This paper uses the debate about whether capital punishment deters homicide as a case study for examining the claim, made by many feminists and others, that the traditional ideal of objectivity in seeking knowledge is misguided. According to this ideal, knowledge seekers should strive to gather and assess evidence independently of any influences exerted by either their individual and societal circumstances or their moral values. This paper argues that, although the traditional ideal rests on some valid precepts, it is neverthelesss (...) untenable. the author goes on to propose an alternative epistemological ideal – one that retains these valid precepts but also recognizes an important and legitimate role for people's circumstances and moral values in their efforts to find knowledge. (shrink)

"Evidentialism" is the view that a person's epistemic justification for a doxastic attitude is determined entirely by his or her evidence for the content of that attitude. This paper has two goals. The first is to argue that values and circumstances properly influence epistemic justification, and that evidentialism is therefore untenable, even as an epistemic ideal. The second is to outline a nonevidentialist theory of epistemic justification that avoids the common objection that nonevidentialist theories fail to preserve important distinctions between (...) epistemic justification, on the one hand, and moral and prudential justification, on the other hand. (shrink)