The paper argues that expressions such as ¡°What is it like to be a bat?¡± or ¡°there is nothing it is like to be a rock¡± involve a distinct notion of being, one that is not assimilable to other more familiar concepts. This could have implications for understanding the mind-body relation.

According to Anti-structuralists about rationality, such as Errol Lord and Benjamin Kiesewetter, incoherence is irrational because it guarantees a failure to respond to one¡¯s possessed reasons. For example, since having sufficient evidence for believing p entails not having sufficient evidence for not¨Cp, it must be unreasonable to hold both beliefs. I argue that one of the most compelling explanations of how incoherence is psychologically possible, the fragmentation hypothesis, undermines this account of why it is irrational. When one¡¯s beliefs are fragmented, there is no guarantee that being reasonable is sufficient for being coherent.

Jane Friedman has famously argued that there are cases where the norms of inquiry¡ªthe zetetic norms¡ªcome into conflict with certain widely accepted epistemic norms and that this calls for reconsidering the place of such familiar epistemic norms. I discuss this alleged tension and show that it has all the features of the paradigmatic examples of the so-called wrong kind of reasons. If this is correct, then like other cases where we have the wrong kind of reasons, such reasons cannot require a change in the way we practice epistemology. I also show how skepticism about the wrong kind of reasons can provide a novel way to argue that there is no tension between the zetetic norms and familiar epistemic norms.

Manley and Wasserman¡¯s account of dispositions is that N is disposed to M when C if and only if N would M in some suitable proportion of C-cases, where a C-case is a fully specific scenario that settles everything causally relevant to the occurrence of M in a way that makes C obtain. Manley and Wasserman respond to some possible objections to their account by proposing that, in case of extrinsic dispositions, the closer the C-case is to actuality, the more it matters. In this paper, however, I will argue that their response fails.

Must a predetermined free agent have it within their power to break a law of nature? Brian Looper (2021) argues for an affirmative answer in the course of defending an influential version of the Consequence Argument against a famous objection due to David Lewis (1981). I argue that Looper¡¯s defense of Lewis¡¯s focal version of the Consequence Argument fails. After reconstructing the relevant version of the Consequence Argument along with Lewis¡¯s famous objection to it, I explain Looper¡¯s defense of the Consequence Argument against Lewis¡¯s objection. I then argue that Looper¡¯s defense of the Consequence Argument depends on an as yet inadequately motivated claim about agents¡¯ abilities.

The emergentist account of composition says roughly that emergence entails composition. After briefly explaining the basis of this account, I defend it against an objection presented by some nihilists (Cornell in American Philosophical Quarterly 54(1) (2017): 77¨C87; Caves in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 99(1) (2018): 2¨C28), who maintain that a plurality of objects can collectively instantiate emergent properties without composing any further object. I will show that this view risks undermining a central requirement of emergence.

Praise and blame are both forms of moral assessment. Yet, the literature on standing has focussed on blame¡ªto blame appropriately one needs standing to do so. Praise has been mostly ignored. This paper argues that the asymmetrical treatment of praise and blame is unwarranted: there¡¯s no good reason to think that we need standing to blame, but don¡¯t need standing to praise. This conclusion is important because it provides a new line of argument for scepticism about standing to blame.

In this paper, I argue that the metaphysical possibility of essential omnipotence implies that God exists. Showing that the possibility of essential omnipotence implies the existence of God is a new and interesting result. The implication, however, also points to a new argument for the existence of God, since if the possibility of essential omnipotence implies that God exists, and it¡¯s rational to believe that essential omnipotence is possible, then, by closure, it¡¯s rational to believe that God exists.

Singular reference to non-individuals is often thought to be impossible. At present, however, this claim rests solely on intuitions. In this paper, I present two arguments in favour of the impossibility of singular reference to non-individuals.

A common assessment of Liar sentences is that they malfunction and fail to say what they appear to say. The purpose of this article is to highlight a couple of limitations of this ¡°malfunctionalism¡±, to which end two recalcitrant paradoxes will be presented. The first shows that there are Liar paradoxes where malfunctionalism must concede that there is no way of stating what is apparently the case. The second is the Yablo-style infinite sequence Liar, which is out of malfunctionalism¡¯s reach altogether and in need of a different solution.

In this paper, we address a key question that has been central to discussions on rationality: is the concept of rationality normative or merely descriptive? We present the findings of a corpus-linguistic study revealing that people commonly perceive the concept of rationality as normative.

Davidson¡¯s non-normative argument for the claim that inquiry does not aim at truth has not received much attention in the epistemological literature of the past two decades. As far as I know, only Christopher Hookway (2012) and Christoph Kelp (2021) have discussed it. Moreover, they have both rejected it, on similar grounds. After reconstructing Davidson¡¯s argument, I turn to Hookway¡¯s and Kelp¡¯s criticisms and show why Davidson¡¯s argument can in fact resist them.

Scottish Neologicism aims to found arithmetic on full second-order logic and Hume¡¯s Principle, stating that the number of the Fs is identical with the number of the Gs if, and only if, there are as many Fs as Gs. However, Neologicism faces the problem of the logical ontology, according to which the underlying second-order logic involves ontological commitments. This paper addresses this issue by substituting second-order logic by Boolos¡¯s plural logic, augmented by the Plural Frege Quantifier F modelled on Antonelli¡¯s Frege Quantifier. The resulting theory (PHP) interprets second-order Peano arithmetic. Its ontological innocence is assessed: PHP offers an alternative that solves the problem of the logical ontology pervading Neologicism.

The paper offers a systematic analysis of the relation between discrimination and justice, a surprisingly neglected topic. It examines the relation between discrimination and various types of injustice¡ªcorrective, retributive, distributive and relational¡ªand concludes that while discrimination often leads to various sorts of injustice this is not always the case. If some act or policy is an instance of discrimination, it is not necessarily unjust, and if some act or policy is an instance of injustice, it is not necessarily discriminatory. So injustice isn¡¯t what makes wrongful discrimination wrong.

The unity thesis says that epistemic norms and zetetic norms (norms of inquiry) comprise a unified normative domain. We argue against the unity thesis by presenting cases where zetetic norms issue requirements to adopt doxastic attitudes (essential to the inquiry) which are forbidden by nearly platitudinous epistemic norms. We canvas a range of responses unity theorists might offer to resist our conclusion and argue that they either do not dissolve the conflict between the epistemic and zetetic norms or introduce unmotivated restrictions on the space of permissible inquiries.

According to buck-passers about art, such as Dominic Lopes, every work of art belongs to some art. I distinguish two versions of the buck-passing theory of art¡ªwhat I call the double-buck-passers¡¯ (DBP) view and the single-buck-passers¡¯ (SBP) view¡ªand point out that Lopes¡¯s view is an instance of the latter. Then I argue the SBP view faces a dilemma, each horn of which leads to trouble. In doing so, I explore uncharted territory: the implications of vagueness for theories of art. I conclude that buck-passers should not be single-buck-passers.

Let T be any logical truth. Does the subject know that T (any random subject)? It is not rational for any subject to believe that they don¡¯t, whoever they are. Similarly, it is not rational for them to believe that their evidence doesn¡¯t support T, and it is not even rational for them to believe that they don¡¯t believe that T. It is not rational for anyone anywhere at any time to believe that they don¡¯t know that T. Such are the conclusions arrived at in this paper.

Names like ¡®Neptune¡¯ and ¡®Vulcan¡¯ have lead some Millians to countenance a class of descriptive names. This is so, as, first, the closeness of the association between a descriptive name and its associated descriptive condition seems to show that the link between the name and the description must be semantic, and, second, as Millianism implies that names without bearers make no direct contribution to the propositions expressed by the sentences in which such names occur. In this paper we use the notion of an object-dependent convention to offer a novel motivation for Millianism. We then show that our way of motivating Millianism implies that the above two reasons for treating names like ¡®Neptune¡¯ and ¡®Vulcan¡¯ as descriptive have little force.

The extended mind thesis maintains that cognitive processes and systems can, on occasion, stretch to include parts of the brain, body, and world. One outstanding puzzle facing this view is the ¡°recruitment puzzle¡±. The recruitment puzzle asks how cognisers are able to reliably recruit internal and external resources such that they form extended systems. Clark (2022) has recently suggested that predictive processing helps to address this puzzle. I argue that, while promising, Clark¡¯s proposal remains incomplete. I suggest that Clark¡¯s proposal can be productively extended by disambiguating two important senses of recruitment: ready-to-hand and adaptive recruitment. After outlining the recruitment puzzle and Clark¡¯s proposal, I suggest that careful attention to these two senses of recruitment helps to reveal further constructive ways of developing the extended mind thesis.

There has been a renewed interest in the role of hope for our ability to act rationally under uncertainty, where accounts have tended to focus on either one of two (apparently contradictory) aspects of this attitude. On the one hand, like faith, hope is viewed as an attitude which grants us resolve and determination to continue striving towards uncertain goals. On the other hand, like worry, hope is also viewed as a process in which we cognitively engage with possible futures, motivated to reduce the epistemic uncertainty surrounding the occurrence of goal-relevant outcomes. I spell out how an emotional account of the psychological nature of hope is able to accommodate both of these claims, as well as classic challenges (such as cases of ¡°recalcitrant hopes¡±). Within this framework, hope is both a positive emotion (it consistently evaluates its object as good) and also an ¡°emotion of uncertainty¡± or epistemic emotion, through which we apprehend that a given goal-relevant outcome is possible, albeit uncertain.

What was Saul Kripke¡¯s personal stance on the sceptical challenge that he famously attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein? It will be argued that despite his statements to the contrary, we can, in fact, outline at least a rough sketch of Kripke¡¯s own views on the challenge and its aftermath on the basis of the remarks he left in the text. In summary, Kripke (a) rejected the sceptical solution to the challenge and (b) leaned towards a non-sceptical primitivist solution. If this is correct, it follows that there is a way in which Kripke's view makes his causal-historical picture of reference potentially able to solve the sceptical challenge.

Propositions are defined by abstraction from an equivalence relation on sentences. The equivalence is synonymy. The resulting view, Propositional Abstractionism, has roots in Frege¡¯s work, and considerable advantages over competitors. The key to the advantages is that Propositional Abstractionism puts language first. Consequently, in metaphysics, granularity debates benefit from linguistic evidence; in logic, abstraction is a safeguard against higher-order paradoxes; in epistemology, questions of knowledge of propositions can be approached as questions about semantic competence. These benefits form a package that make Propositional Abstractionism a compelling hypothesis.

Call a term ¡®pseudo-singular¡¯ if it is syntactically singular but semantically plural. ¡®The pair who wrote Principia¡¯ is a good example, standing as it does for the two individuals, Whitehead and Russell. In this journal (2021), Eric Snyder and Stewart Shapiro launched an attack on the idea, calling it ¡®linguistically and logically untenable.¡¯ In this reply we rebut every one of their criticisms.

According to the epistemic account of request normativity, a request gives us reasons by revealing normatively relevant information. The information is normative, not the request itself. I raise a new objection to the epistemic account based on situations where we might try to avoid someone requesting something of us. The best explanation of these situations seems to be that we do not want to acquire a new reason to do something. For example, if you know I am going to ask you to read a draft of my paper, you might avoid running into me so as to avoid acquiring a reason to read a draft of my paper. I then argue that the epistemic account can successfully reply to this objection and that in fact the epistemic account does a better job of accounting for cases like this than competing views of the normativity of requests.

Some philosophers argue that we should be suspicious about shame. For example, Nussbaum endorses the view that shame is a largely irrational or unreasonable emotion rooted in infantile narcissism. This claim has also been used to support the view that we should largely abandon shaming as a social activity. If we are worried about the emotion of shame, so the thought goes, we should also worry about acts which encourage shame. I argue that this line of reasoning does not license the leap from the critique of shame to the critique of shaming. This is because shaming does not always aim to inflict shame on its targets. Many acts of shaming (which I label ¡®performative shaming¡¯) should simply be understood as aiming to serve their characteristic function of shoring up social norms and standards.

Structuralism is one of the most popular contemporary accounts of mathematics. Despite its popularity, it has been challenged on the grounds of consistency. In this paper, I show that existing arguments purporting to establish an inconsistency miss the mark. I then proceed to develop a new argument against realist structuralism, to show that the commitment to mathematical pluralism and the structural identity criterion embraced by the realist structuralist jointly entail a contradiction.

In what sense, and to what extent, do rules of inference determine the meaning of logical constants? Motivated by the principle of charity, a natural constraint on the interpretation of logical constants is to make the rules of inference come out sound. But, as Carnap observed, although this constraint does rule out some non-standard interpretations, it does not rule them all out. This is known as Carnap¡¯s problem. I suggest that a charitable interpretation of the logical constants should, as far as possible, make the rules of inference both sound and complete, and I show how this idea can be brought to bear on a successful solution to Carnap¡¯s problem in the case of classical propositional logic, as well as classical first-order logic. In fact, the solution generalizes to any logic whose rules of inference are sound and complete with respect to a bivalent semantics that is classical with respect to negation.

Timothy Williamson contends that our primary cognitive heuristic for prospectively assessing conditionals, i.e., the suppositional procedure, is provably inconsistent. Our diagnosis is that stipulations about the nature of suppositional rejection are the likely source of these results. We show that on at least one alternative, and quite natural, understanding of the suppositional attitudes, the inconsistency results are blocked. The upshot is an increase in the reliability of our suppositional heuristics across a wider range of contexts. One interesting consequence of the increased reliability is a proportional decrease in the plausibility of an error-theory that Williamson employs against widespread intuitions about the truth values of counterpossible conditionals.

Hutto and Myin defend, on the basis of their ¡°radically enactive¡± approach to cognition, the contention that there are certain forms of imaginative activity that are entirely devoid of representational content. In a recent Thought article, Roelofs argues that Hutto and Myin¡¯s arguments fail to recognise the role of representation in maintaining the structural isomorphisms between mental models and things in the world required for imagination be action-guiding. This reply to Roelofs argues that his objection fails because it fails to fully appreciate the resources radical enactivists have at their disposal in characterising basic imaginings.

If there are true contradictions, where are they? In language or in the world? According to one important view, best represented by Jc Beall (2009), only the former. In this paper, we raise a problem for this view. In order to defend a ¡°merely semantic¡± version of dialetheism (aka ¡®glut theory¡¯), Beall adopts transparent accounts of truth and falsity, which gives rise to ¡°dialethic ascent¡± on which true contradictions are also, contradictorily, untrue contradictions. This is a consequence of trying to restrict contradictions to language and keep them out of the world. However, in this paper, we show that this ascent carries over intensional contexts, so that, on this version of dialetheism, even if there are true contradictions, no one knows a true contradiction. This shows that contradictions have not been kept out of the world. We end by connecting this issue with the infamous ¡®just true¡¯ problem.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra has presented an objection to the co-intension problem. According to this objection, the examples of properties often cited to motivate the co-intension problem are actually relational properties, and so turn out not to be co-intensional. In this essay, I want to revisit Rodriguez-Pereyra¡¯s objection and explain why I find it defective.

According to the principle of conditional power aggregation (CPA), conditional powers conjoin when the properties that bestow them conjoin. Sophie Gibb has argued that CPA is false given Shoemaker¡¯s account of conditional powers and that this leads to a problem for his account of subset realization. In short: If CPA is rejected, subset realization fails to be an entailment relation, in which case it cannot provide a basis for non-reductive physicalism. I defend the subset account against this argument by denying that CPA fails. I argue that (i) Shoemaker¡¯s account of conditional powers does not warrant a rejection of CPA, (ii) his account is incomplete and should be supplemented with a further sufficient condition for when a property bestows a conditional power, and (iii) this further sufficient condition supports CPA.

The paper replies to Matthew Rellihan¡¯s recent criticism of Thomas Kroedel¡¯s simple argument for downward causation. Rellihan argues that the simple argument equivocates between two notions of realizers of mental properties, namely total realizers and core realizers. According to Rellihan, one premise of the argument is false on each disambiguation. In response, this paper argues that the version of the argument in terms of total realizers is sound after all if we evaluate counterfactual conditionals about the non-occurrence of total realizers correctly.

What determines whether an object is an artwork? In this paper I consider what I will call ¡®social¡¯ theories of art, according to which the arthood of objects depends in some way on the art-related social practices that we have. Though such a dependence claim is plausible in principle, social theories of art tend to unpack the determining link between artworks and social practices in terms of intentional relations between the objects in question and the people involved in the relevant practices. This intentionalism has unappealing upshots. Drawing on two-dimensional approaches in social ontology, I show how social theories of art can be done differently, improving their prospects.

Arguments from faultless disagreement appeal to the possibility of mistake-free disagreement as evidence for semantic relativism. Typically, these arguments focus on paradigmatically subjective topics such as taste, aesthetics, and comedy. Many philosophers hold that ethics is also a subjective topic. But so far, there has been little discussion of faultless disagreement in ethics. In this paper, I advance an argument from faultless moral disagreement, in favour of a relativist semantics for ethics.

This paper identifies and elucidates the underappreciated phenomenon of epistemic domination. Epistemic domination is the nonmutual capacity of one party to control the evidence available to another. Where this capacity is exercised, especially by parties that are ill-intentioned or ill-informed, the dominated party may have difficulty attaining epistemically valuable states. I begin with a discussion of epistemic domination and how it is possible. I then highlight three negative consequences that may result from epistemic domination.

How do you make decisions under ignorance? That is, how do you decide when you lack subjective probabilities for some of your options¡¯ possible outcomes? One answer is that you follow the Laplace Rule: you assign an equal probability to each state of nature for which you lack a subjective probability (that is, you use the Principle of Indifference) and then you maximize expected utility. The most influential objection to the Laplace Rule is that it is sensitive to the individuation of states of nature. This sensitivity is problematic because the individuation of states seems arbitrary. In this paper, however, I argue that this objection proves too much. I argue that all plausible rules for decisions under ignorance are sensitive to the individuation of states of nature.

How is willpower possible? Which desires are relevant to well-being? Despite a surge of interest in both questions, recent philosophical discussions have not connected them. I connect them here. In particular, the puzzle of synchronic self-control says that synchronic self-control requires a contradiction, namely, wanting not to do what we most want to do. Three responses have been developed: Sripada¡¯s divided mind view, Mele¡¯s motivational shift thesis, and Kennett and Smith¡¯s non-actional approach. These responses do not incorporate distinctions from desire-satisfaction theories of well-being. I argue that distinguishing between behavioural desires and genuine-attraction desires disarms one objection to synchronic self-control. Conversely, disarming that objection salvages an axiologically crucial claim in recent versions of desire-satisfaction theory.

Reasons-first theorists claim that facts about reasons for attitudes are normatively primitive, and that all other normative facts ultimately reduce to facts about reasons. According to their view, for example, the fact that something is good ultimately reduces to facts about reasons to favour it. I argue that these theories face a challenging dilemma due to the normativity of arational lifeforms, for instance the fact that water is good for plants. If all normative facts are, ultimately, facts about reasons for attitudes, then reasons-first theorists must either (a) show that these facts do reduce to facts about reasons, or (b) concede that they do not and, instead, show that this is not a problem for their view. Both options, however, are riddled with difficulties¡ªor so I will try to argue.

In recent work, Jane Friedman has argued that commonly accepted epis- temic norms conflict with a basic instrumental principle of inquiry, according to which one ought to take the necessary means to resolving one¡¯s inquiry. According to Friedman, we ought to reject the epistemic norms in question and accept instead that the only genuine epistemic norms are zetetic norms¡ªnorms that govern in- quiry. I argue that there is a more attractive way out of the conflict, one which reconciles the epistemic and the zetetic.

Bilateralists, who accept that there are two primitive speech acts, assertion and denial, can offer an attractive definition of consequence: Y follows from X if and only if it is incoherent to assert all formulas X and to deny all formulas Y. The present paper argues that this definition has consequences many will find problematic, amongst them that truth coincides with assertibility. Philosophers who reject these consequences should therefore reject this definition of consequence.

Olav Vassend has recently (2021) presented a decision-theoretic argument for updating utility functions by what he calls ¡°utility conditionalization.¡± Vassend¡¯s argument is meant to mirror closely the well-known argument for Bayesian conditionalization due to Hilary Greaves and David Wallace (2006). I show that Vassend¡¯s argument is inconsistent with ZF set theory and argue that it therefore does not provide support for utility conditionalization.

This paper outlines a solution to the puzzle of imaginative resistance that makes¡ªand if successful helps to vindicate¡ªtwo assumptions. The solution first assumes a relationship between moral judgements and affective states of the subject. It also assumes the correctness of accounts of imaginative engagement with fiction¡ªlike Kendall Walton¡¯s account¡ªthat treat engagement with fiction as prop-based make-believe in which works of fiction, but also appreciators of those works, figure as props. The key to understanding imaginative resistance, it maintains, is understanding how real feelings become part of fictional worlds.

In support of logical nihilism, according to which there are no logical laws, Gillian Russell offers purported counterexamples to two laws of logic. Russell¡¯s examples rely on cleverly constructed predicates not found in ordinary English. I show that similar apparent counterexamples to the same logical laws can be constructed without exotic predicates but using only what ordinary language provides. We correctly analyze such arguments so that they do not actually constitute counterexamples to any logic laws. I claim that we can and should do the same for Russell¡¯s arguments.

According to J=K, only beliefs that qualify as knowledge are epistemically justified. Traditionalists about justification have objected to this view that it predicts that radically deceived subjects do not have justified beliefs, which they take to be counter-intuitive. In response, proponents of J=K have argued that traditionalists mistake being justified with being excused in the relevant cases. To make this response work, Timothy Williamson has offered a dispositional account of excuse which has recently been challenged by Jessica Brown. She has presented cases in which Williamson¡¯s account excuses subjects believing things in an epistemically reckless fashion. To steer clear of Brown¡¯s counterexamples, I argue for a modification of Williamson¡¯s account that employs a more fine-grained notion of the dispositions involved.

Given the laws of our universe, the initial conditions and cosmological constants had to be ¡°fine-tuned¡± to result in life. Is this evidence for design? We argue that we should be uncertain whether an ideal agent would take it to be so¡ªbut that given such uncertainty, we should react to fine-tuning by boosting our confidence in design. The degree to which we should do so depends on our credences in controversial metaphysical issues.

Affect-based theorists and life satisfaction theorists disagree about the nature of happiness, but agree about this methodological principle: a philosophical theory of happiness should be in line with the folk concept HAPPINESS. In this article, we present two empirical studies indicating that it is affect-based theories that get the folk concept HAPPINESS right: competent speakers judge a person to be happy if and only if that person is described as feeling pleasure/good most of the time. Our studies also show that the judgement that a person is feeling pleasure/good most of the time reliably brings about the judgement that they are satisfied with their life, even if that person is described as not satisfied. We suggest that this direct causal relation between the concepts POSITIVE AFFECT and LIFE SATISFACTION might explain why many philosophers have been attracted to life satisfaction theories.

Defenders of the Everettian version of quantum mechanics generally hold that it makes no difference to what we ought to do. This paper will argue against this stance, by considering the use of lotteries to select the recipients of indivisible goods. On orthodox non-Everettian metaphysics this practice faces the objection that only actual and not probable goods matter to distributive justice. However, this objection loses all force within Everettianism. This result should be of interest to both philosophers of physics and to ethicists.

We often form intentions to resist anticipated future temptations. But when confronted with the temptations our resolutions were designed to withstand, we tend to revise our previous evaluative judgments and conclude that we should now succumb¡ªonly to then revert to our initial evaluations, once temptation has subsided. Some evaluative judgments made under the sway of temptation are mistaken. But not all of them are. When the belief that one should now succumb is a proper response to relevant considerations that have newly emerged, can acting in line with one¡¯s previous intention nonetheless be practically rational? To answer this question, I draw on recent debates on the nature of higher-order evidence and on what rationally responding to such evidence involves. I propose that agents facing temptation often have evidence of ¡°deliberative unreliability¡±, which they ought to heed even when it is ¡°misleading¡± (that is, even when their evaluative judgments are in fact proper responses to the relevant considerations then available). Because evidence of deliberative unreliability can ¡°dispossess¡± agents of normative reasons for evaluative judgments and actions that they would otherwise have, being continent despite judging that one should now succumb can often be more rational than giving in.

According to the character condition, a person is morally responsible for an action A only if a character trait of hers non-accidentally motivates her performing A. But that condition is untenable according to the out of character objection because people can be morally responsible for acting out of character. We reassess this common objection. Of the seven accounts of acting out of character that we outline, only one is even a prima facie counterexample to the character condition. And it is not obvious that people act out of character in that sense. We argue that whether the out of character objection succeeds ultimately depends on the unnoticed methodological commitment that cases that may not resemble human life provide good data for theorizing about moral responsibility. But even if such cases provide good data, the forcefulness of the objection is at least deflated given that its persuasive power is supposed to come from clear real-life cases.

P. van Inwagen famously offered three precise versions of the so-called Consequence Argument for incompatibilism. The third of these essentially employs the notion of an agent¡¯s having a choice with respect to a proposition. In this paper, I offer two intuitively attractive accounts of this notion in terms of the explanatory connective ¡®because¡¯ and explore the prospects of the third argument once they are in play. Under either account, the argument fails.

The following is an advertisement for scalar epistemic consequentialism. Benefits include an epistemic consequentialism that (i) is immune from the the no-positive-epistemic-duties objection and (ii) doesn¡¯t require bullet-biting on the rightness of epistemic tradeoffs. The advertisement invites readers to think more carefully about both the definition and logical space of epistemic consequentialism.