Normative Externalism

Normative Externalism
Author: Brian Weatherson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2019-03-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0192576895

Normative Externalism argues that it is not important that people live up to their own principles. What matters, in both ethics and epistemology, is that they live up to the correct principles: that they do the right thing, and that they believe rationally. This stance, that what matters are the correct principles, not one's own principles, has implications across ethics and epistemology. In ethics, it undermines the ideas that moral uncertainty should be treated just like factual uncertainty, that moral ignorance frequently excuses moral wrongdoing, and that hypocrisy is a vice. In epistemology, it suggests we need new treatments of higher-order evidence, and of peer disagreement, and of circular reasoning, and the book suggests new approaches to each of these problems. Although the debates in ethics and in epistemology are often conducted separately, putting them in one place helps bring out their common themes. One common theme is that the view that one should live up to one's own principles looks less attractive when people have terrible principles, or when following their own principles would lead to riskier or more aggressive action than the correct principles. Another common theme is that asking people to live up to their principles leads to regresses. It can be hard to know what action or belief complies with one's principles. And now we can ask, in such a case should a person do what they think their principles require, or what their principles actually require? Both answers lead to problems, and the best way to avoid these problems is to simply say people should follow the correct principles.

Normative Externalism

Normative Externalism
Author: Brian Weatherson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2019-03-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0192576887

Normative Externalism argues that it is not important that people live up to their own principles. What matters, in both ethics and epistemology, is that they live up to the correct principles: that they do the right thing, and that they believe rationally. This stance, that what matters are the correct principles, not one's own principles, has implications across ethics and epistemology. In ethics, it undermines the ideas that moral uncertainty should be treated just like factual uncertainty, that moral ignorance frequently excuses moral wrongdoing, and that hypocrisy is a vice. In epistemology, it suggests we need new treatments of higher-order evidence, and of peer disagreement, and of circular reasoning, and the book suggests new approaches to each of these problems. Although the debates in ethics and in epistemology are often conducted separately, putting them in one place helps bring out their common themes. One common theme is that the view that one should live up to one's own principles looks less attractive when people have terrible principles, or when following their own principles would lead to riskier or more aggressive action than the correct principles. Another common theme is that asking people to live up to their principles leads to regresses. It can be hard to know what action or belief complies with one's principles. And now we can ask, in such a case should a person do what they think their principles require, or what their principles actually require? Both answers lead to problems, and the best way to avoid these problems is to simply say people should follow the correct principles.

Does Anything Really Matter?

Does Anything Really Matter?
Author: Peter Singer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2017-01-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191084395

In the first two volumes of On What Matters Derek Parfit argues that there are objective moral truths, and other normative truths about what we have reasons to believe, and to want, and to do. He thus challenges a view of the role of reason in action that can be traced back to David Hume, and is widely assumed to be correct, not only by philosophers but also by economists. In defending his view, Parfit argues that if there are no objective normative truths, nihilism follows, and nothing matters. He criticizes, often forcefully, many leading contemporary philosophers working on the nature of ethics, including Simon Blackburn, Stephen Darwall, Allen Gibbard, Frank Jackson, Peter Railton, Mark Schroeder, Michael Smith, and Sharon Street. Does Anything Really Matter? gives these philosophers an opportunity to respond to Parfit's criticisms, and includes essays on Parfit's views by Richard Chappell, Andrew Huddleston, Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer, Bruce Russell, and Larry Temkin. A third volume of On What Matters, in which Parfit engages with his critics and breaks new ground in finding significant agreement between his own views and theirs, is appearing as a separate companion volume.

Epistemic Dilemmas

Epistemic Dilemmas
Author: Kevin McCain
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2021-10-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000468518

This book features original essays by leading epistemologists that address questions related to epistemic dilemmas from a variety of new, sometimes unexpected, angles. It seems plausible that there can be "no win" moral situations in which no matter what one does one fails some moral obligation. Is there an epistemic analog to moral dilemmas? Are there epistemically dilemmic situations—situations in which we are doomed to violate an epistemic requirement? If there are, when exactly do they arise and what can we learn from them? The contributors to this volume cover a wide variety of positions on epistemic dilemmas. The coverage ranges from discussions of the nature of epistemic dilemmas to arguments that there are no such things to suggestions for how to resolve (or at least live with) epistemic dilemmas to proposals for how thinking about epistemic dilemmas can be used to inform theorizing in other areas of epistemology. Epistemic Dilemmas will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in epistemology working on the nature of justification and evidential support, higher-order requirements, or suspension of judgment.

The Externalist Challenge

The Externalist Challenge
Author: Richard Schantz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 533
Release: 2011-08-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3110915278

The debate between internalism and externalism has become a focal point of attention both in epistemology and in the philosophy of mind and language. Externalism challenges basic traditional internalist conceptions of the nature of knowledge, justification, thought and language. What is at stake, is the very form that theories in epistemology and the philosophy of mind ought to take. This volume is a collection of original contributions of leading international authors reflecting on the present state of the art concerning the exciting controversies between internalism and externalism.

Political Epistemology

Political Epistemology
Author: Elizabeth Edenberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2021
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0192893335

The first edited collection to explore one of the most rapidly growing area of philosophy: political epistemology. The volume brings together leading philosophers to explore ways in which the analytic and conceptual tools of epistemology bear on political philosophy--and vice versa.

Social Goodness

Social Goodness
Author: Charlotte Witt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2023
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0197574793

We are all immersed in a sea of social norms, but they are sometimes tricky to observe with any clarity. They are often invisible to us and emerge only when they are not observed. Social norms are important to understand because they are both limiting of our freedom, such as gendered and racialized norms, and at the same time the very conditions of our agency. Social Goodness presents an original, externalist answer to the question of the source or origin of social role normativity. Rather than grounding social normativity in the attitudes of persons, the book argues for an externalism that roots social role normativity in the social world itself: in its positions, institutions, and larger architecture. The core insight of externalism is that the function or structural feature of an enterprise or activity can bring with it normative demands quite independently of the attitudes of those who engage with it. According to the artisanal model, just as a carpenter, ceramicist, or chef is responsive to and evaluable under a set of artisanal norms or techniques, so too is a mother and or an academic or a President. The source of normativity is this technique or expertise, independent of the preferences, endorsements, or recognitive attitudes of individuals. The artisanal model for social role normativity has resources to explain both the "stickiness" or persistence of social norms and our ability to criticize existing norms and to engage in normative self-creation--to create new normative selves. The artisanal model also has resources to capture and express the social situatedness, locality, and materiality of social roles. The relational ontology of social roles, implicit in the artisanal model, provides a useful frame to consider both hierarchical and oppressive social relations.

The Normativity of what We Care about

The Normativity of what We Care about
Author: Katrien Schaubroeck
Publisher: Leuven University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2013
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9058679055

A love-based reason theory as a new perspective in the debate on practical reasons. Reasons and obligations pervade our lives. The alarm clock gives us a reason to get up in the morning, the expectations of colleagues or clients give us a reason to do our jobs well, the misery in developing countries gives us a reason to donate money, headaches give us a reason to take an aspirin. Looking for unity in variety, philosophers wonder what makes a consideration count as a reason to do something. The nature and source of practical reasons has been debated intensively over the last three decennia in analytic philosophy. This book discusses the three most influential theories in current debates, referred to as the desire-based, the value-based, and the rationality-based theories of practical reasons. The author argues that all three are defective because they overlook the role of what agents care about.

Global Epistemologies and Philosophies of Science

Global Epistemologies and Philosophies of Science
Author: David Ludwig
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2021-07-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000413810

In bringing together a global community of philosophers, Global Epistemologies and Philosophies of Science develops novel perspectives on epistemology and philosophy of science by demonstrating how frameworks from academic philosophy (e.g. standpoint theory, social epistemology, feminist philosophy of science) and related fields (e.g. decolonial studies, transdisciplinarity, global history of science) can contribute to critical engagement with global dimensions of knowledge and science. Global challenges such as climate change, food production, and infectious diseases raise complex questions about scientific knowledge production and its interactions with local knowledge systems and social realities. As academic philosophy provides relatively little reflection on global negotiations of knowledge, many pressing scientific and societal issues remain disconnected from core debates in epistemology and philosophy of science. This book is an invitation to broaden agendas of academic philosophy by presenting epistemology and philosophy of science as globally engaged fields that address heterogeneous forms of knowledge production and their interactions with local livelihoods, practices, and worldviews. This integrative ambition makes the book equally relevant for philosophers and interdisciplinary scholars who are concerned with methodological and political challenges at the intersection of science and society.

Contemporary Theories of Knowledge

Contemporary Theories of Knowledge
Author: John L. Pollock
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 294
Release: 1999
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780847689378

This exciting new edition of the classic Contemporary Theories of Knowledge has been significantly updated to include analyses of the recent literature in epistemology. In addition, a new case is made for the strong connection between epistemology and artificial intelligence, as Pollock and Cruz argue that a necessary condition for the correctness of any epistemological theory is that it be possible to build an implemented artificial intelligence system on the basis of it. Like the first edition, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, Second Edition is an excellent teaching tool, introducing the reader to the fundamental issues and approaches in the field of epistemology.