Eva Schmidt argues that facts about incoherent beliefs can be non-evidential epistemic reasons to suspend judgment. In this commentary, I argue that incoherence-based reasons to suspend are epistemically superfluous: if the subjects in Schmidt’s cases ought to suspend judgment, then they should do so merely on the basis of their evidential reasons. This suggests a more general strategy to reduce the apparent normativity of coherence to the normativity of evidence. I conclude with some remarks on the independent interest that reasons-first (...) epistemology might have within an evidentialist framework. (shrink)

It is not uncommon in the history of science and philosophy to encounter crucial experiments or crucial objections the truth-value of which we are ignorant, that is, about which we suspend judgment. Should we ignore such objections? Contrary to widespread practice, I show that in and only in some circumstances they should not be ignored, for the epistemically rational doxastic attitude is to suspend judgment also about the hypothesis that the objection targets. In other words, suspension of judgment “propagates” from (...) the crucial objection to the hypothesis. In this paper I study under which conditions this phenomenon occurs, and discuss its significance for the topics of skepticism, scientific realism, and peer disagreement. (shrink)

Controversy over the epistemology of disagreement endures because there is an unnoticed factor at work: the intrinsic value we give to self-trust. Even if there are many instances of disagreement where, from a strictly epistemic or rational point of view, we ought to suspend belief, there are other values at work that influence our all-things considered judgments about what we ought to believe. Hence those who would give equal-weight to both sides in many cases of disagreement may be right, from (...) the perspective of pure rationality. But their critics are right too, in seeing something undesirable in the consequences of giving equal weight. Among epistemologists, there is a tendency to set aside trust and other such non-epistemic factors, on the grounds that these are not germane to their topic. But ultimately, the value of self-trust shows signs of encroaching on the strictly epistemic question of when our beliefs may be said to be justified. Hence again, even if the equal-weighters are right about what is rational, they may be wrong about what knowledge requires. (shrink)

In her recent `Facts about incoherence as non-evidential epistemic reasons‘ Eva Schmidt defends the claim that not all epistemic reasons are provided by evidence. Schmidt presents three cases describing agents with incoherent beliefs and argues that, in each case, the fact that an agent’s beliefs are incoherent provides her with a non-evidential epistemic reason to suspend judgment on the issue that her beliefs are about. While I find the suggestion that facts about incoherence can play positive roles in our cognitive (...) lives intriguing, I have three reservations about Schmidt’s view: the first concerns her conceptual framework—I think it is less neutral than it appears to be—the second concerns the view’s behavior in certain kinds of scenarios involving higher-order evidence, and the third has to do with some implausible consequences of the view. I also hint at an alternative account of the positive role of facts about incoherence. (shrink)

This article is concerned with a puzzle that arises from three initially plausible assumptions that form an inconsistent triad: (1) Epistemic reasons are normative reasons (normativism); (2) reasons are normative only if conformity with them is good (the reasons/value-link); (3) conformity with epistemic reasons need not be good (the nihilist assumption). I start by defending the reasons/value-link, arguing that normativists need to reject the nihilist assumption. I then argue that the most familiar view that denies the nihilist assumption – epistemic (...) teleology – is untenable. Finally, I consider two alternative ways of accounting for the goodness of conformity with epistemic reasons: it may be good because it accords with the virtue of reasons-responsiveness, and it may be good because it is good to conform with normative reasons as such. I argue that both of these conceptions avoid the problems of epistemic teleology and merit serious consideration as potential solutions to the puzzle. (shrink)

Thomas Kroedel argues that the lottery paradox can be solved by identifying epistemic justification with epistemic permissibility rather than epistemic obligation. According to his permissibility solution, we are permitted to believe of each lottery ticket that it will lose, but since permissions do not agglomerate, it does not follow that we are permitted to have all of these beliefs together, and therefore it also does not follow that we are permitted to believe that all tickets will lose. I present two (...) objections to this solution. First, even if justification itself amounts to no more than epistemic permissibility, the lottery paradox recurs at the level of doxastic obligations unless one adopts an extremely permissive view about suspension of belief that is in tension with our practice of doxastic criticism. Second, even if there are no obligations to believe lottery propositions, the permissibility solution fails because epistemic permissions typically agglomerate, and the lottery case provides no exception to this rule. (shrink)

Kiesewetter defends the normativity of rationality by presenting a new solution to the problems that arise from the common assumption that we ought to be rational. He provides a defence of a reason-response conception of rationality, an evidence-relative account of reason, and an explanation of structural irrationality in relation to these accounts.

A joke is amusing if and only if it’s fitting to be amused by it; an act is regrettable if and only if it’s fitting to regret it. Many philosophers accept these biconditionals and hold that analogous ones obtain between a wide range of additional evaluative properties and the fittingness of corresponding responses. Call these the _fit–value biconditionals_. The biconditionals give us a systematic way of recognizing the role of fit in our ethical practices; they also serve as the bedrock (...) of various metaethical projects, such as fitting-attitude analysis of value and the ‘fittingness first’ approach. Yet despite the importance of the biconditionals, there is very little discussion of their proper interpretation. This paper argues that any plausible interpretation of the fit_–_value biconditionals must disarm several kinds of apparent counterexample. For instance, that an achievement is pride-worthy doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to take pride in it because the achievement might not be mine or that of anyone close to me; that a joke is amusing doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to be amused by it for six straight months; and that a person is loveable doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to love him romantically because that person might be my sibling. We consider possible responses to such counterexamples and develop what we consider the most promising interpretation of the biconditionals. The upshot is that certain widespread assumptions about fit and its relation to value and reasons should be reconsidered. (shrink)

The fact that philosophy is systematic—that philosophical issues are thoroughly interconnected—was a commonplace among nineteenth century idealists, then neglected by analytic philosophers throughout much of the twentieth century, and has now finally started to get some renewed attention. But other than calling attention to the fact, few philosophers have tried to say what it consists in, or what its implications are. -/- I argue that the systematicity of philosophy has disastrous epistemological implications. In particular, it implies philosophical skepticism: philosophers are (...) rationally prohibited from believing any philosophical thesis. The argument goes by way of a new principle that connects inquiry with what is rational to believe. I conclude with a discussion of the relationship between my argument and other, more well-trodden arguments for philosophical skepticism. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason problem that afflicts Fitting-Attitude analyses of value. I argue that we can distinguish reasons of the right kind from reasons of the wrong kind by being clear about what our reasons are for. In Wrong Kind of Reason cases, our reason to have a certain affective attitude is a reason for an action, and it is this category-mistake that is the source of the problem.

Response-dependence theories have historically been very popular in aesthetics, and aesthetic response-dependence has motivated response-dependence in ethics. This chapter closely examines the prospects for such theories. It breaks this category down into dispositional and fittingness strands of response-dependence, corresponding to descriptive and normative ideal observer theories. It argues that the latter have advantages over the former but are not themselves without issue. Special attention is paid to the relationship between hedonism and response-dependence. The chapter also introduces two aesthetic properties that (...) lead to wrong kinds of reasons problems for aesthetic response-dependence: insightfulness and the capacity to change one’s perspective. These properties do not have obvious parallels in the ethical domain, and so present an obstacle for response-dependence even in aesthetics. The chapter ends by examining replies on behalf of the response-dependence theorist, ultimately suggesting that a restricted form of response-dependence is the most promising way forward for fans of such theories. (shrink)

The chapter introduces and characterizes the notion of fittingness. It charts the history of the relation and its relevance to contemporary debates in normative and metanormative philosophy and proceeds to survey issues to do with fittingness covered in the volume’s chapters, including the nature and epistemology of fittingness, the relations between fittingness and reasons, the normativity of fittingness, fittingness and value theory, and the role of fittingness in theorizing about responsibility. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of issues to (...) do with fittingness that aren’t covered extensively by the volume’s chapters in order to indicate avenues for further research. (shrink)

Ever since John Locke, philosophers have discussed the possibility of a normative epistemology: are there epistemic obligations binding the cognitive economy of belief and disbelief? Locke's influential answer was evidentialist: we have an epistemic obligation to believe in accordance with our evidence. In this dissertation, I place the contemporary literature on agency and reasons at the service of some such normative epistemology. I discuss the semantics of obligations, the connection between obligations and reasons to believe, the implausibility of Lockean evidentialism, (...) and some of the alleged connections between agency and justification. (shrink)

The ethics of belief is concerned with the question of what we should believe. According to evidentialism, what one should believe is determined by evidence only. Pragmatism claims that practical considerations too can be relevant. But pragmatism comes in two shapes. According to a more traditional version, practical considerations can provide practical reasons for or against belief. According to a new brand of pragmatism, pragmatic encroachment, practical considerations can affect positive epistemic status, such as epistemic rationality or knowledge. In the (...) literature, the distinction between the two versions of pragmatism is not always made. If it is mentioned, it is quickly put aside. Sometimes, it is simply overlooked. As evidentialists face two distinct pragmatist challenges, they must get clearer on the distinction. But it matters for pragmatists too. As I see it, if one accepts one version of pragmatism, one should reject the other. This paper’s goals are to get clearer on the distinction and argue that both pragmatisms are independent. Accepting one version does not commit one to accept the other. Moreover, even if both pragmatisms tend to be neutral toward one another, I will argue that traditional pragmatism has good reasons to reject pragmatic encroachment and vice versa. (shrink)

For many epistemologists, and for many philosophers more broadly, it is axiomatic that rationality requires you to take the doxastic attitudes that your evidence supports. Yet there is also another current in our talk about rationality. On this usage, rationality is a matter of the right kind of coherence between one's mental attitudes. Surprisingly little work in epistemology is explicitly devoted to answering the question of how these two currents of talk are related. But many implicitly assume that evidence -responsiveness (...) guarantees coherence, so that the rational impermissibility of incoherence will just fall out of the putative requirement to take the attitudes that one's evidence supports, and so that coherence requirements do not need to be theorized in their own right, apart from evidential reasons. In this paper, I argue that this is a mistake, since coherence and evidence -responsiveness can in fact come into conflict. More specifically, I argue that in cases of misleading higher-order evidence, there can be a conflict between believing what one's evidence supports and satisfying a requirement that I call “inter-level coherence ”. This illustrates why coherence requirements and evidential reasons must be separated and theorized separately. (shrink)

This paper offers a new account of how structural rationality, or coherence, is normative. The central challenge to the normativity of coherence – which I term the problem of “making space” for the normativity of coherence – is this: if considerations of coherence matter normatively, it is not clear how we ought to take account of them in our deliberation. Coherence considerations don’t seem to show up in reasoning about what to believe, intend, desire, hope, fear, and so on; moreover, (...) they seem awkward to take account of alongside more “substantive” considerations about the merits of such attitudes. I aim here to solve this problem, and in so doing to offer the aforementioned new account of how coherence is normative. On the view I defend, which I call the Reasons-to-Structure-Deliberation model, considerations of coherence constitute reasons for structuring deliberation in certain ways: more particularly, to treat incoherent combinations of attitudes as off-limits, and so to focus one’s deliberation on choosing between the coherent combinations. (shrink)

In discussions of whether and how pragmatic considerations can make a difference to what one ought to believe, two sets of cases feature. The first set, which dominates the debate about pragmatic reasons for belief, is exemplified by cases of being financially bribed to believe (or withhold from believing) something. The second set, which dominates the debate about pragmatic encroachment on epistemic justification, is exemplified by cases where acting on a belief rashly risks some disastrous outcome if the belief turns (...) out to be false. Call those who think that pragmatic considerations make a difference to what one ought to believe in the second kind of case, but not in the first, ‘moderate pragmatists’. Many philosophers – in particular, most advocates of pragmatic and moral encroachment – are moderate pragmatists. But moderate pragmatists owe us an explanation of exactly why the second kind of pragmatic consideration makes a difference, but the first kind doesn’t. I argue that the most promising of these explanations all fail: they are either theoretically undermotivated, or get key cases wrong, or both. Moderate pragmatism may be an unstable stopping point between a more extreme pragmatism, on one hand, and an uncompromising anti-pragmatism on the other. (shrink)

According to the doctrine of infallibility, one is permitted to believe p if one knows that necessarily, one would be right if one believed that p. This plausible principle—made famous in Descartes’ cogito—is false. There are some self-fulfilling, higher-order propositions one can’t be wrong about but shouldn’t believe anyway: believing them would immediately make one's overall doxastic state worse.

In this introduction, I explain the notion of higher-order evidence and explore its bearing on aesthetic judgement. I start by illustrating how reflection on cases involving higher-order evidence engages with well-established concerns in aesthetics—specifically, how it might reveal tensions within and between widely recognized aesthetic ideals governing aesthetic judgement. Next, I show how attention to higher-order evidence in relation to aesthetic judgement might expose limitations or assumptions of theories in epistemology, where the nature and significance of higher-order evidence with respect (...) to belief is the focus of much recent attention. The aim is not to resolve the issues but to demonstrate the significance of higher-order evidence in aesthetics and, in doing so, encourage work on the topic in and across aesthetics and epistemology. (shrink)

A normative reason for a person to? is a consideration which favours?ing. A motivating reason is a reason for which or on the basis of which a person?s. This paper explores a connection between normative and motivating reasons. More specifically, it explores the idea that there are second-order normative reasons to? for or on the basis of certain first-order normative reasons. In this paper, I challenge the view that there are second-order reasons so understood. I then show that prominent views (...) in contemporary epistemology are committed to the existence of second-order reasons, specifically, views about the epistemic norms governing practical reasoning and about the role of higher-order evidence. If there are no second-order reasons, those views are mistaken. (shrink)

What does the aesthetic ask of us? What claims do the aesthetic features of the objects and events in our environment make on us? My answer in this paper is: that depends. Aesthetic reasons can only justify feelings – they cannot demand them. A corollary of this is that there are no aesthetic obligations to feel, only permissions. However, I argue, aesthetic reasons can demand actions – they do not merely justify them. A corollary of this is that there are (...) aesthetic obligations to act, not only permissions. So, I conclude, the aesthetic asks little of us as patients and much of as agents. (shrink)

A concept that can be expressed by the term ‘rationality’ plays a central role in both epistemology and ethics -- and especially in formal epistemology and decision theory. It is argued here that when the term is used in this way, the concept of “rationality” is the concept of a kind of virtue, with all the central features that are ascribed to the virtues by Plato and Aristotle, among others. Interpreting rationality as a kind of virtue helps to solve several (...) problems, such as the relations between “rationality” and “rational requirements” and between “propositional” and “doxastic justification”, and to answer objections to the thesis that “rationality” is a normative concept that are based on the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. (shrink)

One recurrent objection to the idea that the right kind of reasons for or against an attitude are object-given reasons for or against that attitude is that object-given reasons for or against belief and disbelief are incapable of explaining certain features of epistemic normativity. Prohibitive balancing, the behaviour of bare statistical evidence, information about future or easily available evidence, pragmatic and moral encroachment, as well as higher-order defeaters, are all said to be inexplicable in terms of those object-given reasons. In (...) this paper, I provide a rebuttal to all these challenges by drawing attention to the object-given reasons for and against the third doxastic state, namely the suspension of judgement. First, I introduce an original picture of how suspension relates to belief and disbelief – as ways of being decided – which yields a novel weighing model of the corresponding reasons. Second, I demonstrate that this new take on doxastic deliberation can accommodate all five features of epistemic normativity. Finally, I extend the weighing model to cover practical deliberation and the suspension of intentions. The resulting theory provides an explanation of why epistemic and practical normativity differ in certain respects in terms of a significant difference between doxastic and conative suspension. (shrink)

This paper argues for a novel sentimentalist realist metaethical theory, according to which moral wrongness is analyzed in terms of the sentiments one has most reason to have. As opposed to standard sentimentalist views, the theory does not employ sentiments that are had in response to morally wrong action, but rather sentiments that antecedently dispose people to refrain from immoral behavior, specifically the sentiments of compassion and respect.

There is an unresolved conflict concerning the normative nature of desire. Some authors take rational desire to differ from rational belief in being a normatively unconstrained attitude. Others insist that rational desire seems plausibly subject to several consistency norms. This article argues that the correct analysis of this conflict of conative normativity leads us to acknowledge intrinsic and extrinsic reasons to desire. If sound, this point helps us to unveil a fundamental aspect of desire, namely, that we cannot desire at (...) will. Unlike belief, however, desire can unproblematically accommodate a notion of instrumental attitude. (shrink)

Some moral theories, such as objective forms of consequentialism, seem to fail to be practically useful: they are of little to no help in trying to decide what to do. Even if we do not think this constitutes a fatal flaw in such theories, we may nonetheless agree that being practically useful does make a moral theory a better theory, or so some have suggested. In this paper, I assess whether the uncontroversial respect in which a moral theory can be (...) claimed to be better if it is practically useful can provide a ground worth taking into account for believing one theory rather than another. I argue that this is not the case. The upshot is that if there is a sound objection to theories such as objective consequentialism that is based on considerations of practical usefulness, the objection requires that it is established that the truth about what we morally ought to do cannot be epistemically inaccessible to us. The value of practical usefulness has no bearing on the issue. (shrink)

In this essay I ask if there are reasons that count in favor of having a desire in virtue of its attitudinal nature. I call those considerations desire's own reasons. I argue that desire's own reasons are considerations that explain why a desire meets its constitutive standard of correctness and that it meets this standard when its satisfaction would also be satisfactory to the subject who has it. Reasons that bear on subjective satisfaction are fit to regulate desires through experience (...) and imagination because desires are naturally sensitive to them. I also analyze the limits of application that such reasons have and how desire's own reasons relate to other kinds of reasons. (shrink)

Many have found it plausible that practical circumstances can affect whether someone is in a position to know or rationally believe a proposition. For example, whether it is rational for a person to believe that the bank will be open tomorrow, can depend not only on the person’s evidence, but also on how practically important it is for the person not to be wrong about the bank being open tomorrow. This supposed phenomenon is known as “pragmatic encroachment” on knowledge and (...) rational belief. Assuming that the phenomenon is real, I ask what explains it. I argue that a variant of instrumentalism about epistemic reasons offers a natural explanation, that at the same time is able avoid commitment to a more radical form of pragmatism. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a puzzle about the connection between an agent’s knowledge and her rationality and a way to solve it. The puzzle is that, intuitively, many of us want to accept both that it is rational for an agent to act on what she knows and that it is irrational for an agent to take what she knows for granting in her practical reasoning. These two claims about rationality present us with a puzzle because, holding fixed our (...) interpretation of rationality, we cannot accept them both. According to my view, the most compelling way of solving this puzzle is to distinguish between our primary and dispositional evaluations of actions. By making this distinction, we not only gain a unique perspective on the relationship between knowledge and rationality, we also see how doing what we know is best might still manifest an undesirable habit. (shrink)

In Reasons Without Persons, Brian Hedden argues that a theory of rationality need not provide diachronic norms for reasoning, since we can explain all we need to explain about rationality using purely synchronic norms. This article argues that a theory of rationality should contain at least one diachronic norm for reasoning, namely a norm to fill in the details of one's coarse-grained or partial plans. It also explores a possible synchronic approach to this aspect of rationality.

This paper outlines a new metasemantic theory of moral reason statements, focused on explaining how the reasons thus stated can be inescapable. The motivation for the theory is in part that it can explain this and other phenomena concerning moral reasons. The account also suggests a general recipe for explanations of conceptual features of moral reason statements. (Published with Open Access.).

Susanna Rinard has recently offered a new argument for pragmatism and against evidentialism. According to Rinard, evidentialists must hold that the rationality of belief is determined in a way that is different from how the rationality of other states is determined. She argues that we should instead endorse a view she calls Equal Treatment, according to which the rationality of all states is determined in the same way. In this paper, I show that Rinard’s claims are mistaken, and that evidentialism (...) is more theoretically virtuous than its opponents sometimes give it credit for. Not only does evidentialism not make an exception for belief, but it fits naturally into a unified, explanatorily powerful account of the rationality of intentional mental states. According to such an account, the rationality of all intentional mental states, including belief, is determined by the right kind of reasons for those states. Since the right kind of reasons for belief just are evidential considerations, this unified account entails evidentialism. I conclude, contra Rinard, that evidentialism can be situated within a general account of rationality that is at least as theoretically virtuous as pragmatism, if not more so. (shrink)

In his important recent book Schroeder proposes a Humean theory of reasons that he calls hypotheticalism. His rigourous account of the weight of reasons is crucial to his theory, both as an element of the theory and constituting his defence to powerful standard objections to Humean theories of reasons. In this paper I examine that rigourous account and show it to face problems of vacuity and consonance. There are technical resources that may be brought to bear on the problem of (...) vacuity but implementation is not simple and philosophical motivation a further difficulty. Even supposing vacuity is fixed, the problems of consonance bring to light a different obstruction lying in Schroeder’s path. There is a difference between the general weighing of reasons and the context specificity of the correct placing of weight on them in deliberation and this difference cannot be fixed by the resources in the account. For these reasons we are still waiting for a plausible Humean theory of reasons. (shrink)

Mark Schroeder has recently offered a solution to the problem of distinguishing between the so-called " right " and " wrong " kinds of reasons for attitudes like belief and admiration. Schroeder tries out two different strategies for making his solution work: the alethic strategy and the background-facts strategy. In this paper I argue that neither of Schroeder's two strategies will do the trick. We are still left with the problem of distinguishing the right from the wrong kinds of reasons.

The fact that someone is generous is a reason to admire them. The fact that someone will pay you to admire them is also a reason to admire them. But there is a difference in kind between these two reasons: the former seems to be the ‘right’ kind of reason to admire, whereas the latter seems to be the ‘wrong’ kind of reason to admire. The Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem is the problem of explaining the difference between the ‘right’ (...) and the ‘wrong’ kind of reasons wherever it appears. In this article I argue that two recent proposals for solving the Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem do not work. I then offer an alternative solution that provides a unified, systematic explanation of the difference between the two kinds of reasons. (shrink)

Mark Schroeder has recently presented apparent counterexamples to the standard account of the distinction between the right and the wrong kinds of reasons. We argue that these examples appear to refute the standard account only because they blur the distinction between two kinds of reasoning: reasoning about whether to intend or believe that p and reasoning about whether to take up the question of whether to intend or believe that p.

A number of philosophers have claimed that non-evidential considerations cannot play a role in doxastic deliberation as motivating reasons to believe a proposition. This claim, interesting in its own right, naturally lends itself to use in a range of arguments for a wide array of substantive philosophical theses. I argue, by way of a counterexample, that the claim to which all these arguments appeal is false. I then consider, and reply to, seven objections to my counterexample. Finally, as a way (...) of softening the blow, I show how the counterexample itself suggests a plausible diagnosis of why this claim has seemed so plausible to so many. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have claimed that non-evidential considerations cannot play a role in doxastic deliberation as motivating reasons to believe a proposition. This claim, interesting in its own right, naturally lends itself to use in a range of arguments for a wide array of substantive philosophical theses. I argue, by way of a counterexample, that the claim to which all these arguments appeal is false. I then consider, and reply to, seven objections to my counterexample. Finally, as a way (...) of softening the blow, I show how the counterexample itself suggests a plausible diagnosis of why this claim has seemed so plausible to so many. (shrink)

According to the Book of Common Prayer, we have sinned against God “in thought, word, and deed.” In this paper I’ll explore one way of understanding what it might mean to sin against God in thought—the idea that we can at least potentially wrong God by what we believe. I will be interested in the philosophical tenability of this idea, and particularly in its potential consequences for the epistemology of religious belief and the problem of evil.

In this paper, I explicate pragmatic encroachment by appealing to pragmatic considerations attenuating, or weakening, epistemic reasons to believe. I call this the ‘Attenuators View’. I will show that this proposal is better than spelling out pragmatic encroachment in terms of reasons against believing – what I call the ‘Reasons View’. While both views do equally well when it comes to providing a plausible mechanism of how pragmatic encroachment works, the Attenuators View does a better job distinguishing practical and epistemic (...) reasons to believe. First, this view does not appeal to the costs of believing falsely as reasons against believing; second, because of this, it does not run the risk of tearing down the wall between practical and epistemic reasons bearing on belief. I underpin the Attenuators View with a virtue-theoretic account of how pragmatic encroachment attenuates epistemic reasons and close my discussion by considering some objections against such a view. (shrink)

We argue that intentions are beliefs—beliefs that are held in light of, and made rational by, practical reasoning. To intend to do something is neither more nor less than to believe, on the basis of one’s practical reasoning, that one will do it. The identification of the mental state of intention with the mental state of belief is what we call strong cognitivism about intentions. It is a strong form of cognitivism because we identify intentions with beliefs, rather than maintaining (...) that beliefs are entailed by intentions or are components of them. (shrink)

This paper presents a counterexample to the principle that all epistemic reasons for doxastic attitudes towards p are provided by evidence concerning p. I begin by motivating and clarifying the principle and the associated picture of epistemic reasons, including the notion of evidence concerning a proposition, which comprises both first- and second-order evidence. I then introduce the counterexample from incoherent doxastic attitudes by presenting three example cases. In each case, the fact that the subject’s doxastic attitudes are incoherent is an (...) epistemic reason to suspend, which is not provided by evidence. I argue that this incoherence fact is a reason for the subject to take a step back and reassess her evidence for her conflicting attitudes, and thus a reason to suspend all of them. Suspending judgment enables the subject to revise attitudes where appropriate and thus (typically) to arrive at a set of coherent and well-supported attitudes. I then address a dilemma for my proposal and, in conclusion, briefly suggest a picture of epistemic reasons on which they are to be understood against the background of the subject’s virtuous intellectual conduct. (shrink)

In this paper I revisit Gregory Kavka’s Toxin Puzzle and propose a novel solution to it. Like some previous accounts, mine postulates a tight link between intentions and reasons but, unlike them, in my account these are motivating rather than normative reasons, i.e. reasons that explain (rather than justify) the intended action. I argue that sensitivity to the absence of possible motivational explanations for the intended action is constitutive of deliberation-based intentions. Since ordinary rational agents display this sensitivity, when placed (...) in the toxin scenario they will believe that there is no motivational explanation for actually drinking the toxin and this is why they can’t form the intention to drink it in the first place. I thus argue that my Motivating-Explanatory Reason Principle correctly explains the toxin puzzle, thereby revealing itself as a genuine metaphysical constraint on intentions. I also explore at length the implications of my account for the nature of intention and rational agency. (shrink)

According to fitting-attitude (FA) accounts of value, X is of final value if and only if there are reasons for us to have a certain pro-attitude towards it. FA accounts supposedly face the wrong kind of reason (WKR) problem. The WKR problem is the problem of revising FA accounts to exclude so called wrong kind of reasons. And wrong kind of reasons are reasons for us to have certain pro-attitudes towards things that are not of value. I argue that the (...) WKR problem can be dissolved. I argue that (A) the view that there are wrong kind of reasons for the pro-attitudes that figure in FA accounts conflicts with the conjunction of (B) an extremely plausible and extremely weak connection between normative and motivating rea- sons and (C) an extremely plausible generality constraint on the reasons for pro- attitudes that figure in FA accounts. I argue that when confronted with this trilemma we should give up (A) rather than (B) or (C) because there is a good explanation of why (A) seems so plausible but is in fact false, but there is no good explanation of why (B) and (C) seem so plausible but are in fact false. (shrink)

I argue that traditional views on which beliefs are subject only to purely epistemic assessment can reject demographic profiling, even when based on seemingly robust evidence. This is because the moral failures involved in demographic profiling can be located in the decision not to suspend judgment, rather than supposing that beliefs themselves are a locus of moral evaluation. A key moral reason to suspend judgment when faced with adverse demographic evidence is to promote social equality—this explains why positive profiling is (...) dubious, along with more familiar cases of negative profiling, and why profiling is suspect even when no particular action is at stake. My suspension-based view, while compatible with revisionary normative positions, does not presuppose them. Philosophers of all stripes can reject demographic profiling both in thought and deed. (shrink)

Intellectualists disagree with anti-intellectualists about the relationship between knowledge and truth. According to intellectualists, this relationship is intimate. Knowledge entails true belief, and in fact everything required for knowledge is somehow relevant to the probability that the belief in question is true. According to anti-intellectualists, this relationship isn’t intimate. Or, at least, it’s not as intimate as intellectualists think. Factors that aren’t in any way relevant to the probability that a belief is true can make a difference to whether it (...) counts as knowledge. In this paper, I give a new argument for anti-intellectualism and draw out consequences of this argument for the pragmatic encroachment debate. The standard purist objection to pragmatism is that pragmatism entails anti-intellectualism. As I show, anti-intellectualism follows from premises that are plausible even if purism is true, so the standard purist objection to pragmatism fails. (shrink)

We sometimes seem to face fundamental moral uncertainty, i.e., uncertainty about what is morally good or morally right that cannot be reduced to ordinary descriptive uncertainty. This phenomenon raises a puzzle for noncognitivism, according to which moral judgments are desire-like attitudes as opposed to belief-like attitudes. Can a state of moral uncertainty really be a noncognitive state? So far, noncognitivists have not been able to offer a completely satisfactory account. Here, we argue that noncognitivists should exploit the formal analogy between (...) moral uncertainty and moral multi-objective decision problems. Our ‘multi-objective story’ enables noncognitivists to save our moral uncertainty thought and talk by explaining how the underlying phenomenon could be noncognitive. (shrink)