In the quantum-Bayesian approach to quantum foundations, a quantum state is viewed as an expression of an agent’s personalist Bayesian degrees of belief, or probabilities, concerning the results of measurements. These probabilities obey the usual probability rules as required by Dutch-book coherence, but quantum mechanics imposes additional constraints upon them. In this paper, we explore the question of deriving the structure of quantum-state space from a set of assumptions in the spirit of quantum Bayesianism. The starting point is the representation (...) of quantum states induced by a symmetric informationally complete measurement or SIC. In this representation, the Born rule takes the form of a particularly simple modification of the law of total probability. We show how to derive key features of quantum-state space from (i) the requirement that the Born rule arises as a simple modification of the law of total probability and (ii) a limited number of additional assumptions of a strong Bayesian flavor. (shrink)

Giubilini and Minerva argue that the permissibility of abortion entails the permissibility of infanticide. Proponents of what we refer to as the Birth Strategy claim that there is a morally significant difference brought about at birth that accounts for our strong intuition that killing newborns is morally impermissible. We argue that strategy does not account for the moral intuition that late-term, non-therapeutic abortions are morally impermissible. Advocates of the Birth Strategy must either judge non-therapeutic abortions as impermissible in the later (...) stages of pregnancy or conclude that they are permissible on the basis of premises that are far less intuitively plausible than the opposite conclusion and its supporting premises. (shrink)

The Realist that investigates questions of ontology by appeal to the quantificational structure of language assumes that the semantics for the privileged language of ontology is externalist. I argue that such a language cannot be (some variant of) a natural language, as some Realists propose. The flexibility exhibited by natural language expressions noted by Chomsky and others cannot obviously be characterized by the rigid models available to the externalist. If natural languages are hostile to externalist treatments, then the meanings of (...) natural language expressions serve as poor guides for ontological investigation, insofar as their meanings will fail to determine the referents of their constituents. This undermines the Realist’s use of natural languages to settle disputes in metaphysics. (shrink)

If non-human animals have high moral status, then we commit a grave moral error by eating them. Eating animals is thus morally risky, while many agree that it is morally permissible to not eat animals. According to some philosophers, then, non-animal ethicists should err on the side of caution and refrain from eating animals. I argue that this precautionary argument assumes a false dichotomy of dietary options: a diet that includes farm-raised animals or a diet that does not include animals (...) of any kind. There is a third dietary option, namely, a diet of plants and non-traditional animal protein, and there is evidence that such a diet results in the least amount of harm to animals. It follows therefore that moral uncertainty does not support the adoption of a vegetarian diet. (shrink)

The probabilities a Bayesian agent assigns to a set of events typically change with time, for instance when the agent updates them in the light of new data. In this paper we address the question of how an agent's probabilities at different times are constrained by Dutch-book coherence. We review and attempt to clarify the argument that, although an agent is not forced by coherence to use the usual Bayesian conditioning rule to update his probabilities, coherence does require the agent's (...) probabilities to satisfy van Fraassen's [1984] reflection principle (which entails a related constraint pointed out by Goldstein [1983]). We then exhibit the specialized assumption needed to recover Bayesian conditioning from an analogous reflection-style consideration. Bringing the argument to the context of quantum measurement theory, we show that "quantum decoherence" can be understood in purely personalist terms---quantum decoherence (as supposed in a von Neumann chain) is not a physical process at all, but an application of the reflection principle. From this point of view, the decoherence theory of Zeh, Zurek, and others as a story of quantum measurement has the plot turned exactly backward. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to cause some good-natured trouble. The issue is, when will we ever stop burdening the taxpayer with conferences devoted to the quantum foundations? The suspicion is expressed that no end will be in sight until a means is found to reduce quantum theory to two or three statements of crisp physical (rather than abstract, axiomatic) significance. In this regard, no tool appears better calibrated for a direct assault than quantum information theory. Far from a strained (...) application of the latest fad to a time-honoured problem, this method holds promise precisely because a large part---but not all---of the structure of quantum theory has always concerned information. It is just that the physics community needs reminding. (shrink)

According to QBism, quantum states, unitary evolutions, and measurement operators are all understood as personal judgments of the agent using the formalism. Meanwhile, quantum measurement outcomes are understood as the personal experiences of the same agent. Wigner’s conundrum of the friend, in which two agents ostensibly have different accounts of whether or not there is a measurement outcome, thus poses no paradox for QBism. Indeed the resolution of Wigner’s original thought experiment was central to the development of QBist thinking. The (...) focus of this paper concerns two very instructive modifications to Wigner’s puzzle: One, a recent no-go theorem by Frauchiger and Renner, and the other a thought experiment by Baumann and Brukner. We show that the paradoxical features emphasized in these works disappear once both friend and Wigner are understood as agents on an equal footing with regard to their individual uses of quantum theory. Wigner’s action on his friend then becomes, from the friend’s perspective, an action the friend takes on Wigner. Our analysis rests on a kind of quantum Copernican principle: When two agents take actions on each other, each agent has a dual role as a physical system for the other agent. No user of quantum theory is more privileged than any other. In contrast to the sentiment of Wigner’s original paper, neither agent should be considered as in “suspended animation.” In this light, QBism brings an entirely new perspective to understanding Wigner’s friend thought experiments. (shrink)

In the Bayesian approach to quantum mechanics, probabilities—and thus quantum states—represent an agent’s degrees of belief, rather than corresponding to objective properties of physical systems. In this paper we investigate the concept of certainty in quantum mechanics. Particularly, we show how the probability-1 predictions derived from pure quantum states highlight a fundamental difference between our Bayesian approach, on the one hand, and Copenhagen and similar interpretations on the other. We first review the main arguments for the general claim that probabilities (...) always represent degrees of belief. We then argue that a quantum state prepared by some physical device always depends on an agent’s prior beliefs, implying that the probability-1 predictions derived from that state also depend on the agent’s prior beliefs. Quantum certainty is therefore always some agent’s certainty. Conversely, if facts about an experimental setup could imply agent-independent certainty for a measurement outcome, as in many Copenhagen-like interpretations, that outcome would effectively correspond to a preexisting system property. The idea that measurement outcomes occurring with certainty correspond to preexisting system properties is, however, in conflict with locality. We emphasize this by giving a version of an argument of Stairs [(1983). Quantum logic, realism, and value-definiteness. Philosophy of Science, 50, 578], which applies the Kochen–Specker theorem to an entangled bipartite system. (shrink)

The appearance of negative terms in quasiprobability representations of quantum theory is known to be inevitable, and, due to its equivalence with the onset of contextuality, of central interest in quantum computation and information. Until recently, however, nothing has been known about how much negativity is necessary in a quasiprobability representation. Zhu :120404, 2016) proved that the upper and lower bounds with respect to one type of negativity measure are saturated by quasiprobability representations which are in one-to-one correspondence with the (...) elusive symmetric informationally complete quantum measurements. We define a family of negativity measures which includes Zhu’s as a special case and consider another member of the family which we call “sum negativity.” We prove a sufficient condition for local maxima in sum negativity and find exact global maxima in dimensions 3 and 4. Notably, we find that Zhu’s result on the SICs does not generally extend to sum negativity, although the analogous result does hold in dimension 4. Finally, the Hoggar lines in dimension 8 make an appearance in a conjecture on sum negativity. (shrink)

Every quantum state can be represented as a probability distribution over the outcomes of an informationally complete measurement. But not all probability distributions correspond to quantum states. Quantum state space may thus be thought of as a restricted subset of all potentially available probabilities. A recent publication (Fuchs and Schack, arXiv:0906.2187v1, 2009) advocates such a representation using symmetric informationally complete (SIC) measurements. Building upon this work we study how this subset—quantum-state space—might be characterized. Our leading characteristic is that the inner (...) products of the probabilities are bounded, a simple condition with nontrivial consequences. To get quantum-state space something more detailed about the extreme points is needed. No definitive characterization is reached, but we see several new interesting features over those in Fuchs and Schack (arXiv:0906.2187v1, 2009), and all in conformity with quantum theory. (shrink)

In temporal binding, the temporal interval between one event and another, occurring some time later, is subjectively compressed. We discuss two ways in which temporal binding has been conceptualized. In studies showing temporal binding between a voluntary action and its causal consequences, such binding is typically interpreted as providing a measure of an implicit or pre-reflective “sense of agency”. However, temporal binding has also been observed in contexts not involving voluntary action, but only the passive observation of a cause-effect sequence. (...) In those contexts, it has been interpreted as a top-down effect on perception reflecting a belief in causality. These two views need not be in conflict with one another, if one thinks of them as concerning two separate mechanisms through which temporal binding can occur. In this paper, we explore an alternative possibility: that there is a unitary way of explaining temporal binding both within and outside the context of voluntary action as a top-down effect on perception reflecting a belief in causality. Any such explanation needs to account for ways in which agency, and factors connected with agency, have been shown to affect the strength of temporal binding. We show that principles of causal inference and causal selection already familiar from the literature on causal learning have the potential to explain why the strength of people’s causal beliefs can be affected by the extent to which they are themselves actively involved in bringing about events, thus in turn affecting binding. (shrink)

This paper on feminism was given at a public lecture in Spain. The author speaks from the perspective of contemporary Catholicism, represented in the magisterial teachings of St John Paul II, foreshadowed in the works of St. Edith Stein, and amplified and developed by contemporary Catholic scholars such as Prudence Allen, Michelle Schumacher, Leonie Caldecott and Cardinals Angelo Scola, Walter Kasper and Karl Lehmann.

Many have been attracted to the idea that for something to be good there just have to be reasons to favour it. This view has come to be known as the buck-passing account of value. According to this account, for pleasure to be good there need to be reasons for us to desire and pursue it. Likewise for liberty and equality to be values there have to be reasons for us to promote and preserve them. Extensive discussion has focussed on (...) some of the problems that the buck-passing account faces, such as the 'wrong kind of reason' problem. Less attention, however, has been paid as to why we should accept the buck-passing account or what the theoretical pay-offs and other implications of accepting it are. The Normative and the Evaluative provides the first comprehensive motivation and defence of the buck-passing account of value. Richard Rowland argues that the buck-passing account explains several important features of the relationship between reasons and value, as well as the relationship between the different varieties of value, in a way that its competitors do not. He shows that alternatives to the buck-passing account are inconsistent with important views in normative ethics, uninformative, and at odds with the way in which we should see practical and epistemic normativity as related. In addition, he extends the buck-passing account to provide an account of moral properties as well as all other normative and deontic properties and concepts, such as fittingness and ought, in terms of reasons. (shrink)

A significant argument for the claim that knowing-wh is knowing-that, implicit in much of the literature, including Stanley and Williamson (2001), is spelt out and challenged. The argument includes the assumption that a subject's state of knowing-wh is constituted by their involvement in a relation with an answer to a question. And it involves the assumption that answers to questions are propositions or facts. One of Lawrence Powers' counterexamples to the conjunction of these two assumptions is developed, responses to it (...) are rebutted, and the possibility of rejecting the second rather than the first of these assumptions is explored briefly. (shrink)

There are important similarities between moral thought and talk and thought and talk about gender: disagreements about gender, like disagreements about morality, seem to be intractable and to outstrip descriptive agreement; and it seems coherent to reject any definition of what it is to be a woman in terms of particular social, biological, or other descriptive features, just as it seems coherent to reject any definition of what it is to be good or right in terms of any set of (...) descriptive properties. These similarities give us reason to investigate the idea that, like moral thought and talk, gender thought and talk is inherently normative. This paper proposes a normative account of gender thought and talk in terms of fitting treatment. On this fitting treatment account, to judge that A is gender G is just to judge that it is fitting to treat A as a G. This account is a descriptive or hermeneutical account of our gender thought and talk rather than an ameliorative account of our gender concepts or a metaphysical account of gender properties in social metaphysics. This paper argues that other descriptive accounts of gender thought and talk face problems that the fitting treatment account overcomes. (shrink)

Many have argued that various features of moral disagreements create problems for cognitivism about moral judgment, but these arguments have been shown to fail. In this paper, I articulate a new problem for cognitivism that derives from features of our responses to moral disagreement. I argue that cognitivism entails that one of the following two claims is false: (1) a mental state is a belief only if it tracks changes in perceived evidence; (2) it is intelligible to make moral judgments (...) that do not track changes in perceived evidence. I explain that there is a good case that (1) holds such that we should prefer theories that do not entail the negation of (1). And I argue that the seeming intelligibility of entirely intransigent responses to peer disagreement about moral issues shows us that there is a good case that (2) holds. (shrink)

Functional diversity holds the promise of understanding ecosystems in ways unattainable by taxonomic diversity studies. Underlying this promise is the intuition that investigating the diversity of what organisms actually do—i.e. their functional traits—within ecosystems will generate more reliable insights into the ways these ecosystems behave, compared to considering only species diversity. But this promise also rests on several conceptual and methodological—i.e. epistemic—assumptions that cut across various theories and domains of ecology. These assumptions should be clearly addressed, notably for the sake (...) of an effective comparison and integration across domains, and for assessing whether or not to use functional diversity approaches for developing ecological management strategies. The objective of this contribution is to identify and critically analyze the most salient of these assumptions. To this aim, we provide an “epistemic roadmap” that pinpoints these assumptions along a set of historical, conceptual, empirical, theoretical, and normative dimensions. (shrink)

This article is about the implications of a conciliatory view about the epistemology of peer disagreement for our moral beliefs. Many have endorsed a conciliatory view about the epistemology of peer disagreement according to which if we find ourselves in a disagreement about some matter with another whom we should judge to be our epistemic peer on that matter, we must revise our judgment about that matter. This article focuses on three issues about the implications of conciliationism for our moral (...) beliefs. The first is whether there is an asymmetry between the implications of conciliationism for the epistemic status of our moral beliefs and the implications of conciliationism for the epistemic status of our non-moral beliefs; for instance, some have argued that conciliationism leads to epistemological moral skepticism but not to epistemological nonmoral skepticism. The second is what the implications of conciliationism are for the epistemic status of particular moral beliefs. The third is whether conciliationism's impact on the epistemic status of our moral beliefs has practical implications. (shrink)

Some standards, such as moral and prudential standards, provide genuinely or authoritatively normative reasons for action. Other standards, such as the norms of masculinity and the mafia’s code of omerta, provide reasons but do not provide genuinely normative reasons for action. This paper first explains that there is a similar distinction amongst attitudinal standards: some attitudes (belief, desire) have standards that seem to give rise to genuine normativity; others (boredom, envy) do not. This paper gives a value-based account of which (...) attitudinal standards give rise to genuine normativity. It argues that this account has interesting implications before extending it to provide an account of which action-guiding standards are genuinely normative. It argues that this value-based account of which standards are genuinely normative is more plausible than alternatives suggested in the literature and has interesting implications for genuine normativity in law and aesthetics. (shrink)

This chapter explores two of the most studied and most damaging aspects of such societal influence on science: racial and gender biases. We discuss two major domains of biological and medical research involving race and gender: cognitive differences research and reproductive health science. In each case, we explore the influence of sexist values like androcentric bias—where researchers focus on men and male bodies as the alleged “norm”—and racist values like white supremacy—where researchers privilege the cultures and attributes of white people (...) as allegedly “superior” to those of people of color. The chapter contends that we must make the culture of research more equitable to make the research itself less biased and more fair for all people. (shrink)

Starting from the assumption that one can literally perceive someone's anger in their face, I argue that this would not be possible if what is perceived is a static facial signature of their anger. There is a product–process distinction in talk of facial expression, and I argue that one can see anger in someone's facial expression only if this is understood to be a process rather than a product.

Arguing first that the best way to understand what a continuant is is as something that primarily has its properties at a time rather than atemporally, the paper then defends the idea that there are occurrent continuants. These are things that were, are, or will be happening—like the ongoing process of someone reading or my writing this paper, for instance. A recently popular philosophical view of process is as something that is referred to with mass nouns and not count nouns. (...) This has mistakenly encouraged the view that the only way to think of process is as the stuff of events, and has obscured the possibility of thinking of processes as individual continuants. (shrink)

The chapter introduces and characterizes the notion of fittingness. It charts the history of the relation and its relevance to contemporary debates in normative and metanormative philosophy and proceeds to survey issues to do with fittingness covered in the volume’s chapters, including the nature and epistemology of fittingness, the relations between fittingness and reasons, the normativity of fittingness, fittingness and value theory, and the role of fittingness in theorizing about responsibility. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of issues to (...) do with fittingness that aren’t covered extensively by the volume’s chapters in order to indicate avenues for further research. (shrink)

In this paper I defend what I call the argument from epistemic reasons against the moral error theory. I argue that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief and that this is bad news for the moral error theory since, if there are no epistemic reasons for belief, no one knows anything. If no one knows anything, then no one knows that there is thought when they are thinking, and no one knows that they (...) do not know everything. And it could not be the case that we do not know that there is thought when we believe that there is thought and that we do not know that we do not know everything. I address several objections to the claim that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief. It might seem that arguing against the error theory on the grounds that it entails that no one knows anything is just providing a Moorean argument against the moral error theory. I show that even if my argument against the error theory is indeed a Moorean one, it avoids Streumer's, McPherson's and Olson's objections to previous Moorean arguments against the error theory and is a more powerful argument against the error theory than Moore's argument against external world skepticism is against external world skepticism. (shrink)

Christopher Cowie has recently argued that companions in guilt arguments against the moral error theory that appeal to epistemic reasons cannot work. I show that such companions in guilt arguments can work if, as we have good reason to believe, moral reasons and epistemic reasons are instances of fundamentally the same relation.

There is an intuitive difference in how we think about pluralism and attitudinal diversity in epistemological contexts versus political contexts. In an epistemological context, it seems problematically arbitrary to hold a particular belief on some issue, while also thinking it perfectly reasonable to hold a totally different belief on the same issue given the same evidence. By contrast, though, it doesn’t seem problematically arbitrary to have a particular set of political commitments, while at the same time thinking it perfectly reasonable (...) for someone in a similar position have a totally different set of political commitments. This chapter examines three explanatory theses that might be used to make sense of this difference: (1) that practical commitments are desire dependent in a way that beliefs are not; (2) that there are reasons to be resolute in practical commitments, but not in beliefs; and (3) that compromise in the face of practical political disagreement doesn’t mitigate controversy, whereas compromise in the face of disagreement about mere beliefs does mitigate controversy. (shrink)

According to fitting-attitude (FA) accounts of value, X is of final value if and only if there are reasons for us to have a certain pro-attitude towards it. FA accounts supposedly face the wrong kind of reason (WKR) problem. The WKR problem is the problem of revising FA accounts to exclude so called wrong kind of reasons. And wrong kind of reasons are reasons for us to have certain pro-attitudes towards things that are not of value. I argue that the (...) WKR problem can be dissolved. I argue that (A) the view that there are wrong kind of reasons for the pro-attitudes that figure in FA accounts conflicts with the conjunction of (B) an extremely plausible and extremely weak connection between normative and motivating rea- sons and (C) an extremely plausible generality constraint on the reasons for pro- attitudes that figure in FA accounts. I argue that when confronted with this trilemma we should give up (A) rather than (B) or (C) because there is a good explanation of why (A) seems so plausible but is in fact false, but there is no good explanation of why (B) and (C) seem so plausible but are in fact false. (shrink)

I argue that while every betrayal is a breach of trust, not every breach of trust is a betrayal. I defend a conception of trust as primarily a feature of behaviour (i.e. trusting behaviour) and only secondarily a feature of a mental attitude. So it is possible to have the attitude of distrust towards someone while still trusting them in the way you behave. This makes sense of the possibility of Judas Iscariot breaching Jesus’ trust, and so betraying him, even (...) though Jesus presumably knew that Judas would do just that. This conception of trust may be spelt out in terms of making oneself reliant on somebody in a collaboration with them. Such collaborations include relationships like friendships and love affairs, as well as political activities or defending one’s country against aggression. I argue that only when these collaborations involve a commitment to loyalty is a breach of trust a betrayal. And loyalty is a feature of those collaborations or relationships that exclude others – us/them collaborations. (shrink)

According to the ICD-11 and DSM-5, transgender people’s experienced gender is incongruent with their natal sex or gender and the purpose of gender affirming-healthcare (GAH) interventions is to reduce this incongruence. Vincent and Jane argue that this view is conceptually incoherent—the incoherence thesis—and propose that the ICD and DSM should be revised to understand transgender people as experiencing a merely felt incongruence between their gender and their natal sex or gender—the feelings revision. I argue that (i) Vincent and Jane in (...) fact give us no reason to believe the incoherence thesis and that (ii) we may want to resist the combination of the incoherence thesis and the feelings revision because this combination implies that all transgender people have feelings that are misplaced and are, in an importance sense, incorrect or mistaken. I then give a fit-based account of how trans people’s experienced gender can be incongruent with their natal sex or gender and how GAH can reduce this incongruence. (shrink)

In a recent issue of Utilitas Gerald Lang provided an appealing new solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason problem for the buck-passing account of value. In subsequent issues Jonas Olson and John Brunero have provided objections to Lang's solution. I argue that Brunero's objection is not a problem for Lang's solution, and that a revised version of Lang's solution avoids Olson's objections. I conclude that we can solve the Wrong Kind of Reason problem, and that the wrong kind of (...) reasons for pro-attitudes are reasons that would not still be reasons for pro-attitudes if it were not for the additional consequences of having those pro-attitudes. (shrink)

This article responds to a recent empirical study by De Brigard and Weijers on intuitions about the experience machine and what it tells us about hedonism.

This paper is about how moral disagreement matters for metaethics. It has four parts. In the first part I argue that moral facts are subject to a certain epistemic accessibility requirement. Namely, moral facts must be accessible to some possible agent. In the second part I show that because this accessibility requirement on moral facts holds, there is a route from facts about the moral disagreements of agents in idealized conditions to conclusions about what moral facts there are. In the (...) third part I build on this route to show that (*) if there is significant moral disagreement in idealized conditions, then our understanding of morality is fatally flawed and we should accept relativism over non-naturalism and quasi-realism. So, if, like many, you think that there would be significant moral disagreement in idealized conditions, you should hold that our understanding of morality is fatally flawed and reject non-naturalism and quasi-realism. In the fourth part of this paper I show that (*) undermines the plausibility of non-naturalism, quasi-realism, and the view that our understanding of morality is not fatally flawed even if we do not have sufficient reason to believe that there would be significant moral disagreement in idealized conditions. (shrink)

Our gender identity is our sense of ourselves as a woman, a man, as genderqueer, or as another gender. Our gender is the property we have of being a woman, being a man, being non-binary, or being another gender. What is the relationship between our gender identity and our gender? Recently, much work has been done on ameliorative accounts of the gender concepts that we should accept and on the metaphysics of gender properties. From this work 4 views of the (...) relationship between having gender identity G (e.g. having a female gender identity) and being a gender G (e.g. being a woman) have emerged. A first, the no connection view, says that gender identity and gender are entirely distinct; Sally Haslanger’s ameliorative account of gender, as well as Theodore Bach’s account of gender properties, are instances of this view. A second, the gender-identity-first view, says that all there is to our gender is our gender identity; this view is at least similar to views that Talia Bettcher and R.A. Briggs and B.R. George have argued for. A third, contextualist view, says that in some contexts and relative to certain standards, our gender identity determines our gender, and that in others it does not; Ásta and Robin Dembroff have proposed and defended views along these lines. A fourth view, the two gender properties view, says that there are two properties that can make it the case that one is gender G (in any context), one’s having gender identity G and one’s being socially classed as a G; Katharine Jenkins and Elizabeth Barnes have proposed views along these lines. This article explains these 4 different views and spells out their prospects, and the problems they face, as both ameliorative and as metaphysical views. (shrink)

This collection of newly commissioned essays, edited by NYU philosophers Paul Boghossian and Christopher Peacocke, resumes the current surge of interest in the proper explication of the notion of a priori. The authors discuss the relations of the a priori to the notions of definition, meaning, justification, and ontology, explore how the concept figured historically in the philosophies of Leibniz, Kant, Frege, and Wittgenstein, and address its role in the contemporary philosophies of logic, mathematics, mind, and science. The editors’ (...) Introduction familiarizes the reader with the issues that are to be explored in detail in later parts of the anthology. (shrink)

Our concepts of good simpliciter, good for, and good as a particular kind of thing must share some common element. I argue that all three types of goodness can be analysed in terms of the reasons that there are for a certain sets of agents to have pro-attitudes. To this end I provide new and compelling accounts of good for and goodness of a kind in terms of reasons for pro-attitudes that are more explanatorily illuminating than competing accounts and that (...) evade the objections that undermine previous accounts of good for and goodness of a kind in terms of reasons. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments in ethics aim to use facts about the evolutionary causes of ethical beliefs to undermine their justification. Global Evolutionary Debunking Arguments (GDAs) are arguments made in metaethics that aim to undermine the justification of all ethical beliefs. Local Evolutionary Debunking Arguments (LDAs) are arguments made in first‐order normative ethics that aim to undermine the justification of only some of our ethical beliefs. Guy Kahane, Regina Rini, Folke Tersman, and Katia Vavova argue for skepticism about the possibility of (...) LDAs. They argue that LDAs cannot be successful because they over‐extend in a way that makes them self‐undermining and yield a form of moral skepticism. In this paper I argue that this skepticism about the possibility of LDAs is misplaced. (shrink)

Arguing against the claim that beliefs are reasons for action.

An influential philosophical conception of our mind’s place in the world is as a site for the states and events that causally mediate the world we perceive and the world we affect. According to this conception, states and events in the world cause mental states and events in us through the process of perception. These mental states and events then go on to produce new states and events in the world through the process of action. Our role is as hosts (...) for these states and events that causally mediate the states and events on the input side and those on the output side. (shrink)

Drawing inspiration from the notion of evocation employed in inferential erotetic logic, we defend an ‘evoked questions norm’ on inquiring attitudes. According to this norm, it is rational to have an inquiring attitude concerning a question only if that question is evoked by your background information. We offer two arguments for this norm. First, we develop an argument from convergence. Insights from several independent literatures (20th-century ordinary-language philosophy, inferential erotetic logic, inquisitive epistemic logic, and contemporary zetetic epistemology) all converge on (...) the evoked questions norm. Second, we show that suitably interpreted, the evoked questions norm correctly predicts several underappreciated kinds of bad questions. It does this, in part, by recovering versions of previously defended ignorance and knowledge norms. Some of those bad questions cannot be predicted by either norm singly, but only when corporately taken to reflect a common normative category. We identify this category as evocation. (shrink)

Despite being somewhat long in the tooth at the time, Aristotle, Hume and Kant were still dominating twentieth century moral philosophy. Much of the progress made in that century came from a detailed working through of each of their approaches by the expanding and increasingly professionalized corps of academic philosophers. And this progress can be measured not just by the quality and sophistication of moral philosophy at the end of that century, but also by the narrowing of some of the (...) gaps between Aristotelian, Humean and Kantian philosophers. (shrink)

Generosity is not the same thing as kindness or self-sacrifice. Presumptuousness is incompatible with generosity, but not with kindness or self-sacrifice. I consider a kind but interfering neighbour who inappropriately takes over the role of mother to my daughter; her behaviour is not generous. Presumptuousness is the improper exercise of a disposition to adopt a role that one does not have. With this in mind I explore the idea that generosity is the proper exercise of the disposition to adopt a (...) role that one does not have. It is a mean between meanness on the one hand (where that disposition is not exercised when it should be) and presumptuousness on the other hand (where that disposition is exercised when it should not be). Adopting a role is being motivated by the considerations that should motivate someone who actually has that role. The disposition to adopt roles you do not have is important in social situations where there is a need for a role that nobody is filling. It is also the basis of developing relationships like friendship; you have to act as if you are a friend before you become a friend. This model fits the parable of the Good Samaritan in an obvious way. It also explains charity and forgiveness. I suggest that forgiveness is demanded by a certain relationship – call it love. What makes forgiveness optional after someone has wronged you is that love itself may be optional after someone has wronged you. There is nothing generous about forgiving someone you love, though loving them may be generous. Forgiveness only counts as generous when you don’t love the person, and even then it can fail to be generous if it is presumptuous. (shrink)

A popular argument is that peer disagreement about controversial moral topics undermines justified moral belief in a way that peer disagreement about non-moral topics does not undermine justified non-moral belief. Call this argument the argument for moral skepticism from peer disagreement. Jason Decker and Daniel Groll have recently made a companions in guilt response to this argument. Decker and Groll argue that if peer disagreement undermines justified moral belief, then peer disagreement undermines much non-moral justified belief; if the argument for (...) moral skepticism from peer disagreement succeeds, then a kind of non-moral skepticism holds too. And we should not hold that the status of such non-moral beliefs are undermined by peer disagreement. In this paper, I shows that Decker and Groll’s companions in guilt argument fails. I then draw out the implications of my argument for the epistemology of disagreement and the epistemology of moral disagreement more generally. For instance, I then argue that peer disagreement about morality does not undermine all justified moral belief but that peer disagreement about morality does preclude most moral beliefs from being justified and constituting knowledge in a way that peer disagreement about non-moral topics does not preclude most non-moral beliefs from being justified and constituting knowledge. (shrink)

I argue that all reasons for actions and attitudes consist in reasons for preferences; call this view RP. According to RP, reasons for A to believe that p just consist in reasons for A to prefer their believing that p to their not believing that p, and reasons for A to have a pro-attitude or perform an action just consist in reasons for A to prefer that she has that attitude/performs that action. I argue that we have strong reason to (...) accept RP because we can explain a correlation between reasons for prefer- ences and other reasons only if we accept RP. I argue that no objections undermine RP and that RP has interesting implications for the reasons for attitudes there are and for reasons fundamentalism. (shrink)

Gender-affirming healthcare interventions are medical or surgical interventions that aim to allow trans and non-binary people to better affirm their gender identity. It has been argued that rights to GAH must be grounded in either a right to be cured of or mitigate an illness—gender dysphoria—or in harm prevention, given the high rates of depression and suicide among trans and non-binary people. However, these grounds of a right to GAH conflict with the prevalent view among theorists, institutions and activists that (...) trans and non-binary people do not have a mental illness and that one can be trans and entitled to GAH without being depressed or suicidal. This paper challenges the orthodoxy that a right to GAH must be grounded in either of these ways and instead argues for a right to GAH grounded in a right to live and act with integrity. The standard view, which this paper explains, is that our rights to live and act with integrity ground a right to religious accommodation in many cases such as a right to not be denied social security due to one’s refusal to work a job on a holy day. This paper argues that if our rights to live and act with integrity can ground prima facie rights to religious accommodation, our rights to live and act with integrity ground prima facie rights to GAH. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

Proponents of the epistemic companions in guilt argument argue that we should reject the moral error theory because it entails that there are no epistemic reasons. In this paper, I investigate whether a plausible version of the moral error theory can be constructed that does not entail an error theory about epistemic reasons. I argue that there are no irreducibly normative second-personal reasons even if there are irreducibly normative reasons. And epistemic reasons are not second-personal reasons. In this case, a (...) plausible version of the moral error theory can be constructed that does not entail an error theory about epistemic reasons if facts and claims about morality entail facts and claims about irreducibly normative second-personal reasons. And, as I explain, there is a good case that facts and claims about morality do entail facts and claims about irreducibly normative second-personal reasons. (shrink)

I argue against the claim that the fundamental form of trust is a 2-place relation of A trusting B and in favour of the fundamental form being a 4-place relation of A, by ψ-ing, trusting B to φ. I characterize trusting behaviour as behaviour that knowingly makes one reliant on someone doing what they are supposed to do in the collaborative enterprise that the trusting behaviour belongs to. I explain how trust is involved in the following collaborative enterprises: knowledge transfer (...) – i.e. telling someone something; maintaining a relationship; and passing responsibility for an action on to someone else. And I finish by showing how our talk of trust in non-collaborative contexts – e.g. trusting a branch to support one’s weight – may be explained by reference to the central sort of collaborative trust. (shrink)

The ability to engage in reflexive thought—in thought about thought or about other mental states more generally—is regarded as a complex intellectual achievement that is beyond the capacities of most nonhuman animals. To the extent that reflexive thought capacities are believed necessary for the possession of many other psychological states or capacities, including consciousness, belief, emotion, and empathy, the inability of animals to engage in reflexive thought calls into question their other psychological abilities. This chapter attacks the idea that reflexive (...) thought is required in this pervasive way and holds that supposing that it is derives from a tendency among philosophers and scientists toward overcomplication. Against this tendency, it recommends an aponoian framework, from apó, “away from” and noûs, “intelligence” or “thought,” arguing that seemingly complex psychological abilities are often not as complex as they seem, and do not require the ability to engage in reflexive thought. (shrink)

This article presents the first thematic review of the literature on the ethical issues concerning digital well-being. The term ‘digital well-being’ is used to refer to the impact of digital technologies on what it means to live a life that is good for a human being. The review explores the existing literature on the ethics of digital well-being, with the goal of mapping the current debate and identifying open questions for future research. The review identifies major issues related to several (...) key social domains: healthcare, education, governance and social development, and media and entertainment. It also highlights three broader themes: positive computing, personalised human–computer interaction, and autonomy and self-determination. The review argues that three themes will be central to ongoing discussions and research by showing how they can be used to identify open questions related to the ethics of digital well-being. (shrink)