Variantism about Responsibility

This chapter argues that experimental assessment of intuition pumps in the moral responsibility literature presses a dilemma on philosophically orthodox approaches to moral responsibility, which frequently maintain both invariantism and conservativism. Invariantist approaches maintain that there are exceptionlessly relevant criteria for responsibility attribution, while conservative approaches maintain that folk theories of responsibility are (defeasible, but substantial) constraints of philosophical theories of responsibility. However, the experimental record suggests that folk theory is conspicuously variantist (or pluralist) and evinces little commitment to exceptionlessly relevant attribution criteria. Therefore, invariantism and conservativism cannot be simultaneously maintained. Implications for theory choice and revision are discussed.

The Future of Character

This chapter advances and refines the author’s character skepticism in light of the extensive commentary in philosophy, and significant developments in psychology, that have emerged since his original contributions to the debate (e.g., Doris, 1998, 2002). Among the topics discussed are methodological issues in philosophy and psychology; controversy concerning classic studies; the interpretation of effect sizes; theory choice and revision; a pluralistic conception of ethical thought.

Ethical Theories as Methods of Ethics

This chapter presents a new argument for thinking of traditional ethical theories not as criteria of rightness and wrongness, but rather as methods that can be used in first-order moral inquiry. It begins from outlining how ethical theories such as consequentialism and contractualism are flexible frameworks in which different versions of these theories can be formulated to correspond to different first-order ethical views. This chapter then argues that, as a result, the traditional ethical theories cannot be evaluated in terms of their truth or correctness. Instead, it suggests that these theories should be understood as providing different kinds of ways of thinking about difficult moral problems. Finally, the chapter recommends a certain kind of an attitude of pragmatic pluralism as something that should guide our theory choice in normative ethics—it may well be that different moral problems are better approached through different ethical theories.

Intuitions, theory choice and the ameliorative character of logical theories

Anti-exceptionalists about logic claim that logical methodology is not different from scientific methodology when it comes to theory choice. Two anti-exceptionalist accounts of theory choice in logic are abductivism (defended by Priest and Williamson) and predictivism (recently proposed by Martin and Hjortland). These accounts have in common reliance on pre-theoretical logical intuitions for the assessment of candidate logical theories. In this paper, I investigate whether intuitions can provide what abductivism and predictivism want from them and conclude that they do not. As an alternative to these approaches, I propose a Carnapian view on logical theorizing according to which logical theories do not simply account for pre-theoretical intuitions, but rather improve on them. In this account, logical theories are ameliorative, rather than representational.

In Search of the Trinity: A Dilemma for Parfit’s Conciliatory Project

I outline a dilemma for Derek Parfit’s project to vindicate moral realism. In On What Matters, Parfit argues that the best versions of three of the main moral traditions agree on a set of moral principles, which should make us more confident about the prospects of truth in ethics. I show that the result of this Convergence Argument can be interpreted in two ways. Either there remain three separate and deontically equivalent theories or there remains just one theory, the Triple Theory. Both interpretations fail to deliver what Parfit is looking for. The first interpretation leads to a situation of underdetermination of theory choice that gives rise to a skeptical challenge. The second interpretation jettisons Parfit’s Conciliatory Project, that is, the reconciliation of the three moral traditions. The dilemma, I contend, is the result of Parfit failing to resolve two antithetical lines of thought. His search for the Trinity of moral theorizing must thus fail.

Epistemology without guidance

Epistemologists often appeal to the idea that a normative theory must provide useful, usable, guidance to argue for one normative epistemology over another. I argue that this is a mistake. Guidance considerations have no role to play in theory choice in epistemology. I show how this has implications for debates about the possibility and scope of epistemic dilemmas, the legitimacy of idealisation in Bayesian epistemology, uniqueness versus permissivism, sharp versus mushy credences, and internalism versus externalism.

There is no reason to replace the Razor with the Laser

In recent times it has become common to encounter philosophers who recommend the replacement of one principle concerning theory choice, Ockham’s Razor, with another: the Laser. Whilst the Razor tells us not to multiply entities beyond necessity, the Laser tells us only to avoid multiplying fundamental entities beyond necessity. There appear to be seven arguments in the literature for the Laser. They divide into three categories: arguments from the nature of non-fundamentality attempt to motivate the Laser by appeal to various observations about what it is to be non-fundamental; arguments from cases describe hypothetical or actual cases, and allege that only the Laser accords with our intuitive judgements about them; and arguments from analogy claim that ontological parsimony is analogous to conceptual economy, and that this analogy recommends the Laser. I provide novel responses to each of the extant arguments for the Laser, and conclude that there is currently no good reason for replacing the Razor with the Laser.

Realism and the Epistemic Objectivity of Science

The paper presents a realist account of the epistemic objectivity of science. Epistemic objectivity is distinguished from ontological objectivity and the objectivity of truth. As background, T.S. Kuhn’s idea that scientific theory-choice is based on shared scientific values with a role for both objective and subjective factors is discussed. Kuhn’s values are epistemologically ungrounded, hence provide a minimal sense of objectivity. A robust account of epistemic objectivity on which methodological norms are reliable means of arriving at the truth is presented. The problem remains that deliberative judgement is required to determine the relevance and relative significance of a range of methodological norms. A role is sketched for cognitive virtues which may be exercised in the course of the deliberative judgement.