We think of logic as objective. We also think that we are reliable about logic. These views jointly generate a puzzle: How is it that we are reliable about logic? How is it that our logical beliefs match an objective domain of logical fact? This is an instance of a more general challenge to explain our reliability about a priori domains. In this paper, I argue that the nature of this challenge has not been properly understood. I (...) explicate the challenge both in general and for the particular case of logic. I also argue that two seemingly attractive responses – appealing to a faculty of rational insight or to the nature of concept possession – are incapable of answering the challenge. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that when a theory is committed to an apparently unexplainable massive correlation, that fact counts significantly against the theory. Philosophical theories that imply that we have knowledge of non-causal mind-independent facts are especially prone to this objection. Prominent examples of such theories are mathematical Platonism, robust normative realism and modal realism. It is sometimes thought that theists can easily respond to this sort of challenge and that theism therefore has an epistemic advantage over atheism. In this (...) paper, I will argue that, contrary to widespread thought, some versions of theism only push the challenge one step further and thus are in no better position than atheism. (shrink)

The Reliability Challenge to moral non-naturalism has received substantial attention recently in the literature on moral epistemology. While the popularity of this particular challenge is a recent development, the challenge has a long history, as the form of this challenge can be traced back to a skeptical challenge in the philosophy of mathematics raised by Paul Benacerraf. The current Reliability Challenge is widely regarded as the most sophisticated way to develop this skeptical (...) line of thinking, making the Reliability Challenge the strongest epistemic challenge to normative nonnaturalism. In this paper, I argue that the innovations that have occurred since Benacerraf’s statement of the challenge are misconceived and confused in a number of ways. The Reliability Challenge is not the most potent epistemic challenge to moral non-naturalism. The most potent challenge comes from the fact that there is a causal condition on knowledge – or, more precisely, a becaual condition – that non-natural moral facts cannot satisfy. (shrink)

In recent years, the epistemic reliability of moral intuitions has been undermined by substantial empirical data reporting the influence of cognitive biases. This paper discusses and elaborates upon a promising strategy in response to the reliability challenge to moral intuitions. The argument considered appeals to the fact that moral intuitions come in different levels of strength and agents accept only strong intuitions, not vulnerable to bias under realistic circumstances. This essay aims to reconstruct the defense from the (...) reliability challenge in its most promising form and to evaluate the plausibility of the argument in light of the available empirical evidence. What will emerge from the discussion is that the vindication of moral intuitions fundamentally depends on two distinct premises: first, the hypothesis that agents accept moral intuitions proportionally to their level of confidence, and second, the hypothesis that intuitive confidence is epistemically reliable. Whereas there is consistent evidence for the first hypothesis, there is still no conclusive evidence for the second. (shrink)

There are many domains about which we think we are reliable. When there is prima facie reason to believe that there is no satisfying explanation of our reliability about a domain given our background views about the world, this generates a challenge to our reliability about the domain or to our background views. This is what is often called the reliability challenge for the domain. In previous work, I discussed the reliability challenges for logic (...) and for deductive inference. I argued for four main claims: First, there are reliability challenges for logic and for deduction. Second, these reliability challenges cannot be answered merely by providing an explanation of how it is that we have the logical beliefs and employ the deductive rules that we do. Third, we can explain our reliability about logic by appealing to our reliability about deduction. Fourth, there is a good prospect for providing an evolutionary explanation of the reliability of our deductive reasoning. In recent years, a number of arguments have appeared in the literature that can be applied against one or more of these four theses. In this paper, I respond to some of these arguments. In particular, I discuss arguments by Paul Horwich, Jack Woods, Dan Baras, Justin Clarke-Doane, and Hartry Field. (shrink)

Suppose that there are objective normative facts and our beliefs about such facts are by-and-large true. How did this come to happen? This is the reliability challenge to normative realism. As has been recently noted, the challenge also applies to expressivist “quasi-realism”. I argue that expressivism is useful in the face of this challenge, in a way that has not been yet properly articulated. In dealing with epistemological issues, quasi-realists typically invoke the desire-like nature of normative (...) judgments. However, this is not enough to prevent the reliability challenge from arising, given that quasi-realists also hold that normative judgments are truth-apt beliefs. To defuse this challenge, we need to isolate a deeper sense in which normative thought is not representational. I propose that we rely on the negative functional thesis of expressivism: normative thought does not have the function of tracking normative facts, or any other kind of facts. This thesis supports an argument to the effect that it is misguided to expect an explanation of our access to normative facts akin to the explanations available in regions of thought that have a tracking function. We should be content with explanations of our reliability that take for granted certain connections between our psychology and the normative truths. (shrink)

Given a traditional intuitionist moral epistemology, it is notoriously difficult for moral realists to explain the reliability of our moral beliefs. This has led some to go looking for an alternative to intuitionism. Perception is an obvious contender. I previously argued that this is a dead end, that all moral perception is dependent on a priori moral knowledge. This suggests that perceptualism merely moves the bump in the rug where the reliability challenge is concerned. Preston Werner responds (...) that my account rests on an overly intellectualized model of perception. In this paper, I argue that though Werner may well be correct, my arguments, properly extended, still suggest that perceptualism leaves realists in no better position than intuitionism when it comes to the reliability challenge. (shrink)

Many legal positivists have argued that legal antipositivists, due to the central explanatory role they grant authoritatively normative facts, end up saddled with deep problems in their proposed epistemology about how we learn about the law, problems which positivists (and especially "exclusive" legal positivists) can avoid. In this chapter, I put forward a version of this kind of argument. I argue that there is an explanatory challenge tied to the epistemology of law that positivist theories are, in general, better (...) equipped to deal with than antipositivist theories. This issue concerns explaining how people (including not only legal officials, such as judges, but also legal anthropologists, legal historians, and ordinary citizens etc.) are reliable in forming the correct judgments about legal content that they do in fact form. Reflection on this issue about reliability in our legal judgments lends support to positivism. It also, I argue, suggests reasons to favor exclusive legal positivism over inclusive legal positivism. (shrink)

A Benacerraf–Field challenge is an argument intended to show that common realist theories of a given domain are untenable: such theories make it impossible to explain how we’ve arrived at the truth in that domain, and insofar as a theory makes our reliability in a domain inexplicable, we must either reject that theory or give up the relevant beliefs. But there’s no consensus about what would count here as a satisfactory explanation of our reliability. It’s sometimes suggested (...) that giving such an explanation would involve showing that our beliefs meet some modal condition, but realists have claimed that this sort of modal interpretation of the challenge deprives it of any force: since the facts in question are metaphysically necessary and so obtain in all possible worlds, it’s trivially easy, even given realism, to show that our beliefs have the relevant modal features. Here I show that this claim is mistaken—what motivates a modal interpretation of the challenge in the first place also motivates an understanding of the relevant features in terms of epistemic possibilities rather than metaphysical possibilities, and there are indeed epistemically possible worlds where the facts in question don’t obtain. (shrink)

This article investigates the challenges posed by the reliability of knowledge in neurophenomenology and its connection to reality. Neurophenomenological research seeks to understand the intricate relationship between human consciousness, cognition, and the underlying neural processes. However, the subjective nature of conscious experiences presents unique epistemic challenges in determining the reliability of the knowledge generated in this research. Personal factors such as beliefs, emotions, and cultural backgrounds influence subjective experiences, which vary from individual to individual. On the other hand, (...) scientific knowledge aims to uncover universal truths based on empirical observations and objective principles. Reconciling the subjective and objective realms presents a significant challenge in determining the reliability of knowledge generated through neurophenomenological research. This article aims to examine the inherent limitations and challenges of neurophenomenological research to shed light on the complexities involved in understanding the nature of knowledge itself. This article highlights that the ontological implications of the reliability of knowledge in neurophenomenology arise from the question of how subjective experiences relate to objective reality. Understanding the neural correlates and mechanisms behind subjective experiences can provide insight into the underlying ontological nature of consciousness. (shrink)

A recent study of moral intuitions, performed by Joshua Greene and a group of researchers at Princeton University, has recently received a lot of attention. Greene and his collaborators designed a set of experiments in which subjects were undergoing brain scanning as they were asked to respond to various practical dilemmas. They found that contemplation of some of these cases (cases where the subjects had to imagine that they must use some direct form of violence) elicited greater activity in certain (...) areas of the brain associated with emotions compared with the other cases. It has been argued (e.g., by Peter Singer) that these results undermine the reliability of our moral intuitions, and therefore provide an objection to methods of moral reasoning that presuppose that they carry an evidential weight (such as the idea of reflective equilibrium). I distinguish between two ways in which Greene's findings lend support for a sceptical attitude towards intuitions. I argue that, given the first version of the challenge, the method of reflective equilibrium can easily accommodate the findings. As for the second version of the challenge, I argue that it does not so much pose a threat specifically to the method of reflective equilibrium but to the idea that moral claims can be justified through rational argumentation in general. (shrink)

There are several important arguments in metaethics that rely on explanatory considerations. Gilbert Harman has presented a challenge to the existence of moral facts that depends on the claim that the best explanation of our moral beliefs does not involve moral facts. The Reliability Challenge against moral realism depends on the claim that moral realism is incompatible with there being a satisfying explanation of our reliability about moral truths. The purpose of this chapter is to examine (...) these and related arguments. In particular, this chapter will discuss four kinds of arguments – Harman’s Challenge, evolutionary debunking arguments, irrelevant influence arguments, and the Reliability Challenge – understood as arguments against moral realism. The main goals of this chapter are (i) to articulate the strongest version of these arguments; (ii) to present and assess the central epistemological principles underlying these arguments; and (iii) to determine what a realist would have to do to adequately respond to these arguments. (shrink)

Non-skeptical robust realists about normativity, mathematics, or any other domain of non- causal truths are committed to a correlation between their beliefs and non- causal, mind-independent facts. Hartry Field and others have argued that if realists cannot explain this striking correlation, that is a strong reason to reject their theory. Some consider this argument, known as the Benacerraf–Field argument, as the strongest challenge to robust realism about mathematics, normativity, and even logic. In this article I offer two closely related (...) accounts for the type of explanation needed in order to address Field's challenge. I then argue that both accounts imply that the striking correlation to which robust realists are committed is explainable, thereby discharging Field's challenge. Finally, I respond to some objections and end with a few unresolved worries. (shrink)

We are reliable about logic in the sense that we by-and-large believe logical truths and disbelieve logical falsehoods. Given that logic is an objective subject matter, it is difficult to provide a satisfying explanation of our reliability. This generates a significant epistemological challenge, analogous to the well-known Benacerraf-Field problem for mathematical Platonism. One initially plausible way to answer the challenge is to appeal to evolution by natural selection. The central idea is that being able to correctly deductively (...) reason conferred a heritable survival advantage upon our ancestors. However, there are several arguments that purport to show that evolutionary accounts cannot even in principle explain how it is that we are reliable about logic. In this paper, I address these arguments. I show that there is no general reason to think that evolutionary accounts are incapable of explaining our reliability about logic. (shrink)

Why believe in the findings of science? John Ziman argues that scientific knowledge is not uniformly reliable, but rather like a map representing a country we cannot visit. He shows how science has many elements, including alongside its experiments and formulae the language and logic, patterns and preconceptions, facts and fantasies used to illustrate and express its findings. These elements are variously combined by scientists in their explanations of the material world as it lies outside our everyday experience. John Ziman’s (...) book offers at once a valuably clear account and a radically challenging investigation of the credibility of scientific knowledge, searching widely across a range of disciplines for evidence about the perceptions, paradigms and analogies on which all our understanding depends. (shrink)

Standard characterizations of virtue epistemology divide the field into two camps: virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. Virtue reliabilists think of intellectual virtues as reliable cognitive faculties or abilities, while virtue responsibilists conceive of them as good intellectual character traits. I argue that responsibilist character virtues sometimes satisfy the conditions of a reliabilist conception of intellectual virtue, and that consequently virtue reliabilists, and reliabilists in general, must pay closer attention to matters of intellectual character. This leads to several new questions and (...) (...) challenges for any reliabilist epistemology. (shrink)

Various studies show moral intuitions to be susceptible to framing effects. Many have argued that this susceptibility is a sign of unreliability and that this poses a methodological challenge for moral philosophy. Recently, doubt has been cast on this idea. It has been argued that extant evidence of framing effects does not show that moral intuitions have an unreliability problem. I argue that, even if the extant evidence suggests that moral intuitions are fairly stable with respect to what intuitions (...) we have, the effect of framing on the strength of those intuitions still needs to be taken into account. I argue that this by itself poses a methodological challenge for moral philosophy. (shrink)

The coherentist theory of justification provides a response to the sceptical challenge: even though the independent processes by which we gather information about the world may be of dubious quality, the internal coherence of the information provides the justification for our empirical beliefs. This central canon of the coherence theory of justification is tested within the framework of Bayesian networks, which is a theory of probabilistic reasoning in artificial intelligence. We interpret the independence of the information gathering processes (IGPs) (...) in terms of conditional independences, construct a minimal sufficient condition for a coherence ranking of information sets and assess whether the confidence boost that results from receiving information through independent IGPs is indeed a positive function of the coherence of the information set. There are multiple interpretations of what constitute IGPs of dubious quality. Do we know our IGPs to be no better than randomization processes? Or, do we know them to be better than randomization processes but not quite fully reliable, and if so, what is the nature of this lack of full reliability? Or, do we not know whether they are fully reliable or not? Within the latter interpretation, does learning something about the quality of some IGPs teach us anything about the quality of the other IGPs? The Bayesian-network models demonstrate that the success of the coherentist canon is contingent on what interpretation one endorses of the claim that our IGPs are of dubious quality. (shrink)

The reliability challenge to ontology can be summarized as the complaint that no satisfying explanation is available of how one can have true ontological beliefs, given that the relevant belief-forming methods are noncausal (for example, not perception based or memory based). This paper first presents a version of the reliability challenge against realist approaches to ontology, put forward by Jared Warren. It then explores a response to the challenge on behalf of the realist that appeals (...) to the use of abduction. This response does not satisfactorily deal with the reliability challenge, though, and even leads to a further epistemic impasse. At this point, a version of ontological pluralism is presented, according to which all the competing theories in a certain ontological dispute can be true—in a sense of “true” to be articulated. The final step shows how this version of pluralism deals with the reliability challenge, especially with the complaint that we lack an explanation for our true ontological beliefs. (shrink)

Reliabilist accounts of knowledge are widely seen as having the resources for blocking sceptical arguments, since these arguments appear to rely on assumptions about the nature of knowledge that are rendered illegitimate by reliabilist accounts. The goal of this book is to assess the main arguments against the possibility of knowledge, and its conclusions challenge this consensus. The book articulates and defends a theory of knowledge that belongs firmly in the truth-tracking tradition, and argues that although the theory has (...) the resources for blocking the main standard lines of sceptical reasoning, there is a sceptical argument against which the theory offers no defence, as it doesn’t rely on any assumptions that the theory would render illegitimate. The book ends with the suggestion that the problem might have a metaphysical solution—that although the sceptical argument may make no illegitimate epistemological assumptions, it does rest on a questionable account of the nature of cognition. (shrink)

Armchair philosophers have questioned the significance of recent work in experimental philosophy by pointing out that experiments have been conducted on laypeople and undergraduate students. To challenge a practice that relies on expert intuitions, so the armchair objection goes, one needs to demonstrate that expert intuitions rather than those of ordinary people are sensitive to contingent facts such as cultural, linguistic, socio-economic, or educational background. This article does exactly that. Based on two empirical studies on populations of 573 and (...) 203 trained philosophers, respectively, it demonstrates that expert intuitions vary dramatically according to at least one contingent factor, namely, the linguistic background of the expert: philosophers make different intuitive judgments if their native language is English rather than Dutch, German, or Swedish. These findings cast doubt on the common armchair assumption that philosophical theories based on armchair intuitions are valid beyond the linguistic background against which they were developed. (shrink)

An important challenge for non-naturalistic moral realism is that it seems hard to reconcile it with the (purported) fact of our reliability in forming correct moral beliefs. Some philosophers (including Cuneo and Shafer-Landau) have argued that we can appeal to conceptual truths about our moral concepts in order to respond to this challenge. Call this “the conceptual strategy”. The conceptual strategy faces a problem: it isn’t clear that the relevant moral concepts are “extension-revealing” in the way that (...) the conceptual strategy needs them to be. A further problem stems from the tradeoff between the “extension-revealing” and the “authority-revealing” aspects of normative concepts. To underscore the import of these issues, I discuss a version of the reliability challenge that concerns authoritative normative facts in ethics (rather than moral facts). The problems I identify for the conceptual strategy carry over to versions of it that are used in response to a range of epistemological arguments in ethics that (like the reliability challenge) are tied to Street’s “Darwinian Dilemma” argument. These problems also bear on the prospects of the conceptual strategy for explaining our (purported) reliability in other domains (e.g., in epistemology, law, and politics). (shrink)

The rapid expansion of computational tools and of data science methods in healthcare has, undoubtedly, raised a whole new set of bioethical challenges. As Laacke and colleagues rightly note,...

Despite the long history of scientific, philosophical, and political debate around heritability studies, certain fundamental conceptual issues have not been recognized or well appreciated. The starting point is that heritability does not measure the degree of influence that genes have on a trait or provide a reliable basis for choosing which traits to investigate further with molecular genetic research. The short argument on this point revolves around two issues: the disconnect between analyzing measurements of a trait and exposing the measurable (...) genetic and environmental factors underlying the trait’s development; and the possibility of heterogeneity in these underlying factors, that is, different factors may lead to the same trait value. The idea of underlying heterogeneity is elaborated through schematic diagrams and distinguished from other senses of heterogeneity. Five conceptually distinct approaches for addressing underlying heterogeneity are identified, corresponding to distinct ways of managing the reciprocal relationship between the degree of knowledge of the dynamics through which the trait develops and the actions that can be reliably be based on what is known . This framework, which extends the interventionist notion of causality, allows the scope and limitations of heritability studies to be clarified in greater detail. It can also inform critical appreciation of newer methods of analysis of genetic and environmental factors. The issues discussed in this article do not centre on empirical data or technical detail and should be accessible to non-specialists as well as challenging active researchers. (shrink)

The availability of medical and health information on the world wide web has led to a long discussion about the reliability of that information. Various medical, political, and independent organizations have created user-friendly tools for finding reliable medical/health information on the web and have been faced with the challenge of defining what it means for information to be reliable. Little attention has been given to the work of reviewing web-based information and applying selection criteria to individual sites. In (...) this article, the authors examine how guidelines are applied in practice and discuss how the selection criteria and the practices of applying them reinforce distinctions that current medical sociology and informatics literature suggests have been broken down by internet technologies and the availability of web-based medical information. (shrink)

In this paper I argue three things: (1) that the interactionist view underlying Benacerraf's (1973) challenge to mathematical beliefs renders inexplicable the reliability of most of our beliefs in physics; (2) that examples from mathematical physics suggest that we should view reliability differently; and (3) that abstract mathematical considerations are indispensable to explanations of the reliability of our beliefs.

Impaired hand proprioception can lead to difficulties in performing fine motor tasks, thereby affecting activities of daily living. The majority of children with unilateral cerebral palsy experience proprioceptive deficits, but accurately quantifying these deficits is challenging due to the lack of sensitive measurement methods. Robot-assisted assessments provide a promising alternative, however, there is a need for solutions that specifically target children and their needs. We propose two novel robotics-based assessments to sensitively evaluate active and passive position sense of the index (...) finger metacarpophalangeal joint in children. We then investigate test-retest reliability and discriminant validity of these assessments in uCP and typically developing children, and further use the robotic platform to gain first insights into fundamentals of hand proprioception. Both robotic assessments were performed in two sessions with 1-h break in between. In the passive position sense assessment, participant's finger is passively moved by the robot to a randomly selected position, and she/he needs to indicate the perceived finger position on a tablet screen located directly above the hand, so that the vision of the hand is blocked. Active position sense is assessed by asking participants to accurately move their finger to a target position shown on the tablet screen, without visual feedback of the finger position. Ten children with uCP and 10 age-matched TDC were recruited in this study. Test-retest reliability in both populations was good >0.79). Proprioceptive error was larger for children with uCP than TDC, indicating discriminant validity. The active position sense was more accurate than passive, and the scores were not correlated, underlining the need for targeted assessments to comprehensively evaluate proprioception. There was a significant effect of age on passive position sense in TDC but not uCP, possibly linked to disturbed development of proprioceptive acuity in uCP. Overall, the proposed robot-assisted assessments are reliable, valid and a promising alternative to commonly used clinical methods, which could help gain a better understanding of proprioceptive impairments in uCP, facilitating the design of novel therapies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Retention, Reliability, and DedicationRenee J. TillmanI love what I do. I am a Hospice and Palliative Nurse Assistant. I have been for 16 years. I have worked in this field for 37 years—in long term care, private duty and home health. I still like getting up and going to work. I have a great work ethic. I think it came about when I started working for Leader Nursing (...) and Rehabilitation Center. My plans were to become a nurse, just like my mother. This employer believes that if he contributed to his employees by way of educating them he would accomplish two things. Loyal employees and highly skilled nurse aides. He knew we were the backbone of his center and believed in his strategy to give the very best care his employee's could provide.I was one of the first nursing assistants in the building. I started on the 11-7 shift, myself and a licensed vocational nurse (LVN). She was a gem. In a four story building. They had security for us. They started from the top and filled the building up. I was never so proud to be a nurse aide. Pretty soon we were filled. I worked the night shift for three years and decided to go to the day shift, 7 to 3. [End Page 154]It was then that I decided this profession was for me, and I was going to be the best. Everything we did was a learning experience. We received report at the beginning of our shift. We were asked to be on the job 15 minutes before shift, and we did so without pay. We felt it was important to get information to care for the residents. The incentives were what they called the Leader Ladder. This Ladder was there for you to climb to the highest occupation in the nursing field you wanted to go, with the help from the scholarship program in place. The goals of the employer were retention, reliability, support, and dedication from the employees.That is not in place today, especially in the long-term care settings. There is a revolving door in most places. In most places employees don't even have nametags. If they do have them, they're in the pockets just to swipe the clock. Uniforms are not decent, I mean wrinkle-free and clean. Even hair and faces are not groomed. Yes I see this today. We are the forgotten, the invisible. Shame on those watch dogs. When I was with Leader, I would watch my nurse do everything—catheters, suctioning, wound care—everything. We used to do wound care and finger sticks. In some places, they don't even let the aides do vital signs.One of the cases I will never forget, this was at a rehabilitation center with a floor that was skilled. This lady was admitted. She was only 60. She had the biggest tumor I had ever seen on the side of her neck; it was cancerous. The tumor was growing outside her neck. I was just 25. When we received report that morning, we were told of physical and history, where she was with her disease, and that she had come there to die. She had no family. We quickly became her family. She was tall and skinny with dark hair. We were also told how she would die and to be prepared so it would not be scary for her or for us. She was going to bleed to death from the tumor. But, our biggest challenge, you see, was not to show that there was an odor when in her room or where ever she was. The cancer was very foul-smelling. I think that is why she loved us; we acted like there was no smell. The day she died, her tumor started a steady flow of blood. She knew it was the end. We had dark towels for her, she lay in her bed, she was never left alone. We had our work to do, but she was never left alone. What I remember the most is her eyes; you see, she could not speak that day. She... (shrink)

An important challenge when creating automatically processable laws concerns open-textured terms. The ability to measure open-texture can assist in determining the feasibility of encoding regulation and where additional legal information is required to properly assess a legal issue or dispute. In this article, we propose a novel conceptualisation of open-texture with the aim of determining the extent of open-textured terms in legal documents. We conceptualise open-texture as a lever whose state is impacted by three types of forces: internal forces (...) (the words within the text themselves), external forces (the resources brought to challenge the definition of words), and lateral forces (the merit of such challenges). We tested part of this conceptualisation with 26 participants by investigating agreement in paired annotators. Five key findings emerged. First, agreement on which words are open-texture within a legal text is possible and statistically significant. Second, agreement is even high at an average inter-rater reliability of 0.7 (Cohen’s kappa). Third, when there is agreement on the words, agreement on the Open-Texture Value is high. Fourth, there is a dependence between the Open-Texture Value and reasons invoked behind open-texture. Fifth, involving only four annotators can yield similar results compared to involving twenty more when it comes to only flagging clauses containing open-texture. We conclude the article by discussing limitations of our experiment and which remaining questions in real life cases are still outstanding. (shrink)

Assessment in ethics education faces a challenge. From the perspectives of teachers, students, and third-party evaluators like the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology and the National Institutes of Health, assessment of student performance is essential. Because of the complexity of ethical case analysis, however, it is difficult to formulate assessment criteria, and to recognize when students fulfill them. Improvement in students’ moral reasoning skills can serve as the focus of assessment. In previous work, Rosa Lynn Pinkus and Claire (...) Gloeckner developed a novel instrument for assessing moral reasoning skills in bioengineering ethics. In this paper, we compare that approach to existing assessment techniques, and evaluate its validity and reliability. We find that it is sensitive to knowledge gain and that independent coders agree on how to apply it. (shrink)

Collin Howson (2000) challenges van Cleve’s reliabilist defense of induction (1984) based on an adaptation of Goodman Paradox (or new riddle of induction). I will try to show that Howson’s argument does not succeed once it is self-defeating. Nevertheless, I point out another way which Howson could have employed the new riddle to undermine the reliabilist defense.

Eye behavior is increasingly used as an indicator of internal versus external focus of attention both in research and application. However, available findings are partly inconsistent, which might be attributed to the different nature of the employed types of internal and external cognition tasks. The present study, therefore, investigated how consistently different eye parameters respond to internal versus external attentional focus across three task modalities: numerical, verbal, and visuo‐spatial. Three eye parameters robustly differentiated between internal and external attentional focus across (...) all tasks. Blinks, pupil diameter variance, and fixation disparity variance were consistently increased during internally directed attention. We also observed substantial attentional focus effects on other parameters (pupil diameter, fixation disparity, saccades, and microsaccades), but they were moderated by task type. Single‐trial analysis of our data using machine learning techniques further confirmed our results: Classifying the focus of attention by means of eye tracking works well across participants, but generalizing across tasks proves to be challenging. Based on the effects of task type on eye parameters, we discuss what eye parameters are best suited as indicators of internal versus external attentional focus in different settings. (shrink)

I argue against mnemic reliabilism, an influential view that successful remembering must be produced by a reliable memory process. Drawing on empirical evidence from psychology and neuroscience, I refute mnemic reliabilism by demonstrating that: (1) patients with memory impairments (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease) can also successfully remember the past despite the unreliability of their corresponding memory processes; (2) some reliability-affecting factors (e.g., stress, divided attention, and insufficient encoding time) can render the memory processes of healthy individuals unreliable without preventing them (...) from occasionally resulting in successful remembering. Potential responses available for mnemic reliabilism are also evaluated. I show that those responses are susceptible to a challenge akin to the generality problem for process reliabilism. (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)

One persistent challenge in scientific practice is that the structure of the world can be unstable: changes in the broader context can alter which model of a phenomenon is preferred, all without any overt signal. Scientific discovery becomes much harder when we have a moving target, and the resulting incorrect understandings of relationships in the world can have significant real-world and practical consequences. In this paper, we argue that it is common (in certain sciences) to have changes of context (...) that lead to changes in the relationships under study, but that standard normative accounts of scientific inquiry have assumed away this problem. At the same time, we show that inference and discovery methods can “protect” themselves in various ways against this possibility by using methods with the novel methodological virtue of “diligence.” Unfortunately, this desirable virtue provably is incompatible with other desirable methodological virtues that are central to reliable inquiry. No scientific method can provide every virtue that we might want. (shrink)

Sometimes, scientific models are either intended to or plausibly interpreted as representing nonactual but possible targets. Call this “hypothetical modeling”. This paper raises two epistemological challenges concerning hypothetical modeling. To begin with, I observe that given common philosophical assumptions about the scope of objective possibility, hypothetical models are fallible with respect to what is objectively possible. There is thus a need to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate hypothetical modeling. The first epistemological challenge is that no account of the epistemology (...) of hypothetical models seems to cohere with the most characteristic function of scientific modeling in general, i.e., surrogative representation. The second epistemological challenge is a version of “reliability challenges” familiar from other areas. There is a challenge to explain how hypothetical models could be a reliable guide to what is possible, given that they are not and cannot be compared against their nonactual targets and updated accordingly. I close with some brief remarks on possible solutions to these challenges. (shrink)

Descriptive accounts of the nature of explanation in neuroscience and the global goals of such explanation have recently proliferated in the philosophy of neuroscience and with them new understandings of the experimental practices of neuroscientists have emerged. In this paper, I consider two models of such practices; one that takes them to be reductive; another that takes them to be integrative. I investigate those areas of the neuroscience of learning and memory from which the examples used to substantiate these models (...) are culled, and argue that the multiplicity of experimental protocols used in these research areas presents specific challenges for both models. In my view, these challenges have been overlooked largely because philosophers have hitherto failed to pay sufficient attention to fundamental features of experimental practice. I demonstrate that when we do pay attention to such features, evidence for reduction and integrative unity in neuroscience is simply not borne out. I end by suggesting some new directions for the philosophy of neuroscience that pertain to taking a closer look at the nature of neuroscientific experiments. (shrink)

When it was published in 1980, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition - universally known as DSM-III - embodied a new method for identifying psychiatric illness. The manual's authors and their supporters claimed that DSM-III's development was guided by scientific principles and evidence and that its innovative approach to diagnosis greatly ameliorated the problem of the unreliability of psychiatric diagnoses. In this paper we challenge the conventional wisdom about the research data used to support this (...) claim. Specifically, we argue that the rhetoric of science, more than the scientific data, was used convincingly by the developers of DSM-III to promote their new manual. We offer a re-analysis of the data gathered in the original DSM-III field trials in light of the interpretations that had been offered earlier for the reliability studies of others. We demonstrate how the standards for interpreting reliability were dramatically shifted over time in a direction that made it easier to claim success with DSM-III when, in fact, the data were equivocal. (shrink)

A proliferation of tests exists for the assessment of auditory-verbal memory processes. However, from a clinical practice perspective, the situation is less clear when it comes to the ready availability of reliable and valid tests for the evaluation of visual/visuo-spatial memory processes. While, at face value, there appear to be a wide range of available tests of visual/visuo-spatial memory, utilizing different types of materials and assessment strategies, a number of criticisms have been, and arguably should be, leveled at the majority (...) of these tests. The criticisms that have been directed toward what are typically considered to be visual/visuo-spatial memory tests, such as the potential for verbal mediation, over-abstraction of stimuli, the requirement of a drawing response, and the lack of sensitivity to unilateral brain lesions, mean that, in reality, the number of readily available valid tests of visual/visuo-spatial memory is, at best, limited. This article offers a critical, historical review on the existing measures and resources for the neuropsychological assessment of visual/visuo-spatial memory, and it showcases some examples of newer tests that have aimed to overcome the challenges of assessing these important aspects of memory. The article also identifies new trends and examples of how technological advances such as virtual reality may add value to overcome previous obstacles to assessment, thereby offering professionals more reliable, accurate means to evaluate visual/visuo-spatial memory in clinical practice. (shrink)

Considerable evidence supports the sequential two-system model of moral judgement, as proposed by Greene and others. We tested whether judgement speed and/or personal/impersonal moral dilemmas can predict the kind of moral judgements subjects make for each dilemma, and whether personal dilemmas create difficulty in moral judgements. Our results showed that neither personal/impersonal conditions nor spontaneous/thoughtful-reflection conditions were reliable predictors of utilitarian or deontological moral judgements. Yet, we found support for an alternative view, in which, when the two types of responses (...) are in conflict; the resolution of this conflict depends on both the subject and the dilemma. While thinking about this conflict, subjects sometimes change their minds in both directions, as suggested by the data from a mouse-tracking task. (shrink)

Although both philosophers and scientists are interested in how to obtain reliable knowledge in the face of error, there is a gap between their perspectives that has been an obstacle to progress. By means of a series of exchanges between the editors and leaders from the philosophy of science, statistics and economics, this volume offers a cumulative introduction connecting problems of traditional philosophy of science to problems of inference in statistical and empirical modelling practice. Philosophers of science and scientific practitioners (...) are challenged to reevaluate the assumptions of their own theories - philosophical or methodological. Practitioners may better appreciate the foundational issues around which their questions revolve and thereby become better 'applied philosophers'. Conversely, new avenues emerge for finally solving recalcitrant philosophical problems of induction, explanation and theory testing. (shrink)

Abstract This article evaluates the ?drive toward greater autonomy? in lethally-armed unmanned systems. Following a summary of the main criticisms and challenges to lethal autonomy, both engineering and ethical, raised by opponents of this effort, the article turns toward solutions or responses that defense industries and military end users might seek to incorporate in design, testing and manufacturing to address these concerns. The way forward encompasses a two-fold testing procedure for reliability incorporating empirical, quantitative benchmarks of performance in compliance (...) with formalized and programmable rules of engagement, and a conception of ?due care? in product liability. This would be designed in analogy with procedures currently followed by well-intentioned governments and militaries with their own (human) military personnel, both to ensure against failure, and to accept responsibility and compensate victims of inadvertent and unintended accidents. The procedure is designed specifically to address objections first posed by Robert Sparrow (2007) and Noel Sharkey (2007), and echoed in P.W. Singer's critically acclaimed Wired for War (2009), that lethal autonomous systems cannot be meaningfully held accountable for commission of war crimes, and thus the development, manufacture, and deployment of such systems would constitute a violation of international law. (shrink)

It is common in bioethical discussion to present thought experiments or cases in order to construct an argument. Some thought experiments are quite illuminating, and ethical theorizing will often appeal at some point to one’s intuitions. But there are cases in which thought experiments are useless or do not contribute to the argument. This article considers cases presented in the context of stem cell research that are destructive of human embryos. I argue that certain popular cases that are meant to (...) motivate the view that such research is permissible either are dialectically useless or do not contribute to the argument. By dialectically useless, I mean that the cases analyzed here yield intuitions in people who are already committed to the permissibility of such research. I end with some reflections that challenge the reliability of our intuitions on applied ethics issues by suggesting that thought experiments in this field are dubious from the start. My argument should not be read to support moral skepticism but to urge that our inquiries on applied issues requires certain intellectual virtues. (shrink)

Who is a native signer? Since around 95% of deaf infants are born into a hearing family, deaf signers are exposed to a sign language at various moments of their life, and not only from birth. Moreover, the linguistic input they are exposed to is not always a fully fledged natural sign language. In this situation, is the notion of native signer as someone exposed to language from birth of any use? We review the results of the first large-scale cross-linguistic (...) investigation on the effects of age of exposure to sign language. This research involved about 45 Deaf adult signers in each of three sign languages (Catalan Sign Language, French Sign Language, and Italian Sign Language). Across the three languages, participants were divided into three groups – those exposed from birth, those between 1 and 5 years of age, and those exposed between 6 and 15 years of age – and received a battery of tests designed for each language targeting various aspects of morphosyntactic competence. In particular, the tests focused on both those morphosyntactic phenomena that are known from the spoken language literature to be good detectors of language impairment or delay (i.e.,wh-interrogatives and relative clauses) and on morphosyntactic phenomena that are sign language specific (i.e., role shift and directional verbs). The results showed a clear effect of being native, with significant differences across languages and tests between signers exposed to sign language from birth and those exposed in the 1st years of life. This confirms the life-long importance of language exposure from birth and the reliability of the notion of “nativeness”, at least for syntax. On the other hand, while in most domains the differences observed between populations might be differences in performance, for some specific constructions, signers belonging to the three groups may have different grammars. This latter finding challenges the generalized use of native signers’ grammar as the baseline for language description and language assessment. (shrink)

Recent work in the history of science has questioned the Eurocentric nature of the field and sought to include a more global approach that would serve to displace center–periphery models in favor of approaches that take seriously local knowledge production. Historians of Iberian colonial science have taken up this approach, which involves reliance on indigenous knowledge traditions of the Americas. These traditions present a number of challenges to modern researchers, including availability and reliability of source material, issues of translation (...) and identification, and lack of systematization. This essay explores the challenges that emerged in the author’s attempt to compile a pre-contact Nahua pharmacopeia, the reasons for these challenges, and the ways they may – or may not – be overcome. (shrink)

In this article I formulate a skeptical argument against the possibility of adhering to the divine will in a non-accidental way. In particular, my focus in the article is on a widely embraced modal condition of accidentality, according to which non-accidentality has to do with a person manifesting dispositions that result in a given outcome in a modally robust way. The skeptical argument arises from two observations: first, various authors in the epistemology of religion have argued that it is often (...) not possible to reason reliably about religious matters, and second, non-accidentally adhering to a given norm is often associated with reasoning about the requirements of the norm in question in a reliable way. In addition to pointing out the existence of the argument, I outline strategies in which religious thinkers could reasonably challenge it by denying that reliable reasoning about the requirements of divine will is necessary for adhering to it in a non-accidental manner. Hence, I argue that the possibility of non-accidental adherence to the divine will does not depend solely on whether it is possible to reliably reason about what it requires one to do. (shrink)

Linkage of population-based administrative data is a valuable tool for combining detailed individual-level information from different sources for research. While not a substitute for classical studies based on primary data collection, analyses of linked administrative data can answer questions that require large sample sizes or detailed data on hard-to-reach populations, and generate evidence with a high level of external validity and applicability for policy making. There are unique challenges in the appropriate research use of linked administrative data, for example with (...) respect to bias from linkage errors where records cannot be linked or are linked together incorrectly. For confidentiality and other reasons, the separation of data linkage processes and analysis of linked data is generally regarded as best practice. However, the ‘black box’ of data linkage can make it difficult for researchers to judge the reliability of the resulting linked data for their required purposes. This article aims to provide an overview of challenges in linking administrative data for research. We aim to increase understanding of the implications of the data linkage environment and privacy preservation; the linkage process itself and linkage quality and potential bias in linked data. We draw on examples from a number of countries to illustrate a range of approaches for data linkage in different contexts. (shrink)