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  1. In Defense of Sensitivity.Tim Black & Peter Murphy - 2007 - Synthese 154 (1):53-71.
    The sensitivity condition on knowledge says that one knows that P only if one would not believe that P if P were false. Difficulties for this condition are now well documented. Keith DeRose has recently suggested a revised sensitivity condition that is designed to avoid some of these difficulties. We argue, however, that there are decisive objections to DeRose’s revised condition. Yet rather than simply abandoning his proposed condition, we uncover a rationale for its adoption, a rationale which suggests a (...)
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  2. Justified Belief from Unjustified Belief.Peter Murphy - 2017 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (4):602-617.
    Under what conditions is a belief inferentially justified? A partial answer is found in Justification from Justification : a belief is inferentially justified only if all of the beliefs from which it is essentially inferred are justified. After reviewing some important features of JFJ, I offer a counterexample to it. Then I outline a positive suggestion for how to think about inferentially justified beliefs while still retaining a basing condition. I end by concluding that epistemologists need a model of inferentially (...)
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  3. Closure failures for safety.Peter Murphy - 2005 - Philosophia 33 (1-4):331-334.
    Ernest Sosa and others have proposed a safety condition on knowledge: If S knows p, then in the nearest (non-actual) worlds in which S believes p, p is true.1 Colloquially, this is the idea that knowing requires not being easily mistaken. Here, I will argue that like another condition requiring a counterfactual relation between a subject’s belief and the world, viz. Robert Nozick’s sensitivity condition, safety leads, in certain cases, to the unacceptable result that knowledge is not closed under known (...)
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  4. The Defect in Effective Skeptical Scenarios.Peter Murphy - 2013 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 3 (4):271-281.
    What epistemic defect needs to show up in a skeptical scenario if it is to effectively target some belief? According to the false belief account, the targeted belief must be false in the skeptical scenario. According to the competing ignorance account, the targeted belief must fall short of being knowledge in the skeptical scenario. This paper argues for two claims. The first is that, contrary to what is often assumed, the ignorance account is superior to the false belief account. The (...)
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  5. A strategy for assessing closure.Peter Murphy - 2006 - Erkenntnis 65 (3):365 - 383.
    This paper looks at an argument strategy for assessing the epistemic closure principle. This is the principle that says knowledge is closed under known entailment; or (roughly) if S knows p and S knows that p entails q, then S knows that q. The strategy in question looks to the individual conditions on knowledge to see if they are closed. According to one conjecture, if all the individual conditions are closed, then so too is knowledge. I give a deductive argument (...)
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  6. Sensitivity Meets Explanation: An Improved Counterfactual Condition on Knowledge.Peter Murphy & Tim Black - 2012 - In Kelly Becker & Tim Black (eds.), The Sensitivity Principle in Epistemology. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 26-40.
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  7. Another Blow to Knowledge from Knowledge.Peter Murphy - 2013 - Logos and Episteme 4 (3): 311–317.
    A novel argument is offered against the following popular condition on inferential knowledge: a person inferentially knows a conclusion only if they know each of the claims from which they essentially inferred that conclusion. The epistemology of conditional proof reveals that we sometimes come to know conditionals by inferring them from assumptions rather than beliefs. Since knowledge requires belief, cases of knowing via conditional proof refute the popular knowledge from knowledge condition. It also suggests more radical cases against the condition (...)
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  8. Reliability connections between conceivability and inconceivability.Peter Murphy - 2006 - Dialectica 60 (2):195-205.
    Conceivability is an important source of our beliefs about what is possible; inconceivability is an important source of our beliefs about what is impossible. What are the connections between the reliability of these sources? If one is reliable, does it follow that the other is also reliable? The central contention of this paper is that suitably qualified the reliability of inconceivability implies the reliability of conceivability, but the reliability of conceivability fails to imply the reliability of inconceivability.
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  9. Using Gattaca to Teach Genetic Discrimination.Peter Murphy - 2009 - Film and Philosophy 1 (13):65-76.
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  10. So How Much Should I Give? Extending Class Coverage of SInger's Work on Poverty Ethics.Peter Murphy - 2015 - APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy 2 (14):7-14.
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  11. Suspension-to-suspension justification principles.Peter Murphy - 2020 - Belgrade Philosophical Annual 2020 (33):55-72.
    We will be in a better position to evaluate some important skeptical theses if we first investigate two questions about justified suspended judgment. One question is this: when, if ever, does one justified suspension confer justification on another suspension? and the other is this: what is the structure of justified suspension? the goal of this essay is to make headway at answering these questions. After surveying the four main views about the non-normative nature of suspended judgment and offering a taxonomy (...)
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  12. Skeptical Effectiveness: A Reply to Buford and Brueckner.Peter Murphy - 2016 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 6 (4):397-403.
    In an earlier paper, I presented a novel objection to closure-based skeptical arguments. There I argued that the best account of what makes skeptical scenarios effective cripples the closure-based skeptical arguments that use those scenarios. On behalf of the skeptic, Christopher Buford and Anthony Brueckner have replied to my objection. Here I review my original argument, criticize their replies, and highlight two important issues for further investigation.
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  13. Rewriting the A Priori/A Posteriori Distinction.Peter Murphy - 2008 - Journal of Philosophical Research 33:279-284.
    The traditional way of drawing the a priori/a posteriori distinction, bequeathed to us by Kant, leads to overestimating the role that experience plays in justifying ourbeliefs. There is an irony in this: though Kant was in the rationalist camp, his way of drawing the distinction gives an unfair advantage to radical empiricism. I offer an alternative way of drawing the distinction, one that does not bias the rationalist/empiricist debate.
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  14. A Sceptical Rejoinder to Sensitivity-Contextualism.Peter Murphy - 2005 - Dialogue 44 (4):693-706.
    ABSTRACTThis article offers a novel sceptical argument that the sensitivity-contextualist must say is sound; moreover, she must say that the conclusion of this argument is true at ordinary standards. The view under scrutiny has it that in different contexts knowledge-attributing sentences express different propositions, propositions which differ in the stretch of worlds across which the subject is required to track the truth. I identify the underlying reason for the sceptical result and argue that it makes sensitivity-contextualism irremediably flawed. Contextualists, I (...)
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  15. But Does It Hurt?Peter Murphy - 2017 - Essays in Philosophy 18 (1):131-145.
    As effective altruists often point out affluent people can do great good for others without having to make significant self-sacrifices. What is the correct moral assessment of patterns of giving that bring about great good and yet carry little in the way of self-sacrifice? Here I will clarify this question, state why it is important, and argue for an answer to it. After sketching the intuitive category of the morally best acts, I argue that self-sacrifice is not a condition that (...)
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  16. Are patients' decisions to refuse treatment binding on health care professionals?Peter Murphy - 2005 - Bioethics 19 (3):189–201.
    ABSTRACT When patients refuse to receive medical treatment, the consequences of honouring their decisions can be tragic. This is no less true of patients who autonomously decide to refuse treatment. I distinguish three possible implications of these autonomous decisions. According to the Permissibility Claim, such a decision implies that it is permissible for the patient who has made the autonomous decision to forego medical treatment. According to the Anti‐Paternalism Claim, it follows that health‐care professionals are not morally permitted to treat (...)
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  17. Avoiding the dogmatic commitments of contextualism.Tim Black & Peter Murphy - 2005 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 69 (1):165-182.
    Epistemological contextualists maintain that the truth-conditions of sentences of the form 'S knows that P' vary according to the context in which they're uttered, where this variation is due to the semantics of 'knows'. Among the linguistic data that have been offered in support of contextualism are several everyday cases. We argue that these cases fail to support contextualism and that they instead support epistemological invariantism—the thesis that the truth-conditions of 'S knows that P' do not vary according to the (...)
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  18. Review of Bryan Caplan, The Case Against Education. [REVIEW]Peter Murphy - 2019 - Metapsychology Online Reviews 23.
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  19. Review of Scott Soames, Philosophical Analysis in the 20th Century, Volumes 1 and 2. [REVIEW]Peter Murphy - 2008 - Essays in Philosophy 9 (1):189-191.
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  20. Review of Sarah Conly, One Child: Do We Have a Right to More? [REVIEW]Peter Murphy - 2016 - Metapsychology Online Reviews 1:NA.
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  21. Review of Richard Fumerton, Epistemology. [REVIEW]Peter Murphy - 2007 - Philosophy in Review 27:1.
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