Normative explanations of why things are wrong, good, or unfair are ubiquitous in ordinary practice and normative theory. This paper argues that normative explanation is subject to a justification condition: a correct complete explanation of why a normative fact holds must identify features that would go at least some way towards justifying certain actions or attitudes. I first explain and motivate the condition I propose. I then support it by arguing that it fits well with various theories (...) of normative reasons, makes good sense of certain legitimate moves in ordinary normative explanatory discourse, and helps to make sense of our judgments about explanatory priority in certain cases of normative explanation. This last argument also helps to highlight respects in which normative explanation won’t be worryingly discontinuous with explanations in other domains even though these other explanations aren’t subject to the justification condition. Thus the paper aims not only to do some constructive theorizing about the relatively neglected topic of normative explanation but also to cast light on the broader question of how normative explanation may be similar to and different from explanations in other domains. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose that applying the methods of data science to “the problem of whether mathematical explanations occur within mathematics itself” (Mancosu 2018) might be a fruitful way to shed new light on the problem. By carefully selecting indicator words for explanation and justification, and then systematically searching for these indicators in databases of scholarly works in mathematics, we can get an idea of how mathematicians use these terms in mathematical practice and with what frequency. The (...) results of this empirical study suggest that mathematical explanations do occur in research articles published in mathematics journals, as indicated by the occurrence of explanation indicators. When compared with the use of justification indicators, however, the data suggest that justifications occur much more frequently than explanations in scholarly mathematical practice. The results also suggest that justificatory proofs occur much more frequently than explanatory proofs, thus suggesting that proof may be playing a larger justificatory role than an explanatory role in scholarly mathematical practice. (shrink)

In recent work, Andrew T. Forcehimes and Robert B. Talisse correctly note that G.A. Cohen’s fact-insensitivity thesis, properly understood, is explanatory. This observation raises an important concern. If fact-insensitive principles are explanatory, then what role can they play in normative deliberations? The purpose of my paper is, in part, to address this question. Following David Miller, I indicate that on a charitable understanding of Cohen’s thesis, an explanatory principle explains a justificatory fact by completing an otherwise logically incomplete inference. As (...) a result, the explanatory role such a principle plays is inseparable from its status as a (not necessarily successful) justificatory reason. With this interpretation in hand, I then proceed to argue that Lea Ypi’s and Robert Jubb’s recent criticisms fail to undermine Cohen’s thesis, and that fact-insensitive principles, once discovered, are especially helpful for purposes of deliberation in circumstances characterized by changing and changeable feasibility constraints. (shrink)

Berkeley, Newton, Explanation, and Causation -/- I argue in this paper that Berkeley’s conception of natural law explanations, which echoes Newton’s, fails to solve a fundamental problem, which I label “explanatory asymmetry"; that the model of explanation Berkeley uses fails to distinguish between explanations and justifications, particularly since Berkeley denies real (efficient causes) in non-minded nature. At the end I suggest Berkeley might endorse a notion of understanding, say in astronomy or mechanics, which could be distinguished from (...) class='Hi'>explanation. (shrink)

Inference to the Best Explanation, roughly put, appeals to the explanatory power of a theory or hypothesis (relative to some data set) as constituting epistemic justification for it. Inference to the Best Explanation (henceforth IBE) is a tool widely employed among all reasoners alike, from the empirical sciences to ordinary life. Philosophical discussions do not differ in the usualness of explanatory appeals of this kind during serious argument. Often enough, the appeal is dialectically blocked, as many of (...) our epistemic peers in philosophy offer reasons to be skeptical of IBE. Our aim with this monograph is to assess one worry that have been raised about this mode of inference: That explanatory power is not truth-conducive. We begin by discussing general features of inferences and then formulating IBE in detail. Afterward, we explicate and apply a canonical understanding of what an explanation is. This will lead to a certain understanding of explanatory power. We undergo a case study to defend the thesis that this kind of explanatory power is indeed epistemically irrelevant – unless, perhaps, when combined with other theoretical virtues. Our conclusion is that the measure what explanations are best requires taking other theoretical virtues into account, such as simplicity and unification. In this case, a complete assessment of IBE requires examining if, when, and how these alleged theoretical virtues are indeed truth-conducive. (shrink)

Earl Conee and Richard Feldman have recently argued that the evidential support relation should be understood in terms of explanatory coherence: roughly, one's evidence supports a proposition if and only if that proposition is part of the best available explanation of the evidence. Their thesis has been criticized through alleged counterexamples, perhaps the most important of which are cases where a subject has a justified belief about the future. Kevin McCain has defended the thesis against Byerly's counterexample. I argue (...) that McCain's defense is inadequate before pointing toward a more promising solution for explanationism. The Byerly–McCain exchange is important because it casts light on the difficult issues of the standards for justification and the nature of epistemic support. Furthermore, McCain's defense of explanationism about epistemic support represents an important recent development of the burgeoning explanationist program in epistemology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Philosophical work on explanation has focused on the following two topics: theories of explanation, intended to enumerate necessary and sufficient conditions for explanation, and inference to the best explanation as the strongest form of justification for ontological or metaphysical claims. I critically examine the most important philosophical work in both of these areas and defend my own conclusions about the connections between explanation and ontology. I argue that all of our inferences about the nature (...) of the world, in ontology or metaphysics, presuppose criteria for acceptable explanation. I first examine the metaphysics of Plato, Aristotle, and Leibniz, arguing that their metaphysical reasoning was guided by assumptions about the nature of explanation. I also survey some recent work in ontology and find inference to the best explanation offered as the strongest available method of defending existence claims. To conclude this discussion, I offer an original argument for the thesis that all reasoning about existence claims, being nondeductive, presupposes some criteria for acceptable explanations, or a theory of explanation. Carl Hempel and Wesley Salmon have been two of the most influential philosophers offering theories of explanation, and I examine their work with the intention of discovering ontological or metaphysical assumptions shaping their theories of explanation. I argue that Hempel's theory rests on deterministic assumptions, and I argue the Salmon's theory of causality, which he admits supports his theory of explanation, is subject to empiricist criticisms. Theories of explanation typically rest on assumptions about the nature of the world, I argue, and I explain why this is so with an original theory of explanation connecting it to the psychological phenomenon of understanding. We rely on understanding in the identification of explanations, and understanding requires establishing a metaphysical context for an explanandum-event. I end by indicating the possibility of generating vicious justificatory circles through the reciprocal relationship of support between explanation and ontology, and I argue that vicious circles can be avoided only by grounding all ontological reasoning in a fundamental explanatory task of giving order to experience through a system of categories. (shrink)

When is a belief justified? There are three families of arguments we typically use to support different accounts of justification: arguments from our intuitive responses to vignettes that involve the concept; arguments from the theoretical role we would like the concept to play in epistemology; and arguments from the practical, moral, and political uses to which we wish to put the concept. I focus particularly on the third sort, and specifically on arguments of this sort offered by Clayton Littlejohn (...) in Justification and the Truth-Connection and Amia Srinivasan in ‘Radical Externalism’ : 395–431, 2018) in favour of externalism. I counter Srinivasan’s argument in two ways: first, I show that the internalist’s concept of justification might figure just as easily in the sorts of structural explanation Srinivasan thinks our political goals require us to give; and I argue that the internalist’s concept is needed for a particular political task, namely, to help us build more effective defences against what I call epistemic weapons. I conclude that we should adopt an Alstonian pluralism about the concept of justification. (shrink)

In his influential book, The Nature of Morality, Gilbert Harman writes: “In explaining the observations that support a physical theory, scientists typically appeal to mathematical principles. On the other hand, one never seems to need to appeal in this way to moral principles.” What is the epistemological relevance of this contrast, if genuine? This chapter argues that ethicists and philosophers of mathematics have misunderstood it. They have confused what the chapter calls the justificatory challenge for realism about an area, D—the (...) challenge to justify our D-beliefs—with the reliability challenge for D-realism—the challenge to explain the reliability of our D-beliefs. Harman’s contrast is relevant to the first, but not, evidently, to the second. One upshot of the discussion is that genealogical debunking arguments are fallacious. Another is that indispensability considerations cannot answer the Benacerraf–Field challenge for mathematical realism. (shrink)

Davidson’s famous 1963 paper “Actions, Reasons, and Causes” contains, in nuce, the main lines of Davidson’s philosophy of action and mind. It also contains the seeds of some major problems of Davidson’s thought in these fields. I shall defend, following Davidson, that rationalization or reasons explanation is a species of causal explanation, but I will be contending, against Davidson’s approach, that causality is best viewed, in this kind of explanation, as an integral aspect of justification itself, (...) and not as an independent, additional condition. (shrink)

Consider a set of shuffled observations drawn from a fixed probability distribution over some instance domain. What enables learning of inductive generalizations which proceed from such a set of observations? The scenario is worthwhile because it epistemically characterizes most of machine learning. This kind of learning from observations is also inverse and ill-posed. What reduces the non-uniqueness of its result and, thus, its problematic epistemic justification, which stems from a one-to-many relation between the observations and many learnable generalizations? The (...) paper argues that this role belongs to any complexity regularization which satisfies Norton’s Material Theory of Induction (MTI) by localizing the inductive risk to facts in the given domain. A prime example of the localization is the Lottery Ticket Hypothesis (LTH) about overparameterized neural networks. The explanation of MTI’s role in complexity regularization of neural networks is provided by analyzing the stability of Empirical Risk Minimization (ERM), an inductive rule that controls the learning process and leads to an inductive generalization on the given set of observations. In cases where ERM might become asymptotically unstable, making the justification of the generalization by uniform convergence unavailable, LTH and MTI can be used to define a local stability. A priori, overparameterized neural networks are such cases and the combination of LTH and MTI can block ERM’s trivialization caused by equalizing the strengths of its inductive support for risk minimization. We bring closer the investigation of generalization in artificial neural networks and the study of inductive inference and show the division of labor between MTI and the optimality justifications (developed by Gerhard Schurz) in machine learning. (shrink)

In Fallibilism: Evidence and Knowledge, Jessica Brown identifies a number of problems for the so-called knowledge view of justification. According to this view, we cannot justifiably believe what we do not know. Most epistemologists reject this view on the grounds that false beliefs can be justified if, say, supported by the evidence or produced by reliable processes. We think this is a mistake and that many epistemologists are classifying beliefs as justified because they have properties that indicate that something (...) should be excused. Brown thinks that previous attempts to make this case have been unsuccessful. While the difficulties Brown points to are genuine, I think they show that attempts to explain a classificatory judgment haven't been successful. Still, I would argue that the classification is correct. We need a better explanation of this classificatory judgment. I will try to clarify the justification-excuse distinction and explain why it's a mistake to insist that beliefs that violate epistemic norms might be justified. Just as it's possible for a rational agent to act without justification in spite of her best intentions, it's possible that a rational thinker who follows the evidence and meets our expectations might nevertheless believe without sufficient justification. If our justified beliefs are supposed to guide us in deciding what to do, we probably should draw on discussions from morality and the law about the justification/excuse distinction to inform our understanding of the epistemic case. (shrink)

This paper concerns non-causal normative explanations such as ‘This act is wrong because/in virtue of__’. The familiar intuition that normative facts aren't brute or ungrounded but anchored in non- normative facts seems to be in tension with the equally familiar idea that no normative fact can be fully explained in purely non- normative terms. I ask whether the tension could be resolved by treating the explanatory relation in normative explanations as the sort of ‘grounding’ relation that receives extensive discussion in (...) recent metaphysics. I argue that this would help only under controversial assumptions about the nature of normative facts, and perhaps not even then. I won't try to resolve the tension, but draw a distinction between two different sorts of normative explanations which helps to identify constraints on a resolution. One distinctive constraint on normative explanations in particular might be that they should be able to play a role in normative justification. (shrink)

Recent discussions of how axioms are extrinsically justified have appealed to abductive considerations: on such accounts, axioms are adopted on the basis that they constitute the best explanation of some mathematical data, or phenomena. In the first part of this paper, I set out a potential problem caused by the appeal made to the notion of mathematical explanation and suggest that it can be remedied once it is noted that all the justificatory work is done by appeal to (...) the theoretical virtues. In the second part of the paper, I appeal to the theoretical virtues account of axiom justification to provide an argument that judgements of theoretical virtuousness, and therefore of extrinsic justification, are subjective in a substantive sense. This tells against a recent claim by Penelope Maddy that such justification is “wholly objective”. (shrink)

Is it possible to give a justification of our own practice of deductive inference? The purpose of this paper is to explain what such a justification might consist in and what its purpose could be. On the conception that we are going to pursue, to give a justification for a deductive practice means to explain in terms of an intuitively satisfactory notion of validity why the inferences that conform to the practice coincide with the valid ones. That (...) is, a justification should provide an analysis of the notion of validity and show that the inferences that conform to the practice are just the ones that are valid. Moreover, a complete justification should also explain the purpose, or point, of our inferential practice. We are first going to discuss the objection that any justification of our deductive practice must use deduction and therefore be circular. Then we will consider a particular model of justificatory explanation, building on Georg Kreisel’s concept of informal rigour. Finally, in the main part of the paper, we will discuss three ideas for defining the notion of validity: (i) the classical conception according to which the notion of (bivalent) truth is taken as basic and validity is defined in terms of the preservation of truth; (ii) the constructivist idea of starting instead with the notion of (a canonical) proof (or verification) and define validity in terms of this notion; (iii) the idea of taking the notions of rational acceptance and rejection as given and define an argument to be valid just in case it is irrational to simultaneously accept its premises and reject its conclusion (or conclusions, if we allow for multiple conclusions). Building on work by Dana Scott, we show that the last conception may be viewed as being, in a certain sense, equivalent to the first one. Finally, we discuss the so-called paradox of inference and the informativeness of deductive arguments. (shrink)

This chapter examines issues surrounding inference to the best explanation, its justification, and its role in different arguments for scientific realism, as well as more general issues concerning explanations’ ontological commitments. Defending the reliability of inference to the best explanation has been a central plank in various realist arguments, and realists have drawn various ontological conclusions from the premise that a given scientific explanation best explains some phenomenon. This chapter stresses the importance of thinking carefully about (...) the nature of explanation in connection with evaluating realists’ appeals to explanatory reasoning and inference to the best explanation. (shrink)

It has been suggested that particle physics has reached the "dawn of the post-naturalness era." I provide an explanation of the current shift in particle physicists' attitude towards naturalness. I argue that the naturalness principle was perceived to be supported by the theories it has inspired. The potential coherence between major beyond the Standard Model (BSM) proposals and the naturalness principle led to an increasing degree of credibility of the principle among particle physicists. The absence of new physics at (...) the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has undermined the potential coherence and has led to the principle's loss of significance. (shrink)

This monograph offers a fresh perspective on the applicability of mathematics in science. It explores what mathematics must be so that its applications to the empirical world do not constitute a mystery. In the process, readers are presented with a new version of mathematical structuralism. The author details a philosophy of mathematics in which the problem of its applicability, particularly in physics, in all its forms can be explained and justified. Chapters cover: mathematics as a formal science, mathematical ontology: what (...) does it mean to exist, mathematical structures: what are they and how do we know them, how different layers of mathematical structuring relate to each other and to perceptual structures, and how to use mathematics to find out how the world is. The book simultaneously develops along two lines, both inspired and enlightened by Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy. One line leads to the establishment of a particular version of mathematical structuralism, free of “naturalist” and empiricist bias. The other leads to a logical-epistemological explanation and justification of the applicability of mathematics carried out within a unique structuralist perspective. This second line points to the “unreasonable” effectiveness of mathematics in physics as a means of representation, a tool, and a source of not always logically justified but useful and effective heuristic strategies. (shrink)

[This paper is available as open access from the publisher.] Normative theories aim to explain why things have the normative features they have. This paper argues that, contrary to some plausible existing views, one important kind of normative explanations which first-order normative theories aim to formulate and defend can fail to transmit downward along chains of metaphysical determination of normative facts by non-normative facts. Normative explanation is plausibly subject to a kind of a justification condition whose satisfaction may (...) fail to transmit along the relevant kind of metaphysical hierarchy. A broader aim of the paper is to contribute to systematic theorizing about normative explanation: whereas there has been a great deal of work on scientific explanation, there has been little by way of systematic exploration of what sort of explanations normative theories aim to formulate and defend. (shrink)

While it is commonly accepted that justified beliefs must be strongly supported by evidence and that support comes in degrees, the question of how much evidential support one needs in order to have a justified belief remains. In this paper, I consider how the question about degrees of evidential support connects with recent debates between consequentialist and deontological explanations of epistemic norms. I argue that explaining why strong, but not conclusive, evidential support is required for justification should be one (...) explanandum that such theories seek to explain. Furthermore, I argue that foundational theories that appeal to the promotion of epistemic value (especially consequentialism, but perhaps also some versions of epistemic deontology) are better suited to provide such an explanation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Appearance and Explanation: Phenomenal Explanationism in Epistemology by Kevin McCain and Luca MorettiCaleb EstepMcCAIN, Kevin and Luca Moretti. Appearance and Explanation: Phenomenal Explanationism in Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. iv + 195 pp. Cloth, $70.00Since its beginning, phenomenal conservatism (PC) has grown rapidly in popularity as a theory of epistemic justification. In Appearance and Explanation, McCain and Moretti develop out of PC a (...) new theory of justification that they call phenomenal explanationism (PE). Their goal is to integrate PC with explanationism—the view that epistemic justification comes from the best explanation—thereby creating PE as a hybrid theory. They ambitiously contend that PE captures the same basic intuitions as PC but is better equipped to handle epistemic phenomena as a whole, troubling objections to PC (and foundationalism in general), and skeptical [End Page 354] arguments. The book is comprised of seven chapters. This review will emphasize the first four.In chapter 1, the authors discuss what PC is and its merits. PC is the idea that "we should grant things to be the way they appear [or seem] to be, unless we have reason to doubt" our seemings. They point out some of the benefits of PC as perceived by its followers: It "provide[s] widespread epistemic practices with a rationale," "it offers a unified account of non-inferential justification for beliefs of very different types," "it constitutes the basis of fallible foundationalism," and has a strong "antiskeptical bite."In chapter 2, McCain and Moretti argue that PC is not sufficient to account even for noninferential justification. First, they argue, PC gives an insufficient explanation of the no-defeater condition. The no-defeater condition is the "unless we have reason to doubt" clause built into PC. PC does not explain why or how S's reason to doubt "interacts with S's seeming that e in such a way as to diminish S's non-inferential justification for believing p." Second, if the power of seemings to justify comes from the seemings themselves, then the seemings become unstable once the subject becomes aware of them. The upshot of this is that if seemings are sufficient for justification, then some beliefs that should not be justified would have justification.In chapter 3, the authors begin to elaborate on their view. The authors distinguish between mere seemings, paired appearances, and presentational appearances to show how appearances can have varying degrees of justificatory power. Seemings and appearances are used in a roughly synonymous way. Mere seemings are lacking in both sensations and presentational phenomenology, hence they provide a very weak form of justification. Paired appearances have sensations but not presentational phenomenology. They have greater justificatory strength than mere seemings but less strength than presentational appearances. Presentational appearances produce the strongest justification and include both sensations and presentational phenomenology. The big payoff from these distinctions is that they show how different appearances can produce varying strengths of justification.In chapter 4, Moretti and McCain first outline their version of explanationism, which is evidentialist in character. It is as follows: "Believing p is justified for S at t if and only if at t:(1). S has total evidence, E;(2). either (i) p is the best (sufficiently good) explanation of e (where e is a subset of E), or (ii) p is an explanatory consequence of the best (sufficiently good) explanation of e (where p is such an explanatory consequence if and only if the relevant explanation of e would provide an explanation of p's truth that is significantly better than the explanation it would provide of ~ p's truth);(3). it is not the case that p fails to satisfy (i) and (ii) with respect to e because of the additional evidence included in E." [End Page 355]Next, the authors merge explanationism with PC as understood through the threefold division of appearances given in chapter 3. The result is that appearances or seemings are necessary and sufficient for a subject to have evidence, but the subject is justified in believing some proposition p only because p is the best explanation of the evidence. Appearances contribute to epistemic justification because as evidence they regulate the capacity... (shrink)

Although the invariance criterion of logicality first emerged as a criterion of a purely mathematical interest, it has developed into a criterion of considerable linguistic and philosophical interest. In this paper I compare two different perspectives on this criterion. The first is the perspective of natural language. Here, the invariance criterion is measured by its success in capturing our linguistic intuitions about logicality and explaining our logical behavior in natural-linguistic settings. The second perspective is more theoretical. Here, the invariance criterion (...) is used as a tool for developing a theoretical foundation of logic, focused on a critical examination, explanation, and justification of its veridicality and modal force. (shrink)

For Émilie Du Châtelet, I argue, a central role of the principle of sufficient reason is to discriminate between better and worse explanations. Her principle of sufficient reason does not play this role for just any conceivable intellect: it specifically enables understanding for minds like ours. She develops this idea in terms of two criteria for the success of our explanations: “understanding how” and “understanding why.” These criteria can respectively be connected to the determinateness and contrastivity of explanations. The crucial (...) role Du Châtelet’s principle of sufficient reason plays in identifying good explanations is often overlooked in the literature, or else run together with questions about the justification and likelihood of explanations. An auxiliary goal of the article is to situate Du Châtelet’s principle of sufficient reason with respect to some of the general epistemological and metaphysical commitments of her Institutions de Physique, clarifying how it fits into the broader project of that work. (shrink)

Traditionally, intuitions about cases have been taken as strong evidence for a philosophical position. I argue that intuitions about concept deployment have epistemic value while intuitions about matters of fact have none. I argue this by use of the explanationist criterion which contends that S is justified in believing only those propositions which are part of the best explanation of S’s making the judgements she makes. This criterion accords with scientific practice. Bealer suggests, as a defence of intuition, that (...) naturalists rely on intuition in their arguments against intuition and thus that their arguments are self-undermining. But beliefs based on intuitions about the application of concepts, like ‘justification’ and ‘theory,’ are epistemically justified by the explanationist criterion. It is only intuitions about matters of fact which are rejected. Thus, epistemically-respectable intuitions about concepts are used to undermine intuitions about metaphysics. There is nothing self-undermining about this. (shrink)

Proponents of ontic conceptions of explanation require all explanations to be backed by causal, constitutive, or similar relations. Among their justifications is that only ontic conceptions can do justice to the ‘directionality’ of explanation, i.e., the requirement that if X explains Y , then not-Y does not explain not-X . Using topological explanations as an illustration, we argue that non-ontic conceptions of explanation have ample resources for securing the directionality of explanations. The different ways in which neuroscientists (...) rely on multiplexes involving both functional and anatomical connectivity in their topological explanations vividly illustrate why ontic considerations are frequently (if not always) irrelevant to explanatory directionality. Therefore, directionality poses no problem to non-ontic conceptions of explanation. (shrink)

The paper critically discusses the dualism in the interpretation of the moral basis of public reason. We argue that in order to maintain the complementarity of both liberal and democratic values within the debate on public reason, the arguments from liberty and from civic friendship cannot be considered in isolation. With regard to the argument from liberty, we contend that because the idea of natural liberty is an indispensable starting point of liberal theory, no explanation of the justification (...) of political power can do without it. In particular, we focus on the requirement of reasonableness and show that we should retain the epistemic aspect of the reasonableness of persons. The main reason for this is to be found in the criterion of reciprocity which provides the deepest justification of the respect for people’s liberty – that is, the liberal aspect of liberal democracy. At the same time, however, we argue that reciprocity also provides the grounds for responding to the criticism that the essentially liberal approach fails to adequately take into consideration the role of political community. Because reciprocity may also be interpreted as being based on civic friendship, it provides the resources to respond to such criticism. It thus supplies the normative background also for the second, democratic pillar of public reason. We then critically examine the newly emerging approach built predominantly on the argument from civic friendship, arguing that by prioritising the civic friendship interpretation and, at times, tending to completely abandon the liberty-based one, it overlooks the indispensability of liberty-based considerations for the criterion of reciprocity. We conclude that in order to adequately capture the common liberal-democratic basis of public reason, both interpretations of reciprocity must be linked within a comprehensive account. (shrink)

There has been a significant increase in the use of radiological services in the past 30 years. There are many reasons for this, but one has received little attention: the increased role of patient autonomy in healthcare. Patients demand x rays, CT scans, MRI, and positron emission tomography scans. The key question in this article is how a moral principle, such as respect for patient autonomy, can influence the extension of radiological services. A literature review reveals how patient autonomy is (...) acknowledged in radiology, and how it is used both to explain and to justify the increase in radiological examinations. Furthermore, it also shows how the premises favouring patients’ exercise of their autonomy are not always present, which makes patient autonomy subject to adverse side effects and even abuse. Patient autonomy can be used to reduce the professionals’ responsibility for radiological examinations , to increase the popularity of the profession , to increase the income of the professionals or their institutions, and to promote professional activity. Patient autonomy intended to reduce paternalism, to legitimise otherwise morally unjustifiable actions , and to protect patients, can easily be used as a moral means for opposite ends. These adverse effects are not peculiar to radiology. However, they emerge particularly clearly in explanations and justifications of the substantial increase in radiological services, as well as in debates on overuse of radiological services. (shrink)

In this Article, I will argue that a person may be deserving of criminal punishment even in certain situations where she is not necessarily morally responsible for her criminal act. What these situations share in common are two things: the psychological factors that motivate the individual’s behavior are environmentally determined and her crime is serious, making her less eligible for sympathy and therefore less likely to be acquitted. -/- To get to this conclusion, I will proceed in four steps. In (...) Part II, I will offer the first two of these steps. First, I will argue that our foundational assumption that moral responsibility is necessary for just blame and punishment is not self-evident and is actually rather difficult to explain and justify. Second, I will offer an explanation and justification that appeals to our moral psychology. Specifically, I will argue that we subscribe to this assumption ultimately because we sympathize with agents who lack responsibility for their actions. -/- Third, in Part IV, I aim to show that even if moral responsibility is not conceptually — only “emotionally” — necessary for just blame and punishment, the traditionally recognized criminal excuses are not at risk because, contrary to popular wisdom, they do not really rely on this assumption to begin with. Instead, they stand less for the metaphysical proposition that we should refrain from blaming and punishing the non-responsible and more for the normative/ethical proposition that we should refrain from blaming and punishing those whom we cannot reasonably expect to have acted better. I will further argue that the latter proposition does not necessarily reduce to the former. -/- Fourth, once I have defended my account of the excuses, I will question in Parts V and VI the increasingly popular notion that we should add certain conditions or circumstances to the list of recognized excuses. I will focus on one in particular — the psychological theory of “situationism” — and will argue that, despite its initial plausibility, it should be kept off the list. While situationism arguably does negate moral responsibility, it does not negate criminal responsibility. -/- Of course, this is a controversial point. Criminal responsibility is almost universally thought to require moral responsibility. But in a previous article, "Dangerous Psychopaths: Criminally Responsible But Not Morally Responsible, Subject to Criminal Punishment And to Preventive Detention," 48 San Diego L. Rev. 1299, I used personality psychology to drive a wedge between the two. In this article, I will use the opposite end of the psychological spectrum — social psychology — to drive the same important wedge. (shrink)

We discuss the role of practical costs in the epistemic justification of a novice choosing expert advice, taking as a case study the choice of an expert statistician by a lay politician. First, we refine Goldman’s criteria for the assessment of this choice, showing how the costs of not being impartial impinge on the epistemic justification of the different actors involved in the choice. Then, drawing on two case studies, we discuss in which institutional setting the costs of (...) partiality can play an epistemic role. This way we intend to show how the sociological explanation of the choice of experts can incorporate its epistemic justification. (shrink)

In this chapter we use methods of corpus linguistics to investigate the ways in which mathematicians describe their work as explanatory in their research papers. We analyse use of the words explain/explanation (and various related words and expressions) in a large corpus of texts containing research papers in mathematics and in physical sciences, comparing this with their use in corpora of general, day-to-day English. We find that although mathematicians do use this family of words, such use is considerably less (...) prevalent in mathematics papers than in physics papers or in general English. Furthermore, we find that the proportion with which mathematicians use expressions related to ‘explaining why’ and ‘explaining how’ is significantly different to the equivalent proportion in physics and in general English. We discuss possible accounts for these differences. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Wittgenstein’s conception of reason and rationality through the lens of his conception of reasons. Central in this context, I argue, is the image of the chain, which informs not only his methodology in the form of the chain-method, but also his conception of reasons as linking up immediately, like the links of a chain. I first provide a general sketch of what reasons are on Wittgenstein’s view, arguing that giving reasons consists in making thought and (...) action intelligible by delineating reasoning routes; that something is a reason not in virtue of some intrinsic property, but in virtue of its role; and that citing something as a reason characterises it in terms of the rational relations it stands in according to context-dependent norms. I then argue that on Wittgenstein’s view, we misconceive chains of reasons if we think of them on the model of chains of causes. Chains of reasons are necessarily finite, because they are anchored in and held in place by our reason-giving practices, and it is in virtue of their finitude that chains of reasons can guide, justify and explain. I argue that this liberates us from the expectation that one should be able to give reasons for everything, but that it limits the reach of reasons by tying them to particular reasoning-practices that they cannot themselves justify. I end by comparing and reconciling Wittgenstein’s dichotomy between chains of reasons and chains of causes with seemingly competing construals of the dichotomy, and I clarify its relation to the dichotomy between explanation and justification. (shrink)

The early modern period was the natural historical habitat of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, i.e., the demand that everything must have a cause, or reason. It is in this period that the principle was explicitly articulated and named, and throughout the period we find numerous formulations and variants of the PSR and its closely related ‘ex nihilo nihil fit’ principle, which the early moderns inherited from medieval philosophy. Contemporary discussions of these principles were not restricted to philosophy. “Nothing will (...) come of nothing; speak again” old King Lear tells his daughter Cordelia at the beginning of Shakespeare’s celebrated tragedy, and in early modern science, conservation principles were the order of the day. Within philosophy, Malebranche stipulates that there cannot be an effect without a cause, and Berkeley motivates his idealism by an appeal to ‘ex nihilo nihil fit.’ Were we to try to provide an exhaustive survey the various formulations of the PSR in this period – including the weaker ones – we would be writing an encyclopedia. In fact, one wonders whether any early modern thinker was willing to accept a wholesale rejection of the PSR, i.e., a view which states that no fact requires an explanation. Moreover, the view that many – perhaps most – facts require an explanation seems to be tacitly assumed even by us today, in both our theoretical and colloquial discourse. For these reasons, this chapter will focus on two early modern philosophers who advocated very strong (i.e., virtually exceptionless) versions of the PSR: Benedict de Spinoza and G.W. Leibniz. Following a brief overview of Descartes’s restricted endorsement of the PSR, I will turn to discuss the central features of the PSR in the writings of Spinoza (§2) and those of Leibniz (§3). In the cases of each of these philosophers, we will examine carefully: (i) their main statements of the PSR, (ii) the scope they assign to the principle (i.e., what requires an explanation and what counts as an explanation), (iii) the modal strength they assign to the principle, (iv) the main implications they draw from the principle, (v) exceptions to the principle, and, finally, (vi) the justification of the principle. In §4, we will study a principle, complementing the PSR, namely, the assertion that everything and every fact must have an effect (or as Leibniz would put it: “nothing is sterile”). (shrink)

Knowledge is an achievement manifesting a type of competence, akin in important respects to a skill. Accordingly, epistemic judgment is an exercise of agency. Ernest Sosa’s work has elaborated these and related insights into a meticulous, persuasive version of a virtue epistemology. Given the framing assumptions of mid-twentieth century Anglo-American epistemology, developing a competence-centered explanation of judgment, knowledge, and justification required brilliant critical and creative thought. So it is intriguing and perhaps instructive to consider how some of Sosa’s (...) views relate to the outlook of early Chinese thinkers, for whom the idea of knowledge as a competent performance required no argument, being implicitly taken as an obvious, shared starting point. Here I will focus on Xúnzǐ 荀子, whose epistemological concerns in some respects dovetail with and in others complement Sosa’s. I will draw on concepts from Sosa’s framework to elucidate features of Xúnzǐ’s epistemology and in turn suggest how Xúnzǐ’s theoretical orientation might cast light on Sosa’s project. In particular, I will suggest that Sosa’s conception of full aptness helps to elucidate the significance of Xúnzǐ’s discussion of epistemic pitfalls, while Xúnzǐ’s treatment of the epistemic agent’s awareness of and commitment to norms of judgment helps to enrich Sosa’s view of epistemic agency. (shrink)

Although research on epistemic injustice has focused on the effects of prejudice in epistemic exchanges, the account of prejudice that emerges in Fricker’s (2007) view is not completely clear. In particular, I claim that the epistemic role of prejudice in the structure of testimonial justification is still in need of a satisfactory explanation. What special epistemic power does prejudice exercise that prevents the speaker’s words from constituting evidence for the hearer’s belief? By clarifying this point, it will be (...) possible to address two more general issues concerning the nature of prejudice: its resistance to counterevidence and the steps involved in overcoming prejudice. I propose a hinge account of prejudice, based on the recent perspective of hinge epistemology, to help clarify these aspects. According to the hinge account, prejudices share a fundamental feature with hinges: they work as norms of evidential significance, and as such, they determine what can and cannot count as evidence for belief. (shrink)

In the contemporary philosophy of set theory, discussion of new axioms that purport to resolve independence necessitates an explanation of how they come to be justified. Ordinarily, justification is divided into two broad kinds: intrinsic justification relates to how `intuitively plausible' an axiom is, whereas extrinsic justification supports an axiom by identifying certain `desirable' consequences. This paper puts pressure on how this distinction is formulated and construed. In particular, we argue that the distinction as often presented (...) is neither well-demarcated nor sufficiently precise. Instead, we suggest that the process of justification in set theory should not be thought of as neatly divisible in this way, but should rather be understood as a conceptually indivisible notion linked to the goal of explanation. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue for the thesis that phenomenal consciousness is the basis of epistemic justification. More precisely, I argue for the thesis of phenomenal mentalism, according to which epistemic facts about which doxastic attitudes one has justification to hold are determined by non-epistemic facts about one’s phenomenally individuated mental states. I begin by providing intuitive motivations for phenomenal mentalism and then proceed to sketch a more theoretical line of argument according to which phenomenal mentalism provides the (...) best explanation of the independently motivated thesis of access internalism. The result is a theory of epistemic justification that brings intuition and theory into reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

Several theorists have defended that unpleasantness can be explained by appealing to (intrinsic, simultaneous, de re) desires for certain experiences not to be occurring. In a nutshell, experiences are unpleasant because we do not want them, and not vice versa. A common criticism for this approach takes the form of a Euthyphro dilemma. Even if there is a solution for this criticism, I argue that this type of approach is limited in two important ways. It cannot provide an explanation (...) for: i) the motivation, from a psychological conscious point of view, nor ii) a non-instrumental justification, for having the relevant desires. The lack of these explanations is relevant since these are precisely the type clarifications that we would expect from a theory about unpleasantness. (shrink)

In recent years, the hope to confirm the existence of dark matter by experimentally detecting it has diminished significantly. After more than 30 years of experimental searches, many of the most promising candidates have since been ruled out, leaving the epistemic and scientific condition of dark matter in a state of suspension. In efforts to improve the epistemic justification for the dark-matter hypothesis, physicists have turned to philosophical arguments and historical narratives. In this paper, I explicate two such strategies (...) -- explanatory unification and historical continuity -- applied in the context of dark matter. I argue that greater care and attention should be invested in the explanatory arguments to increase their strength, and that a survey of primary historical sources in astronomy renders the historical evidence for the continuity of dark matter substantially weaker. The quality and rigor of the philosophical and historical arguments which physicists are constructing could be substantially improved by increasing interdisciplinary practices. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to refute the metaphysicians ‘methodological continuation’ argument supporting epistemic realism in metaphysics. This argument aims to show that scientific realists have to accept that metaphysics is as rationally justified as science given that they both employ inference to the best explanation, i.e. that metaphysics and science are methodologically continuous. I argue that the reasons given by scientific realists as to why inference to the best explanation is reliable in science do not (...) constitute a reason to believe that it is reliable in metaphysics. The justification of IBE in science and the justification of IBE in metaphysics are two distinct issues with only superficial similarities, and one cannot rely on one for the other. This becomes especially clear when one analyses the debate about the legitimacy of IBE that has taken place between realists and empiricists. The metaphysician seeking to piggyback on the realist defense of IBE in science by the methodological continuation argument presupposes that the defense is straightforwardly applicable to metaphysics. I will argue that it is, in fact, not. The favoured defenses of IBE in scientific realism make extensive use of empirical considerations, predictive power and inductive evidence, all of which are paradigmatically absent in the metaphysical context. Furthermore, I argue that the metaphysician, even if the realist would concede to the methodological continuation argument, fails to offer any agreed upon conclusions resulting from its application in metaphysics. As a result, the scientific realist is not committed to believing that there is metaphysical knowledge. (shrink)

The paper examines the justification of warfare. The main thesis is that war is very difficult to justify, and justification by invoking “justice” is not the way to succeed it. Justification and justness are very different venues: while the first attempts to explain the nature of war and offer possible schemes of resolution, the second aims to endorse a specific type of warfare as correct and hence allowed – which is the crucial part of “just war theory.” (...) However, “just war theory,” somewhat Manichean in its nature, has very deep flaws. Its final result is criminalization of war, which reduces warfare to police action, and finally implies a very strange proviso that one side has a right to win. All that endangers the distinction between ius ad bellum and ius in bello, and destroys the collective character of warfare. Justification of war is actually quite different – it starts from the definition of war as a kind of conflict which cannot be solved peacefully, but for which there is mutual understanding that it cannot remain unresolved. The aim of war is not justice, but peace, i.e. either a new articulation of peace, or a restoration of the status quo ante. Additionally, unlike police actions, the result of war cannot be known or assumed in advance, giving war its main feature: the lack of control over the future. Control over the future, predictability, is a feature of peace. This might imply that war is a consequence of failed peace, or inability to maintain peace. The explanation of this inability forms the justification of war. Justice is always an important part of it, but justification cannot be reduced to it. The logic contained here refers to ius ad bellum, while ius in bello is relative to various parameters of sensitivity prevalent in a particular time, with the purpose to make warfare more humane and less expensive. (shrink)

Design plays an integral role in the functions of modern society. Yet the abstract process by which designers carry out their work is not obvious. The study of design thinking has grown in recent years into a major area of academic research, yet it presently lacks a clear theoretical basis; and as a discipline, its methodologies are disparate. Here, we outline and clarify the framework of the scholarly study of design thinking, introducing the major ideas and concepts upon which the (...) field is based. We then discuss in detail the various methodological issues of the field, and argue that, in its current state, the field of design thinking cannot sustain itself as an independent area of academic research. We suggest that design thinking may best be studied from a sociological or science, technology, and society (STS) studies perspective. (shrink)

Ted Poston's book Reason and Explanation: A Defense of Explanatory Coherentism is a book worthy of careful study. Poston develops and defends an explanationist theory of (epistemic) justification on which justification is a matter of explanatory coherence which in turn is a matter of conservativeness, explanatory power, and simplicity. He argues that his theory is consistent with Bayesianism. He argues, moreover, that his theory is needed as a supplement to Bayesianism. There are seven chapters. I provide a (...) chapter-by-chapter summary along with some substantive concerns. (shrink)

The relationship between Peircean abduction and the modern notion of Inference to the Best Explanation is a matter of dispute. Some philosophers, such as Harman :88–95, 1965) and Lipton, claim that abduction and IBE are virtually the same. Others, however, hold that they are quite different :503, 1998; Minnameier in Erkenntnis 60:75–105, 2004) and there is no link between them :419–442, 2009). In this paper, I argue that neither of these views is correct. I show that abduction and IBE (...) have important similarities as well as differences. Moreover, by bringing a historical perspective to the study of the relationship between abduction and IBE—a perspective that is lacking in the literature—I show that their differences can be well understood in terms of two historic developments in the history of philosophy of science: first, Reichenbach’s distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification—and the consequent jettisoning of the context of discovery from philosophy of science—and second, underdetermination of theory by data. (shrink)

of “Reason and the structure of Davidson’s ‘Desire-Belief-Model’ ” by Henk bij de Weg In the present discussion in the analytic theory of action, broadly two models for the explanation or justification of actions can be distinguished: the internalist and the externalist model. Against this background, I discuss Davidson’s version of the internalist Desire-Belief Model . First, I show that what Davidson calls “pro attitude” has two distinct meanings. An implication of this is that Davidson’s DBM actually comprises (...) two different models: the “classical” DBM and a model that has an extra premise, the “nonclassical” model. However, from another point of view one can say that the classical DBM is the nonclassical model in which a premise is missing. In order to determine which viewpoint is correct, I introduce Schütz’s distinction between “because-motives” and “in-order-to-motives”. With the help of this distinction, I can show that the classical DBM is an incomplete version of the nonclassical model. Besides of the premise that refers to the agent’s pro attitude, we need this extra premise in order to refer to the occasion as experienced by the agent that makes him or her act. Only then can we fully explain or justify an action. (shrink)

Even if our justified beliefs are closed under known entailment, there may still be instances of transmission failure. Transmission failure occurs when P entails Q, but a subject cannot acquire a justified belief that Q by deducing it from P. Paradigm cases of transmission failure involve inferences from mundane beliefs (e.g., that the wall in front of you is red) to the denials of skeptical hypotheses relative to those beliefs (e.g., that the wall in front of you is not white (...) and lit by red lights). According to the Bayesian explanation, transmission failure occurs when (i) the subject’s belief that P is based on E, and (ii) P(Q|E) P(Q). No modifications of the Bayesian explanation are capable of accommodating such cases, so the explanation must be rejected as inadequate. Alternative explanations employing simple subjunctive conditionals are fully capable of capturing all of the paradigm cases, as well as those missed by the Bayesian explanation. (shrink)

Some contemporary discussion about the explanation of consciousness substantially recapitulates a decisive debate about reference, knowledge and justification from an earlier stage of the analytic tradition. In particular, I argue that proponents of a recently popular strategy for accounting for an explanatory gap between physical and phenomenal facts – the so-called “phenomenal concept strategy” – face a problem that was originally fiercely debated by Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath. The question that is common to both the older and the (...) contemporary discussion is that of how the presence or presentation of phenomenal experiences can play a role in justifying beliefs or judgments about them. This problem is, moreover, the same as what was classically discussed as the problem of acquaintance. Interestingly, both physicalist and non-physicalist proponents of the phenomenal concept strategy today face this problem. I consider briefly some recent attempts to solve it and conclude that, although it is prima facie very plausible that acquaintance exists, we have, as yet, no good account of it. (shrink)

This book explores a question central to philosophy--namely, what does it take for a belief to be justified or rational? According to a widespread view, whether one has justification for believing a proposition is determined by how probable that proposition is, given one's evidence. In this book this view is rejected and replaced with another: in order for one to have justification for believing a proposition, one's evidence must normically support it--roughly, one's evidence must make the falsity of (...) that proposition abnormal in the sense of calling for special, independent explanation. This conception of justification bears upon a range of topics in epistemology and beyond. Ultimately, this way of looking at justification guides us to a new, unfamiliar picture of how we should respond to our evidence and manage our own fallibility. This picture is developed here. (shrink)

This paper deals with the core version of the Trolley Problem. In one case many people favor an act which will bring about the death of one person but save five other persons. In another case most people would refuse to “sacrifice” one person in order to save five other lives. Since the two cases seem similar in all relevant respects, we have to explain and justify the diverging verdicts. Since I don’t find current proposals of a solution convincing, I (...) propose an alternative one according to which —but not —violates two forms of equality. I also test the underlying egalitarian principle against other cases. I argue that it offers a good explanation and also a normative justification of our intuitive verdicts about the cases. (shrink)

This chapter presents a typology of the different kinds of inductive inferences we can draw from our evidence, based on the explanatory relationship between evidence and conclusion. Drawing on the literature on graphical models of explanation, I divide inductive inferences into (a) downwards inferences, which proceed from cause to effect, (b) upwards inferences, which proceed from effect to cause, and (c) sideways inferences, which proceed first from effect to cause and then from that cause to an additional effect. I (...) further distinguish between direct and indirect forms of downwards and upwards inferences. I then show how we can subsume canonical forms of inductive inference mentioned in the literature, such as inference to the best explanation, enumerative induction, and analogical inference, under this typology. Along the way, I explore connections with probability and confirmation, epistemic defeat, the relation between abduction and enumerative induction, the compatibility of IBE and Bayesianism, and theories of epistemic justification. (shrink)