Recent Work in Moral & Religious Epistemology
I. Basics
Meeting time: Thursday 3:40-6:20pm
Meeting place: HSS 219
Professor: E.J. Coffman
E-mail address:
Course website: http://online.utk.edu
Office: 816 McClung Tower
Office Hours: 10-11am Tuesday; 2:30-3:30pm Thursday; by appointment
II. Texts
▪ Richard Feldman, Epistemology (Prentice Hall, 2003)
▪ Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Moral Skepticisms (Oxford UP, 2006)
▪ Paul Moser, The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology (Cambridge UP, 2008)
▪ Course packet at Online@UT (UT Blackboard [Bb]) [http://online.utk.edu]
◦ Throughout this course, you’ll need to access Online@UT, as well as receive e-mail sent to your UT e-mail account. If you need assistance with this stuff, visit the OIT website (http://oit.utk.edu), or give OIT a call at 974-9900.
III. Course Overview
Surprisingly, our main aim in this course is to understand and critically evaluate some important recent work in moral epistemology and religious epistemology. These are branches of epistemology that focus on such questions as: Can moral and/or religious beliefs have any positive intellectual (epistemic, cognitive) status? If so, which good epistemic features can such beliefs have? Can such beliefs amount to knowledge, or at least be (say) justified or well supported by available evidence? And how would such beliefs come to have such features? On the other hand, if moral and/or religious beliefs can’t enjoy any good intellectual status, why is that?
Our course will be organized around two important recent books: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong’s Moral Skepticisms (Oxford UP, 2006) and Paul Moser’s The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology (Cambridge UP, 2008). Notably, though neither author explicitly addresses the other’s work, there are numerous obvious and not-so-obvious connections between these books. For starters, we’ll see that Moser’s proposed epistemology of religious belief depends on a view about the justification of moral beliefs that Sinnott-Armstrong criticizes.
The first five weeks or so of our course will constitute a brief, “focused” introduction to general epistemology. This introduction will help ensure that all of us are reasonably well positioned to engage our two books. Along with each book, we’ll read a handful of relevant recent papers in moral and religious epistemology, many of which already qualify as “contemporary classics”. Finally (and time permitting), we’ll look at some key follow-up literature on each book (e.g., book symposia in leading journals, prominent book reviews, and the like).
IV. Requirements
A. Assignments
▪ Weekly Questions = 10% of final grade
▪ 3 Critical Commentaries (750-1,000 words each) = 30% of final grade
▪ 1 Term Paper (3,000-4,000 words) = 60% of final grade
B. Grade Scale
A = 90 ↑
B+ = 87 ↑
B = 80 ↑
C+ = 77 ↑
C = 70 ↑
D = 60 ↑
F = 59 ↓
C. Explanations
▪ Weekly Questions
Just what it sounds like. You’ll bring to each meeting some questions (preferably typed, but neatly written will work too) that you have about the assigned readings (at least one question per reading). We’ll use these questions to help guide our discussion in class. I reserve the right to collect questions at any time. Your making an honest effort at formulating these questions each week will suffice for your receiving full credit for this assignment.
▪ Critical Commentaries (CCs)
Besides helping you prepare to write your term paper, this requirement will help prepare you to serve as a conference commentator. Each of your three CCs will be between 750-1,000 words, and will earn a grade of ‘Exemplary’, ‘Satisfactory’, or ‘Unsatisfactory’. An Exemplary CC will raise—and maybe attempt to answer—a handful of objections to and/or questions about central parts of some or other required or recommended reading(s). All CCs must (i) be typed, (ii) include a word count, and (iii) be submitted by the last class meeting. You may use some or all of your CCs as a basis for your term paper. I reserve the right to ask authors of Exemplary CCs to briefly present them in class for group discussion.
▪ Term Paper
My hope for this requirement is that it’ll result in your writing a paper of suitable length (3,000-4,000 words) and quality for conference and/or journal submission. The final draft of your term paper will be due by 12pm Tuesday April 28th. You’ll submit some “preparatory” writing to me by 12pm Friday April 3rd. This initial submission can be as short as a 2-page prospectus, or as long as a full draft. In any case, I strongly encourage you to discuss ideas with me before starting your “preparatory” writing, so that I can be maximally helpful to you and your paper.
V. Key Dates
1/8 (R): First class meeting
3/16-3/20 (M-F): Spring Break
4/3 (F): Term paper preparatory writing due [by 12pm]
4/23 (R): Last class meeting; all CCs due
4/28 (T): Term papers due [by 12pm]
VI. Ambitious Reading List (I’ll make official reading assignments in class, over e-mail, and at Bb) [ð = we must read it; ◊ = we might read it; CP = Course Packet]
Part I: A “Focused” Introduction to Epistemology (about 5 weeks)
ð Richard Feldman, Epistemology: Chapters 1-7, 9
ð Roderick Chisholm, “The Problem of the Criterion” [CP]
ð Thomas Senor, “The Prima/Ultima Facie Justification Distinction in Epistemology” [CP]
◊ Peter Klein, “Human Knowledge and the Infinite Regress of Reasons” [CP]
◊ William Alston, “Concepts of Epistemic Justification” [CP]
◊ Adam Leite, “What the Basing Relation Can Teach Us about the Theory of Justification” [CP][(]
◊ Michael Rescorla, “Epistemic and Dialectical Regress” [CP]
◊ James Pryor, “Highlights of Recent Epistemology” [CP]
◊ Hilary Kornblith, “Knowledge Needs No Justification” [CP]
◊ Michael Bergmann, “Externalist Justification without Reliability” [CP]
ð Fred Dretske, “Epistemic Operators” [CP]
ð Keith DeRose, “Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions” [CP]
ð Jonathan Schaffer, “From Contextualism to Contrastivism” [CP]
ð Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, “A Contrastivist Manifesto” [CP]
◊ Ram Neta, “Undermining the Case for Contrastivism” [CP]
◊ Michael Bergmann, “Epistemic Circularity: Malignant and Benign” [CP]
◊ Jason Stanley, Knowledge and Practical Interests: Introduction [CP]
◊ David Lewis, “Scorekeeping in a Language Game” [CP]
◊ Relevant papers from July-September 2008 issue of Social Epistemology
ð Bryan Frances, “When a Skeptical Hypothesis is Live” [CP]
ð Bryan Frances, “Disagreement” [CP]
Part II: Recent Work in Moral Epistemology (about 5 weeks)
ð Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Moral Skepticisms
ð Lee Shepski, “The Vanishing Argument from Queerness” [CP]
ð Mark Timmons, “Outline of a Contextualist Moral Epistemology” [CP]
ð Robert Audi, “Intuitionism, Pluralism, and the Foundations of Ethics” [CP]
ð Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, “Coherentist Epistemology and Moral Theory” [CP]
◊ David Copp, “Moral Knowledge in a Society-Centered Moral Theory” [CP]
◊ Relevant papers from July 2008 issue of Philosophical Quarterly
Part III: Recent Work in Religious Epistemology (about 5 weeks)
ð Paul Moser, The Elusive God: Reorienting Religious Epistemology
ð Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God” [CP]
ð William Alston, “Religious Experience and Religious Belief” [CP]
ð Alvin Plantinga, “What’s the Question?” [CP]
ð Keith DeRose, “Direct Warrant Realism” [CP]
◊ Papers from Rational Faith: Catholic Responses to Reformed Epistemology (ed. L. Zagzebski)
◊ Papers from Divine Hiddenness: New Essays (eds. D. Howard-Snyder and P. Moser)
◊ Alvin Plantinga, “Justification and Theism” [CP]
◊ Selections from William Alston, Perceiving God
◊ Selections from Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief
◊ Evan Fales, “Proper Basicality” [CP]
◊ Alvin Plantinga, “On Proper Basicality” [CP]
4
[(]* This is a shortened conference version of Leite’s “On Justifying and Being Justified,” Philosophical Issues 14 (2004): 219-253. If you find yourself interested in engaging the arguments in Leite’s shorter conference-length paper, you should consult the longer published version.