Abstract: Some people think that there are normative reasons for emotions. I disagree. In this paper, I argue for Strong Eliminativism – the view that there are no reasons for emotions. My argument for this claim has two premises: (1) a fact F is a reason for agent A to have (or refrain from having) an attitude X only if A can deliberate to (or away from) X at least partly on the basis of F; (2) no one can deliberate to any emotion. Taken together, these two premises entail that there are no reasons for emotions. Strong Eliminativism might seem radical, but I argue that this conclusion is much less counterintuitive than it may seem. 

[penultimate draft] [philpapers]

Abstract: Transparency – the view that the deliberative question whether to believe P inevitably gives way to the question whether P – is an enduringly popular view, often taken by its proponents to be datum. In this paper, I argue that transparency is false. I begin by teasing out two core commitments of transparency: (i) the set of possible answers to the question whether to believe P is the same set of possible answers to the question whether P; (ii) the question whether to believe P can be settled on the basis of all and only those considerations on the basis of which the question whether P can be settled. Then, I offer two arguments against transparency, targeting (i) and (ii) respectively. I conclude with a cursory error theory of why transparency seems attractive in the first place. 

Abstract: This paper in non-ideal epistemology is still in the early stages of development. In this paper, I motivate the idea that skeptical scenarios arise out of real features of our non-ideal world and epistemic agency. I call this the problem of "immanent" skepticism. The problem of immanent skepticism shows the need for norms of belief that would help agents get out of a bad epistemic position. This, I argue, motivates the need for non-ideal epistemological theorizing and, more precisely, the articulation of norms that are followable such that (non-ideal) agents are in a position to tell that they're satisfying the norm. For such norms, I propose the idea of what I call "epistemic insurance policies": epistemic norms for agents who are unable to tell whether they’re in a good epistemic position, but the following of which will insure them in case they are indeed in a bad epistemic position.

Advisor: Alex Worsnip

Committee: Jim Pryor; Sarah Stroud

Spring 2022 – Present.

Abstract: My dissertation is unified by an interest in the role deliberation plays in our normative lives. In the first chapter, I defend a deliberative constraint on reasons. In the second chapter, I argue against transparency, thereby leaving room for accepting a deliberative constraint and the existence of pragmatic reasons for belief. In the third, I begin by arguing against Crispin Wright's entitlement-based response to skepticism on the grounds that considerations of epistemic value alone can't be used in doxastic deliberation; from this, I draw more general lessons for value-first and epistemic consequentialist approaches to normativity. Finally, in the fourth, I argue that Enoch's "shmagency" objection to constitutivism fails on the grounds that the deliberative question whether to be an agent isn't settled by being or not being an agent, and thus, given a deliberative constraint, there can't be reasons for or against agency. 

Deliberative constraints have far-reaching consequences in philosophy. Yet despite these far-reaching consequences, never has anyone offered a sustained assessment of the arguments for and against a deliberative constraint. On the contrary, deliberative constraints are either assumed, or arguments for them are offered quickly. Moreover, there are many different versions of the deliberative constraint out there in the literature, differing along a number of different dimensions, and no-one has systematically taxonomized the ways in which they differ, or systematically considered the relative merits of the different versions. My dissertation is a defense and application of a particular deliberative constraint, and in the first chapter, I offer a comprehensive opinionated overview of the arguments for and against a deliberative constraint. I compile the various arguments, fill in their gaps, and identify the choice points involved in each. I also explain and evaluate the various ways in which different deliberative constraints differ, and use this as a guide to arrive at what I take to be the best version of the deliberative constraint.