errol lord

I am a second year graduate student in the philosophy department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Before coming to the Great Plains, I graduated from Arizona State University with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Philosophy and Political Science. My main interests are in metaethics (esp. rationality, reasons, the semantics of normative terms), ethics (esp. contractualism), political philosophy (esp. Rawls, freedom of expression, reparations, foundations of liberalism), epistemology (esp. Tim Williamson, externalism, epistemic rationality), and the philosophy of language/logic (esp. vagueness, relativism, contextualism). 

My main research has to do with issues arising in metaethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of language. Below I outline some of my projects.

rationality

First, I have been thinking about the relationships between normative reasons and rationality. I have argued that there is a tight connection between correctly responding to reasons and rationality (see, e.g., 'Correctly Responding to Reasons and Internalism about Rationality'). This conclusion is obvious to many epistemologists (although most don't accept my account of reasons). However, it is far from orthodox in the metaethics literature. A cursory goal of my current research is to explore some methodological assumptions that metaethicists make that are tendentious to epistemologists, and vice versa. The result of this part of my research is part of a unified account of rationality (by unified, I mean one that covers action, belief, desire, hope etc.).

A second main project, one that complements the first, has to do with coherence requirements of rationality. This project seeks to answer some related questions such as: If one believes that one ought to X, is it the case that one ought to X? Or: If one believes one ought to X and that in order to X one must Y, is it the case that one ought to Y? Or, finally: If one believes X and believes that Y follows from X, is it the case that one ought to believe Y? If we focus on a certain data set, the intuitive answer to these questions is No. However, if we examine a different data set the intuitive answer is Yes. I argue that the answer is Yes. But, unfortunately, that doesn't answer another important question--viz. in what way are these requirements normative? This answer, I think, hasn't been adequately answered by those who wish to answer Yes. I aim to adequately answer this question.

ought

The third main project that I have been working on recently has a narrow aim and a broader aim. The narrow aim is to provide a theory about the semantics of ought that is within the standard Kratzerian framework for the semantics of modals. However, instead of arguing for the standard contextualist theory for the truth-conditions of deontic ought propositions, I argue for a relativist semantics for the truth conditions of deontic ought propositions. Moreover, I argue for a new view about what the ordering sources consist in. The basic idea, one that's familiar to metaethicists, is that propositions in form 'A ought to X' mean that A has decisive reasons to X. This relates to the broader aim of this project, which is to partially defend the so-called reasons program in normative philosophy. The reasons program holds that what it is to be normative is to be analyzed in terms of reasons. My account of the content of deontic ought propositions is plausible within the orthodox liguistic framework. I am currently working on a trilogy of papers on these topics. At some point in the near future at least some of these will be posted.  

the reasons program

I am in general interested in investigating the plausibility of The Reasons Program, which holds that what it is to be normative is to be analyzed in terms of normative reasons. Part of this investigation comes in projects like my ought project above. But I am also working on a few things that directly tackle the question of whether The Reasons Program is plausible. 

the ontology of motivating/normative reasons

The final large project that I have actively been thinking about has to do with what constitutes motivating/normative reasons for action. I want to defend the view that we should think that both kinds of reasons are constituted by propositions. I argue that this view is the only view that doesn't require us to significantly revise our philosophy of mind and epistemology. Moreover, I argue that the traditional arguments for other views are specious. I am working on three papers on this topic. Two are available in the papers page. One of these papers, entitled 'Dancy on Acting for the Right Reason,' is forthcoming in the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy. The large version of those papers is still in the works.

other

For more, see my other pages:

CV: html, pdf

For drafts and abstracts of my published and working papers, go here.

For information about my thesis project, see here. 

For my personal ramblings, visit my personal blog, Reflective Equilibrium.

For some of my ramblings, plus some more coherent ones from some of my friends, visit the group blog I contribute to, The Excluded Middle.

For some pictures, go here.

Upcoming Talks:

November 14th: 'Having Reasons and the Justificatory Role of Thought-Experiment Intuitions' at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  

November 22nd or 23rd: 'Two Puzzles about Ought' at The Oxford Philosophy Graduate Conference.