This paper is an opinionated guide to the literature on normative epistemic reasons. After making some distinctions in §1, I begin in §2 by discussing the ontology of normative epistemic reasons, assessing arguments for and against the view that they are mental states, and concluding that they are not mental states. In §3, I examine the distinction between normative epistemic reasons there are and normative epistemic reasons we possess. I offer a novel account of this distinction and argue that we (...) in fact ought to acknowledge a threefold distinction between objective, possessed, and apparent normative epistemic reasons. In §4, I discuss the question of which normative reasons for doxastic attitudes are the epistemic ones, evaluating reasons against a simple evidentialist answer. Finally, in §5, I look at the role of reasons in epistemology, considering challenges to viewing reasons as the building blocks of epistemic normativity and maintaining that the challenges recommend a novel bi-level epistemology rather than a marginalization of reasons in epistemology. (shrink)

The paper is an opinionated tour of the literature on the reasons for which we hold beliefs and other doxastic attitudes, which I call ‘operative epistemic reasons’. After drawing some distinctions in §1, I begin in §2 by discussing the ontology of operative epistemic reasons, assessing arguments for and against the view that they are mental states. I recommend a pluralist non-mentalist view that takes seriously the variety of operative epistemic reasons ascriptions and allows these reasons to be both propositions (...) and truth-making facts. In §3, I turn to consider what it takes for a consideration to be an operative epistemic reason, examining three conditions – the representational, treating, and explanatory conditions – that have been proposed. I offer a novel view about the explanatory condition. In §4, I discuss the special case of inferential operative reasons and examine attempts to understand them in terms of rule-following, sketching a competence-based spinoff of dispositionalism. Finally, in §5, I consider whether there are non-inferential operative reasons, observing that one needn't countenance them to be a foundationalist but then developing a view about what they are and how they do and don't differ from inferential reasons. (shrink)

Having direct doxastic control would not be particularly desirable if exercising it required a failure of epistemic rationality. With that thought in mind, recent writers have invoked the view that epistemic rationality gives us options to defend the possibility of a significant form of direct doxastic control. Specifically, they suggest that when the evidence for p is sufficient but not conclusive, it would be epistemically rational either to believe p or to be agnostic on p, and they argue that we (...) can in these cases effectively decide to form either attitude without irrationality. This paper argues against the version of epistemic permissivism invoked by these writers and shows that other plausible versions of permissivism do not support their cause. It concludes that if we can exercise direct doxastic control without irrationality, it is not because epistemic rationality gives us options. (shrink)

Our recent review demonstrates that “purity” is a messy construct with at least nine popular scientific understandings. Cultural beliefs about self-control help unify some of these understandings, but much messiness remains. The harm-centric theory of dyadic morality suggests that purity violations can be comprehensively understood as abstract harms, acts perceived by some people (and not others) to indirectly cause suffering.

According to models of objectification, viewing someone as a body induces de-mentalization, stripping away their psychological traits. Here evidence is presented for an alternative account, where a body focus does not diminish the attribution of all mental capacities but, instead, leads perceivers to infer a different kind of mind. Drawing on the distinction in mind perception between agency and experience, it is found that focusing on someone's body reduces perceptions of agency but increases perceptions of experience. These effects were found (...) when comparing targets represented by both revealing versus nonrevealing pictures or by simply directing attention toward physical characteristics. The effect of a body focus on mind perception also influenced moral intuitions, with those represented as a body seen to be less morally responsible but more sensitive to harm. These effects suggest that a body focus does not cause objectification per se but, instead, leads to a redistribution of perceived mind. (shrink)

Some say the swamping problem confronts all who believe that true belief is the sole fundamental epistemic value. This, I say, is mistaken. The problem only confronts T-Monists if they grant two teleological claims: that all derived epistemic value is instrumental, and that it is the state of believing truly rather than the standard of truth in belief that is fundamentally epistemically valuable. T-Monists should reject and, and appeal to a non-teleological form of value derivation I call Fitting Response Derivation (...) that obviates swamping. Since, alas, simple reliabilists can’t apply this model to knowledge, the problem remains for them, and is local. (shrink)

People often make use of a spatial “mental time line” to represent events in time. We investigated whether the eyes follow such a mental time line during online language comprehension of sentences that refer to the past, present, and future. Participants' eye movements were measured on a blank screen while they listened to these sentences. Saccade direction revealed that the future is mapped higher up in space than the past. Moreover, fewer saccades were made when two events are simultaneously taking (...) place at the present moment compared to two events that are happening in different points in time. This is the first evidence that oculomotor correlates reflect mental looking along an abstract invisible time line during online language comprehension about time. Our results support the idea that observing eye movements is likely to “detect” invisible spatial scaffoldings which are involved in cognitively processing abstract meaning, even when the abstract meaning lacks an explicit spatial correlate. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, written more than ten years before Making it Explicit, I take a close look at the pivotal role which assertions play in human interactions. Tending a bridge from the Kantian theory of judgements to Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy, with the Fregean notion of conceptual content providing the pillars, and relying on the teachings drawn from the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy as keystones, I begin by questioning the dominant view of representationalism in analytical philosophy after Russell, Carnap and Tarski. It (...) is here that I begin weaving the conceptual network that will eventually blossom into the program of pragmatic rationalism with logical inferentialism and semantic expressivism as pivotal notions, manifest in our game of asking for and giving reasons. It is for these reasons that I agree that a bilingual version of this early piece seems a good starting point for the reflections on what unites and what divides la philosophical visions of Wittgenstein and my own. (shrink)

Individuals’ implicit theories that people’s character is fixed versus malleable are associated with their holding beliefs that morality is primarily determined by fulfilling prescribed duties versus upholding basic rights of others, respectively. Three studies provide evidence that the ability to recognize that a situation can legitimately be considered from a moral point of view is interactively dependent upon the nature of perceivers’ implicit theories and the extent to which the issue involves a violation that emphasizes a failure to fulfill a (...) prescribed duty versus a failure to uphold a fundamental right of others. The studies experimentally manipulated the characteristics of a hypothetical business situation to involve either a duty-based violation or a rights-based violation or no behavioral violation. In addition, Study 1 experimentally manipulated subjects’ implicit theories, while Studies 2 and 3 measured subjects’ chronically held implicit theories. Collectively, the studies provide consistent evidence that entity theorists have greater moral awareness than incremental theorists when considering situations involving duty-based violations, while incremental theorists have greater moral awareness than entity theorists when considering situations involving rights-based violations, and moral awareness is not significantly different for perceivers who are neither strongly entity nor incremental theorists, when considering situations involving duty- versus rights-based violations. Study 3 also found evidence of a moderated-mediated association between violation type and moral intentions, through moral awareness as a mediator, moderated by perceivers’ implicit theories. (shrink)

M̀atter Matters is a work of genius. The work exhibits a breathtaking spread of erudition from antiquity to the present, mobilized to elucidate the early modern significance of the concept of matter. The slight play of words in the title expresses the principal thesis of the work, that mathematics is intelligible for Descartes if and only if matter exists as its object. Smith understands, better than anyone, how Descartes could claim, literally, that "my physics is nothing but geometry." Many will (...) be convinced, some dismayed, and all will be dazzled by this book.'---Thomas M. Lennon, The University of Western Ontario". (shrink)

The question of the moral status of human nature is today being posed above all under the influence of medical and biotechnological aspects. These facilitate not only an increasing number of, but also increasingly far-reaching interventions and manipulations in humans, so that the perspective of a gradual "technologization" of his physical constitution can no longer be regarded as merely utopian. Some authors are convinced that this disturbing development can only be halted when an inherent value is (once again) ascribed to (...) human nature. After a short description of this situation (I), the following paper first examines the difficulties that arise as regards an adequately precise descriptive definition of human nature (II) and, in a second step, the problems posed by the necessity to define the normative status of human nature (III). It hereby comes to the conclusion that a precise definition of "human nature" is not possible for fundamental reasons, and that only a weak normativity can be warranted. (shrink)

In its first part, this paper seeks to make plausible (a) that molecular genetic diagnostics differs in ethically relevant ways from traditional types of medical diagnostics and (b) that the consequences of introducing this technology in broad screening-programs to detect widespread genetic diseases in a population which is not at high risk may change our understanding of health and disease in a problematic way. In its second part, the paper discusses some aspects of public control of scientific and technological innovations (...) in the field of molecular genetic diagnostics. (shrink)

This paper raises a dilemma for Skorupski’s meta-normative outlook in The Domain of Reasons and explores some escape routes, recommending a more thoroughgoing Kantianism as the best option. §1 argues that we cannot plausibly combine Skorupski’s spontaneity-based epistemology of normativity with his cognition-independent view of normative truth. §§2–4 consider whether we should keep the epistemology and revise the metaphysics, opting for constructivism. While Skorupski’s negative case for his spontaneity-based epistemology is found wanting, it is suggested that a better argument for (...) keeping the epistemology and switching to Kantian constructivism can be given from a thesis he finds appealing—viz., ‘cognitive internalism’. While this premise is not, it is argued, obviously true, the view it supports does provide a good way to undergird Skorupski’s most interesting rationale for his reasons-first approach. (shrink)

Viola Cordova was the first Native American woman to receive a PhD in philosophy. Even as she became an expert on canonical works of traditional Western philosophy, she devoted herself to defining a Native American philosophy. Although she passed away before she could complete her life’s work, some of her colleagues have organized her pioneering contributions into this provocative book. In three parts, Cordova sets out a complete Native American philosophy. First she explains her own understanding of the nature of (...) reality itself—the origins of the world, the relation of matter and spirit, the nature of time, and the roles of culture and language in understanding all of these. She then turns to our role as residents of the Earth, arguing that we become human as we deepen our relation to our people and to our places, and as we understand the responsibilities that grow from those relationships. In the final section, she calls for a new reverence in a world where there is no distinction between the sacred and the mundane. Cordova clearly contrasts Native American beliefs with the traditions of the Enlightenment and Christianized Europeans. By doing so, she leads her readers into a deeper understanding of both traditions and encourages us to question any view that claims a singular truth. From these essays—which are lucid, insightful, frequently funny, and occasionally angry—we receive a powerful new vision of how we can live with respect, reciprocity, and joy. (shrink)

1. It seems that the description and explanation of what is going on in inanimate nature differ in important respects from the description and explanation of what is going on when that involves human beings or certain animals. The difference is sometimes expressed by saying that whereas in the former case what we describe and explain is always events, in the latter it is sometimes events and sometimes actions. Material objects, one might say, do not do anything, do not perform (...) actions, are not agents. The question arises whether the differences between material objects and agents, and consequently between events and actions, are such as to render inapplicable to actions the categories of explanation employed in the natural sciences. This question is sometimes answered in the affirmative. In particular, it is argued that actions do not admit of causal explanations, or of explanations in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, or in terms which imply that the occurrence of an action is wholly determined. Or it is argued more cautiously, that, even if some kinds of action are so explicable, the most important kinds, those which are voluntary, intentional, deliberate, cannot be. In this essay, I argue for a third theory. It shares with the first two the view that in the narration and description of events and actions we do not employ exactly the same categories and that, therefore, in the explanation of one, reference may have to be made to types of fact not mentioned in the explanation of the other. Thus, in the explanation of why I raised my arm, I may have to refer to my purpose, intention or aim, whereas in the explanation of my arm’s going up, this may be irrelevant. Nevertheless, the theory here defended maintains that all kinds of action, including intentional ones, admit of causal or deterministic explanations. (shrink)

Gauthier's magnificent book erects a conception of morality, “morals by agreement,” on the foundation of his own theory of practical rationality. This is as it should be if, as he claims, following Hobbes and others, there is an initial “presumption against morality” and no theory of morals “can ever serve any useful purpose, unless it can show that all the duties it recommends are also truly endorsed in each individual's reason”, indeed, that it is a requirement of rationality that one (...) always satisfy the requirements of morality. This means, however, that the initial assumption against morality is inherited by his theory of practical rationality. His theory of morals therefore can serve a useful purpose only if his theory of rationality is sound. In this paper, I want to explore some of the more dubious aspects of that theory to see whether it can bear the heavy load of justification that “morals by agreement” places on it. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Falsity Inherent in Sensory Ideas Descartes, Arnauld, and the Notion of Material Falsity Some Leading Interpretations A New Interpretation Conclusion.

Building upon a recent call to renew actor-network theory (ANT) for educational research, this article reconsiders relations between technology and educational theory. Taking cues from actor-network theorists, this discussion considers the technologically-mediated networks in which learning actors are situated, acted upon, and acting, and traces the novel positions of creative capacity and participation that emerging media may enable. Whereas traditional theories of educational technology tend to focus on the harmonization of new technologies with extant curricular goals and educational practices, an (...) educational theory of technology looks to novel forms of technologically-mediated learning experience—from production pedagogies to role play in the virtual—to make visible the surprising relations, techniques, and opportunities that emerging media, and their attendant social contexts, may offer educational research. (shrink)

Das Thema "menschliche Natur" hat eine lange Tradition in der Geschichte des philosophischen Denkens. Vor allem in Krisenzeiten und an Epochenschwellen stellte sich immer wieder Frage, was der Mensch "eigentlich" ist. Es sollte daher auch nicht überraschen, daß diese Frage auch in der Gegenwart wieder eine zunehmende Aufmerksamkeit findet. Nach langen Jahren eines nur zurückhaltenden Interesses findet die philosophische Anthropologie wieder stärkere Aufmerksamkeit. - Und doch handelt es dabei nicht nur um die Wiederaufnahme eines alten Themas. Die philosophische Beschäftigung mit (...) der menschlichen Natur hat im Zusammenhang mit den Fortschritten der modernen Bio- und Informationstechnologie eine unmittelbar praktische Relevanz bekommen, die sie in dieser Weise niemals zuvor hatte. Durch diese Fortschritte haben nämlich die Möglichkeiten technischer Eingriffe am Menschen eine Dimension erreicht, die nicht mehr nur einzelne seiner Merkmale manipulierbar macht, sondern seine "Natur" selbst. Dies gilt insbesondere im Hinblick auf die nicht mehr vollkommen utopische Idee eines genetischen Umbaus der gesamten Menschheit. Die Frage, die sich vor diesem Hintergrund stellt, ist die nach dem normativen Status der menschlichen Natur. Ist die psycho-physische Gestalt, in der wir den Menschen seit jeder kennen, ein Produkt zufälliger evolutionärer Prozesse und als solche moralisch neutral; oder ist sie intrinsisch wertvoll und daher schützenswert? Die in der Literatur geäußerten Meinungen zu dieser Frage gehen auseinander. Auf der einen Seite stehen diejenigen, die in der menschlichen Natur lediglich eine Tatsache sehen und keinen Grund erkennen können, weshalb diese Tatsache sakrosankt ein sollte. Unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen, so behaupten die Vertreter dieser Partei, kann es nicht nur legitim sein, die menschliche Natur zu verbessern, es kann sogar moralisch geboten sein. Auf der anderen Seite stößt genau diese Vorstellung einer technischen Rekonstruktion des Menschen auf Empörung und Abscheu. Abgesehen von allen Risiken, die mit einem solchen Herumbasteln verbunden sind, werde der Mensch auf diese Weise auf ein beliebiges "Stück Natur" reduziert; er werde zum totalen Objekt technischen Handelns und seiner Würde beraubt. Der menschlichen Natur müsse daher ein inhärenter Wert zugeschrieben werden, um den unverantwortlichen Plänen der Menschheitsverbesserer eine kategorische Grenze zu setzen. Doch was ist die "menschliche Natur"? Worin besteht sie und wie kann sie angesichts der unübersehbaren individuellen und kulturellen Vielfalt definiert werden? Dies ist die erste Frage, der die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes gewidmet sind. Und an sie schließt sich sogleich eine zweite an: Wenn es denn eine menschliche Natur gibt und wenn diese hinlänglich genau umrissen werden kann: Kann oder muß ihr dann ein moralischer Status zugeschrieben werden? Und welcher Art ist dieser Status: Ist er der menschlichen Natur inhärent oder leitet er sich von etwas anderem ab? -. (shrink)