Publications:
The Epistemology of Evolutionary Debunking, forthcoming in Synthese.
Abstract: Fifteen years ago, Sharon Street and Richard Joyce advanced evolutionary debunking arguments against moral realism, which purported to show that the evolutionary history of our moral beliefs makes moral realism untenable. These arguments have since given rise to a flurry of objections; the epistemic principles Street and Joyce relied upon, in particular, have come in for a number of serious challenges. My goal in this paper is to develop a new account of evolutionary debunking which avoids the pitfalls Street and Joyce encountered and responds to the most pressing objections they faced. I begin by presenting a striking thought experiment to serve as an analogy for the evolution of morality; I then show why calibrationist views of higher-order evidence are crucial to the evolutionary debunking project; I outline a new rationale for why finding out that morality was selected to promote cooperation suggests that our moral judgments are unreliable; and I explain why evolutionary debunking arguments do not depend on our having a dedicated faculty for moral cognition. All things considered, I argue, evolutionary debunking arguments against moral realism are on relatively secure footing – provided, at least, that we accept a calibrationist account of higher-order evidence.
Options Must Be External (2020). Philosophical Studies 177(5): 1175-1189.
Abstract: Brian Hedden has proposed that any successful account of options for the subjective “ought” must satisfy two constraints: first, it must ensure that we are able to carry out each of the options available to us, and second, it should guarantee that the set of options available to us supervenes on our mental states. In this paper I show that, due to the ever-present possibility of Frankfurt-style cases, these two constraints jointly entail that no agent has any options at any time. This consequence, however, is clearly unacceptable, so one of Hedden’s constraints must go. Because the ability constraint is indispensable, I argue, we have no choice but to reject the supervenience constraint. Hedden’s underlying motivation for imposing the supervenience constraint is the conviction that our options should be transparent to us, but transparency also proves to be incompatible with the ability constraint, so it must be rejected as well. I conclude by sketching an unabashedly externalist account of options, which conceives of options as exhaustive combinations of atomic movements.
Works in progress:
Titles in this section are redacted to protect blind review. Contact me for drafts.
–Paper on the nature of disability. Under review.
–Paper on evolutionary debunking. Under review
–Paper on calibrationism. Under review.
–Paper on moral responsibility. Under review.
Conference presentations:
Paper on moral responsibility.
–Colloquium presentation at the APA Central Division, 2022.
"On the Self-Undermining Objection to Evolutionary Debunking Arguments."
–Symposium presentation at the APA Eastern Division, 2022.
"A Defense of the Medical Model."
–Colloquium presentation at the APA Central Division, 2020.
The Epistemology of Evolutionary Debunking, forthcoming in Synthese.
Abstract: Fifteen years ago, Sharon Street and Richard Joyce advanced evolutionary debunking arguments against moral realism, which purported to show that the evolutionary history of our moral beliefs makes moral realism untenable. These arguments have since given rise to a flurry of objections; the epistemic principles Street and Joyce relied upon, in particular, have come in for a number of serious challenges. My goal in this paper is to develop a new account of evolutionary debunking which avoids the pitfalls Street and Joyce encountered and responds to the most pressing objections they faced. I begin by presenting a striking thought experiment to serve as an analogy for the evolution of morality; I then show why calibrationist views of higher-order evidence are crucial to the evolutionary debunking project; I outline a new rationale for why finding out that morality was selected to promote cooperation suggests that our moral judgments are unreliable; and I explain why evolutionary debunking arguments do not depend on our having a dedicated faculty for moral cognition. All things considered, I argue, evolutionary debunking arguments against moral realism are on relatively secure footing – provided, at least, that we accept a calibrationist account of higher-order evidence.
Options Must Be External (2020). Philosophical Studies 177(5): 1175-1189.
Abstract: Brian Hedden has proposed that any successful account of options for the subjective “ought” must satisfy two constraints: first, it must ensure that we are able to carry out each of the options available to us, and second, it should guarantee that the set of options available to us supervenes on our mental states. In this paper I show that, due to the ever-present possibility of Frankfurt-style cases, these two constraints jointly entail that no agent has any options at any time. This consequence, however, is clearly unacceptable, so one of Hedden’s constraints must go. Because the ability constraint is indispensable, I argue, we have no choice but to reject the supervenience constraint. Hedden’s underlying motivation for imposing the supervenience constraint is the conviction that our options should be transparent to us, but transparency also proves to be incompatible with the ability constraint, so it must be rejected as well. I conclude by sketching an unabashedly externalist account of options, which conceives of options as exhaustive combinations of atomic movements.
Works in progress:
Titles in this section are redacted to protect blind review. Contact me for drafts.
–Paper on the nature of disability. Under review.
–Paper on evolutionary debunking. Under review
–Paper on calibrationism. Under review.
–Paper on moral responsibility. Under review.
Conference presentations:
Paper on moral responsibility.
–Colloquium presentation at the APA Central Division, 2022.
"On the Self-Undermining Objection to Evolutionary Debunking Arguments."
–Symposium presentation at the APA Eastern Division, 2022.
"A Defense of the Medical Model."
–Colloquium presentation at the APA Central Division, 2020.