This paper argues for the normative significance of attention. Attention plays an important role when describing an individual’s mind and agency, and in explaining many central facts about that individual. In addition, many in the public want answers and guidance with regard to normative questions about attention. Given that attention is both descriptively central and the public cares about normative guidance with regard to it, attention should be central also in normative philosophy. We need an ethics of attention: a field (...) of study of which normative pressures, if any, govern attention. Like the ethics of belief, the ethics of attention will connect those normative questions to issues regarding the nature of attention, i.e. to what is subject to such normative pressures. Philosophers should develop an ethics of attention that helps to provide normative guidance and that is commensurate in its richness to the descriptive significance of attention. The second half of the paper sketches a framework that may help us to get started at developing the ethics of attention. (shrink)

Everyone agrees that not all norms that govern belief and assertion are epistemic. But not enough attention has been paid to distinguishing epistemic norms from others. Norms in general differ from merely evaluative standards in virtue of the fact that it is fitting to hold subjects accountable for violating them, provided they lack an excuse. Different kinds of norm are most readily distinguished by their distinctive mode of accountability. My thesis is roughly that a norm is (...) class='Hi'>epistemic if and only if its violation makes it fitting to reduce epistemic trust in the subject, even if there is no doubt about their sincerity, honesty, or other moral virtues. That is, violations of epistemic norms don’t merit resentment or other forms of blame, but rather deduction of credibility points in internal scorekeeping and related attitudinal and behavioral changes. As Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice shows, such distrust is undesirable from the point of view of an epistemic agent. Consequently, when one manifests epistemic distrust towards a subject in suitable circumstances, it amounts a way of holding her accountable. Since this form of accountability involves no opprobrium, there is good reason to think it is not linked to voluntary control in the same way as moral accountability. Finally, I make use of this account of what makes epistemic norms distinctive to point out some faulty diagnostics in debates about norms of assertion. My aim is not to defend any substantive view, however, but only to offer tools for identifying the right kind of evidence for epistemic norms. (shrink)

Many have been attracted to the idea that for something to be good there just have to be reasons to favour it. This view has come to be known as the buck-passing account of value. According to this account, for pleasure to be good there need to be reasons for us to desire and pursue it. Likewise for liberty and equality to be values there have to be reasons for us to promote and preserve them. Extensive discussion has focussed on (...) some of the problems that the buck-passing account faces, such as the 'wrong kind of reason' problem. Less attention, however, has been paid as to why we should accept the buck-passing account or what the theoretical pay-offs and other implications of accepting it are. The Normative and the Evaluative provides the first comprehensive motivation and defence of the buck-passing account of value. Richard Rowland argues that the buck-passing account explains several important features of the relationship between reasons and value, as well as the relationship between the different varieties of value, in a way that its competitors do not. He shows that alternatives to the buck-passing account are inconsistent with important views in normative ethics, uninformative, and at odds with the way in which we should see practical and epistemic normativity as related. In addition, he extends the buck-passing account to provide an account of moral properties as well as all other normative and deontic properties and concepts, such as fittingness and ought, in terms of reasons. (shrink)

In environmental aesthetics a variety of proposals have been advanced about relevant norms that constrain appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature. Some of these proposals are about cognitive or epistemic norms in that the authors claim that nature ought to be cognized in certain ways or that we ought to form certain beliefs about nature rather than others, and that when we do so, it will significantly constrain our aesthetic appreciation of nature. Another proposal is that moral norms rule (...) out certain forms of aesthetic appreciation of natural objects and promote others. If these proposals are correct, then different kinds of value interact in the realm of environmental aesthetics. Evaluation of these proposals inevitably involves two parts. One first has to ask whether the purported norms exist. If they do, one has to assess their bearing on evaluative aesthetic judgments. Although there are weak epistemic norms of nature appreciation, they lack important implications sometimes associated with them. The situation is even less promising for moral norms: no one has successfully identified a moral norm that constrains aesthetic appreciation of nature. (shrink)

We commonly evaluate search engines and the results they return, but what grounds those evaluations? One straightforward way of evaluating search engines appeals to their ability to satisfy the goals of the user. Are there, in addition, user-independent norms, that allow us to evaluate search engines in ways that may come apart from their ability to satisfy the individuals who use them? One way of grounding such norms appeals to moral or political considerations. I argue that in addition to (...) those norms, there are also distinct user-independent epistemic norms that apply to search engines. Evaluating search engines relative to them, however, requires us to appreciate the impact search engines have on our practices and norms of inquiry more broadly: by systematically altering the accessibility of information, search engines don’t just give us information but shape our collective imagination, and the categories it operates over. (shrink)

Discussions regarding which norms, if any, govern our practices of forming, maintaining and relinquishing beliefs have come to be collected under the label “The ethics of belief”. Included in the ethics of belief are debates about how those normative issues relate to the nature of belief, whether belief formation is, for example, ever voluntary. The present talk concerns an analogous set of questions regarding our practices of attention. “The ethics of attention” thus concerns the discussion of which norms, if any, (...) govern our practices of attention: what norms govern what we should attend to, how we should engage our capacity for attention, when we should begin and when we should stop to pay attention to something? Like the ethics of belief, the ethics of attention will connect those normative questions to issues regarding the nature of attention, what may or may not be subject to such normative pressures. Compared with rich, complex, and systematic investigation of the ethics of belief, the study of the ethics of attention is more or less undeveloped. This paper aims to begin to change that. Specifically, it shows that attention is an appropriate target for serious normative investigation and then classifies potential norms of attention along three dimensions: whether they are manner or object based, instrumental or non-instrumental, and whether its source is moral, prudential or epistemic. -/- [EDIT. 10. November 2021: this paper has been superseded by a new version. Please cite that in turn]. (shrink)

Whenever we communicate, we inevitably have to say one thing before another. This means introducing particularly subtle patterns of salience into our language. In this paper, I introduce ‘order-based salience patterns’, referring to the ordering of syntactic contents where that ordering, pretheoretically, does not appear to be of consequence. For instance, if one is to describe a colourful scarf, it wouldn’t seem to matter if one were to say it is ‘orange and blue’ or ‘blue and orange’. Despite their apparent (...) triviality, I argue that order-based salience patterns tend to make the content positioned first more salient – in the sense of attention-grabbing – in a way that can have surprising normative implications. Giving relative salience to gender differences over similarities, for instance, can result in the activation of cognitively accessible beliefs about gender differences. Where those beliefs are epistemically and/or ethically flawed, we can critique the salience pattern that led to them, providing an instrumental way of evaluating those patterns. I suggest that order-based salience patterns can also be evaluated on constitutive grounds; talking about gender differences before similarities might constitute a subtle form of bias. Finally, I reflect on how the apparent triviality of order-based salience patterns in language gives them an insidious strength. (shrink)

BackgroundGene drive technologies (GDTs) promote the rapid spread of a particular genetic element within a population of non-human organisms. Potential applications of GDTs include the control of insect vectors, invasive species and agricultural pests. Whether, and if so, under what conditions, GDTs should be deployed is hotly debated. Although broad stances in this debate have been described, the convictions that inform the moral views of the experts shaping these technologies and related policies have not been examined in depth in (...) the academic literature.MethodsIn this qualitative study, we interviewed GDT experts (n = 33) from different disciplines to identify and better understand their moral views regarding these technologies. The pseudonymized transcripts were analyzed thematically.ResultsThe respondents’ moral views were principally influenced by their attitudes towards (1) the uncertainty related to GDTs; (2) the alternatives to which they should be compared; and (3) the role humans should have in nature. Respondents agreed there is epistemic uncertainty related to GDTs, identified similar knowledge gaps, and stressed the importance of realistic expectations in discussions on GDTs. They disagreed about whether uncertainty provides a rationale to refrain from field trials (‘risks of intervention’ stance) or to proceed with phased testing to obtain more knowledge given the harms of the status quo (‘risks of non-intervention’ stance). With regards to alternatives to tackle vector-borne diseases, invasive species and agricultural pests, respondents disagreed about which alternatives should be considered (un)feasible and (in)sufficiently explored: conventional strategies (‘downstream solutions’ stance) or systematic changes to health care, political and agricultural systems (‘upstream solutions’ stance). Finally, respondents held different views on nature and whether the use of GDTs is compatible with humans’ role in nature (‘interference’ stance) or not (‘non-interference stance’).ConclusionsThis interview study helps to disentangle the debate on GDTs by providing a better understanding of the moral views of GDT experts. The obtained insights provide valuable stepping-stones for a constructive debate about underlying value conflicts and call attention to topics that deserve further (normative) reflection. Further evaluation of these issues can facilitate the debate on and responsible development of GDTs. (shrink)

Moralization is a social-psychological process through which morally neutral issues take on moral significance. Often linked to health and disease, moralization may sometimes lead to good outcomes; yet moralization is often detrimental to individuals and to society as a whole. It is therefore important to be able to identify when moralization is inappropriate. In this paper, we offer a systematic normative approach to the evaluation of moralization. We introduce and develop the concept of ‘mismoralization’, which is when moralization is (...) metaethically unjustified. In order to identify mismoralization, we argue that one must engage in metaethical analysis of moralization processes while paying close attention to the relevant facts. We briefly discuss one historical example and two contemporary cases related to COVID-19 that we contend to have been mismoralized in public health. We propose a remedy of de-moralization that begins by identifying mismoralization and that proceeds by neutralizing inapt moral content. De-moralization calls for epistemic and moral humility. It should lead us to pull away from our tendency to moralize—as individuals and as social groups—whenever and wherever moralization is unjustified. (shrink)

While moral philosophers have paid significant attention to the concept of moral supererogation, far less attention has been paid to the possibility that supererogation may also exist in other areas of normativity. Recently, though, philosophers have begun to consider the possible existence of prudential, epistemic, aesthetic, and sporting supererogation. These discussions tend to focus on aspects of our practices in these areas of normativity that suggest an implicit acceptance of the existence of supererogation. In this chapter, (...) I will offer a different kind of defense of non-moral supererogation. I will begin by considering a particular kind of argument made in support of moral supererogation. According to this line of argument, we should accept the existence of moral supererogation because a moral code which makes room for supererogation is likely to be more effective at promoting morally desirable behavior than a moral code which leaves no room for the supererogatory. I will begin by outlining this argument. I will then develop a similar line of argument for prudential, epistemic, aesthetic, and sporting norms. (shrink)

There are many important connections between epistemic justification and moral justification. A recent example of such connections is offered by Sosa’s AAA model for the normative evaluation of epistemic performances. In order to count as knowledge, a belief has to be Accurate in attaining the truth, the subject has to be Adroit or competent for such task, and the belief has to be Apt in the sense that the accuracy of the belief has to manifest the adroitness (...) of the subject. In addition, full knowledge would require full-aptness, which is obtained when the aim of aptness is achieved in an apt way. We have here a clear definition of the model. But the application of the model to particular performances is not so clear. Both the identification of a particular performance as a case of epistemic performance and the assessment of its aptness, or full-aptness, are strongly relative to intentional descriptions paying attention to contextual factors and personal aspects. Here is where we can find close proximity with ethics. An epistemic analog to the ethical problem of double effects appears. In our paper, we analyze that problem in detail, extracting some consequences. (shrink)

While moral philosophers have paid significant attention to the concept of moral supererogation, far less attention has been paid to the possibility that supererogation may also exist in other areas of normativity. Recently, though, philosophers have begun to consider the possible existence of prudential, epistemic, aesthetic and sporting supererogation. These discussions tend to focus on aspects of our practices in these areas of normativity that suggest an implicit acceptance of the existence of supererogation. In this chapter, (...) I will offer a different kind of defense of non-moral supererogation. I will begin by considering a particular kind of argument made in support of moral supererogation. According to this line of argument, we should accept the existence of moral supererogation because a moral code which makes room for supererogation is likely to be more effective at promoting morally desirable behavior than a moral code which leaves no room for the supererogatory. I will begin by outlining this argument. I will then develop a similar line of argument for prudential, epistemic, aesthetic, and sporting norms. (shrink)

The study of social, ethical, and political issues from a naturalistic perspective has been pervasive in social sciences and the humanities in the last decades. This articulation of empirical research with philosophical and normative reflection is increasingly getting attention in academic circles and the public spheres, given the prevalence of urgent needs and challenges that society is facing on a global scale. The contemporary world is full of challenges or what some philosophers have called ‘existential risks’ to humanity. Nuclear wars, (...) natural and/or engineered pandemics, climate change, global totalitarianism, and emergent technologies, are some of the challenges mentioned by many authors devoted to the study of long-term potential risks for the survival of the human species. However, while there are many reasons to be a pessimist about the future of humanity, there is also a lot of ink wasted in showing that the world today is far better than we had in the past and also that there have been many instances of social and moral progress in the last centuries. Some authors have even claimed that “we have made more progress over the last 100 years than in the first 100,000”. According to ‘our world in data’, some of the most relevant advances of humanity in the last centuries have to do with the reduction of poverty and/or inequality, better health and security, the decline of violence and war, and the development of democracy and institutional mechanisms to guarantee individual freedom and rights. Yet, there is a more concrete concern that our world faces nowadays, and requires a particularly detailed analysis. In a few words, the advance in information and communication technologies, the huge volume of people migration because of prevalent instances of global inequality, and the reality of an interconnected world that just mirrors an extensive history of massive human intergroup relations open the question about the feasibility of social and moral progress in the contexts of diverse, multicultural, and unequal societies. This makes it crucial to reflect not only on whether human societies may keep advancing on a path of social progress, but how this can be achieved by addressing the challenges of inequality and potential intergroup conflict. This concern closely relates to the further consolidation of democratic values and the achievement of a more generalized consideration of the equal moral value of human individuals far from group, ethnic, or collective distinctions. This vision of progress follows the moral convictions that have been considered right and worthy to be pursued by most ethical theories explored by philosophers and social scientists so far. This work aims to contribute to the study of the mechanisms and feasibility of social and moral progress grounded on the precept of human equality and is guided by the idea that social and moral progress in a plural world requires the accomplishment of a more democratic and tolerant society. These forms of progress have already been defined by philosophers Allen Buchanan and Russel Powell as inclusivist forms of moral progress. According to these authors, inclusivist moral progress is featured by the transformation of moral judgments, motivations, and norms guided by the rejection of “group-based restrictions on moral standing and moral status” (2018). The work of Buchanan and Powell is fundamental for the argumentation developed in this work since they have pioneered a more complex debate in the field of evolutionary social sciences and philosophical anthropology. In brief, these authors have inquired how human nature, conceptualized by the advances in evolutionary thinking and the empirical sciences, is related to our moral convictions and the possibilities that we have to establish certain forms of social and moral progress. The work of Buchanan and Powell contributes to the debate on moral progress by incorporating empirically-informed concepts and arguments. With this objective in mind, they develop their discussion around a generalized tension between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of moral progress. This tension revolves around the question of whether and to what extent human moral concerns, motivations, and norms, are limited or bounded by social identities, group thinking, or collective values. This question is at the center of this work. In other words, I aim to answer whether and to what extent the nature of our social and moral cognition hinders or enables the development of inclusivist forms of morality and moral progress. As I mentioned so far, the distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of morality has a practical implication and facilitates the reflection on the mechanisms and feasibility of concrete forms of progress based on the precept of human equality, which is the road to progress that we should follow according to most ethical theories. The distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist morality is not used here as a form of summarizing highly divergent descriptive approaches to morality, but as a way to address the practical implications of morality research, particularly around the question of the feasibility of social forms of progress based on the precept of equality and tolerance. My objective then has less to do with offering a conceptualization of human morality or with the proposition of a new ethical perspective. Instead, I aim to identify, from an empirically informed perspective, what enables the achievement of egalitarian forms of social progress, to subsequently offer a normative reflection about what we should do if we want to accomplish such inclusivist forms of progress. This task is of great relevance, having in mind that some theoretical proposals on the matter have claimed that human prosocial behavior and morality are constrained by exclusivist fixed tendencies as a product of our evolutionary history. According to these views, human morality is a group-centered cognitive and behavioral expression that has severe limits in its scope and extent, which hinders in the end the emergence of inclusivist forms of moral concerns and behaviors. These claims align with the philosophical intuition about the ‘dissociation of empathy’, or the fact that human individuals tend to express empathy and sympathy preferably for members of their group whereas their empathic and moral concern and recognition for outgroup individuals tend to be reduced or eliminated in real-life social interactions. Multiple theorists have expressed, however, that these assumptions are wrong for empirical and philosophical reasons, which results in a serious challenge to the conception of human morality as exclusivist by nature. Furthermore, simple intuition and practical experience constantly show us that human individuals can develop and endorse a broad spectrum of moral considerations and adopt an arguably inclusivist stance concerning the kind of persons or agents that deserve moral concern. Moreover, and adopting a historical perspective, the expansion of cultural and commercial exchanges, the consolidation of democracy, the development of welfare states, or the emergence of institutions based on the concept of universal human rights, have partially driven human progress based on the impartial concern for the well-being of persons. These historical instances of cultural evolution and institutional design have shown that it is feasible to promote behaviors and attitudes grounded in impersonal prosocial and inclusivist principles. This optimistic perspective, however, still begs the question of the exact relationship between social, cultural, and historical contexts, and the emergence of certain behavioral expressions of inclusivist morality. This is crucial since a great number of human individuals around the world still do not make part of these instances of social progress, and some authors have suggested that such instances of social and moral progress are particularly favored by the contexts of the WEIRD world, that is the world of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. Some of these approaches consider moral inclusivity a ‘luxury good’ and follow the ‘dependency thesis’ according to which the expression of moral inclusivity depends on the presence of very concrete material conditions that trigger inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. This thesis is problematic for various reasons and has led to incomplete explanations about the enabling and causal factors of inclusivist moral progress, as well as unsatisfactory suggestions about what we should do to foster the accomplishment of more generalized instances of progress based on inclusivist concerns. In an attempt to contribute to this debate, the main objective of this thesis is to offer an alternative proposal about the nature of human morality and a more detailed reflection on what we should do if we want to further accomplish such instances of progress. More precisely, this work adopts a particular developmental and constructivist vision of human morality to answer the question of how feasible it is to reach generalized forms of social progress based on the precepts of moral inclusivity. Furthermore, it offers some ideas about what are the most adequate and favorable conditions to foster such progress both at the individual and the collective level. At this point, a preliminary clarification of some starting points is necessary. In the first place, and contrary to what other authors have proposed when debating moral progress from an empirically-based approach, my perspective adopts a radical developmental and constructivist perspective, following particularly the conceptual and empirical ideas of the social-domain theory in moral psychology. From this perspective, morality is a domain of normative and social knowledge that develops and emerges in human interactions. Moral concerns, judgments, and norms are not only the result of the expression of innate adaptive intuitions, nor the product of social conformity and a simple process of mirroring the normativity that communities have established to organize their social life. Human individuals, instead, construct moral concerns and judgments during their situated interactions. More specifically, the constructivist tradition claims that we need to research how moral concerns, judgments, and reasons emerge in social interactions and how human beings construct the content of their moral knowledge in the first place. Based on these ideas, morality is defined here as the result of a constructive process through which human individuals, by the means of constant interactions on a background of mutual respect and recognition, develop evaluative concerns about how we ought to treat others, and how to ‘care’ and ‘respect’ others’ well-being, needs, and vulnerabilities. This developmental-constructivist theory of human psychology contributes to an alternative understanding of the origins of moral variability and informs a very particular normative stance about the most desirable contexts needed for the urgent accomplishment of inclusivist forms of morality in contemporary societies. This is so given that the very same definition of morality adopted presupposes the feature of inclusivity. The main objective of this work is then to argue, based on a developmental perspective, what are the most favorable conditions to foster the development of moral inclusivity and what we should do to accomplish concrete instances of moral progress that truly help us to overcome our most urgent moral challenges. The whole thesis is organized as follows. In part I, I show how received visions about human social evolution have informed conceptions of morality as an adaptive function evolved to solve the challenges of cooperative life. Based on these assumptions, some theories argue that human morality is limited by the boundaries of group thinking, and always obeys the mandates of collective interests and the will of the majority. However, this conception has problematic implications from a normative and ethical perspective. The aim of Chapter 1 is to present this introductory debate in detail. In chapter 2, I consider a relevant amount of scientific evidence that helps to consolidate a more optimistic and inclusivist perspective about the starting conditions of human prosocial behavior. Later, I will summarize some ideas offered to explain the possible evolutionary mechanisms that led to the consolidation of these inclusivist capacities. However, I will also show how evolutionary theories that share the same adaptationist foundations but initially seem relevant to explain the feasibility of moral inclusivity, result incomplete when considering the complexity of moral behavior and its ethical implications. Part II is devoted to presenting a developmental alternative to the adaptationist versions around the starting conditions of morality. In this section, I first summarize the epistemological, conceptual, and empirical basis of a constructivist perspective already proposed by several authors in the last decades. This is the goal of chapter 3. More precisely, I adopt the conceptualization of morality established by the social-domain theory school and clarify its conception of the situated development of moral concerns, motivations, and norms. All these ideas are essential for my argumentation on the feasibility of inclusivist moral progress offered later. Chapter 4 provides a more detailed idea of constructivist thinking about moral development, by analyzing one particular dimension: the development of moral concerns for fairness and the sense of justice in distributive dilemmas. In Part III, I assume a constructivist perspective on morality to contribute to the philosophy of moral progress. In particular, I discuss the implications of such a perspective for the conceptualization of human moral nature and discuss what are the most favorable conditions for moral inclusivity to emerge. Answering that question is of enormous relevance since favoring the transition of human societies towards more inclusivist forms of moral concern and behavior supposes a more generalized accomplishment of our most urgent moral convictions. Previous developmental or culturally-sensible attempts to explore this issue are already on the market. As mentioned before, most authors have approached the topic by situating the cultural evolution and development of (inclusivist) moral progress in the WEIRD world. For instance, some of these authors claim that very concrete material conditions (mostly present in the Western World) have been necessary for triggering inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. Despite their interest in explaining inclusivist morality and the feasibility of inclusivist forms of progress following a naturalistic and culturally situated approach, these theories are problematic for two main reasons. In the first place, most of the authors that explain moral progress tend to focus exclusively on the consolidation of liberal values in the Western world and the underlying adoption of laws, social-epistemic practices, and public narratives about tolerance and inclusivity, as unequivocal signs of inclusivist morality. Nevertheless, there is an enormous distance between the institutional and public support of inclusivist moral values or the construction of public images of tolerance and inclusivity, and the real materialization of impersonal moralities in situated social interactions. Secondly, the variability of human moral behavior is far bigger than most of the theories in moral psychology and moral progress tend to assume. Accordingly, inclusivist and exclusivist forms of morality may develop simultaneously in similar or divergent geographical and socio-ecological environments, including those with harsh conditions such as competition for scarce resources, potential intergroup conflict, and risks of disease transmission. In addition, harsh environmental conditions are usually present in almost all societies around the globe, and the presence of socio-ecological conditions such as physical security and prosperity, predominant in highly resourced populations, do not prevent the existence of exclusivist moral tendencies. My model explores a different perspective on the relationships between cultural, institutional, and historical factors, and the situated development of human morality. This supposes a clear distinction from previous approaches to the matter since it offers a different view on what we should do to pursue further instances of inclusivist social progress. In the fifth chapter, I first analyze the proposals of some defenders of the ‘dependency’ theory. The attention is focused on the ‘Evolutionary Developmental Model’ proposed by Buchanan and Powell (2018). Based on a critique of this approach, I will argue that to explain the evolution and development of human morality in its multiple manifestations, it is essential to put focus on social interactions. This also involves a different perspective on human-environment relations that in line with a constructivist worldview makes an innovative contribution to the philosophy of moral behavior and moral progress. Later, in the sixth chapter, I will define my alternative relational view of inclusivist morality and I will offer my view on how to establish favorable conditions that make inclusivist morality possible. Complementing the constructivist approach, my conception is based on the essential role of equality and individuality and on how moral inclusivity is favored if moral concerns do not develop driven by the accomplishment of group-centered, binding, and communitarian concerns and values. In brief, my relational model suggests that the accomplishment of moral inclusivity not only depends on the overall achievement of certain levels of physical security or economic prosperity. Instead, its development is favored by transforming the interactional contexts in which moral concerns towards autonomy and individuality emerge. In arguing so, I will need to start with a critique of contemporary situated and embodied approaches in ethics. Then, I will show how societies guided by the accomplishment of group-centered values of power, dominance, and relational inequality tend to express exclusivist moral behaviors, while individualistic societies tend to be more inclusivist. Starting from this diagnosis, my final attempt is then to reflect on which are the best conditions for the moral valuation of individuality to emerge and what we should do to promote the accomplishment of moral inclusivity at the societal level. (shrink)

My dissertation defends the importance of epistemic norms on what I call ‘inquiring further.’ Inquiring further is a familiar practice we engage in when we redeliberate, gather more evidence, or double-check our beliefs. Nonetheless, many philosophers have argued that norms governing further inquiry are at most practical or moral norms. Against this, I argue that norms on inquiring further are central to our understanding of responsible epistemic agency. I do this by appealing to both the roles of (...) epistemic evaluations and our practices of holding agents epistemically accountable. My dissertation thereby expands and deepens our understanding of epistemic evaluations and normativity. Each chapter of my dissertation focuses on a different practice of inquiring further. The first, “A Puzzle About Fickleness,” motivates a puzzle about changes of mind resulting from redeliberation. The puzzle is to explain the asymmetry between one-off changes of mind, which often seem permissible, and multiple changes of mind—or fickleness—which often seem problematic. After motivating an epistemic solution to the puzzle, I propose and defend the Ratifiable Reasoning Account. On this solution, as agents redeliberate, they gain two types of evidence. First, they gain inductive evidence that they will not stably settle their belief. Second, this inductive evidence affords higher-order evidence that they are unreliable at assessing the matter at hand. The fact that fickle agents gain this higher-order evidence explains why fickleness can be epistemically—not just practically—irrational. The second chapter turns to our practices of evidence-gathering. In “Epistemic Norms on Evidence-Gathering,” I and my co-author, Carolina Flores, argue that there are epistemic norms on evidence-gathering. Though this view is intuitive, it has found surprisingly little defense. Rather, many philosophers have argued that norms on evidence-gathering can only be practical or moral. On a prominent evidentialist version of this position, epistemic norms only apply to responding to the evidence one already has; justified or rational beliefs are those based on appropriate responses to that evidence. Here we challenge the orthodoxy. First, we argue that there is no significant normative difference between responding to evidence you have and gathering more evidence. Second, we argue that our practices of epistemically criticizing agents for their poor evidence-gathering indicate the existence of epistemic norms on evidence-gathering. Finally, we show that our thesis has important implications for recent debates about the relationship between epistemic norms and inquiry. The third chapter, “Why Double-Check?”, explores the relationship between double-checking and knowledge. I argue that agents can simultaneously know that p and rationally double-check that p. Call this view the Synchronic Compatibility Thesis. Although intuitive, this thesis faces two challenges. First, some have argued that agents who double-check ought to suspend judgment while inquiring; they thus lose knowledge while double-checking, if only temporarily. Second, some have argued that if it is rational to double-check that p, then one does not know that p. This claim is motivated by strong conceptions of belief or pragmatic encroachment. I argue that these competing views fail to accommodate the many reasons why agents might double-check, ranging from seeking certainty to making one’s beliefs more resilient. Moreover, the alternative views rely on overly strong assumptions about what inquiry, knowledge, or belief requires. By exploring fickleness, evidence-gathering, and double-checking—three phenomena that traditional epistemology has neglected—this dissertation enriches epistemology by making it more relevant to real-world agents. (shrink)

According to the extended knowledge account of assertion, we should only assert and act on what we know. Call this the ‘Knowledge Norm’. Because moral and prudential rules prohibit morally and prudentially unacceptable actions and assertions, they can, familiarly, override the Knowledge Norm. This, however, raises the question of whether other epistemic norms, too, can override the Knowledge Norm. The present chapter offers an affirmative answer to this question and then argues that the Knowledge Norm is derived (...) from a more fundamental norm that demands that we do not hinder intellectual flourishing. As the fundamental epistemic norm can come into conflict with the Knowledge Norm, it is sometimes permissible to assert and act on what we don’t know. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the consequences of this insight for the extended knowledge account of assertion. (shrink)

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 assumption that epistemic reasons are normative. In this article, I discuss an important challenge for anti-normativism about epistemic reasons and present a number of arguments in support of normativism. The challenge for anti-normativism is to say what kind of (...) reasons epistemic reasons are if they are not normative reasons. I discuss various answers to this challenge and find them all wanting. The arguments for normativism each stress a certain analogy between epistemic reasons and normative reasons for action. Just like normative reasons for action, epistemic reasons provide partial justification; they provide premises for correct reasoning; they constitute good bases for the responses they are reasons for; and they are reasons for which agents can show these responses without committing a mistake. In each case, I argue that the relevant condition is plausibly sufficient for the normativity of a reason, and that normativism is in any case in a much better position to explain the analogy than anti-normativism. (shrink)

Crafted within a knowledge-first epistemological framework, Mona Simion’s engaging and wide-ranging work ensures that both the Knowledge Norm of Assertion (KNA) and Classical Invariantism (CI) can be part of a viable and productive research program.Dissatisfied with current strategies on offer in the literature, she successfully counters objections to the pair sourced in “shiftiness intuitions”—intuitions that seem to indicate that mere changes in practical context can impact the propriety of assertions and knowledge attributions. For example, in Keith DeRose’s famous pair of (...) low stakes versus high stakes bank cases, the consequences of Keith’s acting on The bank is open on Saturday if it were false change from trivial in low stakes to catastrophic in high stakes. We are to suppose that the proposition is true, and that Keith has access to the same quantity and quality of evidence for it in both cases. In low stakes, but not in high stakes, we are inclined to think that Keith can appropriately assert to his inquiring wife “The bank is open on Saturday.” In low stakes, Keith’s knowledge ascription “I know that the bank is open on Saturday” strikes us as aptly asserted and true. In high stakes only a knowledge denial on Keith’s part strikes us as aptly asserted and true.If we want to hang on to KNA, it looks like we will have to abandon CI and concede that ‘knows’ or knowledge is sensitive to changes in practical considerations. If we want to retain CI, we can try to say that, while Keith does still know that the bank is open on Saturday in high stakes, he does not have sufficient warrant to properly assert that it is. But such a move seems to run counter to KNA. We appear to be stuck in the Shiftiness Dilemma.Keen to get us out of the dilemma and to preserve the idea that epistemically good thinking and asserting are independent of practical concerns, Simion suggests a strategy that can also be used to protect other epistemic speech-act norms and notions from similar threats of practical shiftiness. She notes that having an impact on the degree of epistemic warrant required is not enough to make a norm an epistemic one. Fair enough. If I am given strong practical reason (a million dollars, or a gun to the head) not to adopt full belief until I have gathered more evidence, there is potentially some nonepistemic norm at work in the demand for further evidence. So it is a live possibility (indeed, a plausible one, as Simion would say) that our intuitions in the Shiftiness Dilemma are being misdescribed: they are tracking all-things-considered propriety of assertion, not epistemic propriety. In high stakes, practical norms override the epistemic norm KNA. Keith’s asserting “The bank is open on Saturday” would be epistemically proper but all-things-considered improper.Simion backs up her account with an etiological-function origin story and typology for the norms of assertion. Here is her characterization of etiological function for traits, artifacts, and actions. E-function.A token of type T has the e-function of type B of producing effect E in a system S iff (1) tokens of T produced E in the past, (2) producing E resulted in benefit of type B in S/S’s ancestors, and (3) producing E’s having B-benefited S’s ancestors contributes to the explanation of why T exists in S.In this schema, norms governing an action are typed by the functions or purposes of the action, which in turn are typed by the benefits the action delivers. The epistemic norm of assertion will be the one that characteristically and reliably enables participants in the practice of assertion to secure its primary epistemic good, which Simion identifies as knowledge (testimonial knowledge in hearers generated under normal conditions by the assertions of knowledgeable speakers). Moves in a practice either directly or indirectly aim at fulfilling the goal of the practice. Assertion is a move in the practice of inquiry, which has the generation of knowledge as its aim. Hence, Simion concludes, assertion aims at generating knowledge.This account helps to explain why, in cases like high stakes, Keith all-things-considered ought not to assert “The bank is open on Saturday,” even though he knows it is true. Prudential norms of assertion override the epistemic KNA, for when multiple functions come into conflict, the ones that are more important to the survival of the organism will generate weightier normative constraints.Simion then applies her account to the general category of constatives—for example, speech acts that express a speaker’s belief and the intention that the hearer form or continue to hold the like belief. Employing the taxonomy of Bach and Harnish, she argues that, as expressions of belief and hence varieties of assertion, constatives are subject to knowledge norms as well. Bach and Harnish identify fifteen different subcategories of constatives, each characterized in terms of the kind of belief and intention they express. The norms governing a species have to be at least as strong as the norms governing the corresponding type. As species of the type assertion, each subcategory, then, is subject to at least the necessary direction of KNA. Ultimately, we arrive at a knowledge norm for every speech act on the list, such as The Knowledge Norm of Conjecture (KNC):One’s conjecture that p is epistemically permissible only if one knows that there is reason, but not sufficient reason, to believe that p. Most of the proposed interpretations of various constatives are on the whole reasonable enough, though J. L. Austin would surely be unhappy to see so many different speech acts fashioned into varieties of assertion. Simion concludes with reflections on conjecturing, telling, and moral assertion.Construing the challenge of shiftiness intuitions in terms of the Shiftiness Dilemma allows Simion to declare success when the compatibility of KNA and CI with the relevant data of intuition is secured. Ensuring empirical adequacy for an explanatory framework is an important step, but pronouncements of victory by way of inference to the best explanation would be premature.Other candidates have been shown to match KNA’s familiar explanatory successes (involving lottery propositions, Moorean statements, etc.). Unlike KNA, alternatives that require only epistemically justified or rational belief or credence can allow that a subject is epistemically proper to assert what they believe when their belief is epistemically rational, even under conditions where there are defeating reasons that they are not in a position to be aware of. Furthermore, such norms seem better suited for philosophical or heated moral discussions where there is little consensus and individuals routinely fail to know that what they assert is true. Simion sounds the alarm that the Shiftiness Dilemma threatens to generalize “to epistemic normativity as a whole” (xi–xii), but norms concerning rational credence seem particularly immune.As Simion notes, the etiological-function model of norms that she proposes could be rebuilt with a different central epistemic aim at its core. Indeed, Millikan-inspired models along these lines are appealed to in other areas in philosophy where the concept of information takes center stage—a concept that may be more amenable to rigorous definition and use in dialogue with the sciences than knowledge. We can wonder, also, what special weight the etiological-function model accords to a knowledge-first perspective on epistemic normativity when the model is malleable in this way.The effectiveness of Simion’s strategy for shielding epistemically good thinking and assertion from practical shiftiness becomes less apparent when we try to apply it to Keith’s belief or judgment that the knowledge ascription/denial he asserts is true. It is unclear whether we are to suppose that, in high stakes, Keith epistemically ought to believe/judge that his asserted knowledge denial is false, but all-things-considered he ought to believe/judge that it is true. We do not have to accept that the knowledge-first, etiological function account of normativity for assertion carries over to belief, of course, but then what progress have we made in accounting for the shiftiness in Keith’s judgment that he knows the bank is open on Saturday in low stakes but not in high stakes?Furthermore, there are other ways to generate problems for fallibilist Classical Invariantists in low versus high stakes pairs of cases. Here is a simplified version of a puzzle from the debate over pragmatic encroachment. Consider low cases where you meet the invariant standards for knowing that p, but your justified confidence falls short of certainty. Among these cases, there must be some where you also meet the invariant standards for knowing that if p is true, then among your choices of action ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome. Say, for instance, that you have a machine with a ϕ button, and your machine, which you know to be extremely reliable, tells you what the cost or benefit will be if you push the button and p is true versus if p is false. If you ϕ (push the ϕ button) and p is true, you win one hundred dollars; if you ϕ and p is false, you lose one hundred dollars. You face the choice: to ϕ or not to ϕ. Since you know that p, and you know that if p is true, then among your choices of action ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome, you rationally conclude that ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome, and hence that you ought to ϕ. If you know which choice of action has the best overall outcome, that is what you all-things-considered should do. Now consider high, where the quantity and quality of your evidence for p is the same, and you still know that your machine is extremely reliable. This time, however, the machine tells you that if you push ϕ and p is true, you win one hundred dollars, but if you push ϕ and p is false, you lose $1 million. Your rational confidence in p is not high enough to justify pushing the button, so you rationally conclude that you ought not to ϕ. Since in high nothing evidentially relevant has changed (all that has changed is the machine informing you of a new, more serious cost of acting on p if p is false), the classical invariantist will have to say that you still know that ϕ, and you still know that if p is true, then among your choices of action ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome. So, according to CI, you should still be able to reason properly as follows: you know that p, and you know that if p is true, then among your choices of action ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome, so you know that ϕ-ing results in the best overall outcome, hence you ought to ϕ. Classical invariantists owe us an explanation concerning how we can avoid the paradox here without conceding that knowledge is practically shifty. (shrink)

Deontic modals are the topic of my dissertation. All deontic modals, yes, but justification in particular, and epistemic justification even more specifically. Deontic modals operate upon performances—they appraise performances. Positively appraised, a performance is appropriate, decent, justifiable, right, permissible, or proper; negatively appraised, inappropriate, indecent, unjustifiable, wrong, impermissible, or improper. Belief and knowledge and performances in exactly the same sense that action and intention are performances: all are products of powers that are in some sense responsive to reasons. The (...) principal difference is the direction of fit between mind and world. Knowledge and belief the product of cognitive powers aimed at adapting mind to world, action and intention the product of conative powers aimed at adapting world to mind. All are normatively evaluable and the characteristic normative appraisal of each is deontic. Epistemology, ethics, and rational choice all investigate the nature of deontic modals, differing only insofar as the central aims are epistemic, moral, or prudential in nature. In this sense, the general theory of deontic modals is the parent to epistemology, ethics, and rational choice. My project is to develop and defend a schematic theory of justification. I achieve this end by developing and defending a general theory of deontic modalities. Riffing on two pithy turns of phrase, the deontic theory may be tersely sloganized: value first and one must do the best one can. It is a teleological theory that defines all deontic concepts from the theoretically foundational notions of ability and value. Roughly, a belief is epistemically justifiable if, and only if, it is part of an epistemically optimific belief set the agent is able to have. Roughly, an act is morally justifiably if, and only if, it is part of a morally optimific action set the agent is able to perform. My pet interest is in the former. The resultant framework is enormously fruitful, especially in epistemology. (shrink)

How might attention intersect with normative issues and the psychology surrounding them? I provide an empirically grounded framework integrating three attentional phenomena: salience, vigilance (or broadly attunement) and attentional character. Using this frame, I review recent philosophical work on attention and norms. -/- Section 1 establishes a common ground conception of attention no more controversial than the established experimental paradigms for attention. This conception explicates the concept of a bias, which explains core features of action and attention, one that intersects (...) biological, psychological and philosophical concerns. I emphasize historical biases associated with learning and experience. Section 2 presents an analysis of automaticity and control, concepts needed to fully characterize action. Historical biases are revealed as automatic. Specifically, the automatization of attention is central to acquiring skills and excellence in light of normative standards for a practice. Section 3 argues that salience involves the deployment of attention, while Section 4 characterizes vigilance not merely as a disposition but as an active orientation to attend. Vigilance is one type of attunement, and the set of attunements constitutes the agent’s varied orientations to deploy attention, part of their attentional character. As discussed in Section 5, shaping this character is a goal of a normatively sensitive upbringing where appropriate attention is automatized through proper practice. Section 6 examines a common epistemic bias in academia and subsequent attempts to debias. I conclude with an example of acquired epistemic skill to give hope that attentional excellence is achievable. (shrink)

Evaluating the impact of clinical ethics support services remains a challenging task. 1 Against this background, we applaud the authors for developing a theoretical framework that aims to explain how repeated moral case deliberations may promote ‘practical wisdom’ in healthcare professionals and improve the quality of care in health facilities. 2 In our view, it is of particular value to draw attention to the learning processes that may be induced by ethics support services. Understanding such learning processes on the (...) individual and organisational level is a prerequisite for longitudinal research designs that may be suitable to study the impact of specific ethics support services on criteria deemed relevant in patient care. 3 In our comment, we would like to focus on one aspect, which we deem necessary to be able to explain the possible impact of ethics support on the quality of healthcare. This is the... (shrink)

Can we be responsible for our attention? Can attention be epistemically good or bad? Siegel tackles these under‐explored questions in “Selection Effects”, a pathbreaking chapter of The Rationality of Perception. In this chapter, Siegel develops one of the first philosophical accounts of attention norms. Her account is inferential: patterns of attention are often controlled by inferences and therefore subject to rational epistemic norms that govern any other form of inference. Although Siegel’s account is explanatorily powerful, it cannot capture a (...) core attention norm in cognitive science: one should balance between exploratory and exploitative attention. For central cases of exploratory attention such as mind‐wandering, child‐like, and creative thinking are non‐inferential. Siegel’s view classifies them as “normative freebies” that are not subject to epistemic evaluation. We’re therefore left with a disjunctive conclusion: either Siegel’s inferentialist theory of attention norms is incomplete or cognitive scientists are wrong about the norms that govern attention. (shrink)

The investigation of epistemic virtues, such as curiosity, open-mindedness, intellectual courage and intellectual humility is a growing trend in epistemology. An underexplored question in this context is: what is the relationship between these virtues and other types of virtue, such as moral or prudential virtue? This paper argues that, although there is an intuitive sense in which virtues such as intellectual courage and open-mindedness have something to do with the epistemic domain, on closer inspection it is (...) not clear to what extent they should be understood as genuine epistemic virtues. We draw a distinction between epistemic virtues and virtues with epistemic content and provide reason to believe that the aforementioned virtues are moral virtues with epistemic content rather than bona fide epistemic virtues. The upshot is that there are far fewer epistemic virtues out there than commonly assumed. (shrink)

A large part of the explainable AI literature focuses on what explanations are in general, what algorithmic explainability is more specifically, and how to code these principles of explainability into AI systems. Much less attention has been devoted to the question of why algorithmic decisions and systems should be explainable and whether there ought to be a right to explanation and why. We therefore explore the normative landscape of the need for AI to be explainable and individuals having a right (...) to such explanation. This exploration is particularly relevant to the medical domain where the (im)possibility of explainable AI is high on both the research and practitioners’ agenda. The dominant intuition overall is that explainability has and should play a key role in the health context. Notwithstanding the strong normative intuition for having a right to explanation, intuitions can be wrong. So, we need more than an appeal to intuitions when it comes to explaining the normative significance of having a right to explanation when being subject to AI-based decision-making. The aim of the paper is therefore to provide an account of what might underlie the normative intuition. We defend the ‘symmetry thesis’ according to which there is no special normative reason to have a right to explanation when ‘machines’ in the broad sense, make decisions, recommend treatment, discover tumors, and so on. Instead, we argue that we have a right to explanation in cases that involve automated processing that significantly affect our core deliberative agency and which we do not understand, because we have a general moral right to explanation when choices are made which significantly affect us but which we do not understand. (shrink)

Traditionally, discussions of moral participation – and in particular moral agency – have focused on fully formed human actors. There has been some interest in the development of morality in humans, as well as interest in cultural differences when it comes to moral practices, commitments, and actions. However, until relatively recently, there has been little focus on the possibility that nonhuman animals have any role to play in morality, save being the objects of moral concern. Moreover, (...) when nonhuman cases are considered as evidence of moral agency or subjecthood, there has been an anthropocentric tendency to focus on those behaviors that inform our attributions of moral agency to humans. For example, some argue that the ability to evaluate the principles upon which a moral norm is grounded is required for full moral agency. Certainly, if a moral agent must understand what makes an action right or wrong, then most nonhuman animals would not qualify (and perhaps some humans too). However, if we are to understand the evolution of moral psychology and moral practice, we need to turn our attention to the foundations of full moral agency. We must first pay attention to the more broadly normative practices of other animals. Here, we begin that project by considering evidence that great apes and cetaceans participate in normative practices. (shrink)

There are arguably moral, legal, and prudential constraints on behavior. But are there epistemic constraints on belief? Are there any requirements arising from intellectual considerations alone? This volume includes original essays written by top epistemologists that address this and closely related questions from a variety of new, sometimes unexpected, angles. It features a wide variety of positions, ranging from arguments for and against the existence of purely epistemic requirements, reductions of epistemic requirements to moral (...) or prudential requirements, the biological foundations of epistemic requirements, extensions of the scope of epistemic requirements to include such things as open- mindedness, eradication of implicit bias and interpersonal duties to object, to new applications such as epistemic requirements pertaining to storytelling, testimony, and fundamentalist beliefs. Anyone interested in the nature of responsibility, belief, or epistemic normativity will fi nd a range of useful arguments and fresh ideas in this cutting- edge anthology. (shrink)

Daniel Greco (forthcoming) argues that there cannot be epistemic dilemmas. I argue that he is wrong. I then look in detail at a would-be epistemic dilemma and argue that no non-dilemmic approach to it can be made to work. Along the way, there is discussion of octopuses, lobsters, and other ‘inscrutable cognizers’; the relationship between evaluative and prescriptive norms; a failed attempt to steal a Brueghel; epistemic and moral blame and residue; an unbearable guy who (...) thinks he’s God’s gift to women; excuses; stupid games involving hats; radical permissivism; how I’ll never be able to afford to buy a house in Hampstead; and many other exciting topics. (shrink)

It has recently been suggested that research in neuroscience of art has failed to bring art into focus in the laboratory. Two general arguments are brought to bear in the regard. The common perceptual mechanisms argument observes that neuroscientists working within this field develop models to explain art relative to the ways that artworks are fine-tuned to the operations of perceptual systems. However, these perceptual explanations apply equally to how viewers come to recognize and understand art and nonart objects and (...) events. Therefore these explanations fail to disambiguate artworks from other things. They fail to locate art. This observation points to a deeper problem. What interests us in art is how what we perceive has been used to show us what the work represents. Our understanding of art is governed by a range of productive and evaluative normative conventions that govern how we ought to look at a work and evaluate how it was made. The normative dimension of appreciation argument suggests that these aspects of our engagement with artworks lie outside the scope of neuroscientific explanations of art. This chapter provides a sketch of a diagnostic recognition framework for engaging art that resolves both problems and helps explains how artworks function within the social institution of the artworld to facilitate a communicative exchange between artists and consumers. (shrink)

This paper demarcates a theoretically interesting class of "evaluational adjectives." This class includes predicates expressing various kinds of normative and epistemic evaluation, such as predicates of personal taste, aesthetic adjectives, moral adjectives, and epistemic adjectives, among others. Evaluational adjectives are distinguished, empirically, in exhibiting phenomena such as discourse-oriented use, felicitous embedding under the attitude verb `find', and sorites-susceptibility in the comparative form. A unified degree-based semantics is developed: What distinguishes evaluational adjectives, semantically, is that they denote context-dependent (...) measure functions ("evaluational perspectives")—context-dependent mappings to degrees of taste, beauty, probability, etc., depending on the adjective. This perspective-sensitivity characterizing the class of evaluational adjectives cannot be assimilated to vagueness, sensitivity to an experiencer argument, or multidimensionality; and it cannot be demarcated in terms of pretheoretic notions of subjectivity, common in the literature. I propose that certain diagnostics for "subjective" expressions be analyzed instead in terms of a precisely specified kind of discourse-oriented use of context-sensitive language. I close by applying the account to `find x PRED' ascriptions. (shrink)

For any normative domain, we can theorize about what is good in that domain. Such theories include utilitarianism, a view about what is good morally. But there are many domains other than the moral; these include the prudential, the aesthetic, and the intellectual or epistemic. In this last domain, it is good to be knowledgeable and bad to ignore evidence, quite apart from the morality, prudence, and aesthetics of these things. This dissertation builds a theory that stands (...) to the epistemic domain as utilitarianism stands to the moral domain. It builds an epistemic value theory. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that a person’s moral judgments (about both their own and others’ actions) are constrained by the nature and extent of their relevant ignorance and, thus, that such judgments are determined in the first instance by the person’s epistemic circumstances. It has been argued, in other words, that the epistemic is logically prior to other normative (e.g., ethical, prudential, pecuniary) considerations in human decision-making, that these other normative considerations figure in decision-making only (...) after (logically and temporally) relevant ignorance has constrained the decision-maker’s menu of options. If this is right, then a person’s moral judgments in some set of circumstances should vary with their knowledge and ignorance of these circumstances. In this study, we test the hypothesis of the logical priority of the epistemic. We describe two experiments in which subjects’ knowledge and ignorance of relevant consequences were manipulated. In the second experiment, we also compared the effect of ignorance on moral judgments with that of personal force, a factor previously shown to influence moral judgments. We found broad empirical support for the armchair arguments that epistemic considerations are logically prior to normative considerations. (shrink)

The moral error theorist claims that moral discourse is irredeemably in error because it is committed to the existence of properties that do not exist. A common response has been to postulate ‘companions in guilt’—forms of discourse that seem safe from error despite sharing the putatively problematic features of moral discourse. The most developed instance of this pairs moral discourse with epistemic discourse. In this paper, I present a new, prudential, companions-in-guilt argument and argue (...) for its superiority over the epistemic alternative. (shrink)

In recent years, much attention has been given to the epistemic credentials of belief based on moral testimony. Some people think pure moral deference is wrong, others disagree. It comes as a surprise, however, that while the epistemic responsibilities of the receiver of moral testimony have been closely scrutinized, little to no discussion has focused on the epistemic duties of the speaker. This paper aims to supply this lack: it defends a function-first account of (...) the normativity of moral assertion. According to this view, in virtue of its function of reliably generating understanding in the audience, a moral assertion that p needs be knowledgeable and accompanied by a contextually appropriate explanation why p. (shrink)

Philosophers have long theorized about what makes people's lives go well, and why, and the extent to which morality and self-interest can be reconciled. However, we have spent little time on meta-prudential questions, questions about prudential discourse—thought and talk about what is good and bad for us; what contributes to well-being; and what we have prudential reason, or prudentially ought, to do. This situation is surprising given that prudence is, prima facie, a normative form of discourse and (...) cries out for further investigation of what it is like and whether it has problematic commitments. It also marks a stark contrast from moral discourse, about which there has been extensive theorizing, in meta-ethics. -/- Dear Prudence: The Nature and Normativity of Prudential Discourse has three broad aims. Firstly, Guy Fletcher explores the nature of prudential discourse. Secondly, he argues that prudential discourse is normative and authoritative, like moral discourse. Thirdly, Fletcher aims to show that prudential discourse is worthy of further, explicit, attention both due to its intrinsic interest but also for the light it sheds on the meta-normative more broadly. (shrink)

[Philip Percival] I aim to illuminate foundational epistemological issues by reflecting on 'epistemic consequentialism'-the epistemic analogue of ethical consequentialism. Epistemic consequentialism employs a concept of cognitive value playing a role in epistemic norms governing belief-like states that is analogous to the role goodness plays in act-governing moral norms. A distinction between 'direct' and 'indirect' versions of epistemic consequentialism is held to be as important as the familiar ethical distinction on which it is based. These (...) versions are illustrated, respectively, by cognitive decision-theory and reliabilism. Cognitive decision-theory is defended, and various conceptual issues concerning it explored. A simple dilemma suggests that epistemic consequentialism has radical consequences. /// [Robert Stalnaker] After reviewing the general ideas of the consequentialist framework, I take a critical look at two of the epistemic consequentialist projects that Philip Percival considers in his paper: the first assumes that there is a notion of acceptance that contrasts with belief and that can be evaluated by its expected epistemic utility. The second uses epis utility to evaluate beliefs and partial beliefs themselves, as well as actions, such as gathering information in the course of an inquiry. I express scepticism about the notion of acceptance required for the first project, and argue that the second kind of project can be fruitful only with a richer notion of epistemic utility than has yet been developed. (shrink)

Some philosophers have argued that truth is a norm of judgement and have provided a variety of formulations of this general thesis. In this paper, I shall side with these philosophers and assume that truth is a norm of judgement. What I am primarily interested in here are two core questions concerning the judgement-truth norm: (i) what are the normative relationships between truth and judgement? And (ii) do these relationships vary or are they constant? I argue for a pluralist picture—what (...) I call Normative Alethic Pluralism (NAP)—according to which (i) there is more than one correct judgement-truth norm and (ii) the normative relationships between truth and judgement vary in relation to the subject matter of the judgement. By means of a comparative analysis of disagreement in three areas of the evaluative domain—refined aesthetics, basic taste and morality—I show that there is an important variability in the normative significance of disagreement—I call this the variability conjecture. By presenting a variation of Lynch’s scope problem for alethic monism, I argue that a monistic approach to the normative function of truth is unable to vindicate the conjecture. I then argue that normative alethic pluralism provides us with a promising model to account for it. (shrink)

We are often, as agents, responsible for the things we do and say. This responsibility can come in a number of different forms: here I propose and defend a view of how we are epistemically responsible for our actions and assertions. In other normative areas, we can be responsible for our actions when those actions violate a norm (for example, we can be morally responsible when we violate some moral norm). I argue that we can similarly be epistemically responsible (...) when we violate a norm of assertion or action, norms that tell us how epistemically well-positioned we need to be towards a proposition in order to assert it or treat it as a reason for acting. I first defend a structure of epistemic norms that allows for the possibility of epistemic responsibility, and then propose a notion of epistemic responsibility itself. -/- We can, and do, evaluate actions and assertions in a specifically epistemic way: we judge that someone should not have acted on the basis of unreliable information, that someone should not have asserted something they knew was false, etc. These kinds of evaluations lead us to believe that proper action and assertion have some basic epistemic requirements, what are called norms of assertion and action. In order to defend a notion of epistemic responsibility, I first establish a general claim about the ways that we make epistemic evaluations in relation to these norms. Many who argue for a particular epistemic norm of action or assertion endorse what I call epistemic monism, the view that all epistemic evaluations of actions or assertions must be explained solely in terms of whether they have adhered to their respective norm. I argue that epistemic monism is false. Instead, I defend epistemic separability, the view that we make two different kinds of epistemic evaluations: one that pertains to whether one has adhered to an epistemic norm, and one that pertains to whether one has reason to think they are adhering to or violating the relevant norm. In my defense of epistemic separability I appeal to arguments from luminosity failure – the claim that for any given epistemic relationship we can have with a proposition we can have good reason to believe that we fail to be in it – and empirical arguments that show that we only have fallible access to our own mental states. These arguments show that we can violate an epistemic norm while having good reason to think otherwise and, in turn, shows that we can be evaluated not only in terms of whether we have adhered to or violated that norm, but also in terms of whether we are responsible for doing so. I argue that whether one’s action is epistemically responsible depends on whether one fulfils the epistemic commitments one makes in performing that action. These commitments consist in being able to provide reasons to believe that one has adhered to the norm governing the action one performs, according to a standard imposed by the situation in which one acts. Thus in more epistemically demanding situations – those in which there are high expectations that we be able to show that we have adhered to the relevant epistemic norm – it will be more difficult to act in an epistemically responsible way. Accepting a notion of epistemic responsibility (and, with it, rejecting epistemic monism) has significant consequences for a number of current debates in epistemology. The first pertains to the debate concerning the correct epistemic norm of assertion and practical reasoning. Many proposed norms are argued to be inadequate on the basis of an inability to explain intuitive epistemic evaluations solely in terms of the conditions set forth in the norms. Epistemic separability, however, implies that the structure of this dialectic is misguided, as we can perhaps accommodate problematic judgments in terms of evaluations of responsibility. The second consequence pertains to arguments for contemporary theories of knowledge. Again, such theories are judged by their ability to accommodate intuitive attributions of knowledge. However, I argue that many of the evaluations that serve as the basis for such theories are better interpreted not as judgments about whether one has knowledge, but as judgments about whether one is acting in an epistemically responsible way. Recognizing a notion of epistemically responsible action thus calls into question both the plausibility of a number of contemporary theories of knowledge, as well as the way in which we go about doing epistemology in general. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that a person’s moral judgments (about both their own and others’ actions) are constrained by the nature and extent of their relevant ignorance and, thus, that such judgments are determined in the first instance by the person’s epistemic circumstances. It has been argued, in other words, that the epistemic is logically prior to other normative (e.g., ethical, prudential, pecuniary) considerations in human decision-making, that these other normative considerations figure in decision-making only (...) after (logically and temporally) relevant ignorance has constrained the decision-maker’s menu of options. If this is right, then a person’s moral judgments in some set of circumstances should vary with their knowledge and ignorance of these circumstances. In this study, we test the hypothesis of the logical priority of the epistemic. We describe two experiments in which subjects’ knowledge and ignorance of relevant consequences were manipulated. In the second experiment, we also compared the effect of ignorance on moral judgments with that of personal force, a factor previously shown to influence moral judgments. We found broad empirical support for the armchair arguments that epistemic considerations are logically prior to normative considerations. (shrink)

What features does a norm have to have such that we really ought to follow it? This paper argues that norms are authoritative when they are justified in a particular sense. However, this brand of justification is not any of those with which we are currently familiar. The authority of norms is not a matter of moral, epistemic or prudential justification. It depends instead on what I call "justification simpliciter." The concept of justification simpliciter is defined and (...) defended in this paper. (shrink)

It is right for a person to believe a proposition if and only if that proposition is true. On this view, truth is a norm for belief. Some, myself included, go further and suggest that truth is the fundamental norm for belief, relative to which other norms governing belief are derivative. Call this the truth view. In a recent paper, Clayton Littlejohn objects to the truth view on the grounds that it cannot explain why epistemic evaluation has an ‘inward-looking (...) focus’, that is, why it concerns a person’s reasons for believing. He takes this not only to undermine the truth view but also to motivate the knowledge view, associated with Timothy Williamson, according to which knowledge is the fundamental norm for belief. In this paper, I show that the truth view can account for the 'inward-looking focus' of epistemic evaluation. In doing so, I draw on some ideas from ethics, specifically, ideas about moral worth. This provides a defence of the truth view and blocks a route to the knowledge view. In addition, it also delivers an account of epistemic evaluation which reveals it to mirror - in structure, not substance - moral evaluation. (shrink)

Moral theories often take the guidance of individual conduct as their central task, and seek to provide grounds for confidence in deliberation. Yet they are inevitably also drawn into justifying our reactions to and interventions in one another's actions. This dissertation takes critical encounters to mark a central aspect of moral life. Yet standard deontological and consequentialist theories fall short of providing conceptual tools adequate for reflection on this aspect, and virtue theory is surprisingly undeveloped here. I develop (...) a naturalistic account of the capacities and virtues of critical engagement, and suggest some consequences in ethics and metaethics. ;Critical processes are often inarticulate, being experientially and historically prior to moral theory. For example, certain "thick" judgments , conceive a provocation immediately in terms of specific evaluative response-strategies whose fittingness is implicitly honored, but left opaque. Processes of critical response also function inarticulately on a much larger scale, sparking long-term projects, convictions, and identities of solidarity and resistance. A proper-function account of critical agency illuminates our intuitive attachments to critical response patterns, while suggesting some senses in which they can fail. ;Meanwhile, articulated moral judgments have a problematic role in critical engagement. They can be understood as signs with descriptive content, but such content cannot be interpreted without attention to how the thought or claim is historically poised to be put to use or "taken up" in subsequent attitudes and activity. I highlight the fragility of the historical, social, and psychological contexts in which moral verdicts engage effectively with their audiences. ;I argue against identifying the critical moral domain by way of its connection to any fixed set of reactive attitudes, such as resentment and guilt . Moral complexity and critical virtue emerge as critical agency acquires certain new formal dimensions. Subtleties of critical virtue include a capacity for engaged ambivalence, interest in the genealogy of our attitudes and norms, and an ability to apprehend and reconstruct strands of critical moral agency where we might otherwise have been tempted to diagnose brute moral error. (shrink)

In the philosophy of language and epistemology, debates often centre on what content a person is communicating, or representing in their mind. How that content is organised, along dimensions of salience, has received relatively little attention. I argue that salience matters. Mere change of salience patterns, without change of content, can have dramatic implications, both epistemic and moral. Imagine two newspaper articles that offer the same information about a subject, but differ in terms of what they headline. These (...) articles can be said to adopt different linguistic salience perspectives. Making different things salient in language is a way of making different things salient in an audience’s mind: it is a way of encouraging the audience to adopt a particular cognitive salience perspective. Building on Elisabeth Camp’s work on perspectives, and Sebastian Watzl’s work on attention, I suggest that one has a certain cognitive salience perspective in virtue of better noticing, remembering, and finding cognitively accessible certain contents over others. Drawing on psychological research into cognitive biases and framing effects, I argue that that simply making some content salient in the mind, perhaps through first making it salient in language, can be sufficient to activate substantive cultural beliefs or ideologies associated with that content. Where those beliefs and ideologies have epistemic and moral problems, we have grounds for criticising the salience perspective that causally produced them. Besides this instrumental harm, I also suggest that certain salience perspectives can themselves constitute harm. I draw on feminist work on objectification to argue that making the wrong thing salient about a person can constitute a way of dehumanising them. A great many factors, from physical and psychological violence, to false beliefs and credibility deficits, have already been identified as potentially harming an individual or group. What is distinctive about this argument, then, is the idea that, sometimes, mere patterns of salience can be damaging in and of themselves. (shrink)

Departing from hypothetical dilemmas and drawing on examples from law, this paper offers a pragmatist account of normative induction that characterizes moral particularism and generalism as stages of inquiry into ethical problems, rather than rival accounts of moral knowledge and motivation. Pragmatism’s response to analytical moral theory lies in understanding the transformative nature of John Dewey’s social continuum of inquiry. The continuum is unrecognized in the analysis of hypothetical dilemmas, like the trolley problem, but can clearly be (...) seen in studies of law. Real moral dilemmas represent actual conflicts, of which the dimensions emerge through experience and the solution cannot be addressed through the analysis of cleverly balanced moral puzzles. Repeated over time, real problems drive the consensual formation and revision of social practices and the predication of general moral rules and principles. Ethical particularism holds that the evaluative cannot be “cashed out” propositionally, and that it is descriptively “shapeless.” It fails to recognize that real moral problems occur in a continuum, and at first encounter a shapeless particularist context of seemingly unlimited non-moral properties. Normativity is driven by repetition of similar situations toward shared practices and descriptive predication. Rather than a Dancian retention of epistemic status by defeated reasons, this illustrates retirement of relevant properties and accompanying reasons, transformation of the reasons environment, and a pluralist normative ontology. (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)

The expressivist advances a view about how we explain the meaning of a fragment of language, such as claims about what we morally ought to do. Critics evaluate expressivism on those terms. This is a serious mistake. We don’t just use that fragment of language in isolation. We make claims about what we morally, legally, rationally, and prudentially ought to do. To account for this linguistic phenomenon, the expressivist owes us an account not just of each fragment of language, but (...) of how they weave together into a broader tapestry. I argue that expressivists face a dilemma in doing so: either they fail to explain the univocality of terms like 'ought', or they fail to explain when normative statements are and aren't inconsistent. (shrink)

Many of the computing systems programmed using Machine Learning are opaque: it is difficult to know why they do what they do or how they work. Explainable Artificial Intelligence aims to develop analytic techniques that render opaque computing systems transparent, but lacks a normative framework with which to evaluate these techniques’ explanatory successes. The aim of the present discussion is to develop such a framework, paying particular attention to different stakeholders’ distinct explanatory requirements. Building on an analysis of “opacity” from (...) philosophy of science, this framework is modeled after accounts of explanation in cognitive science. The framework distinguishes between the explanation-seeking questions that are likely to be asked by different stakeholders, and specifies the general ways in which these questions should be answered so as to allow these stakeholders to perform their roles in the Machine Learning ecosystem. By applying the normative framework to recently developed techniques such as input heatmapping, feature-detector visualization, and diagnostic classification, it is possible to determine whether and to what extent techniques from Explainable Artificial Intelligence can be used to render opaque computing systems transparent and, thus, whether they can be used to solve the Black Box Problem. (shrink)

[Philip Percival] I aim to illuminate foundational epistemological issues by reflecting on 'epistemic consequentialism'-the epistemic analogue of ethical consequentialism. Epistemic consequentialism employs a concept of cognitive value playing a role in epistemic norms governing belief-like states that is analogous to the role goodness plays in act-governing moral norms. A distinction between 'direct' and 'indirect' versions of epistemic consequentialism is held to be as important as the familiar ethical distinction on which it is based. These (...) versions are illustrated, respectively, by cognitive decision-theory and reliabilism. Cognitive decision-theory is defended, and various conceptual issues concerning it explored. A simple dilemma suggests that epistemic consequentialism has radical consequences. /// [Robert Stalnaker] After reviewing the general ideas of the consequentialist framework, I take a critical look at two of the epistemic consequentialist projects that Philip Percival considers in his paper: the first assumes that there is a notion of acceptance that contrasts with belief and that can be evaluated by its expected epistemic utility. The second uses epis utility to evaluate beliefs and partial beliefs themselves, as well as actions, such as gathering information in the course of an inquiry. I express scepticism about the notion of acceptance required for the first project, and argue that the second kind of project can be fruitful only with a richer notion of epistemic utility than has yet been developed. (shrink)

This thesis addresses a range of questions about normativity, broadly understood. Recurring themes include the idea of normative ‘action-guidance’, and the connection between normativity and motivational states, the possibility of normative knowledge and its role in deliberation, and the question of whether normative concepts can themselves be evaluated. The first two papers, ‘The Entanglement Problem and Idealization in Moral Philosophy’ and ‘Weighting Surprise Parties: Some Problems for Schroeder’, critically examine various versions of the view that what we ought to (...) do depends on some motivational states, such as desires. It is suggested that such views are, for different but interrelated reasons, extensionally inadequate. The third paper, ‘From Evolutionary Theory to Moral Skepticism, via Disagreement’, proposes that two arguments for moral skepticism can be combined in a mutually supportive way. A central role is played by the principle that a subject S knows that p only if S adherently believes that p, where this roughly means that S could not easily have failed to believe that p unless her epistemic position were worse or p were false. It is suggested that evolutionary considerations and facts about moral disagreement together indicate that moral beliefs violate this principle. The fourth paper, ‘Ethics and the Question of What to Do’, offers an account of the so- called ‘central deliberative question’ that is highlighted by several kinds of choice situations, including those that involve normative uncertainty and normative conflicts. It is proposed that this question is not best understood as the question of what one ought to do, not even in an ‘all things considered’ sense, but as the question of what to do. A meta-normative view that involves elements of both cognitivism and non-cognitivism is put forward as the best explanation of this fact. The fifth paper, ‘Meta-Skepticism’, develops a novel skeptical challenge to beliefs about the external world, the central idea being that even if beliefs about the external world can constitute knowledge, there are various other knowledge-like concepts that they cannot satisfy even if they are true. This raises the question of whether some of these concepts are epistemically more important than the others, and, in particular, the further question of how the relevant notion of ‘epistemic importance’ should be understood. Several answers to this question are considered and found wanting. (shrink)

Recently, there is increased attention to the integration of moral values into the conception, design, and development of emerging IT. The most reviewed approach for this purpose in ethics and technology so far is Value-Sensitive Design (VSD). This article considers VSD as the prime candidate for implementing normative considerations into design. Its methodology is considered from a conceptual, analytical, normative perspective. The focus here is on the suitability of VSD for integrating moral values into the design of technologies (...) in a way that joins in with an analytical perspective on ethics of technology. Despite its promising character, it turns out that VSD falls short in several respects: (1) VSD does not have a clear methodology for identifying stakeholders, (2) the integration of empirical methods with conceptual research within the methodology of VSD is obscure, (3) VSD runs the risk of committing the naturalistic fallacy when using empirical knowledge for implementing values in design, (4) the concept of values, as well as their realization, is left undetermined and (5) VSD lacks a complimentary or explicit ethical theory for dealing with value trade-offs. For the normative evaluation of a technology, I claim that an explicit and justified ethical starting point or principle is required. Moreover, explicit attention should be given to the value aims and assumptions of a particular design. The criteria of adequacy for such an approach or methodology follow from the evaluation of VSD as the prime candidate for implementing moral values in design. (shrink)

Education professionals, such as teachers, policymakers, and school leaders, come to ethical deliberation with diverse views based not only on their different role obligations but also on different epistemic and moral norms. In this paper Daniella Forster argues that mental normativity — the ethics of belief — has professional implications especially significant in education, given the narrowing of teacher education and the polarization of public discourse about educational issues. Using case studies may be useful method for increasing interpersonal (...) reflective equilibrium about ethical issues in education; moreover, Forster suggests here that the moral evaluation of belief practices may also be amendable. Readers are invited to consider how generating insights into the moral evaluation of diverse beliefs and belief practices in education provides additional conceptual tools for elevating public dialogue through normative case-based dilemmas. (shrink)

Humans pay close attention to the reputational consequences of their actions. Recent experiments indicate that even very subtle cues that one is being observed can affect cooperative behaviors. Expressing our opinions about the morality of certain acts is a key means of advertising our cooperative dispositions. Here, we investigated how subtle cues of being watched would affect moral judgments. We predicted that participants exposed to such cues would affirm their endorsement of prevailing moral norms by expressing greater disapproval (...) of moral transgressions. Participants read brief accounts of two moral violations and rated the moral acceptability of each violation. Violations were more strongly condemned in a condition where participants were exposed to surveillance cues (an image of eyes interposed between the description of the violation and the associated rating scale) than in a control condition (in which the interposed image was of flowers). We discuss the role that public declarations play in the interpersonal evaluation of cooperative dispositions. (shrink)