- University of Arizona, Philosophy, Graduate StudentFlorida State University, Philosophy, Post-Doc, and 3 moreadd
- I am a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Virtues and Vocations Project at the University of Notre Dame and an FWF Research... moreI am a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Virtues and Vocations Project at the University of Notre Dame and an FWF Research Fellow at the University of Graz.
Before coming to Notre Dame, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cologne's Center for Contemporary Epistemology and the Kantian Tradition, a Dean's Postdoctoral Fellow at Florida State University, and the Mellon Course Design Coordinator for the Philosophy as a Way of Life Project. I received my PhD in philosophy from the University of Arizona, and while dissertating, I also spent time as a visiting researcher at Brown, Notre Dame, and Rutgers. For more information, please contact me at rwsiscoe@gmail.com, or visit my website, www.wessiscoe.com.edit
Political polarization is on the rise, undermining the shared space of public reason necessary for a thriving democracy and making voters more willing than ever to dismiss the perspectives of their political opponents. This destructive... more
Political polarization is on the rise, undermining the shared space of public reason necessary for a thriving democracy and making voters more willing than ever to dismiss the perspectives of their political opponents. This destructive tendency is especially problematic when it comes to issues of race and gender, as informed views on these topics necessarily require engaging with those whose experiences may differ from our own. In order to help our students combat further polarization, we created a course on "The Philosophy of Race, Class, and Gender" that incorporated intergroup dialogues - small, diverse, semester-long discussion groups-that focused on building the civic virtues of toleration, egalitarianism, and solidarity. In this article, we describe our approach, including the evidence that intergroup dialogue can act as a catalyst for democratic dialogue. We hope that the practice of intergroup dialogue can help other instructors cultivate the civic virtues in their philosophy classrooms as well.
Research Interests: Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Education, Virtue Ethics, Civic Education, and 10 moreVirtues (Moral Psychology), Socratic Method, Virtues and Vices, Virtue theory, Civic Virtue, Civics Education, Philosophical Dialogue, Civic and Moral Education, Socratic dialogue, and Virtues Education
Given the significant exculpatory power that ignorance has when it comes to moral, legal, and epistemic transgressions, it is important to have an accurate understanding of the concept of ignorance. According to the Standard View of... more
Given the significant exculpatory power that ignorance has when it comes to moral, legal, and epistemic transgressions, it is important to have an accurate understanding of the concept of ignorance. According to the Standard View of factual ignorance, a person is ignorant that p whenever they do not know that p, while on the New View, a person is ignorant that p whenever they do not truly believe that p. On their own though, neither of these accounts explains how ignorance can often be a degreed notion-how we can sometimes be slightly ignorant, quite ignorant, or completely ignorant that p. In this paper, I will argue that there is a route for advocates of the Standard View and the New View to accommodate the gradability of ignorance. On the view I defend, 'ignorant' picks out everyone that is ignorant to some degree, making it possible that ignorance can be both degreed and characterized as a lack of knowledge or true belief. Even though we can be ignorant to a greater or lesser extent, the only way to avoid being ignorant that p is to know or truly believe.
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Knowledge implies the presence of a positive relation between a person and a fact. Factual ignorance, on the other hand, implies the absence of some positive relation between a person and a fact. The two most influential views of... more
Knowledge implies the presence of a positive relation between a person and a fact. Factual ignorance, on the other hand, implies the absence of some positive relation between a person and a fact. The two most influential views of ignorance hold that what is lacking in cases of factual ignorance is knowledge or true belief, but these accounts fail to explain a number of basic facts about ignorance. In their place, we propose a novel and systematic defense of the view that factual ignorance is the absence of awareness, an account that both comes apart from the dominant views and overcomes their deficiencies. Given the important role that ignorance plays in moral and legal theory and our understanding of various epistemic injustices, a precise and theoretically unproblematic account of the nature of ignorance is important not only for normative epistemology, but also for law, ethics, and applied epistemology.
Research Interests: Epistemology, Ethics of Belief, Epistemic Justification, Social Epistemology, Virtue Epistemology, and 13 moreBeliefs, Knowledge, Theory of Knowledge, Epistemologies of Ignorance, Epistemological beliefs, Beliefs and attitudes, Awareness, Epistemology of Ignorance, Ignorance, Epistemic Injustice, Culpable Ignorance, Beliefs & Values, and Knowledge and Ignorance
Many political philosophers have held that democracy has epistemic benefits. Most commonly, this case is made by arguing that democracies are better able to track the truth than other political arrangements. Truth, however, is not the... more
Many political philosophers have held that democracy has epistemic benefits. Most commonly, this case is made by arguing that democracies are better able to track the truth than other political arrangements. Truth, however, is not the only epistemic good that is politically valuable. A number of other epistemic goods - goods including evidence, intellectual virtue, epistemic justice, and empathetic understanding - can also have political value, and in ways that go beyond the value of truth. In this paper, I will survey those who have argued that democracy can be valuable because of these other epistemic benefits, considering (1) the ways in which these epistemic goods can be of political value and (2) the challenges that democracies face in producing them.
Research Interests: Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Epistemology, Political Theory, Political Science, and 13 moreTruth, Deliberative Democracy, Social Epistemology, Evidence, Democracy, Direct Democracy, New Models Of Participatory And Direct Democracy, Participatory Democracy, Theories Of Truth, Theories of truth (Philosophy), Knowledge, Democracy and Good Governance, and Democracy and Citizenship Education
In order to serve their citizens well, democracies must secure a number of epistemic goods. Take the truth, for example. If a democratic government wants to help its impoverished citizens improve their financial position, then elected... more
In order to serve their citizens well, democracies must secure a number of epistemic goods. Take the truth, for example. If a democratic government wants to help its impoverished citizens improve their financial position, then elected officials will need to know what policies truly help those living in poverty. Because truth has such an important role in political decision-making, many defenders of democracy have highlighted the ways in which democratic procedures can lead to the truth. But there are also a number of other epistemic goods-goods like evidence, intellectual virtue, epistemic justice, and empathetic understanding-that democracies can benefit from producing as well. In this teaching and learning guide, I chart a course through the literature that considers the importance of truth, along with these other political goods, for the healthy functioning of democracies.
Research Interests: Political Philosophy, Epistemology, Political Theory, Democratic Theory, Sociology of Knowledge, and 15 moreTruth, Deliberative Democracy, Social Epistemology, Virtue Epistemology, Democracy, Participatory Democracy, Theories Of Truth, Social and Political Philosophy, Contemporary Political Philosophy, Moral and Political Philosophy, Democracy and Good Governance, Intellectual Virtue, Democracy and Citizenship Education, Political Science and Philosophy, and Socio Political Philosophy
Inspired by the practice of dialogue in ancient philosophical schools, the Philosophy as a Way of Life (PWOL) Project at the University of Notre Dame has sought to put dialogue back at the center of philosophical pedagogy. Impromptu... more
Inspired by the practice of dialogue in ancient philosophical schools, the Philosophy as a Way of Life (PWOL) Project at the University of Notre Dame has sought to put dialogue back at the center of philosophical pedagogy. Impromptu philosophical dialogue, however, can be challenging for students who are new to philosophy. Anticipating this challenge, the Project has created a series of manuals to help instructors conduct dialogue groups with novice philosophy students. Using these guidelines, we incorporated PWOL-style dialogue groups into our Spring 2021 course "The Philosophy of Race, Class, and Gender" with the hope that, through having conversations about these challenging topics, our students would both be able to practice having philosophical dialogues as well as form their views on race and gender in light of contributions from their diverse peers. This article examines several strategies for how instructors can seek to incorporate similar dialogues into their own introductory classrooms.
Research Interests: Philosophy, Race and Racism, Gender and Sexuality, Race and Ethnicity, Gender, and 11 moreSocratic Method, Gender Equality, Race and Gender, Gender and Race, Race, Class, and Gender, Teaching Philosophy, Philosophy as a way of life, Socratic dialogue, Philosophy As a Way of Life (Hadot), Teaching of Philosophy, and Philosophy As a Way of Life Pierre Hadot
Modal metaphysics consumed much of the philosophical discussion at the turn of the century, yielding a number of epistemological insights. Modal analyses were applied within epistemology, yielding sensitivity and safety theories of... more
Modal metaphysics consumed much of the philosophical discussion at the turn of the century, yielding a number of epistemological insights. Modal analyses were applied within epistemology, yielding sensitivity and safety theories of knowledge as well as counterfactual accounts of the basing relation. The contemporary conversation has now turned to a new metaphysical notion – grounding – opening the way to a fresh wave of insights by bringing grounding into epistemology. In this paper, I attempt one such application, making sense of the epistemic regress problem in terms of grounding. I argue that the relation that generates the epistemic regress is a grounding relation, showing that grounding can make sense of proposals by epistemic foundationalists and charting the course for similar applications to epistemic coherentism and epistemic infinitism. If it is right that grounding is involved in the epistemic regress, this points the way forward both for epistemologists and metaphysician...
Research Interests: Philosophy and Erkenntnis
If political decision-making aims at getting a particular result, like identifying just laws or policies that truly promote the common good, then political institutions can also be evaluated in terms of how often they achieve these... more
If political decision-making aims at getting a particular result, like identifying just laws or policies that truly promote the common good, then political institutions can also be evaluated in terms of how often they achieve these results. Epistemic defenses of democracy argue that democracies have the upper hand when it comes to truth, identifying the laws and policies that are truly just or conducive to the common good. A number of epistemic democrats claim that democracies have this beneficial connection to truth because of the type of deliberative environment created by democratic political institutions. Democratic political cultures make it easier to exchange and give reasons, ultimately improving the justification that citizens have for their political beliefs. With this improved justification comes a better chance at truth, or so the story goes. In this paper, I show that attempts to forge a connection between justification and truth in epistemology have encountered numerous difficulties, making the case that this causes trouble for deliberative epistemic defenses of democracy as well. If there is no well-defined connection between truth and justification, then increasing the justification that citizens have for their beliefs may not also increase the likelihood that those beliefs are true, revealing a serious flaw in charting a connection between political justification and political truth.
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Against the maximizing conception of practical rationality, Michael Slote has argued that rationality does not always require choosing what is most rational. Instead, it can sometimes be rational to do something that is less than fully... more
Against the maximizing conception of practical rationality, Michael Slote has argued that rationality does not always require choosing what is most rational. Instead, it can sometimes be rational to do something that is less than fully rational. In this paper, I will argue that maximizers have a ready response to Slote's position. Roy Sorensen has argued that 'rational' is an absolute term, suggesting that it is not possible to be rational without being completely rational. Sorensen's view is confirmed by the fact that, by the lights of contemporary linguistics, 'rational' is an absolute gradable adjective. Because 'rational' is an absolute gradable adjective, being rational requires being at the top of the scale of rationality, making anyone who is not fully rational positively irrational. Contra Slote, the only way to be rational enough is to be maximally rational.
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In his recent book, Knowing and Checking, Guido Melchior argues that, when we attempt to check whether p, we tend to think that we do not know p. Melchior then uses this assumption to explain a number of puzzles about knowledge. One... more
In his recent book, Knowing and Checking, Guido Melchior argues that, when we attempt to check whether p, we tend to think that we do not know p. Melchior then uses this assumption to explain a number of puzzles about knowledge. One outstanding question for Melchior's account, however, is why this tendency exists. After all, Melchior himself argues that checking is not necessary for knowing, so why would we think that we fail to know that p when we are in the midst of checking that p? I will explore one such suggestion for why this occurs, arguing that the connection between checking and inquiry can shed light on the impact that checking has on knowing.
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Starting with the slogan that understanding is a 'knowledge of causes,' Stephen Grimm and John Greco have argued that understanding comes from a knowledge of dependence relations. Grounding is the trendiest dependence relation on the... more
Starting with the slogan that understanding is a 'knowledge of causes,' Stephen Grimm and John Greco have argued that understanding comes from a knowledge of dependence relations. Grounding is the trendiest dependence relation on the market, and if Grimm and Greco are correct, then instances of grounding should also give rise to understanding. In this paper, I will show that this prediction is correct-grounding does indeed generate understanding in just the way that Grimm and Greco anticipate. However, grounding examples of understanding also show that Grimm and Greco are not telling the full story when it comes to understanding. Understanding can only be generated by a particular subset of dependence relations-those dependence relations that are also explanatory. Grimm and Greco should thus appeal to a privileged class of dependence relations, relations like grounding that can give rise to explanation as well.
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It is no secret that we, as a society, struggle to have productive conversations about race and gender. Discussions about these issues are beset with obstacles, from the inherent power dynamics between conversation partners to the fear... more
It is no secret that we, as a society, struggle to have productive conversations about race and gender. Discussions about these issues are beset with obstacles, from the inherent power dynamics between conversation partners to the fear that participants feel about saying something harmful. One practice that can help address these difficulties is intergroup dialogue-sustained, small group discussions with participants from a variety of social identities. In this paper, we detail how we incorporated intergroup dialogue into a 120 student "Philosophy of Race, Class, and Gender" course, providing a blueprint for anyone who wants to help their students develop the ability to take part in fruitful conversations surrounding these challenging topics. We provide strategies for how to design intergroup dialogues to avoid many of the common pitfalls of such conversations, strategies that ultimately helped our students become more likely to initiate and participate in worthwhile discussions on race and gender. We expect our experiences to be especially helpful for instructors of large courses, where making time for small group dialogue is quite challenging, but many of the practices we used can also be adapted for smaller scale courses as well.
Research Interests: Race and Racism, Gender and Sexuality, Gender, Gender Equality, Pedagogy, and 14 morePhilosophy Of Race, Gender and Politics, Gender and education, Race and Gender, Gender and Race, Teaching Philosophy, Intergroup Dialogue, PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN, Race/Ethnicity, Race in higher education, intergroup dialogue, Teaching of Philosophy, Gender and Interfaith/inter-religious Dialogue, Pedagogy of Philosophy, and cross-racial dialogues
Suppose that a majority of jurors decide that a defendant is guilty (or not), and we want to know the likelihood that they reached the correct verdict. The French philosopher Marquis de Condorcet showed that we can get a mathematically... more
Suppose that a majority of jurors decide that a defendant is guilty (or not), and we want to know the likelihood that they reached the correct verdict. The French philosopher Marquis de Condorcet showed that we can get a mathematically precise answer, a result known as the "Condorcet Jury Theorem." Philosophers have used this theorem to argue that the majoritarian voting found in democracy can help us choose the best policies and political leaders.
Research Interests: Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Political Theory, Democratic Theory, Political Science, and 15 moreHistory of Political Science, Democracy, Social and Political Philosophy, Modern Political Philosophy, Elections and Voting Behavior, Comparative Political Theory, Moral and Political Philosophy, Contemporary Political Theory, Condorcet, Voting Systems, Democratic Governance, Majority rule, Condorcet Jury Theorem, Political Science and Philosophy, and Majority voting
A number of authors have defended permissivism by appealing to rational supererogation, the thought that some doxastic states might be rationally permissible even though there are other, more rational beliefs available. If this is... more
A number of authors have defended permissivism by appealing to rational supererogation, the thought that some doxastic states might be rationally permissible even though there are other, more rational beliefs available. If this is correct, then there are situations that allow for multiple rational doxastic responses, even if some of those responses are rationally suboptimal. In this paper, I will argue that this is the wrong approach to defending permissivism-there are no doxastic states that are rationally supererogatory. By the lights of contemporary linguistics, 'rational' is an absolute gradable adjective, and as such, can only be applied to things that satisfy the top of the scale of rationality. For this reason, it is not possible to believe what is rational while also failing to believe what is rationally optimal.
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Philosophical orthodoxy holds that Thomas Reid is an externalist concerning epistemic justification, characterizing Reid as holding the key to an externalist response to internalism. These externalist accounts of Reid, however, have... more
Philosophical orthodoxy holds that Thomas Reid is an externalist concerning epistemic justification, characterizing Reid as holding the key to an externalist response to internalism. These externalist accounts of Reid, however, have neglected his work on prejudice, a heretofore unexamined aspect of his epistemology. Reid's work on prejudice reveals that he is far from an externalist. Despite the views Reid may have inspired, he exemplifies internalism in opting for an accessibility account of justification. For Reid, there are two normative statuses that a belief might satisfy, being blameless and having a just ground. Through reflection, a rational agent is capable of satisfying both of these statuses, making Reid an accessibility internalist about epistemic justification.
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Traditional epistemologists assumed that the most important doxastic norms were rational requirements on belief. This orthodoxy has recently been challenged by the work of revolutionary epistemologists on the rational requirements on... more
Traditional epistemologists assumed that the most important doxastic norms were rational requirements on belief. This orthodoxy has recently been challenged by the work of revolutionary epistemologists on the rational requirements on credences. Revolutionary epistemology takes it that such contemporary work is important precisely because traditional epistemologists are mistaken—credal norms are more fundamental than, and determinative of, belief norms. To make sense of their innovative project, many revolutionary epistemologists have also adopted another commitment, that norms on credences are governed by a fundamental accuracy norm. Unfortunately for the revolutionary epistemologist, it has been difficult to define a measure of accuracy while maintaining that credal norms are more basic than belief norms. In this paper, I criticize one such proposal for measuring accuracy, that the accuracy of our credences should be assessed in terms of what we know, arguing that this picture ultimately cannot vindicate the revolutionary approach.
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Formal epistemologists often claim that our credences should be representable by a probability function. Complete probabilistic coherence, however, is only possible for ideal agents, raising the question of how this requirement relates to... more
Formal epistemologists often claim that our credences should be representable by a probability function. Complete probabilistic coherence, however, is only possible for ideal agents, raising the question of how this requirement relates to our everyday judgments concerning rationality. One possible answer is that being rational is a contextual matter, that the standards for rationality change along with the situation. Just like who counts as tall changes depending on whether we are considering toddlers or basketball players, perhaps what counts as rational shifts according to whether we are considering ideal agents or creatures more like ourselves. Even though a number of formal epistemologists have endorsed this type of solution, I will argue that there is no way to spell out this contextual account that can make sense of our everyday judgments about rationality. Those who defend probabilistic coherence requirements will need an alternative account of the relationship between real and ideal rationality.
Research Interests: Philosophy, Languages and Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Formal Epistemology, Epistemic Justification, and 12 moreJustification and evidence, Rationality, Personal epistemology, Probabilism, Epistemic Rationality, Rational Belief, Logical Omniscience, Credence functions, Imprecision, Gradable expressions, Probabilistic measures of coherence, and gradable adjective
James Joyce's article "A Nonpragmatic Vindication of Probabilism" introduced an approach to arguing for credal norms by appealing to the epistemic value of accuracy. The central thought was that credences ought to accurately represent the... more
James Joyce's article "A Nonpragmatic Vindication of Probabilism" introduced an approach to arguing for credal norms by appealing to the epistemic value of accuracy. The central thought was that credences ought to accurately represent the world, a guiding thought that has gone on to generate an entire research paradigm on the rationality of credences. Recently, a number of epistemologists have begun to apply this same thought to full beliefs, attempting to explain and argue for norms of belief in terms of epistemic value. This paper examines these recent attempts, showing how they interact with work on the accuracy of credences. It then examines how differing judgments about epistemic value give rise to distinct rational requirements for belief, concluding by considering some of the fundamental questions and issues yet to be fully explored.
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A number of formal epistemologists have argued that perfect rationality requires probabilistic coherence, a requirement that they often claim applies only to ideal agents. However, in “Rationality as an Absolute Concept”, Roy Sorensen... more
A number of formal epistemologists have argued that perfect rationality requires probabilistic coherence, a requirement that they often claim applies only to ideal agents. However, in “Rationality as an Absolute Concept”, Roy Sorensen contends that ‘rational’ is an absolute term. Just as Peter Unger argued that being flat requires that a surface be completely free of bumps and blemishes, Sorensen claims that being rational requires being perfectly rational. However, when we combine these two views, they lead to counterintuitive results. If being rational requires being perfectly rational, and only the probabilistically coherent are perfectly rational, then this indicts all ordinary agents as irrational. In this paper, I will attempt to resolve this conflict by arguing that Sorensen is only partly correct. One important sense of ‘rational,’ the sanctioning sense of ‘rational’, is an absolute term, but another important sense of ‘rational,’ the sense in which someone can have rational capacities, is not. I will, then, show that this distinction has important consequences for theorizing about ideal rationality, developing an account of the relationship between ordinary and ideal rationality. Because the sanctioning sense of ‘rational’ is absolute, it is rationally required to adopt the most rational attitude available, but which attitude is most rational can change depending on whether we are dealing with ideal agents or people more like ourselves.
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Traditional rationalist approaches to a priori epistemology have long been looked upon with suspicion for positing a faculty of rational intuition capable of knowing truths about the world apart from experience. Conceptualists have tried... more
Traditional rationalist approaches to a priori epistemology have long been looked upon with suspicion for positing a faculty of rational intuition capable of knowing truths about the world apart from experience. Conceptualists have tried to fill this void with something more empirically tractable, arguing that we know a priori truths due to our understanding of concepts. All of this theorizing, however, has carried on while neglecting an entire cross section of such truths, the grounding claims that we know a priori. Taking a priori grounding into account poses a significant challenge to conceptualist accounts of a priori knowledge, as it is unclear how merely understanding conceptual connections can account for knowledge of grounding. The fact that we do know some grounding truths a priori then is a significant mark in traditional rationalism's favor, and the next frontier for those who aim to eliminate the mystery surrounding a priori knowledge.
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It is clear that beliefs can be assessed both as to their justification and their rationality. What is not as clear, however, is how the rationality and justification of belief relate to one another. Stewart Cohen has stumped for the... more
It is clear that beliefs can be assessed both as to their justification and their rationality. What is not as clear, however, is how the rationality and justification of belief relate to one another. Stewart Cohen has stumped for the popular proposal that rationality and justification come to the same thing, that rational beliefs just are justified beliefs, supporting his view by arguing that 'justified belief' and 'rational belief' are synonymous. In this paper, I will give reason to think that Cohen's argument is spurious. I will show that 'rational' and 'justified' occupy two distinct semantic categories - 'rational' is an absolute gradable adjective and 'justified' is a relative gradable adjective - telling against the thought that 'rational belief' and 'justified belief' are synonymous. I will then argue that the burden of proof is on those who would equate rationality and justification, making the case that those who hold this prominent position face the difficulty of explaining how rationality and justification come to the same thing even though 'rational' and 'justified' are not synonymous.
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Externalists about epistemic justification have long emphasized the connection between truth and justification, with this coupling finding explicit expression in process reliabilism. Process reliabilism, however, faces a number of severe... more
Externalists about epistemic justification have long emphasized the connection between truth and justification, with this coupling finding explicit expression in process reliabilism. Process reliabilism, however, faces a number of severe difficulties, leading disenchanted process reliabilists to find a new theoretical home. The conceptual flag under which such epistemologists have preferred to gather is that of dispositions. Just as reliabilism is determined by the frequency of a particular outcome, making it possible to characterize justification in terms of a particular relationship to truth, dispositions are accompanied by concrete, worldly manifestations. By taking true beliefs as the result, not of certain processes but of particular dispositions, these epistemologists have attempted to respond to the numerous obstacles to reliablism. Yet all this work has proceeded without regard to the wealth of contemporary work on the metaphysics of dispositions, making the new hope premature at best, ill-founded at worst. Combining contemporary dispositional accounts of justification with extant analyses of dispositions reveals that the latter is the case. The structural differences between epistemic justification and dispositions make it clear that not only should process reliabilism be abandoned, but the subsequent appeal to dispositions along with it.
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The Stoic understanding of virtue is often taken to be a non-starter. Many of the Stoic claims about virtue -- that virtue requires moral perfection and that all who are not fully virtuous are vicious -- are thought to be completely out... more
The Stoic understanding of virtue is often taken to be a non-starter. Many of the Stoic claims about virtue -- that virtue requires moral perfection and that all who are not fully virtuous are vicious -- are thought to be completely out of step with our commonsense notion of virtue, making the Stoic account more of an historical oddity than a seriously defended view. Despite many voices to the contrary, I will argue that there is a way of making sense of these Stoic claims. Recent work in linguistics has shown that there is a distinction between relative and absolute gradable adjectives, with the absolute variety only applying to perfect exemplars. I will argue that taking virtue terms to be absolute gradable adjectives, and thus that they apply only to those who are fully virtuous, is one way to make sense of the Stoic view. I will also show how interpreting virtue-theoretic adjectives as absolute gradable adjectives makes it possible to defend Stoicism against its most common objections, demonstrating how the Stoic account of virtue might once again be a player in the contemporary landscape of virtue theorizing.
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How demanding is the virtuous life? Can virtue exist alongside hints of vice? Is it possible to be virtuous within a vicious society? A line of thinking running through Diogenes and the Stoics is that even a hint of corruption is... more
How demanding is the virtuous life? Can virtue exist alongside hints of vice? Is it possible to be virtuous within a vicious society? A line of thinking running through Diogenes and the Stoics is that even a hint of corruption is inimical to virtue, that participating in a vicious society makes it impossible for a person to be virtuous. One response to this difficulty is to claim that virtue is a threshold concept, that context sets a threshold for what is considered virtuous. On this way of thinking, what counts as virtuous in one society may be more demanding than what passes for virtuous in another. This response seems plausible when considering that virtue-theoretic terms like `honest' are gradable adjectives. Many gradable adjectives, like `long' and `expensive,' have contextual thresholds that shift depending on the situation, and so it is tenable that virtue-theoretic adjectives might function with contextual thresholds as well. A major difficulty for this response, however, is that many virtue terms are absolute gradable adjectives, a variety of gradable adjectives that do not require a contextual threshold. These absolute gradable adjectives instead draw their truth conditions from their maximal degree, suggesting that Diogenes and the Stoics were correct to think that a number of the virtues are incompatible with even a small degree of vice.
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A strength of liberal political institutions is their ability to accommodate pluralism, both allowing divergent comprehensive doctrines as well as constructing the common ground necessary for diverse people to live together. A pressing... more
A strength of liberal political institutions is their ability to accommodate pluralism, both allowing divergent comprehensive doctrines as well as constructing the common ground necessary for diverse people to live together. A pressing question is how far such pluralism extends. Which comprehensive doctrines are simply beyond the pale and need not be accommodated by a political consensus? Rawls attempted to keep the boundaries of reasonable disagreement quite broad by infamously denying that political liberalism need make reference to the concept of truth, a claim that has been criticized by Joseph Raz, Joshua Cohen, and David Estlund. In this paper, we argue that these criticisms fail due to the fact that political liberalism can remain non-committal on the nature of truth, leaving the concept of truth in the domain of comprehensive doctrines while still avoiding the issues raised by Raz, Cohen, and Estlund. Further substantiating this point is the fact that Rawls would, and should, include parties in the overlapping consensus whose views on truth may be incoherent. Once it is seen that political liberalism allows such incoherence to reasonable parties, it is clear that the inclusion of truth and the requirement of coherence urged by Raz, Cohen, and Estlund requires more of reasonable people than is necessary for a political consensus.
Research Interests: Political Theory, Liberalism, Truth, John Rawls, Theories Of Truth, and 9 moreTheories of truth (Philosophy), John Rawls (Philosophy), Contemporary Political Theory, John Rawls's theory of justice, Political Liberalism, Liberal political theory, Contemporary Liberalism, John Rawls Political Liberalism, and Rawlsian Theory
The Supreme Court has maintained that race-neutral admissions policies are preferable to race-conscious approaches, while nevertheless continuing to allow for race-conscious practices. How do we make sense of this? In this article, I use... more
The Supreme Court has maintained that race-neutral admissions policies are preferable to race-conscious approaches, while nevertheless continuing to allow for race-conscious practices. How do we make sense of this? In this article, I use the ideas of ideal and nonideal justice to understand how the Court might maintain that it is not always best to implement the ideal policy.
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Political issues are often very complex, calling for competency in history, economics, sociology, and political science, amongst other disciplines. Because we cannot be experts in all these fields, such complexities call for a large... more
Political issues are often very complex, calling for competency in history, economics, sociology, and political science, amongst other disciplines. Because we cannot be experts in all these fields, such complexities call for a large degree of intellectual humility, transforming the way that we approach and think about challenging political issues.
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It is widely thought that moral education is not compatible with the mission of higher education. In this article, I point out that the issue is a bit more complicated. There are some virtues, like honesty, that play a key role in... more
It is widely thought that moral education is not compatible with the mission of higher education. In this article, I point out that the issue is a bit more complicated. There are some virtues, like honesty, that play a key role in university life, making it possible that other moral virtues like justice and compassion might also be important for helping students succeed at their colleges and universities.
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An important aspect of liberal democracies is their ability to accommodate reasonable pluralism. Many take this to mean that democracies should be completely hands-off when it comes to the moral formation of its citizens. In this article,... more
An important aspect of liberal democracies is their ability to accommodate reasonable pluralism. Many take this to mean that democracies should be completely hands-off when it comes to the moral formation of its citizens. In this article, I use Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach to argue that there are certain virtues that are necessary for leading self-directed lives, giving even liberal democracies reason to encourage particular minimal virtues in their citizens.
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Who is responsible for growing political polarization? To many, the answer is obvious: Irrational voters are to blame. This irrationality results in motivated, in-group reasoning that only serves to further deepen the political divide.... more
Who is responsible for growing political polarization? To many, the answer is obvious: Irrational voters are to blame. This irrationality results in motivated, in-group reasoning that only serves to further deepen the political divide. In this piece, I examine a perspective that holds that polarization results, not from irrationality, but from rational responses by voters to their limited epistemic resources.
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If you're reading this blog, we don't need to tell you that there are a number of challenges to allowing undergraduates to have a class-wide, free-for-all conversation about the philosophy of race or the philosophy of gender.... more
If you're reading this blog, we don't need to tell you that there are a number of challenges to allowing undergraduates to have a class-wide, free-for-all conversation about the philosophy of race or the philosophy of gender. Nevertheless, ongoing dialogue is an important part of doing philosophy, making it a priority to teach students how to discuss even the most challenging of topics. In order to help students build the necessary skills to have constructive conversations about race and gender, we used an Innovation in Teaching Grant from the AAPT to create a course centered around weekly dialogue groups. In this post, we will describe the structure and format of our dialogue groups, explain how they were able to overcome some obvious challenges, and provide you with the resources to create dialogue groups in your classes.
Research Interests: Race and Racism, Dialogue, Race and Ethnicity, Intergroup Relations, Gender, and 15 moreGender Equality, Dialogue Studies, Gender and Race, Interreligious Dialogue, Intercultural dialogue, Inter-religious Dialogue, Interfaith Dialogue, Ecumenical and Interfaith Dialogue, Teaching Philosophy, Intergroup Dialogue, Race and Racism in Higher Education, Socratic dialogue, Inderfaith Dialogue, Inter religious and Interfaith Dialogue, and Teaching of Philosophy
One of the most difficult parts of college-level instruction is assessing the effectiveness of your teaching. Many of the conventional methods for measuring student achievement are far from guaranteed indicators of course quality.... more
One of the most difficult parts of college-level instruction is assessing the effectiveness of your teaching. Many of the conventional methods for measuring student achievement are far from guaranteed indicators of course quality. Student course evaluations notoriously favor professors who water down course content, while rampant grade inflation makes the comparison of grades across courses and semesters completely unreliable in assessing instructional quality. Measuring the effectiveness of our courses is a priority for us at the Philosophy as a Way of Life Project. We want to know if our courses are helping students to live more philosophically, and how to introduce targeted interventions when we do not accomplish our course goals. In what follows, I will detail what our research has revealed about assessing the efficacy of college courses and how you can integrate these insights as you fashion your own classes for this coming semester.
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The Florida State University Philosophy Club began in 2015 as the product of a few especially dedicated students who wanted to create a closer community of budding philosophers on campus. Meetings are held once a week and scheduled to be... more
The Florida State University Philosophy Club began in 2015 as the product of a few especially dedicated students who wanted to create a closer community of budding philosophers on campus. Meetings are held once a week and scheduled to be an hour and a half in length, but discussions often run into the two-hour range. Each week, the discussion revolves around a pre-selected area in philosophy. In some cases, a series of discussions are held surrounding topics in a similar field, and on other occasions, polls are conducted to see what the members are interested in. Every semester also features numerous invited guests, including professors and graduate students from both within and outside the Florida State philosophy community. This past academic year included talks with PhD candidate Alex Schaefer on the responsibilities of the state, PhD candidate Caleb Dewey on moral objectivity, Professor Stephen Kearns on moral language, graduate student Kevin Hollahan on inductive risk in science, and Paul Rezkalla on evolutionary debunking arguments.
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It is often difficult to tell when you're improving as an instructor. Good student evaluations can be manufactured by watering down the course content, and grading can be inconsistent and inflated from semester to semester. These problems... more
It is often difficult to tell when you're improving as an instructor. Good student evaluations can be manufactured by watering down the course content, and grading can be inconsistent and inflated from semester to semester. These problems are exacerbated by the online environment-with less face-to-face contact with students, it is even more difficult to tell how student outcomes compare to past semesters. In this post, I will provide a step-by-step outline of our research-driven methodology for assessing the courses we have created at the Philosophy as a Way of Life Project, an approach which remains effective even when the majority of instruction happens in the digital classroom.
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The current challenges to creating engaging philosophy courses are obvious. The majority of classes remain fully or partially online, decreasing student motivation and preventing the valuable connections with their peers and professors... more
The current challenges to creating engaging philosophy courses are obvious. The majority of classes remain fully or partially online, decreasing student motivation and preventing the valuable connections with their peers and professors that come from in-person instruction. Even though these circumstances are still fairly recent, these sorts of challenges to creating engaging online college courses are not. Not long ago, many prominent voices thought that physical college campuses would quickly become a thing of the past, replaced by massive open online courses that were more effective both pedagogically and financially. These predictions turned out to be premature, as some of these courses had completion rates as low as 5%, demonstrating the significant obstacles to creating an engaging virtual academic environment. As part of our ongoing series, in today’s post I will discuss how you can increase student engagement by creating courses that emphasize both human connection and immersive assignments regardless of whether they are taught online or in-person.
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In the not too distant past, many predicted that massive open online courses (MOOCs) would conquer the educational landscape, offering learning opportunities that rivaled the college experience in quality while forgoing the expensive... more
In the not too distant past, many predicted that massive open online courses (MOOCs) would conquer the educational landscape, offering learning opportunities that rivaled the college experience in quality while forgoing the expensive price tag. That of course never happened. Learning online without an engaged instructor created feelings of isolation, resulting in course completion rates as low as 5%. It was just like having an absentee instructor. Students who don’t receive timely instructor feedback report feeling frustrated, depressed, and less motivated. As it turns out, divorcing the educational project from an interactive educational community might not have been such a good idea after all. This, of course, is now everyone’s challenge. The majority of philosophy instructors are set to teach in online or hybrid formats for the foreseeable future, necessitating that they create the sense of community that the MOOCs failed to, lest their philosophy classes see drops across the board in student engagement, achievement, and retention. But where to start? How is it possible to create a course community when everyone will only be accessing the course remotely? In what follows, I will give some suggestions to help create an engaging online environment, emphasizing measures that can both increase instructor presence and boost peer-to-peer communication.
Many universities responded to the onset of COVID-19 by offering pass/fail grading for the spring semester, a move meant to lighten the burden on students negatively affected by the pandemic. The question remains, however, whether... more
Many universities responded to the onset of COVID-19 by offering pass/fail grading for the spring semester, a move meant to lighten the burden on students negatively affected by the pandemic. The question remains, however, whether pass/fail grading will still be available this coming fall. Large numbers of students will contract the novel coronavirus, most likely far more than in the spring, and many more will have to care for ailing family members. If universities ceased to offer letter grades in the spring, then shouldn’t they also do so in the fall? In this post, I will make some suggestions for how you can assess your students during the pandemic whether or not your course is using letter grades, using strategies that both check for understanding and enhance student outcomes.
With this proliferation of ed-tech tools, there is a temptation for instructors to start planning for their fall courses by deciding on which tool or platforms they’ll be using. This would be a mistake, as we can see -- on a massive... more
With this proliferation of ed-tech tools, there is a temptation for instructors to start planning for their fall courses by deciding on which tool or platforms they’ll be using. This would be a mistake, as we can see -- on a massive scale -- by considering the case of the now-defunct Institute for Transformational Learning. The Institute poured millions of dollars into a hybrid bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences for UT Rio Grande Valley, a project that had a dedicated learning platform and app, only for the university to abandon it. The problem? The design team put tech before teaching. They did not work closely enough with the faculty, preferring instead to deliver a product with technological appeal but short on the functionality needed by individual professors. This kind of story is all too common, with tech companies offering broad services and platforms that are sometimes difficult to adapt to particular classroom needs. A one-size-fits-all approach fails when it comes to teaching just a classroom of students. Why think that there would be one tool that works for all online philosophy classrooms? Finding a flawless ed-tech tool is not the best way to start putting your course in an online format. Instead, decide what you want to prioritize this fall semester and then find the tools with the functionality necessary to make that vision a reality. Here are four strategies for getting the planning started.