Garcia, Laura. Teleological and Design Arguments
2008, in Charles Taliaferro & Philip Quinn (eds.) A Companion to the Philosophy of Religion, Second Edition. Wiley-Blackwell: 375-384.
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Added by: Emily PaulSummary: This chapter takes you through the history of teleological arguments and an analysis of them: beginning with traditional teleological arguments and their origins, and moving to discuss modern day 'fine tuning' and 'many worlds' arguments. Along the way, Garcia considers criticisms of these various arguments.Comment: An excellent and thorough introduction to the Teleological Argument, suitable for an introductory philosophy of religion course as a core reading. It could be good to ask students to compare classical 'design' arguments with 'fine-tuning' arguments, based on their reading of Garcia.
Gardiner, Georgi. Attunement: On the Cognitive Virtues of Attention
2022, In Social Virtue Epistemology, eds. Mark Alfano, Colin Klein, and Jeroen de Ridder. Routledge, 48–72
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Georgi GardinerAbstract:
I motivate three claims: Firstly, attentional traits can be cognitive virtues and vices. Secondly, groups and collectives can possess attentional virtues and vices. Thirdly, attention has epistemic, moral, social, and political importance. An epistemology of attention is needed to better understand our social-epistemic landscape, including media, social media, search engines, political polarisation, and the aims of protest. I apply attentional normativity to undermine recent arguments for moral encroachment and to illuminate a distinctive epistemic value of occupying particular social positions. A recurring theme is that disproportionate attention can distort, mislead, and misrepresent even when all the relevant claims are true and well supported by evidence. In the informational cacophony of the internet age, epistemology must foreground the cognitive virtues of attunement.Comment: This text provides a broad overview of the epistemology of attention, especially its applications to media and social institutions. It could also be used in a survey of virtue ethics or virtue epistemology. Gardiner also has a "cheat sheet" on her website for teaching this essay.
Gardiner, Georgi. We Forge the Conditions of Love
2023, In Carlos Montemayor & Abrol Fairweather (eds.), Linguistic Luck: Safeguards and Threats to Linguistic Communication. Oxford University Press, pp. 279–314.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Georgi GardinerAbstract:
This essay is not about what love is. It is about what self-ascriptions of love do. People typically self-ascribe romantic love when a nexus of feelings, beliefs, attitudes, values, commitments, experiences, and personal histories matches their conception of romantic love. But what shapes this conception? And (how) can we adjudicate amongst conflicting conceptions? Self-ascriptions of love do not merely describe the underlying nexus of attitudes and beliefs. They also change it. This essay describes how conceptions of love affect romantic experience. I limn distinctions between love and obsessive infatuation and explore ways language can cultivate queer romantic preferences. Since conceptions of love are shaped, often implicitly, by terms available in one’s linguistic community, the resulting nexus of concepts and conceptions manifests linguistic luck. I suggest ways we might sculpt the language of love to better understand—and change—ourselves. Love can help us flourish and so can our “love” language.
Comment: This paper discusses controversial ideas that may apply to student's lived experience of love, infatuation, and sexuality. The essay can be taught in two parts: Sections 1-7 for one lesson, and sections 8-13 for the following lesson. Sections 5 & 6 (on sexuality) can be skipped or given their own lesson. Those sections are especially controversial and can be used to ceate an in-class debate. Gardiner has a webpage, podcasts, and cheat sheet for teaching this essay. (See her website.)
Gardiner, Georgi. The Reasonable and the Relevant: Legal Standards of Proof
2019, Philosophy & Public Affairs 47(3): 288–318.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Georgi GardinerAbstract:
According to a common conception of legal proof, satisfying a legal burden requires establishing a claim to a numerical threshold. Beyond reasonable doubt, for example, is often glossed as 90% or 95% likelihood given the evidence. Preponderance of evidence is interpreted as meaning at least 50% likelihood given the evidence. In light of problems with the common conception, I propose a new ‘relevant alternatives’ framework for legal standards of proof. Relevant alternative accounts of knowledge state that a person knows a proposition when their evidence rules out all relevant error possibilities. I adapt this framework to model three legal standards of proof—the preponderance of evidence, clear and convincing evidence, and beyond reasonable doubt standards. I describe virtues of this framework. I argue that, by eschewing numerical thresholds, the relevant alternatives framework avoids problems inherent to rival models. I conclude by articulating aspects of legal normativity and practice illuminated by the relevant alternatives framework.Comment: This can introduce upper-level epistemology students to the relevant alternatives theory. For epistemology training, it pairs well with David Lewis "Elusive Knowledge" or (for a more applied approach) can also be paired with an essay on the proof paradox.
Gardiner, Georgi. Evidentialism and Moral Encroachment
2018, In Kevin McCain (ed.), Believing in Accordance with the Evidence: New Essays on Evidentialism. Springer, 169–95.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Georgi GardinerAbstract:
Moral encroachment holds that the epistemic justification of a belief can be affected by moral factors. If the belief might wrong a person or group more evidence is required to justify the belief. Moral encroachment thereby opposes evidentialism, and kindred views, which holds that epistemic justification is determined solely by factors pertaining to evidence and truth. In this essay I explain how beliefs such as ‘that woman is probably an administrative assistant’—based on the evidence that most women employees at the firm are administrative assistants—motivate moral encroachment. I then describe weaknesses of moral encroachment. Finally I explain how we can countenance the moral properties of such beliefs without endorsing moral encroachment, and I argue that the moral status of such beliefs cannot be evaluated independently from the understanding in which they are embedded.Comment: Best paired with something by Rima Basu. Potential debate questions include whether moral factors affect whether you should withhold belief about people.
Gardiner, Georgi. The She Said, He Said Paradox and the Proof Paradox
2021, In Zachary Hoskins and Jon Robson (eds.), The Social Epistemology of Legal Trials. Routledge, pp. 124–143.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Georgi GardinerAbstract:
This essay introduces the ‘she said, he said’ paradox for Title IX investigations. ‘She said, he said’ cases are accusations of rape, followed by denials, with no further significant case-specific evidence available to the evaluator. In such cases, usually the accusation is true. Title IX investigations adjudicate sexual misconduct accusations in US educational institutions; I address whether they should be governed by the ‘preponderance of the evidence’ standard of proof or the higher ‘clear and convincing evidence’ standard. Orthodoxy holds that the ‘preponderance’ standard is satisfied if the evidence adduced renders the litigated claim more likely than not. On this view, I argue, ‘she said, he said’ cases satisfy the ‘preponderance’ standard. But this consequence conflicts with plausible liberal and feminist claims. In this essay I contrast the ‘she said, he said’ paradox with legal epistemology’s proof paradox. I explain how both paradoxes arise from the distinction between individualised and non-individualised evidence, and I critically evaluate responses to the ‘she said, he said’ paradox.Comment: This can be paired with an essay on the proof paradox in legal epistemology. Gardiner has a "cheat sheet" on her website for teaching this essay.
Gardiner, Georgi. Corroboration
2023, American Philosophical Quarterly 60(2): 131–148.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Georgi GardinerAbstract:
Corroborating evidence supports a proposition that is already supported by other initial evidence. It bolsters or confirms the original body of evidence. Corroboration has striking psychological and epistemic force: It potently affects how people do and should assess the target proposition. This essay investigates the distinctive powers of corroborating evidence. Corroboration does not simply increase the quantifiable probability of the adjudicated claim. Drawing on the relevant alternatives framework, I argue that corroboration winnows remaining uneliminated error possibilities. This illuminates the independence, weight, and non-fungibility of corroborating evidence. I compare corroborating evidence to prudential safeguards, like fire doors, that forfend against non-epistemic harms. I thereby sketch a general, non-quantificational model of risk management. Finally, I turn to legal corroboration requirements and the epistemic significance of corroboration for legal proof.Comment: Can be used to either introduce the Relevant Alternatives Theory or as part of a sequence on legal epistemology. Gardiner has a "cheat sheet" on her website for teaching this essay.
Gardiner, Georgi, Zaharatos, Brian. The Safe, the Sensitive, and the Severely Tested: A Unified Account
2022, Synthese 200(5): 1–33
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Georgi GardinerAbstract:
This essay presents a unified account of safety, sensitivity, and severe testing. S’s belief is safe iff, roughly, S could not easily have falsely believed p, and S’s belief is sensitive iff were p false S would not believe p. These two conditions are typically viewed as rivals but, we argue, they instead play symbiotic roles. Safety and sensitivity are both valuable epistemic conditions, and the relevant alternatives framework provides the scaffolding for their mutually supportive roles. The relevant alternatives condition holds that a belief is warranted only if the evidence rules out relevant error possibilities. The safety condition helps categorise relevant from irrelevant possibilities. The sensitivity condition captures ‘ruling out’. Safety, sensitivity, and the relevant alternatives condition are typically presented as conditions on warranted belief or knowledge. But these properties, once generalised, help characterise other epistemic phenomena, including warranted inference, legal verdicts, scientific claims, reaching conclusions, addressing questions, warranted assertion, and the epistemic force of corroborating evidence. We introduce and explain Mayo’s severe testing account of statistical inference. A hypothesis is severely tested to the extent it passes tests that probably would have found errors, were they present. We argue Mayo’s account is fruitfully understood using the resulting relevant alternatives framework. Recasting Mayo’s condition using the conceptual framework of contemporary epistemology helps forge fruitful connections between two research areas—philosophy of statistics and the analysis of knowledge—not currently in sufficient dialogue. The resulting union benefits both research areas.Comment: This essay can be paired with Deborah Mayo, to explain her view. It can also be used at the end of a "safety versus sensitivity" modue or a module on rival theories of knowledge, to suggest how the views can be compatible. The math can be skipped over. Gardiner has a "cheat sheet" on her website for this essay.
Gardiner, Georgi, Smith, Jacob. Opacity of Character: Virtue Ethics and the Legal Admissibility of Character Evidence
2021, Philosophical Issues 31(1): 334–354
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Georgi GardinerAbstract:
Many jurisdictions prohibit or severely restrict the use of evidence about a defendant’s character to prove legal culpability. Situationists, who argue that conduct is largely determined by situational features rather than by character, can easily defend this prohibition. According to situationism, character evidence is misleading or paltry. Proscriptions on character evidence seem harder to justify, however, on virtue ethical accounts. It appears that excluding character evidence either denies the centrality of character for explaining conduct—the situationist position—or omits probative evidence. Situationism is, after all, presented as antithetical to virtue ethics. This essay provides a virtue ethical defense of character evidence exclusion rules. We show that existing virtue ethical rebuttals to situationism themselves support prohibitions on character evidence; even if behavior arises from stable character traits, character evidence should be prohibited. In building our case, we provide a taxonomy of kinds of character judgment and reconcile the ubiquity and reasonableness of character judgments in ordinary life with the epistemic legitimacy of character evidence prohibitions in law.Comment: Students (and teachers) don’t need to know any evidence law for this essay. Serves as a useful prep for law school applications. Gardiner has a "cheat sheet" on her website for teaching this essay.
Gardiner, Georgi. In Defence of Reasonable Doubt
2017, Journal of Applied Philosophy 34(2): 221–41.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Georgi GardinerAbstract:
In criminal trials the state must establish, to a particular standard of proof, the defendant's guilt. The most widely used and important standard of proof for criminal conviction is the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt' standard. But what legitimates this standard, rather than an alternative? One view holds the standard of proof should be determined or justified – at least in large part – by its consequences. In this spirit, Laudan uses crime statistics to estimate risks the average citizen runs of being violently victimised and falsely convicted. He argues that since the former risk is higher, and the aggregate harms are worse, the standard of proof should be substantially lowered. He presents a formula for calculating the preferred standard. In this article I outline various ways Laudan's uses of crime statistics are flawed, and explain how he substantially overestimates risks of victimhood and underestimates costs of false convictions. I also explain why his formula is mistaken, and illuminate consequences Laudan neglects. I conclude that, even if consequences determine the appropriate standard of proof, Laudan's arguments fail to show the standard is too high. I conclude by suggesting that the inadequacies of Laudan's reasoning might be good news for consequence-based justifications of the standard of proof.Comment: You could assign Larry Laudan (2011), ‘The Rules of Trial, Political Morality and the Costs of Error’ in Leslie Green & Brian Leiter (eds) Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Law, pp. 195–227, followed by this essay as it provides a direct critique of the former. It shows how dangerous poorly reasoning with numbers can be. Students and teachers do not need to know any statistics or crime data for this essay.
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