According to the KK-principle, knowledge iterates freely. It has been argued, notably in Greco, that accounts of knowledge which involve essential appeal to normality are particularly conducive to defence of the KK-principle. The present article evaluates the prospects for employing normality in this role. First, it is argued that the defence of the KK-principle depends upon an implausible assumption about the logical principles governing iterated normality claims. Once this assumption is dropped, counter-instances to the principle can be expected to arise. (...) Second, it is argued that even if the assumption is maintained, there are other logical properties of normality which can be expected to lead to failures of KK. Such failures are noteworthy, since they do not depend on either a margins-for-error principle or safety condition of the kinds Williamson appeals to in motivating rejection KK. “Introduction: KK and Being in a Position to Know” Section formulates two versions of the KK-Principle; “Inexact Knowledge and Margins for Error” Section presents a version of Williamson’s margins-for-error argument against it; “Knowledge and Normality” and “Iterated Normality” Sections discuss the defence of the KK-Principle due to Greco and show that it is dependent upon the implausible assumption that the logic of normality ascriptions is at least as strong as K4; finally, “Knowledge in Abnormal Conditions” and “Higher-Order Ignorance Inside the Margins” Sections argue that a weakened version of Greco’s constraint on knowledge is plausible and demonstrate that this weakened constraint will, given uncontentious assumptions, systematically generate counter-instances to the KK-principle of a novel kind. (shrink)

Despite negative effects on their health and social lives, many informal carers of people living with dementia claim to be acting in accordance with a moral obligation. Indeed, feelings of failure and shame are commonly reported by those who later give up their caring responsibilities, suggesting a widespread belief that professional dementia care, whether delivered in the person's own home or in an institutional setting, ought always to be a last resort. In this paper, however, I suggest that this common (...) intuition gets things the wrong way around. Adopting a relational egalitarian framework, I argue that the most serious injustices engendered by present‐day dementia care services are contingent on broader societal structures—they can thus be ameliorated relatively easily (if resource intensively) by changing those structures. Informal dementia care, on the other hand, carries similar risks of injustice and is much more resistant to structural reform. While there may be moral obligations to provide informal dementia care in present‐day societies, then, they arise because of the deficiencies of professional care, not the virtues of its informal counterpart. Though we may be far from achieving just care arrangements in most of our societies, we must never lose sight of the fact that, when we engage in morally permitted informal dementia care, we are exercising our last resort. (shrink)

The value of knowledge has always been a central topic within epistemology. Going all the way back to Plato’s Meno, philosophers have asked, why is knowledge more valuable than mere true belief? Interest in this question has grown in recent years, with theorists proposing a range of answers. But some reject the premise of the question and claim that the value of knowledge is ‘swamped’ by the value of true belief. And others argue that statuses other than knowledge, such as (...) justification or understanding, are distinctively valuable. We will call the general question of why knowledge is valuable the value problem. (shrink)

This book presents a contextual study of the life and work of the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688). Focusing on the theological basis of Cudworth's ethical philosophy, this book unlocks the hitherto ignored political aspect to Cudworth's ethical philosophy. Through a detailed examination of Cudworth's published works - particularly his voluminous "True intellectual system of the Universe" -, his posthumously published writings, and his 'freewill' manuscripts Benjamin Carter argues that the ethical and political arguments in Cudworth's philosophy develop out (...) of Cudworth's Trinitarian theology. Carter traces the link between Cudworth's trinitarianism and his ethical and political ideas by placing Cudworth's work in the turbulent religious and intellectual context of seventeenth-century England, and the University of Cambridge in particular. (shrink)

Is knowledge relative? Many academics across the humanities say that it is. However those who work in mainstream epistemology generally consider that it is not. Metaepistemology and Relativism questions whether the kind of anti-relativistic background that underlies typical projects in mainstream epistemology can on closer inspection be vindicated.

A very natural view about perceptual knowledge is articulated, one on which perceptual knowledge is closely related to perceptual discrimination, and which fits well with a relevant alternatives account of knowledge. It is shown that this kind of proposal faces a problem, and various options for resolving this difficulty are explored. In light of this discussion, a two-tiered relevant alternatives account of perceptual knowledge is offered which avoids the closure problem. It is further shown how this proposal can: accommodate our (...) intuitions about perceptual knowledge and perceptual discrimination in terms of the notion of primary relevance, give an account of how alternatives can be rationally excluded without appeal to perceptual discrimination in terms of the notion of secondary relevance, and deal with the problem posed by inverted Gettier cases, and hence explain what it means to rationally exclude alternatives which are of secondary relevance. (shrink)

It appears to have been established that it is not possible for us to harm distant future generations by failing to adopt long-range welfare policies which would conserve resources or limit pollution. By exploring a number of possible worlds, the present article shows, first, that the argument appears to be at least as telling against Aristotelian, rights-based and Rawlsian approaches as it seems to be against utilitarianism, but second, and most importantly, that it only holds if we fail to view (...) moral agents as individuals. The article also concludes that the argument has profoundly counter-intuitive implications. (shrink)

The authors comments on several articles on addiction. Research suggests that addicted individuals have substantial impairments in cognitive control of behavior. The authors maintain that a proper study of addiction must include a neurobiological model of addiction to draw the attention of bioethicists and addiction neurobiologists. They also state that more addiction neuroscientists like S. E. Hyman are needed as they understand the limits of their research. Accession Number: 24077921; Authors: Carter, Adrian 1; Email Address: adrian.carter@uq.edu.au Hall, Wayne (...) 1; Affiliations: 1: The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; Subject: EDITORIALS; Subject: ADDICTIONS; Subject: BEHAVIOR; Subject: HYMAN, S. E.; Subject: NEUROBIOLOGISTS; Subject: NEUROSCIENTISTS; Number of Pages: 3p. (shrink)

In recent work, Mark Alfano and Jennifer Saul have put forward a similar kind of provocative sceptical challenge. Both appeal to recent literature in empirical psychology to show that our judgments across a wide range of cases are riddled with unreliable cognitive heuristics and biases. Likewise, they both conclude that we know a lot less than we have hitherto supposed, at least on standard conceptions of what knowledge involves. It is argued that even if one grants the empirical claims that (...) Saul and Alfano make, the sceptical conclusion that they canvass might not be as dramatic as it first appears. It is further argued, however, that one can reinstate a more dramatic sceptical conclusion by targeting their argument not at knowledge but rather at the distinct epistemic standing of understanding. (shrink)

The nature of basic equality (what it is that makes us all equals) can have implications not only for the question of the currency of egalitarian justice but also for that of its . The latter question is raised by G. A. Cohen in his critique of John Rawls's theory of justice. In this paper I argue that Rawlsian liberals might provide an answer to Cohen's critique by establishing two distinct kinds of basic equality, thus providing a of basic equality. (...) A first kind of basic equality gains moral relevance in the context of respectful relations between individuals, and establishes egalitarian duties between them. A second kind of basic equality gains moral relevance in the context of respectful relations between the state and individual citizens, and establishes egalitarian duties of the state toward citizens. The strength of Cohen's critique depends, in part, on the fact that Rawls identified only one kind of basic equality while at the same time wishing to defend a dualist account of individual and state duties. (shrink)

The depletion effect, a decreased capacity for self-control following previous acts of self-control, is thought to result from a lack of necessary psychological/physical resources (i.e., “ego depletion”). Kurzban et al. present an alternative explanation for depletion; but based on statistical techniques that evaluate and adjust for publication bias, we question whether depletion is a real phenomenon in need of explanation.

Can being, more specifically, black being, be thematized as visible from within the particularity of a given faith tradition, its practices and mode of being in the world? To narrow the question to one specific faith tradition, Christianity: Can blackness be visible within the visibility of the Christian factum---the incarnate God, Jesus of Nazareth? The first two chapters, drawing on the work of Albert J. Raboteau, Charles H. Long, and James H. Cone, show how African American religious scholarship, to varying (...) degrees, answers negatively, explicating the particularities of black being from a more fundamental genesis than the particularities of a given faith tradition itself. Various are the names of the fundament: Africanity, the religious consciousness, the ontological horizon of blackness, and so forth. Chapter 3 uncovers the Kantian philosophico-religious structure at work here, the very framework that spawned modernity's first thoroughgoing race theory. Chapters 4 and 5, drawing on Briton Hammon, Frederick Douglass, and Jarena Lee, offer a theological account of race. Black being is shown to be visible, iconically opaque, and, thus, theologically free as Christic and Paschal being. This theological transcription of being is coterminous with an emancipatory social arrangement of being: black being as 'Christified' is ecclesial being. This does not silence the historical cadences of black being; rather it dislodges the history of black being from the colonial gaze. ;The Proem on Irenaeus of Lyons , the Excursus on Gregory of Nyssa , and the Postlude on Maximos the Confessor indicate the Christology influencing this dissertation. Placing patristic Christology, as it culminates in Chalcedon I and refined in the neo-Chalcedonian debates, in conversation with the modern construction of race and being, I establish a vantage from which to criticize Immanuel Kant's supersessionistic Christianity, out of which emerged his race qua colonial theory. Yet, it also provides a vantage from which to articulate a non-supersessionistic Christianity of the embodiment of God in Jesus of Nazareth for the visibility of black being and, thus, speaks to a distressing aporia in African American religious studies and theology. (shrink)

This is the Editor's Introduction to "Well-Founded Belief: New Essays on the Epistemic Basing Relation" (Routledge, 2020).

Ascertaining the optimum global population raises not just substantive moral problems but also philosophical ones, too. In particular, serious problems arise for utilitarianism. For example, should one attempt to bring about the greatest total happiness or the highest level of average happiness? This article argues that neither approach on its own provides a satisfactory answer, and nor do rights-based or Rawlsian approaches, either. Instead, what is required is a multidimensional approach to moral questions—one which recognises the plurality of our values. (...) Such an approach can be formalised by employing multidimensional indifference-curves. Moreover, whereas classical utilitarianism might be thought to enjoin us to bring about a larger global population, a multidimensional approach clearly suggests a significant reduction in human numbers. (shrink)

Background:At a time when British nursing has been under scrutiny for an apparent lack of compassion in education and practice, this paper based offers a perspective on the notions of vocation and altruism in nursing.Objectives:To understand the vocational and altruistic motivations of nurses through the application of Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of ‘symbolic capital’, ‘field’ and ‘habitus’ through a long interview with nurse respondents.Research design:A reflexive qualitative study was undertaken using the long interview. A thematic analysis of the data, using a (...) qualitative data software package for analysis, was undertaken. The ideas of Pierre Bourdieu (Habitus, Capital and Field) were used to analyse and explain the content of community nurses' ‘talk’.Participants:Twelve Community Nurses working in a variety of local primary care settings volunteered to participate in the study. It was a self-selecting convenience sample of nurses responding to an invitation to be interviewed.Research context:A study in support of a doctoral thesis conducted within NHS primary care settings with registered nurses.Ethical considerations:The key considerations for this study were to be mindful of the possibility of emotional harm or distress being caused to the respondents during the retelling of their experiences. It was also essential to ensure that the locations or names of patients or staff (if discussed) were anonymised. Ethical approval was sought and granted by both the Local NHS Primary Care and the University Ethics committees before the study commenced.Findings:The nurse respondents had highly individual and at times contradictory views on their motivations to nurse including their views on vocation and altruism in nursing careers.Discussion:Bourdieu's ideas apply well to the nursing context and provided a useful theoretical framework to explore the social and cultural influences on nursing careers. Gender is important consideration in all aspects of nursing but class and educational experience is an important dimension in the stories nurses tell.Conclusion:The culturally determined experiences of these nurses in practice offer an authentic and realistic insight into the complex motives and predispositions of community nurses. This paper argues that nurse motivations whether vocational or altruistic, are better understood as culturally, rather than spiritually, driven. (shrink)

There has been a process of moral extensionism within environmental ethics from anthropocentrism, through zoocentrism, to ecocentrism. This article maps key elements of that process, and concludes that each of these ethical positions fails as a fully adequate, environmentalist ethic, and does so because of an implicit assumption that is common within normative theory. This notwithstanding, each position may well contribute a value. The problem that then arises is how to trade off those values against each other when they conflict. (...) The solution here proposed is to employ multidimensional isovalue-contours along with a multidimensional practicability-frontier. This would result in a rich, value-pluralist environmentalist ethic that enjoined different outcomes to those enjoined by purely anthropocentric, zoocentric or ecocentric ethics. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article I examine the concept ‘self‐exploitation’ and its use in criticising workers' co‐operatives. I argue that the concept is incoherent and that the kind of exploitation which members of workers' co‐ops actually face is ‘market‐exploitation’. Moreover, some of the criticisms of workers' co‐ops which are made by those who employ the confused concept ‘self‐exploitation’ are shown to be inapposite when ‘market‐exploitation’ is recognised to be the real problem. I conclude with a discussion of the reasons for the (...) acceptance of the misguided concept ‘self‐exploitation’ by a number on the Left in Britain today. (shrink)

Two recent papers by Michael Burke bearing upon the persistence of people and commonplace things illustrate the fact that the quest for synchronic ontological economy is likely to encourage a disturbing diachronic proliferation of entities. This discussion argues that Burke’s promise of ontological economy is seriously compromised by the fact that his proposed metaphysic does violence to standard intuitions concerning the persistence of people and commonplace things. In effect, Burke would have us achieve synchronic economy (rejection of coincident entities) by (...) postulating strongly counterintuitive transtemporal claims of numerical diversity. The argument is made that the price of Burkean economy is too high. (shrink)

In this paper we steer a course between two views of the value of equality that are usually understood as diametrically opposed to one another: on the one hand, the view that equality has intrinsic value; on the other, the view that equality is a normatively redundant notion. We proceed by analysing the different ways in which the equal possession of certain relevant properties justifies distributive equality. We then present an account of ‘basic equality’ that serves to single out where (...) this equal possession is really doing normative work. Our account departs from some common assumptions about basic equality but is nevertheless plausible in as much as it assigns to that concept a precise and normatively significant role in grounding the non-instrumental value of distributive equality. By showing when, exactly, equality is basic, we are able to explain both what is right and what is wrong in each of the two opposed views of the value of equality. The argument proceeds at a fairly high level of abstraction and is therefore applicable to a number of rival egalitarian theories. (shrink)

A key project in mainstream epistemology investigates the sense in which beliefs are vulnerable to knowledge-undermining luck and/or risk. This chapter will explore a related but largely overlooked question of how and to what extent our grasping connections between propositions is vulnerable to understanding- undermining luck and risk. The result will be a better view of how our attempts to understand the world are vulnerable when they are, and how to better mitigate against such vulnerabilities.

Andrew Dobson has outlined three conceptions of environmental sustainability: the ‘critical natural capital’ conception; the ‘irreversibility’ conception; and the ‘natural value’ conception. He has also attempted to map out the various ‘dimensions of social justice’– his purpose in so doing being to analyze the ‘encounter’ of each conception of environmental sustainability with the points on his map. Not surprisingly, Dobson concludes that as one moves from the ‘critical natural capital’ conception through the ‘irreversibility’ conception to the ‘natural value’ conception of (...) ‘sustainability’, the ‘points of contact’ with his map of ‘the dimensions of social justice’ are found to ‘become fewer and further apart’. In this article I argue that Dobson is fundamentally confused in his reason for thinking why this is so. I also argue that a core argument he deploys concerning future generations cannot do the work he requires of it. (shrink)

This is a book review of Jason Baehr's 'The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology'.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 2, Page 12-14, February 2012.

The dispute between the transgender-rights movement and “gender-critical” activists represents a stark division in British public discourse. Although the issues of contention are numerous and require their own philosophical treatment, a core metaphysical concern underlies them. Gender-critical activists, such as Kathleen Stock, tend to argue that recognizing trans women as women requires erasing the category of biological sex. This implies that all trans women are male, and thus recognizing them as women rips female biology from the root of the category (...) “woman.” In this article, I argue that this view is mistaken. As exogenously produced sex characteristics should count toward a person's sex classification, all trans women are female. (shrink)

In this article, we provide a description of the good in health promotion based on an empirical study of health promotion practices in New South Wales, the most populous state in Australia. We found that practitioners were unified by a vision of the good in health promotion that had substantive and procedural dimensions. Substantively, the good in health promotion was teleological: it inhered in meliorism, an intention to promote health, which was understood holistically and situated in places and environments, a (...) commitment to primary rather than secondary prevention and engagement with communities more than individuals. Procedurally, the good in health promotion arose from qualities of practices that they developed over time in respectful relationships, were flexible and responsive to communities, built capabilities in communities and were sustainable. We discuss our findings with reference to Martha Nussbaum’s normative list of functional capabilities for a good human life, David Buchanan’s vision for health promotion ethics and common concerns in health promotion ethics regarding the relationship between paternalism and freedom. Our thick, vague conception of the good in health promotion, founded in the values and practical reason of people engaged daily in health promotion work, contributes to the development of a more complete theory of health promotion ethics. (shrink)