‘Bayesian epistemology’ became an epistemological movement in the 20th century, though its two main features can be traced back to the eponymous Reverend Thomas Bayes (c. 1701-61). Those two features are: (1) the introduction of a formal apparatus for inductive logic; (2) the introduction of a pragmatic self-defeat test (as illustrated by Dutch Book Arguments) for epistemic rationality as a way of extending the justification of the laws of deductive logic to include a justification for the laws of inductive logic. (...) The formal apparatus itself has two main elements: the use of the laws of probability as coherence constraints on rational degrees of belief (or degrees of confidence) and the introduction of a rule of probabilistic inference, a rule or principle of conditionalization. (shrink)

The consequentialist project for human rights -- Exceptions to libertarian natural rights -- The main principle -- What is well-being? What is equity? -- The two deepest mysteries in moral philosophy -- Security rights -- Epistemological foundations for the priority of autonomy rights -- The millian epistemological argument for autonomy rights -- Property rights, contract rights, and other economic rights -- Democratic rights -- Equity rights -- The most reliable judgment standard for weak paternalism -- Liberty rights and privacy rights (...) -- Clarifications and responses to objections -- Conclusion. (shrink)

"We hold these truths to be self-evident..." So begins the U.S. Declaration of Independence. What follows those words is a ringing endorsement of universal rights, but it is far from self-evident. Why did the authors claim that it was? William Talbott suggests that they were trapped by a presupposition of Enlightenment philosophy: That there was only one way to rationally justify universal truths, by proving them from self-evident premises. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the authors of (...) the U.S. Declaration had no infallible source of moral truth. For example, many of the authors of the Declaration of Independence endorsed slavery. The wrongness of slavery was not self-evident; it was a moral discovery. In this book, William Talbott builds on the work of John Rawls, Jurgen Habermas, J.S. Mill, Amartya Sen, and Henry Shue to explain how, over the course of history, human beings have learned how to adopt a distinctively moral point of view from which it is possible to make universal, though not infallible, judgments of right and wrong. He explains how this distinctively moral point of view has led to the discovery of the moral importance of nine basic rights. Undoubtedly, the most controversial issue raised by the claim of universal rights is the issue of moral relativism. How can the advocate of universal rights avoid being a moral imperialist? In this book, Talbott shows how to defend basic individual rights from a universal moral point of view that is neither imperialistic nor relativistic. Talbott avoids moral imperialism by insisting that all of us, himself included, have moral blindspots and that we usually depend on others to help us to identify those blindspots. Talbott's book speaks to not only debates on human rights but to broader issues of moral and cultural relativism, and will interest a broad range of readers. (shrink)

The evolutionist challenge to moral realism is the skeptical challenge that, if evolution is true, it would only be by chance, a “happy coincidence” as Sharon Street puts it, if human moral beliefs were true. The author formulates Street’s “happy coincidence” argument more precisely using a distinction between probabilistic sensitivity and insensitivity introduced by Elliott Sober. The author then considers whether it could be rational for us to believe that human moral judgments about particular cases are probabilistically sensitive to strongly (...) universal fundamental moral standards of cooperation and fair division. The author provides an explanation of why there would be a benign correlation between human moral judgments in particular cases and the requirements of strongly universal fundamental moral standards. The explanation of the benign correlation is based on group selection for groups of individuals with an egalitarian satisficing psychology and egalitarian norms, because of the ability of such groups to more efficiently solve gene-propagation collective action problems. (shrink)

The author identifies the structure of Sharon Street's skeptical challenge to non-naturalist, normative epistemic realism as an argument that NNER is liable to reliability defeat and then argues that Street's argument fails, because it itself is subject to reliability defeat. As the author reconstructs Street's argument, it is an argument that the normative epistemic judgments of the realist could only be probabilistically sensitive to normative epistemic truths by sheer chance. The author then recaps Street's own naturalist translation of normative epistemic (...) judgments into purely descriptive, contingent probability statements, and argues that, on her own terms, the reasoning that leads her to rationally believe in evolutionary theory could only be probabilistically sensitive to the relevant purely descriptive, contingent probabilities by sheer chance. The author's argument is addressed to Street, but it applies to all evolutionary naturalist accounts of epistemic rationality. The author explains how his argument differs from Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism and shows how it avoids the objections to Plantinga's EAAN. The author closes with the outline of an explanation of how evolution could have made human reasoning probabilistically sensitive to metaphysically necessary normative epistemic standards, even though those standards did not exert and, indeed, could not have exerted any kind of causal influence on the evolutionary process. (shrink)

The author uses a series of examples to illustrate two versions of a new, nonprobabilist principle of epistemic rationality, the special and general versions of the metacognitive, expected relative frequency principle. These are used to explain the rationality of revisions to an agent’s degrees of confidence in propositions based on evidence of the reliability or unreliability of the cognitive processes responsible for them—especially reductions in confidence assignments to propositions antecedently regarded as certain—including certainty-reductions to instances of the law of excluded (...) middle or the law of noncontradiction in logic or certainty-reductions to the certainties of probabilist epistemology. The author proposes special and general versions of the MERF principle and uses them to explain the examples, including the reasoning that would lead to thoroughgoing fallibilism—that is, to a state of being certain of nothing. The author responds to the main defenses of probabilism: Dutch Book arguments, Joyce’s potential accuracy defense, and the potential calibration defenses of Shimony and van Fraassen by showing that, even though they do not satisfy the probability axioms, degrees of belief that satisfy the MERF principle minimize expected inaccuracy in Joyce’s sense; they can be externally calibrated in Shimony and van Fraassen’s sense; and they can serve as a basis for rational betting, unlike probabilist degrees of belief, which, in many cases, human beings have no rational way of ascertaining. The author also uses the MERF principle to subsume the various epistemic akrasia principles in the literature. Finally, the author responds to Titelbaum’s argument that epistemic akrasia principles require that we be certain of some epistemological beliefs, if we are rational. (shrink)

The author uses a series of potential counterexamples to argue against attempts by Bergmann and Plantinga to articulate a distinction between malignant and benign epistemic circularity and, more radically, to argue that epistemic circularity per se is no fallacy, and the concept of epistemic circularity plays no role in the explanation of why some instances of epistemic circularity are irrational. The author contrasts an inferential framework, in which circularity is a problem, with an equilibrium framework, in which the concept of (...) circularity plays no useful role and argues that defeasible reasoning can only be understood in an equilibrium, not an inferential, framework. The author uses an example of reasoning about the reliability of one’s own memory to explain how seemingly malignant epistemic circularity can be rational in an equilibrium framework. The author discusses the relevance of this conclusion to two contemporary issues: the cogency of Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism and the evolutionary naturalists’ challenges to non-naturalist moral realism—and, indeed, to all forms of non-naturalist normative realism. (shrink)

The article begins with a review of the structural differences between act consequentialist theories and human rights theories, as illustrated by Amartya Sen's paradox of the Paretian liberal and Robert Nozick's utilitarianism of rights. It discusses attempts to resolve those structural differences by moving to a second-order or indirect consequentialism, illustrated by J.S. Mill and Derek Parfit. It presents consequentialist (though not utilitarian) interpretations of the contractualist theories of Jürgen Habermas and the early John Rawls (Theory of Justice) and of (...) the capability theories of Sen and Martha Nussbaum. It also discusses two roles that well-being or a surrogate for well-being typically plays in theories of human rights: (a) well-being plays a role in the justification of at least some exceptions to human rights principles; and (b) some human rights seem to be best understood as rights to some level of well-being or expected well-being (or of a surrogate for one of them). It reviews two consequentialist challenges to the moral adequacy of non-consequentialist accounts of human rights, one based on a duty to relieve suffering and the other generated by Parfit's Non-Identity Problem, and concludes with a contrast between two ways of looking at the history of the development and implementation of human rights conventions and laws. Video abstract (click to view). (shrink)

Originally published in 1990. Examining epistemic justification, truth and logic, this book works towards a holistic theory of knowledge. It discusses evidence, belief, reliability and many philosophical theories surrounding the nature of true knowledge. A thorough Preface updates the main work from when it was written in 1976 to include theories ascendant in the ‘80s.

In the movieRegarding Henry, the main character, Henry Turner, is a lawyer who suffers brain damage as a result of being shot during a robbery. Before being wounded, the Old Henry Turner had been a successful lawyer, admired as a fierce competitor and well-known for his killer instinct. As a result of the injury to his brain, the New Henry Turner loses the personality traits that had made the Old Henry such a formidable adversary.

In this chapter, Talbott explains how the Proof paradigm, a model of top-down reasoning, has led to a serious misunderstanding of how moral judgments are epistemically justified. Talbott develops an alternative equilibrium model of moral reasoning based on the work of Mill, Rawls, and Habermas and uses it to show how bottom-up reasoning could have led to the discovery of human rights. Talbott uses the U.S. Constitution to illustrate the idea that guarantees of basic human rights are components of a (...) self-improving self-regulating system for promoting justice. The system does not have to begin with self-evident or even true principles of justice. Bottom-up reasoning can lead to changes that make it more just over time. (shrink)

This chapter replies to some standard objections to consequentialist moral principle, including the problem of expensive tastes, and R. Dworkin’s circularity objection. The chapter compares the main principle with Rawls’s resource-based theory of primary goods and the capabilities theories of Nussbaum and Sen. It then compares the main principle with J. S. Mill’s utilitarian principle and Rawls’s maximin expectation principle. This requires a further development of the idea of life prospects. The chapter then shows that both Mill’s and Rawls’s principles (...) have a distributional blindspot and explains why the main principle does not. As a heuristic for making determinations of the equitable promotion of life prospects, the chapter defines an expanded original position that makes it possible to extend the application of the main principle extend beyond the application of Rawls’s principles to include those with special health care needs and those with severe mental or physical impairments. The chapter explains why the main principle is prioritarian, rather than egalitarian or sufficientarian. It explains how the application of the main principle to social practices solves the problem of descriptive relativity. Finally, he explains his reasons for classifying the main principle as a consequentialist principle of moral improvement. (shrink)

In this chapter, Talbott uses the life of Bartolomé de Las Casas to illustrate the importance of bottom-up moral reasoning. He shows how Las Casas’s experiences in the Americas could have contributed to bottom-up reasoning that led him to give up moral principles and norms that he had previously regarded as infallible. Talbott emphasizes the importance of empathic understanding in moral reasoning and discusses various distorting influences on moral observation and moral reasoning, most importantly, socially enforced self-serving rationalizations. Talbott uses (...) the example of Las Casas to explain the possibility of a universal moral standpoint, from which it is possible to make reliable, though not infallible, universal particular moral judgments. Talbott introduces the Harsanyi-Rawls idea of an original position behind a veil of ignorance to specify more fully the universal moral standpoint. He explains how such a universal moral standpoint avoids moral imperialism. The idea of a universal moral standpoint from which it is possible to make reliable universal particular moral judgments is the key element in Talbott’s defense of universal human rights, which begins in the next chapter. (shrink)

In this chapter, Talbott explains the development of autonomy rights as a response to the failure of paternalistic defenses of autocracy. Talbott discusses two alternative ways of explaining the importance of autonomy rights, one consequentialist and one nonconsequentialist. Talbott focuses on the consequentialist account. Talbott proposes a non-metaphysical conception of autonomy as involving good judgment and self-determination. Talbott claims that one of the most important discoveries in the development of human rights is the discovery that the claim of first person (...) authority is true—that is, the discovery, first announced by J.S. Mill, that, given the necessary education and training, all normal human beings are capable of becoming generally reliable judges of what is good for them. Talbott defines two categories of autonomy rights—development-of-judgment rights and exercise-of-judgment rights— that are necessary for the judgments of normal adults to be generally reliable. He argues that for a government to reliably promote the well-being of its citizens, the government must obtain and be appropriately responsive to reliable feedback from its citizens about the effects of its policies. This is the reliable feedback problem and the appropriate responsiveness problem. Talbott argues that guarantees of autonomy rights are essential parts of any solution to the reliable feedback problem. The chapter concludes with a list of eight autonomy rights. (shrink)

Allen Buchanan’s ‘The Heart of Human Rights’ addresses the moral justification of the international legal human rights system. Buchanan identifies two functions of the ILHRS: a well-being function and a status egalitarian function. Because Buchanan assumes that the well-being function is sufficientarian, he augments it with a status egalitarian function. However, if the well-being function is utilitarian or prioritarian, there is no need for a separate status egalitarian function, because the status egalitarian function can be subsumed by the utilitarian or (...) prioritarian well-being function. (shrink)

In this chapter, Talbott considers how, if human psychology were different, it could have been discovered that autonomy was a burden for human beings and thus that human beings should not be guaranteed autonomy rights. Talbott also explains his metaphysical immodesty with an example of why he believes human rights norms apply universally. Talbott ends with a reminder that, in exercising our judgment and our self-determination, all of us play a role in the bottom-up social-historical process of the discovery and (...) development and implementation of human rights. (shrink)

In this chapter, Talbott responds to four main objections: Rorty’s defense of Humean moral antirealism, the view that the development of human rights norms is a progress of sentiment, not reason; Skyrms’s defense of evolutionary anti-realism, according to which the development of norms of fairness can be explained without supposing there are any truths about fairness; Lee Kwan Yew’s "Asian values" objection to the concept of human rights as a Western invention that is not appropriate for Asian societies; Cranston’s objection (...) to the inclusion of economic and social rights as human rights. Talbott suggests that the characteristic that grounds basic human rights is autonomy in the non-metaphysical sense. Talbott notes that moral progress itself is a collective action problem, so that moral progress depends on the capacity to adopt the moral standpoint and to cooperate rather than take a free ride, at least when the costs of cooperating are not too great. (shrink)

This chapter contrasts his consequentialist account of democratic rights with prominent nonconsequentialist accounts, including those of Rawls, Habermas, Barry, and Waldron. He explains why majority rule itself requires a consequentialist rationale. To illustrate that the rationale for democratic rights is consequentialist, the chapter proposes an alternative to democratic rights, election by deliberative poll, that would be an improvement under the main principle, were it not for the potential for abuse. Democratic rights are a solution to a CAP. To be endorsed (...) by the main principle, democratic rights must equitably promote the life prospects of all compliers and nonresponsible noncompliers. The chapter argues that group rights or cultural rights are not fundamental rights, but rather rights that are instrumental to protecting the individual rights of members of minorities against majorities. The chapter shows that the main principle can explain why human rights, including democratic rights, should be inalienable. This is a puzzle on many nonconsequentialist views. The chapter describes one kind of problem that no form of government, not even democracy, is very good at solving, the time lag problem. Finally, the chapter discusses the inappropriateness of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning campaign finance reform laws on free speech grounds. (shrink)

This chapter provides an historical explanation of the epistemological basis for autonomy rights. The history begins with Mill’s revolutionary social process epistemology in On Liberty. On Mill’s account, to attain rational beliefs and to approach true beliefs, we depend on being part of a process of free give-and-take of opinion. The chapter contrasts Mill’s account based on this real-world process with Habermas’s account of normative validity based on an ideal process of rational discourse. The chapter criticizes Rawls’s move from metaphysical (...) to political liberalism, which led Rawls to dispense with truth and to replace it with a relativized version of reasonableness. The chapter endorses Habermas’s insistence that engaging in normative inquiry commits us to standards of validity that transcend our particular life world. However, the chapter criticizes Habermas for a move that parallels Rawls’s: Habermas’s decision to understand our normative commitments as factual rather than metaphysical. Finally, the chapter reverses the order of explanation in Habermas’s theory of normative validity. It is not by reference to an ideal process of rational discourse that the results of our real-world process of free give-and-take of opinion attain whatever validity they might have; it is the real-world process that provides the grounding for our beliefs about what an ideal process would be like. (shrink)

Equity rights are the rights required for the equitable promotion of life prospects. They include negative opportunity rights, positive opportunity rights, and social insurance rights, including disability insurance, health insurance, retirement insurance, and maintenance rights. Social insurance rights establish a social floor without holes. This explains why they are inalienable and why making them inalienable is not paternalistic. The chapter compares his account with R. Dworkin’s account in terms of social insurance markets. He also compares the social insurance rights endorsed (...) by the main principle with the basic income rights favored by Van Parijs. He explains why Van Parijs’s proposal would have a benefit-spreading effect that would not be endorsed by the main principle. (shrink)

This chapter shows how libertarianism can be seen to be a moral theory that explains exceptions to earlier moral norms and principles and the chapter shows how various exceptions to libertarian principles, including necessity and unconscionability exceptions, can be seen to lead beyond libertarianism to contractarian theories of morality and justice. The chapteer raises a general problem for contractarian theories and shows how the problem applies to the theories of Rawls and Habermas. This sets the stage for the book’s own (...) meta-level consequentialist explanation of the exceptions in the next chapter. (shrink)

This essay is part of a dossier on Cristina Lafont's book Democracy without Shortcuts.

In this chapter, Talbott considers various interpretations of the term “human rights.” He proposes an account of basic human rights as the necessary legal guarantees for a government to be legitimate, even if not necessarily just, and explains why his proposal is an improvement over Rawls's account. He contrasts his response to moral relativism with the defensive response taken by other advocates of universal human rights, exemplified by Waldron. Talbott articulates a new way of understanding human rights claims as epistemically (...) modest but metaphysically immodest. He identifies two ways of being a moral imperialist and claims that his defense of universal human rights will avoid both kinds of moral imperialism. (shrink)

"In Learning from Our Mistakes: Epistemology for the Real World, Talbott provides a new framework for understanding the history of Western epistemology and uses that framework to propose a new way of understanding rational belief. His proposal makes epistemology relevant to the real world, which he illustrates with a new theory of racial, gender and other kinds of prejudice, a new diagnosis of the sources of the inequity in the U.S. criminal justice system, and insight into the proliferation of tribal (...) and fascist epistemologies based on alt-facts and alt-truth. Talbott's new model of rational belief is not a model of a theorem prover in mathematics. It is a model of a good learner. Being a good learner requires sensitivity to clues, the maginative ability to generate alternative explanatory narratives that fit the clues, and the ability to select the most coherent explanatory narrative. Sensitivity to clues requires sensitivity not only to evidence that supports one's own beliefs, but also to evidence that casts doubt on them. One of the most important characteristics of a good learner is the ability to correct mistakes. Talbott articulates nine principles that help to explain the difference between rational and irrational belief. Talbott contrasts his approach with the approach of historically important philosophers, including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn. He also contrasts his approach with a variety of contemporary approaches, including pragmatism, Bayesianism, and naturalism. He responds to the main criticisms of his method from the experimental philosophy literature"--. (shrink)

This chapter briefly reviews the evolution in decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court of what was originally identified as a privacy right but is now correctly identified as a liberty right against legal paternalism. The chapter uses the main principle to trace the contours of what this right should include: right to religious freedom; a right to sexual freedom; a right to reproductive freedom; a right to refuse medical treatment, including a right to refuse extraordinary care and to be removed (...) from life support; a right to marry that includes same sex marriage; a right to suicide and assisted suicide in certain end-of-life situations. The chapter also explains why there should be human rights to spatial privacy and informational privacy. (shrink)

In this chapter, Talbott considers the Hobbesian social contract defense of autocracy as necessary to solve its citizens’ collective action problems. He argues that human beings are able to form stable rights-respecting democracies that solve their collective action problems, because while human beings are not angels, neither are they devils. He reviews Sen’s research on famines and psychological research on the ultimatum game and related games to show that most people are willing to incur at least small costs to promote (...) fairness. Therefore, rights-respecting democracies are able to solve the reliable feedback problem and the appropriate responsiveness problem to become more just over time. They are self-improving, self-regulating systems. Examples of movements of non-violent resistance illustrate the process. The chapter concludes with a complete list of the basic human rights. (shrink)

This chapter uses the main principle to explain why economic rights should be regarded as human rights. Property rights, contract rights, and other economic rights are a solution to the productive investment CAP. Property and contract rights are not defined a priori, but should be defined in a way that they will, as a practice, do the best job of equitably promoting life prospects. The chapter uses the main principle to explain the moral appropriateness of the contours of property rights (...) to both tangible and intangible property; exceptions to contracts, including unconscionability, implied warranties, strict liability, mandatory disclosure, bankruptcy; the replacement of caveat emptor with caveat venditor in win-win contracts; market economies; negative income tax; voluntary consent to economic and other transactions; prohibitions on slavery contracts; minimum wage legislation. The chapter contrasts his account with fair starting-point theories of justice, including Ronald Dworkin’s theory. He also contrasts his account with Richard Posner’s account of the common law in terms of economic efficiency. (shrink)

This chapter compares a system of human rights guarantees of security with libertarian natural rights. Security rights are a solution to a collective action problem that would arise in a state of nature with libertarian natural rights, the internal security problem. To be endorsed by the main principle, a solution to that problem requires guarantees of procedural rights, which have no analog in natural rights. The chapter discusses various problems that have been thought to be fatal to consequentialism: the problem (...) of intentionally punishing the innocent, and the related problem of inadvertently punishing the innocent, which is a challenging one for nonconsequentialists; strict criminal liability; and organ harvesting. The discussion of inadvertently punishing the innocent leads to a consideration of the doctrine of double effect. The chapter concludes the chapter with a comparison of his account with Judith Thomson’s trade-off idea, illustrated by the trolley cases. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the project of this book, the consequentialist project for human rights, historically by relating it to J. S. Mill’s consequentialist project for autonomy rights and the early Rawls’s consequentialist project for liberal rights. The project is to identify a consequentialist principle of moral improvement, the main principle, to explain why it is superior to other nonconsequentialist principles, and to use it to explain why government guarantees of fourteen robust, inalienable human rights would be a moral improvement in (...) any society anywhere on earth. (shrink)

In this chapter, Talbott explains the development of women’s rights as a response to the cultural universal of paternalistically justified patriarchal norms that severely limit opportunities for women. Talbott uses evolutionary psychology to explain why norms that severely limit opportunities for women are cultural universals and to show how it is possible to question even culturally universal justifications from the moral standpoint. Talbott uses the evidence of violence against women and the examples of footbinding and female genital cutting to explain (...) how social enforcement can make oppressive norms stable and can even motivate voluntary compliance with them. Talbott also explains how certain kinds of paternalist justifications for patriarchal norms can be self-reinforcing. Talbott explains how the development of women’s rights fits the model of the extension of rights to white, male property owners, then to white male non-property-owners, then to males in other racial and ethnic groups. In each case, the extension of rights is a guarantee of a sphere of autonomy, in a sense to be explained in the next chapter. Talbott gives the example of the Senegalese organization Tostan as a model of how to advocate universal human rights, and thus autonomy, without being a moral imperialist. Talbott concludes with an explanation of why cultural relativism about internal norms is too wishy-washy. (shrink)

This chapter applies the Millian epistemology to ground a robust, inalienable right to freedom of expression and to ground the other autonomy rights, as necessary for the process of the social process of the free give-and-take of opinion. The chapter considers a variety of exceptions to freedom of expression, including product advertising and political advertising. He uses the examples of Google and Wikipedia to provide empirical confirmation for Mill’s claims about the social process of the free give-and-take of opinion. He (...) also shows how the Millian case for freedom of propositional expression can be extended to cover nonpropositional expression in art and literature. The chapter shows that the Millian argument does not limit freedom of expression to reasonable views. The chapter argues that the distinction between reasonable and unreasonable comprehensive views, which plays a large role in Rawls’s theory and in contemporary discussions of human rights, cannot support the weight that it is intended to bear. This leads to an extended discussion of intolerant subversive advocacy, in which the chapter argues that neither Habermas’s nor Rawls’s theory can explain why the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the Smith Act in Dennis v. U.S. was erroneous. The chapter also explains why Mill’s social process epistemology does not undermine his political philosophy. The author concludes by explaining why the main principle would endorse a human right to freedom of expression. (shrink)

This chapter introduces a consequentialist meta-theoretic sufficient condition for a change in moral practices to be a moral improvement, the main principle. The chapter introduces the main principle by considering a series of examples of exceptions to libertarianism, especially to norms against coercion. The chapter also considers various purported counterexamples to consequentialist principles, including Nozick’s Wilt Chamberlain example. The chapter presents the main principle as a multiple time-slice end-state principle of moral reciprocity and explains the key terms, though he can’t (...) define here. (shrink)

This author shows how the main principle would endorse a new ground-level principle of weak legal paternalism, the most reliable judgment standard, and compares this standard with the most influential nonconsequentialist standard, Joel Feinberg’s voluntariness standard. The most reliable judgment standard will permit legal paternalism if it is reasonable to believe that the subject will or would come to unequivocally endorse it. The chapter illustrates the difference between his and Feinberg’s standards with hypothetical examples of drug and suicide prohibitions. The (...) chapter explains his consequentialist account of autonomy and shows how that account fits the legal standard of autonomy. However, it does not fit the standard statement of the insanity defense. The chapter explains why the insanity defense should be revised. (shrink)

This chapter responds to a variety of objections, including the following: that the account is not really consequentialist; that it gives too much priority to states as the guarantors of human rights; that it makes human rights too contingent; that it is implausible that there is any formula for equity; that the claim of first-person authority is implausible; that it leaves out important values, such as the badness of domination; and that it requires a division in practical reason that is (...) “repugnant to common sense”. The chapter also explains why he depends on his readers to help detect his fudge factors and theoretical inertia. (shrink)

In this chapter, Talbott explains why one of the most attractive arguments for extreme cultural relativism about morality, the moral imperialism argument, is incoherent. The incoherence of the cultural imperialism argument shows that extreme cultural relativism is too wishy-washy. Talbott distinguishes between internal and external moral norms and articulates a less extreme form of cultural relativism that is compatible with the cultural imperialism argument, cultural relativism about internal norms. This sets the stage for an evaluation of this less extreme form (...) of cultural relativism. (shrink)

This chapter shows how the main principle points the way to a solution to the two deepest mysteries in moral philosophy, one metaphysical and one epistemological. The metaphysical mystery is to explain why moral norms and principles always seem to have exceptions. The epistemological mystery is to explain how human beings could come to recognize exceptions to the very moral norms and principles that were used in their moral training. The solution to the metaphysical mystery is to see that moral (...) reasoning has a reference class logic, modeled by conditional probability. The solution to the epistemological mystery is to see that moral training can produce practical wisdom, understood as implicit sensitivity to the main principle. The chapter also reviews the historical discovery of the paradox of direct consequentialism to explain why the main principle does not endorse a change to using it as a ground-level moral principle. The chapter then compares the book's account of legal improvement with R. Dworkin’s account of law as integrity on the issue of retroactivity in the civil law. (shrink)

In this reply to his three critics, Talbott develops several important themes from his book, Which Rights Should Be Universal?, in ways that go beyond the discussion in the book. Among them are the following: the prescriptive role of human rights theory; the need to guarantee an expansive list of basic rights as a basis for a government to be able to claim recognitional legitimacy; the futility of trying to define human rights in terms of what there can be reasonable (...) disagreement about; and the problems for any proceduralist account of human rights. Talbott also further elaborates his consequentialist defense of basic human rights and his arguments against cultural relativism about human rights. (shrink)

In his path-breaking recent book, Knowledge in a Social World, Alvin Goldman brings academic epistemology to bear on important real world issues in information technology, the media, science, law, politics, and education. Though the project that Goldman undertakes ramifies in many directions, the motivating idea is simple. Knowledge is important. Social institutions and practices can and should be evaluated on how well or how poorly they contribute to knowledge of propositions of interest. This is Goldman’s criterion of veritistic value, which, (...) he acknowledges, is only one of the criteria for evaluating social practices. Taken as a whole, this book is one of the most effective explanations in the philosophical literature of why truth matters, both theoretically and in practice. (shrink)