•  210
    Bayesian Epistemology
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2006.
    ‘Bayesian epistemology’ became an epistemological movement in the 20th century, though its two main features can be traced back to the eponymous Reverend Thomas Bayes (c. 1701-61). Those two features are: (1) the introduction of a formal apparatus for inductive logic; (2) the introduction of a pragmatic self-defeat test (as illustrated by Dutch Book Arguments) for epistemic rationality as a way of extending the justification of the laws of deductive logic to include a justification for the laws …Read more
  •  176
    Intentional self-deception in a single coherent self
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (1): 27-74. 1995.
  •  149
    Human rights and human well-being
    Oxford University Press. 2010.
    The consequentialist project for human rights -- Exceptions to libertarian natural rights -- The main principle -- What is well-being? What is equity? -- The two deepest mysteries in moral philosophy -- Security rights -- Epistemological foundations for the priority of autonomy rights -- The millian epistemological argument for autonomy rights -- Property rights, contract rights, and other economic rights -- Democratic rights -- Equity rights -- The most reliable judgment standard for weak pater…Read more
  •  108
    Consequentialism and Human Rights
    Philosophy Compass 8 (11): 1030-1040. 2013.
    The article begins with a review of the structural differences between act consequentialist theories and human rights theories, as illustrated by Amartya Sen's paradox of the Paretian liberal and Robert Nozick's utilitarianism of rights. It discusses attempts to resolve those structural differences by moving to a second-order or indirect consequentialism, illustrated by J.S. Mill and Derek Parfit. It presents consequentialist (though not utilitarian) interpretations of the contractualist theorie…Read more
  •  97
    A New Reliability Defeater for Evolutionary Naturalism
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (3): 538-564. 2016.
    The author identifies the structure of Sharon Street's skeptical challenge to non-naturalist, normative epistemic realism as an argument that NNER is liable to reliability defeat and then argues that Street's argument fails, because it itself is subject to reliability defeat. As the author reconstructs Street's argument, it is an argument that the normative epistemic judgments of the realist could only be probabilistically sensitive to normative epistemic truths by sheer chance. The author then …Read more
  •  87
    Which rights should be universal?
    Oxford University Press. 2005.
    "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." So begins the U.S. Declaration of Independence. What follows those words is a ringing endorsement of universal rights, but it is far from self-evident. Why did the authors claim that it was? William Talbott suggests that they were trapped by a presupposition of Enlightenment philosophy: That there was only one way to rationally justify universal truths, by proving them from self-evident premises. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the aut…Read more
  •  84
    Transformative Experience
    Analysis 76 (3): 380-388. 2016.
  •  72
    Is epistemic circularity a fallacy?
    Philosophical Studies 177 (8): 2277-2298. 2020.
    The author uses a series of potential counterexamples to argue against attempts by Bergmann and Plantinga to articulate a distinction between malignant and benign epistemic circularity and, more radically, to argue that epistemic circularity per se is no fallacy, and the concept of epistemic circularity plays no role in the explanation of why some instances of epistemic circularity are irrational. The author contrasts an inferential framework, in which circularity is a problem, with an equilibri…Read more
  •  61
    The evolutionist challenge to moral realism is the skeptical challenge that, if evolution is true, it would only be by chance, a “happy coincidence” as Sharon Street puts it, if human moral beliefs were true. The author formulates Street’s “happy coincidence” argument more precisely using a distinction between probabilistic sensitivity and insensitivity introduced by Elliott Sober. The author then considers whether it could be rational for us to believe that human moral judgments about particula…Read more
  •  60
    The author uses a series of examples to illustrate two versions of a new, nonprobabilist principle of epistemic rationality, the special and general versions of the metacognitive, expected relative frequency principle. These are used to explain the rationality of revisions to an agent’s degrees of confidence in propositions based on evidence of the reliability or unreliability of the cognitive processes responsible for them—especially reductions in confidence assignments to propositions antecede…Read more
  •  54
    In the movieRegarding Henry, the main character, Henry Turner, is a lawyer who suffers brain damage as a result of being shot during a robbery. Before being wounded, the Old Henry Turner had been a successful lawyer, admired as a fierce competitor and well-known for his killer instinct. As a result of the injury to his brain, the New Henry Turner loses the personality traits that had made the Old Henry such a formidable adversary.
  •  48
    The case for a more truly social epistemology (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (1). 2002.
    In his path-breaking recent book, Knowledge in a Social World, Alvin Goldman brings academic epistemology to bear on important real world issues in information technology, the media, science, law, politics, and education. Though the project that Goldman undertakes ramifies in many directions, the motivating idea is simple. Knowledge is important. Social institutions and practices can and should be evaluated on how well or how poorly they contribute to knowledge of propositions of interest. This …Read more
  •  45
    Does self-deception involve intentional biasing?
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20 (1): 127-127. 1997.
    I agree with Mele that self-deception is not intentional deception; but I do believe that self-deception involves intentional biasing, primarily for two reasons: (1) There is a Bayesian model of self-deception that explains why the biasing is rational. (2) It is implausible that the observed behavior of self- deceivers could be generated by Mele's “blind” mechanisms.
  •  34
    The Case for a More Truly Social Epistemology
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (1): 199-206. 2002.
    In his path-breaking recent book, Knowledge in a Social World, Alvin Goldman brings academic epistemology to bear on important real world issues in information technology, the media, science, law, politics, and education. Though the project that Goldman undertakes ramifies in many directions, the motivating idea is simple. Knowledge is important. Social institutions and practices can and should be evaluated on how well or how poorly they contribute to knowledge of propositions of interest. This …Read more
  •  29
    Review of James Griffin, On Human Rights (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (11). 2008.
  •  26
    Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights
    Philosophical Review 116 (2): 294-297. 2007.
    Although the focus of "Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights" is practical, Gould does not shy away from hard theoretical questions, such as the relentless debate over cultural relativism, and the relationship between terrorism and democracy
  •  19
    Universal Knowledge (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2): 420-426. 2005.
  •  17
    "In Learning from Our Mistakes: Epistemology for the Real World, Talbott provides a new framework for understanding the history of Western epistemology and uses that framework to propose a new way of understanding rational belief. His proposal makes epistemology relevant to the real world, which he illustrates with a new theory of racial, gender and other kinds of prejudice, a new diagnosis of the sources of the inequity in the U.S. criminal justice system, and insight into the proliferation of …Read more
  •  17
    The Nature of Rationality
    Philosophical Review 104 (2): 324. 1995.
  •  14
    In this reply to his three critics, Talbott develops several important themes from his book, Which Rights Should Be Universal?, in ways that go beyond the discussion in the book. Among them are the following: the prescriptive role of human rights theory; the need to guarantee an expansive list of basic rights as a basis for a government to be able to claim recognitional legitimacy; the futility of trying to define human rights in terms of what there can be reasonable disagreement about; and the …Read more
  •  14
    The Elusiveness of a Non-Question-Begging Justification for Morality
    International Journal of Applied Philosophy 28 (1): 191-204. 2014.
  •  13
    Universal knowledge (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2). 2005.
  •  12
    Allen Buchanan’s ‘The Heart of Human Rights’ addresses the moral justification of the international legal human rights system. Buchanan identifies two functions of the ILHRS: a well-being function and a status egalitarian function. Because Buchanan assumes that the well-being function is sufficientarian, he augments it with a status egalitarian function. However, if the well-being function is utilitarian or prioritarian, there is no need for a separate status egalitarian function, because the st…Read more
  •  10
    Originally published in 1990. Examining epistemic justification, truth and logic, this book works towards a holistic theory of knowledge. It discusses evidence, belief, reliability and many philosophical theories surrounding the nature of true knowledge. A thorough Preface updates the main work from when it was written in 1976 to include theories ascendant in the ‘80s.
  •  8
    Universal Knowledge
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2): 420-426. 2007.
  •  6
    This essay is part of a dossier on Cristina Lafont's book Democracy without Shortcuts.