Journal of Philosophical Research

Popular discussions of faith often assume that having faith is a form of believing on insufficient evidence and that having faith is therefore in some way rationally defective. Here I offer a characterization of action-centered faith and show that action-centered faith can be both epistemically and practically rational even under a wide variety of subpar evidential circumstances.

Thomas Blackson argues that interest-relative epistemologies cannot explain the irrationality of certain choices when the agent has three possible options. I argue that his examples only refute a subclass of interest-relative theories. In particular, they are good objections to theories that say that what an agent knows depends on the stakes involved in the gambles that she faces. But they are not good objections to theories that say that what an agent knows depends on the odds involved in the gambles that she faces. Indeed, the latter class of theories does a better job than interest-invariant epistemologies of explaining the phenomena he describes.

In this paper I explore the relevance of due measure for the dialectical method of division in Plato’s Statesman, and I argue that due measure is the unifying thread of the dialogue insofar as it guides the application of the dialectical method throughout the conversation. I defend this view by showing (a) that due measure accounts for the Stranger’s shift from bisective and value-neutral divisions to non-bisective divisions that identify the essence of statesmanship and situate this art hierarchically in relation to other arts needed in the polis; (b) that due measure accounts for the transition from the paradigm of the shepherd to the paradigm of the weaver, and finally (c) that due measure is also intimately related to the myth, insofar as the myth provides the metaphysical horizon in which natural joints of division and due measure itself are to be discerned.

William Alston once argued that justification is not necessary for knowledge. He was convinced of this because he thought that, in cases of clear perception, one could come to know that P even if one’s justification for believing P was defeated. The idea is that the epistemic strength of clear perception is sufficient to provide knowledge even where justification is lacking; perceiving (and believing) that P is sufficient for knowing that P. In this paper, I explore a claim about knowledge that is the opposite side of the coin from Alston’s position: clear perception (with belief) that P is necessary for knowledge. Taking my cue from John Locke, I examine the plausibility of a theory of knowledge that distinguishes justified true unGettiered belief that P from knowing that P. Although I don’t fully advocate this position, I argue that it has significant plausibility, and that the initially troubling consequences of the account are not as problematic as one might have suspected.

The aim of this paper is threefold. First, we examine the Sellarsian concept of the (myth of the) categorial Given, focus on its wide application and suggest that it can be applied to those post-Kantian philosophical views, currently fashionable in Continental philosophical circles, for which Quentin Meillassoux coins the term “correlationism”: the view that mind and world are “always already” given to us as essentially related to one another, and only subsequently can they be thought of as being independently existing and meaningful “entities.” Second, it is pointed out that Sellars uses an argument against the explanatory adequacy of the manifest image (an image with essential “Givenist” elements in its descriptive and explanatory dimension) that is exactly of the same form as Meillassoux’s argument against correlationism, but, which, when combined with other crucial Sellarsian views concerning the transcendental/empirical distinction, can avoid a problematic feature of Meillassoux’s argument, and, in this way, constitute a better philosophical weapon against correlationism. Finally, it is suggested that by not drawing the transcendental/empirical distinction in the right (i.e., Sellarsian) way, Meillassoux himself is exposed and, in the constructive (“speculative realist”) part of his work, indeed succumbs to a version of the myth of the categorial Given.

The atonement has been traditionally understood to be a solution to the problem created by the human proneness to moral wrongdoing. This problem includes both guilt and shame. Although the problem of human guilt is theologically more central to the doctrine of the atonement, the problem of shame is something that the atonement might be supposed to remedy as well if it is to be a complete antidote to the problems generated by human wrongdoing. In this paper, I discuss the difference between guilt and shame; I explore the different varieties of shame, and I suggest ways to connect the atonement to a remedy for all the kinds of shame.

In most everyday instances of reasoning, reasoners can gain, lose, and reacquire entitlement to (or justification for) a possible commitment (or belief) as a result of their consecutively acquiring new commitments. For example, we might initially conclude that ‘Tweety can fly’ from ‘Tweety is a bird,’ but later have to reject this conclusion as a result of our coming to learn that Tweety is a penguin. We could, even later, reacquire entitlement to ‘Tweety can fly’ if we became committed (and presumably entitled) to the claim ‘Tweety has a jetpack.’ I will call this very common feature of reasoning entitlement recovery. In this paper I will argue that the types of inferential relations that are central to Brandom’s entire account of language and reasoning make entitlement recovery impossible. I will then briefly attempt to diagnose why this problem arises for Brandom and suggest how his account should be modified so that it will successfully allow entitlement recovery.

There is a growing trend toward recognizing that moral obligation is centrally grounded in accountability. This, however, may seem to offer another argument, perhaps in the footsteps of Kant, that other animals have no moral standing. Accountability seems to be grounded in some kind of authoritative demands and, as Stephen Darwall puts it, “second-personal address.” Other animals are not competent in such practices, so they may seem to be left out of the domain of obligation. I argue that demand-accountability-based obligation is consistent with robust moral standing for other animals. Our accountability could be based on demands made by the moral community at large, which would put other animals on equal footing with moral agents in terms of how obligations might apply to them. Further, I argue that the most plausible model of demand-accountability-based obligation would have such a community-centered structure and would support other animals having moral standing.

An articulation is offered of the main themes of my book, Epistemological Disjunctivism (2012).

Among the many virtues Duncan Pritchard ascribes to his disjunctivist position in Epistemic Disjunctivism, he claims it defeats the skeptic in an attractive fashion. In this paper I argue that his engagement with the skeptic is not entirely successful.

In his book Epistemological Disjunctivism, Duncan Pritchard describes disjunctivism as the “holy grail” of epistemology. This is because, according to him, disjunctivism enjoys the advantages of both internalism and externalism without suffering from their disadvantages. In this paper, I argue that Pritchard fails to make his case for this claim.

Pritchard’s epistemological disjunctivist thinks that when we come to know things through vision our perceptual beliefs are based on reasons that provide factive support. The reasons that constitute the rational basis for your belief that the page before you is white and covered in black marks entails that it is and includes things that could not have provided rational support for your beliefs if you had been hallucinating. There are some issues that I would like to raise. First, what motivation is there for thinking that this sort of view is preferable to a more traditional internalist view that insists that the rational support for our beliefs is always limited to things that are common to the cases of knowledge and subjectively indistinguishable cases of non-knowledge? I suspect that an important part of the motivation for the view comes from worries about skepticism. Second, if we’re worried about skepticism, can we resist these skeptical pressures without an appeal to metaphysical disjunctivism? Pritchard’s epistemological disjunctivist differs from McDowell’s in that Pritchard’s epistemological disjunctivist doesn’t take up controversial positions in the philosophy of perception. Is this kind of neutrality tenable? Third, should we follow Pritchard in thinking that the rational basis for our perceptual beliefs involves reasons? What specifically is the relationship between cases in which there is something the subject knows and cases in which there is something that is the subject’s reason for believing what she does?

A response to commentaries on my book, Epistemological Disjunctivism (Oxford University Press, 2012), by Sanford Goldberg, Clayton Littlejohn, and Ram Neta. The themes covered include: the viability of the epistemological disjunctivist response to radical skepticism (Goldberg); the extent to which epistemological disjunctivism has dialectical advantages over classical epistemic internalism from an anti-sceptical point of view (Neta); and whether epistemological disjunctivism incorporates the right view of the nature of reasons (Littlejohn).

A moral theory that is consequentialist, welfarist, and impartialist can sometimes require providing a benefit to oneself, rather than to others. However, it seems intuitively wrong that selfish actions could be morally required. This essay develops a version of what has been called the selfishness objection, and considers how consequentialist views might respond to it. I argue that some proposed modifications to consequentialist theories to avoid the problem are objectionably ad hoc. That is, they risk discharging important motivating assumptions of the theory. Nor can the problem be dissolved by claiming the selfishness problem is empirically unlikely. Instead, I suggest that that the problem raises persistent doubts about whether we can be morally required to promote impartial welfare. Such doubts may indicate that well-being lacks the normative significance sometimes attributed to it.

In earlier work, I argued that agents are blameworthy for their ignorance only when they have akratically failed to take advantage of an opportunity to improve their epistemic situation, because it is only when agents judge that they ought to take such an opportunity that they can reasonably be expected to do so. In response, Philip Robichaud argues that the conditions under which agents may reasonably be expected to improve their epistemic situation are broader than I recognize, and that culpable ignorance is more common that I believe. He also claims to show that my account of internalist reasons cannot do the work I demand of it. In response, I elaborate the conception of ‘capacity’ my account requires. If we pay attention to the conditions under which it is reasonable to expect an agent to exercise a capacity, I maintain, we can identify a sense of the term that plays the role I want: showing that agents can reasonably be expected to take advantage of an opportunity to improve their epistemic situation only when they would be akratic in not doing so.

Going against the anthropocentric view of the human as a realized essence, the paper introduces a different understanding of the human in terms of relations of “forces.” Employing the posthumanist ideas of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, I will attempt to show how outside forces enter into relations with the inside forces of life and how this compounds the formation of the human at a certain historical time; how we have passed through different types of forces and created new becomings at different times; and how these different relations of forces have constantly been influencing and transversing our notion of the human.

In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Richard Rorty presents powerful arguments against traditional epistemology, conceived as a quest both for empirical grounds that provide certainty and for necessary truths that provide a conceptual framework within which to couch empirical findings. Rorty finds traditional epistemology in general, and specifically any appeal to representation that might ground knowledge, to be an unmitigated failure. In this paper, I show that Rorty at least considered but ultimately rejected the possibility of a type of epistemically relevant, foundational representation with a normative status. Drawing on the work of Tyler Burge, I argue that Rorty was too quick in dismissing the important, epistemically foundational role of perceptual representation. A new and improved picture of foundational epistemology emerges. Throughout the paper, I aim to shed light on the fundamental disconnect between Rorty’s and Burge’s approaches to epistemology, and to philosophical investigation more generally.

Frances Kamm initially argues for her Doctrine of Triple Effect (DTE), which states that it is morally impermissible to act with an evil intention but permissible to act merely because of an evil. The DTE distinguishes three kinds of effects: intended/because-of/merely-foreseen. Later, she replaces it with a non-state-of-mind principle, which states that the permissibility of an action does not depend on the agent’s mental states fundamentally. In this paper, I will first discuss Kamm’s defenses of the DTE and raise my objections to them. Next, I will examine Joseph Shaw’s challenge to the DTE and Kamm’s own criticism of the DTE. I argue that Shaw misses the point but Kamm’s criticism is valid. Afterwards, I will explicate and support Kamm’s non-state-of-mind principle. I will contend that the permissibility of an action depends on the agent’s mental states only derivatively. Finally, I will argue that even if there is a psychological difference between acting with the intention of an evil and acting because of the evil, there is no difference in their permissibility.

The aim of this article is to argue for an interdisciplinary social theoretical approach to the technicity of human agency. This approach covers the spectrum of individual and social action from a perspective that logically precedes techno-optimism and techno-pessimism, and is intended to be both descriptively and normatively plausible. The study is anchored in a critical reading of Aristotle’s thought on techné and phronésis, as his work is the precursor of action theory and phenomenological hermeneutics, the central methodological orientations of this study. The importance of the “disposition formed under the guidance of reason” as the unifying trait of agency is affirmed with, and against, Aristotle. The article advocates reactivating and developing this trait of agency for a descriptive and critical discourse on the technicity of action, providing an outline of how to accomplish this task. The technicity of the individual agent is examined, reflecting on rule-following, the relation between technicity and creativity, and the interpretative moment of technicity. Next, the interwovenness of the skilful body with biological, social and symbolic aspects of human existence and with systems of technical artefacts is clarified. Finally, a case is made for the critical potential of this “technology,” reverting to Aristotelian means of normative thought.

In Book I of Plato’s Republic, Thrasymachus famously maintains that ideas of morality and justice are nothing more than an ideology indoctrinated in “the weaker” to benefit “the stronger.” This is Thrasymachus’s challenge to morality: the thesis that some social arrangements, including some moral norms, are products of “false consciousness.” False consciousness occurs when a dominant social group shapes the beliefs and desires of a subordinate group in such a way that the subordinates act for the benefit of the dominants, but against their own interests. In this paper, I grant that some moral norms emerge or persist because of false consciousness. However, I shall argue that these norms actually have the function of impartially promoting the interests of all persons in their range of application. Even if the actual effect of false consciousness norms is to benefit a powerful class while being harmful and discriminatory toward others, the true function of false consciousness norms is the intended effect that they were designed to have. And the crucial feature of false consciousness norms is that their designers—particularly subordinates—teach, preach, follow, and enforce them with the intention of promoting the mutual interests of everyone to whom the norms apply.