Sample (2015) argues that scientists ought not to believe that their theories are true because they cannot fulfill the epistemic obligation to take the diachronic perspective on their theories. I reply that Sample’s argument imposes an inordinately heavy epistemic obligation on scientists, and that it spells doom not only for scientific theories but also for observational beliefs and philosophical ideas that Samples endorses. I also delineate what I take to be a reasonable epistemic obligation for scientists. In (...) sum, philosophers ought to impose on scientists only an epistemic standard that they are willing to impose on themselves. (shrink)

In the article I reconstruct Karol Wojtyła’s argument against atheism. According to Wojtyła, an atheist is unjust because of not rendering absolute honour to God. In my opinion the argument is sound if one applies it to theists or negative atheists and if one presupposes that there are moral obligations to only supposed persons. The argument meets some objections. A discussion of them leads me to an interpretation of the theism-atheism controversy as being the conflict of two imperatives: the (...) class='Hi'>imperative of justice and the imperative of evidence. (shrink)

The ambition of the paper is to provide a solution to the problem posed by Von Wright (1999): how is it possible that the two actions, one of producing P and the other of preventing P can have different deontic status, the former being obligatory and the latter being forbidden. The solution for the problem is sought for by an investigation into connections between imperative and deontic logic. First, it is asked whether a solution could be found in Lemmon's (...) (1965) system of "change logic", using his idea on connection between logic of orders being in force and deontic logic. The answer is the negative one. Next, the connection between Lemmon's imperative logic and deontic logic given in Aqvist's paper - "Next" and "Ought" (1965) - is analyzed. Than, the Lemmon's treatment of imperatives is restricted to the natural language imperatives and Aqvist's way of connecting imperative and deontic logic is modified accordingly. Some principles for the natural language imperatives are established (the negation rule ; the law of contraposition for imperative conditionals) and a simple "global" semantics is developed. The notion of "opposite action" is introduced and it is given an important role in semantics. Finally, a solution for von Wright's problem is given. In the closing sections some further topics for investigation are hinted: one of them being the connection between Aqvist's epistemic- imperative conception of interrogatives and "epistemic obligations", the other being formalization of the idea that imperatives create and re-create obligation patterns that can be described in deontic terms. (shrink)

The practice of Emergency Management in Michigan raises anew the question of whose knowledge matters to whom and for what reasons, against the background of what projects, challenges, and systemic imperatives. In this paper, I offer a historical overview of state intervention laws across the United States, focusing specifically on Michigan’s Emergency Manager laws. I draw on recent analyses of these laws to develop an account of a phenomenon that I call epistemic redlining, which, I suggest, is a form (...) of group-based credibility discounting not readily countenanced by existing, ‘culprit-based’ accounts of epistemic injustice. I argue that epistemic redlining plays a crucial role in ongoing projects of racialized subordination and dispossession in Michigan, and that such discounting tends to have structural causes that can be difficult to identify and uproot. Contrary to the general thrust of recent work on the topic, I argue that epistemic redlining ought to be understood as a form of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

According to a common interpretation, most explicitly defended by Onora O’Neill and Patricia Kitcher, Kant held that epistemic obligations normatively depend on moral obligations. That is, were a rational agent not bound by any moral obligation, then she would not be bound by any epistemic obligation either. By contrast, in this paper, I argue that, according to Kant, some epistemic obligations are normatively independent from moral obligations, and are indeed normatively absolute. This view, which I call epistemicism, (...) has two parts. First, it claims that in the absence of other kinds of obligations, rational agents would still be bound by these epistemic obligations, i.e., that the latter are normatively independent. Second, it claims that, no matter what other obligations are at stake, rational agents are bound by these epistemic obligations, i.e., the normativity of these epistemic obligations is absolute in that it cannot be undercut by any moral or other sort of obligation. The argument turns on an exploratory reading of Kant’s remarks in “What Is Orientation in Thinking?” (1786) about the maxim of “thinking for oneself” as the “supreme touchstone of truth.” In contrast to O’Neill and Kitcher, I argue that if we interpret this maxim as stating the unifying principle of theoretical and practical reason, then we must interpret it as stating an epistemic, and not merely practical imperative. This result, I argue, vindicates epistemicism and illuminates interesting lessons about Kant’s conception of the category of “epistemic” norms. Further, it helps us make headway with Kant’s enigmatic remarks about the unity of practical and theoretical reason in the Groundwork, first and the second Critiques, and the Lectures on Logic. On my proposal, principles of the practical and theoretical uses of rea-son are unified through a formal epistemic principle. (shrink)

Computational reproducibility possesses its own dynamics and narratives of crisis. Alongside the difficulties of computing as an ubiquitous yet complex scientific activity, computational reproducibility suffers from a naive expectancy of total reproducibility and a moral imperative to embrace the principles of free software as a non-negotiable epistemic virtue. We argue that the epistemic issues at stake in actual practices of computational reproducibility are best unveiled by focusing on software as a pivotal concept, one that is surprisingly often (...) overlooked in accounts of reproducibility issues. Software is not only about designing and coding but also about maintaining, supporting, distributing, licensing, and governance; it is not only about developers but also about users. We focus on openness debates among computational chemists involved in molecular modeling software packages as empirical grounding for our argument. We then identify and analyse four epistemic characteristics as key to the role of software in computational reproducibility. (shrink)

In this paper, I reply to Markus Arnold’s comment and Amanda Bryant’s comment on my work “Can Kuhn’s Taxonomic Incommensurability be an Image of Science?” in Moti Mizrahi’s edited collection, The Kuhnian Image of Science: Time for a Decisive Transformation?. Philosophers and scientists are social epistemic agents. As such, they ought to behave in accordance with epistemic norms governing the behavior of social epistemic agents.

Scientific research is constrained by limited resources, so it is imperative that it be conducted efficiently. This paper introduces the notion of epistemic expression, a kind of representation that expedites the solution of research problems. Epistemic expressions are representations that (i) contain information in a way that enables more reliable information to place the most stringent constraints on possible solutions and (ii) make new information readily extractible by biasing the search through that space. I illustrate these conditions (...) using historical and contemporary examples of biomolecular structure determination. Then, I argue that the notion of epistemic expression parts ways with pragmatic accounts of scientific representation and an understanding of models as artifacts, neither of which require models to accurately represent. Explicating epistemic expression thus fills a gap in our understanding of scientific practice, extending Morrison and Morgan's (1999) conception of models as investigative instruments. (shrink)

This essay explores the notion of moral exemplarity, positing that our morality is underpinned by moral exemplars – paradigmatic examples of virtuous individuals or actions. Theoretical precepts of moral exemplarity are explored across historical and contemporary contexts, including the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, Stoic and Christian ethics, and recent works of Alexandro Ferrara and Linda Zagzebski. This essay debates the necessity of moral exemplars, the intrinsic moral and epistemic exemplarity, and the distinction between categorical and hypothetical exemplarity, as well (...) as referencing the paradoxical Kantian dismissals of moral exemplarity. It critiques current accounts of moral exemplarity and proposes a transcendental explanation, culminating in an examination of the “exemplarist categorical imperative.”. (shrink)

Allegations of fraud involving falsification as research misconduct may result in severe consequences for those convicted. The focus of this article is the Public Health Service’s (PHS) definition of falsification . A well-articulated revised definition is required for veritable instances of falsification as misconduct to be consistently identified and potentially offer a framework for elucidation. A philosophical critique of the explicit definition is undertaken to determine what comprises falsification at its core, which could substantially reduce the number of allegations of (...) fraud as suspected instances of misconduct. The flaw in the PHS definition of falsification is due to circular logic, which allows anything to be proven according to it. Furthermore, to be confident that falsification has occurred, one must be certain of what is true when it has not occurred, which is demonstrated not to be plausible. falsification was found to be the most common type of fraud as misconduct alleged yet the rarest to be determined to occur because the flawed definition confounds what constitutes an occurrence of it. In addition to conceptual ambiguity and ignorance, allegations of falsification are suggested to occur strategically as maneuvers by researchers who may exploit the inherent flaw in the definition to eliminate rival competitors. -/- The purpose of part two is to critique the definition of falsification as research misconduct according to the Public Health Service (PHS) in order to better understand what it entails. In support of this purpose, the approach decided upon for analysis was philosophical including framing the issue borrowing from both mereological and epistemological perspectives. Through the consideration given to parthood relations of mereology, we gained insight from a cognitive imperfection standpoint about similarities that exist between the epistemic constraints on knowledge and the nature of violations concerning research misconduct. Findings from the examination of a case study include the significance of accuracy in representation in falsification as misconduct and the core dimensions comprising an instance of falsification, which are Deliberateness, Alteration, and Inclusion. Given that either behavior or actions must occur that violate these three aspects in order to qualify as an instance of misconduct under falsification, the author proposes that, at a minimum, any revisions made to the definition of falsification stipulate what he refers to as the Violation Imperative. (shrink)

African philosophy remains bedeviled by relics of Hegel’s racist chants against the rationality of Africans, and this situation deserves revisitation and reevaluation for reconstructive purposes. In this paper, I implicate Hegel’s concatenations as necessitating the reactive fervour within which a significant portion of the themes, thesis, and content of African philosophy is locked. This influence, which partially eclipses African philosophy, I term historical denialism. In an attempt to repudiate Hegel’s constructs, some philosophers in Africa seem ideologically contrived into developing or (...) discovering an authentic philosophy for Africans, and in the process, advocate cultural essentialism as determinants of philosophy—at least logically. Averring that philosophy is not the sole representation of thought, I proceed by exploring other trajectories which could have informed a non-reactive African philosophy, while logically linking Hegel’s denialism to subtle silencing of his idealism within philosophical discourses in Africa. This subtle silencing, which shortchanges pedagogy of philosophy on the continent, forms the other half of the eclipse in philosophy in Africa. I conclude the discussion by asserting that while it may be imperative to exorcise Hegelian ghost in African philosophy, to use Olufemi Taiwo’s coinage, essentialising African philosophy would either further enmesh the field in a reactive predisposition, or limit its reflective and multifarious possibilities. (shrink)

Pacifists and their opponents disagree not only about moral questions, but rather often about factual questions as well—as seen when looking at the controversy surrounding the crisis in Kosovo. According to my reconstruction of pacifism, this is not surprising since the pacifist,legitimately, looks at the facts in the light of her system of value. Her opponent, in turn, looks at the facts in the light of an alternative value system, and the quarrel between the two parties about supposedly descriptive matters (...) never ceases, as there is no objective reality about the war in question that could settle the issue.In my view, the pacifist's value-laden way of looking at reality implicitly obeys three epistemic imperatives. First, the Epistemic Imperative concerning Human Nature ("Resist demonizing the other side; always try to understand the case from the other point of view"). Second, the Epistemic Imperative concerning Non-Violent Alternatives ("Always search for non-violent alternatives to military action"). Third, the Epistemic Imperative concerning Uncontrolled Escalation ("Hone your senses to the uncontrolled, irreversible side effects of military action, particularly to the danger of military escalation leading to another world war"). Objective reality has no way of telling us how far we should go in following these imperatives. Rather, we have to make the decision about how far we are going to take them ourselves. In this way, the pacifist's epistemic imperatives are comparable to Kant's regulative principles. (shrink)

Calls for civility have been on the rise recently, as have presumptions that civility is both an academic virtue and a prerequisite for rational engagement and discussion among those who disagree. One imperative of epistemic decolonization is to unmask the ways that familiar conceptual resources are produced within and function to uphold a settler colonial epistemological framework. I argue that rhetorical deployments of ‘civility’ uphold settler colonialism by obscuring the systematic production of state violence against marginalized populations and (...) Indigenous peoples, relying on the colonial conceptual framework of ‘civilized’ vs ‘savage’, and excusing death-promoting rhetoric under the guise of liberal disagreement. (shrink)

This paper examines the question of whether and under what conditions teaching open-mindedness to students could have negative effects. While there has been much discussion in the literature about the potential downsides of being open-minded, the question of whether teaching this trait to young, untutored minds could result in more negative effects than positive has received little attention. Yet, given a primary focus of the literature is providing models for use in educational contexts, exploring the potential risks of encouraging students (...) to emulate such models is imperative. In this regard, the paper presents three concerns. The first is that students may lack the full intellectual character to avoid the pitfalls of open-mindedness that have already been noted in the literature. The second concern is that students who exercise open-mindedness may incur social costs that cannot be compensated for by epistemic goods. The third concern is that educators, particularly at universities, often face certain non-ideal conditions that may make it difficult for them to effectively cultivate open-mindedness in students. I ultimately conclude that, in light of these concerns, we should approach teaching for open-mindedness with great caution. However, we should not avoid it altogether. Preliminary suggestions are offered on how instructors may attune their approach to teaching for open-mindedness to mitigate the identified concerns. (shrink)

The free-energy principle states that all systems that minimize their free energy resist a tendency to physical disintegration. Originally proposed to account for perception, learning, and action, the free-energy principle has been applied to the evolution, development, morphology, anatomy and function of the brain, and has been called a postulate, an unfalsifiable principle, a natural law, and an imperative. While it might afford a theoretical foundation for understanding the relationship between environment, life, and mind, its epistemic status is (...) unclear. Also unclear is how the free-energy principle relates to prominent theoretical approaches to life science phenomena, such as organicism and mechanism. This paper clarifies both issues, and identifies limits and prospects for the free-energy principle as a first principle in the life sciences. (shrink)

Everyday (mis)uses of deepfakes define prevailing conceptualizations of what they are and the moral stakes in their deployment. But one complication in understanding deepfakes is that they are not photographic yet nonetheless manipulate lens-based recordings with the intent of mimicking photographs. The harmfulness of deepfakes, moreover, significantly depends on their potential to be mistaken for photographs and on the belief that photographs capture actual events, a tenet known as the transparency thesis, which scholars have somewhat ironically attacked by citing digital (...) imaging techniques as counterexamples. Combining these positions, this paper sets out two core points: (1) that conceptions about the nature of photography introduce imperatives about its uses; and (2) that popular cultural understandings of photography imply normative ideas that infuse our encounters with deepfakes. Within this, I further raise the question of what moral ground deepfakes occupy that allows them to have such a potentially devastating effect. I show that answering this question involves reinstating the notion that photographs are popularly conceived of as transparent. The rejoinder to this argument, however, is that to take the sting out of deepfakes we must, once again, become skeptical of the veracity of all images, including photoreal ones. This kind of critical mindedness was warranted before the invention of photography for both pictorial imprints and written accounts from various media sources. Given this, along with the fact that photographic trickery is nothing new, deepfakes need not push us into a post-truth epistemic abyss, for they imply a decidedly old turn. (shrink)

Respect appears to generate a puzzling self-other asymmetry: Respect for others can demand that we avoid knowledge of others or ignore that knowledge in deciding how we treat others. This demand for epistemic distancing lies behind the imperatives not to violate others’ privacy or to treat them paternalistically. Self-respect, in contrast, mandates that we pursue knowledge of ourselves and that we choose and act light of that self-knowledge. Individual agents thus do not have a duty to epistemically distance themselves (...) from themselves; a fortiori, they have self-regarding duties to reduce such distance. This article elaborates this asymmetry and offers a plausible solution to it, rooted in the distinctive importance that self-knowledge (and acting in the world on the basis of that self-knowledge) has for self-respecting rational agents: Self-respecting agents have reasons to have others defer to their ‘surfaces’ or self-presentations in order to inhibit making themselves vulnerable to others in ways that undermine their self-respect by subordinating their wills to the wills of others. A measure of control over what others know about us and over what they do with that knowledge thus undergirds self-respect by enabling self-knowledge to play the role that it should play in the lives of self-respecting agents. Epistemic distancing thus operates in concert with the ways in which self-respecting agents value and pursue epistemic intimacy with themselves. (shrink)

Background Healthcare is predicated on the use of biotechnology and medical technology, both of which are indispensable in diagnosis, treatment, and most aspects of patient care. It is therefore imperative that justifications for use of new technologies are appropriate, with the technologies working as advertised. In this paper, I consider philosophical accounts of how such justifications are made. Methods Critical philosophical reflection and analysis. Results I propose that justification in many prominent accounts is based on the designer’s professional experience (...) and on expert testimony. I argue, however, that professional designers are not in a position to justify a new biotechnology or medical device if the justification is based on testimony or past experience of presumably similar technologies. I argue (1) that similarity judgments offered by instantaneous experts cannot be viewed as contributing (epistemically) to evidential justification of new and unproven technologies; and (2) that designers and manufacturers cannot endorse a technology’s effective function in a patient-care context until it has been successfully used in that context. Conclusion I show that an expert’s past professional experiences can never predict or justify the impact of a novel technology on human health. This is because any new technology leads to the introduction of new mechanisms with unprecedented functions. The new technology therefore needs to be studied in situ and justified as a newly created mechanism within the relevant healthcare setting. Ultimately, justifications of this type rely on the scientific community and society engaging in repeated experimentation and observation of the technology, and confirming its successful use. (shrink)

This article revisits, analyzes and critiques Bruce Chatwin’s 1987 bestseller, The Songlines,1 more than three decades after its publication. In Songlines, the book primarily responsible for his posthumous celebrity, Chatwin set out to explore the essence of Central and Western Desert Aboriginal Australians’ philosophical beliefs. For many readers globally, Songlines is regarded as a—if not the—definitive entry into the epistemological basis, religion, cosmology and lifeways of classical Western and Central Desert Aboriginal people. It is argued that Chatwin’s fuzzy, ill-defined use (...) of the word-concept “songlines”2 has had the effect of generating more heat than light. Chatwin’s failure to recognize the economic imperative underpinning Australian desert people’s walking praxis is problematic: his own treks through foreign lands were underpropped by socioeconomic privilege. Chatwin’s ethnocentric idée fixe regarding the primacy of “walking” and “nomadism,” central to his Songlines thématique, well and truly preceded his visits to Central Australia. Walking, proclaimed Chatwin, is an elemental part of “Man’s” innate nature. It is argued that this unwavering, preconceived, essentialist belief was a self-serving construal justifying Chatwin’s own “nomadic” adventures of identity. Is it thus reasonable to regard Chatwin as a “rogue author,” an unreliable narrator? And if so, does this matter? Of greatest concern is the book’s continuing majority acceptance as a measured, accurate account of Aboriginal belief systems. With respect to Aboriginal desert people and the barely disguised individuals depicted in Songlines, is Chatwin’s book a “rogue text,” constituting an act of epistemic violence, consistent with Spivak’s usage of that term? (shrink)

Suppositional reasoning can seem spooky. Suppositional reasoners allegedly (e.g.) “extract knowledge from the sheer workings of their own minds” (Rosa), even where the knowledge is synthetic a posteriori. Can literary fiction pull such a rabbit out of its hat? Where P is a work’s fictional ‘premise’, some hold that some works reason declaratively (supposing P, Q), imperatively (supposing P, do Q), or interrogatively (supposing P, Q?), and that this can be a source of knowledge if the reasoning is good. True, (...) I will argue, although only within the context of judicious critical interpretation. Further evident constraints include that the form of the suppositional reasoning needs to be declarative or imperative, and that the fictional ‘premise’ of the work needs to be a metaphysical counterfactual possibility, not merely a temporal counterfactual and not merely an epistemic possibility or probabilistic supposition. (shrink)

The first part of my paper offers a brief characterization of what I call the non-hegemonic tradition of interpretation of Nietzsche's metaphilosophical program. In the second part, I suggest some small adjustments in the main argument of this tradition of interpretation. In general terms, the non-hegemonic tradition can be characterised by the claim that Nietzsche is a legitimate heir of the metaphilosophical programme first formulated by Friedrich Albert Lange in his ˜History of Materialism and Critique of its Significance for the (...) Present". None of the main interpreters of Nietzsche that I affiliate with this tradition of interpretation has formulated this claim quite explicitly, but I do not think that this characterization is inappropriate and I submit they could all accept it in the terms put forward in the present article. The main thesis states that Lange provides Nietzsche not so much with substantive theses as with the formal aspects of a philosophical programme whose content is drawn from other sources. This is the case, for example, in the attempt (in his early works) to mobilise Schopenhauer's metaphysics without committing himself to his epistemic claims. The attempt to execute this programme is surrounded by tensions that result not so much from Lange's sceptical theses as from what ultimately motivates them: the imperative of intellectual consciousness. This conflict remains unresolved as long as Nietzsche remains committed to the thesis of practical idealism according to which it is up to philosophy to satisfy certain metaphysical needs that are anthropologically unavoidable. The commitment to this anthropological thesis is what effectively places the young Nietzsche in the company of Kant, Schopenhauer and Lange. As soon as Nietzsche has abandoned this youthful commitment, he is prepared to revise his metaphilosophical convictions. (shrink)

The very existence of society depends on the ability of its members to influence formatively the beliefs, desires, and actions of their fellows. In every sphere of social life, powerful human agents (whether individuals or institutions) tend to use coercion as a favorite shortcut to achieving their aims without taking into consideration the non-violent alternatives or the negative (unintended) consequences of their actions. This propensity for coercion is manifested in the doxastic sphere by attempts to shape people’s beliefs (and doubts) (...) while ignoring the essential characteristics of these doxastic states. I argue that evidential persuasion is a better route to influence people’s beliefs than doxastic coercion. Doxastic coercion perverts the belief-forming mechanism and undermines the epistemic and moral faculties both of coercers and coercees. It succeeds sporadically and on short-term. Moreover, its pseudo doxastic effects tend to disappear once the use of force ceases. In contrast to doxastic coercion, evidential persuasion produces lasting correct beliefs in accordance with proper standards of evidence. It helps people to reach the highest possible standards of rationality and morality. Evidential persuasion is based on the principles of symmetry and reciprocity in that it asks all persuaders to use for changing the beliefs of others only those means they used in forming their own beliefs respecting the freedom of will and assuming the standard of rationality. The arguments in favor of evidential persuasion have a firm theoretical basis that includes a conceptual clarification of the essential traits of beliefs. Belief is treated as a hypercomplex system governed by Leibniz’s law of continuity and the principle of self-organization. It appears to be a mixture consisting of a personal propositional attitude and physical objects and processes. The conceptual framework also includes a typology of believers according to the standards of evidence they assume. In this context, I present a weak version of Clifford’ ethical imperative. In the section dedicated to the prerequisites for changing beliefs, I show how doxastic agents can infuse premeditated or planned changes in the flow of endogenous changes in order to shape certain beliefs in certain desired forms. The possibility of changing some beliefs in a planned manner is correlated with a feedback doxastic (macro-mechanism) that produces a reaction when it is triggered by a stimulus. In relation with the two routes to influence beliefs, a response mechanism is worth taking into consideration – a mechanism governed to a significant extent by human conscience and human will, that appears to be complex, acquired, relatively detached from visceral or autonomic information processing, and highly variable in reactions. Knowing increasingly better this doxastic mechanism, we increase our chances to use evidential persuasion as an effective (although not time-efficient) method to mold people’s beliefs. (shrink)

This chapter provides a critical overview and interpretation of fair subject selection in clinical and social scientific research. It first provides an analytical framework for thinking about the problem of fair subject selection. It then argues that fair subject selection is best understood as a set of four subprinciples, each with normative force and each with distinct and often conflicting implications for the selection of participants: fair inclusion, fair burden sharing, fair opportunity, and fair distribution of third-party risks. It then (...) defends an approach to navigating the conflicting imperatives of these subprinciples, one which privileges the need to include epistemically distinct groups in research, before concluding by considering the most pressing research questions regarding fair subject selection. (shrink)

The theory of science that Thomas Kuhn built in the Structure of Scientific Revolutions was considered as a hypothetical framework in this study. Since the publication of the work, many questions have arisen that call for a psychology of science. These questions are moved to another dimension through the knowledge of the decision made within Galileo Affair, which occupies an important place in modern science, fundamentally arising from an epistemic struggle and emerging out of an unscientific base rather than (...) the charge of unholiness. Abandoning the perspective which evaluates these questions within a historical process as a weak side of the Kuhnian theory of science, this study challenges the current approaches with an alternative approach. The epistemic complexity in the Kuhnian theory of science is an imperative complexity caused by human factors. From this perspective, there are potential questions for psychology of science as a field of study based on Kuhnian epistemology and it can be assumed that new problems may appear when the other epistemological questions which assumed as “answered” are reviewed in the scope of this study. The main thesis of this study is that psychology of science is possible as a valid and operationalizable research program based on Kuhnian theory of science. (shrink)

Jeanine Grenberg argues that in Kant's moral philosophy, we access the moral law through feeling, specifically the feeling of respect. She claims the fact of reason refers to our conscious experience of categorical imperative and moral necessity is revealed through this feeling. Owen Ware critiques this "affect of reason" interpretation, arguing it relies on the flawed premise that all facts forced upon us are accessible only through sensibility. He uses Kant's example of the concept of substance, which we comprehend (...) through attention to its necessity, not sensation. Ware offers an alternative view, that we access the moral law by attending to its necessity, not through feeling. However, this view does not explain how we become aware of the content of the moral law. Though Grenberg's affect of reason interpretation coheres with the role of feeling in Kant's project, it struggles to preserve traditional understandings of the analytic. Ware rejects Grenberg’s feeling thesis but fails to provide a substantive alternative for grounding morality. His critique of Grenberg raises important questions about the fact of reason but an improved synthesis is needed to reconcile feeling’s epistemic role with the analytic. More work is required to articulate how we access the content of the moral law and explain Kant’s notions of conflict and respect. (shrink)

This book advances an examination of the main arguments and counter-arguments put forward by the advocates of realism in political philosophy in support of the two methodological theses they defend: 1) that political philosophy is not and cannot be understood (just) as a branch of ethics or as „applied moral philosophy” (as moderate realists claim); and 2) that political philosophy should be done completely “outside ethics”, i.e., that it should stop using arguments based on “pre-political” moral principles or values (as (...) radical realists claim). The book pleads for four main conclusions: 1) that radical realism is nothing but moralism in disguise and that its methodological request – giving up moral principles or values in political philosophy – is „unrealistic” (unfeasible), as long as no plausible (i.e., egalitarian) account of political legitimacy or authority can be grounded without appeal to the principle of basic human equality or the principle of treating people as (free and) equals; 2) that political philosophy is not quite accurately described as a branch of ethics, as moralist political philosophers usually do, but this is not because of the reasons usually offered by moderate realists, but because political philosophy includes at least one project that cannot be unquestionably subsumed to this characterization (i.e., the project of the purely epistemic justification of liberal democracy); 3) that moralism is a methodology that political philosophy is perfectly justified to use and no (radical) realist counter-argument touches its validity and necessity; and 4) that all objections brought in the realists’ crusade against moralism are not tenable (most of them being the fruit of serious misunderstandings or distortions of the positions the philosophers accused of this “methodological vice” endorse, the result of sophistic reasoning or of confusions, such as the confusion between political philosophy and political science, between normative and descriptive, between political philosophy and motivational speech for citizens or politicians, or the confusion between moralism as a methodology of political philosophy – or as a thesis about the proper methodology of political philosophy – and moralism as a theory or an evaluative practice concerning politics and political behavior). The four conclusions can be synthesized in the general conclusion that realists – be they radical or moderate – are wrong when they argue (and believe they have good reasons for the thesis) that political philosophy is not (just) a branch of ethics or for the thesis that it should be done completely “outside ethics”. The most central questions of political philosophy are, in their overwhelming majority, moral questions (about the political). In addition, the recourse to “pre-political” moral principles or values is imperative and inescapable for political philosophy. Therefore, political philosophy has no other option than remaining what, essentially, it has ever been: an area of moral philosophy, a discipline whose research interests are continuous with those of ethics. As its title suggests, this book can be described, as well, as a (new) defence of this general conclusion concerning the specific of and the path to follow by political philosophy. (shrink)

A core historical narrative about anthropological knowledge is that it is created in relations with others, with fieldwork seen as ‘a series of apprenticeships’ whose success is determined by the quality of those relations. An ethnographer connects with the conditions of those studied in ‘circulating exchange’; but on leaving the field a degree of closure is needed to formulate and communicate anthropological knowledge. These obligations and requirements in the creation of knowledge entail attachment and detachment, carrying the seeds of betrayal (...) that can compromise that knowledge. Each epistemological enquiry has its own core ethical imperatives, but as long as knowledge posits a knower, ‘the self of the knower will be at epistemological issue’. In discussing the ethics of knowledge creation I consider the following questions, among others: To what extent is the creation of a particular kind of ethical and epistemic person required for knowledge? How can ethnography produce knowledge about others without betraying them? Can relations of knowledge exchange confer or withhold ‘rights to speak’? Is it possible that unethical relations may destroy or hold up the unfolding of knowledge? And are there circumstances in which it is unethical to disclose knowledge? (shrink)

Peter Railton argues for a form of moral realism which holds that moral judgments can bear truth values in a fundamental non-epistemic sense of truth; that moral properties are objective, though relational; that moral properties supervene upon natural properties, and may be reducible to them; that moral inquiry is of a piece with empirical inquiry. He also thinks that it cannot be known a priori whether bivalence holds for moral judgments, and that a rational agent may fail to have (...) a reason for obeying moral imperatives, although they may be applicable to him. In this paper, Railton's moral theories are carefully examined and compared with noncognitivistic ones. (shrink)

This is an opinionated guide to the literature on epistemic dilemmas. It discusses seven kinds of situations where epistemic dilemmas appear to arise; dilemmic, dilemmish, and non-dilemmic takes on them; and objections to dilemmic views along with dilemmist’s replies to them.

In this paper, we argue that there are epistemic norms on evidence-gathering and consider consequences for how to understand epistemic normativity. Though the view that there are such norms seems intuitive, it has found surprisingly little defense. Rather, many philosophers have argued that norms on evidence-gathering can only be practical or moral. On a prominent evidentialist version of this position, epistemic norms only apply to responding to the evidence one already has. Here we challenge the orthodoxy. First, (...) we argue that there is no significant normative difference between responding to evidence you have and gathering more evidence. Second, we argue that our practices of epistemically criticizing agents for their poor evidence-gathering indicate the existence of epistemic norms on evidence-gathering. Finally, we show that our thesis has important implications for recent debates about the relationship between epistemic norms and inquiry. (shrink)

The literature on epistemic injustice has thus far confined the concept of testimonial injustice to speech expressions such as inquiring, discussing, deliberating, and, above all, telling. I propose that it is time to broaden the horizons of testimonial injustice to include a wider range of expressions. Controversially, the form of communication I have in mind is non-verbal expression. Non-verbal expression is a vital, though often overlooked, form of communication, particularly for people who have certain neurocognitive disorders. Dependency upon non-verbal (...) expression is a common feature of some forms of neurocognitive disorders such as ‘intellectual disabilities’, autism and late-stage dementia. According to the narrow definition of testimonial injustice currently championed in the literature, people who express non-verbally are exempt from testimonial injustice. However, when we consider cases where meaningful communications from non-verbal people are dismissed or ignored in virtue of identity prejudice, there seems to be a distinct testimonial harm at play. Using late-stage dementia as a case study, I argue that the definition of testimonial injustice should be expanded to include all communicative practices, whether verbal or non-verbal, to encompass the epistemic harms inflicted upon some of the most marginalised in our society. (shrink)

While the contemporary philosophical literature is replete with discussion of the control or freedom required for moral responsibility, only more recently has substantial attention been devoted to the knowledge or awareness required, otherwise called the epistemic condition. This area of inquiry is rapidly expanding, as are the various positions within it. This chapter introduces two major positions: the reasonable expectation view and the quality of will view. The chapter then explores two dimensions of the epistemic condition that serve (...) as fault lines along which these two views diverge. The first dimension concerns different kinds of ignorance. The second concerns what agents can be directly blameworthy for. The chapter closes by sketching a novel approach that incorporates advantages of opposing positions on this topic. (shrink)

According to a widely held view, epistemic reasons are normative reasons for belief – much like prudential or moral reasons are normative reasons for action. In recent years, however, an increasing number of authors have questioned the assumption that epistemic reasons are normative. In this article, I discuss an important challenge for anti-normativism about epistemic reasons and present a number of arguments in support of normativism. The challenge for anti-normativism is to say what kind of reasons (...) class='Hi'>epistemic reasons are if they are not normative reasons. I discuss various answers to this challenge and find them all wanting. The arguments for normativism each stress a certain analogy between epistemic reasons and normative reasons for action. Just like normative reasons for action, epistemic reasons provide partial justification; they provide premises for correct reasoning; they constitute good bases for the responses they are reasons for; and they are reasons for which agents can show these responses without committing a mistake. In each case, I argue that the relevant condition is plausibly sufficient for the normativity of a reason, and that normativism is in any case in a much better position to explain the analogy than anti-normativism. (shrink)

Do we apply higher epistemic standards to subjects with high stakes? This paper argues that we expect different outward behavior from high-stakes subjects—for example, we expect them to collect more evidence than their low-stakes counterparts—but not because of any change in epistemic standards. Rather, we naturally expect subjects in any condition to think in a roughly adaptive manner, balancing the expected costs of additional evidence collection against the expected value of gains in accuracy. The paper reviews a body (...) of empirical work on the automatic regulation of cognitive effort in response to stakes, and argues that we naturally see high- and low-stakes subjects as experiencing different levels of ‘epistemic anxiety’, and anticipate different levels of cognitive effort from them for this reason. If unresolved epistemic anxiety always bars an ascription of knowledge, then we can explain our responses to cases involving shifting stakes without positing any variation in the standards of intuitive knowledge ascription. (shrink)

A naturalistic impulse has taken speculative analytic metaphysics in its critical sights. Importantly, the claim that it is desirable or requisite to give metaphysics scientific moorings rests on underlying epistemological assumptions or principles. If the naturalistic impulse toward metaphysics is to be well-founded and its prescriptions to have normative force, those assumptions or principles should be spelled out and justified. In short, advocates of naturalized or scientific metaphysics require epistemic infrastructure. This paper begins to supply it. The author first (...) sketches her conception of suitably naturalized or scientific metaphysics. She then lays out a number of candidate epistemic principles centring around the notion of theoretical constraint. The author offers several arguments for the principles, based on statistical likeliness, agreement, falsity avoidance, and methodological efficiency and inefficiency. Finally, she shows how scientific metaphysics satisfies the epistemic principles and is therefore preferable to its traditional rivals. (shrink)

Very plausibly, there is something important missing in our lives if we are thoroughly ignorant or misled about reality – even if, as in a kind of Truman Show scenario, intervention or fantastic luck prevents unhappiness and practical failure. But why? I argue that perfectionism about well-being offers the most promising explanation. My version says, roughly, that we flourish when we exercise our self-defining capacities successfully according to their constitutive standards. One of these self-defining capacities, or capacities whose exercise reveals (...) who we are, is Reason, our capacity for normative self-governance. I argue that in its practical use, Reason formally aims at competently realizing self-chosen valuable ends that are in harmony with each other, or valuable achievements. In its theoretical use, it formally aims at competently grasping fundamental enough subject matters, or a kind of understanding. Because success by reason’s own standards requires many things to go right, there are many different ways in which we can fall short. Some of them amount to partial success. But some, like incompetent inquiry that fails to yield understanding of its target, or taking inefficient means to a worthless end, are robust failures that amount to epistemic or agential unflourishing, and thus to a form of ill-being. (shrink)

The normative force of evidence can seem puzzling. It seems that having conclusive evidence for a proposition does not, by itself, make it true that one ought to believe the proposition. But spelling out the condition that evidence must meet in order to provide us with genuine normative reasons for belief seems to lead us into a dilemma: the condition either fails to explain the normative significance of epistemic reasons or it renders the content of epistemic norms practical. (...) The first aim of this paper is to spell out this challenge for the normativity of evidence. I argue that the challenge rests on a plausible assumption about the conceptual connection between normative reasons and blameworthiness. The second aim of the paper is to show how we can meet the challenge by spelling out a concept of epistemic blameworthiness. Drawing on recent accounts of doxastic responsibility and epistemic blame, I suggest that the normativity of evidence is revealed in our practice of suspending epistemic trust in response to impaired epistemic relationships. Recognizing suspension of trust as a form of epistemic blame allows us to make sense of a purely epistemic kind of normativity the existence of which has recently been called into doubt by certain versions of pragmatism and instrumentalism. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel educational approach to epistemic vice rehabilitation. Its authors Gerry Dunne and Alkis Kotsonis note that, like Quassim Cassam, they remain optimistic about the possibility of improvement with regard to epistemic vice. However, unlike Cassam, who places the burden of minimizing or overcoming epistemic vices and their consequences on the individual, Dunne and Kotsonis argue that vice rehabilitation is best tackled via the exemplarist animated community of inquiry zetetic principles and defeasible-reasons-regulated deliberative processes. (...) The vice-reduction method they propose is made up of four distinct yet complementary components: (1) positive exemplarism of epistemic virtue (saints), (2) negative exemplarism of epistemic vice (sinners), (3) direct teaching/instruction, and (4) cognitive apprenticeship. Dunne and Kotsonis argue that this pedagogical intervention appropriately considers learnings deriving from forensic scrutiny of both ideal and non-ideal interpersonally calibrated zetetic features integral to knowledge acquisition as well as wider societal influences impacting the development of agents' epistemic character. It bridges research on vice epistemology (Cassam's obstructivist theory), social epistemology (corrupted social processes mitigating against vice rehabilitation), virtue epistemology, and moral exemplarism. (shrink)

Epistemic Courage is a timely and thought-provoking exploration of the ethics of belief, which shows why epistemology is no mere academic abstraction - the question of what to believe couldn't be more urgent. Jonathan Ichikawa argues that a skeptical, negative bias about belief is connected to a conservative bias that reinforces the status quo.

This handbook article gives a critical overview of recent discussions of epistemic authority. It favors an account that brings into balance the dictates of rational deference with the ideals of intellectual self-governance. A plausible starting point is the conjecture that neither should rational deference to authorities collapse into total epistemic submission, nor the ideal of mature intellectual self-governance be conflated with (illusions of) epistemic autarky.

Epistemic agents interact with evidence in different ways. This can cause trouble for mutual understanding and for our ability to rationally engage with others. Indeed, it can compromise democratic practices of deliberation. This paper explains these differences by appeal to a new notion: epistemic styles. Epistemic styles are ways of interacting with evidence that express unified sets of epistemic values, preferences, goals, and interests. The paper introduces the notion of epistemic styles and develops a systematic (...) account of their nature. It then discusses the implications of epistemic styles for central questions in epistemology, in particular, for issues surrounding rational engagement and for the debate between virtue epistemologists and epistemic situationists. (shrink)

Daniel Greco (forthcoming) argues that there cannot be epistemic dilemmas. I argue that he is wrong. I then look in detail at a would-be epistemic dilemma and argue that no non-dilemmic approach to it can be made to work. Along the way, there is discussion of octopuses, lobsters, and other ‘inscrutable cognizers’; the relationship between evaluative and prescriptive norms; a failed attempt to steal a Brueghel; epistemic and moral blame and residue; an unbearable guy who thinks he’s (...) God’s gift to women; excuses; stupid games involving hats; radical permissivism; how I’ll never be able to afford to buy a house in Hampstead; and many other exciting topics. (shrink)

I present an account of epistemic autonomy as a distinctively wide-ranging epistemic virtue, one that helps us to understand a range of phenomena that might otherwise seem quite disparate – from the appropriate selection of epistemic methods, stances and topics of inquiry, to the harms of epistemic oppression, gaslighting and related phenomena. The account draws on four elements commonly incorporated into accounts of personal autonomy: (i) self-governance, (ii) authenticity, (iii) self-creation and (iv) independence. I further argue (...) that for a distinctively epistemic virtue of autonomy; the above elements must ultimately reliably lead to valuable epistemic goods (for the agent herself and others). I then turn to the domains or ways in which epistemic autonomy so understood, can be made manifest. I suggest that epistemic autonomy is a virtue that allows us to appropriately choose (i) subject matters and areas of inquiry, (ii) methods, sources, and processes of belief formation, (iii) epistemic goals and (iv) epistemic stances or frameworks. So understood, epistemic autonomy has a role to play in shaping most every aspect of our epistemic lives. (shrink)

Epistemic modal operators give rise to something very like, but also very unlike, Moore's paradox. I set out the puzzling phenomena, explain why a standard relational semantics for these operators cannot handle them, and recommend an alternative semantics. A pragmatics appropriate to the semantics is developed and interactions between the semantics, the pragmatics, and the definition of consequence are investigated. The semantics is then extended to probability operators. Some problems and prospects for probabilistic representations of content and context are (...) explored. (shrink)

Some arguments include imperative clauses. For example: ‘Buy me a drink; you can’t buy me that drink unless you go to the bar; so, go to the bar!’ How should we build a logic that predicts which of these arguments are good? Because imperatives aren’t truth apt and so don’t stand in relations of truth preservation, this technical question gives rise to a foundational one: What would be the subject matter of this logic? I argue that declaratives are used (...) to produce beliefs, imperatives are used to produce intentions, and beliefs and intentions are subject to rational requirements. An argument will strike us as valid when anyone whose mental state satisfies the premises is rationally required to satisfy the conclusion. For example, the above argument reflects the principle that it is irrational not to intend what one takes to be the necessary means to one’s intended ends. I argue that all intuitively good patterns of imperative inference can be explained using off-the-shelf formulations of our rational requirements. I then develop a formal-semantic theory embodying this view that predicts a range of data, including free-choice effects and Ross’s paradox. The resulting theory shows one way that our aspirations to rational agency can be discerned in the patterns of our speech, and is a case study in how the philosophy of language and the philosophy of action can be mutually illuminating. (shrink)

Epistemic paternalism is the practice of interfering with someone’s inquiry, without their consent, for their own epistemic good. In this chapter, I explore the relationship between epistemic paternalism and two other epistemological theses: epistemic permissivism and standpoint epistemology. I argue that examining this relationship is fruitful because it sheds light on a series of cases in which epistemic paternalism is unjustified and brings out notable similarities between epistemic permissivism and standpoint epistemology.

Pain, crucially, is unpleasant and motivational. It can be awful; and it drives us to action, e.g. to take our weight off a sprained ankle. But what is the relationship between pain and those two features? And in virtue of what does pain have them? Addressing these questions, Colin Klein and Richard J. Hall have recently developed the idea that pains are, at least partly, experiential commands—to stop placing your weight on your ankle, for example. In this paper, I reject (...) their accounts. Against Klein, I use dissociation cases to argue that possession of ‘imperative content’ cannot wholly constitute pain. Against them both, I further claim that possession of such content cannot even constitute pain’s unpleasant, motivational aspect. For, even if it were possible to specify the relevant imperative content—which is far from clear—the idea of a command cannot bear the explanatory weight Klein and Hall place on it. (shrink)

This article is concerned with a puzzle that arises from three initially plausible assumptions that form an inconsistent triad: (1) Epistemic reasons are normative reasons (normativism); (2) reasons are normative only if conformity with them is good (the reasons/value-link); (3) conformity with epistemic reasons need not be good (the nihilist assumption). I start by defending the reasons/value-link, arguing that normativists need to reject the nihilist assumption. I then argue that the most familiar view that denies the nihilist assumption (...) – epistemic teleology – is untenable. Finally, I consider two alternative ways of accounting for the goodness of conformity with epistemic reasons: it may be good because it accords with the virtue of reasons-responsiveness, and it may be good because it is good to conform with normative reasons as such. I argue that both of these conceptions avoid the problems of epistemic teleology and merit serious consideration as potential solutions to the puzzle. (shrink)

The zetetic turn in epistemology raises three questions about epistemic and zetetic norms. First, there is the relationship question: what is the relationship between epistemic and zetetic norms? Are some epistemic norms zetetic norms, or are epistemic and zetetic norms distinct? Second, there is the tension question: are traditional epistemic norms in tension with plausible zetetic norms? Third, there is the reaction question: how should theorists react to a tension between epistemic and zetetic norms? (...) Drawing on an analogy to practical philosophy, I develop a focal point view to resolve these motivating questions. On the focal point view, traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms answer different types of normative questions. There is nevertheless a familiar type of evaluative tension between traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms, but this tension is an unavoidable feature of the normative landscape and not a sign that traditional epistemic norms need revision. But if traditional epistemic norms are not zetetic norms, then in what sense is zetetic epistemology a project for epistemologists? I conclude by articulating a sense in which some nontraditional epistemic norms are zetetic norms, and in which zetetic epistemology is an important part of the study of theoretical rationality. (shrink)

Ten years after introducing the RRI concept, a reflection on its key ambitions seems called for, now that RRI enters the global arena. This paper focues on the key challenge that RRI is currently facing: epistemic inclusion. From the beginning, there has been the awareness that RRI must be open to multiple voices and perspectives, coming from academia, and also from society at large. Besides representing impressive bodies of knowledge, academic disciplines face knowledge gaps as well and must reach (...) out to other knowledge forms, e.g. practical, experiential, and indigenous knowledge. This paper analyses the challenges involved in epistemic inclusion while outlining viable pathways towards addressing them, based on experiences in European projects as our ‘laboratory'. After discussing interdisciplinarity, participatory research, and epistemic pluralism, while also addressing the academic reward system. Special attention is given to indigenous knowledge as a case study for epistemic pluralism. (shrink)