. Provided that knowledge requires ungettiered belief, we can learn something about knowledge by figuring out how luck blocks it in Gettier Cases. After criticizing the most promising of the going approaches to gettiered belief—the Risk of False Belief Approach—, I explain and defend a new approach: the Risk of Misleading Dispositions Approach.Roughly, this view says…Read more
  •  57
    Does knowledge secure warrant to assert?
    Philosophical Studies 154 (2). 2011.
    This paper fortifies and defends the so called Sufficiency Argument (SA) against Classical Invariantism. In Sect. 2,I explain the version of the SA formulated but then rejected by Brown (2008a). In Sect. 3, I show how cases described by Hawthorne (2004), Brown (2008b), and Lackey (forthcoming) threaten to undermine one or the other of the SA's least secure premises. In Sect. 4,I buttress one of those premises and defend the reinforced SA from the objection developed in Sect. 3.