TY - JOUR TI - The true and the good DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-831e-9c82 PY - 2019 AB - Ethics and epistemology are both normative fields. Philosophers talk about what we should do, what we have reason to believe, whether truth or pleasure is the ultimate good. Since they are both normative, we should expect that there are structural and substantive analogies between the two fields. In this dissertation, I develop and explore four of those analogies. In “Epistemic Punishments”, I argue that an aspect of our epistemic practice looks a lot like the informal, social punishments we impose on each other. Moreover, epistemic punishments can be justified in the same way that the more familiar social sanctions are. “Liberal Neutrality and False Beliefs” argues against a core tenet of liberalism. Though the state need not respect disagreement about fact, liberal neutrality says that the state must respect disagreements about value. Because of the similarities between action and belief evaluation, liberal neutralists cannot maintain this asymmetry. In “Praiseworthiness (and Knowledge) from Falsehood", I present a counterexample to the claim that an action is praiseworthy when it is done for the right reasons. This counterexample runs parallel to an epistemic one. Cases of knowledge from falsehood show that you can know p even if you don't believe p for the right reasons. I conclude that both knowledge and praise require only that your reasons are “good enough”. Finally, “Moral Swamping” poses a moral version of an epistemic problem. The swamping problem challenges us to explain why it's good to form justified beliefs. A true belief, based on good evidence, is no more true than the same belief based on superstition. A false belief, based on good evidence, is no less false than one picked from a hat. I argue that there is a similar puzzle in explaining the value of freedom. An agent who pursues the good freely need not do a better job than one who is compelled. An agent who pursues the bad freely won't necessarily perform better than one in the grips of addiction, manipulation, or irrationality. Why, then, should we care about freedom at all? KW - Philosophy KW - Truth KW - Good and evil LA - English ER -