Abstract

Michael Huemer’s phenomenal conservative theory of justification says the following: If it seems to some subject S that p, then, in the absence of any defeaters, S has at least some degree of justification for believing that p. This dissertation argues for an extension of PC into the social realm to create social phenomenal conservatism : In high-stake contexts, it must also seem to S, in the absence of any defeaters, that it seems to the supermajority of the relevant community, after a genuine attempt at a process of ideal inquiry, that p in order for S to have enough justification to believe that p. In addition, it is argued that SPC satisfies two strongly access internalist intuitions and three externalist intuitions about justification. SPC is thus both an internalist and externalist theory of justification.