PAPERS
Published in Philosophical Studies
Uttering Moorean Sentences and the Pragmatics of Belief Reports (LINK)
Abstract
Moore supposedly discovered that there are sentences of a certain form that, though they can be true, no rational human being can sincerely and truly utter any of them. MC and MO are particular instances:
MC: ‘‘It is raining and I believe that it is not raining’’
MO: ‘‘It is raining and I don’t believe that it is raining’’
In this paper, I show that there are sentences of the same form as MC and MO that can be sincerely and truly uttered by rational agents. We call sentences of the same form as MC and MO ‘‘Moorean Sentences’’. In Part II, we go over a standard argument for why sentences of the same form as MC and MO cannot be sincerely and truly uttered, and we explain why this argument is unsound. In explaining why this argument is unsound, we rely on the context-sensitivity of belief-reports and show that the premises of the argument are not all true in the same context. We then employ a general theory of belief reports that incorporates guises to explain why our examples are sincerely utterable while Moore’s sentences are typically not sincerely utterable. The answer will turn on the suggestion that belief reports carry a hidden quantifier over guises, where the domain of quantification is determined by context. We conclude with general lessons about Moore’s Paradox and the supposed limits of first-person belief reports.
Published in Erkenntnis
Knowing Your Way Out of St. Petersburg: An Exploration of "Knowledge-First" Decision Theory
Abstract
The St. Petersburg Game is a gamble that has infinite expected value (according to standard decision theories) but is intuitively worth less than $25. In this paper I consider a new solution to the St. Petersburg paradox, based on the idea that you should act on what you know. While the possibility of a "knowledge-first" decision theory is often floated, the resulting theory is rarely explored in much detail. I survey some of the costs and benefits of the theory in the rest of the paper. I conclude that the resulting theory provides a fit contender for a solution to the St. Petersburg Paradox and should be taken more seriously than it has.
Published in Ergo
Prefaces, Knowledge, and Questions
Abstract
The Preface Paradox is often discussed for its implications for rational belief. Much less discussed is a variant of the Preface Paradox for knowledge. In this paper, I argue that the most plausible closure-friendly resolution to the Preface Paradox for Knowledge is to say that in any given context, we do not know much. I call this view ``Socraticism".
I argue that Socraticism is the most plausible view on two accounts -- (1). this view is compatible with the claim that most of our knowledge ascriptions are true, and (2). provided that (1) is true, the costs of accepting Socraticism are much less than the costs of accepting any other resolution to the Paradox.
I argue for (1) in Part II by developing a question-sensitive contextualist model for knowledge that shows how Socraticism is compatible with the claim that most of our knowledge ascriptions are true. I also argue how this contextualist model can achieve this result where other contextualist models fail.
I then consider other closure-friendly solutions to the paradox in part III and show how accepting those solutions forces us to give up a number of plausible epistemic principles.
Published in Erkenntnis
Moral Facts do not Supervene on Non-moral Qualitative Facts
Abstract
It is often taken to be a given that if two people, x and y, are qualitatively identical and have committed qualitatively identical actions, then it cannot be the case that one has committed something wrong whereas the other did not. That is to say, if x and y differ in their moral status, then it must be because x and y are qualitatively different, and not simply because x is identical to x and not identical to y. In this fictional dialogue between Socrates and Cantor involving infinitely many qualitatively identical agents, this assumption is challenged.
Published in Philosophical Studies
Group Prioritarianism: Why AI Should Not Replace Humanity
If a future AI system can enjoy far more well-being than a human per resource, what would be the best way to allocate resources between these future AI and our future descendants? It is obvious that on total utilitarianism, one should give everything to the AI. However, it turns out that every Welfarist axiology on the market also gives this same recommendation. Without resorting to non-consequentialist normative theories that suggest that we ought not always to create the world with the most value, or non-welfarist theories that tell us that the best world may not be the world with the most welfare, we propose a new theory that justifies the survival of humanity in the face of overwhelming AI wellbeing. We call this new theory, ``Group Prioritarianism".
Published in Nous
Paradoxes of Infinite Aggregation (with Jeff Russell)
There are infinitely many ways the world might be, and there may well be infinitely many people in it. These facts raise moral paradoxes. We explore a conflict between two highly attractive principles: a \textit{Pareto} principle that says that what is better for everyone is better overall, and a \textit{statewise dominance} principle that says that what is sure to turn out better is better on balance. We refine and generalize this paradox, showing that the problem is faced by many theories of interpersonal aggregation besides utilitarianism, and by many decision theories besides expected value theory. Considering the range of consistent responses, we find all of them to be quite radical.
Published in Synthese
Fanaticism and Knowledge
In this paper, I develop a question sensitive, contextualist model of knowledge and embed it into a ``knowledge-first decision theory". The result is a general decision theory that avoids the paradoxes involved with Pascal's Mugger, the St. Petersburg Game, and the Pasadena Game.
Forthcoming in Thought
Hilbert's Twin Hotel Paradox
This paper presents a new paradox that shows that two plausible principles are incompatible. Roughly speaking, they are (1) If a person loses some good, then you can still make things better overall by giving that same good to some number of other people. And (2). You can make a population better off overall if you make every sub-population better off overall. I argue that the latter should be rejected.
Published in Philosophical Perspectives
Normality in Action?
Recent years have seen an explosion of normality-theoretic models of knowledge. At the same time, there has been renewed interest in the action-guiding value of knowledge. The natural question that arises is whether knowledge, according to the normality-framework, is action guiding. We consider putting the normality-framework to good use in resolving thorny issues involving fanatical prospects. But ultimately, we give two arguments that suggest that whatever concept the normality framework is capturing (whether it really be knowledge or something else), it is not action-guiding.
Forthcoming Book for Cambridge Elements Series
AI Bias and Fairness (with John Hawthorne)
The last decade has witnessed a proliferation of advanced machine-learning algorithms. These algorithms have been used in a wide variety of domains — from detecting cancer, to determining whether somebody gets a loan, to whether someone gets parole. At the same time, there has been a proliferation of discussion over how one should design and implement these algorithms. Since Kleinberg et al.’s (2016) groundbreaking work, it has now long been known that these algorithms cannot be optimized for a range of competing measures of fairness simultaneously. This Element will first explore the relevant key concepts, namely that of fairness and bias before applying them to questions involving algorithms in particular. We hope to provide readers with tools that will help them explore algorithmic fairness and bias in a philosophically informed way.
Under Review
Recurrence, Rational Choice, and The Simulation Hypothesis (with Simon Goldstein)
According to the doctrine of recurrence, we are reborn after our apparent death to live our life again. This paper develops a new doctrine of recurrence. We make three main claims. First, we argue that the simulation hypothesis increases the chance that we will recur. Second, we argue that the chance of recurrence affects rational choice, depending on the shape of your utility function. In particular, we show that one kind of recurrence will be action relevant if and only if your preferences between actions could shift when all outcomes are scaled by a common factor. Third, we argue that recurrence can affect rational choice even if you do not survive recurrence.
Under Review
A paper on AI Safety and the Simulation Hypothesis (with Simon Goldstein)
The paper introduces and critically explores the idea that we are safer from AI risk if the simulation hypothesis is true.