We admire Heyes's attempt to develop a mechanistic account of norm cognition. Nonetheless, her account leaves us unsure of whom Heyes counts as normative agents, and on what grounds. Therefore we ask a series of questions designed to clarify which features of Heyes's account she thinks are necessary and sufficient for norm cognition.

In this article we explore an argumentative pattern that provides a normative justification for expected utility functions grounded on empirical evidence, showing how it worked in three different episodes of their development. The argument claims that we should prudentially maximize our expected utility since this is the criterion effectively applied by those who are considered wisest in making risky choices (be it gamblers or businessmen). Yet, to justify the adoption of this rule, it should be proven that this is (...) empirically true: i.e. that a given function allows us to predict the choices of that particular class of agents. We show how expected utility functions were introduced and contested in accordance with this pattern in the 18th century and how it recurred in the 1950s when Allais made his case against the neo-Bernoullians. (shrink)

This chapter distinguishes between several senses of “normativity”. For example, that we ought to abstain from causing unnecessary suffering is a normative, not descriptive, claim. And so is the claim that we have good reason, and ought to drive on the right, or left, side of the road because the law requires us to do that. Reasons and oughts are normative, by definition. Indeed, it may be that “[t]he normativity of all that is normative consists in the (...) way it is, or provides, or is otherwise related to reasons” (Raz 1999, 67) . That is what the “reasons-first” view holds, but there are also other views, and what is by definition a normative statement, or a normative fact if you like, depends on how we define normativity. -/- It may seem that requirements are also by definition normative. But it seems that there can also be requirements that one has no reason to meet: it is less clear whether such requirements are normative in the same sense that reasons and oughts are normative. This paper will go through various further phenomena, which are candidates for being normative in some other sense than normative reasons and oughts, defending however the view that not all of them are. But arguably four or so different senses of normativity can be distinguished. -/- The paper will accept the view that the normativity of reasons and oughts, which is here called normativity1, is central. It is an open question whether all requirements or expectations or socially constructed norms are normative in that sense. Arguably it depends on the contents and content-independent authority of the legislators, whether we have good reasons, or ought, to meet the requirements, obey the law, or to follow the etiquette, or to conform to others’ interpersonal expectations, requests, demands or prescriptions. Whether and when we do have such reasons is a difficult and important substantive question, which concerns the normativity1 of requirements of law. -/- In another sense, norms (intended to guide behavior) are trivially or by definition normative, and constitute normativity: some forms of behavior are ruled as acceptable (e.g. driving on the right) and others as unacceptable (e.g. driving on the left) in light of the norm. Even in the case of a bad norm (that we have no reason to follow, and which ought to be changed, and ought not prevail) classifies behaviours as acceptable or unacceptable in light of the norm. Surely norms are by definition normative? Call this conformity to social norms and actual expectations normativity2. It is not an open question whether social norms are normative in that sense – they are by definition normative2. But importantly, it is an open question whether one has good reasons, or sufficient reason, or ought, to follow any social norm – that is, whether the norm in question is normative1. -/- The first section of the article characterizes further the difference between these two senses of normativity, and additionally introduces various other candidate senses of “normativity”. These possible senses of “normativity” may be at stake in the debates about normative requirements of rationality , about so called ought-to-be -rules , about normativity of linguistic meaning , about “directions of fit” of beliefs and desires , about subjective authority of intentions and decisions and interpersonal authority or co-authority of concrete others. -/- In later sections these cases are discussed. Do they constitute separate senses of normativity? And are the later phenomena such that they give agents good reasons: do they include normativity1 – the core sense? A “normative power -model” is suggested as a framework for examining whether actual social norms, laws, expectations provide good reasons and oughts or not. Once we understand the relation between the first two senses of normativity, do the later phenomena follow the same pattern – is the “normative powers – model” relevant for them as well? (shrink)

In her Descartes Lectures, Cheshire Calhoun argues that “responsible person” is a valuable cross-temporal status assigned by default to fellow social participants. Responsible persons, on Calhoun’s proposal, are (i) accountable, (ii) compliant with at least basic normative expectations, and (iii) disposed to take responsibility—to promote good ends in ways that are not normatively expected. The third component in particular goes beyond what is standardly discussed in debates about moral responsibility, where the relation to what is normatively expected is (...) central. In the main part of my commentary, I outline what I take to underlie normative expectations related to predictively expected acts of promoting good ends. These normative expectations are structured by pro tanto obligations to help, by evaluative autonomy, and by what I call “balancing norms,” which call on us to care about giving people and certain other values a certain comparative weight over time. Once we take this structure into account, I suggest, it is doubtful that people are assumed by default to be responsibility takers in Calhoun’s sense: what we predictively expect is also normatively expected. In addition, I propose a way of nevertheless making good on Calhoun’s suggestion that accountability, compliance responsibility, and contributions to the common good that merit gratitude are all aspects of responsibility. Finally, I suggest that what positive reactive attitudes reveal about their targets is not that they are responsibility takers, but that they are weight-givers subject to balancing norms. (shrink)

While the importance of social norms for shaping and transforming communities is uncontested, their nature and normativity are controversial. Most recent theorists take social norms to arise if members hold certain attitudes, such as expectations on others, perhaps along with certain behaviours. Yet attitudes do not create norms, let alone social norms or social normativity. Social norms are instead ‘made’: through a social process. Social norming processes are special communication processes, often non-verbal and informal. We present different versions of (...) a process-based account of social norms and social normativity. The process-based view brings social norms closer to legal norms, as processes represent social ‘acts’, just as laws and contracts arise through acts rather than mere attitudes, for instances acts of voting or signing. (shrink)

Internet trolling involves making assertions with the aim of provoking emotionally heated responses, all while pretending to be a sincere interlocutor. In this paper, I give an account of some of the epistemic and psychological dimensions of trolling, with the goal of better understanding why certain kinds of trolling can be dangerous. I first analyze how trolls eschew the epistemic norms of assertion, thus covertly violating their conversation partners’ normative expectations. Then, drawing on literature on the “explore/exploit trade-off,” (...) I argue that trolling is a kind of exploratory behaviour. Specifically, it involves exploring the consequences of violating an interlocutor’s expectation that one will follow the epistemic norms of assertion. To defend this account, I argue that it explains various facts about trolls and the kind of pleasure they get from their activities. My account provides a deeper understanding of why trolling can be dangerous: namely, it explains why certain trolling behaviours contribute to radicalizing people into extremist or hateful ideologies, as well as why online platforms where trolls run amok gradually become polluted with extreme, hateful speech. (shrink)

In Richard Bradley’s book, Decision Theory with a Human Face, we have selected two themes for discussion. The first is the Bolker-Jeffrey theory of decision, which the book uses throughout as a tool to reorganize the whole field of decision theory, and in particular to evaluate the extent to which expected utility theories may be normatively too demanding. The second theme is the redefinition strategy that can be used to defend EU theories against the Allais and Ellsberg paradoxes, a strategy (...) that the book by and large endorses, and even develops in an original way concerning the Ellsberg paradox. We argue that the BJ theory is too specific to fulfil Bradley’s foundational project and that the redefinition strategy fails in both the Allais and Ellsberg cases. Although we share Bradley’s conclusion that EU theories do not state universal rationality requirements, we reach it not by a comparison with BJ theory, but by a comparison with the non-EU theories that the paradoxes have heuristically suggested. (shrink)

In this paper I examine a recent incarnation of common objection to evidentialism. According to this common objection, evidentialism gives the wrong verdicts in cases where the subject has been irresponsible in inquiry. Sandy Goldberg (2021) has argued that a particularly vivid instance of this problem occurs when an individual violates normative expectations that have been placed on them in their inquiry. Having laid out Goldberg’s case, I argue that the desirable verdicts can be better attained by endorsing (...) evidentialism and supplementing it with an account of robust justification that I have defended elsewhere. (shrink)

The paper summarizes expected utility theory, both in its original von Neumann-Morgenstern version and its later developments, and discusses the normative claims to rationality made by this theory.

Accepting a promise is normatively significant in that it helps to secure promissory obligation. But what is it for B to accept A’s promise to φ? It is in part for B to intend A’s φ-ing. Thinking of acceptance in this way allows us to appeal to the distinctive role of intentions in practical reasoning and action to better understand the agency exercised by the promisee. The proposal also accounts for rational constraints on acceptance, and the so-called directedness of promissory (...) obligation. Finally, the proposal, conjoined with Cognitivism about intentions, addresses recent criticism of Scanlon’s expectation-based view of promissory obligation. (shrink)

The recent controversy about misinformation has moved a question into the focus of the public eye that has occupied philosophers for decades: Under what conditions is it appropriate to assert a certain claim? When asserting a claim that x, must one know that x? Must x be true? Might it be normatively acceptable to assert whatever one believes? In the largest cross-cultural study to date (total n = 1,091) on the topic, findings from the United States, Germany, and Japan suggest (...) that, in order to claim that x, x need not be known, and it can be false. However, the data show, we do expect considerable epistemic responsibility on the speaker’s behalf: In order to appropriately assert a claim, the speaker must have good reasons to believe it. (shrink)

Though recent years have seen a proliferation of critical histories of international law, their normative significance remains under-theorized, especially from the perspective of general readers rather than writers of such histories. How do critical histories of international law acquire their normative significance? And how should one react to them? We distinguish three ways in which critical histories can be normatively significant: (i) by undermining the overt or covert conceptions of history embedded within present practices in support of their (...) authority; (ii) by disappointing the normative expectations that regulate people’s reactions to critical histories; and (iii) by revealing continuities and discontinuities in the functions that our practices serve. By giving us a theoretical grip on the different ways in which history can be normatively significant and call for different reactions, this account helps us think about the overall normative significance of critical histories and how one and the same critical history can pull us in different directions. (shrink)

Our primary aim in this paper is to sketch a cognitive evolutionary approach for developing explanations of social change that is anchored on the psychological mechanisms underlying normative cognition and the transmission of social norms. We throw the relevant features of this approach into relief by comparing it with the self-fulfilling social expectations account developed by Bicchieri and colleagues. After describing both accounts, we argue that the two approaches are largely compatible, but that the cognitive evolutionary approach is (...) well- suited to encompass much of the social expectations view, whose focus on a narrow range of norms comes at the expense of the breadth the cognitive evolutionary approach can provide. (shrink)

What individuates the speech act of prediction? The standard view is that prediction is individuated by the fact that it is the unique speech act that requires future-directed content. We argue against this view and two successor views. We then lay out several other potential strategies for individuating prediction, including the sort of view we favor. We suggest that prediction is individuated normatively and has a special connection to the epistemic standards of expectation. In the process, we advocate some constraints (...) that we think a good theory of prediction should respect. (shrink)

While ordinary decision theory focuses on empirical uncertainty, real decision-makers also face normative uncertainty: uncertainty about value itself. From a purely formal perspective, normative uncertainty is comparable to (Harsanyian or Rawlsian) identity uncertainty in the 'original position', where one's future values are unknown. A comprehensive decision theory must address twofold uncertainty -- normative and empirical. We present a simple model of twofold uncertainty, and show that the most popular decision principle -- maximising expected value (`Expectationalism') -- has (...) different formulations, namely Ex-Ante Expectationalism, Ex-Post Expectationalism, and hybrid theories. These alternative theories recommend different decisions, reasoning modes, and attitudes to risk. But they converge under an interesting (necessary and sufficient) condition. (shrink)

_ To the Best of Our Knowledge: Social Expectations and Epistemic Normativity _ By GoldbergSanfordOxford University Press, 2018. xvi + 278 pp.

Colleagues are not only an integral part of many people’s lives; empirical research suggests that having a good relationship with one’s colleagues is the single most important factor for being happy at work. However, so far, no one has provided a comprehensive account of what it means to be a colleague. To address this lacuna, we have conducted both an empirical as well as theoretical investigation into the content and structure of the concept ‘colleague.’ Based on the empirical evidence that (...) we present in this paper, we argue that ‘colleague’ is a dual character concept that has both a descriptive and a normative basis for categorization. Its descriptive dimension is characterized by three features, according to which two people are colleagues if they work for the same institution and know each other, or if they work for the same institution and work in the same field. An independent normative dimension is revealed, which shows that, as colleagues, we are expected to fulfill substantial normative expectations. Understanding the expectations that are encoded in the very structure of this concept is crucial to lay the groundwork for an ethics of collegiality. (shrink)

In this thesis I develop an account of how processes of social understanding are implicated in experiences of mental disorder, critiquing the lack of examination of this phenomena along the way. First, I demonstrate how disorder concepts, as developed and deployed by psychiatric institutions, have the effect of shaping the cognition of individuals with psychopathology through setting expectations. Such expectation-setting can be harmful in some cases, I argue, and can perpetuate epistemic injustices. Having developed this view, I criticise enactive (...) accounts of mental disorder for failing to consider how such terms like ‘dysfunction’ are open to interpretation and can come embedded with normative expectations. Enactive accounts consequently run the risk of perpetuating injustices in their account of the sociality of mental disorder. Similar concerns arise when we consider the attachment of enactivism to the medical model, I argue. But by adapting enactivism to consider other experiences of disorder, such as those described as ‘madness’, enactive psychiatry may genuinely provide ethical groundwork for a better conception of disordered experience. Then, I consider a further concern with a distinctly medicalised conception of mental disorder from the perspective of self-illness ambiguity, arguing that self-illness ambiguities appear to form a special class of ambiguities due to their proximity to disorder concepts which mark them as appropriate targets for therapeutic treatment. However, I argue further that we should be critical of the idea that self-illness ambiguities necessitate disambiguation, as, in cases where self and illness are demarcated, individuals may still experience distress because simply having a mental disorder can be socially alienating. The medicalised focus in self-illness ambiguity, and the explicit need from the medical perspective to disambiguate it, might then exacerbate the distress someone experiences in mental disorder. Moreover, drawing on Mad Studies, I suggest that one might not need a coherent self-narrative to live well. Because of this, one may not need to adopt a medicalised view of the self in the case of selfillness ambiguity. In order to support this analysis, I provide a phenomenological account of language and argue that the very thoughts implicated in mental disorder shape the individual’s perception of the world due to the way that language foregrounds particular aspects of our world. This demands a critical examination of the language adopted and used by both clinicians and disordered individuals. I thus conclude with some thoughts on how to approach research and developing understanding of mental disorder given that we, as people, are always implicated in this process and therefore socialisation of some kind will always be taking place. (shrink)

This chapter asks two questions about the ethics of expectations: one about the nature of expectations, and one about the wrongs of expectations. On the first question, expectations involve a rich constellation of attitudes ranging from beliefs to also include imaginings, hopes, fears, and dreams. As a result, sometimes expectations act like predictions, like your expectation of rain tomorrow, sometimes prescriptions, like the expectation that your students will do the reading, sometimes like proleptic reasons like (...) the hope that your mentee will flourish, and sometimes expectations are peremptory in that they carry the force of moral law. Turning to the second question, given the multiple roles played by expectations it shouldn’t be surprising that there are also multiple ways expectations can be wrong to hold. Sometimes they wrong as beliefs do, e.g., doxastic wronging, and sometimes they result in alienation because of who holds that expectation of us. The upshot of this chapter is that getting clear on these potential ways expectations can wrong not only delivers an ethics of expectations that mirrors familiar discussions of the ethics of belief, but an ethics of expectations further opens the door for taking seriously an ethics of mental attitudes more generally. (shrink)

Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of certain kinds of natural hazard events in alpine areas. This interdisciplinary study addresses the hypothetical possibility of relocating the residents of three alpine areas in Austria: the Sölk valleys, the Johnsbach valley, and the St. Lorenzen/Schwarzenbach valleys. Our particular focus is on these residents’ expectations about such relocations. We find that (1) many residents expect that in the next decades the state will provide them with a level of natural hazards protection, (...) aid, and relief that allows them to continue to live in these valleys; (2) this expectation receives some legal protection but only when it is associated with fundamental rights; and (3) the expectation is morally significant, i.e., it ought to be considered in assessing the moral rightness or justness of relocation policies. These results suggest legal changes and likely extend to many other (Austrian) alpine areas as well. (shrink)

George Eliot strikingly describes one of her characters as making a mistake because he has gotten his thoughts “entangled in metaphors,” saying that we all do the same. I argue that Eliot is here giving us more than an illuminating description, but drawing our attention to a distinctive kind of mistake—a form of irrationality, in fact—of which metaphor can be an ineliminable part of the correct explanation. Her fictional case helps illuminate both a neglected function of the imagination, and a (...) pervasive way in which metaphor can affect it. The function is the creation and maintenance of what I call imaginative expectations, which are relatively stable imaginative representations of future events or experiences, analogous to latent memories. These imaginative expectations have a distinctive causal profile and distinct ways of interacting with other mental activities. I argue that their formation is subject to at least two norms—a “source” norm and an “experience” norm—and show how metaphorical framing can give rise to violations of either. (shrink)

According to an orthodox view, the capacity for conscious experience (sentience) is relevant to the distribution of moral status and value. However, physicalism about consciousness might threaten the normative relevance of sentience. According to the indeterminacy argument, sentience is metaphysically indeterminate while indeterminacy of sentience is incompatible with its normative relevance. According to the introspective argument (by François Kammerer), the unreliability of our conscious introspection undercuts the justification for belief in the normative relevance of consciousness. I defend (...) the normative relevance of sentience against these objections. First, I demonstrate that physicalists only have to concede a limited amount of indeterminacy of sentience. This moderate indeterminacy is in harmony with the role of sentience in determining moral status. Second, I argue that physicalism gives us no reason to expect that introspection is unreliable with respect to the normative relevance of consciousness. (shrink)

This monographic chapter explains how expected utility (EU) theory arose in von Neumann and Morgenstern, how it was called into question by Allais and others, and how it gave way to non-EU theories, at least among the specialized quarters of decion theory. I organize the narrative around the idea that the successive theoretical moves amounted to resolving Duhem-Quine underdetermination problems, so they can be assessed in terms of the philosophical recommendations made to overcome these problems. I actually follow Duhem's recommendation, (...) which was essentially to rely on the passing of time to make many experiments and arguments available, and evebntually strike a balance between competing theories on the basis of this improved knowledge. Although Duhem's solution seems disappointingly vague, relying as it does on "bon sens" to bring an end to the temporal process, I do not think there is any better one in the philosophical literature, and I apply it here for what it is worth. In this perspective, EU theorists were justified in resisting the first attempts at refuting their theory, including Allais's in the 50s, but they would have lacked "bon sens" in not acknowledging their defeat in the 80s, after the long process of pros and cons had sufficiently matured. This primary Duhemian theme is actually combined with a secondary theme - normativity. I suggest that EU theory was normative at its very beginning and has remained so all along, and I express dissatisfaction with the orthodox view that it could be treated as a straightforward descriptive theory for purposes of prediction and scientific test. This view is usually accompanied with a faulty historical reconstruction, according to which EU theorists initially formulated the VNM axioms descriptively and retreated to a normative construal once they fell threatened by empirical refutation. From my historical study, things did not evolve in this way, and the theory was both proposed and rebutted on the basis of normative arguments already in the 1950s. The ensuing, major problem was to make choice experiments compatible with this inherently normative feature of theory. Compability was obtained in some experiments, but implicitly and somewhat confusingly, for instance by excluding overtly incoherent subjects or by creating strong incentives for the subjects to reflect on the questions and provide answers they would be able to defend. I also claim that Allais had an intuition of how to combine testability and normativity, unlike most later experimenters, and that it would have been more fruitful to work from his intuition than to make choice experiments of the naively empirical style that flourished after him. In sum, it can be said that the underdetermination process accompanying EUT was resolved in a Duhemian way, but this was not without major inefficiencies. To embody explicit rationality considerations into experimental schemes right from the beginning would have limited the scope of empirical research, avoided wasting resources to get only minor findings, and speeded up the Duhemian process of groping towards a choice among competing theories. (shrink)

Contextualists and Subject Sensitive Invariantists often cite the knowledge norm of assertion as part of their argument. They claim that the knowledge norms in conjunction with our intuitions about when a subject is properly asserting in low or high stakes contexts provides strong evidence that what counts as knowledge depends on practical factors. In this paper, I present new data to suggest they are mistaken in the way they think about cases involving high and low stakes and I show how (...) insensitive invariantists can explain the data. I exploit recent work done on the distinction between flouting a norm and being blamed for that violation to formulate a rigorous theory of rational expected blameworthiness that allows insensitive invariantists to explain the data cited. (shrink)

This paper aims to address the question of how one ought to choose when one is uncertain about what outcomes will result from one’s choices, but when one can nevertheless assign probabilities to the different possible outcomes. These choices are commonly referred to as choices (or decisions) under risk. I assume in this paper that one ought to make instrumentally rational choices—more precisely, one ought to adopt suitable means to one’s morally permissible ends. Expected utility (EU) theory is generally accepted (...) as a normative theory of rational choice under risk, or, more specifically, as a theory of instrumental rationality. According to EU theory, when faced with a decision under risk, one ought to rank one’s options (from least to most choiceworthy) according to their EU and one ought to choose whichever option carries the greatest EU (or one of them in the event that several alternatives are tied). The EU of an option is a probability-weighted sum of each of its possible utilities. In this paper, I argue that EU theory is not the correct theory of instrumental rationality. In its place, I argue for a new theory of instrumental rationality, namely expected comparative utility (ECU) theory. I first show that for any choice option, a, and for any state of the world, G, the measure of the choiceworthiness of a in G is the comparative utility of a in G—that is, the difference in utility, in G, between a and whichever alternative to a carries the greatest utility in G. On the basis of this principle, I then argue, roughly speaking, that for any agent, S, faced with any decision under risk, S ought to rank her options (in terms of how choiceworthy they are) according to their ECU and S ought to choose whichever option carries the greatest ECU (or one of them in the event that several alternatives are tied). For any option, a, a’s ECU is a probability‐weighted sum of a’s comparative utilities across the various possible states of the world. In this paper, I show that in some commonplace decisions under risk, ECU theory delivers different verdicts from those of EU theory. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an account of the normative dimension implicit in D. Bernoulli’s expected utility functions by means of an analysis of the juridical metaphors upon which the concept of mathematical expectation was moulded. Following a suggestion by the late E. Coumet, I show how this concept incorporated a certain standard of justice which was put in question by the St. Petersburg paradox. I contend that Bernoulli would have solved it by introducing an alternative normative criterion (...) rather than a positive model of decision making processes. (shrink)

The Lockean Thesis says that you must believe p iff you’re sufficiently confident of it. On some versions, the 'must' asserts a metaphysical connection; on others, it asserts a normative one. On some versions, 'sufficiently confident' refers to a fixed threshold of credence; on others, it varies with proposition and context. Claim: the Lockean Thesis follows from epistemic utility theory—the view that rational requirements are constrained by the norm to promote accuracy. Different versions of this theory generate different versions (...) of Lockeanism; moreover, a plausible version of epistemic utility theory meshes with natural language considerations, yielding a new Lockean picture that helps to model and explain the role of beliefs in inquiry and conversation. Your beliefs are your best guesses in response to the epistemic priorities of your context. Upshot: we have a new approach to the epistemology and semantics of belief. And it has teeth. It implies that the role of beliefs is fundamentally different than many have thought, and in fact supports a metaphysical reduction of belief to credence. (shrink)

What kinds of norms constrain mechanistic discovery and explanation? In the mechanistic literature, the norms for good explanations are directly derived from answers to the metaphysical question of what explanations are. Prominent mechanistic accounts thus emphasize either ontic or epistemic norms. Still, mechanistic philosophers on both sides agree that there is no sharp distinction between the processes of discovery and explanation. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ontic and epistemic accounts of explanation will be accompanied by ontic and epistemic (...) accounts of discovery, respectively. As we will show here, however, recent discovery accounts implicitly rely on both ontic and epistemic norms to characterize the discovery process. In this paper, we develop an account that makes explicit that, and how, ontic and epistemic norms work together throughout the discovery process. By describing mechanism discovery as a process of pattern recognition we demonstrate that scientists have to develop epistemic activities to distinguish a pattern from its background. Furthermore, they have to determine which epistemic activities successfully describe how the pattern is implemented by identifying the pattern’s components. Our approach reveals that ontic and epistemic norms are equally important in mechanism discovery. (shrink)

David Lewis presented Convention as an alternative to the conventionalism characteristic of early-twentieth-century analytic philosophy. Rudolf Carnap is well known for suggesting the arbitrariness of any particular linguistic convention for engaging in scientific inquiry. Analytic truths are self-consistent, and are not checked against empirical facts to ascertain their veracity. In keeping with the logical positivists before him, Lewis concludes that linguistic communication is conventional. However, despite his firm allegiance to conventions underlying not just languages but also social customs, he pioneered (...) the view that convening need not require any active agreement to participate. Lewis proposed that conventions arise from “an exchange of manifestations of a propensity to conform to a regularity” (87–8). In reasserting the conventional quality of languages and other practices resting on mutual expectations, Lewis comfortably works within the analytic tradition. Yet he also deviates from his predecessors because his conventionalist approach is comprehensively grounded in instrumentalism. Lewis adopts an extension of David Hume's desire-belief psychology articulated in rational choice theory. He develops his philosophy of convention relying on the highly formal mid-twentieth-century expected utility and game theories. This attempt to account for language and social customs wholly in terms of instrumental rationality has the implication of reducing normativity to preference satisfaction. Lewis’ approach continues in the trend of undermining normative political philosophy because institutions and practices arise spontaneously, without the deliberate involvement of agents. Perhaps Lewis’ Convention is best seen as a resurgent form of analytic philosophy, characterized by “a style of argument, hostility to [ambitious] metaphysics, focus on language, and the dominance of logic and formalization” that solves the dilemma of “combining the analytic inheritance…with normative concerns” by reducing normativity to individuals’ preference fulfillment consistent with the axioms of rational choice. (shrink)

A review of some major topics of debate in normative decision theory from circa 2007 to 2019. Topics discussed include the ongoing debate between causal and evidential decision theory, decision instability, risk-weighted expected utility theory, decision-making with incomplete preferences, and decision-making with imprecise credences.

to appear in Lambert, E. and J. Schwenkler (eds.) Transformative Experience (OUP) -/- L. A. Paul (2014, 2015) argues that the possibility of epistemically transformative experiences poses serious and novel problems for the orthodox theory of rational choice, namely, expected utility theory — I call her argument the Utility Ignorance Objection. In a pair of earlier papers, I responded to Paul’s challenge (Pettigrew 2015, 2016), and a number of other philosophers have responded in similar ways (Dougherty, et al. 2015, Harman (...) 2015) — I call our argument the Fine-Graining Response. Paul has her own reply to this response, which we might call the Authenticity Reply. But Sarah Moss has recently offered an alternative reply to the Fine-Graining Response on Paul’s behalf (Moss 2017) — we’ll call it the No Knowledge Reply. This appeals to the knowledge norm of action, together with Moss’ novel and intriguing account of probabilistic knowledge. In this paper, I consider Moss’ reply and argue that it fails. I argue first that it fails as a reply made on Paul’s behalf, since it forces us to abandon many of the features of Paul’s challenge that make it distinctive and with which Paul herself is particularly concerned. Then I argue that it fails as a reply independent of its fidelity to Paul’s intentions. (shrink)

It is a well-worn platitude that knowledge excludes luck. According to anti-luck virtue epistemology, making good on the anti-luck platitude requires an explicit anti-luck condition along the lines of safety: S knows that p only if S’s true belief that p could not have easily been mistaken. This paper offers an independent, virtue epistemological argument against the claim that safety is a necessary condition on knowledge, one that adequately captures the anti-luck platitude. The argument proceeds by way of analogy. I (...) focus on two paradigmatic kinds of normative achievements that also exclude luck: (i) – having a doxastically justified belief, and (ii) – performing a morally worthy action. I then show that while (i) and (ii) exclude luck, they are nevertheless susceptible to what I call ‘modal luck’. I then move on to show that knowledge, or at least some instance of knowledge, is a normative achievement, which I claim provides strong reasons to expect that knowledge is also susceptible to modal luck. Since safety entails that knowledge is incompatible with modal luck, the argument provides strong reasons to reject safety as a necessary condition on knowledge. (shrink)

From Kant’s point of view, the puzzle about judgments of taste is that they claim to normativity—in Kant’s terms, to intersubjective validity or communicability—but nevertheless have only a subjective basis or “determining ground (Bestimmungsgrund).” The task of §9 of the Critique of Judgment in particular is to delineate an account of aesthetic response that accommodates Kant’s solution to this puzzle. If the aesthetic pleasure “precedes” the judgment—in other words, if the judgment is about the pleasure—then the judgment of taste would (...) be merely private, like other judgments about things that cause us pleasure. So the judgment must precede the pleasure. But “nothing… can be universally communicated except cognition, and representation so far as it belongs to cognition. (V:217) Therefore, the determining ground of the judgment of taste must be “the mental state encountered in the relation of the mental powers of representation to each other insofar as they relate a given cognition to cognition in general.” (V:217) A bit later, he calls this state of mind a “feeling of the free play of the powers of representation in a given representation for a given representation for a cognition in general.” The appeal to ‘cognition in general’ can do what Kant needs it to do only if it conveys the normativity of cognition simpliciter but not its conceptual determinacy. I want to propose that we take ‘cognition in general’ to mean ‘integration into a unified system of empirical cognition.’ If I am successful, it will have the consequence that the basis for the normativity of taste— that is, the expectation that others ought to agree with our judgments-- is the same as the basis for the normativity of cognitive judgments. (shrink)

I defend the view that a reason for someone to do something is just a reason why she ought to do it. This simple view has been thought incompatible with the existence of reasons to do things that we may refrain from doing or even ought not to do. For it is widely assumed that there are reasons why we ought to do something only if we ought to do it. I present several counterexamples to this principle and reject some (...) ways of understanding "ought" so that the principle is compatible with my examples. I conclude with a hypothesis for when and why the principle should be expected to fail. (shrink)

An increasing portion of contemporary politics revolves around a set of claims made by those (typically derisively) referred to as NIMBYs. Despite its practical significance, NIMBYism has not received significant attention in academic philosophy. I attempt a charitable but limited reconstruction of NIMBYism in terms of legitimate expectations. I argue that, despite NIMBY expectations being somewhat vague and at least moderately unjust, they may be legitimate. This does not imply that they are decisive, or entail a conclusion about (...) their overall normative force. I close by developing some tentative details in institutional design, focusing on the possibility of monetary compensation as a way of recognizing, but limiting the force of, NIMBY expectations. (shrink)

We propose Knobe's explanation of his cases encounters a dilemma: Either his explanation works and, counterintuitively, morality is not at the heart of these effects; or morality is at the heart of the effects and Knobe's explanation does not succeed. This dilemma is then used to temper the use of the Knobe paradigm for discovering moral norms.

We typically have to act under uncertainty. We can be uncertain about the relevant descriptive facts, but also about the relevant normative facts. However, the search for a theory of decision-making under normative uncertainty is doomed to failure. First, the most natural proposal for what to do given normative uncertainty faces two devastating problems. Second, the motivations for wanting a theory of what to do given descriptive uncertainty do not carry over to normative uncertainty. Descriptive facts (...) may be inaccessible even in principle, and ignorance of them excuses one from blame, but normative facts are in principle accessible, and ignorance of them arguably is no excuse. Normative facts differ from descriptive facts: normative facts affect what we ought to do no matter what, while descriptive facts affect what we ought to do only insofar as we are aware of them. (shrink)

It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it (...) would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This suggests we should reject our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision, and raises general questions about how to rationally approach important life choices. (shrink)

Many have expected that understanding the evolution of norms should, in some way, bear on our first-order normative outlook: How norms evolve should shape which norms we accept. But recent philosophy has not done much to shore up this expectation. Most existing discussions of evolution and norms either jump headlong into the is/ought gap or else target meta-ethical issues, such as the objectivity of norms. My aim in this paper is to sketch a different way in which evolutionary considerations (...) can feed into normative thinking—focusing on stability. I will discuss two forms of argument that utilize information about social stability drawn from evolutionary models, and employs it to assess claims in political philosophy. One such argument treats stability as feature of social states that may be taken into account alongside other features. The other uses stability as a constraint on the realization of social ideals, via a version of the ought-implies-can maxim. These forms of argument are not new; indeed they have a history going back at least to early modern philosophy. But their marriage with evolutionary information is relatively recent, has a significantly novel character, and has received little attention in recent moral and political philosophy. (shrink)

(See also the separate entry for the volume itself.) This introduction has three parts. The first providing an overview of some main lines of research in deontic logic: the emergence of SDL, Chisholm's paradox and the development of dyadic deontic logics, various other puzzles/challenges and areas of development, along with philosophical applications. The second part focus on some actual and potential fruitful interactions between deontic logic, computer science and artificial intelligence. These include applications of deontic logic to AI knowledge representation (...) in legal systems, to modelling computer systems where it is expected that sub-ideal states will emerge and require countermeasures, to norm-governed human interactions with computer systems, and to the representation of some features of multi-agent systems where different agent-like computer systems interact with one another. The third and final part briefly groups and previews the papers in the anthology. (shrink)

In this retrospective for Ethics, I discuss H.M. Oliver’s “Established Expectations and American Economic Policies.” This article, by a then-modestly-famous economist, has been ignored (no citations) since its 1940 publication. Yet it bears directly on a normative problem at the intersection of ethics and economics that challenges today’s policymakers but has received comparatively little philosophical attention: how should we balance potentially desirable institutional change against the disruption of established expectations? -/- Oliver details how the principle of fulfilling (...) established expectations cuts across political lines. Conservatives, he observes, criticized inflation for disrupting expectations, and demanded the protection of established corporations. New Deal progressives achieved “the safeguarding of the economic positions of certain important sections of the American people” (104) via statutes designed to protect income and homeownership status. And labor leaders lobbied for the preservation of occupational status. Oliver criticizes these demands on two grounds. First, they are noncompossible: they can’t simultaneously be fulfilled. Second, they are economically inefficient. He concludes that “in a modern dynamic economy, the preservation of status is not and cannot be a feasible criterion of economic justice” (107). -/- I argue that Oliver accurately recognizes both the wide endorsement and the moral ill-foundedness of fulfilling expectations. However, I criticize Oliver’s belief in the noncompossibility of expectations. The established expectations of the wealthy, middle-class homeowners and retirees, and current workers can all be maintained, but at the price of constricting the opportunities of new graduates, immigrants, and the poor—all groups yet to develop settled expectations. This insight renders the protection of expectations not merely inefficient but also unjust. (shrink)

Morality, according to some theories, demands a lot of us. One way to defend such demanding moral theories is through an appeal to the division of normativity; on this picture, morality is only one of the normative domains that guides us, so it should be expected that we often fail to follow that guidance. This paper defends the division of normativity as a response to demandingness objections against an alternative: moral rationalism. It does this by addressing and refuting three (...) arguments: the argument from blameworthiness, the argument from agency, and the argument from authority. In turn, I show that none of these arguments work as responses to the division of normativity – if normativity generally is divided, so too must be blameworthiness, agency, and authority. (shrink)

Value conflicts between individualism and collectivism are common. In philosophy, such conflicts have been conceptualized as conflicts between individuality and conformity, among other things. This article develops a more detailed conceptual framework by combining philosophical analysis with empirical observations. The focus is on value conflicts pertaining to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) factors in a non-individualist society (Georgia). Conservative or traditional norms sometimes constrain LGBT individuals by influencing them to adapt to social expectations. The phenomenon is intuitively clear (...) and has been reported on in numerous quantitative investigations. A qualitative study has been conducted on how LGBT individuals in Georgia experience the constraining influence of such norms. Deep interviews (n=8) have clarified how, more precisely, the effects of those influences should be conceptualized. The results indicate that important distinctions between different types of influences, as well as different objects of influence, have been overlooked in previous philosophical inquiries about value conflicts in this context. The conceptual framework developed throughout the article should be of use to philosophers and social scientists studying individualism and collectivism, and to policymakers working with LGBT issues. (shrink)

L.A. Paul has argued that an ordinary, natural way of making a decision -- by reflecting on the phenomenal character of the experiences one will have as a result of that decision -- cannot yield rational decision in certain cases. Paul's argument turns on the (in principle) epistemically inaccessible phenomenal character of certain experiences. In this paper I argue that, even granting Paul a range of assumptions, her argument doesn't work to establish its conclusion. This is because, as I argue, (...) the phenomenal character of an experience supervenes on epistemically accessible facts about its non-phenomenal character plus what the deciding agent is like. Because there are principles that link the non-phenomenal character of experiences (together with what a particular agent is like) to the phenomenal character of experiences, agents can reasonably form expectations about the valence of the phenomenal character of the experiences that they are deciding whether to undergo. These reasonable expectations are, I argue, enough to make the ordinary, natural way of making a decision yield rational decision. (shrink)

Since its inception in the early 1990s, evidence-based medicine (EBM) has become the dominant epistemic framework for Western medical practice. However, in light of powerful criticisms against EBM, alternatives such as casuistic medicine have been gaining support in both the medical and philosophical community. In the absence of empirical evidence in support of the claim that EBM improves patient outcomes, and in light of considerations that it is unlikely that such evidence will be forthcoming, another standard is needed to assess (...) EBM against its alternatives. In this paper, I propose a set of criteria for this purpose based on Helen Longino's criteria for assessing the objectivity of a knowledge productive community. I then apply these criteria to assess EBM against a casuistic framework for medical knowledge. I argue that EBM's strict adherence to a hierarchical organization of knowledge can reasonably be expected to block it from fulfilling a high level of objectivity. A casuistic framework, on the other hand, because it emphasizes critical evaluation in conjunction with the flexibility of a case-based approach, could be expected to better facilitate a more optimal epistemic community. (shrink)

Speech acts are governed by a variety of illocutionary norms. Building on Sbisà’s (2019) work, this chapter attempts to develop a common framework to study them. Four families of illocutionary rules are identified: (i) Validity rules set conditions for (actual) performance; (ii) Cooperative rules set conditions for cooperative performance; (iii) Illocutionary goals set conditions for successful performance; (iv) Illocutionary obligations set conditions for compliance. Illocutionary rules are often taken to play a constitutive role: speech acts are said to be constituted (...) by the unique set of rules that regulates them. Against this view, it is argued that many illocutionary rules are instead best construed as rationally derivable expectations of cooperation. This alternative paradigm provides fertile ground to reconcile scholarly disagreement between speech act theorists, and yields a promising explanation of how illocutionary norms are learned and evolve through time. (shrink)

Do claims of taste function as validity claims? Our ordinary use of aesthetic notions suggests as much. When I assert that Rodin’s Camille Claudel is ‘beautiful’ I mean my claim to be, in a sense, correct. I expect others to concur and if they do not I think that they are mistaken. But am I justified in attributing an error to the judgment of someone who, unlike me, does not find Rodin’s Camille Claudel beautiful? Not obviously. For it looks, on (...) the other hand, that my assertion “The sculpture of Camille Claudel is beautiful” is not an assertion about a property of that sculpture, not, that is, about a feature of the world which exists for others as well as for me. Quite the opposite, I seem to base my claim on a subjective response, on a certain feeling of mine. I maintain that the sculpture of Camille Claudel is ‘beautiful’ because it produces a particular effect upon me, namely it pleases me aesthetically. But how can the feeling of pleasure, being a subjective response on my part, serve as a normative ground for a claim? (shrink)

Despite the fact that common sense taxes emotions with irrationality, philosophers have, by and large, celebrated their functionality. They are credited with motivating, steadying, shaping or harmonizing our dispositions to act, and with policing norms of social behaviour. It's time to restore emotion's bad rep. To this end, I shall argue that we should expect that some of the “norms” enforced by emotions will be unevenly distributed among the members of our species, and may be dysfunctional at the individual, social, (...) moral, or even species levels. I”ll adduce three considerations in support of that pessimistic view: The fallacy of adaptive fixation, the moral randomness of group selection, and the lack of fit between “natural norms” set up by evolution and those moral and social norms we would like philosophy to justify. (shrink)

The paper re-expresses arguments against the normative validity of expected utility theory in Robin Pope (1983, 1991a, 1991b, 1985, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007). These concern the neglect of the evolving stages of knowledge ahead (stages of what the future will bring). Such evolution is fundamental to an experience of risk, yet not consistently incorporated even in axiomatised temporal versions of expected utility. Its neglect entails a disregard of emotional and financial effects on well-being before a particular risk (...) is resolved. These arguments are complemented with an analysis of the essential uniqueness property in the context of temporal and atemporal expected utility theory and a proof of the absence of a limit property natural in an axiomatised approach to temporal expected utility theory. Problems of the time structure of risk are investigated in a simple temporal framework restricted to a subclass of temporal lotteries in the sense of David Kreps and Evan Porteus (1978). This subclass is narrow but wide enough to discuss basic issues. It will be shown that there are serious objections against the modification of expected utility theory axiomatised by Kreps and Porteus (1978, 1979). By contrast the umbrella theory proffered by Pope that she has now termed SKAT, the Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory, offers an epistemically consistent framework within which to construct particular models to deal with particular decision situations. A model by Caplin and Leahy (2001) will also be discussed and contrasted with the modelling within SKAT (Pope, Leopold and Leitner 2007). (shrink)