This short paper states a new objection against “spectrum arguments” for nontransitive betterness. It is shown that defenders of such arguments must reject one of two very plausible principles.

One emerging issue in contemporary epistemology concerns the relation between animal knowledge, which can be had by agents unable to take a view on the epistemic status of their attitudes, and reflective knowledge, which is only available to agents capable of taking such a view. Philosophers who are open to animal knowledge often presume that while many of the beliefs of human adults are formed unreflectively and thus constitute mere animal knowledge, some of them—those which become subject of explicit scrutiny or are the result of a deliberative effort—may attain the status of reflective knowledge. According to Sanford Goldberg and Jonathan Matheson (2020), however, it is impossible for reflective subjects to have mere animal knowledge. If correct, their view would have a number of repercussions, perhaps most notably the vindication of a dualism about knowledge, which would frustrate attempts to provide a unified account of knowledge-attributions to human adults, very young children, and non-human animals. I discuss Goldberg and Matheson’s proposal, outline some of the ways in which it is insightful, and argue that it is ultimately unsuccessful because it neglects the inherent temporal dimension of knowledge acquisition. While the article is pitched as a reply to Goldberg and Matheson, its primary aim is to highlight significant connections between the debates on the relation between animal and reflective knowledge, propositional and doxastic justification, and the theory of epistemic defeat.

Grace Hibshman has developed a new explanation for why narrative self-conceptions might contribute to one’s flourishing: conceiving of one’s life narratively, she argues, can facilitate an improved self-understanding. In this short paper, we argue that, pace Hibshman, life narratives tend to misrepresent and mislead. So while they may give the impression of an improved self-understanding, that impression is typically mistaken. In this respect, conceiving of one’s life narratively hinders flourishing.

In epistemology, the concept of knowledge is of distinctive interest. This fact is also reflected in the discussion of epistemic value, which focuses to a large extend on the value problem of knowledge. This discussion suggests that knowledge has an outstanding value among epistemic standings because its value exceeds the value of its constitutive parts. I will argue that the value of knowledge is not outstanding by presenting epistemic standings of checking, transferring knowledge, and proving in court, whose values exceed the value of knowledge in certain contexts. Moreover, the values of these other epistemic standings do not always rely on the value of knowledge. In terms of value, knowledge is not an outstanding epistemic concept. Hence, in terms of value we cannot find support for the privileged position that knowledge enjoys in epistemology.

One of the few points of consensus in the Kantian literature is that Kant’s Moral Law is binding universally and unconditionally. Hence, the Moral Law is binding for all human agents (universally) irrespective of the agents’ particular interests (unconditionally). Whether or not we intend to act on the Moral Law, this is the law we ought to follow. Beyond this point of consensus, however, even the most important details are matters of controversy. What exactly does the Moral Law require of us? What, if anything, grounds its bindingness? In particular, does Kant argue that the Moral Law is binding because it is ‘self-legislated’? What is the relation between the Moral Law (supreme principle of morality) and substantive moral laws such as the law that we ought to promote the happiness of others? What does Kant mean by his claim that the will has autonomy? In the four articles discussed in this special issue, Kleingeld proposes novel answers to these questions. This introduction presents the articles and brings to the fore the larger theme tying them all together.

This article examines Pauline Kleingeld’s “volitional self-contradiction” (VSC) interpretation of Kant’s formula of universal law. It begins in §1 with an outline of Kleingeld’s interpretation and then proceeds in §2 to raise some worries about how the interpretation handles Kant’s egoism example. §3 considers VSC’s handling of the false promise example comparing it in §4 with the Logical/Causal Law (LCL) interpretation, which arguably does better than its VSC competitor in handling this example. §5 deploys the LCL interpretation to consider the related objections that the VSC interpretation is “superfluous” or at least “misguided” as a (formal) criterion of the permissibility of action on a maxim. These objections, it is argued, help reveal two distinct roles for contradictions in Kant’s applications of the formula of universal law – one for delivering moral judgments and one reflective of a formal coherence constraint on all deliberation having psychological significance for agents who contemplate violating duty. Disentangling these helps reveal some of the complexity in the use to which Kant puts the formula of universal law in his sample applications revealing the true significance of what Kleingeld refers to as volitional self-contradiction. In §6 is summary.

The Successive Addition Argument (SAA) is one of the key arguments espoused by William Lane Craig for the thesis that the universe began to exist. Recently, Malpass, Mind, 131(523), 786–804 (2021) has developed a challenge to the SAA by way of constructing a counterexample that originates in the work of Fred Dretske. In this paper, I show that the Malpass-Dretske counterexample is in fact no counterexample to the argument. Utilizing a distinction between properties of members and properties of collections, I argue that Malpass’ counterexample has no bearing on the soundness of the SAA. I also develop a novel parity argument against Malpass’ argument that I demonstrate can only be resolved by way of the aforementioned analysis.