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In this paper, we present a new semantic challenge to the moral error theory. Its first component calls upon moral error theorists to deliver a deontic semantics that is consistent with the error‐theoretic denial of moral truths by returning the truth‐value false to all moral deontic sentences. We call this the ‘consistency challenge’ to the moral error theory. Its second component demands that error...
Understanding reasons is essential both for understanding human behavior and for constructing a theory of moral conduct. Reasons have been widely viewed as the most basic elements in normative theory, and moral reasons have been considered the most basic elements in ethics. Arguably, rational acts are those best supported by reasons, and morally right acts are those best supported by moral reasons...
Sometimes we make a decision about an action we will undertake later and form an intention, but our judgment of what it is best to do undergoes a temporary shift when the time for action comes round. What makes it rational not to give in to temptation? Many contemporary solutions privilege diachronic rationality; in some “rational non‐reconsideration” (RNR) accounts once the agent forms an intention,...
There has been considerable puzzlement over how to respond to higher‐order evidence. The existing dilemmas can be defused by adopting a ‘two‐dimensional’ representation of doxastic attitudes which incorporates not only substantive uncertainty about which first‐order state of affairs obtains but also the degree of conviction with which we hold the attitude. This makes it possible that in cases of higher‐order...
Eyewitness testimony is a powerful form of evidence, and this is especially true in the United States criminal legal system. At the same time, eyewitness misidentification is the greatest contributing factor to wrongful convictions proven by DNA testing. In this paper, I offer a close examination of this tension between the enormous epistemic weight that eyewitness testimony is afforded in the United...
Radically permissive ontologies like mereological universalism and material plenitude are typically motivated by concerns about arbitrariness or anthropocentrism: it would be objectionably arbitrary, the thought goes, to countenance only those objects that we ordinarily take there to be. Despite the prevalence of this idea, it isn't at all clear what it is for a theory to be “objectionably arbitrary”,...
It would be good to have a Bayesian decision theory that assesses our decisions and thinking according to everyday standards of rationality—standards that do not require logical omniscience (Garber, 1983; Hacking, 1967). To that end we develop a “fragmented” decision theory in which a single state of mind is represented by a family of credence functions, each associated with a distinct choice condition...
According to a widely held view, epistemic reasons are normative reasons for belief – much like prudential or moral reasons are normative reasons for action. In recent years, however, an increasing number of authors have questioned the normativity of epistemic reasons. In this article, I discuss an important challenge for anti‐normativism about epistemic reasons and present a series of arguments in...
How is grounding related to metaphysical explanation? The standard view is that the former somehow “backs”, “undergirds” or “underlies” the latter. This view fits into a general picture of explanation, according to which explanations in general hold in virtue of a certain elite group of “explanatory relations” or “determinative relations” that back them. This paper turns the standard view on its head:...
In this paper, we offer a novel defense of descriptivism about reference. Our argument is based on principles about the relevance of speaker intentions to reference that are shared by many opponents of descriptivism, including Saul Kripke. We first show that two such principles that are plausibly endorsed by Kripke and other prominent externalists in fact entail descriptivism. The first principle...
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