When patients refuse to receive medical treatment, the consequences of honouring their decisions ... more When patients refuse to receive medical treatment, the consequences of honouring their decisions can be tragic. This is no less true of patients who autonomously decide to refuse treatment. I distinguish three possible implications of these autonomous decisions. According to the Permissibility Claim, such a decision implies that it is permissible for the patient who has made the autonomous decision to forego medical treatment. According to the Anti-Paternalism Claim, it follows that health care professionals are not morally permitted to treat that patient. According to the Binding Claim it follows that these decisions are binding on health care professionals. My focus is the last claim. After arguing that it is importantly different from each of the first two claims, I give two arguments to show that it is false. One argument against the Binding Claim draws a comparison with cases in which patients autonomously choose perilous positive treatments. The other argument appeals to considered judgments about cases in which disincentives are used to deter patients from refusing sound treatments.
Ernest Sosa and others have proposed a safety condition on knowledge: If S knows p, then in the n... more Ernest Sosa and others have proposed a safety condition on knowledge: If S knows p, then in the nearest (non-actual) worlds in which S believes p, p is true. 1 Colloquially, this is the idea that knowing requires not being easily mistaken. Here, I will argue that like another condition requiring a counterfactual relation between a subject's belief and the world, viz. Robert Nozick's sensitivity condition, safety leads, in certain cases, to the unacceptable result that knowledge is not closed under known implication. Let's begin with Nozick's condition. It says that if S knows that p, then in the nearest (non-actual) worlds in which p is false, S does not believe p. Nozick himself was aware that this condition is not closed under known entailment. Roughly, a condition, c, is closed under known entailment just in case the following is true: if S meets c with respect to p and S knows that p entails q, then S meets c with respect to q. 2 To illustrate the fact that sensitivity is not closed, Nozick used a familiar case. Take someone who, on the basis of looking, believes that he has hands. This belief is sensitive, since in the nearest worlds in which he is handless, our subject was the victim of an unfortunate accident, an accident whose effects he would be all too aware of. Our subject knows, and can employ, the straightforward entailment that if he has hands then he is not a handless brainin-a-vat who is being fed experiences which suggest that he has hands. However,
What does current empirically-informed moral psychology imply about the goals that can be realist... more What does current empirically-informed moral psychology imply about the goals that can be realistically achieved in college-level applied ethics courses? This paper takes up this question from the vantage point of Jonathan Haidt’s Social Intuitionist Model of human moral judgment. I summarize Haidt’s model, and then consider a variety of pedagogical goals. I begin with two of the loftiest goals of ethics education, and argue that neither is within realistic reach if Haidt’s model is correct. I then look at three goals that can be achieved if his model is correct; but each of these goals, I argue, lacks significant value. I end by identifying three goals that are of significant value and also realistically attainable on Haidt’s model. These should be the focus of applied ethics pedagogy if Haidt’s model is correct.
A novel argument is offered against the following popular condition on inferential knowledge: a p... more A novel argument is offered against the following popular condition on inferential knowledge: a person inferentially knows a conclusion only if they know each of the claims from which they essentially inferred that conclusion. The epistemology of conditional proof reveals that we sometimes come to know conditionals by inferring them from assumptions rather than beliefs. Since knowledge requires belief, cases of knowing via conditional proof refute the popular knowledge from knowledge condition. It also suggests more radical cases against the condition and it brings to light the underrecognized category of inferential basic knowledge.
The traditional way of drawing the a priori/a posteriori distinction, bequeathed to us by Kant, l... more The traditional way of drawing the a priori/a posteriori distinction, bequeathed to us by Kant, leads to overestimating the role that experience plays in justifying our beliefs. There is an irony in this: though Kant was in the rationalist camp, his way of drawing the distinction gives an unfair advantage to radical empiricism. I offer an alternative way of drawing the distinction, one that does not bias the rationalist/empiricist debate. Rationalists claim that some of our beliefs are justified a priori. Radical empiricists deny this-they claim that all our justified beliefs are justified a posteriori. At the heart of this debate lies the a priori/a posteriori distinction. In Section 1 of what follows, I argue that the traditional way of drawing this distinction, which traces back to Kant, misleads us into overestimating the role that experience plays in justifying our beliefs. There is an irony in this: though Kant was in the rationalist camp, his way of drawing the distinction gives empiricism an unfair advantage. In Section 2, I offer another way of drawing the distinction, one that does not unfairly bias the rationalist/empiricist debate. I. AGAINST KANT Kant draws the a priori/a posteriori distinction at the beginning of the Critique: we shall understand by a priori knowledge, not knowledge independent of this or that experience, but knowledge absolutely independent of all experience. Opposed
This paper looks at an argument strategy for assessing the epistemic closure principle. This is t... more This paper looks at an argument strategy for assessing the epistemic closure principle. This is the principle that says knowledge is closed under known entailment; or (roughly) if S knows p and S knows that p entails q, then S knows that q. The strategy in question looks to the individual conditions on knowledge to see if they are closed. According to one conjecture, if all the individual conditions are closed, then so too is knowledge. I give a deductive argument for this conjecture. According to a second conjecture, if one (or more) condition is not closed, then neither is knowledge. I give an inductive argument for this conjecture. In sum, I defend the strategy by defending the claim that knowledge is closed if, and only if, all the conditions on knowledge are closed. After making my case, I look at what this means for the debate over whether knowledge is closed. According to the epistemic closure principle (hereafter, Closure), if someone knows that P, knows that P entails Q, goes on to infer Q, and in this way bases their belief that Q on their belief that P and their belief that P entails Q, then they know that Q. Similar principles cover proposed conditions on knowledge. Call the conditions on knowledge, whatever they might be, k-conditions. A kcondition, C, is closed if and only if the following is true: if S meets C with respect to P and S meets C with respect to P entails Q, and S goes on to infer from these to believe Q thereby basing her belief that Q on these other beliefs, then S meets C with respect to Q. 1 On one view about the relationship between knowledge and its conditions, Closure is true just in case all k-conditions are closed. Call this the Equivalence Claim. It factors into two claims. One is
ABSTRACTThis article offers a novel sceptical argument that the sensitivity-contextualist must sa... more ABSTRACTThis article offers a novel sceptical argument that the sensitivity-contextualist must say is sound; moreover, she must say that the conclusion of this argument is true at ordinary standards. The view under scrutiny has it that in different contexts knowledge-attributing sentences express different propositions, propositions which differ in the stretch of worlds across which the subject is required to track the truth. I identify the underlying reason for the sceptical result and argue that it makes sensitivity-contextualism irremediably flawed. Contextualists, I conclude, should abandon sensitivity for some other piece of epistemic machinery.
According to the thesis of epistemological contextualism, the truth conditions of sentences of th... more According to the thesis of epistemological contextualism, the truth conditions of sentences of the form 'S knows that P' and 'S does not know that P' vary according to the context in which they are uttered, where this variation is due to the semantics of 'knows'. Among the linguistic data that have been offered in support of epistemological contextualism are cases that are ordinary in the sense that they involve a consideration neither of skeptical hypotheses nor of skeptical arguments. Both Stewart Cohen and Keith DeRose, contextualism's two most prominent proponents, provide such cases. In a recent paper, DeRose goes so far as to claim that such cases provide the best grounds for accepting contextualism. 1 In what follows, we argue that these cases do not support contextualism. In fact, they point in the direction of epistemological invariantism-the thesis that sentences of the form 'S knows that P' and 'S does not know that P' do not vary according to the context in which they are uttered.
When patients refuse to receive medical treatment, the consequences of honouring their decisions ... more When patients refuse to receive medical treatment, the consequences of honouring their decisions can be tragic. This is no less true of patients who autonomously decide to refuse treatment. I distinguish three possible implications of these autonomous decisions. According to the Permissibility Claim, such a decision implies that it is permissible for the patient who has made the autonomous decision to forego medical treatment. According to the Anti-Paternalism Claim, it follows that health care professionals are not morally permitted to treat that patient. According to the Binding Claim it follows that these decisions are binding on health care professionals. My focus is the last claim. After arguing that it is importantly different from each of the first two claims, I give two arguments to show that it is false. One argument against the Binding Claim draws a comparison with cases in which patients autonomously choose perilous positive treatments. The other argument appeals to considered judgments about cases in which disincentives are used to deter patients from refusing sound treatments.
Ernest Sosa and others have proposed a safety condition on knowledge: If S knows p, then in the n... more Ernest Sosa and others have proposed a safety condition on knowledge: If S knows p, then in the nearest (non-actual) worlds in which S believes p, p is true. 1 Colloquially, this is the idea that knowing requires not being easily mistaken. Here, I will argue that like another condition requiring a counterfactual relation between a subject's belief and the world, viz. Robert Nozick's sensitivity condition, safety leads, in certain cases, to the unacceptable result that knowledge is not closed under known implication. Let's begin with Nozick's condition. It says that if S knows that p, then in the nearest (non-actual) worlds in which p is false, S does not believe p. Nozick himself was aware that this condition is not closed under known entailment. Roughly, a condition, c, is closed under known entailment just in case the following is true: if S meets c with respect to p and S knows that p entails q, then S meets c with respect to q. 2 To illustrate the fact that sensitivity is not closed, Nozick used a familiar case. Take someone who, on the basis of looking, believes that he has hands. This belief is sensitive, since in the nearest worlds in which he is handless, our subject was the victim of an unfortunate accident, an accident whose effects he would be all too aware of. Our subject knows, and can employ, the straightforward entailment that if he has hands then he is not a handless brainin-a-vat who is being fed experiences which suggest that he has hands. However,
What does current empirically-informed moral psychology imply about the goals that can be realist... more What does current empirically-informed moral psychology imply about the goals that can be realistically achieved in college-level applied ethics courses? This paper takes up this question from the vantage point of Jonathan Haidt’s Social Intuitionist Model of human moral judgment. I summarize Haidt’s model, and then consider a variety of pedagogical goals. I begin with two of the loftiest goals of ethics education, and argue that neither is within realistic reach if Haidt’s model is correct. I then look at three goals that can be achieved if his model is correct; but each of these goals, I argue, lacks significant value. I end by identifying three goals that are of significant value and also realistically attainable on Haidt’s model. These should be the focus of applied ethics pedagogy if Haidt’s model is correct.
A novel argument is offered against the following popular condition on inferential knowledge: a p... more A novel argument is offered against the following popular condition on inferential knowledge: a person inferentially knows a conclusion only if they know each of the claims from which they essentially inferred that conclusion. The epistemology of conditional proof reveals that we sometimes come to know conditionals by inferring them from assumptions rather than beliefs. Since knowledge requires belief, cases of knowing via conditional proof refute the popular knowledge from knowledge condition. It also suggests more radical cases against the condition and it brings to light the underrecognized category of inferential basic knowledge.
The traditional way of drawing the a priori/a posteriori distinction, bequeathed to us by Kant, l... more The traditional way of drawing the a priori/a posteriori distinction, bequeathed to us by Kant, leads to overestimating the role that experience plays in justifying our beliefs. There is an irony in this: though Kant was in the rationalist camp, his way of drawing the distinction gives an unfair advantage to radical empiricism. I offer an alternative way of drawing the distinction, one that does not bias the rationalist/empiricist debate. Rationalists claim that some of our beliefs are justified a priori. Radical empiricists deny this-they claim that all our justified beliefs are justified a posteriori. At the heart of this debate lies the a priori/a posteriori distinction. In Section 1 of what follows, I argue that the traditional way of drawing this distinction, which traces back to Kant, misleads us into overestimating the role that experience plays in justifying our beliefs. There is an irony in this: though Kant was in the rationalist camp, his way of drawing the distinction gives empiricism an unfair advantage. In Section 2, I offer another way of drawing the distinction, one that does not unfairly bias the rationalist/empiricist debate. I. AGAINST KANT Kant draws the a priori/a posteriori distinction at the beginning of the Critique: we shall understand by a priori knowledge, not knowledge independent of this or that experience, but knowledge absolutely independent of all experience. Opposed
This paper looks at an argument strategy for assessing the epistemic closure principle. This is t... more This paper looks at an argument strategy for assessing the epistemic closure principle. This is the principle that says knowledge is closed under known entailment; or (roughly) if S knows p and S knows that p entails q, then S knows that q. The strategy in question looks to the individual conditions on knowledge to see if they are closed. According to one conjecture, if all the individual conditions are closed, then so too is knowledge. I give a deductive argument for this conjecture. According to a second conjecture, if one (or more) condition is not closed, then neither is knowledge. I give an inductive argument for this conjecture. In sum, I defend the strategy by defending the claim that knowledge is closed if, and only if, all the conditions on knowledge are closed. After making my case, I look at what this means for the debate over whether knowledge is closed. According to the epistemic closure principle (hereafter, Closure), if someone knows that P, knows that P entails Q, goes on to infer Q, and in this way bases their belief that Q on their belief that P and their belief that P entails Q, then they know that Q. Similar principles cover proposed conditions on knowledge. Call the conditions on knowledge, whatever they might be, k-conditions. A kcondition, C, is closed if and only if the following is true: if S meets C with respect to P and S meets C with respect to P entails Q, and S goes on to infer from these to believe Q thereby basing her belief that Q on these other beliefs, then S meets C with respect to Q. 1 On one view about the relationship between knowledge and its conditions, Closure is true just in case all k-conditions are closed. Call this the Equivalence Claim. It factors into two claims. One is
ABSTRACTThis article offers a novel sceptical argument that the sensitivity-contextualist must sa... more ABSTRACTThis article offers a novel sceptical argument that the sensitivity-contextualist must say is sound; moreover, she must say that the conclusion of this argument is true at ordinary standards. The view under scrutiny has it that in different contexts knowledge-attributing sentences express different propositions, propositions which differ in the stretch of worlds across which the subject is required to track the truth. I identify the underlying reason for the sceptical result and argue that it makes sensitivity-contextualism irremediably flawed. Contextualists, I conclude, should abandon sensitivity for some other piece of epistemic machinery.
According to the thesis of epistemological contextualism, the truth conditions of sentences of th... more According to the thesis of epistemological contextualism, the truth conditions of sentences of the form 'S knows that P' and 'S does not know that P' vary according to the context in which they are uttered, where this variation is due to the semantics of 'knows'. Among the linguistic data that have been offered in support of epistemological contextualism are cases that are ordinary in the sense that they involve a consideration neither of skeptical hypotheses nor of skeptical arguments. Both Stewart Cohen and Keith DeRose, contextualism's two most prominent proponents, provide such cases. In a recent paper, DeRose goes so far as to claim that such cases provide the best grounds for accepting contextualism. 1 In what follows, we argue that these cases do not support contextualism. In fact, they point in the direction of epistemological invariantism-the thesis that sentences of the form 'S knows that P' and 'S does not know that P' do not vary according to the context in which they are uttered.
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