My primary research lies at the intersection of traditional and formal epistemology. Broadly speaking, I am interested in the relationship between traditional and formal epistemology: ways the two subdisciplines come apart, but also their overlap and common themes. Much of my research is focused on the relationship between each subdiscipline’s doxastic building blocks, belief and credence. Making progress on the relationship between belief and credence is one way to bring together the two branches of epistemology and see their relationship more clearly. Within this framework, I also explore questions about the nature of evidence, e.g. can evidence be permissive? To what extent can evidence move around our credences without changing what we ought to believe? I have further interest in in the relationship between practical and epistemic rationality, e.g. what are the bounds of epistemic rationality? Can practical and/or moral stakes affect epistemic justification?
I apply this work in epistemology to philosophy of religion, specifically to the epistemic and practical rationality of faith and religious commitment. This includes questions about whether faith can be rational but nonetheless go beyond the evidence, and, in general, what might underlie the diachronic rationality of long-term commitments. Finally, I’m interested in Pascal’s Wager, and the implications it has for both decision theory and the practical rationality of theistic commitment.
Below are abstracts of my published articles with links to the full papers. If you don’t have access to the official version, all published papers are available for free download via the PhilPapers link.
Journal Articles
(14) Settling the Unsettled: Roles for Belief. Forthcoming in Analysis. (Critical Notice on Julia Staffel’s Unsettled Thoughts.)
In Unsettled Thoughts, Julia Staffel argues that non-ideal thinkers should seek to approximate ideal Bayesian rationality. She argues that the more rational you are, the more benefits of rationality you will enjoy. After summarizing Staffel’s main results, this paper looks more closely at two issues that arise later in the book: the relationship between Bayesian rationality and other kinds of rationality, and the role that outright belief plays in addition to credence. Ultimately, I argue that there are several roles that outright belief might play, and I explore different ways that these roles for belief might fit together.
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(13) Why Credences Are Not Beliefs. Forthcoming in The Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
A question of recent interest in epistemology and philosophy of mind is how belief and credence relate to each other. A number of philosophers argue for a belief-first view of the relationship between belief and credence. On the belief-first view, what is it to have a credence just is to have a particular kind of belief, that is, a belief whose content involves probabilities or epistemic modals. Here, I argue against the belief-first view: specifically, I argue that it cannot account for agents who have credences in propositions they barely comprehend. I conclude that, however credences differ from beliefs, they do not differ in virtue of adding additional content to the believed proposition.
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(12) Belief, Credence, and Moral Encroachment (with Jamie Fritz). Forthcoming in Synthese.
Radical moral encroachment is the view that belief itself is morally evaluable, and that some moral properties of belief itself make a difference to epistemic rationality. To date, almost all proponents of radical moral encroachment hold to an asymmetry thesis: the moral encroaches on rational belief, but not on rational credence. In this paper, we argue against the asymmetry thesis; we show that, insofar as one accepts radical moral encroachment on belief, one should likewise accept radical moral encroachment on credences. We outline and reject potential attempts to establish a basis for asymmetry between the attitude types. Then, we explore the merits and demerits of the two available responses to our symmetry claim: (i) embracing moral encroachment on credences and (ii) denying moral encroachment on belief.
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(11) Belief, Faith, and Hope: On the Rationality of Long-Term Commitment. Forthcoming in Mind.
I examine three attitudes: belief, faith, and hope. I argue that all three attitudes can play the same role in rationalizing action. First, I explain two models of rational action – the decision-theory model and the belief-desire model. Both models entail there are two components of rational action: an epistemic component and an affective component. Then, using this framework, I show how belief, faith, and hope that p can all make it rational to accept, or act as if, p. I conclude by showing how my picture can explain how action-oriented commitments can be rational over time, both in the face of counterevidence and in the face of waning affections.
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- I was interviewed about this paper on Brain in a Vat (video link) (podcast link), and on Staseōs (video link).
(10) A Defense of Intrapersonal Belief Permissivism. Forthcoming in Episteme.
Permissivism is the view that there are evidential situations that rationally permit more than one attitude toward a proposition. In this paper, I argue for Intrapersonal Belief Permissivism (IaBP): that there are evidential situations in which a single agent can rationally adopt more than one belief-attitude toward a proposition. I give two positive arguments for IaBP; the first involves epistemic supererogation and the second involves doubt. Then, I should how these arguments give intrapersonal permissivists a distinct response to the toggling objection. I conclude that IaBP is a view that philosophers should take seriously.
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(9) Children, Fetuses, and the Non-Existent: Moral Obligations and the Beginning of Life. Forthcoming in The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy.
(8) Credence: A Belief-First Approach (with Andrew Moon). (2020). The Canadian Journal of Philosophy. 50(5): 652–669.
This paper explains and defends a belief-first view of the relationship between belief and credence. On this view, credences are a species of beliefs, and the degree of credence is determined by the content of what is believed. We begin by developing what we take to be the most plausible belief-first view. Then, we offer several arguments for this view. Finally, we show how it can resist a prominent objection in the literature that has been raised to belief-first views. We conclude that the belief-first view is more plausible than many have previously supposed.
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(7) The Relationship Between Belief and Credence. (2020). Philosophy Compass. 15(6): 1–13.
Sometimes epistemologists theorize about belief, a tripartite attitude on which one can believe, withhold belief, or disbelieve a proposition. In other cases, epistemologists theorize about credence, a fine-grained attitude that represents one’s subjective probability or confidence level toward a proposition. How do these two attitudes relate to each other? This article explores the relationship between belief and credence in two categories: descriptive and normative. It then explains the broader significance of the belief-credence connections and concludes with general lessons from the debate thus far.
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- I made a 6-minute video abstract of this paper (video link).
- Download the teaching and learning guide for this article (Philpapers).
(6) Belief, Credence, and Evidence. (2020). Synthese. 197(11): 5073–5092.
I explore how rational belief and rational credence relate to evidence. I begin by looking at three cases where rational belief and credence seem to respond differently to evidence: cases of naked statistical evidence, lotteries, and hedged assertions. I consider an explanation for these cases, namely, that one ought not form beliefs on the basis of statistical evidence alone, and raise worries for this view. Then, I suggest another view that explains how belief and credence relate to evidence. My view focuses on the possibilities that the evidence makes salient. I argue that this makes better sense of the difference between rational credence and rational belief than other accounts.
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(5) Belief and Credence: Why the Attitude-Type Matters. (2019). Philosophical Studies. 176(9): 2477–2496.
In this paper, I argue that the relationship between belief and credence is a central question in epistemology. This is because the belief-credence relationship has significant implications for a number of current epistemological issues. I focus on five controversies: permissivism, disagreement, pragmatic encroachment, doxastic voluntarism, and the relationship between doxastic attitudes and prudential rationality. I argue that the implications of each debate depend on whether the relevant attitude is belief or credence. This means that (i) epistemologists should pay attention to whether they are framing questions in terms of belief or in terms of credence and (ii) the success or failure of a reductionist project in the belief-credence realm has significant implications for epistemology generally.
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(4) How Belief-Credence Dualism Explains Away Pragmatic Encroachment. (2019). The Philosophical Quarterly. 69(276): 511–533.
Belief-credence dualism is the view that we have both beliefs and credences and neither attitude is reducible to the other. Pragmatic encroachment is the view that stakes alone can affect the epistemic rationality of states like knowledge or justified belief. In this paper, I argue that dualism can offer a unique explanation of pragmatic encroachment cases. First, I explain pragmatic encroachment and the motivations for it. Then, I explain dualism and some of the basic philosophical and psychological motivations for it. Finally, I show how dualism can explain the intuitions that underlie pragmatic encroachment. My basic proposal is that in high stakes cases, it is not that one cannot rationally believe that p; instead, one ought to not rely on one’s belief that p. One should rather rely on one’s credence in p. I conclude that we need not commit ourselves to pragmatic encroachment in order to explain the intuitiveness of the cases that motivate it.
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(3) Belief, Credence, and Faith. (2019). Religious Studies. 55(2): 153–168.
In this article, I argue that faith’s going beyond the evidence need not compromise faith’s epistemic rationality. First, I explain how some of the recent literature on belief and credence points to a distinction between what I call B-evidence and C-evidence. Then, I apply this distinction to rational faith. I argue that if faith is more sensitive to B-evidence than to C-evidence, faith can go beyond the evidence and still be epistemically rational.
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- Winner of the Religious Studies Post Graduate Essay Prize.
- I was interviewed about this paper on Believing Thinkers (video link), and a short, popular-level summary of this paper was published on “The Open Table” (blog link).
(2) Salvaging Pascal’s Wager (with Andy Rogers). (2019). Philosophia Christi. 21(1): 59–84.
Many think that Pascal’s Wager is a hopeless failure. A primary reason for this is because a number of challenging objections have been raised to the wager, including the “many gods” objection, and the “mixed strategy” objection. We argue that both objections are formal, but not substantive, problems for the wager, and that they both fail for the same reason. We show how a version of Pascalian reasoning succeeds, and gives us a reason to pay special attention to the infinite consequences of our actions. We go on to respond to additional objections to the wager that apply to our formulation. We argue that many can actually be incorporated into the wagerer’s decision matrix, and thus do not provide reason to refrain from wagering altogether. While we do not claim to answer every possible objection to the wager, we conclude that many traditional objections are unsuccessful.
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- I was interviewed about this paper on Crash Course Apologetics (video link) and on the Classical Theism Podcast (podcast link).
(1) Wagering Against Divine Hiddenness. (2016). The European Journal for Philosophy of Religion. 8(4): 85–105.
J.L. Schellenberg argues that divine hiddenness provides an argument for the conclusion that God does not exist, for if God existed he would not allow non-resistant non-belief to occur, but non-resistant non-belief does occur, so God does not exist. In this paper, I argue that the stakes involved in theistic considerations put pressure on Schellenberg’s premise that non-resistant non-belief occurs. First, I specify conditions for someone’s being a resistant non-believer. Then, I argue that many people fulfil these conditions because, given some plausible assumptions, there is a very good pragmatic reason to be a theist rather than an atheist. I assume it is more likely that theists go to heaven than atheists, and I argue there is a non-zero probability that one can receive infinite utility and a method of comparing outcomes with infinite utilities in which the probability of each outcome affects the final expected values. Then, I show how this argument entails there is no good reason to think that there are very many non-resistant non-believers.
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- I was interviewed about this paper on Crash Course Apologetics (video link) and on The Ultimist Podcast (podcast link).
Contributions to Edited Volumes
(8) Faith and Reason. In The Handbook of Philosophy of Religion (Mark A. Lamport, ed.). Under contract with Rowman and Littlefield.
What is faith? How is faith different than belief? Is faith irrational? If not, how can faith go beyond the evidence? This chapter introduces the reader to philosophical questions involving faith and reason. It touches on topics such as epistemic rationality, evidence, belief, desire, and more.
(7) Pragmatic Arguments for Theism. In The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology (John Greco, Tyler McNabb, and Jonathan Fuqua, eds.). Under contract with Cambridge University Press.
Traditional theistic arguments conclude that God exists. Pragmatic theistic arguments, by contrast, conclude that there is a pragmatic reason to believe in God. The two most famous pragmatic arguments for theism are put forth by Blaise Pascal (1662) and William James (1896). In its most basic form, the argument points out that there is much to gain by believing in God if God exists; there is little to lose if God does not exist; thus, one should believe in, or ‘wager’ on, God. This article distinguishes between various kinds of ‘wagers’ for theism, including finite and infinite wagers, expected-value-maximizing wagers and dominance wagers, wagers that require a probability threshold and those that don’t, and wagering qua belief verses wagering qua action or commitment. Along the way, I discuss a number of objections to these wagers, including the many-gods objection, the mixed strategies objection, Pascal’s mugging, the impossibility objection, the irrationality objection, and others. I also compare Pascal’s version of the wager and James’ version of the wager. I close with reflections on the success of pragmatic theistic arguments in general, and the role they might play in rationalizing various kinds of theistic commitments.
(6) Faith, Hope, and Justification. In Propositional and Doxastic Justification (Luis R.G. Oliveira and Paul Silva, eds.). Routledge Studies in Epistemology. Under contract with Routledge.
The distinction between propositional and doxastic justification is normally applied to belief. The goal of this paper is to apply the distinction to faith and hope. Before doing so, I discuss the nature of faith and hope, and how they contrast with belief—belief has no essential conative component, whereas faith and hope essentially involve the conative. I discuss implications this has for evaluating faith and hope, and apply this to the propositional/doxastic distinction. There are two key upshots. One, bringing in faith and hope makes salient additional normative categories, including the way the distinction between epistemic and practical justification interacts with the distinction between propositional and doxastic justification. Two, a paradigm example of propositional without doxastic justification is a belief that is evidentially supported but based on wishful thinking. Surprisingly, parallel cases of faith and hope may actually enjoy both propositional and doxastic justification. I conclude by exploring what it might look like for faith and hope to have propositional justification without doxastic justification.
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- I was interviewed about this paper on Proslogion Philosophy (video link).
(5) Permissivism, Underdetermination, and Evidence (with Margaret Turnbull). In The Routledge Handbook of Evidence (Clayton Littlejohn and Maria Lasonen-Aarnio eds.). Under contract with Routledge.
Permissivism is the thesis that, for some body of evidence and a proposition p, there is more than one rational doxastic attitude any agent with that evidence can take toward p. Proponents of uniqueness deny permissivism, maintaining that every body of evidence always determines a single rational doxastic attitude. In this paper, we explore the debate between permissivism and uniqueness about evidence, outlining some of the major arguments on each side. We then consider how permissivism can be understood as an underdetermination thesis, and show how this moves the debate forward in fruitful ways: in distinguishing between different types of permissivism, in dispelling classic objections to permissivism, and in shedding light on the relationship between permissivism and evidentialism.
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(4) Dilemmas, Disagreement, and Dualism. In Epistemic Dilemmas: New Arguments, New Angles (Kevin McCain, Scott Stapleford, and Matthias Steup, eds.). Under contract with Routledge.
This paper introduces and motivates a solution to a dilemma from peer disagreement. Following Buchak (forthcoming), I argue that peer disagreement puts us in an epistemic dilemma: there is reason to think that our opinions should both change and not change when we encounter disagreement with our epistemic peers. I argue that we can solve this dilemma by changing our credences, but not our beliefs in response to disagreement. I explain how my view solves the dilemma in question, and then offer two additional arguments for it: one related to contents and attitudes, and another related to epistemic peerhood.
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- I presented this paper at the Social (Distance) Epistemology workshop (video link), was interviewed about this paper by Spartan Theology (video link), and presented this paper at the University of Cologne (podcast link).
(3) What’s Epistemic About Epistemic Paternalism? In Essays in Epistemic Autonomy (Kirk Lougheed and Jonathan Matheson, eds.). Routledge Studies in Epistemology. Under contract with Routledge.
The aim of this paper is to (i) examine the concept of epistemic paternalism and (ii) explore the consequences of normative questions one might ask about it. I begin by critically examining several definitions of epistemic paternalism that have been proposed, and suggesting ways they might be improved. I then contrast epistemic and general paternalism and argue that it’s difficult to see what makes epistemic paternalism an epistemic phenomenon at all. Next, I turn to the various normative questions one might ask about epistemic paternalism and discuss the literature’s assumptions of epistemic consequentialism and veritism. I close by comparing and contrasting epistemic paternalism with other phenomena in social epistemology, such as disagreement or testimony.
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(2) Epistemic Paternalism, Epistemic Permissivism, and Standpoint Epistemology. (2020). Epistemic Paternalism Reconsidered: Conceptions, Justifications, and Implications (Amiel Bernal and Guy Axtell, eds.), pp. 201–215. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Epistemic paternalism is the practice of interfering with someone’s inquiry, without their consent, for their own epistemic good. In this chapter, I explore the relationship between epistemic paternalism and two other epistemological theses: epistemic permissivism and standpoint epistemology. I argue that examining this relationship is fruitful because it sheds light on a series of cases in which epistemic paternalism is unjustified and brings out notable similarities between epistemic permissivism and standpoint epistemology.
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(1) The Nature and Rationality of Faith. (2020). The New Theists (Joshua Rasmussen and Kevin Vallier, eds.), pp. 77–92. New York: Routledge.
A popular objection to theistic commitment involves the idea that faith is irrational. Specifically, some seem to put forth something like the following argument: (P1) Everyone (or almost everyone) who has faith is epistemically irrational, (P2) All theistic believers have faith, thus (C) All (or most) theistic believers are epistemically irrational. In this chapter, I argue that this line of reasoning fails. I do so by considering a number of candidates for what faith might be. I argue that, for each candidate, either (P1) is false or (P2) is false. Then, I make two positive suggestions for how faith can be epistemically rational but nonetheless have a unique relationship to evidence: one, that Jamesian self-justifying attitudes describe a distinctive kind of faith in oneself and others, and two, that faith is not solely based on empirical evidence.
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- I was interviewed about the paper on Capturing Christianity (video link), on Finding Truth (video link) and a short, popular-level summary of this paper was published on “The Open Table” (blog link).
Other Publications
Pascal’s Wager: A Pragmatic Argument for Belief in God. (2021). In 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology.
Should you believe there’s a God? To answer this, we might examine arguments for theism—like first-cause and design arguments—and arguments for atheism—like arguments from evil. These arguments offer evidence for and against God’s existence. Pascal’s wager, originally proposed by Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), takes a more pragmatic approach. Pascal thought that evidence cannot settle the question of whether God exists, so he proposes that you should bet, or wager, on God because of what’s at stake: you have lots to gain and not much to lose. This article explains Pascal’s wager and considers three objections.
- Link to Article
- Link to Article in PDF form
Epistemology. (2021). In The T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Christian Theology (Paul Allen, ed.). New York: T&T Clark/Bloomsbury.
Epistemology is the study of knowledge. This entry covers epistemology in two parts: one historical, one contemporary. The former provides a brief theological history of epistemology. The latter outlines three categories of contemporary epistemology: traditional epistemology, social epistemology, and formal epistemology, along with corresponding theological questions that arise in each.
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Review of Problems of Religious Luck: Assessing the Limits of Reasonable Religious Disagreement, by Guy Axtell. (2019). Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
A Defense of Belief-Credence Dualism. (2018). In The Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the Brazilian Society of Analytic Philosophy (João Luis Pereira Ourique, ed.), pp. 77–78. Pelotas, Brazil: Série Dissertatio de Filosofia.
I defend belief-credence dualism, the view that we have both beliefs and credences and both attitudes are equally fundamental. First, I explain belief, credence, and three views on their relationship. Then, I argue for dualism. I do so first by painting a picture of the mind on which belief and credence are two cognitive tools that we use for different purposes. Finally, I respond to two objections to dualism. I conclude that dualism is a promising view, and one that both epistemologists and philosophers of mind should take seriously.
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Dissertation
Belief and Credence: A Defense of Dualism. (2019). University of Notre Dame. Notre Dame, IN: ProQuest.
Belief is a familiar attitude: taking something to be the case or regarding it as true. But we are more confident in some of our beliefs than in others. For this reason, many epistemologists appeal to a second attitude, called credence, similar to a degree of confidence. This raises the question: how do belief and credence relate to each other? On a belief-first view, beliefs are more fundamental and credences are a species of beliefs, e.g. beliefs about probabilities. On a credence-first view, credences are more fundamental and beliefs are a species of credence, e.g. credence above some threshold. In this thesis, I develop and defend a third view that I call belief-credence dualism. On this view, belief and credence are independent, equally fundamental attitudes, and neither reduces to the other. I begin by motivating the project: why should we care about the relationship between belief and credence? I argue it has broad implications for many debates in epistemology and beyond. Then, I defend dualism, arguing that it can explain features of our mental lives that a credence-first view and a belief-first view cannot. I also argue that dualism has attractive, interesting implications when applied to the pragmatic encroachment debate. Finally, I explore implications of dualism, both for the nature of evidence and how faith might go beyond the evidence but nonetheless be epistemically rational. I conclude that the human mind is, in some ways, complex, but we should be happy with this conclusion also long as each mental state we posit has a clear role to play.
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Below are abstracts of some of my unpublished current projects. The titles of papers under review are redacted. If you’re interested, feel free to email me for a draft!
Books (under contract)
(2) Must Beliefs and Evidence Agree? A Debate (with Scott Stapleford). Under contract with Routledge, for the Little Debates about Big Questions series (Tyron Goldschmidt and Dustin Crummett, series editors).
Questions about what we should believe are central to philosophy. A core debate involves the relationship between belief and evidence. Are we doing something wrong in believing with little or no evidence? Are we free to believe according to our interests, feelings or desires? May our beliefs be based partly or wholly on moral or practical considerations? And what are these oughts and shoulds and mays anyway? In this debate, Liz Jackson and Scott Stapleford take up these questions in an engaging style. Stapleford defends the view that we must always follow the evidence, and Jackson defends the view that sometimes we don’t have to. They also take opposing views on the rationality of religious belief in the absence of compelling evidence. This debate will tempt—and gently instruct—anyone who has ever asked herself: Can’t I just believe whatever I want?
(1) Applied Ethics: An Impartial Introduction (with Tyron Goldschmidt, Rebecca Chan, and Dustin Crummett). Under contract with Hackett Publishing.
This book is devoted to applied ethics. We focus on six popular and controversial topics: abortion, the environment, animals, poverty, punishment, and disability. We cover three chapters per topic, and each chapter is devoted to a famous or influential argument on the topic. After we present an influential argument, we then consider objections to the argument, and replies to the objections. The book is impartial, and set up in order to equip the reader to make up her own mind about the controversial topics covered.
Under Review
A paper on belief and credence
Much of the literature on the relationship between belief and credence has focused on the reduction question: that is, whether either belief or credence reduces to the other. This debate, while important, only scratches the surface of the belief-credence connection. Even on the anti-reductive dualist view, belief and credence could still be very tightly connected. Here, I explore questions about the belief-credence connection that go beyond reduction. This paper is dedicated to what I call the independence question: just how independent are belief and credence? I look at this question from two angles: a descriptive one (as a psychological matter, how much can belief and credence come apart?) and a normative one (for a rational agent, how closely connected are belief and credence?) Ultimately, I suggest that the two attitudes are more independent than one might think.
A paper defending belief-credence dualism (with Peter Tan)
We call attention to certain cases of epistemic akrasia, arguing that they support belief-credence dualism. Belief-credence dualism is the view that belief and credence are irreducible, equally fundamental attitudes. Consider the case of an agent who believes p, has low credence in p, and thus believes that they shouldn’t believe p to begin with. We argue that dualists, as opposed to belief-firsters (who say belief reduces to credence) and credence-firsters (who say credence reduces to belief) can best explain features of akratic cases, including the observation that akratic beliefs seem to be held despite possessing a defeater for those beliefs, and that, in akratic cases, one can simultaneously believe and have low confidence in the very same proposition.
A paper on epistemology and Pascal’s wager
Epistemic permissivism is the thesis that, given a body of evidence and a proposition P, there is more than one rational doxastic attitude that one can take toward P. Pascal’s Wager is the idea that one ought to believe in God for practical reasons, because of what one can gain if theism is true and what one has to lose if theism is false. In this paper, I argue that if epistemic permissivism is true, then the defender of Pascal’s Wager has powerful responses to two objections. First, I argue that if permissivism is true, then permissivism is likely true about theistic belief. Then, I show how epistemic permissivism about theistic belief dispels two objections to Pascal’s Wager: the objection that wagering is impossible, and the objection that wagering is epistemically impermissible.
A paper defending an alternative version of Pascal’s wager
Imagine you had an unlimited amount of time to ask an omniscient being anything you wanted. The potential epistemic benefits would be enormous, if not infinite: endless pieces of significant knowledge/true belief/justified belief. I argue that these considerations point to an epistemic version of Pascal’s wager. More specifically, I argue that if epistemic consequentialism is true, then there is a strong epistemic reason to believe in God. I compare and contrast this version of the wager with the traditional wager, and argue that the epistemic version has several notable advantages.
Works in Progress
Faithfully Taking Pascal’s Wager, for a special issue of The Monist on faith, hope, and trust (Finlay Malcolm, ed.)
This paper examines the relationship between Pascal’s wager, faith, and hope. First, I argue that many who take Pascal’s wager have genuine faith that God exists. The person of faith and the wagerer have several things in common, including a commitment to God and positive cognitive and conative attitudes toward God’s existence. I also argue that if one’s credences in theism are too low to have faith, the wagerer can still hope that God exists, another commitment-justifying theological virtue. I consider two upshots of my argument, including how my picture provides responses to common objections to Pascal’s wager.
- To be presented at the Pacific APA (March 2021, via Zoom)
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- I was interviewed about this paper on Proslogion Philosophy (video link).
Faith, Belief, and Religious Experience, for an edited volume on religious experience (Olga Louchakova-Schwartz, ed.)
Suppose one can have faith that God exists without believing God exists. This paper examines what we should say about such a state, and the next steps for a person with belief-less faith. First, I outline various arguments that to think that faith doesn’t entail belief. Then, I argue that, even if possible, there is something non-ideal about belief-less faith. Finally, I show how religious experience can bridge the gap between faith and belief, enabling the faithful to eventually come to believe.
- Presented at Valparaiso University (October 2019)
How Low Can You Go? Belief, Credence, and Philosophical Views
What attitude should philosophers take toward their favorite philosophical theories? I argue that the answer is belief and middling to low credence. I begin by discussing why disagreement has motivated many to say philosophers cannot rationally believe their theories, and I explain why the argument from disagreement does not ultimately establish this. Then, I motivate my view in three ways: the first concerns roles for belief and credence, the second provides other cases of rational belief and middling to low credence, and the final explains why believing one’s philosophical theories is superior to endorsing them. I close by discussing implications my view has for the Lockean thesis, the view that there is an important connection between rational belief and rational credence.
- Handout
- Presented at the Eastern APA (January 2021, via Zoom) (Handout) (Video)
- To be presented at New Mexico State University (Fall 2021)
Credal Functionalism (with Justin D’Ambrosio)
What are credences? Various theories have been proposed, including betting behaviour views (Ramsey 1926; de Finetti 1990), interpretivist views (Lewis 1974), and primitivist views (Eriksson and Hajek 2006). In this paper, we argue that these views are misguided and defend an alternative: credal functionalism. We develop a fully realist, non-interpretivist, functionalist account of credences and discuss its metaphysical consequences. On our view, credences are propositional attitudes that, like beliefs and desires, can be defined functionally—that is, in terms of the causal role they play in our psychology at large. We go on to discuss the metaphysical implications of interdefinability of credences and other mental states, develop a specific version of realizer functionalism about credal attitude-relations (rather than content), and explain various advantages our view has over alternatives. We conclude that credal functionalism is a plausible view, and one that should be taken seriously, especially by epistemologists.
- To be presented at the University of Leeds (Spring 2021, via Zoom)
Permissivism, Encroachment, and Practical Reasons for Belief
Intrapersonal permissivism is the thesis that there are evidential situations in which a particular individual can adopt more than one belief-attitude toward a proposition, given her evidence. In this paper, I argue that if intrapersonal permissivism is true, it makes two controversial theses in epistemology—practical reasons for belief and pragmatic/moral encroachment—more palatable. If one finds herself in a permissive case, then it is both possible and epistemically rational to believe for a practical reason. Along similar lines, permissivism dispels common worries for pragmatic and moral encroachment. I conclude that proponents of practical reasons for belief and proponents of encroachment have strong reason to adopt an intra-personally permissive epistemology.
- Presented at “Encroachment at Home” (May 2020, via Zoom)
Interpersonal Faith and Self-Fulfilling Beliefs
I provide a model of how rational faith in oneself and in others goes beyond the evidence. I begin by discussing self-justifying beliefs: beliefs that, when adopted, create evidence for the proposition believed. For example, one’s believing one will survive a life-threating illness can make it more likely that they will survive (see James 1986). I argue that intrapersonal and interpersonal faith are sometimes similarly self-fulfilling: having faith in oneself or in others raises the probability that the target proposition obtains. For instance, if I have faith that you will make your time in your upcoming marathon, this gives you motivation and zeal, making it more likely that you will make your time. And the same model applies to faith in oneself. I then reply to an objection: why think that self-fulfillment sufficiently raises the probability to rationalize faith? In response, (i) self-fulfilling faith is more likely to be rational than self-fulfilling belief, if rational faith generally doesn’t require as high of a probability as rational belief, and (ii) my view doesn’t rationalize all cases of faith. Finally, I discuss a number of upshots of this picture. First, my view can explain how rational faith goes beyond the evidence. Second, on my picture, when we have faith in others, it is crucial to communicate this to them; but this is pre-theoretically plausible and also explains the importance of faith communities. Finally, several have argued that we have more control over our attitudes in self-fulling cases; if this is right, then we may have some level of control over our faith-attitudes.
- Presented at the Pepperdine Colloquium series (September 2020, via Zoom)
- To be presented at the Inaugural Princeton Project in Philosophy and Religion Conference (October 2021)
Explaining Evil and Pragmatic Belief
There’s evil in the world. This is a fact that no one denies. In this paper, I examine two explanations for the evil in the world: the theistic one and the atheistic one. Instead of examining the question of which gives a better explanation of evil, I focus on a different question: which explanation of evil should we want to be true? I argue that we should prefer the theistic explanation. Then, I argue that, in certain evidential situations, this provides a reason to believe in God.
- To be presented at the Capturing Christianity Conference (August 2021)
The Epistemic Axiology of Theism
The axiology of theism concerns the question of whether God’s existence would be a good thing. Pro-theists say yes, and anti-theists say no. This paper extends the axiology of theism to the realm of epistemology: would God’s existence be an epistemically good thing? It concludes in favor of epistemic pro-theism.
- To be presented at the Philosophy of Religion workshop at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Chile (September 2021)
The Axiology of Theism and the Rationality of Faith
When it comes to the rationality of faith, philosophers of religion have mostly focused on the role of counterevidence: When can rational faith co-exist with counterevidence? When does counterevidence render faith irrational? However, counterevidence isn’t the only threat to the rationality of faith. This paper focuses on a second way faith could be irrational. This way concerns the axiology of theism, i.e. the question of whether God’s existence would be a good thing. Pro-theists say yes, and anti-theists say no. This paper shows how anti-theism could threaten the rationality of theistic faith. Then, it shows why, even if anti-theism is true, this route is unlikely to successfully defeat faith’s rationality.
- To be presented at the Tyndale Philosophy of Religion Conference (June 2021, via Zoom)