ABSTRACT Reverse eikos (plausibility) arguments are notorious for reversing a reason that supports an accusation into a reason that denies this accusation. This article offers new insights on their analysis and evaluation, by reconstructing a reverse eikos argument’s line of reasoning as an argumentative pattern. The pattern reveals that this type of argument centers not only on the arguer’s claim that by doing the act of which they have been accused, they would risk becoming the likely suspect, but also on (...) the connected reasoning that they would not want to risk this since that would be stupid and they are not stupid. The proposed analysis, which is illustrated with classic and modern examples of reverse eikos arguments, shows that the evaluation of these arguments boils down to estimating the arguer’s calculation of the costs and benefits of taking the risk, while taking into account the arguer’s character, intellect, and circumstances. (shrink)

This essay addresses the collapse/incoherence problem for normative frameworks that contain both fundamental values and rules for promoting those values. The problem is that in some cases, we would bring about more of the fundamental value by violating the framework’s rules than by following them. In such cases, if the framework requires us to follow the rules anyway, then it appears to be incoherent; but if it allows us to make exceptions to the rules, then the framework “collapses” into one (...) that doesn’t make use of rules in the first place. The chapter begins with an examination of happiness and truth as fundamental values in Mill’s work, which lead into parallel versions of the collapse/incoherence problem in ethics and epistemology. It then sets out the collapse problem for rule-consequentialist approaches in ethics, truth-directed accounts of justification in epistemology, and epistemological approaches to argument cogency. The chapter closes with discussion of two potential solutions to the problem. (shrink)