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LUCK: EVOLUTIONARY AND EPISTEMIC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2016

Billy Dunaway
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Abstract

This paper advances two theses about evolutionary debunking arguments in ethics. The first is that, while such arguments are often motivated with the rhetoric of ‘luck', proponents of these arguments have not distinguished between the kinds of luck that might lead to the formation of a true belief. Once we make the needed distinctions, the relevance of the kind of luck which can be derived from broadly evolutionary explanations to the epistemological conclusions debunkers draw is suspect. The second thesis is that debunkers might successfully show that epistemic luck is relevant to their concerns. But they will need to include specific premises about the kind of evolutionary mechanism that explains the beliefs that the debunker targets. Proponents of debunking arguments, if they continue to insist on using luck-based considerations, are then hostage to empirical fortune in a way not previously recognized.

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Articles
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Episteme , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. 441 - 461
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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