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963Indoctrination Anxiety and the Etiology of BeliefSynthese 193 (10): 3079-3098. 2016.People sometimes try to call others’ beliefs into question by pointing out the contingent causal origins of those beliefs. The significance of such ‘Etiological Challenges’ is a topic that has started attracting attention in epistemology. Current work on this topic aims to show that Etiological Challenges are, at most, only indirectly epistemically significant, insofar as they bring other generic epistemic considerations to the agent’s attention. Against this approach, we argue that Etiological …Read more
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534Higher-Order Defeat is Object-IndependentPacific Philosophical Quarterly 99 (2): 248-269. 2018.Higher-order defeat occurs when one loses justification for one's beliefs as a result of receiving evidence that those beliefs resulted from a cognitive malfunction. Several philosophers have identified features of higher-order defeat that distinguish it from familiar types of defeat. If higher-order defeat has these features, they are data an account of rational belief must capture. In this article, I identify a new distinguishing feature of higher-order defeat, and I argue that on its own, and…Read more
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281The Fragile Epistemology of FanaticismIn Michael Klenk (ed.), Higher-Order Evidence and Moral Epistemology, . pp. 217-235. 2020.Are fanatical beliefs rational? This paper examines this question. After outlining two arguments for the rationality of fanatical beliefs, based respectively on what I call the "crippled epistemology" explanation and the "echo chambers" explanation, the paper rejects these arguments by appeal to considerations related to higher-order evidence. Then it explains what defending the rationality of fanatical beliefs actually requires. From this, it derives the practical conclusion that radicalization…Read more
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247"I'm, Like, a Very Smart Person" On Self-Licensing and Perils of ReflectionOxford Studies in Epistemology. forthcoming.Epistemic trespassing, science denial, refusal to guard against bias, mishandling higher-order evidence, and the development of vice are troubling intellectual behaviors. In this paper, I advance work done by psychologists on moral self-licensing to show how all of these behaviors can be explained in terms of a parallel phenomenon of epistemic self-licensing. The paper situates this discussion at the intersection of three major epistemological projects: epistemic explanation and intervention (th…Read more
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240Finlay and Schroeder on Promoting a desireJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 6 (1): 1-7. 2011.This paper argues against two prominent accounts of what it is to "promote a desire," found in the work of Stephen Finlay and Mark Schroeder.
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123What’s wrong with epistemic trespassing?Philosophical Studies 179 (1): 223-243. 2021.Epistemic trespassers are experts who pass judgment on questions in fields where they lack expertise. What’s wrong with epistemic trespassing? I identify several limitations with a seminal analysis to isolate three desiderata on an answer to this question and motivate my own answer. An answer should explain what’s wrong in the cases that motivate inquiry into epistemic trespassing, should explain what’s wrong with epistemic trespassing even if trespassers do not acknowledge their trespassing, an…Read more
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89Reason to promotion inferencesJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (2): 1-10. 2015.No abstract.
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87Second best epistemology: fallibility and normativityPhilosophical Studies 176 (8): 2043-2066. 2019.The Fallibility Norm—the claim that we ought to take our fallibility into account when managing our beliefs—appears to conflict with several other compelling epistemic norms. To shed light on these apparent conflicts, I distinguish two kinds of norms: norms of perfection and norms of compensation. Roughly, norms of perfection tell us how agents ought to behave if they’re to be perfect; norms of compensation tell us how imperfect agents ought to behave in order to compensate for their imperfectio…Read more
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81Conversion, Causes, and Closed-MindednessJournal of the American Philosophical Association 6 (1): 74-95. 2020.Abstract‘You just believe that because you were raised to believe it!’ is a familiar criticism. Many converts, however, believe the opposite of what they were raised to believe. Does this make them immune to these challenges? I scrutinize this ‘conversion defense’. If these challenges only concern belief genealogy, a certain kind of convert is immune to them. However, these challenges often concern closed-mindedness rather than genealogy. Seen in this light, the convert who is immune to the gene…Read more
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70The word of a reluctant convertSynthese 198 (1): 557-582. 2018.Recent political events suggest that there is more political, religious, and moral division than many had previously realized. Since people on all sides think they’re in the right, mitigating division is in everyone’s interest. But overcoming division requires changing minds, and changing minds requires advocacy. These considerations raise important questions in the epistemology of advocacy. In particular, who are the best advocates? After making some general remarks about the epistemology of ad…Read more
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64Probabilistic promotion revisitedPhilosophical Studies 173 (7): 1735-1754. 2016.Promotion is the relation between an act and a desire that obtains when the act advances or serves the desire. Under what conditions does an act promote a desire? Probabilistic accounts of promotion, the most prominent accounts, analyze promotion in terms of an increase in the probability of the desire’s satisfaction. In this paper, we clarify the promotion relation and explain why probabilistic accounts are attractive. Then we identify two questions probabilistic accounts must answer: the Basel…Read more
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61Evidence and fallibilityEpisteme 16 (1): 39-55. 2019.The “Evidentialist Dictum” says we must believe what our evidence supports, and the “Fallibility Norm” says we must take our fallibility into account when managing our beliefs. This paper presents a problem for the Evidentialist Dictum based in the Fallibility Norm and a particular conception of evidential support. It then addresses two novel Evidentialist responses to this problem. The first response solves the problem by claiming that fallibility information causes “evidence-loss.” In addition…Read more
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36Who knows what? Epistemic dependence, inquiry, and function-first epistemologyInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.Function-first epistemologists analyze epistemic concepts, norms, and practices by investigating their functions. According to the most prominent function-first account, the primary function of our concept of knowledge is identifying reliable informants. In this paper, I take for granted the function-first methodology to achieve three main goals: First, I argue against this prominent account: studying practices of knowledge attribution and denial related to epistemic dependence, coordination, an…Read more
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33Fallibility and NormativityDissertation, University of Massachusetts - Amherst. 2016.We are fallible, and knowledge of our fallibility has normative implications. But these normative implications appear to conflict with other compelling epistemic norms. We therefore appear to face a choice: reject fallibility-based norms or reject these other epistemic norms. I argue that there is a plausible third option: reconcile these two sets of norms. Once we properly understand the nature of each of these norms, we aren’t forced to reject either.
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9The origin of beliefForum for European Philosophy Blog. 2016.Joshua DiPaolo and Robert Simpson on the origins of our beliefs and the problem of indoctrination.
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Kornblith and His Critics (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. forthcoming.Hilary Kornblith is one of the world’s leading epistemologists, a champion of an innovative philosophical research program that is at once traditional and revisionary. In viewing the study of knowledge as inseparable from the empirical study of the mind, Kornblith aligns himself closely with the approach of the traditional empiricists of the 17th and 18th centuries. Yet in taking contemporary empirical work seriously, Kornblith has developed views and arguments that shift the epistemological foc…Read more
Fullerton, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Religion |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |