Many philosophers have thought that aggregates of small, broadly dispersed evils don’t pose the same sort of challenge to theism that horrendous evils like the Nazi Holocaust do. But there are interesting arguments that purport to show that large enough aggregates of small evils are morally and axiologically equivalent to horrendous evils. Herein lies an intriguing and overlooked strategy for defending theism. In short: small evils, or aggregates of such evils, don’t provide decisive evidence against theism; there’s no relevant difference (...) between horrendous evils and aggregates of small evils; hence horrendous evils must not provide decisive evidence against theism, either. (shrink)

The word ‘extremist’ is often used pejoratively, but it’s not clear what, if anything, is wrong with extremism. My project is to give an account of moral extremism as a vice. It consists roughly in having moral convictions so intense that they cause a sort of moral tunnel vision, pushing salient competing considerations out of mind. We should be interested in moral extremism for several reasons: it’s consequential, it’s insidious – we don’t expect immorality to arise from excessive devotion to (...) morality – and it’s yet to attract much philosophical attention. I give several examples of moral extremism from history and explore their social-political implications. I also consider how we should evaluate people who miss the mark, being either too extreme in the service of a good cause or inconsistent with their righteous convictions. I compare John Brown and John Quincy Adams, who fell on either side of this spectrum, as examples. (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)

I will discuss a variety of cases such that the subject's believing truly is somewhat of an accident, but less so than in a Gettier case. In each case, this is because her reasons are not ultimately undefeated full stop, but they are ultimately undefeated with certain qualifications. For example, the subject's reasons might be ultimately defeated considered in themselves but ultimately undefeated considered as a proper part of an inference to the best explanation that is undefeated without (...) qualification. In each section of the paper, I consider different qualifications and show how in each case we get an epistemic standing I call “coach-class knowledge”. First-class knowledge requires justifying reasons that are undefeated without qualification. Coach-class knowledge only requires qualified lack of defeat. I will use this distinction to bring debates over knowledge from falsehood and fake barns to an ecumenical resolution. In both cases, the subject enjoys coach-class rather than first-class knowledge. I will also show that the defeasible reasoning tradition can better account for graded accidental truth than safety theories. (shrink)

In this paper, I will present a problem for reductive accounts of knowledge-undermining epistemic luck. By “reductive” I mean accounts that try to analyze epistemic luck in non-epistemic terms. I will begin by briefly considering Jennifer Lackey's (2006) criticism of Duncan Pritchard's (2005) safety-based account of epistemic luck. I will further develop her objection to Pritchard by drawing on the defeasible-reasoning tradition. I will then show that her objection to safety-based accounts is an instance of a more general problem with (...) reductive accounts of epistemic luck. In short, they face a dilemma: they can either fail to vindicate the intuitive verdicts about cases or they can illicitly appeal to the epistemic vocabulary they are trying to reduce. The upshot is that we can only understand epistemic luck in terms of the assessment of the subject's reasons and we can't give a reductive account of that. (shrink)

A material simple is a material object that has no proper parts. Some philosophers have argued for the possibility of extended simples. Some have even argued for the possibility of heterogeneous simples or simples that have intrinsic variations across their surfaces. There is a puzzle, though, that is meant to show that extended, heterogeneous simples are impossible. Although several plausible responses have been given to this puzzle, I wish to reopen the case against extended, heterogeneous simples. In this paper, (...) I briefly canvass responses to this puzzle which may be made in defense of extended, heterogeneous simples. I then present a new version of this puzzle which targets simples that occupy atomic yet extended regions of space. It seems that none of the traditional responses can be used to successfully save this particular kind of extended simple from the new puzzle. I also consider some non-traditional defenses of heterogeneous extended simples and argue that they too are unsuccessful. Finally, I will argue that a substantial case can be made against the possibility of extended heterogeneous simples of any kind. (shrink)

I will present a novel argument that there can be epistemically vicious knowledge. In the kind of case that interests me, the subject knows not despite but rather because of her vice. It is generally agreed that some kinds of epistemic luck doesn’t undermine knowledge. For instance, being lucky not to have misleading evidence doesn’t undermine knowledge. I will argue that this doesn’t change when the avoidance of misleading evidence depends on the subject’s vice. It does not prevent her (...) belief from being both safe and sensitive, nor does it have any bearing on whether her justifying reasons are ultimately defeated. To illustrate my point, I will draw a parallel with a certain way of thinking about resultant moral luck. I will then go on to consider the ramifications for virtue-theoretic analyses of knowledge and the doctrine of normative defeat. (shrink)

What makes a high-quality biomarker experiment? The success of personalized medicine hinges on the answer to this question. In this paper, I argue that judgment about the quality of biomarker experiments is mediated by the problem of theoretical underdetermination. That is, the network of biological and pathophysiological theories motivating a biomarker experiment is sufficiently complicated that it often frustrates valid interpretation of the experimental results. Drawing on a case-study in biomarker diagnostic development from neurooncology, I argue that this problem (...) of underdetermination can be overcome with greater coordination across the biomarker research trajectory. I then sketch an account for how coordination across a research trajectory can be evaluated. I ultimate conclude that what makes a high-quality biomarker experiment must be judged by the epistemic contribution it makes to this coordinated research effort. (shrink)

In the classic Miners case, an agent subjectively ought to do what they know is objectively wrong. This case shows that the subjective and objective ‘oughts’ are somewhat independent. But there remains a powerful intuition that the guidance of objective ‘oughts’ is more authoritative—so long as we know what they tell us. We argue that this intuition must be given up in light of a monotonicity principle, which undercuts the rationale for saying that objective ‘oughts’ are an authoritative (...) guide for agents and advisors. (shrink)

In this essay, I evaluate the extent to which some currents in classical Christian mysticism might count as properly ‘Christian’ against the rules of faith and theological methodology of thinkers like Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Justin Martyr. I begin by expounding this methodology as it relates to non-Christian philosophical traditions, and from there explore the rules these thinkers offer, suggesting that the beating heart of these rules is not a string of propositions to affirm so much as it is a commitment (...) to a certain rendition of biblical narrative grammar. After exploring this grammar, I turn to a brief discussion of the foundations of Christian mysticism and the thought of Evagrius Ponticus. The aim here is to illustrate the theoretical foundations of much Christian mysticism, as well as to provide a test case to evaluate how far some prominent elements of this discourse might, or might not, cohere with the biblical narrative grammar elucidated above. I argue that there is ample room to question the legitimacy of Evagrius’s claim to properly Christian theorizing, and suggest this has serious implications for future Christian work in the philosophy of mysticism. (shrink)

This paper offers an alternate explanation of cases from the doxastic wronging literature. These cases violate what I call the degree of inquiry right—a novel account of zetetic obligations to inquire when interests are at stake. The degree of inquiry right is a moral right against other epistemic agents to inquire to a certain threshold when a belief undermines one’s interests. Thus, the agents are sometimes obligated to leave inquiry open. I argue that we have relevant interests in reputation, relationships, (...) and the well-being of our social groups. These interests generate obligations against others to “do their homework” before closing inquiry. This alternate account makes better sense of puzzles that accounts of doxastic wronging fall prey to. (shrink)

This dissertation is about the relationship between Epistemology and other domains. In it I want to show that in an important sense, Epistemology is an autonomous domain. That is, epistemic vocabulary (e.g., “knowledge”, “justification”, “rationality”, “epistemic reason”, etc.) cannot be analyzed without remainder into non-epistemic vocabulary. Epistemic phenomena must be explained in terms of epistemic reasons and the form of assessment proprietary to them. Although epistemic vocabulary cannot be reduced to the vocabulary of other domains, Epistemology is nonetheless connected with (...) other domains in an important way. In this dissertation I focus on the connection between Epistemology and the Philosophy of Mind. I distinguish different forms cognitive self-monitoring can take and corresponding forms of cognitive autonomy. The kind of self-monitoring that receives the most attention involves simulating interpersonal argumentation. I argue that the capacity to self-monitor in this way grounds familiar epistemic standards (e.g., knowledge and justification) and explains how reasons get their grip on us. On the picture that emerges, Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind need to be done in tandem. Epistemology gives us the normative framework that is modeled by the self-monitoring system. The self-monitoring system, conversely, explains the kind of activity we engage in that makes that normative framework applicable to us. Epistemic reasons themselves are just episodes of this kind of activity. In Chapter 1 I argue that epistemic luck cannot be analyzed in non-epistemic terms. Here I generalize Jennifer Lackey’s criticism of Duncan Pritchard’s safety-based account of epistemic luck to all reductive theories. I argue that they will either be extensionally inadequate, or they will illicitly presuppose the vocabulary they are trying to reduce. The upshot is that epistemic luck can only be understood in terms of the epistemic assessment of reasons. By extension, we can’t give a reductive analysis of knowledge. This is not to say we cannot analyze knowledge, just that we can’t analyze away the epistemic vocabulary without remainder. In chapter 2 I explain the relation between epistemic luck, epistemic justification, and knowledge. I argue that previous work in the defeasible reasoning tradition, despite being on the right track, fell short of realizing its full potential. This is because the account of how these three things relate given by its proponents was insufficiently unified, which encouraged many epistemologists to abandon the defeasible reasoning tradition entirely. I argue that a unified and principled account of their relation is possible, and it allows for an elegant analysis of knowledge. In slogan form: good reasons are apparent to the knowing subject. In chapter 3 I extend the defeasible reasoning tradition to explain how knowledge is gradable. I show that this enables us to bring the debates about fake barns and knowledge from falsehoods to ecumenical resolutions, while also shedding light on a new kind of case. Furthermore, I explain how background assumptions are themselves defeasible and some of the epistemic significance of this fact. In chapter 4 I make the connection between Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind. I argue that the self-monitoring system of cognitively mature humans uses a model of the normative framework described in the previous chapters to regulate its own cognition. Here I build on that claim to develop an account of the role played by knowledge and justification in doxastic social coordination. I build on the claim that background assumptions are themselves defeasible to develop an account of the foundations of knowledge according to which they are social but not brutely sociological. In chapter 5 I discuss the relation between the epistemic states of cognitively mature humans, children, and non-human animals. I do this in a way meant to integrate an insight from virtue epistemology into the reasons-first picture developed here: positive epistemic standing is a state attributable to the subject. In chapter 6 I discuss the metaphysics of epistemic reasons. I claim that they are episodes of the activity of reasoning. In the preceding chapters, we get a sense of what that activity involves. Here I argue that the materials developed there put us in a position to understand what epistemic reasons are. This account incorporates the insights of rival positions while sidestepping familiar objections to them. The resulting picture is in line with the non-reductive approach to the epistemic developed so far. In fact, it goes further than other “reasons-first” approaches to Epistemology by claiming that reasons are not only basic within Epistemology, but they are also basic full-stop. One key consideration for my argument here is that reasons are, by their very nature, competitors. Although this point is generally acknowledged in the literature on reasons, its consequences for the metaphysics of reasons hasn’t been. Participants in the debate about the metaphysics of reasons typically try to identify reasons with something (e.g., facts or mental states) that are either not competitors, or only competitors insofar as they constitute, or bear on the epistemic assessment of, episodes of reasoning. (shrink)

Retributive theories of punishment argue that punishing a criminal for a crime she committed is sufficient reason for a justified and morally permissible punishment. But what about when the state gets lucky in its decision to punish? I argue that retributive theories of punishment are subject to “Gettier” style cases from epistemology. Such cases demonstrate that the state needs more than to just get lucky, and as these retributive theories of punishment stand, there is no anti-luck condition. I’ll argue that (...) Gettier-style cases demonstrate an impermissible instance of punishment, even though they meet the conditions of retributive theories of punishment. Retributive theories are, therefore, too weak. The safety condition from epistemology provides the anti-luck condition needed for permissible punishment. I argue that two forms of retributivism, rights-forfeiture and what I call standard retributivism, are both subject to Gettier-style cases. Unlike the literature on standards of proof, this paper argues that safety is a condition on punishment itself, i.e., in all nearby possible worlds, the accuser must correctly accuse the convicted for the crime they actually committed. (shrink)

There is a very plausible principle linking abilities and possibilities: If S is able to Φ, then it is metaphysically possible that S Φ’s. Jack Spencer recently proposed a class of counterexamples to this principle involving the ability to know certain propositions. I renew an argument against these counterexamples based on the unknowability of Fitch propositions. In doing so, I provide a new argument for the unknowability of Fitch propositions and show that Spencer’s counterexamples are in tension with (...) a principle weaker than the one linking abilities and possibilities. (shrink)

Jack Spencer has recently argued for the striking thesis that, possibly, an agent is able to do the impossible—that is, perform an action that is metaphysically impossible for that person to perform. Spencer bases his argument on (Simple G), a case in which it is impossible for an agent G to perform some action but, according to Spencer, G is still intuitively able to perform that action. I reply that we would have to give up at (...) least four action-theoretical principles if we accept that G is able to do the impossible. We may be best off retaining the principles and thus rejecting Spencer's intuition that G is able to do the impossible. I then consider an argument for the claim that G is able to do the impossible that goes through the Snapshot Principle. I, however, deny that any true variant of the Snapshot Principle shows that G is able to do the impossible. Moreover, the counterexample to the Snapshot Principle that I develop also suggests that G is unable to do the impossible in (Simple G). The most natural explanation for why an agent is unable to perform some action in this counterexample extends to (Simple G). Next, I develop three error theories for why we might initially share Spencer's intuition that G is able to do the impossible in (Simple G). Finally, I consider a couple other "G-cases" of Spencer's and find them all wanting. Perhaps we are unable to do the impossible. (shrink)

As much contemporary work in biology and philosophy has shown, disagreements between biological race realists and biological race anti-realists are primarily normative. Yet despite the well-recognized normative nature of the debate, contemporary versions of biological race realism continue to be built on empirically questionable background assumptions that are centrally motivated by historical ideologies of racial pseudoscience rather than by pragmatic or normative considerations. I consider the case studies of Andreasen’s (2000, 2004) and Spencer’s (2018) arguments, showing how some (...) of their background assumptions stem from pseudoscientific racial ideologies. Even when philosophers and biologists purport to accept the normative nature of the question of race as a genetic population-level category, their views remain susceptible to the influence of said ideologies in ways that may continue to uphold their harmful legacies. The stakes of these positions are significant, as they connect to contemporary issues of racial equity in science and medicine. (shrink)

Although the economic thought of Marshall and Pigou was united by ethical positions broadly considered utilitarian, differences in their intellectual milieu led to degrees of difference between their respective philosophical visions. This change in milieu includes the influence of the little understood period of transition from the early idealist period in Great Britain, which provided the context to Marshall’s intellectual formation, and the late British Idealist period, which provided the context to Pigou’s intellectual formation. During this latter period, the pervading (...) Hegelianism and influences of naturalism arising from the ideas of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer were challenged by Hermann Lotze, a key transitional thinker influencing the Neo-Kantian movement, who recognised significant limits of naturalism, on the one hand, and the metaphysical tenor of absolute idealism, on the other, and attempted to provide a balance between the two. The goal of this paper is to make the provisional case for the argument that Pigou’s views on ethics were not only directly influenced by utilitarian thinkers like Mill and Sidgwick, but they were also indirectly influenced by Hermann Lotze, via the influence of the Neo- Kantian movement on late British idealism. To that end, Pigou’s essays in The Trouble with Theism (1908), including his sympathetic consideration of the ethics of Friedrich Nietzsche, reflect the influence of Lotze indirectly through the impact at Cambridge of: James Ward’s critique of associationist psychology, and consideration of the limits of naturalism including the critique of evolutionary ethics; Bertrand Russell’s rejection of neo-Hegelianism and, together with Alfred North Whitehead, the development of Logicism; and G.E. Moore’s critique of utilitarian ethics on the basis of the naturalistic fallacy and the development of his own intuitionist system of ethics. (shrink)

In the history of philosophy, the distinction between positive and negative predication has been collapsed. The collapse has caused us to search for a way through Parmenides’ gate: we have constructed scaffolding to see over its boundaries. Kant gave us the distinction between conceptual and non-conceptual knowledge; Hegel gave us determinate negation; Frege gave us the negation stroke; Husserl gave us bracketing and disappointment; G. Spencer-Brown gave us a calculus of distinction. Despite this, we find ourselves—alongside Wittgenstein— wondering how (...) it can be the case that we are able to think what is not the case. We are puzzled by the fact that we can think nothing without the thought lacking content. I suggest that this confusion is unnecessary. Throughout this work, I exercise the thought that the distinction between positive and negative predication is mistaken. I rather suggest that to think what is or is not the case necessarily depends upon an exemplar distinction that is experientially recognized and learned in the world. All the same, our capacity to understand natural distinction likewise depends upon our practical and pervasively conceptual capacities to express it in language. I conclude by suggesting that what makes positive and negative predication distinct is a fundamental unity in conceptual form through its capacity to play distinct functional roles in linguistic practice. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze the disruptive impact of Darwinian selectionism for the century-long tradition in which the environment had a direct causative role in shaping an organism’s traits. In the case of humans, the surrounding environment often determined not only the physical, but also the mental and moral features of individuals and whole populations. With its apparatus of indirect effects, random variations, and a much less harmonious view of nature and adaptation, Darwinian selectionism severed the deep imbrication of (...) organism and milieu posited by these traditional environmentalist models. This move had radical implications well beyond strictly biological debates. In my essay, I discuss the problematization of the moral idiom of environmentalism by William James and August Weismann who adopted a selectionist view of the development of mental faculties. These debates show the complex moral discourse associated with the environmentalist-selectionist dilemma. They also well illustrate how the moral reverberations of selectionism went well beyond the stereotyped associations with biological fatalism or passivity of the organism. Rereading them today may be helpful as a genealogical guide to the complex ethical quandaries unfolding in the current postgenomic scenario in which a revival of new environmentalist themes is taking place. (shrink)

There is a long tradition of employing a phenomenological approach to gain greater insight into the unique experience of psychiatric illness. Researchers in this field have shed light upon a distur...

This paper develops a form of moral actualism that can explain the procreative asymmetry. Along the way, it defends and explains the attractive asymmetry: the claim that although an impermissible option can be self-conditionally permissible, a permissible option cannot be self-conditionally impermissible.

What occurs in the mind of an expert who is performing at their very best? In this paper, I survey the history of debate concerning this question. I suggest that expertise is neither solely a mastery of the automatic nor solely a mastery of intelligence in skilled action control. Experts are also capable of performing automatic actions intelligently. Following this, I argue that unconscious-thought theory (UTT) is a powerful tool in coming to understand the role of executive, intelligent action control (...) in the fluidly automatic performance of expertise. Relying on a body of empirical evidence concerning the cognitive structures and perceptual strategies employed by experts, I show that the realm of skilled action is an ideal environment within which the powers of unconscious cognitive processing can have positive effects on action. I conclude that experts rely upon unconscious thinking in the production of intelligently automatic skilled actions. (shrink)

This paper develops an argument against causal decision theory. I formulate a principle of preference, which I call the Guaranteed Principle. I argue that the preferences of rational agents satisfy the Guaranteed Principle, that the preferences of agents who embody causal decision theory do not, and hence that causal decision theory is false.

The aim of this paper is to give an account of what it is to internalize a rule. I claim that internalization is the process of redistributing the burden of instruction from the teacher to the student. The process is complete when instruction is no longer needed, and the rule has reshaped perceptual classification of the circumstances in which it applies. Teaching a rule is the initiation of this process. We internalize rules by simulating instruction coming from someone else. Running (...) these simulations enables us to toggle between the perspective of the instructor and our own perspective. By doing this we coordinate our perspectives with that of the teacher. The account given here provides a deeper explanation of why internalizing a rule involves the dispositions and reactive attitudes proponents of Rule Consequentialism often say it does, why moral reflection is variably demanding, how intergenerational moral progress is made possible by our cognitive architectures, and why the adoption of a rule should be understood in terms of teaching that rule. (shrink)

Seeking a decision theory that can handle both the Newcomb problems that challenge evidential decision theory and the unstable problems that challenge causal decision theory, some philosophers recently have turned to ‘graded ratifiability’. However, the graded ratifiability approach to decision theory is, despite its virtues, unsatisfactory; for it conflicts with the platitude that it is always rationally permissible for an agent to knowingly choose their best option.

This paper develops a view on which: (a) all fundamental facts are absolute, (b) some facts do not supervene on the fundamental facts, and (c) only relative facts fail to supervene on the fundamental facts.

Consequentialists often assume rational monism: the thesis that options are always made rationally permissible by the maximization of the selfsame quantity. This essay argues that consequentialists should reject rational monism and instead accept rational pluralism: the thesis that, on different occasions, options are made rationally permissible by the maximization of different quantities. The essay then develops a systematic form of rational pluralism which, unlike its rivals, is capable of handling both the Newcomb problems that challenge evidential decision theory and the (...) unstable problems that challenge causal decision theory. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that object perception may be affected by what we call “perceptual frames.” Perceptual frames are adaptations of the perceptual system that guide how perceptual objects are singled out from a sensory environment. These adaptations are caused by perceptual learning and realized through bottom-up functional processes such that sensory information is organized in a subject-dependent way leading to idiosyncratic perceptual object representations. Through domain-specific training, perceptual learning, and the acquisition of object-knowledge, it is possible to modulate (...) the adaptive perceptual system such that its ability to represent becomes bespoke. Different perceivers with different perceptual frames may, therefore, receive the same sensory information and perceive different perceptual objects due to the effects of framing. Consequently, we demonstrate the plausibility of this account by surveying empirical data concerning the functions of (1) multisensory integration, (2) amodal completion, and (3) predictive anticipation. Regarding (1), we argue that the perceptual system’s optimization processes employ perceptual frames to facilitate multisensory feature binding. Regarding (2), we argue that amodal completion can occur with or without the help of mental imagery, yet either instance of amodal completion requires perceptual frames. Regarding (3), we demonstrate that perceptually anticipating an object’s motion involves the implementation of perceptual frames. We conclude that framing effects are a matter of perceptual diversity and highlight the need to accommodate unique perspectives in the philosophy and science of perception. (shrink)

Sanford Goldberg has recently proposed a solution to the swamping problem for process reliabilist truth-monism (PRTM). In short, he argues that reliably formed true beliefs have a property he calls the ‘modal reliability property’, the epistemic value of which is explained in terms of the value of true belief but is not swamped by it. He offers two arguments to this effect. I claim that both of his arguments are valid, but they employ premisses the truth of which needs to (...) be explained. However, it is not obvious how a proponent of PRTM could explain them without abandoning her preferred order of explanation. I do not argue that it is impossible in principle to discharge this burden. However, I do claim that Goldberg has yet to show us that it is possible. The result is that the swamping problem is no less problematic for PRTM than it was previously. (shrink)

Perhaps a part of what makes expertise so inspiring to the curious researcher is the possibility of appropriating the structural components of skilled action to draw a roadmap towards their achievement that anyone might be able to follow. Accordingly, the purpose of this essay is to shed light upon the role that creativity plays in the production and environment of skilled action to that foregoing end. In doing so, I suggest that the lessons to be learned from recent empirical research (...) on creativity has much to offer to the cognitive science of skill and expertise. Experts are able to bring their intelligence to bear in controlling fast and seemingly automatic actions by utilizing a form of control often called ‘intelligent automaticity.’ In this spirit, I argue that the environment of intelligently automatic action control curates a similarly ideal environment for the processes of creativity. Moreover, insofar as creativity is ideally operative within the environment of expert action control, I argue further that creativity functions as one representative form of ‘intelligence’ embedded within otherwise fluid, and automatic expert actions. Creativity is able to do so even without conscious representation through the powers of incubated cognition. (shrink)

Reasons rationalize beliefs. Reasons, when all goes well, turn true beliefs into knowledge. I am interested in the relationship between these aspects of reasons. Without a proper understanding of their relationship, the theory of knowledge will be less illuminating than it ought to be. I hope to show that previous accounts have failed to account for this relationship. This has resulted in a tendency to focus on justification rather than knowledge. It has also resulted in many becoming skeptical about the (...) prospects for an analysis of knowledge. The skepticism is misplaced and the tendency can be fixed without sacrificing any insights. The solution is to see how good reasons (in a sense to be articulated) are apparent (in a sense to be articulated) to the knowing subject. Once this claim is unpacked, we see that it is an illuminating analysis of knowledge in terms of distinct but intimately related aspects of epistemic assessment. It helps us see the value of knowledge (over and above true belief) and it affords us a unified, “reasons-first” metaepistemology. The resulting picture is neither a familiar kind of internalism or externalism. (shrink)

Reports of the intent to kill oneself are not always met with the credibility they deserve, with potentially fatal results. We recognise this as testimonial injustice, whereby a person’s testimony is not taken seriously due to a pervasive identity prejudice attached to the speaker (Fricker 2007). To meet the government’s ‘zero suicide ambition’ for mental health patients, we need to adopt epistemically just methods of evaluating suicide claims.

Those who turn to phenomenological psychopathology as an answer to problems in psychiatric healthcare may find a philosophical tradition rooted in the early-mid 20th century that has done little to adapt to modern ideas in psychiatric healthcare and psychiatric research. The Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology project, funded by the Wellcome Trust and led by Professor Matthew Broome and Professor Giovanni Stanghellini, calls for reflection, revitalization and reconstruction of this discipline, diversifying global scholarship and working with lived experience scholars, so that it (...) can pave new paths in psychiatric understanding. The contributions of the current special issue aim to breathe new life into a vital method in psychopathology and to chart its future trajectory. (shrink)

Society, based on contract and voluntary exchange, is evolving, but remains only partly developed. Goods and services that meet the needs of individuals, such as food, clothing, and shelter, are amply produced and distributed through the market process. However, those that meet common or community needs, while distributed through the market, are produced politically through taxation and violence. These goods attach not to individuals but to a place; to enjoy them, individuals must go to the place where they are. Land (...) owners, all unknowingly, distribute such services contractually as they rent or sell sites. Rent or price is the market value of such services, net after disservices, as they affect each site. By distributing occupancies to those who can pay the highest price, land owners’ interests align with those of society. Without this, tenure would be precarious—by force or favor of politicians. The 18th-century separation of land from state, so little studied by historians, permitted the development of modern property in land. This change is perhaps “the greatest single step in the evolution of Society the world has ever seen.” When land owners realize that they market community services, they will organize to produce and administer them as well, and society will be made whole. (shrink)

Studies in the psychology of visual expertise have tended to focus on a limited set of expert domains, such as radiology and athletics. Conclusions drawn from these data indicate that experts use parafoveal vision to process images holistically. In this study, we examined a novel, as-of-yet-unstudied class of visual experts—architects—expecting similar results. However, the results indicate that architects, though visual experts, may not employ the holistic processing strategy observed in their previously studied counterparts. Participants (n = 48, 24 architects, 24 (...) naïve) were asked to find targets in chest radiographs and perspective images. All images were presented in both gaze-contingent and normal viewing conditions. Consistent with a holistic processing model, we expected two results: (1) architects would display a greater difference in saccadic amplitude between the gaze- contingent and normal conditions, and (2) architects would spend less time per search than an undergraduate control group. We found that the architects were more accurate in the perspectival task, but they took more time and displayed a lower difference in saccadic amplitude than the controls. Our research indicates a disjunctive conclusion. Either architects are simply different kinds of visual experts than those previously studied, or we have generated a task that employs visual expertise without holistic processing. Our data suggest a healthy skepticism for across-the-board inferences collected from a single domain of expertise to the nature of visual expertise generally. More work is needed to determine whether holism is a feature of all visual expertise. (shrink)

Here I will re-purpose Nozick’s (1974) “Experience Machine” thought experiment against hedonism into an argument against Veritic Epistemic Consequentialism. According to VEC, the right action, epistemically speaking, is the one that results in at least as favorable a ratio of true to false belief as any other action available. A consequence of VEC is that it would be epistemically right to outsource all your cognitive endeavors to a matrix-like “True Belief Machine” that uploads true beliefs through artificial stimulation. Rather than (...) reflecting, inferring or inquiring, all of your beliefs would be the product of updates coming from the machine. This implication of VEC is counter intuitive. I will spend much of the paper considering defensive maneuvers and showing them to be lacking. The problem with going in for the True Belief Machine seems to be that the subject forfeits her autonomy. There has been much work lately on the virtue of intellectual autonomy and some of it has the potential to explain what is epistemically amiss about plugging into the machine. However, I will argue that the proponent of VEC cannot appeal to it without abandoning her preferred order of explanation. (shrink)

Is language designed for communicative and functional efficiency? G. K. Zipf famously argued that shorter words are more frequent because they are easier to use, thereby resulting in the statistical law that bears his name. Yet, G. A. Miller showed that even a monkey randomly typing at a keyboard, and intermittently striking the space bar, would generate “words” with similar statistical properties. Recent quantitative analyses of human language lexicons (Piantadosi et al., 2012) have revived Zipf's functionalist hypothesis. Ambiguous words tend (...) to be short, frequent, and easy to articulate in language production. Such statistical findings are commonly interpreted as evidence for pressure for efficiency, as the context of language use often provides cues to overcome lexical ambiguity. In this study, we update Miller's monkey thought experiment to incorporate empirically motivated phonological and semantic constraints on the creation of words. We claim that the appearance of communicative efficiency is a spandrel (Gould & Lewontin, 1979), as lexicons formed without the context of language use or reference to communication or efficiency exhibit comparable statistical properties. Furthermore, the updated monkey model provides a good fit for the growth trajectory of English as recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary. Focusing on the history of English words since 1900, we show that lexicons resulting from the monkey model provide a better embodiment of communicative efficiency than the actual lexicon of English. We conclude by arguing for the need to go beyond correlational statistics and to seek direct evidence for the mechanisms that underlie principles of language design. (shrink)

I am interested in the “rational irrationality hypothesis” about voter behavior. According to this hypothesis, voters regularly vote for policies that are contrary to their interests because the act of voting for them isn’t. Gathering political information is time-consuming and inconvenient. Doing so is unlikely to lead to positive results since one's vote is unlikely to be decisive. However, we have preferences over our political beliefs. We like to see ourselves as members of certain groups (e.g. “rugged individualists”) and being (...) part of those groups depends on having certain beliefs (e.g. about welfare spending). Even if a decrease in welfare spending would be bad for me, I might still benefit by believing in and, consequently, voting for a decrease since my vote is unlikely to make a difference but getting to see myself as a rugged individualist will make a noticeable difference to my wellbeing. It is sometimes argued that this hypothesis fails for empirical reasons. I will argue that things are worse: it is conceptually incoherent. I will do so by first showing that it is a rationalizing explanation and then argue that rationalizing explanations must be reflectively stable from the agent's perspective. The rational irrationality hypothesis is not. (shrink)

If there are vague propositions, then the question arises whether it is rational to care intrinsically about the vague. This paper argues—contra Bacon (2018), the most comprehensive defence of vague proposition to date—that it is. Some things, such as pain, may be rational to care intrinsically about only if precise, but some things, such as truth, are rational to care intrinsically about even if vague.

Within the last decade, epistemic injustice has been a valuable framework for those working on exposing oppressive practices within the healthcare system. As this work has evolved, new terminology has been added to the epistemic injustice literature to bring to light previously obscured epistemic harms in healthcare practices. This paper aims to explore an important concept that has not received the attention it deserves: epistemic isolation. By developing Ian Kidd and Havi Carel’s concept of epistemic isolation, a new range of (...) epistemic harms are brought to the fore, as some of the most marginalised in our society are forced to operate from positions of ignorance. In the words of Kidd and Carel, epistemic isolation occurs in ‘situations where a person or group lacks the knowledge of, or means of access to, particular information; for instance, if they live within a politically repressive society which forbids access to the necessary sources of information in order to protect the government’s hegemony’ (183–184). This paper will demonstrate that such epistemic isolation is uniquely devastating for those with psychiatric illness, exacerbating their already challenging circumstances. (shrink)

Most mental health research largely ignores or minimises gender and age differences in depression. In ‘Don't mind the gap: Why do we not care about the gender gap in mental health?’, Patalay and Demkowicz identify a dearth of research on the causal factors of depression in young women. They attribute this to an over-reliance on biological accounts of gender differences in depression. Patalay and Demkowicz conclude that a person-centred approach that meaningfully engages with the reports of young women with depression (...) is more likely to expose the social drivers of depression that impact this group. This commentary focuses on Patalay and Demkowicz's call to examine the patient's lived experience. We argue that there is an urgent need to reflect upon the methodologies involved in examining lived experience and how they can be best utilised. Ultimately, we advocate for an approach known as ‘phenomenological psychopathology’, through a phenomenological investigation of depression in young women, we can go some way towards closing the gender gap. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss the relevance of the study of mysticism for Christian analytic theologians and philosophers of religion. I begin with a brief consideration of some reasons Christian academics might be reluctant to enter this field, and indicate that, somewhat surprisingly, the study of mysticism is something but seldom addressed in Christian analytic circles. With this background in place, I proceed to the primary two sections of the article. Section I deals with demarcating mysticism: for the purposes of (...) this article alone, an experience will count as mystical if and only if it is strongly unitive, transcends everyday consciousness, and conveys epistemic certainty as to the veracity of the insights acquired. These three criteria are discussed in some depth. Section II turns to the challenge mysticism in this sense might present to the Christian philosopher or theologian. I argue that the phenomenon of mysticism might be seen plausibly to imply one of two conclusions, both of which appear to be unpalatable for the Christian. First, it might suggest certain metaphysical views which prima facie call key tenets of orthodox Christianity into question. Secondly, mystical experience might be understood as the ‘inner meaning’ of Christianity which renders the better part of orthodox Christian belief equally problematic. I then conclude with a reflection on how the discussion might proceed, suggesting once more that Christian analytic theologians and philosophers of religion have scarcely begun to ask the relevant questions, let alone answer them in any persuasive manner. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of the philosophical work on epistemic injustices as it relates to psychiatry. After describing the development of epistemic injustice studies, we survey the existing literature on its application to psychiatry. We describe how the concept of epistemic injustice has been taken up into a range of debates in philosophy of psychiatry, including the nature of psychiatric conditions, psychiatric practices and research, and ameliorative projects. The final section of the paper indicates future directions for philosophical research (...) of epistemic injustices and psychiatry, concerning neurocognitive disorders, identity prejudices in psychiatric illness, concepts of epistemic privilege in psychiatry, and the prospects for combining phenomenological psychopathology and epistemic justice. We argue that much remains to be done in the conceptualization of these epistemic injustices and suggest that this future work should be multidisciplinary in character and sensitive to the phenomenology of psychiatric conditions. (shrink)

This paper develops a hybridization of Newcomb’s Problem and the Frustrater (Spencer and Wells’s 2019 paper ‘Why take both boxes?’), underscoring how difficult it is to reconcile the rationality of taking both boxes in Newcomb’s Problem and the rationality of taking the envelope in the Frustrater.

In this article, I discuss the extent to which St. Paul’s view of the doctrine of Original Sin ought to be taken as authoritative for confessing Christians today. I begin with the observation that there are, in the main, two camps represented in the contemporary literature. On the one hand, there are those who affirm the presence of Original Sin in Rom. 5, and consequently embrace the doctrine; on the other hand, there are those who deny Original Sin any substantive (...) anchor in the text, and as a result conclude it is not necessary to believe today. I argue that things are not so straightforward, and present what I take to be a legitimate via media between these two positions. In the first main section of the article, I argue on exegetical grounds that Rom. 5:12–21 can be rendered adequately intelligible only when we admit that something like the Augustinian view of Original Sin is present at least in nuce. This I attempt to demonstrate in conversation with Douglas Moo and C. E. B. Cranfield. While not, of course, the full-blown Augustinian doctrine, St. Paul's mind is, I contend, much nearer to the former’s view of Original Sin than is commonly supposed. However, in the second main section I turn my attention to the question, So what? I discuss a number of theological and exegetical considerations which make it clear, I think, that St. Paul is not urging belief in Original Sin so much as he is utilizing an “intertestamental expansion” of an OT text to paint a picture about Christ and what we ought to believe about him. As such, I encourage and defend the application of a relatively mild hermeneutical principle which will allow the theologian a clear and biblically faithful way around the doctrine of Original Sin, if this is what is desired. (shrink)

Here I will develop a naturalistic account of epistemic reflection and its significance for epistemology. I will first argue that thought, as opposed to mere information processing, requires a capacity for cognitive self-regulation. After discussing the basic capacities necessary for cognitive self-regulation of any kind, I will consider qualitatively different kinds of thought that can emerge when the basic capacities enable the creature to interiorize a form of social cooperation. First, I will discuss second-personal cooperation and the kind of thought (...) that emerges from its interiorization. Then, I will discuss third-personal cooperation and the kind of thought that emerges from its interiorization. We will see that epistemic reflection is the interiorized version of interpersonal argumentation, which is the epistemic component of third-personal cooperation. In developing this account, I will draw heavily on the work of Michael Tomasello and other cognitive scientists advocating the “social intentionality hypothesis”. However, I will show how work done in the defeasible reasoning tradition can provide us with a deeper explanation of some claims made by advocates of the social intentionality hypothesis. Additionally, we will see that work done on social intentionality can help us better understand the significance of knowledge and justification as understood by the defeasible reasoning tradition. We will see that the social intentionality hypothesis and the defeasible reasoning tradition are mutually illuminating. By drawing equally on both, I will provide a novel account of the foundations of knowledge. (shrink)

The long history of research and debate surrounding expertise has emphasized the importance of both automaticity and intelligent deliberation in the control of skilled, expert action – and often, their mutual exclusion of one another. To the contrary, recent developments in the cognitive science of skill implicate the likelihood of a third, hybrid line of interpretation and a new path forward. This paper surveys these recent developments, arguing that hybrid models of expertise and skill are the most fruitful way forward (...) in interpreting and conducting research on experts. I categorize a new set of interpretations of skill as ‘sophisticated hybrid models’ owing to the fact that they deny the mutual exclusion of automaticity from intelligent action control. I then argue that this interpretive strategy is the most fruitful way forward to making clear much of the complexity of skilled action and expertise. (shrink)

This article aims to challenge the common view that virtually all early eastern thought on the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin favours what has come to be called Ancestral Sin, or the ‘eastern view’. To begin, Ancestral Sin is broadly outlined in conversation with several recent writers; it is noted in particular the ways in which this tradition has often been defined in opposition to quintessentially ‘western’ emphases vis-à-vis the origin of sin. This serves as a foundation for (...) the remainder of the article, where the hamartiological thought of Tatian, Melito, Theophilus, and Irenaeus is considered against the backdrop of Ancestral Sin as previously demarcated. It is concluded that though each thinker no doubt shares important affinities with Ancestral Sin, the discordances evidenced are both too plentiful and too substantial to overlook, so much so as to cause appreciable hesitancy about a straightforward ‘eastern’ ascription. A fundamental east/west divide on original sin is, in the earliest years at least, not so certain as is sometimes assumed. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the relationship between a nonlapsarian, evolutionary account of the origin of sin and the potential ramifications this might have for theodicy. I begin by reviving an early twentieth century evolutionary model of the origin of sin before discussing the most prominent objection which it elicits, namely, that if sin is merely the misuse of natural animal passions and habits, then God is ultimately answerable for the existence of sin in the human sphere. Though I suggest (...) that this argument likely misfires, my main concern lies elsewhere. For the proponent of the Responsibi- lity Argument will customarily reject an evolutionary account of sin’s origin and instead endorse something like the traditional Fall account—the doctrine of Origi- nal Sin. I argue, however, that the Fall theory is also clearly subject to a parallel Responsibility Argument, so long as we take God to possess Molina’s scientia media. While I will not pretend to have solved every issue in my discus- sion of Molinism, still the desired conclusion should emerge unscathed: if the Responsibility Argument is a problem for an evolutionary account of the origin of sin, then it is a problem for the Fall doctrine, too. (shrink)