Hausman and McPherson provide an evidential defense of welfare economics, arguing that preferences are not constitutive of welfare but nevertheless provide the best evidence for what promotes welfare. Behavioral economics identifies several ways in which some people's preferences exhibit anomalies that are incoherent or inconsistent with rational choice theory. I argue that the existence of these behavioral anomalies calls into question the evidential defense of welfare economics. The evidential defense does not justify preference purification, (...) or eliminating behavioral anomalies before conducting welfare analysis. But without doing so, the evidential defense yields implausible welfare implications. I discuss how the evidential defense could be modified to accommodate behavioral anomalies. (shrink)

Some evidential arguments from evil rely on an inference of the following sort: ‘If, after thinking hard, we can't think of any God-justifying reason for permitting some horrific evil then it is likely that there is no such reason’. Sceptical theists, us included, say that this inference is not a good one and that evidential arguments from evil that depend on it are, as a result, unsound. Michael Almeida and Graham Oppy have argued (in a previous issue of (...) this journal) that Michael Bergmann's way of developing the sceptical theist response to such arguments fails because it commits those who endorse it to a sort of scepticism that undermines ordinary moral practice. In this paper, we defend Bergmann's sceptical theist response against this charge. (shrink)

This paper will critically engage with Daniel Buckley's argument against “evidential minimalism” (EM), i.e., the claim that necessarily, bits of evidence (are or) provide epistemic reasons for belief. Buckley argues that in some cases, a subject has strong evidence that p (and fulfills further minimal conditions), does not believe p, but nevertheless is not epistemically criticizable and has no epistemic reason to believe p. I will defend EM by pointing out that Buckley's argument trades on an ambiguity between a (...) strong and a weak notion of criticizability. (shrink)

Objectivism about evidential support is the thesis that facts about the degree to which a body of evidence supports a hypothesis are objective rather than depending on subjective factors like one’s own language or epistemic values. Objectivism about evidential support is key to defending a synchronic, time-slice-centric conception of epistemic rationality, on which what you ought to believe at a time depends only on what evidence you have at that time, and not on how you were at previous (...) times. Here, I defend a version of objectivism about evidential support on which facts about evidential support are grounded in facts about explanatoriness. (shrink)

The evidential value of moral intuitions has been challenged by psychological work showing that the intuitions of ordinary people are affected by distorting factors. One reply to this challenge, the expertise defence, claims that training in philosophical thinking confers enhanced reliability on the intuitions of professional philosophers. This defence is often expressed through analogy: since we do not allow doubts about folk judgments in domains like mathematics or physics to undermine the plausibility of judgments by experts in these domains, (...) we also should not do so in philosophy. In this paper I clarify the logic of the analogy strategy, and defend it against recent challenges by Jesper Ryberg. The discussion exposes an interesting divide: while Ryberg’s challenges may weaken analogies between morality and domains like mathematics, they do not affect analogies to other domains, such as physics. I conclude that the expertise defence can be supported by analogical means, though care is required in selecting an appropriate analog. I discuss implications of this conclusion for the expertise defence debate and for study of the moral domain itself. (shrink)

Peter Achinstein has argued at length and on many occasions that the view according to which evidential support is defined in terms of probability-raising faces serious counterexamples and, hence, should be abandoned. Proponents of the positive probabilistic relevance view have remained unconvinced. The debate seems to be in a deadlock. This paper is an attempt to move the debate forward and revisit some of the central claims within this debate. My conclusion here will be that while Achinstein may be (...) right that his counterexamples undermine probabilistic relevance views of what it is for e to be evidence that h, there is still room for a defence of a related probabilistic view about an increase in being supported, according to which, if p > p, then h is more supported given e than it is without e. My argument relies crucially on an insight from recent work on the linguistics of gradable adjectives. (shrink)

According to Jim Pryor’s dogmatism, when you have an experience with content p, you often have prima facie justification for believing p that doesn’t rest on your independent justification for believing any proposition. Although dogmatism has an intuitive appeal and seems to have an antisceptical bite, it has been targeted by various objections. This paper principally aims to answer the objections by Roger White according to which dogmatism is inconsistent with the Bayesian account of how evidence affects our rational credences. (...) If this were true, the rational acceptability of dogmatism would be seriously questionable. I respond that these objections don’t get off the ground because they assume that our experiences and our introspective beliefs that we have experiences have the same evidential force, whereas the dogmatist is uncommitted to this assumption. I also consider the question whether dogmatism has an antisceptical bite. I suggest that the answer turns on whether or not the Bayesian can determine the priors of hypotheses and conjectures on the grounds of their extra-empirical virtues. If the Bayesian can do so, the thesis that dogmatism has an antisceptical bite is probably false. (shrink)

The reasonable person standard is used in adjudicating claims of self-defence. In US law, an individual may use defensive force if her beliefs that a threat is imminent and that force is required are beliefs that a reasonable person would have. In English law, it is sufficient that beliefs in imminence and necessity are genuinely held; but the reasonableness of so believing is given an evidential role in establishing the genuineness of the beliefs. There is, of course, much contention (...) over how to spell out when, and in virtue of what, such beliefs are reasonable. In this chapter, we identify some distinctive issues that arise when we consider that implicit racial bias might be implicated in the beliefs in imminence and necessity. Considering two prominent interpretations of the reasonable person standard, we argue that neither is acceptable. On one interpretation, we risk unfairness to the defendant-who may non-culpably harbour bias. On another, the standard embeds racist stereotypes. Whilst there are formulations of the defence that may serve to mitigate these problems, we argue that they cannot be avoided in the presence of racist social structures. (shrink)

Peter Achinstein has argued at length and on many occasions that the view according to which evidential support is defined in terms of probability-raising faces serious counterexamples and, hence, should be abandoned. Proponents of the positive probabilistic relevance view have remained unconvinced. The debate seems to be in a deadlock. This paper is an attempt to move the debate forward and revisit some of the central claims within this debate. My conclusion here will be that while Achinstein may be (...) right that his counterexamples undermine probabilistic relevance views of what it is for e to be evidence that h, there is still room for a defence of a related probabilistic view about an increase in being supported, according to which, if p > p, then h is more supported given e than it is without e. My argument relies crucially on an insight from recent work on the linguistics of gradable adjectives. (shrink)

Evidential Decision Theory is flawed, but its flaws are not fully understood. David Lewis (1981) famously charged that EDT recommends an irrational policy of managing the news and “commends the ostrich as rational”. Lewis was right, but the case he appealed to—Newcomb’s Problem—does not demonstrate his conclusion. Indeed, decision theories other than EDT, such as Committal Decision Theory and Functional Decision Theory, agree with EDT's verdicts in Newcomb’s Problem, but their flaws, whatever they may be, do not stem from (...) any ostrich-like recommendations. We offer a new case which shows that EDT mismanages the news, thus vindicating Lewis’s original charge. We argue that this case reveals a flaw in the “Why ain’cha rich?” defense of EDT. We argue further that this case is an advance on extant putative counterexamples to EDT. (shrink)

This paper examines Alvin Plantinga's defence of theistic belief in the light of Paul Draper's formulation of the problem of evil. Draper argues (a) that the facts concerning the distribution of pain and pleasure in the world are better explained by a hypothesis which does not include the existence of God than by a hypothesis which does; and (b) that this provides an epistemic challenge to theists. Plantinga counters that a theist could accept (a) yet still rationally maintain a belief (...) in God. His defence of theism depends on the epistemic value of religious experience. I argue, however, that Plantinga's defence of theism is not successful. (shrink)

In recent times, Evans’ idea that mental states could have non-conceptual contents has been attacked. McDowell (Mind and World, 1994) and Brewer (Perception and reason, 1999) have both argued that that notion does not have any epistemological role because notions such as justification or evidential support, that might relate mental contents to each other, must be framed in conceptual terms. On his side, Brewer has argued that instead of non-conceptual content we should consider demonstrative concepts that have the same (...) fine grainess of non-conceptual contents while having conceptual structure. In what follows I will argue that, first, that the notion of demonstrative concept is not viable and, second, that there is an epistemological role for non-conceptual content. (shrink)

Numerous triviality results have been directed at a collection of views that tie the probability of a conditional sentence to the conditional probability of the consequent on its antecedent. -/- In this paper I argue that this identification makes little sense if conditional sentences are context sensitive. The best alternative, I argue, is a version of the thesis which states that if your total evidence is E then the evidential probability of a conditional evaluated in a context where E (...) is salient is the probability of the consequent given the antecedent. The biggest challenge to this thesis comes from the 'static' triviality arguments developed by Stalnaker, Hajek and Hall. It is argued that these arguments rely on invalid principles of conditional logic and that the thesis is consistent with a reasonably strong logic that does not include the principles in question. (shrink)

Andy Egan argues that neither evidential nor causal decision theory gives the intuitively right recommendation in the cases The Smoking Lesion, The Psychopath Button, and The Three-Option Smoking Lesion. Furthermore, Egan argues that we cannot avoid these problems by any kind of ratificationism. This paper develops a new version of ratificationism that gives the right recommendations. Thus, the new proposal has an advantage over evidential and casual decision theory and standard ratificationist evidential decision theory.

ABSTRACT Is it good to form positive beliefs about those you have faith in, such as God or a religious community? Doxastic partialists say that it is. Some hold that it is good, from the viewpoint of faith, to form positive beliefs about the object of your faith even when your evidence favours negative ones. Others try to maintain respect for evidence by appealing to a highly permissive epistemology. I argue against both forms of doxastic partiality, on the grounds that (...) they foster an epistemically problematic noetic entrenchment. I instead defend evidentialism—the view that it is good to strive for true beliefs about the object of your faith, be they positive or negative, given relatively stringent evidential norms. I address the objection that evidentialism fosters disloyalty to the other party, not least because it risks losing your faith altogether. What emerges are not just epistemic norms for beliefs about religious matters, but an evidentialist account of what makes for good faith itself. (shrink)

In this paper I study dynamical models of rational deliberation within the context of Newcomb's problem. Such models have been used to argue against the soundness of the "tickle'" defense of evidential decision theory, which is based on the idea that sophisticated decision makers can break correlations between states and acts by introspecting their own beliefs and desires. If correct, this would show that evidential decision theory agrees with the recommendations of causal decision theory. I argue that (...) an adequate understanding of rational deliberation leads to deliberative processes for which this idea works. My proposal is modest, though. Evidential decision theory cannot always be reconciled with causal decision theory along the lines suggested here, but the agreement between the two theories is broader than previously thought. (shrink)

This paper is part of a symposium on Linda Zagzebski's EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY (OUP, 2012). It focuses on Zagzebski's argument that the transmission of information through a chain of testimony weakens its evidential value. This argument is shown to rest on an overly simplistic model of testimonial transmission that does not apply to religious traditions. The real problem with modeling religious traditions just as transmitters of information is that this assumes a conception of religious knowledge that is too "insular" with (...) respect to other things the believer knows, as well as aspects of religious faith that go beyond the mere acceptance of doctrines. (shrink)

Doxastic involuntarism—the thesis that we lack direct voluntary control (in response to non-evidential reasons) over our belief states—is often touted as philosophical orthodoxy. I here offer a novel defense of doxastic voluntarism, centered around three key moves. First, I point out that belief has two central functional roles, but that discussions of voluntarism have largely ignored questions of control over belief's guidance function. Second, I propose that we can learn much about doxastic control by looking to cognitive scientific (...) research on control over other relevantly similar mental states. I draw on a mechanistic account of control of the guidance function for “emotion-type states,” and argue that these same cognitive control mechanisms can used to block doxastic guidance. This gives us an account of “back-end” doxastic control which can be deployed for reasons which are not the right kinds of reasons to support “front-end” belief formation—i.e., non-evidential reasons. Third, I argue that comprehensive, self-directed exercises of this kind of control can amount to an underappreciated kind of voluntarism. This form of voluntarism is available to any account of belief that takes guidance-instantiation to be at least partly constitutive of believing. Finally, I discuss objections to, and upshots of, the view. (shrink)

Permissivism is the view that there are evidential situations that rationally permit more than one attitude toward a proposition. In this paper, I argue for Intrapersonal Belief Permissivism (IaBP): that there are evidential situations in which a single agent can rationally adopt more than one belief-attitude toward a proposition. I give two positive arguments for IaBP; the first involves epistemic supererogation and the second involves doubt. Then, I should how these arguments give intrapersonal permissivists a distinct response to (...) the toggling objection. I conclude that IaBP is a view that philosophers should take seriously. (shrink)

A detailed treatment regarding the diverse properties and uses of evidence and the judgmental tasks they entail. Examines various processes by which evidence may be developed or discovered. Considers the construction of arguments made in defense of the relevance and credibility of individual items and masses of evidence as well as the task of assessing the inferential force of evidence. Includes over 100 numerical examples to illustrate the workings of diverse probabilistic expressions for the inferential force of evidence and (...) the subtleties they reveal. (shrink)

William Rowe has offered one of the most simple and convincing evidential arguments from evil by arguing that the existence of gratuitous evil in our world serves as strong evidence against the claim that God exists. Stephen J. Wykstra attempts to defeat this evidential argument from evil by denying the plausibility of Rowe’s claim that there are gratuitous evils in the world. Wykstra sets up an epistemological test that he refers to as CORNEA, and he proceeds to demonstrate (...) that Rowe’s inference to his existential claim is unjustified in light of our particular epistemic situation. Specifically, this inference is unjustified because compensating goods that would be “connected to” any given evil lack what Wykstra calls ‘seeability.’ Without seeability, it is illicit to infer the nonexistence of an object simply from the fact that we cannot detect it, and thus Rowe is denied justification for his first premise. Wysktra’s principle defense of the non-seeability of compensating goods rests on an analogy comparing children and parents to humans and God. I will show that Wykstra’s conclusion regarding the seeability of compensating goods is unjustified given this analogy. Without justification for the claim that some compensating goods lack seeability, Wykstra’s defeater crumbles. (shrink)

In this paper we respond to criticisms by Michael Bergmann and Michael Rea in their “In Defense of Sceptical Theism : A Reply to Almeida and Oppy,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83.

The aim of the present contribution is to defend a specific version of moderate skeptical invariantism, which I call Practical Skeptical Invariantism (PSI). The view is a form of skepticism to the extent that it denies knowledge of many facts that we ordinarily think or claim to know. It is moderate to the extent that it is supposed to be compatible with a quite weak, non-radical form of skepticism. According to this view, the threshold on evidential support required for (...) knowledge should be partially fixed by the practical circumstances of the subject: someone is in a position to know a proposition p only if she would be rational to act as if p even if the practical stakes on p were maximally high. I consider and address what I take to be the most pressing problem for the view, namely, that the view can’t avoid a collapse into a radical form of skepticism. Moreover, I propose a positive argument for this view. The argument relies on the claim that judgments in high stakes are generally more reliable than in low stakes. (shrink)

Kevin McCain’s Evidentialism and Epistemic Justification is the most thorough defense of evidentialism to date. In this work, McCain proposes insightful new theses to fill in underdeveloped parts of evidentialism. One of these new theses is an explanationist account of evidential fit that appeals to dispositional properties. We argue that this explanationist account faces counterexamples, and that, more generally, explanationists should not understand evidential fit in terms of dispositional properties.

Gilbert Harman’s famous principle of Clutter Avoidance commands that “one should not clutter one’s mind with trivialities". Many epistemologists have been inclined to accept Harman’s principle, or something like it. This is significant because the principle appears to have robust implications for our overall picture of epistemic normativity. Jane Friedman (2018) has recently argued that one potential implication is that there are no genuine purely evidential norms on belief revision. In this paper, we present some new objections to a (...) suitably formulated version of the clutter principle qua norm on belief revision. Moreover, we argue that the clutter principle is best understood as a norm on non-doxastic stages of inquiry. In our view, it is a norm of asking and considering questions rather than a norm of settling on an answer to a question by forming a belief. (shrink)

We argue that the use of the term “supernatural” is problematic in philosophy of religion in general, and in the contribution by Thornhill-Miller and Millican in particular. We address the disturbing parallel between Hume’s case against the rationality of belief in miracles and his dismissal of reports of racial equality. We do not argue that because Hume was a racist therefore his view against miracles is faulty, but we draw attention to how Hume sets up a framework that, for similar (...) reasons, discounts evidence of black intelligence and divine intelligence. We go on to argue against TMM’s revision of Hume on miracles. We then argue that empirical testing on the veracity of petitionary belief is impossible for there is no control case and that empirical testing can no more evaluate the evidential merits of most religious experiences than it can assess the merits of any robust philosophical position in epistemology, metaphysics, value theory, logic and mathematics. We express doubts about the integrity and scope of how one might enjoy the good of religion without belief. In a final section we offer a defense of the rationality of believing in specific religious traditions based on religious experience along with what we refer to as sufficient philosophical reasoning. (shrink)

Since Elga published his “Self-locating belief and the Sleeping Beauty problem,” there has been an intense debate about which credence between 1/2 and 1/3 Beauty should assign to (H) the coin’s landing heads, when she is awakened on Monday. The Halfers claim that she ought to assign 1/2 to H at that moment. The Thirders argue that she ought to assign 1/3 to H then. Meanwhile, Pettigrew defended a new chance-credence coordination principle, called the “Evidential Temporal Principle” (ETP), in (...) a recent edition of his book. In this paper, I provide a novel argument against the Halfer view and a partial defense of the Thirder view, respectively based on ETP. In addition, I generalize ETP to what I call the “Evidential Centered Principle,” which links one’s credences in centered propositions with their objective chances. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that popular explanatory frameworks in perceptual psychology suggest the truth of color realism. I focus on perceptual judgments and their evidential basis: namely perceptual representation. I first draw a distinction between two sorts of normativities with respect to which we can evaluate representational capacities and systems: biological and psychological normativities. The former is defined in terms of evolutionary fitness, and the latter in terms of representational accuracy. Generally, representational systems achieve psychological and biological success (...) hand in hand, but in special circumstances, a representational system can be such that it serves the organism best while not generally furnishing the organism with accurate representations. I argue in this essay that an explanation how and why our ancestors developed color vision that cleaves its biological success conditions from its psychological success conditions cannot be given unless we are prepared to say the same about the visual perception of distance and other geometrical features of the world. Moreover, it is difficult to see how the anti-realist could begin to specify psychological success conditions for color representations. Hence, we ought to accept the biological utility of color vision as evidence that it is typically representationally successful, and regard our perceptual judgments about color as generally true. (shrink)

This paper appeals to the phenomenon of dreaming to provide a novel defense against arguments from evil. The thrust of the argument is as follows: when we wake up after a nightmare we are often filled entirely with relief, and do not consider ourselves to have actually suffered very much at all; and since it is epistemically possible that this whole life is simply a dream, it follows that it is epistemically possible that in reality there is very little (...) suffering. This epistemic possibility decisively undermines a key premise of both logical and evidential arguments from evil. (shrink)

In current epistemology, there are two different conceptions of epistemic justification. According to the first genetic conception, a justified belief is a well-formed belief. According to the second defense conception, how the belief is formed is irrelevant to the epistemic justification of the belief. What is important for the justification of the belief is whether the cognitive agent has a defense of the belief in question. ;I construct my own defense account of epistemic justification on the basis (...) of criticizing current defense accounts of epistemic justification. The gist of my account is that I am justified in believing that p only if my belief that p is stored in my memory with a proper causal connection with other psychological states of mine that are adequate grounds for the belief that p. This illuminates an interesting symmetry between the genetic conception of epistemic justification and the defense conception of epistemic justification: in the genetic conception, justified belief is well-formed belief, whereas in a defense conception justified belief is well-stored belief. ;My account is different from current defense theories of epistemic justification in two respects. First, in my account some type of causal relation between the belief and its adequate grounds is crucial for epistemic justification, while other theories deny the relevance of any causal consideration to the justification of beliefs. Their denial is a manifestation of a dogma--the Psychologistic Assumption--deeply rooted in traditional epistemology, such that epistemic justification is wholly a function of psychological states of a cognitive agent. I show that this dogma has to be abandoned. Second, other theories require the explicit representation of the belief about the evidential relation between the belief in question and its adequate grounds. In them, this explicitly represented higher-level belief constitutes the defense of the belief in question. I show that, due to this requirement of explicitly represented higher-level beliefs, current defense accounts run into numerous insuperable problems. Meanwhile, my theory does not face these problems because it does not require higher-level beliefs. (shrink)

Permissivism is the view that sometimes an agent's total evidential state entails both that she is epistemically permitted to believe that P and that she is epistemically permitted to believe that Q, where P and Q are contradictories. Uniqueness is the denial of Permissivism. Permissivism has recently come under attack on several fronts. If these attacks are successful, then we may be forced to accept an unwelcome asymmetry between epistemic and practical rationality. In this essay I clarify the debate (...) by distinguishing two versions of Permissiveness and Uniqueness. I then respond to several recent challenges to Permissivism in an attempt to even the score between Permissivism and Uniqueness. I will also respond to a worry – arising out of my discussion – that a defense of Permissivism itself introduces an unwelcome asymmetry between epistemic and practical rationality. (shrink)

According to the ‘expertise defence’, experimental findings suggesting that intuitive judgments about hypothetical cases are influenced by philosophically irrelevant factors do not undermine their evidential use in (moral) philosophy. This defence assumes that philosophical experts are unlikely to be influenced by irrelevant factors. We discuss relevant findings from experimental metaphilosophy that largely tell against this assumption. To advance the debate, we present the most comprehensive experimental study of intuitive expertise in ethics to date, which tests five well- known biases (...) of judgment and decision-making among expert ethicists and laypeople. We found that even expert ethicists are affected by some of these biases, but also that they enjoy a slight advantage over laypeople in some cases. We discuss the implications of these results for the expertise defence, and conclude that they still do not support the defence as it is typically presented in (moral) philosophy. (shrink)

Many epistemologists use intuitive responses to particular cases as evidence for their theories. Recently, experimental philosophers have challenged the evidential value of intuitions, suggesting that our responses to particular cases are unstable, inconsistent with the responses of the untrained, and swayed by factors such as ethnicity and gender. This paper presents evidence that neither gender nor ethnicity influence epistemic intuitions, and that the standard responses to Gettier cases and the like are widely shared. It argues that epistemic intuitions are (...) produced by the natural ‘mindreading’ capacity that underpins ordinary attributions of belief and knowledge in everyday social interaction. Although this capacity is fallible, its weaknesses are similar to the weaknesses of natural capacities such as sensory perception. Experimentalists who do not wish to be skeptical about ordinary empirical methods have no good reason to be skeptical about epistemic intuitions. (shrink)

Permissivism is the view that sometimes an agent's total evidential state entails both that she is epistemically permitted to believe that P and that she is epistemically permitted to believe that Q, where P and Q are contradictories. Uniqueness is the denial of Permissivism. Permissivism has recently come under attack on several fronts. If these attacks are successful, then we may be forced to accept an unwelcome asymmetry between epistemic and practical rationality. In this essay I clarify the debate (...) by distinguishing two versions of Permissiveness and Uniqueness. I then respond to several recent challenges to Permissivism in an attempt to even the score between Permissivism and Uniqueness. I will also respond to a worry – arising out of my discussion – that a defense of Permissivism itself introduces an unwelcome asymmetry between epistemic and practical rationality. (shrink)

Recent work on the evidential argument from evil offers us sundry considerations which are intended to weigh against this form of atheological arguments. By far the most provocative is that on a priori grounds alone, evil can be shown to be evidentially impotent. This astonishing thesis has been given a vigorous defense by Keith Yandell. In this paper, we shall measure the prospects for an a priori dismissal of evidential arguments from evil.

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop and defend a method of elimination for determining justifiable basic normative ethical principles. The method is developed by considering Books I and X of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Plato's Meno. The method requires consideration on two different "levels." Aristotle and Plato use regulative endoxic premises as the evaluative criteria of the method. Such premises, which ideally are based upon universal agreement, guide an inquiry of our sort, i.e., determine the elimination or nonelimination (...) of the alternatives. Concerning the second "level," an adequate list of alternative possible solutions should be presented, and some principle or technique should be provided for determining such an adequate list. On the basis of the above premises, alternatives are evaluated in such a way that lack of accordance with any one of the relevant premises--assuming that there is more than one--is sufficient for the elimination of an alternative. The only alternative that is not eliminated by any of the premises provides the solution to the problem. The Aristotle chapter shows how regulative endoxic premises can be used, in an "ideal" sense, for choosing between two or more alternatives that generally accord with the premises. ;Our discussion of Aristotle and Plato shows that they do use this method and illustrates, in some detail, both how the method is used and specific variations of it. Our philosophers use different principles or techniques for determining the plausible alternatives. Aristotle chooses alternatives which are endoxic opinions. Plato uses the opinions of interlocutors, which are often endoxic, but he basically relies on a type of shared or cooperative rational inquiry to determine increasingly more adequate opinions, and, consequently, the plausible opinions that ought to be considered. On this "level," we attempt to show that the Platonic technique is more adequate than the Aristotelian procedure. ;Probably the most controversial feature of our method is the employment of regulative endoxic premises. Our final chapter is concerned with further clarification and defense of these premises. We attempt to show that regulative endoxic premises are different from and more adequate than the more objectionable opinions called conventionally moral opinions. We, then, attempt to provide a justifiable account of the differential value, in our method, in the evidential force of regulative endoxic premises and substantive endoxic opinions, and attempt to determine how adequate regulative endoxic premises relative to a specific inquiry can be identified. We argue that these premises provide the conditions necessary for the possibility of successful inquiry within, what I call, the ordinary ethical standpoint, and that the basic presupposition of this standpoint is an acceptable assumption. ;Two alternatives to our position concerning the defense of regulative endoxic premises are considered: They are intuitively self-evident. They are analytic truths based upon an appeal to ordinary usage. is readily seen to be objectionable. is, apparently, the position of Hare. We argue that Hare's position, which maintains that the probative force of regulative endoxic premises is based upon their analytic nature, is quite debatable, and does not, therefore, provide a viable alternative to our position. We also object to Hare's view of his regulative endoxa, viz., universalizability and prescriptivity. (shrink)

Contemporary discussions of the epistemology of testimony are often framed in terms of the disagreement on this topic between Hume and Reid. However, it is widely assumed that, prior to Hume, philosophers in the grip of Enlightenment individualism neglected philosophical questions about testimony, simply treating testimony as ordinary empirical evidence. In fact, although the evidential model of testimony was popular in early modern philosophy, it was also the subject of vigorous debate. This chapter examines Locke's defence of the (...) class='Hi'>evidential model of testimony along with the opposing views of three early critics of Locke: G. W. Leibniz, Mary Astell, and Peter Browne. (shrink)

Most philosophers endorse our epistemic practice of evaluating beliefs and methods of inquiry as justified or unjustified, rational or irrational; far fewer, though, think our practice of moral evaluation is viable. I contend that this difference in attitude toward epistemic and moral practice reveals an underlying double standard. I argue that the standards set by influential moral anti-realist arguments are not met by our practices of epistemic justification, and that the adoption of these standards would therefore force us to abandon (...) such things as the distinction between rational and irrational arguments, science and pseudoscience, and the like; hence, these standards are too stringent, and ought not be adopted. In addressing J. L. Mackie's charge that moral properties would have to be queer things in virtue of their "to-be-doneness", I argue that epistemological properties are no less queer, and give a positive account of the connection between moral judgment and moral motivation that avoids the worry. I then turn to Gilbert Harman's argument that moral facts neither figure in the best causal explanations, nor are reducible to causally efficacious facts. I concede this, but argue that the same is true of epistemic and social facts, and that pragmatic reasons justify our continued participation in such discourse. I next address the contention that the constitutive role of emotion in moral discourse renders morality problematically local. I argue that emotion plays no constitutive role in morality, serving only evidential and epistemological functions which entail no incommensurability. Finally, I borrow from recent accounts of normativity to suggest that all normative discourse is of a piece, and that there is no in principle distinction between moral, epistemological, semantic, and other types of normative discourse. This suggests that these sorts of discourse all stand and fall together, and that morality is therefore just as hardy as epistemology and the like. (shrink)

A defence of non-causal explanations of events is presented in cases where explanation is understood as modal explanation. In such cases the source of modal information is crucial. All explanations implicitly use contrast classes, and relative to a particular contrast we can privilege some difference makers over others. Thinking about changes in these privileged “actual” difference makers is then the source of modal information for any given explanandum. If an actual difference maker is non-causal, then we have a principled definition (...) of a non-causal explanation of an event regardless of how much causal information is also contained in the explanans. A demarcation of explanation into causal and non-causal in this way recovers ordinary language about explanation as well as reflecting genuine differences in practice, such as the in-principle evidential base for any modal claim. (shrink)

Skeptical theism (ST) may undercut the key inference in the evidential argument from evil, but it does so at a cost. If ST is true, then we lose our ability to assess the all things considered (ATC) value of natural events and states of affairs. And if we lose that ability, a whole slew of undesirable consequences follow. So goes a common consequential critique of ST. In a recent article, Anderson has argued that this consequential critique is flawed. Anderson (...) claims that ST only has the consequence that we lack epistemic access to potentially God-justifying reasons for permitting a prima facie “bad” (or “evil”) event. But this is very different from lacking epistemic access to the ATC value of such events. God could have an (unknowable) reason for not intervening to prevent E and yet E could still be (knowably) ATC-bad. Ingenious though it is, this article argues that Anderson’s attempted defence of ST is flawed. This is for two reasons. First, and most importantly, the consequential critique does not rely on the questionable assumption he identifies. Indeed, the argument can be made quite easily by relying purely on Anderson’s distinction between God-justifying reasons for permitting E and the ATC value of E. And second, Anderson’s defence of his position, if correct, would serve to undermine the foundations of ST. (shrink)

Some authors claim that minimal models have limited epistemic value (Fumagalli, 2016; Grüne-Yanoff, 2009a). Others defend the epistemic benefits of modelling by invoking the role of robustness analysis for hypothesis confirmation (see, e.g., Levins, 1966; Kuorikoski et al., 2010) but such arguments find much resistance (see, e.g., Odenbaugh & Alexandrova, 2011). In this paper, we offer a Bayesian rationalization and defence of the view that robustness analysis can play a confirmatory role, and thereby shed light on the potential of minimal (...) models for hypothesis confirmation. We illustrate our argument by reference to a case study from macroeconomics. At the same time, we also show that there are cases in which robustness analysis is detrimental to confirmation. We characterize these cases and link them to recent investigations on evidential variety (Landes, 2020b, 2021; Osimani and Landes, forthcoming). We conclude that robustness analysis over minimal models can confirm, but its confirmatory value depends on concrete circumstances. (shrink)

In his “Common knowledge” (2016) and _The Transmission of Knowledge_ (2021), John Greco proposes a novel account of hinge propositions. Central to it is the idea that they are items of common knowledge – that is, of knowledge that is already present in the system, freely available to anyone, without having to figure it out by oneself or having to be taught it by others. As such, they are not subject to any quality control at all. Furthermore, they figure in (...) a subject’s cognitive economy as items of procedural, mostly tacit knowledge, which is operative in the execution of actions and various cognitive tasks. After introducing the basics of Greco’s account, I consider it from a systematic and historical perspective and argue that, while instructive, it is wanting in several respects. Whereas some, among the myriad hinges Wittgenstein considers in _On Certainty_ (1969), may be known, there is no need to make them the content of a different kind of knowledge. Furthermore, we cannot have (evidential) justification and, _a fortiori_, knowledge of at least some other propositions that Wittgenstein considered as hinges. In passing, I also show that Greco’s account aligns much more with G. E. Moore’s ideas about the epistemic status of his truisms in “A defence of common sense” (1925) and the premises of his celebrated “Proof of an external world” (1939), than with Wittgenstein’s account of hinges and their epistemic significance in _On Certainty_. (shrink)

Behavioural flexibility is often treated as the gold standard of evidence for more sophisticated or complex forms of animal cognition, such as planning, metacognition and mindreading. However, the evidential link between behavioural flexibility and complex cognition has not been explicitly or systematically defended. Such a defence is particularly pressing because observed flexible behaviours can frequently be explained by putatively simpler cognitive mechanisms. This leaves complex cognition hypotheses open to ‘deflationary’ challenges that are accorded greater evidential weight precisely because (...) they offer putatively simpler explanations of equal explanatory power. This paper challenges the blanket preference for simpler explanations, and shows that once this preference is dispensed with, and the full spectrum of evidence—including evolutionary, ecological and phylogenetic data—is accorded its proper weight, an argument in support of the prevailing assumption that behavioural flexibility can serve as evidence for complex cognitive mechanisms may begin to take shape. An adaptive model of cognitive-behavioural evolution is proposed, according to which the existence of convergent trait–environment clusters in phylogenetically disparate lineages may serve as evidence for the same trait–environment clusters in other lineages. This, in turn, could permit inferences of cognitive complexity in cases of experimental underdetermination, thereby placing the common view that behavioural flexibility can serve as evidence for complex cognition on firmer grounds. (shrink)

The philosophy of evidence-based medicine -- What is EBM? -- What is good evidence for a clinical decision? -- Ruling out plausible rival hypotheses and confounding factors : a method -- Resolving the paradox of effectiveness : when do observational studies offer the same degree of evidential support as randomized trials? -- Questioning double blinding as a universal methodological virtue of clinical trials : resolving the Philip's paradox -- Placebo controls : problematic and misleading baseline measures of effectiveness -- (...) Questioning the methodological superiority of "placebo" over "active" controlled trials -- Examining the paradox that traditional roles for mechanistic reasoning and expert -- Judgment have been up-ended by EBM -- A qualified defence of the EBM stance on mechanistic reasoning -- Knowledge that versus knowledge how : situating the EBM position on expert clinical judgment -- Moving EBM forward. (shrink)

The thesis contains my early work arguing against evidentialism for reasons for belief (chapter 1), my early argument that rationality is not normative (chapter 2), an argument that rationality is not responding reasons, at least understood in one way (chapter 2), a general discussion of how normative conflicts might (appear to) arise in many different ways (chapter 3), a discussion of how to weigh pragmatic and evidential reasons for belief (chapter 4), and a discussion of the general structure of (...) normativity and its ramifications for understanding putative normative conflicts (chapter 4). At a more general level, the thesis aims to explore how putative normative conflicts might arise and whether they are genuine conflicts or only apparent. It also offers a defence of the view that there are genuine state-given reasons for propositional attitudes, including pragmatic reasons for belief. (shrink)

In recent years, some defenders of traditional philosophical methodology have argued that certain critiques of armchair methods are mistaken in assuming that intuitions play central evidential roles in traditional philosophical methods. According to this kind of response, experimental philosophers attack a straw man; it doesn’t matter whether intuitions are reliable, because philosophers don’t use intuitions in the way assumed. Deutsch (2010), Williamson (2007), and Cappelen (2012) all defend traditional methods in something like this way. I also endorsed something like (...) this line in Ichikawa (2014a). -/- In this contribution, I will follow up on this sort of defence of traditional philosophical methods in three ways. In §1, I will rehearse and extend some of my reasons for challenging the idea that traditional methods depend on intuitions in an evidential role. (My reasons are very different from those discussed in (Cappelen, 2012).) I will also engage with some recent more sophisticated attempts to establish the idea that intuitions play evidential roles in philosophy, such as that of Chudnoff (2013). In §2, I will consider and argue against a dismissive response to such positions from experimental philosophers, who consider the question of philosophical reliance on intuitions to be irrelevant to the experimentalist critique. But in §3, I will argue that it would also be a mistake to conclude (as Herman Cappelen does) that the critique is rendered totally irrelevant by the denial of the evidential role of intuitions; I defend a more moderate view on which the bearing of experimental studies of philosophical intuitions is relevant for philosophical methodology, but only in a relatively limited way. (shrink)

This book offers an integrated historical and philosophical examination of the origin of genetics. The author contends that an integrated HPS analysis helps us to have a better understanding of the history of genetics, and sheds light on some general issues in the philosophy of science. This book consists of three parts. It begins with historical problems, revisiting the significance of the work of Mendel, de Vries, and Weldon. Then it turns to integrated HPS problems, developing an exemplar-based analysis of (...) the development and the progress in early genetics. Finally, it discusses philosophical problems: conceptual change, evidence, and theory choice. Part I lays out a new historiography, serving as a basis for the discussions in part II and part III. Part II introduces a new integrated HPS method to analyse and interpret the historiography in Part I and to re-examine the philosophical issues in Part III. Part III develops new philosophical accounts which will in turn make a better sense of the history of scientific practice more generally. This book provides a practical defence of integrated HPS: the best way to defend integrated HPS is to do it. (shrink)

Probabilistic accounts of causality have long had trouble with ‘spurious’ evidential correlations. Such correlations are also central to the case for causal decision theory—the argument that evidential decision theory is inadequate to cope with certain sorts of decision problem. However, there are now several strong defences of the evidential theory. Here I present what I regard as the best defence, and apply it to the probabilistic approach to causality. I argue that provided a probabilistic theory appeals to (...) the notions of agency and effective strategy, it can avoid the problem of spurious causes. I show that such an appeal has other advantages; and argue that it is not illegitimate, even for a causal realist. (shrink)

In a recent article in Sophia, Joshua Cockayne and Jack Warman defend a view they call supra-evidential atheistic fideism. This is the idea that considerations similar to William James’s defence of theistic belief can be used to justify atheistic belief. If an individual evaluates the evidence for atheism and theism as roughly the same, then she can rationally believe in atheism if her passions lean in that direction, provided the belief in atheism is forced, live and momentous. After outlining (...) their defence of atheistic fideism, I offer some friendly amendments to their position. Cockayne and Warman claim that when the existential question of God’s existence is undecided for someone, she is rational to let her passions answer the existential question. This is a version of Rowe’s friendly atheism because it can explain the existence of religious disagreement, even in cases where an atheist and theist give the same assessment of the evidence for God’s existence; they disagree at the passional level, not at the evidential level. I argue for a different version of friendly atheism: a mere passion need not settle the existential question about God when the evidence cannot decide it. For one might be rational in preferring that God not exist if God’s existence would make things worse. For certain individuals, this is reason enough to accept and act as if atheism is true, even if it is not epistemically rational to believe that it’s true. (shrink)