Peter Murphy

What does current empirically informed moral psychology imply about the goals that can be realistically achieved in college-level applied ethics courses? This paper takes up this question from the vantage point of Jonathan Haidt’s Social Intuitionist Model of human moral judgment. I summarize Haidt’s model, and then consider a variety of pedagogical goals. I begin with two of the loftiest goals of ethics education, and argue that neither is within realistic reach if Haidt’s model is correct. I then look at three goals that can be achieved if his model is correct; but each of these goals, I argue, lacks significant value. I end by identifying three goals that are of significant value and also realistically attainable on Haidt’s model. These should be the focus of applied ethics pedagogy if Haidt’s model is correct.

The principal claim of this work is that humans have no perceptual knowledge of the external world. My defense of this claim differs from traditional skeptical arguments by not imposing excessive conditions on knowledge. I avoid premises asserting that knowledge requires things like knowing that one knows, ruling out all logically possible alternatives, the impossibility of mistake, or some form of certainty. To help insure that no such condition is imposed, I proceed from within various theories of knowledge developed since Gettier. Further support for this approach comes from recent attempts to evaluate skeptical arguments while being neutral about what the correct theory of knowledge is. I contend that such attempts have failed. I propose that we abandon such neutrality and in stead take an explicitly theory-dependent stance toward evaluating skeptical arguments. Chapters 1 and 2 argue for these methodological points. ;Chapters 3 through 7 evaluate some skeptical arguments from the perspective of numerous and diverse theories of knowledge. Each of these skeptical arguments employs an epistemic principle regarding underdetermination or an epistemic principle regarding the preservation of knowledge under known entailment. In each case, I articulate the needed principles to suit the theory at hand; then I go on to determine how the theory assesses the resulting skeptical argument. I investigate how skeptical arguments interact with the contextualism of Keith DeRose, the process reliabilism of Alvin Goldman, the internalist foundationalisms of John Pollock and Paul Moser, and the internalist coherentism of Keith Lehrer. In each case, I articulate one skeptical argument that the theory does not convincingly dismiss. The series of investigations constitutes a novel and updated inductive argument for skepticism about the external world

We will be in a better position to evaluate some important skeptical theses if we first investigate two questions about justified suspended judgment. One question is this: when, if ever, does one justified suspension confer justification on another suspension? and the other is this: what is the structure of justified suspension? the goal of this essay is to make headway at answering these questions. After surveying the four main views about the non-normative nature of suspended judgment and offering a taxonomy of the epistemic principles that might govern which suspended judgments are justified, I will isolate five important principles that might govern which suspended judgments are justified. I will call these suspension-to-suspension principles. I will then evaluate these principles by the lights of each of the four views about what suspensions are. I close by drawing some conclusions about the prospects for skepticism, the structure of justified suspended judgment, and the importance of theorizing about justified suspended judgment.

What epistemic defect needs to show up in a skeptical scenario if it is to effectively target some belief? According to the false belief account, the targeted belief must be false in the skeptical scenario. According to the competing ignorance account, the targeted belief must fall short of being knowledge in the skeptical scenario. This paper argues for two claims. The first is that, contrary to what is often assumed, the ignorance account is superior to the false belief account. The second is that the ignorance account ultimately hobbles the skeptic. It does so for two reasons. First, when this account is joined with either a closure-based skeptical argument or a skeptical underdetermination argument, the best the skeptic can do is show that we don’t know that we know. And second, the ignorance account directly implies the maligned KK principle.

As you scroll through this review, you move your hand; this causes the mouse to move; in turn this causes, via a series of intermediary events, changes on your screen. A bit more reflection shows that this case is entirely mundane: causal relations are a ubiquitous feature of the physical world. Causal relations are also, according to many philosophers, at the center of phenomena like knowledge, perception, linguistic meaning, mental content, belief, free action, and right action. In fact, one is hard put to think of an important philosophical notion that has not received a causal analysis, especially in recent analytic philosophy. Consider a few from the theory of knowledge. According to the causal theory of knowledge, knowledge is true belief caused by what makes the belief true. Or, according to a competing view, knowledge is true belief caused by a reliable belief forming process, where a reliable process is one that causes a high ratio of true to false beliefs. According to the causal theory of perception, seeing that the cup is on the table consists in being in a perceptual state that is appropriately caused by the cup and the table. Causation, it seems, is absolutely central. We will need to understand causation itself if we are to understand either causal theories in philosophy or the nature of the surrounding world.

The book has two parts. The first looks at the destructive use to which Descartes puts the method of doubt. But this is just half the story since, according to Broughton, Descartes also uses the method of doubt constructively. The second part of the book takes up the constructive use. Both uses fit into an overarching claim that is set out in the introduction. According to this claim, Descartes employs the method of doubt in order to establish fundamental metaphysical claims – or, as he says, claims of first philosophy (recall Descartes’s title: Meditations on First Philosophy). These include: God exists, we ought to assent only to what we clearly and distinctly perceive, the essential attribute of matter is extension, the essential attribute of the human mind is thought, and sense experience allows us to know the primary qualities of material objects. This metaphysical interpretation of the method’s aim is contrasted with others: that the aim is to secure some form of high-grade knowledge, to clear the way for Descartes’s mechanistic physics, to refute the skepticism of the day, and to free the mind from the senses so we can think better about supersensible entities. Broughton cites passages in support of each interpretation. As her survey shows, there is (at least) decent textual support for each interpretation. Perhaps then the method of doubt is multi-purposed. After all, there is no obvious incompatibility between any two or more of the aims – so why take the various interpretations as competing with one another? Unfortunately, Broughton doesn’t say.

This book is devoted to showing that with the single exception of patents on people's whole genomes, DNA patents are morally permissible. Resnik begins with three useful background chapters: one on recent controversies over DNA patents in the United States and abroad; another on the basic science of DNA, as well as research and product development related to DNA; and another, especially useful, chapter on the legal nature of patents and intellectual property. The focus of moral evaluation is patents as they are set out in American law. These give their holders a right to exclude others from producing, using, or commercializing the patented item for twenty years. Items that can be patented include products, processes, and improvements thereof. However, a patentable item must issue from human ingenuity (as opposed to nature); this rules out laws of nature, natural phenomena, and naturally occurring living things and chemical compounds. Of course, in its natural form, DNA is not a product of human nature and therefore not a candidate for patenting. However, since 1980 American law has deemed it patentable in isolated and purified form (in this form, Resnik reports, up to 95% of the sequences in the artificial sequence are in the natural sequence). Turning to ethical issues, Resnik argues for the permissibility of both the general practice of patents, as well as patents on DNA. The general practice is morally defensible because patents produce public benefits, protect private rights of ownership, and strike a reasonable balance in doing so. The public benefits include, in the near term, scientific, medical and agricultural discoveries and innovations; the central long-term benefit is the lower prices that come after the patent has expired and the patented item is publicly disclosed for others to market. Patents help to bring about all of these benefits by providing a legally protected twenty-year monopoly, thus functioning as powerful economic incentives. They thereby also protect private rights of ownership; but even here the public good is not overlooked, since patent-based monopolies are constrained in various ways to protect the public good (e.g..

Conceivability is an important source of our beliefs about what is possible; inconceivability is an important source of our beliefs about what is impossible. What are the connections between the reliability of these sources? If one is reliable, does it follow that the other is also reliable? The central contention of this paper is that suitably qualified the reliability of inconceivability implies the reliability of conceivability, but the reliability of conceivability fails to imply the reliability of inconceivability

Under what conditions is a belief inferentially justified? A partial answer is found in Justification from Justification : a belief is inferentially justified only if all of the beliefs from which it is essentially inferred are justified. After reviewing some important features of JFJ, I offer a counterexample to it. Then I outline a positive suggestion for how to think about inferentially justified beliefs while still retaining a basing condition. I end by concluding that epistemologists need a model of inferentially justified belief that is more permissive and more complex than JFJ.

As effective altruists often point out affluent people can do great good for others without having to make significant self-sacrifices. What is the correct moral assessment of patterns of giving that bring about great good and yet carry little in the way of self-sacrifice? Here I will clarify this question, state why it is important, and argue for an answer to it. After sketching the intuitive category of the morally best acts, I argue that self-sacrifice is not a condition that an act must meet to be among the morally best acts. I argue that self-sacrifice is instead a condition that agents must meet to be deserving of the highest praise.