In “Theories of Justification,” Richard Fumerton begins an overview of several prominent positions on the nature of justification by isolating epistemic justification from nonepistemic justification. He also distinguishes between “having justification for a belief” and “having a justified belief,” arguing that the former is conceptually more fundamental. Fumerton then addresses the possibility that justification is a normative matter, suggesting that this possibility has little to offer as a concept of epistemic justification. He (...) also critically examines more specific attempts to capture the structure and content of epistemic justification. These include traditional foundationalism and variants thereof, externalist versions of foundationalism, contextualism, coherentism, and “mixed” theories which combine aspects of coherentism and foundationalism. (shrink)

Knowledge-first theories of justification are theories of justification that give knowledge priority when it comes to explaining when and why someone has justification for an attitude or an action. The emphasis of this article is on knowledge-first theories of justification for belief. As it turns out, there are a number of ways of giving knowledge priority when theorizing about justification, and what follows is a survey of more than a dozen existing options (...) that have emerged in the early 21st century since the publication of Timothy Williamson’s *Knowledge and Its Limits*. This article traces several of the general theoretical motivations that have been offered for putting knowledge first in the theory of justification. This is followed by an examination of existing knowledge-first theories of justification and their standing objections. These objections are largely, but not exclusively, concerned with the extensional adequacy of knowledge-first theories of justification. There are doubtless more ways to give knowledge priority in the theory of justified belief than are covered here, but the survey is instructive because it highlights potential shortcomings that would-be knowledge-first theorists of justification may wish either to avoid or else to be prepared with a suitable error theory. This entry concludes with a reflection about the extent to which the short history of, arguably, failed attempts to secure an unproblematic knowledge-first account of justified belief has begun to resemble the older Gettier dialectic. (shrink)

Why do we so often defend the very social systems that are responsible for injustice and exploitation? In A Theory of System Justification, John Jost argues that we are motivated to defend the status quo because doing so serves fundamental psychological needs for certainty, security, and social acceptance. We want to feel good not only about ourselves and the groups to which we belong, but also about the overarching social structure in which we live, even when it hurts others (...) and ourselves. Jost lays out the wide range of evidence for his groundbreaking theory and examines its implications for our communities and our democracy. Drawing on twenty-five years of research, he provides an accessible account of system justification theory and its insights. System justification helps to explain deep contradictions, including the feeling among some women that they don’t deserve the same salaries as men and the tendency of some poor people to vote for policies that increase economic inequality. The theory illuminates the most pressing social and political issues of our time—why has it been so hard to combat anthropogenic climate change?—as well as some of the most intimate—why do some black children prefer white dolls to black ones and why do some people stay in bad relationships? Jost’s theory has far-reaching implications, and he offers numerous insights that political activists and social justice advocates can use to promote change. (shrink)

This book proposes an original theory of epistemic justification that offers a new way to relate justification to the epistemic goal of truth-conducive belief.

Because secession centrally involves taking away a territory, a successful normative theory of secession must give a credible account of when a seceding group has a valid territorial claim. One of the most prominent types of normative theory of secession is remedial theories of secession. I argue that while remedial theories address the question of territorial justification, they fail to do so adequately, because their account is both arbitrary and internally inconsistent. I argue that addressing the question (...) of territorial justification non-arbitrarily and consistently requires adopting a broader and morally more plausible conception of justice than that on which remedial theories explicitly rely; and I show that this broader conception of justice is implicit in remedial theories’ account of territorial justification. Recognizing this, however, has significant implications for remedial theories, as it considerably broadens the scope of valid territorial claims, and hence of valid secessionist claims. (shrink)

Robert Alexy develops his influential theory of legal reasoning exploring the nature of legal argumentation and its relation to practical reasoning. In doing so he sheds light on fundamental questions of law and rationality, which are as crucial to practising lawyers and law students as they are to scholars of legal theory.

This essay reviews contemporary theories of public justification. In particular, it argues that conceptions of public justification and public reason have moved significantly beyond Rawls.

I provide a novel knowledge-first account of justification that avoids the pitfalls of existing accounts while preserving the underlying insight of knowledge-first epistemologies: that knowledge comes first. The view I propose is, roughly, this: justification is grounded in our practical knowledge (know-how) concerning the acquisition of propositional knowledge (knowledge-that). I first refine my thesis in response to immediate objections. In subsequent sections I explain the various ways in which this thesis is theoretically superior to existing knowledge-first accounts of (...) justification. The upshot is a virtue-theoretic, knowledge-first view of justification that is internalist-friendly and able to explain more facts about justification than any other available view. (shrink)

This article puts forward solutions to some of the ethical and legal dilemmas posed in the current discussion on how to program crash algorithms in autonomous or self-driving cars. The first part of the paper defines the scope of the problem in the criminal legal field, and the next section gives a critical analysis of the proposal to always prioritise the interest of the occupant of the vehicle in situations with conflict of interests. The principle of minimizing social damage as (...) a model for configuring self-driving cars is examined in the third section. Despite its apparent plausibility, within the framework of a liberal legal system that recognises humans as free agents who have rights and responsibilities, maximizing the function of social utility does not justify harmful interference into a person’s legal sphere. Therefore, in the fourth part, the author argues the need to program the crash algorithms of autonomous cars based on a deontological understanding of the system of justifications in criminal law. The solution to the dilemma lies in a prior analysis of the legal positions of all agents involved in the conflict, from a perspective of the principles of autonomy and solidarity as the core of the system of justifications. (shrink)

Robert Alexy develops his influential theory of legal reasoning exploring the nature of legal argumentation and its relation to practical reasoning. In doing so he sheds light on fundamental questions of law and rationality, which are as crucial to practising lawyers and law students as they are to scholars of legal theory.

Richard Foley has suggested that the search for a good theory of epistemic justification and the analysis of knowledge should be conceived of as two distinct projects. However, he has not offered much support for this claim, beyond highlighting certain salutary consequences it might have. In this paper, I offer some further support for Foley’s claim by offering an argument and a way to conceive the claim in a way that makes it as plausible as its denial, and thus (...) levelling the playing field. The burden of proof then lies with those who seek to deny Foley’s radical suggestion. (shrink)

This article offers a perspective on the critical theory of justice by presenting a structural and processual reconstruction of Rainer Forst’s intriguing yet somewhatopaque concept of a basic structure of justification which is central to his proposed critique of justificatory relations. It shows from a cognitive-sociological perspective what a cooperative relation between a philosophical theory of justice and a social scientific approach could mean for critical theory. A basic structure of justification is revealed to be a cognitively available (...) reflexive order above the order of substantive social and political relations that allows the identifi cation, explanation and transformative critique of reflexivity deficits induced by hegemonic, ideological, repressive or obfuscating means. Far from being exclusively a theoretical and methodological tool, however, it is in principle accessible to those involved and affected on whose experience, suffering and critique critical theory vitally depends. (shrink)

本书主要内容包括:理性与自由:康德论人权的确立;自律与他律:传统人权观的康德批判;权利与善:康德人权观的当代承继与歧见;主体性与人权论证理论的检视等.

Although John Locke’s theory of appropriation is undoubtedly influential, no one seems to agree about exactly what he was trying to say. It is unlikely that someone will write the interpretation that effectively ends the controversy. Instead of trying to find the one definitive interpretation of Locke’s property theory, this article attempts to identify the range of reasonable interpretations and extensions of Lockean property theory that exist in the contemporary literature with an emphasis on his argument for unilateral appropriation. It (...) goes through Locke’s argument point-by-point discussing the controversy over what he said and over what he perhaps should have said to make the most valuable and coherent argument. The result is an outline of Lockean theories of property: a menu of options by which one might use appropriation to justify property rights. Supporters only need to pick the version they find most plausible, but opponents should be aware of the entire menu. Anyone claiming to refute appropriation-based property rights must address not only one but all potentially valid versions of it. (shrink)

This book revives inductive logic by bringing out the underlying epistemology. The resulting structural reliabilist theory propounds the view that justification supervenes on syntactic and semantic properties of sentences as justification-bearers. It is claimed to set up a genuine alternative to the prevailing theories of justification. Kawalec substantiates this claim by confronting structural reliabilism with a number of epistemological problems. While the book is addressed to both professionals and students of philosophical logic, probability, epistemology, and philosophy (...) of science, it also surveys ideas central to the development of philosophy in the 20th century. It will be a valuable companion to multifarious graduate and postgraduate courses. (shrink)

Abstract The debate in the philosophy of perception between direct realists and representationalists should influence the debate in epistemology between internalists and externalists about justification. If direct realists are correct, there are more consciously accessible justifiers for internalists to exploit than externalists think. Internalists can retain their distinctive internalist identity while accepting this widened conception of internalistic justification: even if they welcome the possibility of cognitive access to external facts, their position is still quite distinct from the typical (...) externalist position. To demonstrate this, Alvin Goldman’s critique of internalism is shown to ignore important lessons from the case for direct realism about perception. In particular, it unjustifiably assumes that internalism entails that only facts simultaneous with the justification of a belief can justify the belief. Goldman’s definition of a “justifier” is also inconsistent with the overall guidance conception of epistemology he takes for granted in his critique of internalism. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-26 DOI 10.1007/s12136-012-0146-4 Authors Benjamin Bayer, Department of Philosophy, Loyola University, New Orleans, 6363 St. Charles Avenue, Box 046, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA Journal Acta Analytica Online ISSN 1874-6349 Print ISSN 0353-5150. (shrink)

Rainer Forst develops a critical theory capable of deciphering the deficits and potentials inherent in contemporary political reality. This calls for a perspective which is immanent to social and political practices and at the same time transcends them. Forst regards society as a whole as an ‘order of justification’ comprising complexes of different norms referring to institutions and corresponding practices of justification. The task of a ‘critique of relations of justification’, therefore, is to analyse such legitimations with (...) regard to their validity and genesis and to explore the social and political asymmetries leading to inequalities in the ‘justification power’ which enables persons or groups to contest given justifications and to create new ones. Starting from the concept of justification as a basic social practice, Forst develops a theory of political and social justice, human rights and democracy, as well as of power and of critique itself. In so doing, he engages in a critique of a number of contemporary approaches in political philosophy and critical theory. Finally, he also addresses the question of the utopian horizon of social criticism. (shrink)

This book argues that a conscientiously objecting medical professional should receive an exemption only if the grounds of an objector's refusal are reasonable. It defends a detailed, contextual account of public reasonability suited for healthcare, which builds from the overarching concept of Rawlsian public reason. The author analyzes the main competing positions and maintains that these other views fail precisely due to their systematic inattention to the grounding reasons behind a conscientious objection; he argues that any such view is plausible (...) to the extent that it mimics the 'reason-giving requirement' for conscience objections defended in this work. Only reasonable objections can defeat the prior professional obligation to assign primacy to patient well-being, therefore one who refuses a patient's request for a legally available, medically indicated, and safe service must be able to explain the grounds of their objection in terms understandable to other citizens within the public institutional structure of medicine. The book further offers a novel policy proposal to deploy the Reasonability View: establishing conscientious objector status in medicine. It concludes that the Reasonability View is a viable and attractive position in this debate. A New Theory of Conscientious Objection in Medicine: Justification and Reasonability will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in bioethics, medical ethics, and philosophy of medicine, as well as thinkers interested in the intersections between law, medical humanities, and philosophy. (shrink)

David Annis is professor of philosophy at Ball State University. In this essay, Annis offers an alternative to the foundationalist-coherent controversy: "contextualism." This theory rejects both the idea of intrinsically basic beliefs in the foundational sense and the thesis that coherence is sufficient for justification. he argues that justification is relative to the varying norms of social practices.

:The ideal of public justification holds, at a minimum, that the most fundamental political and legal institutions of a society must be publicly justified to each of its members. This essay proposes and defends a new account of this ideal. The account defended construes public justification as an ideal of rational justification, one that is grounded in the moral requirement to respect the rational agency of persons. The essay distinguishes two kinds of justifying reasons that bear on (...) politics and shows how they inform the ideal of public justification. It also decouples public justification from contractualist political morality. The result is a novel account of public justification that departs markedly from how the ideal is commonly characterized, but shows how it retains its distinctiveness as an ideal of politics. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.THE PURE THEORY OF PUBLIC JUSTIFICATIONVolume 32, Issue 2Steven Wall DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000170Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. THE PURE THEORY OF PUBLIC JUSTIFICATIONVolume 32, Issue 2Steven Wall DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000170Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. THE PURE THEORY OF PUBLIC JUSTIFICATIONVolume 32, Issue 2Steven Wall DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000170Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

According to a common view, the activity of justifying is epistemologically irrelevant: being justified in believing as one does never requires the ability to justify one’s belief. This view runs into trouble regarding the epistemic basing relation, the relation between a person’s belief and the reasons for which the person holds it. The view must appeal to basing relations as part of its account of what it is for a person to be justified in believing as she does, but the (...) view prevents basing relations from doing the needed work. In place of the common view, I propose an account of basing relations which links them to the person’s commitments and hence to her justificatory activity. If this proposal is correct, then positive justificatory status, too, will be conceptually linked to the ability to succeed in the activity of justifying. (shrink)

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

This volume develops a theory of meaning and a semantics for both mathematical and empirical sentences inspired to Chomsky’s internalism, namely to a view of semantics as the study of the relations of language not with external reality but with internal, or mental, reality. In the first part a theoretical notion of justification for a sentence A is defined, by induction on the complexity of A; intuitively, justifications are conceived as cognitive states of a particular kind. The main source (...) of inspiration for this part is Heyting’s explanation of the intuitionistic meaning of logical constants. In the second part the theory is applied to the solution of several foundational problems in the theory of meaning and epistemology, such as Frege’s puzzle, Mates’ puzzle about synonymy, the paradox of analysis, Kripke’s puzzle about belief, the de re/de dicto distinction, the specific/non-specific distinction, Gettier’s problems, the paradox of knowability, and the characterization of truth. On a more general philosophical level, throughout the book the author develops a tight critique of the neo-verificationism of Dummett, Prawitz and Martin-Löf, and defends a mentalist interpretation of intuitionism. (shrink)

Epistemic contextualism is a thesis about truth conditions of knowledge ascribed to sentences such as “S knows that p” and “S does not know that p”. According to contextualists it is the speaker’s context – the one attributing knowledge – that is pertinent to the truth conditions and truth value of knowledge attributions. Thus, in one context a speaker might say “S knows p” while in another context another he/she might say “S does not know p” without any contradiction involved. (...) Cohen’s version of contextualism takes justification, rather than knowledge, to come in degrees. I shall argue that Cohen’s contextualist theory of justification suffers from several major problems. (shrink)

John P. Lizza has long been a major figure in the scholarly literature on criteria for death. His searching and penetrating critiques of the dominant biological paradigm, and his defense of a theory of death of the person as a psychophysical entity, have both significantly advanced the literature. In this special issue, Lizza reinforces his critiques of a strictly biological approach. In my commentary, I take up Lizza’s challenge regarding a biological concept of death. He is certainly right to point (...) out that science is not value-free; however, this does not imply that there cannot be a characterization of biological death that can be shown to be superior to other concepts. After characterizing and justifying such a theory of biological death, I show that patients who meet the diagnostic criteria for brain death are unequivocally biologically alive. However, with respect to concepts of personhood and related ideas, I urge the acceptance of a pluralism of such concepts for matters of public policy. (shrink)

The “right intention” requirement, in the form of a requirement that the agent must have a justified true belief that the mind-independent conditions of the justification to use force are fulfilled, is not an additional criterion, but one that constrains the interpretation of the other criteria. Without it, the only possible interpretation of the mind-independent criteria is purely objectivist, that is, purely fact-relative. Pure objectivism condemns self-defense and just war theory to irrelevance since it cannot provide proper action guidance: (...) it is impractically demanding. This means that “revisionist” just war theories which base their doctrine of the moral inequality of combatants on the idea that objective justification defeats liability are irrelevant for the real world, where objective justification is virtually inaccessible. Moreover, only the right intention requirement in the form of a knowledge requirement, as opposed to requiring “good intentions” or “acceptable motivations,” can solve this problem. (shrink)

All justified beliefs ultimately rest on attitudes that are immediately justified. This book illuminates the nature of immediate justification and the states that provide it. Simply put, immediate justification arises from how things appear to us--from all and only our "seemings." The author defends each aspect of this "seemings foundationalism," including the assumption of foundationalism itself. Most notably, the author draws from common sense philosopher Thomas Reid to present new and improved arguments for phenomenal conservatism and gives the (...) first systematic argument that seemings alone are capable of immediately justifying. The discussion also delves deeply into the nature of seemings and how it is that their assertive phenomenal character makes them (and them alone) capable of immediately justifying. Along the way, the author makes novel contributions to perennial debates about justification such as: internalism versus externalism, deontologism and epistemic blame, epistemic circularity, and the common sense response to skepticism. Seemings and the Foundations of Justification will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in epistemology, Thomas Reid, or the common sense tradition. (shrink)

There is now a significant body of literature on consequentialist ethics that propose satisficing instead of maximizing accounts. Even though epistemology recently witnessed a widespread discussion of teleological and consequentialist theories, a satisficing account is surprisingly not developed yet. The aim of this paper is to do just that. The rough idea is that epistemic rules are justified if and only if they satisfice the epistemic good, i.e., reach some threshold of epistemic value (which varies with practical context), and (...) believing is justified if and only if it follows said rules.I argue that this alternative to the implicitly established way of thinking in maximizing terms has significant advantages. First, maximizing epistemic value can be unreasonably demanding; second, a satisficing theory can make finding reasonable rules for belief formation and sustenance much more accessible; and third, a satisficing approach is a better alternative to both general subjectivist and maximizing objectivist attempts to spell out epistemic blame. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the relationship between ignorance and responsibility. Ignorance is often treated as an excuse, but there are times when ignorance does not excuse. Ignorance that does not excuse is usually known as culpable ignorance. Since ignorance is largely an epistemological concept, the difference between culpable and exculpating ignorance suggests a connection between epistemology and theories of responsibility that has gone relatively unexplored. The following work explores this connection and argues that incorporating epistemological theories will help provide (...) a robust account of both the ignorance excuse and culpable ignorance. -/- The project begins by pointing out that some highly intuitive accounts of culpable ignorance seem remarkably like theories of epistemic justification. As such, epistemic justification seems like the best candidate for an epistemological concept that might share a connection with the culpable ignorance literature in moral philosophy. I argue that there is a theory of epistemic justification that captures our intuitions regarding culpable ignorance. Its close connection to our practices gives us good reason to think that, if this theory of justification is right, then the following is true: one’s ignorance exculpates only if it is justified, and one’s ignorance is culpable only if it is not justified. I call this the Justification Thesis. Once I establish the Justification Thesis, I defend it against various possible objections. First, the Justification Thesis is a derivative account of culpable ignorance, and it is often thought that derivative accounts are forced into responsibility skepticism. I argue that this is not true. Second, it is often thought derivative accounts like the Justification Thesis are open to a large class of counterexamples. I examine a few common alleged counterexamples and argue that they trade on ambiguities that, I suggest, are shared by every purported counterexample. When disambiguated it turns out they are not counterexamples after all. Third, some question whether ignorance with moral content exculpates. I argue that the Justification Thesis captures our intuitions regarding moral ignorance. Finally, I address a challenge to the initial assumption that culpable ignorance does not excuse and argue that this challenge is mistaken. (shrink)

The article exposes Husserl’s theory of time and provides its detailed comparison with theories of time of I. Kant and F. Brentano. The author first examines the general principles of the phenomenological theory of consciousness, and then analyzes the time concept of F. Brentano and Husserl’s criticism of these ideas, and eventually makes a comparison of Husserl’s and Kant’s theories of time. The author is inclined to conclude that progress in the interpretation of the time made by Husserl, (...) is largely external, based on unacceptable epistemological principles. Critique of these principles the author plans to carry out in one of the next issues of the magazine. (shrink)

This collection of papers (including three completely new ones) by one of the foremost philosophers in epistemology transcends two of the most widely misunderstood positions in philosophy--foundationalism and coherentism. Audi proposes a distinctively moderate, internalist foundationalism that incorporates some of the virtues of both coherentism and reliabilism. He develops important distinctions between positive and negative epistemic dependence, substantively and conceptually naturalistic theories, dispositional beliefs and dispositions to believe, episodically and structurally inferential beliefs, first and second order internalism, and rebutting (...) as opposed to refuting skepticism. These contrasts are applied not only to rational belief, but to rational action and the rationality of desires and intentions. The overall position is a pluralist, moderately rationalistic, internalist theory of justification and a partly externalist conception of knowledge. However, by virtue of offering a theory of rationality as well as an account of knowledge and justified belief, it will interest philosophers of ethics, science, and the social sciences and teachers and students of epistemology. (shrink)