Joshua Brecka

The Social Knowledge (SK) view of group knowledge holds that a group can know that p without any of its members having any awareness that p at all (Bird, 2010, 2024). Some reject SK because it seems to sever the connection between knowledge and action (Kallestrup, 2022: 21-22; Lackey, 2014, 2021: ch. 3). I argue that this style of objection to SK—the Rational Action Objection (RAO)—fails because it assumes a crucial premise linking the rationality of a group’s action to the rationality of its members’ actions. Without this missing premise, the argument is invalid. Moreover, I argue that the needed premise (1) subtly begs the question against SK and (2) implausibly rules out the possibility of conflicts between individual and collective rationality. The upshot: groups, like individuals, may have reasons to act but be unable to act on those reasons. Thus, SK can respect the connection between knowledge and action.

Putative epistemic dilemmas often feature a single agent and a conflict about what they as an individual ought to believe. This chapter explores whether, like in ethics and rational choice theory, there are collective epistemic dilemmas, i.e., epistemic dilemmas involving multiple agents and what they together ought to believe. This chapter considers a variety of candidate cases by exploring potential conflicts between individual and collective epistemic normativity. In some cases, what I ought to believe seems to conflict with what we together ought to believe. This chapter discusses cases like this and considers their consequences. If there really are collective epistemic dilemmas, they represent a novel and important direction for future work.

Sherri Irvin (2025, 2017) argues that, in light of various relational aesthetic injustices, the practice of celebrating human bodily beauty should be replaced with a practice she calls aesthetic exploration. This new practice is an aesthetic one—it involves open-mindedly seeking out positive aesthetic experiences afforded by the qualities of human bodies in the here and now. But the practice of aesthetic exploration is also, I argue, a political one—or at least, it has political goals. This short response assesses how aesthetic exploration fares at achieving its political aims. I argue that adopting the practice of aesthetic exploration will not necessarily address looks-based discrimination or unjust aesthetic relations. I also consider whether the practice of aesthetic exploration risks dehumanizing its subjects. Finally, I gesture towards another way of addressing aesthetic injustice that would allow us to continue celebrating a distinctively human form of bodily beauty.

Relational egalitarians differ from distributive egalitarians by focusing on the structure of social relationships—a just society is one in which citizens relate as equals. While we can relate (un)equally along different dimensions, the importance of relating as aesthetic equals has been underexplored. Here, I offer an account of aesthetic equality in relational egalitarian terms. I argue that, to relate as aesthetic equals, individuals must be subject to the same basic normative aesthetic rules, not be stigmatized or feel inferior because of their aesthetic standing, and not suffer certain material harms because of their aesthetic standing. Thus, a society of aesthetic equals would not have oppressive beauty norms. It would also address discrimination against the aesthetically disadvantaged, or lookism. The distinctly relational egalitarian conception of aesthetic equality considered here provides a novel framework for distinguishing between permissible and unjust inequalities of bodily beauty. The relational approach also reveals that while redistribution may not be sufficient to fully address lookism, aesthetic equality can be achieved without radical revision or total rejection of our current conception of beauty.

Whether we ought to trust the testimony of another person is often thought to primarily depend on features like their evidence, knowledge, or level of expertise. No doubt these are epistemically relevant features. However, a recent paper by Justin P. McBrayer (2024) convincingly argues that a testifier's interests may be more important than their expertise when it comes to how we should allocate our epistemic trust in them. Just think of the proverbial used car salesman. You should not trust what he tells you, and realizing that he is an expert only seems to make things worse. In this reply, I consider McBrayer’s basic insight, constructively criticize his view, and tentatively explore further territory.