Recently, more attention has been paid to the nature and value of the intellectual virtue of epistemic autonomy. One underexplored issue concerns how epistemic autonomy is related to other intellectual virtues. Plausibly, epistemic autonomy is closely related to a number of intellectual virtues like curiosity, inquisitiveness, intellectual perseverance, and intellectual courage to name just a few. Here, however, I will examine the relation between epistemic autonomy and intellectual humility. I will argue that epistemic autonomy and intellectual humility bear an interesting (...) relationship to one another in that they are interconnected and mutually supporting intellectual virtues. In sections 2 and 3 I will provide a brief overview of the predominant accounts of intellectual humility (section 2) and epistemic autonomy (section 3) in the literature. With an understanding of these intellectual virtues in hand, we will examine their relationship of mutual support in section 4. Section 5 will explore a challenge to this relationship coming from the epistemology of disagreement, and section 6 concludes. (shrink)

We sometimes seek expert guidance when we don’t know what to think or do about a problem. In challenging cases concerning medical ethics, we may seek a clinical ethics consultation for guidance. The assumption is that the bioethicist, as an expert on ethical issues, has knowledge and skills that can help us better think about the problem and improve our understanding of what to do regarding the issue. The widespread practice of ethics consultations raises these questions and more: -/- • (...) What would it take to be a moral expert? • Is anyone a moral expert, and if so, how could a non-expert identify one? • Is it in any way problematic to accept and follow the advice of a moral expert as opposed to coming to moral conclusions on your own? • What should we think and do when moral experts disagree about a practical ethical issue? -/- In what follows, we address these theoretical and practical questions about moral expertise. (shrink)

A theory of blameworthiness must answer two fundamental questions. First, what makes a person blameworthy when they act? Second, what makes a person blameworthy after the time of action? Two main answers have been given to the second question. According to interminability theorists, blameworthiness necessarily doesn’t even diminish over time. Terminability theorists deny this. In this paper, I argue against interminability and in favour of terminability. After clarifying the debate about whether blameworthiness is interminable or terminable, I argue there’s no (...) positive case for interminability. I then respond to three objections to terminability. In doing so, I clarify the nature of blame, self-blame, and posthumous blame. I also give theoretical reasons in favour of the view that a person’s blameworthiness for a minor wrong can not only diminish but also cease completely. (shrink)

Compatibilists disagree over whether there are historical conditions on moral responsibility. Historicists claim there are, whilst structuralists deny this. Historicists motivate their position by claiming to avoid the counter-intuitive implications of structuralism. I do two things in this paper. First, I argue that historicism has just as counter-intuitive implications as structuralism when faced with thought experiments inspired by those found in the personal identity literature. Hence, historicism is not automatically preferable to structuralism. Second, I argue that structuralism is much more (...) plausible once we accept that personal identity is irrelevant to moral responsibility. This paves the way for a new structuralist account that makes clear what it takes to be the diachronic ownership condition (which is normally taken to be personal identity) and the locus of moral responsibility (which is normally taken to be ‘whole’ person), and helps to alleviate the intuitive unease many have with respect to structuralism. (shrink)

Thomas Szasz famously argued that mental illness is a myth. Less famously, Szasz argued that since mental illness is a myth, so too is psychotherapy. Szasz’ claim that mental illness is a myth has been much discussed, but much less attention has been paid to his claim that psychotherapy is a myth. In the first part of this essay, I critically examine Szasz’ discussion of psychotherapy in order to uncover the strongest version of his case for thinking that it is (...) a myth. As we’ll see, this involves an understanding of psychotherapeutic interventions as treatments of psychopathological problems. In the rest of this essay, I turn to this directly and argue that psychotherapy has an important non-pathocentric dimension. I argue that we fail to appreciate the nature and variety of psychotherapy if we concentrate only on its pathocentric dimensions. Though I use Szasz as a stalking horse, the substantive topic is the nature of psychotherapy. This enquiry falls into the philosophy of psychotherapy as distinct from the philosophy of psychiatry and the philosophy of psychoanalysis. (shrink)

In this paper, I first argue that sometimes freely and knowingly manipulating oneself does not fully preserve moral responsibility – namely, in cases of practically distinct self-manipulation. However, I argue that practically distinct self-manipulation preserves moral responsibility to some extent because such a self-manipulated person is more morally responsibility than an other-manipulated person. This is an important result: manipulating oneself doesn’t always fully preserve one’s moral responsibility for one’s actions. But in what sense is the self-manipulated person more morally responsible? (...) I argue the self-manipulated person is not a fitting target of the reactive attitudes but continues to have wrongdoing-incurred reparative obligations. This explains the intuitive judgement about the self-manipulated person, provides a better explanation of “tracing” cases, and reveals important requirements for a plausible theory of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Much of the literature on the epistemology of disagreement focuses on the rational responses to disagreement, and to disagreement with an epistemic peer in particular. The Equal Weight View claims that in cases of peer disagreement each dissenting peer opinion is to be given equal weight and, in a case of two opposing equally-weighted opinions, each party should adopt the attitude which ‘splits the difference’. The Equal Weight View has been taken by both its critics and its proponents to have (...) quite drastic skeptical ramifications given contingent empirical facts that we are aware of regarding disagreements in philosophy, religion, science, and politics. In this paper,we begin by clarifying the central claims of the Equal Weight View (Section 2) and then examine two routes from the Equal Weight View to skepticism about such matters that have been explored in the literature. The first claims that our awareness of peers or experts who disagree with us about such issues requires that we abandon our beliefs on these issues (Section 3). The second claims that our awareness of merely possible peers or experts who disagree with us requires us to abandon our beliefs (Section 4). We find both routes from the Equal Weight View to a form of skepticism defective. However, there are nearby considerations, explored in Sections 5 and 6,which (for better or worse) do lead to at least some skeptical consequences for the Equal WeightView, albeit for different reasons. (shrink)

In this chapter I develop and motivate and account of epistemic autonomy as an intellectual character virtue. In Section one, I clarify the concept of an intellectual virtue and character intellectual virtues in particular. In Section two, I clear away some misconceptions about epistemic autonomy to better focus on our target. In Section three, I examine and evaluate several extant accounts of the virtue of epistemic autonomy, noting problems with each. In Section four, I provide my positive account of the (...) virtue of epistemic autonomy and explain how it meets the desiderata for such an account while avoiding the problems with extant accounts. Finally, in Section five, I fill the account out by digging into the factors that guide epistemically autonomous agents in having an appropriate reliance on their own thinking. (shrink)

In this introduction we explore a number of puzzles that arise concerning epistemic autonomy, and introduce the sections and chapters of the book. There are four broad types of puzzles to be explored, corresponding to the four sections of the book. The first set of puzzles concerns the nature of epistemic autonomy. Here, questions arise such as what is epistemic autonomy? Is epistemic autonomy valuable? What are we epistemically autonomous about? The second set of puzzles concern epistemic paternalism. Paternalistic acts (...) interfere with an agent’s autonomy. Here, questions arise concerning the permissibility of epistemic paternalism as well the extension of epistemically paternalistic acts. The third set of puzzles concerns the relation of epistemic autonomy to epistemic value and to intellectual virtues and vices. Is there epistemic value to being epistemically autonomous? How does epistemic autonomy relate to different intellectual virtues and vices? Finally, the fourth set of puzzles concerns the role of epistemic autonomy within a social epistemology. How does epistemic autonomy square with a reliance on expertise? Does thinking about epistemic autonomy add to the debates about the epistemic significance of disagreement or epistemic injustice? (shrink)

Pereboom’s Four-Case Argument was once considered to be the most powerful of the manipulation arguments against compatibilism. However, because of Demetriou’s :595–617, 2010) response, Pereboom has significantly weakened his argument. Manipulation arguments in general have also been challenged by King : 65–83, 2013). In this paper, I argue that the Four-Case Argument resists both these challenges. One upshot is that Pereboom doesn’t need weaken his argument. Another is that compatibilists still need a response the Four-Case Argument. And another is that (...) we get a much better understanding of the Four-Case Argument, and of manipulation arguments more generally, than is currently available in the literature. (shrink)

Suppose that God or a demon informs you of the following future fact: despite recent cosmological evidence, the universe is indeed closed and it will have a ‘final’ instant of time; moreover, at that final moment, all 49 of the world’s Imperial Faberge eggs will be in your bedroom bureau’s sock drawer. You’re absolutely certain that this information is true. All of your other dealings with supernatural powers have demonstrated that they are a trustworthy lot.

In this paper, I explain a challenge to the Equal Weight View coming from the psychology of group inquiry, and evaluate its merits. I argue that while the evidence from the psychology of group inquiry does not give us a reason to reject the Equal Weight View, it does require making some clarifications regarding what the view does and does not entail, as well as a revisiting the ethics of belief.

In this paper, I first consider three possible explanations for why celebrities typically apologise publicly and sometimes also include their fans among the targets of their apology. I then identify three moral dangers of celebrity apologies, the third of which arises specifically for fan-targeted apologies, and each of which teaches us important lessons about the practice of celebrity apologies. From these individual lessons, I draw more general lessons about apologies from those with elevated social positions and the powers they are (...) associated with. (shrink)

In response to the problem of Hell, Buckareff and Plug (Relig Stud 41:39–54, 2005; Relig Stud 45:63–72, 2009) have recently proposed and defended an ‘escapist’ conception of Hell. In short, they propose that the problem of Hell does not arise because God places an open-door policy on Hell. In this paper, I expose a fundamental problem with this conception of Hell—namely, that if there’s an open door policy on Hell, then there should be one on Heaven too. I argue that (...) a coherent conception of Heaven cannot have such a policy. Hence, escapism is not an adequate response to the problem of Hell. (shrink)

The Equal Weight View is a view about the epistemic significance of disagreement that is thought to have significant skeptical consequences. In this paper I do two things: (i) apply the Equal Weight View to cases of religious disagreement, and (ii) evaluate some consequences of that application for the rationality of religious beliefs. With regard to (i), I argue that the Equal Weight View implies that awareness of the current state of disagreement over religious propositions, such as God exists or (...) God doesn’t exist, gives us a defeater for any non-skeptical attitude toward such propositions. With regard to (ii), I examine what this entails about the rationality of religious beliefs. In particular, I examine how troubling the theist should find these consequences, and argue that they are not as troubling as is typically thought. -/- . (shrink)

This chapter examines the ways in which the debates about the epistemic significance of disagreement are debates about the nature and impact of higher-order evidence.

In Phenomenological Reduction in Heidegger's Sein und Zeit: a New Proposal, Matheson Russell investigates the indebtedness of the Heidegger of Being and Time to Husserl's transcendental phenomenology by way of distinguishing in it differing types of transcendental reduction. He supplies an overview of recent attempts to identify such reductions in order then to propose a new interpretation locating two levels of reduction in Heidegger's fundamental ontology. These concern, first, an enquiry going back to the horizon of 'existence', and, second, (...) one going back to the horizon of 'temporality'. While the first level is argued to be explicit in the published text, the second, Russell claims, lies within the horizon of the unfinished parts of Being and Time. (shrink)

Recently there has been a good deal of interest in the relationship between common sense epistemology and Skeptical Theism. Much of the debate has focused on Phenomenal Conservatism and any tension that there might be between it and Skeptical Theism. In this paper I further defend the claim that there is no tension between Phenomenal Conservatism and Skeptical Theism. I show the compatibility of these two views by coupling them with an account of defeat – one that is friendly to (...) both Phenomenal Conservatism and Skeptical Theism. In addition, I argue that this account of defeat can give the Skeptical Theist what she wants – namely a response to the evidential argument from evil that can leave one of its premises unmotivated. In giving this account I also respond to several objections from Trent Dougherty (2011) and Chris Tucker (this volume) as well as to an additional worry coming from the epistemology of disagreement. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose and defend a structural ownership condition on moral responsibility. According to the condition I propose, an agent owns a mental item if and only if it is part of or is partly grounded by a coherent set of psychological states. As I discuss, other theorists have proposed or alluded to conditions like psychological coherence, but each proposal is unsatisfactory in some way. My account appeals to narrative explanation to elucidate the relevant sense of psychological coherence.

Drunk drivers and other culpably incapacitated wrongdoers are often taken to pose a problem for reasons-responsiveness accounts of moral responsibility. These accounts predicate moral responsibility upon an agent having the capacities to perceive and act upon moral reasons, and the culpably incapacitated wrongdoers lack exactly those capacities at the time of their wrongdoing. Many reasons-responsiveness advocates thus expand their account of responsibility to include a tracing condition: The culpably incapacitated wrongdoer is blameworthy despite his incapacitation precisely because he is responsible (...) for becoming incapacitated. As some skeptics have suggested, it is not clear that we need tracing. Here, however, I make a stronger case against tracing: I show that tracing gets things wrong. I consider a new sort of case, the case of the Odysseus agent, whose incapacitation is non-culpable (sometimes merely permissible and sometimes praiseworthy). Tracing would have us hold responsible and therefore blame unlucky Odysseus agents, Odysseus agents who commit a wrongdoing in the throes of their non-culpably induced incapacitation. But we should not hold these unlucky Odysseus agents responsible for their incapacitated wrongdoing. Because tracing gets these cases wrong, we should reject tracing. (shrink)

In this paper, I will explain and motivate the common consent argument for theism. According to the common consent argument it is rational for you to believe that God exists because you know so many other people believe that God exists. Having motivated the argument, I will explain and motivate several pressing objections to the argument and evaluate their probative force. The paper will serve as both an accessible introduction to this argument as well as a resource for continued research (...) on the topic. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the case for epistemic relativism focusing on an argument for epistemic relativism formulated (though not endorsed) by Paul Boghossian. Before examining Boghossian’s argument, however, I first examine some preliminary considerations for and against epistemic relativism.

Most seem to presume that what is threatening about manipulation arguments is the ‘no difference’ premise – that is, the claim that there are no responsibility-relevant differences between a manipulated agent and her merely causally determined counterpart. This presumption underlies three recent replies to manipulation arguments from Kearns (2012), King (2013), and Schlosser (2015). But these replies fail to appreciate the true threat from manipulation arguments – namely, the manipulation cases that are allegedly counterexamples to the leading compatibilist conditions on (...) moral responsibility. This paper argues that if there is a counterexample to all the leading compatibilist conditions on moral responsibility then this is sufficient to undermine compatibilism. (shrink)

Non-moral blame seems to be widespread and widely accepted in everyday life—tolerated at least, but often embraced. We blame athletes for poor performance, artists for bad or boring art, scientists for faulty research, and voters for flawed reasoning. This paper argues that non-moral blame is never justified—i.e. it’s never a morally permissible response to a non-moral failure. Having explained what blame is and how non-moral blame differs from moral blame, the paper presents the argument in four steps. First, it argues (...) that many (perhaps most) apparent cases of non-moral blame are actually cases of moral blame. Second, it argues that even if non-moral blame is pro tanto permissible—because its target is blameworthy for their substandard performance—it often (perhaps usually) fails to meet other permissibility conditions, such as fairness or standing. Third, it goes further and challenges the claim that non-moral blame is ever even pro tanto permissible. Finally, it considers a number of arguments in support of non-moral obligations and argues that none of them succeed. (shrink)

Many contemporary theorists charge that naïve realists are incapable of accounting for illusions. Various sophisticated proposals have been ventured to meet this charge. Here, we take a different approach and dispute whether the naïve realist owes any distinctive account of illusion. To this end, we begin with a simple, naïve account of veridical perception. We then examine the case that this account cannot be extended to illusions. By reconstructing an explicit version of this argument, we show that it depends critically (...) on the contention that perceptual experience is diaphanous, or more minimally and precisely, that there can be no difference in phenomenal properties between two experiences without a difference in the scenes presented in those experiences. Finding no good reason to accept this claim, we develop and defend a simple, naïve account of both veridical perception and illusion, here dubbed Simple, Austere Naïve Realism. (shrink)

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom dominating the social sciences and philosophy regarding temporal discounting, the practice of discounting the value of future utility when making decisions. Although there are sharp disagreements about temporal discounting, a kind of standard model has arisen, one that begins with a normative standard about how we should make intertemporal comparisons of utility. This standard demands that in so far as one is rational one discounts utilities at future times with an exponential discount function. Tracing (...) the justification for this standard through economics, philosophy and psychology, I’ll make what I believe is the best case one can for it, showing how a non-arbitrariness assumption and a dominance argument together imply that discounting ought to be exponential. Ultimately, however, I don’t find the case compelling. Non-exponential temporal discounting is often rational. If this is correct, Instead of trying to ‘fix’ non-exponential discounting because it is irrational and associated with negative life outcomes, we might instead focus attention on why the conditions obtain that make such discounting rational. (shrink)

In “The Possibility of Epistemic Nudging” (2021), Thomas Grundmann examines nudging as applied to doxastic attitudes. Grundmann argues that given the right presuppositions about knowledge, justified beliefs, and the relevant belief-forming processes, doxastic nudging can result in justified beliefs and even knowledge in the nudgee. In this short response we will raise some critical concerns for Grundmann’s project as well as open up a path for epistemic nudges (nudges that result in justified beliefs or knowledge) that Grundmann too quickly dismisses.

Many of those memorialized around us in statues are wrongdoers, and so we are often called to consider whether we should take down those statues. Some of those statutes are memorialized for reasons now taken to be wrong; others are memorialized not for but rather despite their wrongdoing. How should we consider those latter cases? One tempting analysis suggests that we need only consider whether the wrongdoing was sufficiently transgressive. In this article, however, I reject that constrained focus. Instead, these (...) cases have as much to do with us, our priorities, and what those priorities should be as they have to do with the particulars of the lives of the subjects of the statues. Recognizing the central role that our priorities play in blame and condemnation better captures the contours of the debate about statue removal than any categorical rule about types of wrongs. (shrink)

How might people be wronged in relation to their feelings, moods, and emotions? Recently philosophers have begun to investigate the idea that these kinds of wrongs may constitute a distinctive form of injustice: affective injustice. In previous work, we have outlined a particular form of affective injustice that we called emotional imperialism. This paper has two main aims. First, we aim to provide an expanded account of the forms that emotional imperialism can take. We will do so by drawing inspiration (...) from William Reddy’s (2001) concept of an emotional regime and investigating ways in which colonial powers of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries sought to impose their emotional regimes on their colonial subjects. Second, we will offer more expansive accounts of both emotional imperialism and affective injustice that can accommodate these additional forms of emotional imperialism. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a dilemma for those who believe in the afterlife: either we won’t survive death (or an eternal life) in the sense that most matters to us or we will become bored if we do. First, I argue that even if we – in a strict sense – survive death, there is practical sense in which we don’t survive death. This applies, I contend, to all accounts of the afterlife that: eventually, we lose our practical identity. (...) I show that our practical identity is more important to us than our numerical identity. But, as we’ll see, our practical identity is not just lost in an afterlife, but also with an eternal or immortal life. Theists have a strategy to resist this line of argument: they can argue that God will help us to retain our current practical identities. However, those that pursue this line of argument fall onto the second horn of my proposed dilemma: if we cannot change our practical identities then it seems that eventually we will become bored, and eternally so. (shrink)

How should we respond to historical figures who played an important role in their country’s history but have also perpetrated acts of great evil? Much of the existing philosophical literature on this topic has focused on explaining why it may be wrong to celebrate such figures. However, a common response that is made in popular discussions around these issues is that we should not judge historical figures by today’s standards. Our goal in this paper is to examine the most plausible (...) way to understand this objection. We will examine three different interpretations of this argument. First, we will examine a view we call Temporal Moral Relativism, according to which moral standards are relative to particular points in time. Next, we outline Blame Relativism, the view that people from the past may be excused from blame for acts of conventionalized wrongdoing. Finally, we outline Ideals Relativism, according to which our moral ideals are partially relative to the time in which we live. We argue that Ideals Relativism provides the most plausible interpretation of this argument. (shrink)

As an evaluative view in the philosophy of life, nihilism maintains that no lives are, all things considered, worth living. Prominent defenders of the view hold that, even so, it can be all-things-considered better for us to continue living than for us to cease living, thus endorsing a 'soft' nihilism that appears more palatable than its 'hard' counterpart. In support of an intuitive assumption about what nihilism implies, I argue that soft nihilism is incoherent.

According to D. Bohm’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, a particle always has a well-defined spatial trajectory. A change in boundary conditions can nonlocally change that trajectory. In this note we point out a striking instance of this phenomenon that is easy to understand qualitatively.

Given his view that the modern world is ‘radically evil’, Adorno is an unlikely contributor to business ethics. Despite this, we argue that his work has a number of provocative implications for the field that warrant wider attention. Adorno regards our social world as damaged, unfree, and false and we draw on this critique to outline why the achievement of good work is so rare in contemporary society, focusing in particular on the ethical demands of roles and the ideological nature (...) of management’s self-understanding. Nevertheless, we show that Adorno’s comments on activities such as art and philosophy mean that it is possible to draw on his work in a way that contributes constructively to the conversation about good and meaningful work within business ethics. (shrink)

No shield can protect scientific realism from dealing with the quantum measurement problem. One may be able to erect barriers around the observable or classical, preserving a realism about tables, chairs and the like, but there is no safety zone within the quantum realm, the domain of our best physical theory. The upshot is not necessarily that scientific realism is in trouble. That conclusion demands further arguments. The lesson instead may be that scientific realists ought to stake their case on (...) particular interpretations of quantum theory. In any case, the realist can’t ignore the interpretational issues plaguing quantum mechanics. (shrink)

In deciding whether to forgive, we often focus on the wrongdoer, looking for an apology or a change of ways. However, to fully consider whether to forgive, we need to expand our focus from the wrongdoer and their wrongdoing, and we need to consider who we are, what we care about, and what we want to care about. The difference between blame and forgiveness is, at bottom, a difference in priorities. When we blame, we prioritize the wrong, and when we (...) forgive, we shift our priorities away from the wrong. Recognizing this essential role for priorities in forgiveness allows us to address a thorny puzzle in thinking about forgiveness: how is it that forgiveness can be both principled and elective? If there is sufficient reason to forgive, as will sometimes be the case because forgiveness is principled, how can it be reasonable to withhold forgiveness? Recognizing that forgiveness is a shift in our priorities dissolves this apparent tension between forgiveness being principled and forgiveness being elective. (shrink)

Philosophy of science appears caught in what Einstein (1933) called the ‘eternal antithesis between the two inseparable components of our knowledge – the empirical and the rational’ (p. 271). It wants to employ metaphysical speculation, but impressed with the methods of the subject it studies, it fears overreaching. Philosophy of science thus tries to walk a fine line between scientifically grounded metaphysics and its more speculative cousins. Here I try to draft some of the contour of this boundary.

The counterfactual mental state of negligent criminal activity invites skepticism from those who see mental states as essential to responsibility. Here, I offer a revision of the mental state of criminal negligence, one where the mental state at issue is actual and not merely counterfactual. This revision dissolves the worry raised by the skeptic and helps to explain negligence’s comparatively reduced culpability.

This paper attempts to show how Adorno’s thought can illuminate our reflections on the future of work. It does so by situating Adorno’s conception of genuine activity in relation to his negativist critical epistemology and his subtle account of the distinction between true and false needs. What emerges is an understanding of work that can guide our aspirations for the future of work, and one we illustrate via discussions of creative work and care work. These are types of work which (...) cater to persistent human needs, albeit ones that are distorted under present social conditions. Adorno’s thought helps us to understand why this is the case. (shrink)

In the bitcoin whitepaper, Satoshi Nakamoto (2008: 2) defines an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures. Many have since defined a bitcoin as a chain of digital signatures. This latter definition continues to appear in reports from central banks, advocacy centers, and governments, as well as in academic papers across the disciplines of law, economics, computer science, cryptography, management, and philosophy. Some have even used it to argue that what we now call bitcoin is not the real bitcoin. (...) The definition fails, however. This is important because the Chain Definition obscures Satoshi’s solution to a dilemma in the design of electronic cash, as well as the truth about bitcoin’s privacy and fungibility. In this article, I explain why the Chain Definition fails and what Satoshi likely endorsed instead. Along the way, I untangle some issues around bitcoin fungibility and clarify some others around the ontology of digital assets. (shrink)

In a 2010 article Turri puts forward some powerful considerations which suggest that Williamson's view of knowledge as the most general factive mental state is false. Turri claims that this view is false since it is false that if S sees that p, then S knows that p. Turri argues that there are cases in which (A) S sees that p but (B) S does not know that p. In response I offer linguistic evidence to suppose that in propositional contexts (...) “see” does not have the sort of meaning (a purely perceptual meaning) which would sustain Turri's claims about the cases he offers (specifically, the (A) verdicts). (shrink)

Visual experiences seem to exhibit phenomenological particularity: when you look at some object, it – that particular object – looks some way to you. But experiences exhibit generality too: when you look at a distinct but qualitatively identical object, things seem the same to you as they did in seeing the first object. Naïve realist accounts of visual experience have often been thought to have a problem with each of these observations. It has been claimed that naïve realist views cannot (...) account for the generality of visual experiences, and that the naïve realist explanation of particularity has unacceptable implications for self- knowledge: the knowledge we have of the character of our own experiences. We argue in this paper that neither claim is correct: naïve realism can explain the generality of experiences, and the naïve realist explanation of particularity raises no problems for our self-knowledge. (shrink)

For many philosophers, bad-history wrongdoers are primarily interesting because of what their cases might tell us about the interaction of moral responsibility and history. However, philosophers focusing on blameworthiness have overlooked important questions about blame itself. These bad-history cases are complicated because blame and sympathy are both fitting. When we are careful to consider the rich natures of those two reactions, we see that they conflict in several important ways. We should see bad-history cases as cases about whether and how (...) we should blame, rather than as cases giving us ready insight into the nature of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Members of oppressed groups are often silenced. One form of silencing is what Kristie Dotson calls “testimonial smothering”. Testimonial smothering occurs when a speaker limits her testimony in virtue of the reasonable risk of it being misunderstood or misapplied by the audience. Testimonial smothering is thus a form of epistemic paternalism since the speaker is interfering with the audience’s inquiry for their benefit without first consulting them. In this paper, we explore the connections between epistemic injustice and epistemic paternalism through (...) the phenomenon of silencing. We argue that when you silence your testimony as a result of epistemic injustice it is an act of epistemic paternalism and that it is epistemically permissible. In fact, self-silencing resulting from epistemic injustice is a particularly clear example of permissible epistemic paternalism. (shrink)