Upcoming

New York, NY

October 23, 2019

"Could Our Epistemic Reasons Be Collective Practical Reasons?"

Abstract: Are epistemic reasons merely a species of instrumental practical reasons, making epistemic rationality a special form of instrumental practical rationality? Or are epistemic reasons importantly different in kind? The former sort of view is associated prominently with (among others) W.V. Quine, who hoped that epistemic normativity could be accounted for in a wholly naturalistic way. Thomas Kelly (2003) argues very compellingly, however, that epistemic rationality cannot be merely a matter of taking effective means to our epistemic ends. I argue here that Kelly’s objections to what he calls the instrumentalist conception of epistemic rationality can potentially be sidestepped if we understand epistemic reasons as instrumental practical reasons that arise in light of the aims held by social collectives of which we are members, rather than by our own individual goals. The kinds of groups I have in mind include, for instance, juries, scientific laboratories, investigative committees, and judge panels, all of which may plausibly be attributed epistemic ends. (I also consider the case of everyday reasoning.) This social version of epistemic instrumentalism would not be subject to counterexamples that point to the failure of individual people to possess desires or goals that would account for all of their epistemic reasons. How plausible is this view overall? I conclude by discussing a few potential objections as well as advantages of the view.

Also Upcoming!

Central APA Conference, Chicago, February 26-29, 2020

I'll be commenting on a colloquium paper: Luke Kallberg's "Third-Factor Defenses of Moral Knowledge"

Previous Talks

"Could Epistemic Reasons Be Collective Practical Reasons?"

The 4th Southampton-Humboldt Normativity Conference

Southampton, U.K., June 19-21, 2019

"What Do Lisa, Her College's Chess Club, and NATO Have in Common? Rethinking What it Takes to Be an Agent"

2019 Meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Practical Ethics

Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences

The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, June 1-3

"All Day, Every Day"

2019 Central New York Moral Psychology Workshop

Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY, May 25

Comments on Robert Gruber's "Harmless Torturers, Accumulation Cases, and a Solution to the Mismatch Problem"

Eastern APA, Colloquium: Ethics of Collectives

New York, NY, January 7-10, 2019

"Group Agency Meets Meta-Ethics:

How to Craft a More Compelling Form of Normative Relativism"

13th Annual Madison Metaethics Workshop

University of Wisconsin-Madison, September 28-30, 2018

"What do Lisa, her College's Tango Club, and the US Marine Corps Have in Common? Rethinking What it Takes to Be an Agent"

Social Ontology 2018

August 22-25 at Tufts University

Sponsored by the International Social Ontology Society

"How to Avoid Three Problems for Moral Relativism: Attribute Reasons to Societies as Well as Persons!"

CEPPA Graduate Conference (Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs)
University of St. Andrews, U.K.

February 17-18, 2018

"From Normative Disagreement to Normative Antirealism?"

2017 Harvard-MIT Graduate Conference in Philosophy

April 8, 2017 at Harvard University

"Ethics, Explanation and Attitude-Dependence"

2017 Great Lakes Philosophy Conference: Ethical Intersections

March 24-26, 2017 in Adrian, Michigan

By cooperation of Adrian College and Siena Heights University

"Bad Bootstrapping: The Problem with Third-Factor Responses to Reliability Challenges for Moral Realism"

2017 University of Oklahoma Graduate Philosophy Conference

February 25, 2017

"From Moral Disagreement to Moral Antirealism?"

Institut Jean Nicod, Paris, France

As Part of "Doc'in Nicod," a PhD & Postdoctoral Work-in-Progress Seminar

November 25, 2016

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