Christopher Cowie
Biographic Data
| ID | 3597503 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher Cowie |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher |
| FAMILY NAME | Cowie |
| SIGNATURE | COWIE C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Durham University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2179-1254 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 34 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Morality: From Error to Fiction
What are Paradoxes
According to a standard view, paradoxes are arguments with plausible premises that entail an implausible conclusion. This is false. In many paradoxes the premises are not plausible precisely because they entail an implausible conclusion. Obvious responses to this problem—including that the premises are individually plausible and that they are plausible setting aside the fact that they entail an implausible conclusion—are shown to be inadequate. A…
Why Moral Paradoxes Support Error Theory
Moral error theory has many troubling and counterintuitive consequences. It entails, for example, that actions we ordinarily think of as obviously wrong are not wrong at all. This simple observation is at the heart of much opposition to error theory. I provide a new defense against it. The defense is based on the impossibility of finding satisfying solutions to a wide range of puzzles and paradoxes in moral philosophy. It is a consequence of this…
A new argument for moral error theory
Traditional arguments for moral error theory are based on identifying a problem with the metaphysics of moral properties. I provide a new argument that is based on the inconsistency of first‐order moral judgments. I illustrate this using impossibility results in population axiology
Arguing About Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Avi Loeb has defended the hypothesis that the interstellar object, ‘Oumuamua, detected in 2017, is in fact an extraterrestrial artefact. His hypothesis has been widely rejected by the scientific community. On examination however it is not clear why. The puzzle is at the level of argument structure. The scientific community's responses to Loeb's hypothesis appear to point to explanations of ‘Oumuamua's properties that are mere possibilities. Yet t…
The Repugnant Conclusion: A Philosophical Inquiry
The Repugnant Conclusion is a controversial theorem about population size. It states that a sufficiently large population of lives that are barely worth living is better than a smaller population of high quality lives. This is highly counter-intuitive. It implies that we can improve the world by trading quality of life for quantity of lives. Can it be defended? Christopher Cowie explores these questions and unpacks the controversies surrounding t…
Companions in Guilt Arguments in Metaethics
Iris Murdoch both argues that perceptual experience itself can be evaluatively significant, and that the best way of making sense of this claim is to say that experience is shaped by the concepts that subjects possess and deploy as situated historical agents with a stance upon the world. This paper examines the implications of Murdoch’s distinctive conception of moral perception as a form of ‘vision’ revelatory of value for recent companions in g…
Companions in Guilt
Companions in guilt arguments
Arguments for some controversial positions in metaethics-typically moral scepticism or the moral error theory-are sometimes thought to overreach. They appear to entail sceptical or error-theoretic views about non-moral branches of thought in a sense that is costly or implausible. If this is true, those metaethical arguments should be rejected. This is the companions in guilt strategy in metaethics. In this article, the contemporary use of the com…
In defence of instrumentalism about epistemic normativity
Why Companions in Guilt Arguments Won't Work
One recently popular strategy for avoiding the moral error theory is via a ‘companions in guilt’ argument. I focus on those recently popular arguments that take epistemic facts as a companion in guilt for moral facts. I claim that there is an internal tension between the two main premises of these arguments. It is a consequence of this that either the soundness or the dialectical force of the companions in guilt argument is undermined. I defend t…
In defence of instrumentalism about epistemic normativity
Why Companions in Guilt Arguments Won't Work
One recently popular strategy for avoiding the moral error theory is via a ‘companions in guilt’ argument. I focus on those recently popular arguments that take epistemic facts as a companion in guilt for moral facts. I claim that there is an internal tension between the two main premises of these arguments. It is a consequence of this that either the soundness or the dialectical force of the companions in guilt argument is undermined. I defend t…
Companions in Guilt Arguments in Metaethics
Iris Murdoch both argues that perceptual experience itself can be evaluatively significant, and that the best way of making sense of this claim is to say that experience is shaped by the concepts that subjects possess and deploy as situated historical agents with a stance upon the world. This paper examines the implications of Murdoch’s distinctive conception of moral perception as a form of ‘vision’ revelatory of value for recent companions in g…
Companions in guilt arguments
Arguments for some controversial positions in metaethics-typically moral scepticism or the moral error theory-are sometimes thought to overreach. They appear to entail sceptical or error-theoretic views about non-moral branches of thought in a sense that is costly or implausible. If this is true, those metaethical arguments should be rejected. This is the companions in guilt strategy in metaethics. In this article, the contemporary use of the com…
Arguing About Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Avi Loeb has defended the hypothesis that the interstellar object, ‘Oumuamua, detected in 2017, is in fact an extraterrestrial artefact. His hypothesis has been widely rejected by the scientific community. On examination however it is not clear why. The puzzle is at the level of argument structure. The scientific community's responses to Loeb's hypothesis appear to point to explanations of ‘Oumuamua's properties that are mere possibilities. Yet t…
In defence of instrumentalism about epistemic normativity
Why Companions in Guilt Arguments Won't Work
One recently popular strategy for avoiding the moral error theory is via a ‘companions in guilt’ argument. I focus on those recently popular arguments that take epistemic facts as a companion in guilt for moral facts. I claim that there is an internal tension between the two main premises of these arguments. It is a consequence of this that either the soundness or the dialectical force of the companions in guilt argument is undermined. I defend t…
Companions in guilt arguments
Arguments for some controversial positions in metaethics-typically moral scepticism or the moral error theory-are sometimes thought to overreach. They appear to entail sceptical or error-theoretic views about non-moral branches of thought in a sense that is costly or implausible. If this is true, those metaethical arguments should be rejected. This is the companions in guilt strategy in metaethics. In this article, the contemporary use of the com…
The Repugnant Conclusion: A Philosophical Inquiry
The Repugnant Conclusion is a controversial theorem about population size. It states that a sufficiently large population of lives that are barely worth living is better than a smaller population of high quality lives. This is highly counter-intuitive. It implies that we can improve the world by trading quality of life for quantity of lives. Can it be defended? Christopher Cowie explores these questions and unpacks the controversies surrounding t…
Companions in Guilt Arguments in Metaethics
Iris Murdoch both argues that perceptual experience itself can be evaluatively significant, and that the best way of making sense of this claim is to say that experience is shaped by the concepts that subjects possess and deploy as situated historical agents with a stance upon the world. This paper examines the implications of Murdoch’s distinctive conception of moral perception as a form of ‘vision’ revelatory of value for recent companions in g…
Companions in Guilt
A new argument for moral error theory
Traditional arguments for moral error theory are based on identifying a problem with the metaphysics of moral properties. I provide a new argument that is based on the inconsistency of first‐order moral judgments. I illustrate this using impossibility results in population axiology
Arguing About Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Avi Loeb has defended the hypothesis that the interstellar object, ‘Oumuamua, detected in 2017, is in fact an extraterrestrial artefact. His hypothesis has been widely rejected by the scientific community. On examination however it is not clear why. The puzzle is at the level of argument structure. The scientific community's responses to Loeb's hypothesis appear to point to explanations of ‘Oumuamua's properties that are mere possibilities. Yet t…
What are Paradoxes
According to a standard view, paradoxes are arguments with plausible premises that entail an implausible conclusion. This is false. In many paradoxes the premises are not plausible precisely because they entail an implausible conclusion. Obvious responses to this problem—including that the premises are individually plausible and that they are plausible setting aside the fact that they entail an implausible conclusion—are shown to be inadequate. A…
Why Moral Paradoxes Support Error Theory
Moral error theory has many troubling and counterintuitive consequences. It entails, for example, that actions we ordinarily think of as obviously wrong are not wrong at all. This simple observation is at the heart of much opposition to error theory. I provide a new defense against it. The defense is based on the impossibility of finding satisfying solutions to a wide range of puzzles and paradoxes in moral philosophy. It is a consequence of this…
Morality: From Error to Fiction
Philosophy (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (5 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (4 works) · Free Will and Agency (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Psychology (3 works) · Impossibility (2 works)