My primary research is in epistemology, both traditional and formal. I’m currently working on a book defending epistemic permissivism. (Scroll to the bottom of the page for more info and a chapter-by-chapter breakdown.) Much of my other work in epistemology is on the relationship between belief and credence. I’ve also thought about the bounds of epistemic rationality and whether it’s affected by the moral or the practical. I have further interest in whether, and to what extent, we can control our beliefs (and credences).
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
(22) An Epistemic Version of Pascal’s Wager. Forthcoming in The Journal of the American Philosophical Association.
ABSTRACT: Epistemic consequentialism is the view that epistemic goodness is more fundamental than epistemic rightness. This paper examines the relationship between epistemic consequentialism and theistic belief. I argue that, in an epistemic consequentialist framework, there is an epistemic reason to believe in God. Imagine having an unlimited amount of time to ask an omniscient being anything you wanted. The potential epistemic benefits would be enormous. Considerations like these point to an epistemic version of Pascal’s wager. I compare and contrast the epistemic wager with the traditional wager, and argue that the epistemic wager has several notable advantages.
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(21) A Permissivist Defense of Pascal’s Wager. (2023). Erkenntnis. 88(6): 2315–2340.
ABSTRACT: Epistemic permissivism is the thesis that the evidence can rationally permit more than one attitude toward a proposition. 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 prominent objections. First, I argue that if permissivism is true, then permissivism is true about theistic belief. Second, 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.
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- I was interviewed about this paper (here) and (here).
(20) Faithfully Taking Pascal’s Wager. (2023). The Monist. 106(1): 35–45.
ABSTRACT: This paper examines the relationship between taking 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. If one’s credences in theism are too low to have faith, I argue that the wagerer can still hope that God exists, another commitment-justifying theological virtue. The paper concludes with two upshots of the argument, including how it provides responses to common objections to Pascal’s wager.
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- Presented at the Pacific APA (March 2021, via Zoom) (Handout) (Video)
- I was interviewed about this paper (here), and a popular-level summary is (here).
(19) Faith: Contemporary Perspectives. (2023). In the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
ABSTRACT: Faith is a trusting commitment to someone or something. Faith helps us meet our goals, keeps our relationships secure, and enables us to retain our commitments over time. Faith is thus a central part of a flourishing life. This article is about the philosophy of faith. There are many philosophical questions about faith, such as: What is faith, and what are its main components or features? What are the different kinds of faith? What’s the relationship between faith and other similar states, like belief, trust, knowledge, desire, doubt, and hope? Can faith be epistemically rationally? Practically rational? Morally permissible? This article addresses these questions. It is divided into three main parts. The first is about the nature of faith. This includes different kinds of faith and various features of faith. The second discusses the way that faith relates to other states. For example, what’s the difference between faith and hope? Can someone have faith that something is true even if they don’t believe it is true? The third discusses three ways we might evaluate faith: epistemically, practically, and morally. While faith is, of course, not always rational or permissible, this section will cover when and how it can be. The idea of faith as a virtue is also discussed.
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(18) Epistemic Akrasia and Belief-Credence Dualism (with Peter Tan). (2022). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 104(3): 717–727.
ABSTRACT: 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. We argue that dualists, as opposed to belief-firsters (who say credence reduces to belief) and credence-firsters (who say belief reduces to credence) 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.
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(17) Why Credences Are Not Beliefs. (2022). The Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 100(2): 360–370.
ABSTRACT: 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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(16) On the Independence of Belief and Credence. (2022). Philosophical Issues (A Supplement to Noûs). 32(1): 9–31.
ABSTRACT: 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.
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(15) Probing the Mind of God: Divine Beliefs and Credences (with Justin Mooney). (2022) Religious Studies. 58(S1): S61–S75.
ABSTRACT: Although much has been written about divine knowledge, and some on divine beliefs, virtually nothing has been written about divine credences. In this essay we comparatively assess four views on divine credences: (1) God has only beliefs, not credences; (2) God has both beliefs and credences; (3) God has only credences, not beliefs; and (4) God has neither credences nor beliefs, only knowledge. We weigh the costs and benefits of these four views and draw connections to current discussions in philosophical theology.
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- Justin and I were interviewed on this paper (here) and (here).
(14) Belief, Faith, and Hope: On the Rationality of Long-Term Commitment. (2021). Mind. 130(517): 35–57.
ABSTRACT: 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 (here) and (here).
(13) Belief, Credence, and Moral Encroachment (with Jamie Fritz). (2021) Synthese. 199(1-2): 1387–1408.
ABSTRACT: 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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(12) Settling the Unsettled: Roles for Belief. (2021). Analysis. 81(2): 359–368.
ABSTRACT: 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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- Critical Notice on Julia Staffel’s Unsettled Thoughts. I present some of this material (here).
(11) The Ethics of Religious Belief. (2021). Religious Studies Archives. 1(4): 1–10.
ABSTRACT: On some religious traditions, there are obligations to believe certain things. However, this leads to a puzzle, since many philosophers think that we cannot voluntarily control our beliefs, and, plausibly, ought implies can. How do we make sense of religious doxastic obligations? The papers in this issue present four responses to this puzzle. The first response denies that we have doxastic obligations at all; the second denies that ought implies can. The third and fourth responses maintain that we have either indirect or direct control over our beliefs. This paper summarizes each response to the puzzle and argues that there are plausible ways out of this paradox.
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(10) A Defense of Intrapersonal Belief Permissivism. (2021). Episteme. 18(2): 313–327.
ABSTRACT: 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. (2021). The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. 46(4): 379–393.
(8) Credence: A Belief-First Approach (with Andrew Moon). (2020). The Canadian Journal of Philosophy. 50(5): 652–669.
ABSTRACT: 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.
ABSTRACT: 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.
ABSTRACT: 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.
ABSTRACT: 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.
ABSTRACT: 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.
ABSTRACT: 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 (here) and a popular-level summary is (here).
(2) Salvaging Pascal’s Wager (with Andy Rogers). (2019). Philosophia Christi. 21(1): 59–84.
ABSTRACT: 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 (here) and (here).
(1) Wagering Against Divine Hiddenness. (2016). The European Journal for Philosophy of Religion. 8(4): 85–105.
ABSTRACT: 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 (here) and (here).
Textbook
Applied Ethics: An Impartial Introduction (with Tyron Goldschmidt, Rebecca Chan, and Dustin Crummett). (2021). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing.
ABSTRACT: 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.
- PhilPapers Link
- Official version (Hackett)
- Official version (Amazon)
- Myself and other authors are interviewed about this book (here).
Book Chapters
(11) How Low Can You Go? A Defense of Believing Philosophical Theories. (Forthcoming). In Attitude in Philosophy, edited by Sanford Goldberg and Mark Walker. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ABSTRACT: 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.
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- (Handout) (Video)
(10) The Epistemology of Faith and Hope. (Forthcoming). In The Blackwell Companion to Epistemology, Third Edition, edited by Kurt Sylvan. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
ABSTRACT: This paper surveys the epistemology of two attitudes: faith and hope. First, I examine descriptive questions about faith and hope. Faith and hope are resilient attitudes with unique cognitive and conative components; while related, they are also distinct, notably in that hope’s cognitive component is weaker than faith’s. I then turn to faith and hope’s epistemic (ir)rationality, and discuss various ways that faith and hope can be rational and irrational. Finally, I discuss the relationship between faith, hope, and knowledge: while it’s controversial whether faith is compatible with knowledge, hope is not compatible with knowledge.
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(9) Permissivism, Underdetermination, and Evidence (with Margaret Turnbull). (2024). In The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence, edited by Clayton Littlejohn and Maria Lasonen-Aarnio, pp. 358–370. New York: Routledge.
ABSTRACT: 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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(8) Against the Phenomenal View of Evidence: Seemings and Shared Evidence. (2023). In Seemings: New Arguments, New Angles, edited by Scott Stapleford, Matthias Steup, and Kevin McCain, pp. 54–62. New York: Routledge.
ABSTRACT: On the phenomenal view of evidence, seemings are evidence. More precisely, if it seems to S that p, S has evidence for p. While this view of evidence has its benefits, it also has the counterintuitive consequence that two people who disagree would almost never share evidence. This is because almost all differences in beliefs would involve differences in seemings: if S believes p, it seems to S that p; if S believes not-p, it seems to S that not-p. However, many literatures in epistemology, including the disagreement literature and the permissivism literature, presuppose that people who disagree can share evidence. I conclude that there is reason to question the phenomenal view of evidence.
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(7) Pragmatic Arguments for Theism. (2023). In The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology, edited by John Greco, Tyler McNabb, and Jonathan Fuqua, pp. 70–82. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ABSTRACT: Traditional theistic arguments conclude that God exists. Pragmatic theistic arguments, by contrast, conclude that you ought to believe in God. The two most famous pragmatic arguments for theism are put forth by Blaise Pascal (1662) and William James (1896). Pragmatic arguments for theism can be summarized as follows: believing in God has significant benefits, and these benefits aren’t available for the unbeliever. Thus, one should believe in, or ‘wager on’, God. This article distinguishes between various kinds of theistic wagers, including finite vs. infinite wagers, premortem vs. postmortem wagers, and doxastic vs. acceptance wagers. Then, we’ll turn to the epistemic-pragmatic distinction, and discusses the nuances of James’ argument, and how views like epistemic permissivism and epistemic consequentialism provide unique “hybrid” wagers. Finally, we’ll cover outstanding objections and responses.
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(6) Faith, Hope, and Justification. (2022). In Propositional and Doxastic Justification, edited by Luis R.G. Oliveira and Paul Silva, pp. 201–216. Routledge Studies in Epistemology. New York: Routledge.
ABSTRACT: 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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(5) Faith and Reason. (2022). In The Handbook of Philosophy of Religion, edited by Mark A. Lamport, pp. 167-177. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield.
ABSTRACT: What is faith? How is faith different than belief and hope? Is faith irrational? If not, how can faith go beyond the evidence? This chapter introduces the reader to philosophical questions involving faith and reason. First, we explore a four-part definition of faith. Then, we consider the question of how faith could be rational yet go beyond the evidence.
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- I was interviewed about this paper (here), and see (here) for a Persian translation.
(4) What’s Epistemic About Epistemic Paternalism? (2022). In Epistemic Autonomy, edited by Kirk Lougheed and Jonathan Matheson, pp. 132–150. Routledge Studies in Epistemology. New York: Routledge.
ABSTRACT: 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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(3) Dilemmas, Disagreement, and Dualism. (2021). In Epistemic Dilemmas: New Arguments, New Angles, edited by Kevin McCain, Scott Stapleford, and Matthias Steup, pp. 217–231. Routledge Studies in Epistemology. New York: Routledge.
ABSTRACT: This paper introduces and motivates a solution to a dilemma from peer disagreement. Following Buchak (2021), 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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- To see me present this paper, see (here), (here), and (here).
(2) Epistemic Paternalism, Epistemic Permissivism, and Standpoint Epistemology. (2020). Epistemic Paternalism Reconsidered: Conceptions, Justifications, and Implications, edited by Amiel Bernal and Guy Axtell, pp. 201–215. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
ABSTRACT: 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, edited by Joshua Rasmussen and Kevin Vallier, pp. 77–92. New York: Routledge.
ABSTRACT: 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 this paper (here) and (here) a popular-level summary is (here).
Other Publications
Epistemology. (Forthcoming). In The T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Christian Theology, edited by Paul Allen. New York: T&T Clark/Bloomsbury.
ABSTRACT: 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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Pascal’s Wager: A Pragmatic Argument for Belief in God. (2021). In 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology.
ABSTRACT: 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
- Link to Article in Turkish
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, edited by João Luis Pereira Ourique, pp. 77–78. Pelotas, Brazil: Série Dissertatio de Filosofia.
ABSTRACT: 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.
ABSTRACT: 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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Bibliographies
If you notice any corrections or additions, please email me.
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!
Under Review
A paper on epistemology, theism, and value
ABSTRACT: 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.
- (Handout) (Video)
A paper on faith and desire
ABSTRACT: Many philosophers of religion writing on the nature of faith have focused on the relationship between faith and belief, specifically the question: does faith entail belief? At the same time, it’s also widely held that faith involves a desire or pro-attitude, but more attention has been paid to the specifics of faith’s doxastic component than to faith’s affective component. This paper focuses on the relationship between faith and desire. I’ll argue that faith is weakly positive: while faith may not always involve a flat-out desire, faith necessarily involves a positive desire-like attitude.
- (Handout) (Video)
A paper on faith and anti-theism
ABSTRACT: A topic of recent interest involves the nature of theistic faith, and in particular, the boundaries of such faith. For example, philosophers have taken opposing positions on whether atheists and agnostics can have theistic faith. I consider another question: whether anti-theists, who think God’s existence would be a bad thing, can have faith. I argue for a negative answer, although with several caveats.
Commissioned Works in Progress
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).
ABSTRACT: 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?
Entry on Doxastic Voluntarism for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (with Mark Boespflug)
ABSTRACT: This entry surveys the philosophical literature on doxastic voluntarism. We cover varieties of control, the history of the debate, contemporary arguments for and against voluntarism, relevant empirical work, the ethics of belief, and significance of doxastic voluntarism for religious commitment. In section 1, we expand on the definition of doxastic voluntarism, and survey various kinds of control (e.g. direct, indirect, long-range) and the doxastic attitudes we might control (e.g. outright belief, withholding, credences). In section 2, we discuss historical proponents of doxastic voluntarism, as well as detractors. In section 3, we survey motivations for rejecting doxastic voluntarism. There are two general strategies: arguments that appeal to psychological considerations, and conceptual arguments regarding the nature of belief. In section 4, we survey five approaches to defending voluntarism, which appeal to epistemic permissivism, doxastic compatibilism, skepticism, one-off voluntarism, and non-standard views of belief. In section 5, we cover empirical work on doxastic voluntarism. The last two sections discuss two implications of voluntarism. In section 6, we discuss the ethics of belief, and in section 7, we discuss issues at the intersection of doxastic voluntarism and religious faith.
Can Atheists Have Faith? For Philosophic Exchange. (Handout) (Video)
ABSTRACT: This paper examines whether atheists, who believe that God does not exist, can have faith. Of course, atheists have certain kinds of faith: faith in their friends, faith in certain ideals, and faith in themselves. However, the question we’ll examine is whether atheists can have theistic faith: faith that God exists. Philosophers tend to fall on one of two extremes on this question: some, like Dan Howard-Snyder (2019), say unequivocally no; others, like Sam Lebens (2021), say unequivocally yes. Here, I take a middle position: I argue that atheists can have action-focused faith (faith in how they act) but not attitude-focused faith (faith in what attitudes they have).
Permissivist Evidentialism for Evidentialism at 40: New Arguments, New Angles, edited by Kevin McCain, Scott Stapleford, and Matthias Steup. Routledge Studies in Epistemology. New York: Routledge.
ABSTRACT: Many evidentialists are impermissivists. But there’s no in-principle reason for this. In this paper, I examine permissivist evidentialism. Not only are permissivism and evidentialism compatible, but there are several unique benefits arise for this combination of views. In particular, permissivist evidentialism respects the importance of evidence while capturing its limitations, provides a plausible and attractive explanation of the relationship between practical and epistemic oughts, and helps with the doxastic involuntarism objection to evidentialism. Thus, permissivist evidentialism is an attractive option in logical space that hasn’t received enough attention.
The Cognitive Science of Credence for The Oxford Handbook of the Cognitive Science of Belief, edited by Neil Van Leeuwen and Tania Lombrozo. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ABSTRACT: Credences similar to levels of confidence, represented as a value on the [0,1] interval. This chapter sheds light on questions about credence, including its relationship to full belief, with an eye toward the empirical relevance of credence. First, I’ll provide a brief epistemological history of credence and lay out some of the main theories of the nature of credence. Then, I’ll provide an overview of the main views on how credences relate to full beliefs. Finally, I’ll turn to the empirical, and suggest some ways that cognitive science does and could answer questions about credence, such as what credences one has, how credences relate to beliefs, and the extent to which we can control our credences.
- Download on Philpapers – comments welcome!
Entry on Agnosticism for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (with Paul Draper)
- Focus on both religious and non-religious accounts of agnosticism
Other Works in Progress
If You Believe It, They Will Come: Faith as Self-Justifying
ABSTRACT: 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-threatening 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, online) and the Inaugural Princeton Project in Philosophy and Religion Conference (October 2021) (Slides) (Handout) (Video)
How to Argue for Belief-Credence Dualism
ABSTRACT: Belief-credence dualism is the view that we have both beliefs and credences and both attitudes are equally fundamental. In this paper, I defend belief-credence dualism. First, I explain five views about the ontology of beliefs and credences: belief-eliminativism, credence-first, dualism, belief-first, and credence-eliminativism. Settling the eliminativist views aside, I motivate dualism by arguing that the remaining views, belief-first (that belief is more fundamental) and credence-first (that credence is more fundamental) cannot account for various roles of each attitude.
- Presented at the Central APA, Symposium on Belief and Credence, Chicago (February 2022) (Handout) (Video)
Breaking Epistemic Ties: A Defense of Permissivism [monograph, working title].
- Chapter One, Introduction
This chapter is a general introduction to the main themes of the project, how they fit within epistemology, and the specifics of what will be covered in each chapter. First, I discuss how epistemology has shifted from a focus on knowledge to, more recently, the question: what should I believe? I’ll briefly introduce the reader to epistemic rationality and epistemic permissivism with some key examples. Then, I’ll summarize each chapter and provide an overview of some of the main motivations for permissivism, including direct arguments for permissivism (part 1), the application of permissivism to other areas in epistemology and philosophy of mind (part 2), and the application of permissivism to religious epistemology (part 3).
- Chapter Two, Epistemic Permissivism and Epistemic Ties
This chapter summarizes the basics of the permissivism and impermissivism debate. After explaining the two main views, I’ll also explain two of the concepts central to the debate, evidence and epistemic rationality. I’ll then briefly discuss several different strands of permissivism to introduce the permissivist view I’ll be defending: synchronic intrapersonal belief permissivism. This is the view that, for a single person at a time, their evidence can rationally permit more than one belief-attitude. So, one’s evidence might rationally permit belief and withholding, disbelief and withholding, or all three belief-attitudes at the same time. Other more moderate strands of permissivism are more popular, and this view has yet to see much defense in the literature. I then explain the concept of epistemic ties and how it falls out of this strand of permissivism. I also briefly discuss the compatibility of this strand of permissivism with evidentialism.
- Chapter Three, A Defense of Permissivism
This chapter provides four arguments for synchronic intrapersonal belief permissivism. The first is appeals to self-justifying beliefs, beliefs that, when held, provide evidence for themselves or even make themselves true. The second, inspired by Roeber (2020), appeals to the fact that evidence can be gained or lost in small quantities, which suggests that, as it is slowly gained (or lost) it could support both belief and withholding or disbelief and withholding. The third appeals to the limitations of evidence: I’ll argue that evidence doesn’t always straightforwardly support taking a particular stance, but can be limited and complicated, and that this supports permissivism. The final argument involves cases of inference to the best explanation where there isn’t a single best explanation, but several equally good explanations. Such cases again support synchronic intrapersonal belief permissivism. Finally, I’ll reply to objections.
- Presented at the University of Leeds (September 2023) (Handout) (Video)
- Chapter Four, Voluntary Belief
This chapter applies permissivism to the question of whether belief is voluntary. It is divided into two main parts. The first considers the nature of “voluntary belief”: what kind of control is needed? I’ll argue, contra several authors in the doxastic voluntarism literature, that we shouldn’t understand voluntary belief as involving direct control; that bar is much too high. Instead, we should be looking for belief-action parity: do we have the same control over our beliefs as we do our (voluntary) actions? Among other things, one benefit of this way of viewing things is that it doesn’t require us to take a stand on the nature of free will (e.g. libertarianism vs. compatibilism). In the second half of the chapter, I’ll argue that permissivism clears space for voluntary belief. I’ll discuss how many arguments against doxastic voluntarism presuppose impermissivism. Then, I’ll provide some cases of permissive voluntary belief, and motivate the idea that epistemic ties enable genuine choices about what to believe. I’ll discuss the extent to which the thinker needs to be aware of their epistemic situation for this to be possible, implications for epistemic responsibility, and finally how an impermissivist could actually embrace a similar descriptive thesis, but would have to accept that many chosen beliefs are irrational. Finally, I’ll reply to objections.
- Chapter Five, Encroachment and Epistemic Partiality
This chapter applies permissivism to the debate about the nature of epistemic rationality: is epistemic rationality only about truth-aimed factors, as the purist contends, or can the moral and the practical affect epistemic rationality? First, I’ll explain pragmatic and moral encroachment, and how epistemic partiality is plausibly a species of moral encroachment. Then, I’ll raise three problems for encroachment views: the first I call the purist intuition: it’s counterintuitive that non-truth-related things could affect epistemic rationality. The second I call the scope question: how drastically can the moral and practical factors affect things? Can they make disbelieving p rational when otherwise believing p was rational? How many propositions can they affect our attitude toward? The final is what I call the control worry, which is the worry that we cannot change our beliefs in response to non-epistemic considerations. I argue that, by embracing permissivism, encroachers can satisfactorily answer all three challenges. The main idea is that practical and moral factors serve to break epistemic ties, so encroachment never requires believing against the evidence. The practical and moral play a role only when there’s epistemic underdetermination.
- Presented at the University of St. Andrews (September 2022) (Handout) (Video)
- Chapter Six, Practical Reasons for Belief and Purism
This chapter applies considerations from the previous chapter to two additional views: practical reasons for belief and purism. While these are very different views, they have some surprising similarities, including a general resistance to encroachment-style views, an allowance for the purity of epistemic rationality, and a reliance on a kind of all-things-considered ought for belief. But other problems arise for these views. The first is explaining the intuitiveness of the cases motivating encroachment. The second is what to do when epistemic rationality and other kinds of rationality clash. And the third involves the question: what should we believe, period? I’ll again argue that these views can answer these challenges by embracing the idea that the practical (and moral) can break epistemic ties. However, in this case, the tiebreaking happens at the level of all-things-considered rationality, rather than at the level of epistemic rationality. Thus, these views can accommodate a role for the practical and moral while keeping epistemic rationality pure.
- Chapter Seven, Permissivism about Religious Belief
This chapter argues that theistic belief (that is, regarding whether God exists) is permissive belief. This is not a universal claim about persons or normative domains, but the claim that, for many common bodies of evidence, epistemic rationality is permissive about theism. Three marks of a permissive belief are rational disagreement over time, rational disagreement over persons, and powerful evidence on both sides. I argue that theistic belief fits all three criteria. Finally, I consider how this also supports intrapersonal permissivism about theistic belief, using Peter Van Inwagen’s (1994) Quam Dialecta as a case study. Finally, I’ll reply to objections.
- Chapter Eight, Faith, Voluntary and Rational
This chapter applies permissivism to the problem of faith and reason. I argue that, when it comes to solving this problem, we want a view on which faith is epistemically rational, voluntary, and goes beyond the evidence. I consider a common way to meet all three desiderata, namely, that faith is an action or action-like. This solution, while successful, is unsurprising and uncontroversial. Then, I agree that a permissivist view of attitude-focused faith, inspired by William James, can meet all three criteria in a much more interesting way.
- Presented at the University of Houston (November 2023) (Handout) (Video)
- Chapter Nine, The Problem of Evil
This chapter applies the permissivist framework from the previous two chapters to what we should believe in light of the problem of evil. There are two explanations for evil: the atheistic one and the theistic one. Most of the debate thus far has concerned what I call the epistemological question: which better explains the evidence of evil? But another question you might ask is the axiological question: which explanation of evil should we want to be true? I argue the theistic explanation is more desirable than the atheistic one. Furthermore, I argue that this can serve as an epistemic tiebreaker for those who find themselves unable to settle the question of God’s existence by examining the evidence.
- Presented at the Capturing Christianity Conference (August 2021) (Slides) (Video)
- Chapter Ten, Pascal’s Wager
This chapter argues that epistemic permissivism can supply powerful responses to two prominent objections to Pascal’s wager. 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. After explaining the wager, 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.
- Chapter Eleven, Conclusion
This chapter sums up the book’s main conclusions and points to some areas for further research. The idea that there are epistemic ties is not only independently motivated, but it carves out a unique space for voluntary belief in a literature dominated by involuntarism. Furthermore, the idea that these ties can be broken by practical and moral considerations provides a unique middle ground between purism and impurism about epistemic rationality. Finally, the possibility of epistemic ties has powerful implications for questions about the rationality of religious belief and religious commitment. For future directions, the ideas in this book could be applied to topics such as theory choice in science (in which underdetermination is an important concern). They could also be applied to further questions in philosophy of religion, involving beliefs beyond mere theism (e.g. involving specific religions and specific doctrines) and also non-Western and non-monotheistic religions as well. Overall, I conclude that embracing a permissive epistemology has fruitful and fascinating results.