Research in which participants report potentially dangerous health-related behaviors raises ethical and professional questions about what to do with that information. Policies and laws regarding reportable behaviors vary across states and Institutional Review Boards (IRB). In alcohol research, IRBs often require researchers to respond to participants who report dangerous drinking practices. Researchers have little guidance regarding how best to respond in such cases. Personalized feedback or general nonpersonalized information may prove differentially effective as a function of gender and/or level of (...) self-determination. This study evaluated response strategies for reducing peak blood alcohol concentration (BAC) among participants reporting dangerous BACs (≥ .35%) in the context of a two-year longitudinal intervention trial with 818 heavy drinking college students. After each assessment, participants who reported drinking to estimated BACs at or greater than .35% were sent either a personalized letter expressing concern and indicating their reported BAC or a nonpersonalized pamphlet that included general information about alcohol and other substances, referral information, and a BAC handout. Hierarchical linear modeling results revealed that both strategies were associated with reduced peak BAC when controlling for previous BAC. The personalized letter was more effective for women and for students who tend to regulate their behavior based on others' expectations and contingencies in the environment. This research provides some guidance for researchers considering appropriate responses to participants who report dangerous health behavior in the context of a research trial. (shrink)

Although research has examined factors influencing understanding of informed consent in biomedical and forensic research, less is known about participants' attention to details in consent documents in psychological survey research. The present study used a randomized experimental design and found the majority of participants were unable to recall information from the consent form in both in-person and online formats. Participants were also relatively poor at recognizing important aspects of the consent form including risks to participants and confidentiality procedures. Memory effects (...) and individual difference characteristics also appeared to influence recall and recognition of consent form information. (shrink)

Ever since 1942, when Carl Hempel declared that historical events are explained by subsuming them under laws governing the occurrence of similar events, philosophers have debated the validity of explanations based on "covering laws." In _The Logic of Historical Explanation_, Clayton Roberts provides a key to understanding the role of covering laws in historical explanation. He does so by distinguishing between their use at the macro- and micro- levels, a distinction that no other scholar has made. Roberts contends that (...) the positivists were right to believe that covering laws are indispensable in historical explanations but wrong to think that these laws apply to macro-events. Similarly, the humanists were right to declare that historians do not explain the occurrence of macro-events by subsuming them under covering laws but wrong to deny the role of covering laws in tracing the course of events leading to the macro-event. Roberts resolves this debate by showing that, though useless in explaining macro-events, covering laws are indispensable in connecting the steps in an explanatory narrative. He then sets forth the logic of an explanatory narrative, explores the nature of rational explanation, and distinguishes the logic of historical interpretation from the logic of historical explanation. (shrink)

According to ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ (OIC), your obligation can never be to do what you cannot do. In a recent attack on OIC, Graham has argued that intuitions about justified intervention can help us determine whether the agent whose actions we use force to prevent would have acted permissibly or not. These intuitions, he suggests, cause trouble for the idea that you can be obligated to refrain from doing what you can refrain from doing. I offer a defense of OIC (...) and explain how non-consequentialists can accommodate his intuitions about his cases. (shrink)

First published in 1997, Alain Badiou's _Deleuze: The Clamor of Being_ cast Gilles Deleuze as a secret philosopher of the One. In this work, Clayton Crockett rehabilitates Deleuze's position within contemporary political and philosophical thought, advancing an original reading of the thinker's major works and a constructive conception of his philosophical ontology. Through close readings of Deleuze's _Difference and Repetition_, _Capitalism and Schizophrenia_ (with Felix Guattari), and _Cinema 2_, Crockett argues that Deleuze is anything but the austere, quietistic, and (...) aristocratic intellectual Badiou had portrayed. Instead, Crockett underscores Deleuze's radical aesthetics and innovative scientific, political, and mathematical forms of thought. He also refutes the notion Deleuze retreated from politics toward the end of his life. Using Badiou's critique as a foil, Crockett maintains the profound continuity of Deleuze's work and builds a general interpretation of his more obscure formulations. (shrink)

Abstract: On one formulation, epistemological disjunctivism is the view that our perceptual beliefs constitute knowledge when they are based on reasons that provide them with factive support. Some would argue that it is impossible to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible unless we assume that we have such reasons to support our perceptual beliefs. Some would argue that it is impossible to understand how perceptual experience could furnish us with these reasons unless we assume that the traditional view of experience (...) is mistaken. For reasons explained here, I think that the epistemological argument for metaphysical disjunctivism rests on mistaken assumptions about reasons and their rational role. Neither disjunctivist view is needed to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible. (shrink)

Thomas Kroedel argues that we can solve a version of the lottery paradox if we identify justified beliefs with permissible beliefs. Since permissions do not agglomerate, we might grant that someone could justifiably believe any ticket in a large and fair lottery is a loser without being permitted to believe that all the tickets will lose. I shall argue that Kroedel’s solution fails. While permissions do not agglomerate, we would have too many permissions if we characterized justified belief as sufficiently (...) probable belief. If we reject the idea that justified beliefs can be characterized as sufficiently probably beliefs, Kroedel’s solution is otiose because the paradox can be dissolved at the outset. (shrink)

Determined by Reasons: A Competence Account of Acting for a Normative Reason, by MantelSusanne. New York and London: Routledge, 2018. Pp. xiii + 190.

In a recent article Dylan Dodd has argued that anyone who holds that all knowledge is evidence must concede that we know next to nothing about die external world. The argument is intended to show that any infallibilist account of knowledge is committed to scepticism, and that anyone who identifies our evidence with the propositions we know is committed to infallibilism. I shall offer some reasons for thinking Dodd's argument is unsound, and explain where his argument goes wrong.

A review of Michael Zimmerman's wonderful book, _Living with Uncertainty_. Among other things, I argue that there might be something wrong with combining possibilism and perspectivism.

According to Williamson, your evidence consists of all and only what you know (E = K). According to his critics, it doesn’t. While E = K calls for revision, the revisions it calls for are minor. E = K gets this much right. Only true propositions can constitute evidence and anything you know non-inferentially is part of your evidence. In this paper, I defend these two theses about evidence and its possession from Williamson’s critics who think we should break more (...) radically from E = K. (shrink)

The equal weight view says that if you discover that you disagree with a peer, you should decrease your confidence that you are in the right. Since peer disagreement seems to be quite prevalent, the equal weight view seems to tell us that we cannot reasonably believe many of the interesting things we believe because we can always count on a peer to contest the interesting things that we believe. While the equal weight view seems to have skeptical implications, few (...) epistemologists worry about these implications because the equal weight view is quickly falling out of favor. In this paper, I present an analogical argument for the view and defend it from critics who think that we can justifiably retain confidence in the face of peer disagreement. (shrink)

Traditional theistic proofs are often understood as evidence intended to compel belief in a divinity. John Clayton explores the surprisingly varied applications of such proofs in the work of philosophers and theologians from several periods and traditions, thinkers as varied as Ramanuja, al-Ghazali, Anselm, and Jefferson. He shows how the gradual disembedding of theistic proofs from their diverse and local religious contexts is concurrent with the development of natural theologies and atheism as social and intellectual options in early modern (...) Europe and America. Clayton offers a fresh reading of the early modern history of philosophy and theology, arguing that awareness of such history, and the local uses of theistic argument, offer important ways of managing religious and cultural difference in the public sphere. He argues for the importance of historically grounded philosophy of religion to the field of religious studies and public debate on religious pluralism and cultural diversity. (shrink)

Must rational thinkers have consistent sets of beliefs? I shall argue that it can be rational for a thinker to believe a set of propositions known to be inconsistent. If this is right, an important test for a theory of rational belief is that it allows for the right kinds of inconsistency. One problem we face in trying to resolve disagreements about putative rational requirements is that parties to the disagreement might be working with different conceptions of the relevant attitudes. (...) My aim is modest. I hope to show that there is at least one important notion of belief such that a thinker might rationally hold a collection of beliefs (so understood) even when the thinker knows their contents entail a contradiction. (shrink)

The internalism-externalism debate is one of the oldest debates in epistemology. Internalists assert that the justification of our beliefs can only depend on facts internal to us, while externalists insist that justification can depend on additional, for example environmental, factors. Clayton Littlejohn proposes and defends a new strategy for resolving this debate. Focussing on the connections between practical and theoretical reason, he explores the question of whether the priority of the good to the right might be used to defend (...) an epistemological version of consequentialism, and proceeds to formulate a new 'deontological externalist' view. On this view, the justificatory status of a belief depends upon whether it is fit for the purposes of practical reasoning. Only beliefs that meet externalist standards are fit for such a purpose. If we want to understand how a wide range of norms (e.g., moral norms) apply to rational agents regardless of what their evidence or outlook is like, we have to embrace an externalist account of the justification. (shrink)

An overview of the new evil demon problem.

In the twentieth century, the social scientific study of religion was dominated by debates surrounding secularization. Yet throughout its reign, secularization theory was subject to a series of theoretical and empirical challenges. Pronouncements of a forthcoming revolution in theory were frequent, yet secularization theory remained largely undisturbed. However, recent years have seen secularization theory decreased in status. Some have located its heir in the post-secular, yet the concept has invited fractious debate. This article surveys a range of engagements with the (...) post-secular, seeking to identify convergences that sit beneath an otherwise divided field. While this survey reveals the failure of the post-secular to fully supplant secularization theory, it does find that central debates in the field today have departed significantly from earlier generations of scholarship, particularly in a reflexivity toward the field’s basic concepts, a skepticism of teleological theories of history, and a renewed focus on the relationship between religion and politics. (shrink)

Panentheism has often been put forward as a means for bringing theology and science into dialogue, perhaps even resolving some of the major tensions between them. A variety of “faces” of panentheism are distinguished, including conservative, metaphysical, apophatic, and naturalist panentheisms. This series of increasingly radical panentheisms is explored, each one bringing its own core commitments, and each describing very different relationships between religion and science. We consider, for example, the diverse ways that the radical panentheisms construe emergent phenomena in (...) the natural world. In the end, comparing the increasingly radical forms of panentheism yields a new understanding of the state of the religion/science dialogue today. (shrink)

In the division between analytic and continental thought, pragmatism has often been cast as a middle way. Fundamentally critical of each, it also shares resonances with both of these traditions. However, while this observation is common, remarkably little has been done to examine its truth in contemporary political thought. Drawing on recent trends in political theory, including ‘New Realism’, critical genealogical methods and a surge in pragmatic approaches, this article identifies an emerging situated turn in political thought. Emerging from several (...) major traditions in contemporary political thinking, this trend has pragmatic themes at its centre. Having identified this as a fertile opportunity for inter-methodological work across the analytic/continental divide, it then turns to the late work of Richard Rorty in order to expose his productive framework for such cross-border exchanges. Arguing for its fundamentally democratic and pluralistic nature, this analysis also exposes this framework’s weaknesses before illustrating how recent methodological exchanges between genealogy and pragmatism rectify these deficiencies while providing a viable model for future work across traditional philosophical boundaries. (shrink)

Much of the modern period was dominated by a `reductionist' theory of science. On this view, to explain any event in the world is to reduce it down to fundamental particles, laws, and forces. In recent years reductionism has been dramatically challenged by a radically new paradigm called `emergence'. According to this new theory, natural history reveals the continuous emergence of novel phenomena: new structures and new organisms with new causal powers. Consciousness is yet one more emergent level in the (...) natural hierarchy. Many theologians and religious scholars believe that this new paradigm may offer new insights into the nature of God and God's relation to the world. This volume introduces readers to emergence theory, outlines the major arguments in its defence, and summarizes the most powerful objections against it. Written by experts but suitable as an introductory text, these essays provide the best available presentation of this exciting new field and its potentially momentous implications. (shrink)

At what age should children acquire adult rights? To what extent are parents morally permitted to shape the beliefs of their children? How should childbearing rights and resources be distributed? Matthew Clayton provides a controversial set of answers to these and related issues in this pivotal new work.

In recent work, Thomas Kroedel has proposed a novel solution to the lottery paradox. As he sees it, we are permitted/justified in believing some lottery propositions, but we are not permitted/justified in believing them all. I criticize this proposal on two fronts. First, I think that if we had the right to add some lottery beliefs to our belief set, we would not have any decisive reason to stop adding more. Suggestions to the contrary run into the wrong kind of (...) reason problem. Reflection on the preface paradox suggests as much. Second, while I agree with Kroedel that permissions do not agglomerate, I do not think that this fact can help us solve the lottery paradox. First, I do not think we have any good reason to think that we’re permitted to believe any lottery propositions. Second, I do not see any good reason to think that epistemic permissions do not agglomerate. (shrink)

The theoretical availability of an infinite number of contract types suggests that there may be an optimal quantity from which contractual parties could make a selection. In this Article, we emphasize the difficulty of identifying that optimal number, given information costs and other transaction costs related to the production of a contract type. We argue that standard market failures might cause markets to produce a suboptimal number of contract types. We then consider whether government should intervene to remedy any market (...) failure. We conclude that government would generally lack the access to information necessary to identify the optimal number of contract types. Moreover, we argue that issues of political economy would impede the ability of government to achieve the optimal number of contract types, even if it were able to identify that number. Government, that is, may tend to either oversupply or undersupply contract types. Perhaps the best that government can do is to provide “soft” interventions that reflect appropriate defaults or safe harbors. (shrink)

What can we learn from cases of knowledge from falsehood? Critics of knowledge-first epistemology have argued that these cases provide us with good reason for rejecting the knowledge accounts of evidence, justification, and the norm of belief. I shall offer a limited defense of the knowledge-first approach to these matters. Knowledge from falsehood cases should undermine our confidence in like-from-like reasoning in epistemology. Just as we should be open to the idea that knowledge can come from non-knowledge, we should be (...) open to the idea that justified beliefs can come from unjustified beliefs. (shrink)

Certain combinations of attitudes are manifestly unreasonable. It is unreasonable to believe that dogs bark, for example, if one concedes that one has no justification to believe this. Why are the irrational combinations irrational? One suggestion is that these are attitudes that a subject cannot have justification to have. If this is right, we can test claims about the structure of propositional justification by relying on our observations about which combinations of attitudes constitute Moorean absurd pairs. In a recent defense (...) of access internalism, Smithies argues that only access internalism can explain why various combinations of attitude are irrational. In this paper, I shall argue that access internalism cannot explain the relevant data. Reflection on Moore's Paradox will not tell us much of anything about propositional justification and cannot support access internalism. (shrink)

We have written an introduction to epistemology that is accessible, engaging, and up to date. (We hope.) -/- Introduction Chapter 1: The Regress Problem Chapter 2: Perception Chapter 3: The Apriori Chapter 4: Inference Chapter 5: On Knowing the Truth Chapter 6: Memory Chapter 7: Testimony Chapter 8: Kinds of Knowledge Chapter 9: Internalism vs. Externalism Chapter 10: The Ethics of Belief Chapter 11: Skepticism .

In this book Philip Clayton defends the rationality of religious explanations by exploring the parallels between explanatory effects in the sciences and the explanations offered by religious believers, students of religion, and theologians. Clayton begins by surveying the types of religious explanation, offering a synopsis of the most significant competing positions. He then critically examines recent important developments in the philosophy of science regarding the nature of scientific explanations—including the work of Popper, Hempel, Kuhn, and Lakatos in the (...) natural sciences and Habermas, Weber, and Schütz in the social sciences. Clayton outlines the process of rational evaluation in these disciplines, defining the explanatory quest as the attempt to make sense of or bring coherence into subjective and intersubjective worlds. He briefly discusses explanations in philosophy and then turns to the explanatory role of individual religious experience, drawing on a coherence theory of meaning and on the conclusions from his discussion of science. Based on his defense of the doubting or “secular” believer, he concludes by advocating a model of theology in which questions about the truth of a religious tradition are intrinsic to its theology. “A valuable exposition of the thesis that the explanatory work of theology possesses formal similarities with that of the physical sciences, the social sciences, and philosophy. Clayton exhibits an impressive command of a broad area of scholarship, and his reflections are balanced and carefully argued.” –Michael J. Buckley, S.J., professor of religion at the Jesuit Theological Seminary and author of _At the Origins of Modern Atheism_ “I know of no philosopher writing today who has dealt in as informed and thoughtful a way with the broad subject of this book. Clayton guides the reader through important discussions with ease, illuminating the path all along the way.” –Josiah B. Gould, professor of philosophy at the State University of New York, Albany. (shrink)

In trying to distinguish the right kinds of reasons from the wrong, epistemologists often appeal to the connection to truth to explain why practical considerations cannot constitute reasons. The view they typically opt for is one on which only evidence can constitute a reason to believe. Talbot has shown that these approaches don’t exclude the possibility that there are non-evidential reasons for belief that can justify a belief without being evidence for that belief. He thinksthat there are indeed such reasons (...) and that they are theright kind of reasons to justify belief. The existence of such truth promoting non-epistemic reasons is said tofollow from the fact that we have an epistemic end that involves the attainment of true belief. I shall argue thatthere are no such reasons precisely because there is anepistemic end that has normative authority. (shrink)

Notwithstanding an ongoing concern about the low representation of certain groups in higher education, there is reluctance on the part of politicians and policy makers to adopt positive discrimination as an appropriate means of widening participation. This article offers an account of the different objections to positive discrimination and, thereafter, clarifies and criticises the view that universities ought to select those applicants who are expected to be most successful as students. It distinguishes arguments from meritocracy, desert, respect, and productivity and (...) shows how these arguments are compatible with the use of positive discrimination in higher education. (shrink)

Cases of reasonable, mistaken belief figure prominently in discussions of the knowledge norm of assertion and practical reason as putative counterexamples to these norms. These cases are supposed to show that the knowledge norm is too demanding and that some weaker norm ought to put in its place. These cases don't show what they're intended to. When you assert something false or treat some falsehood as if it's a reason for action, you might deserve an excuse. You often don't deserve (...) even that. (shrink)

Ultimately we will only understand biological agency when we have developed a theory of the organization of biological processes, and science is still a long way from attaining that goal. It may be possible nonetheless to develop a list of necessary conditions for the emergence of minimal biological agency. The authors offer a model of molecular autonomous agents which meets the five minimal physical conditions that are necessary (and, we believe, conjointly sufficient) for applying agential language in biology: autocatalytic reproduction; (...) work cycles; boundaries for reproducing individuals; self-propagating work and constraint construction; and choice and action that have evolved to respond to food or poison. When combined with the arguments from preadaptation and multiple realizability, the existence of these agents is sufficient to establish ontological emergence as against what one might call Weinbergian reductionism. Minimal biological agents are emphatically not conscious agents, and accepting their existence does not commit one to any robust theory of human agency. Nor is there anything mystical, dualistic, or non-empirical about the emergence of agency in the biosphere. Hence the emergence of molecular autonomous agents, and indeed ontological emergence in general, is not a negation of or limitation on careful biological study but simply one of its implications. (shrink)