Justification and the knowledge-connection

Philosophical Studies - I will present a novel account of justification in terms of knowledge on which one is justified in believing p just in case one could know that p. My main aim is to unravel...     

Justification and the Processing of Information

This study explores, within the context of escalating commitment, how ambiguous information affects decision making. By analyzing subjects' looking times and allocation decisions, we examined the process by which individuals abstract and use information to arrive at their decisions. We found that subjects spent more time processing ambiguous information than they did either purely optimistic or purely pessimistic information. This tendency to process ambiguous information longer increased when the decision maker was not exonerated from blame for the failure of an original decision; presented with ambiguous information, nonex-onerated subjects also made smaller allocations than did exonerated subjects. In this study, the predominant effect of felt responsibility on allocations was withdrawal rather than escalation. Our results suggest that the ambiguity of information about the future plays an important role in escalation and that the combination of responsibility and failure may affect allocations only when the prospective information is ambiguous.     

Justification and the growth of error

It is widely thought that in fallible reasoning potential error necessarily increases with every additional step, whether inferences or premises, in the same way that the probability of a lengthening conjunction shrinks. However, this has the absurd consequence that consulting an expert, proof-checking, filling gaps in proofs, and gathering more evidence for a given conclusion necessarily make us worse off, since they also add more steps. I will argue that the self-help steps listed here are of a distinctive type, involving composition rather than conjunction. Error grows differently over composition than over conjunction, I argue, and this dissolves the apparent paradox.     

Justification and Forgetting

This article sets forth a view about how epistemic justification figures in the ongoing justification of memory belief, a view that I call moderate justificational preservationism (MJP). MJP presupposes a nontraditional notion of memorial justification according to which what makes one's present belief that p prima facie justified is that which provided one with prima facie justification to believe that p originally (or some portion thereof). The article offers support for MJP by examining a series of cases that involve forgetting, and in doing so, criticizes views of Jennifer Lackey, David Owens, Michael Huemer, and George Pappas.     

Luther and Justification

In this article, I reflect on Luther's doctrine on justification as it came out in different ways in some of his seminal writings between 1518 and 1538, all represented in volume 2 of The Annotated Luther. Discovering the righteousness of God as something already given to humans opened fundamentally new perspectives to Luther.     

Justification and awareness

In Justification Without Awareness, Michael Bergmann attacks Internalism and Mentalism. His attack on Internalism refutes some versions of an awareness requirement for justification but leaves another standing and well-motivated. His attack on Mentalism, while successful, leaves us with a difficult question—what non-mental features play a role in determining justification?—that his own externalist theory fails to answer correctly.     

Interpretation and Justification

Whenever understanding is sought we are obliged to justify our interpretations – to demonstrate that they furnish an adequate understanding of the world and its objects. The problem is to know whether this is possible – that what we take to be conclusive justifications do not covertly appeal to other favoured interpretations or systems of explanation, thus obviating the possibility of a neutral justification. By exploring the nature of interpretation, I argue that neutral justifications of interpretations about works of art are indeed possible and that such interpretations can be shown to be true or false.     

正当性与合法性

证成国家即确立国家的正当性,就是要表明至少存在着道德上可接受的国家或者从明智角度而言可取的国家。国家的合法性指国家所持有的一套针对其具体公民的复合道德权利,这种意义上的合法性概念不同于非常成问题的韦伯式合法性概念。评价国家的洛克式进路严格区分了国家的正当性与合法性,并将二者建立在不同的基础之上,认为这两种评价都很重要。相反,康德式进路则用同样的论证来支持国家的正当性与国家的合法性,它根据人们所应该选择的东西而非人们的实际选择来评价制度,是一种非个人性的评价方式。康德主义者对自愿主义的忠诚是半心半意的,他们试图把对国家的一般性评价作为唯一的制度评价范畴。所有现存国家都是不合法的,但国家却有可能是正当的。国家的正当性与合法性不同于国家具体行为的正当性,现存国家不具有合法性也不意味着公民对国家的任何行为都是正当的。     

Justification of violence as a mediator between exposure to violence and aggressive behavior in children

The aim of this study was to evaluate the mediating role of the justification of violence schema in the relationship between exposure to violence and reactive and proactive aggressive behavior. We differentiated between direct and indirect exposure in four contexts: home, neighborhood, school and TV. A total of 675 children, aged between 8 and 12 years, participated in the study. They answered questionnaires about exposure to violence, justification of violence, and proactive and reactive aggressive behavior in two waves six months apart. The results showed that witnessing violence at home and on TV predicted aggressive behavior, and this relationship was mediated by the justification of violence. Victimization in all contexts predicted aggressive behavior and this relationship was generally mediated by the justification of violence.     

Guilt feelings and the intelligibility of moral duties

G.E.M. Anscombe argued that we should dispense with deontic concepts when doing ethics, if it is psychologically possible to do so. In response, I contend that deontic concepts are constitutive of the common moral experience of guilt. This has two consequences for Anscombe's position. First, seeing that guilt is a deontic emotion, we should recognize that Anscombe's qualification on her thesis applies: psychologically, we need deontology to understand our obligations and hence whether our guilt is warranted. Second, the fact that guilt is a deontic moral emotion debunks Anscombe's claim that deontic concepts are a relic of the Western, religious past: guilt feelings–hence the idea of moral duty as well–can be found in cultures without an ethics of divine command. Modern moral philosophers' interest in oughts and obligations is not an academic hobbyhorse, but a vital concern arising out of a primeval human emotion.     

On the Doctrine of Justification

The doctrine of the justification of the ungodly is central to the Christian confession. Justification is to be understood through the four Reformation exclusive particles: Christ alone, grace alone, word alone and faith alone. Justification addresses the relationlessness which is produced by sin as limitless self-realization. Related in himself as Trinity, God in Christ and Spirit continues in relation to the godless, thereby establishing a wealth of relation which is righteous. This account of justification is illuminating both for fundamental issues in anthropology and ethics, and for current ecumenical controversies concerning salvation, sacraments and ministry.