45 found
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  1. What's Special about Moral Ignorance?Jan Willem Wieland - 2017 - Ratio 30 (2).
    According to an influential view by Elizabeth Harman, moral ignorance, as opposed to factual ignorance, never excuses one from blame. In defense of this view, Harman appeals to the following considerations: that moral ignorance always implies a lack of good will, and that moral truth is always accessible. In this paper, I clearly distinguish these considerations, and present challenges to both. If my arguments are successful, sometimes moral ignorance excuses.
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  2. Willful Ignorance.Jan Willem Wieland - 2017 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20 (1):105-119.
    Michelle Moody-Adams suggests that “the main obstacle to moral progress in social practices is the tendency to widespread affected ignorance of what can and should already be known.” This explanation is promising, though to understand it we need to know what willful (affected, motivated, strategic) ignorance actually is. This paper presents a novel analysis of this concept, which builds upon Moody-Adams (1994) and is contrasted with a recent account by Lynch (2016).
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  3. Responsibility for Strategic Ignorance.Jan Willem Wieland - 2017 - Synthese 194 (11):4477-4497.
    Strategic ignorance is a widespread phenomenon. In a laboratory setting, many participants avoid learning information about the consequences of their behaviour in order to act egoistically. In real life, many consumers avoid information about their purchases or the working conditions in which they were produced in order to retain their lifestyle. The question is whether agents are blameworthy for such strategically ignorant behaviour. In this paper, I explore quality of will resources, according to which agents are blameworthy, roughly, depending on (...)
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  4. Infinite Regress Arguments.Jan Willem Wieland - 2013 - Acta Analytica 28 (1):95-109.
    Infinite regress arguments play an important role in many distinct philosophical debates. Yet, exactly how they are to be used to demonstrate anything is a matter of serious controversy. In this paper I take up this metaphilosophical debate, and demonstrate how infinite regress arguments can be used for two different purposes: either they can refute a universally quantified proposition (as the Paradox Theory says), or they can demonstrate that a solution never solves a given problem (as the Failure Theory says). (...)
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  5. The Epistemic Condition.Jan Willem Wieland - 2017 - In Philip Robichaud & Jan Wieland (eds.), Responsibility - The Epistemic Condition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    This introduction provides an overview of the current state of the debate on the epistemic condition of moral responsibility. In sect. 1, we discuss the main concepts ‘ignorance’ and ‘responsibility’. In sect. 2, we ask why agents should inform themselves. In sect. 3, we describe what we take to be the core agreement among main participants in the debate. In sect. 4, we explain how this agreement invites a regress argument with a revisionist implication. In sect. 5, we provide an (...)
     
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  6. Infinite Regress Arguments.Jan Willem Wieland - 2013 - Cham: Springer.
    This book on infinite regress arguments provides (i) an up-to-date overview of the literature on the topic, (ii) ready-to-use insights for all domains of philosophy, and (iii) two case studies to illustrate these insights in some detail. Infinite regress arguments play an important role in all domains of philosophy. There are infinite regresses of reasons, obligations, rules, and disputes, and all are supposed to have their own moral. Yet most of them are involved in controversy. Hence the question is: what (...)
  7. Participation and Superfluity.Jan Willem Wieland & Rutger van Oeveren - 2020 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 17 (2):163-187.
    Why act when the effects of one’s act are negligible? For example, why boycott sweatshop or animal products if doing so makes no difference for the better? According to recent proposals, one may still have a reason to boycott in order to avoid complicity or participation in harm. Julia Nefsky has argued that accounts of this kind suffer from the so-called “superfluity problem,” basically the question of why agents can be said to participate in harm if they make no difference (...)
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  8.  32
    (2 other versions)Relata-specificity: A Response to Vallicella.Jan Willem Wieland & Arianna Betti - 2008 - Dialectica 62 (4):509-524.
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  9. Is Justification Dialectical?Jan Willem Wieland - 2013 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 3 (3):182-201.
    Much of present-day epistemology is divided between internalists and externalists. Different as these views are, they have in common that they strip justification from its dialectical component in order to block the skeptic’s argument from disagreement. That is, they allow that one may have justified beliefs even if one is not able to defend it against challenges and resolve the disagreements about them. Lammenranta (2008, 2011a) recently argued that neither internalism nor externalism convinces if we consider the argument in its (...)
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  10.  33
    Withstanding Tensions: Scientific Disagreement and Epistemic Tolerance.Christian Straßer, Dunja Šešelja & Jan Willem Wieland - 2014 - Heuristic Reasoning:113–146.
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  11.  83
    A Puzzle Concerning Blame Transfer.Philip Robichaud & Jan Willem Wieland - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 99 (1):3-26.
    Suppose that you are a doctor and that you prescribed a drug to a patient who died as a result. Suppose further that you could have known about the risks of this drug, and that you are blameworthy for your ignorance. Does the blameworthiness for your ignorance ‘transfer’ to blameworthiness for your ignorant action in this case? Many are inclined accept that such transfer can occur and that blameworthiness for ignorant conduct can be derivative or indirect in this way. In (...)
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  12. Blame Transfer.Jan Willem Wieland & Philip Robichaud - 2017 - In Philip Robichaud & Jan Wieland (eds.), Responsibility - The Epistemic Condition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Many philosophers accept derivative blameworthiness for ignorant conduct – the idea that the blameworthiness for one’s ignorance can ‘transfer’ to blameworthiness for one’s subsequent ignorant conduct. In this chapter we ask the question what it actually means that blameworthiness would transfer, and explore four distinct views and their merits. On views (I) and (II), one’s overall degree of blameworthiness is determined by factors relevant to one’s ignorance and/or one’s subsequent conduct, and transfer only involves an increase in scope. On views (...)
     
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  13.  32
    Participation and Degrees.Jan Willem Wieland - 2022 - Utilitas 34 (1):39-56.
    What's wrong with joining corona parties? In this article, I defend the idea that reasons to avoid such parties come in degrees. I approach this issue from a participation-based perspective. Specifically, I argue that the more people are already joining the party, and the more likely it is that the virus will spread among everyone, the stronger the participation-based reason not to join. In defense of these degrees, I argue that they covary with the expression of certain attitudes.
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  14. Filling a Typical Gap in a Regress Argument.Jan Willem Wieland - 2011 - Logique and Analyse 54 (216):589-–597.
    In this paper I fix a typical regress argument, locate a typical gap in the argument, and try to supply a number of gap-filling readings of its first premise.
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  15. And So On. Two Theories of Regress Arguments in Philosophy.Jan Willem Wieland - 2012 - Dissertation,
    This dissertation is on infinite regress arguments in philosophy. Its main goals are to explain what such arguments from many distinct philosophical debates have in common, and to provide guidelines for using and evaluating them. Two theories are reviewed: the Paradox Theory and the Failure Theory. According to the Paradox Theory, infinite regress arguments can be used to refute an existentially or universally quantified statement (e.g. to refute the statement that at least one discussion is settled, or the statement that (...)
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  16. Sceptical Rationality.Jan Willem Wieland - 2014 - Analytic Philosophy 55 (1):222-238.
    It is widely assumed that it is rational to suspend one’s belief regarding a certain proposition only if one’s evidence is neutral regarding that proposition. In this paper I broaden this condition, and defend, on the basis of an improved ancient argument, that it is rational to suspend one’s belief even if the available evidence is not neutral – or even close to neutral.
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  17.  94
    Strong and Weak Regress Arguments.Jan Willem Wieland - 2013 - Logique and Analyse 224:439-461.
    In the literature, regress arguments often take one of two different forms: either they conclude that a given solution fails to solve any problem of a certain kind (the strong conclusion), or they conclude that a given solution fails to solve all problems of a certain kind (the weaker conclusion). This gives rise to a logical problem: do regresses entail the strong or the weaker conclusion, or none? In this paper I demonstrate that regress arguments can in fact take both (...)
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  18. Access and the Shirker Problem.Jan Willem Wieland - 2015 - American Philosophical Quarterly 52 (3):289-300.
    The Access principle places an epistemic restriction on our obligations. This principle falls prey to the ‘Shirker Problem’, namely that shirkers could evade their obligations by evading certain epistemic circumstances. To block this problem, it has been suggested that shirkers have the obligation to learn their obligations. This solution yields a regress, yet it is controversial what the moral of the regress actually is. The aim of this paper is two-fold. First, I spell out this intricate dispute. Second, on the (...)
     
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  19. Regress Argument Reconstruction.Jan Willem Wieland - 2012 - Argumentation 26 (4):489-503.
    If an argument can be reconstructed in at least two different ways, then which reconstruction is to be preferred? In this paper I address this problem of argument reconstruction in terms of Ryle’s infinite regress argument against the view that knowledge-how requires knowledge-that. First, I demonstrate that Ryle’s initial statement of the argument does not fix its reconstruction as it admits two, structurally different reconstructions. On the basis of this case and infinite regress arguments generally, I defend a revisionary take (...)
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  20. Can Pyrrhonists Act Normally?Jan Willem Wieland - 2012 - Philosophical Explorations 15 (3):277-289.
    Pyrrhonism is the view that we should suspend all our beliefs in order to be rational and reach peace of mind. One of the main objections against this view is that it makes action impossible. One cannot suspend all beliefs and act normally at once. Yet, the question is: What is it about actions that they require beliefs? This issue has hardly been clarified in the literature. This is a bad situation, for if the objection fails and it turns out (...)
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  21. Metaphysical Explanatory Asymmetries.Jan Willem Wieland & Erik Weber - 2010 - Logique and Analyse 53 (211):345-365.
    The general view is that metaphysical explanation is asymmetric. For instance, if resemblance facts can be explained by facts about their relata, then, by the asymmetry of explanation, these latter facts cannot in turn be explained by the former. The question however is: is there any reason to hold on to the asymmetry? If so, what does it consist in? In the paper we approach these questions by comparing them to analogous questions that have been investigated for scientific explanations. Three (...)
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  22.  29
    Cooperation – Kantian-style.Jan Willem Wieland - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Should you reduce your energy consumption? Tragically enough, it may be better for you, and for everyone involved, to refrain from doing so even if you care about the climate. Given this tragedy, why cooperate? This paper defends the view that not cooperating is morally problematic because it is not universalizable (in a Kantian sense). That is, I will argue that we have universalizability-based reasons to cooperate as long as we have a preference for ‘collective success’ (e.g. a sustainable planet). (...)
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  23. Introduction.Erik Weber, Jan Willem Wieland & Tim Mey - 2010 - Logique Et Analyse 53.
     
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  24.  10
    Intra/Inter Paradox.Jan Willem Wieland - 2024 - Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 17 (1):aa-aa.
    This paper addresses the following paradox. (P1) It is permitted to defect in intrapersonal dilemmas as long as there is a solution to achieve one’s long-term goal. (P2) It is not permitted to defect in interpersonal dilemmas, even when there is a similar solution to achieve a collective goal. (P3) There is no relevant difference between intrapersonal and interpersonal dilemmas. At least one of the three propositions must go. In this paper, I show how (P1) is supported by Chrisoula Andreou’s (...)
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  25. What problem of universals?Jan Willem Wieland - 2008 - Philosophica 81 (81):7-21.
    What is the Problem of Universals? In this paper we take up the classic question and proceed as follows. In Sect. 1 we consider three problem solving settings and define the notion of problem solving accordingly. Basically I say that to solve problems is to eliminate undesirable, unspecified, or apparently incoherent scenarios. In Sect. 2 we apply the general observations from Sect. 1 to the Problem of Universals. More specifically, we single out two accounts of the problem which are based (...)
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  26. What Carroll’s Tortoise Actually Proves.Jan Willem Wieland - 2013 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (5):983-997.
    Rationality requires us to have certain propositional attitudes (beliefs, intentions, etc.) given certain other attitudes that we have. Carroll’s Tortoise repeatedly shows up in this discussion. Following up on Brunero (Ethical Theory Moral Pract 8:557–569, 2005), I ask what Carroll-style considerations actually prove. This paper rejects two existing suggestions, and defends a third.
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  27. The Sceptic's Tools: Circularity and Infinite Regress.Jan Willem Wieland - 2011 - Philosophical Papers 40 (3):359-369.
    Important sceptical arguments by Sextus Empiricus, Hume and Boghossian (concerning disputes, induction, and relativism respectively) are based on circularities and infinite regresses. Yet, philosophers' practice does not keep circularities and infinite regresses clearly apart. In this metaphilosophical paper I show how circularity and infinite regress arguments can be made explicit, and shed light on two powerful tools of the sceptic.
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  28.  54
    Enhancing Responsibility.Naomi Kloosterboer & Jan Willem Wieland - 2017 - Journal of Social Philosophy 48 (4):421-439.
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  29.  68
    Attributionism and Counterfactual Robustness.Rutger van Oeveren & Jan Willem Wieland - 2017 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (3):594-599.
    In this journal, Vishnu Sridharan presents a novel objection to attributionism, the view according to which agents are responsible for their conduct when it reflects who they are or what they value. The key to Sridharan's objection is that agents can fulfil all attributionist conditions for responsibility while being under the control of a manipulator. In this paper, we show that Sridharan's objection falls prey to a dilemma—either his manipulator is counterfactually robust, or she is not—and that neither of its (...)
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  30. Anti-Positionalism’s Regress.Jan Willem Wieland - 2010 - Axiomathes 20 (4):479-493.
    This paper is about the Problem of Order, which is basically the problem how to account for both the distinctness of facts like a’s preceding b and b’s preceding a, and the identity of facts like a’s preceding b and b’s succeeding a. It has been shown that the Standard View fails to account for the second part and is therefore to be replaced. One of the contenders is Anti-Positionalism. As has recently been pointed out, however, Anti-Positionalism falls prey to (...)
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  31.  37
    Evidence One Does Not Possess.Jan Willem Wieland - 2017 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 4.
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  32.  31
    Indifference as excuse.Jan Willem Wieland & Jojanneke Vanderveen - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    According to an influential view, ‘the amount of blame people deserve varies with the extent of their indifference’. That is, the more wrongdoers act from a lack of moral concern, the more they would be blameworthy. This paper argues for the exact opposite claim: the more wrongdoers act from indifference, the less they are blameworthy – that is, in a properly interpersonal way.
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  33. Oneindige regressieargumenten.Jan Willem Wieland - 2013 - Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 105 (1):1-14.
    Infinite regress arguments show up in many philosophical debates. But what actually is a regress argument? This article reviews two theories: the Paradox Theory and the Failure Theory. According to the Paradox Theory, regress arguments can be used to refute an existentially or universally quantified statement (e.g. to refute the statement that at least one discussion is settled, or the statement that discussions are settled only if there is an agreed-upon criterion to settle them). According to the Failure Theory, regress (...)
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  34. (1 other version)Carving the World As We Please.Jan Willem Wieland - 2012 - Philosophica 84 (1):7-24.
    Nelson Goodman defends the seemingly radical view that, in a certain sense, all facts depend on our perspective on the matter. We make the world, rather than merely find it. The aim of this contribution is three-fold: to make sense of Goodman's metaphysical perspectivalism, clearly explain how it differs from other branches of perspectivalism (epistemic and semantic), and put two issues on the agenda that deserve renewed attention.
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  35.  22
    Nuttige illusies puur geluk?Koendert Rook & Jan Willem Wieland - 2019 - Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 111 (1):159-167.
    Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.
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  36.  33
    Analysing Thought Experiments.Jan Willem Wieland & Matthijs Endt - 2017 - Teaching Philosophy 40 (3):367-383.
    Philosophers such as Gettier, Frankfurt, and Thomson are famous for their thought experiments. This makes one wonder: how did they invent their cases? Were they just lucky to devise a good case, or did they follow some basic rules that are available to all of us? In this paper, we argue for the latter answer by presenting a guidebook for analysing thought experiments. Our guidebook clearly specifies which factors should be included in a thought experiment, and which factors should be (...)
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  37.  24
    Degrees of criminal culpability.Jan Willem Wieland - 2021 - Jurisprudence 12 (2):269-281.
    According to Alexander Sarch, criminal culpability is a special kind of culpability, which moreover comes in degrees.1 This paper critically examines his acc...
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  38.  26
    De opschorting van het oordeel.Jan Willem Wieland - 2016 - Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 108 (1):3-17.
    Suspension of Judgment What does it take to suspend one’s judgment? In this introduction to the special issue ‘Scepticism and the suspension of judgment’, I present a conceptual analysis of suspension of judgment (what it is, what it isn’t, and why we might want to do it). Basically I argue that suspension is a mental attitude of neutrality. If you suspend judgment on a certain proposition, you are neutral towards its truth. In addition, I make a few suggestions on how (...)
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  39.  62
    De pyrronistische zaak.Jan Willem Wieland - 2012 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 74 (3):523-532.
    This article critically reviews a new collection on Pyrrhonism edited by Diego Machuca, Pyrrhonism in Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary Philosophy, which fits within the recent focus on the systematic, philosophical import of Pyrrhonism. In this article I both situate and summarize the problems posed by the authors regarding the Pyrrhonist's position (concerning its coherence, its theoretical motivation, and its practical motivation), and indicate to what extent Pyrrhonists might be able to meet them. I conclude that, so far, Pyrrhonism, i.e. the (...)
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  40.  22
    Ordinary and Detached Blameworthiness.Jan Willem Wieland - 2021 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 18 (1):75-86.
    Elinor Mason argues that there are different kinds of blameworthiness: ordinary and detached. In the following, I summarize the key aspects of both kinds, and critically discuss the exact boundaries between them. According to Mason, we should not blame wrongdoers in the ordinary way if they do not know that their conduct is problematic. This is plausible insofar as the function of ordinary blame is to remind wrongdoers of values that they already share, but I will suggest that we need (...)
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  41.  28
    Redactioneel.Jan Willem Wieland - 2016 - Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 108 (1):1-2.
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  42. Rules Regresses.Jan Willem Wieland - 2011 - AGPC 2010 Proceedings:79-92.
    Is the content of our thoughts determined by norms such as ‘if I know that p, then I ought to believe that p’? Glüer & Wikforss (2009a) set forth a regress argument for a negative answer. The aim of this paper is to clarify and evaluate this argument. In the first part I show how it (just like an argument from Wittgenstein 1953) can be taken as an instance of an argument schema. In the second part, I evaluate the relevant (...)
     
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  43.  32
    Wat als Jones meer of minder weet?Jan Willem Wieland - 2013 - Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 105 (4):254-256.
    Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.
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  44. On Gratton’s Infinite Regress Arguments: Claude Gratton: Infinite Regress Arguments. In Argumentation Library . Springer, Dordrecht, 2010. [REVIEW]Jan Willem Wieland - 2011 - Argumentation 25 (1):107-113.
    Book review of Gratton's Infinite Regress Arguments.
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  45.  46
    Belief and Truth: A Skeptic Reading of Plato, by Katja Maria Vogt.: Book Reviews. [REVIEW]Jan Willem Wieland - 2013 - Mind 122 (488):1204-1207.