Publications
Publications
Testimonial Liberalism and the balance of epistemic goals, (2024), Philosophical Studies, DOI: 10.1007/s11098-024-02244-1 (open access)
I defend testimonial liberalism—the view that, absent defeaters, one may believe that p on mere say-so—from the well-known 'gullibility' objection. Roughly, the worry is that the view is too permissive; one enjoys an absence of defeaters in all sorts of cases in which one ought not to believe. In response, I argue that the well-known distinction between positive and negative epistemic measures can be leveraged in defence of the liberal. Once we get clear on the idea that, as epistemic agents, we need to strike a good balance between the pursuit of truth and the avoidance of error, we see that: (i) the gullibility objection is defused; and, to that extent, (ii) the liberal view on testimonial justification is stronger than has been appreciated.
"Friendly" Men and Social Roles, (2024), Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, 10 (1/2). Article 11.
In 1983, Andrea Dworkin argued that we won't put an end to the culture of rape unless men take responsibility for it. In this paper I search for a theory of collective responsibility that can vindicate Dworkin's sentiment. I argue that by combining Robin Zheng's (2018) role-ideal model of responsibility with Charlotte Witt's (2011) conception of gender as a mega social role, we find a philosophically satisfying theory of what it means to say, with Dworkin, that men are responsible for the culture of rape.
Trust’s meno problem: Can the doxastic view account for the value of trust? (2023), Philosophical Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2023.2206837 (open access).
Arnon Keren (2020) gestures toward a new objection to the doxastic view of trust—the view that trust essentially involves belief. The worry calls into question the doxastic view's ability to explain the distinct and indispensable value of trust. I take up Keren's challenge. I firstly contextualise and elucidate the problem; then, I disambiguate between multiple interpretations in pursuit of the most challenging; finally, I countenance some insights from Katherine Hawley's (2012; 2019) work on trust to offer a solution.
Email me if you'd like to discuss any of these, or see a draft.
1) A paper on testimony and inquiry. (Under review)
Abstract: We epistemically depend on one another in a range of ways beyond the mere exchange of propositional knowledge. It is argued that traditional frameworks in the epistemology of testimony fail to account for this thought, and that a novel, inquiry-centric alternative does better. If we think of testimony not as a source of belief but rather as a resource in inquiry, we begin to do justice to the rich plurality of roles that it plays in our epistemic lives.
2) A paper on epistemic norms and conversation. (Under review)
Abstract: Standard approaches to the normativity of assertion draw a sharp line between epistemic and pragmatic norms. The former governs the practice of assertion in accordance with standards such as truth, knowledge, and evidential support, whereas the latter governs it in accordance with standards such as relevance, clarity, and manner. This article challenges that picture. Focusing on Grice’s conversational maxims as a canonical articulation of the epistemology-pragmatics divide, I argue that there are genuine epistemic norms corresponding to all Gricean maxims, not just Quality, as is standardly assumed. To reach this conclusion, I draw on familiar resources for theorising both about epistemic normativity in general and the epistemic normativity of assertion in particular. I then sketch a way of embracing Gricean epistemic norms that avoids a range of key objections. If I’m right, the upshot is significant: the boundary between epistemology and pragmatics must be reconsidered, as the two domains are far more tightly intertwined than has hitherto been assumed.
3) A paper on the reasons and rational control of trust. (Under review)
Abstract: Trust is deeply normative: we trust for reasons, revise trust in light of evidence, and hold one another accountable when trust is misplaced. Yet the nature of trust’s relationship to reasons and rational control is sharply contested – on belief-like views it is beyond the realm of voluntary control and answers only to epistemic reasons; on action-like views, by contrast, it can be directly willed for non-epistemic reasons. The debate has centred on cases of therapeutic trust, in which trusting someone despite decisive counterevidence appears to be precisely what moral or practical reasons can warrant. The result is a dialectical impasse: intuitions pull both ways, and verdicts tend to track antecedent commitments about trust's nature rather than illuminating it. This article aims to move the debate beyond that impasse. Drawing on theory-neutral constraints on reasons-responsive and norm-governed attitudes, I present a novel case for the belief-like view, one that refrains from relying on theoretically heavyweight commitments or contested intuitions. But a central contribution lies in the following, emergent upshot of that argument: belief-like views have been thought unable to account for trust's characteristic agency – the sense that we are not merely passive in whom we trust. By appeal to attitudinal, as opposed to volitional, rational control, I show that a belief-like view can give a satisfying account of the agency involved in trust without collapsing into voluntarism. The resulting picture, I argue, captures what was enticing about its opponent’s view without incurring its theoretical costs.