•  826
    Rossian Conceptual Intuitionism
    Ethics 127 (4): 821-851. 2017.
    In this article I assess Rossian Intuitionism, which is the view that the Rossian Principles of Duty are self-evident. I begin by motivating and clarifying a version of the view—Rossian Conceptual Intuitionism—that hasn’t been adequately considered by Rossians. After defending it against a series of significant objections, I show that enthusiasm for Rossian Conceptual Intuitionism should be muted. Specifically, I argue that we lack sufficient reason for thinking that the Rossian Principles are s…Read more
  •  706
    Epistemic Sentimentalism and Epistemic Reason-Responsiveness
    In Anna Bergqvist & Robert Cowan (eds.), Evaluative Perception, Oxford University Press. 2018.
    Epistemic Sentimentalism is the view that emotional experiences such as fear and guilt are a source of immediate justification for evaluative beliefs. For example, guilt can sometimes immediately justify a subject’s belief that they have done something wrong. In this paper I focus on a family of objections to Epistemic Sentimentalism that all take as a premise the claim that emotions possess a normative property that is apparently antithetical to it: epistemic reason-responsiveness, i.e., emotio…Read more
  •  682
    Evaluative Perception: Introduction
    In Anna Bergqvist & Robert Cowan (eds.), Evaluative Perception, Oxford University Press. 2018.
    In this Introduction we introduce the central themes of the Evaluative Perception volume. After identifying historical and recent contemporary work on this topic, we discuss some central questions under three headings: (1) Questions about the Existence and Nature of Evaluative Perception: Are there perceptual experiences of values? If so, what is their nature? Are experiences of values sui generis? Are values necessary for certain kinds of experience? (2) Questions about the Epistemology of Eval…Read more
  •  484
    C.D. Broad on Moral Sense Theories in Ethics
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Virtual Issue: Methods of Ethics (3): 168-183. 2015.
    C.D. Broad’s Reflections stands out as one of the few serious examinations of Moral Sense Theory in twentieth century analytic philosophy. It also constitutes an excellent discussion of the interconnections that allegedly exist between questions concerning what Broad calls the ‘logical analysis’ of moral judgments and questions about their epistemology. In this paper I make three points concerning the interconnectedness of the analytical and epistemological elements of versions of Moral Sense Th…Read more
  •  318
    Cognitive Penetrability and Ethical Perception
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 6 (4): 665-682. 2014.
    In recent years there has been renewed philosophical interest in the thesis that perceptual experience is cognitively penetrable, i.e., roughly, the view that the contents and/or character of a subject's perceptual experience can be modified by what a subject believes and desires. As has been widely noted, it is plausible that cognitive penetration has implications for perception's epistemic role. On the one hand, penetration could make agents insensitive to the world in a way which epistemicall…Read more
  •  231
    Perceptual Intuitionism
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 90 (1): 164-193. 2013.
    In the recent metaethical literature there has been significant interest in the prospects for what I am denoting ‘Perceptual Intuitionism’: the view that normal ethical agents can and do have non-inferential justification for first-order ethical beliefs by having ethical perceptual experiences, e.g., Cullison 2010, McBrayer 2010, Vayrynen 2008. If true, it promises to constitute an independent a posteriori intuitionist epistemology, providing an alternative to intuitionist accounts which posit a…Read more
  •  191
    Epistemic perceptualism and neo-sentimentalist objections
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (1): 59-81. 2016.
    Epistemic Perceptualists claim that emotions are sources of immediate defeasible justification for evaluative propositions that can sometimes ground undefeated immediately justified evaluative beliefs. For example, fear can constitute the justificatory ground for a belief that some object or event is dangerous. Despite its attractiveness, the view is apparently vulnerable to several objections. In this paper, I provide a limited defence of Epistemic Perceptualism by responding to a family of obj…Read more
  •  142
    Moral Perception, by Robert Audi
    Mind 123 (492): 1167-1171. 2014.
    No abstract available
  •  95
    Now with Venn Diagrams, expanded Extended Examples (nice work, Robert), and the latest trends in Rhetoric, post-truth etc. (nice work, Tracy).
  •  94
    Moral motivation and the affective appeal
    Philosophical Studies 178 (1): 71-94. 2021.
    Proponents of “the affective appeal” :787–812, 2014; Zagzebski in Philos Phenomenol Res 66:104–124, 2003) argue that we can make progress in the longstanding debate about the nature of moral motivation by appealing to the affective dimension of affective episodes such as emotions, which allegedly play either a causal or constitutive role in moral judgements. Specifically, they claim that appealing to affect vindicates a version of Motivational Internalism—roughly, the view that there is a necess…Read more
  •  81
    Is it ever wrong to cheat in a dream? It has been argued that the conjunction of reasonable claims about dreams with Evaluational Internalism (the view that moral evaluation is determined by factors ‘internal’ to agency, such as intentions) entails a positive answer. This implausible result seemingly provides reason to favour an alternative theory of moral evaluation. I here argue that a wide range of Evaluational Externalist views (which base moral evaluation on factors ‘external’ to agency, su…Read more
  •  57
    A common objection to Sosa’s epistemology is that it countenances, in an objectionable way, unsafe knowledge. This objection, under closer inspection, turns out to be in far worse shape than Sosa’s critics have realised. Sosa and his defenders have offered two central response types to the idea that allowing unsafe knowledge is problematic: one response type adverts to the animal/reflective knowledge distinction that is characteristic of bi-level virtue epistemology. The other less-discussed res…Read more
  •  33
    Moral Responsibility While Dreaming
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 10 (n/a). 2023.
    Are subjects ever morally responsible for their dreams? In this paper I argue that if, as some theories of dreams entail, dreaming subjects sometimes express agency while they dream, then they are sometimes morally responsible for what they do and are potentially worthy of praise and blame while they dream and after they have awoken. I end by noting the practical and theoretical implications of my argument.
  •  28
    Lessons for ethics from the science of pain
    In Geoffrey S. Holtzman & Elisabeth Hildt (eds.), Does Neuroscience Have Normative Implications?, . pp. 39-57. 2020.
    Pain is ubiquitous. It is also surprisingly complex. In this chapter, we first provide a truncated overview of the neuroscience of pain. This overview reveals four surprising empirical discoveries about the nature of pain with relevance for ethics. In particular, we discuss the ways in which these discoveries both inform putative normative ethical principles concerning pain and illuminate metaethical debates concerning a realist, naturalist moral metaphysics, moral epistemology, and moral motiva…Read more
  •  17
    Editorial
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 23 (1): 1-3. 2020.