PHIL808J: Flukes, Accidents, and Coincidences

Harjit Bhogal

Course Summary

A variety of important debates across philosophy are driven by considerations about a cluster of concepts to do with flukes, accidents, coincidences and luck. Questions about knowledge and justification, for example, are often about whether the agent luckily believed the truth. Closely relatedly, many worry that on certain views of moral or mathematical facts, for example, it would be merely coincidental if we had true beliefs about those domains. Questions about moral worth and moral luck revolve around cases where agents accidentally do the right thing. More generally, coincidence-avoidance norms play a central role in scientific practice -- if a theory says that some striking phenomenon is just a coincidence then that is a reason to reject that theory. The aim of this class is to better understand this cluster of concepts -- what makes something a coincidence, for example -- and to use this understanding to get a grip on these different debates across philosophy.

But the end of the class students should have gained familiarity with methods and patterns of argumentation common in philosophy of science, ethics, and epistemology and should be able to develop such arguments of their own.

Course Information

Instructor Harjit Bhogal Class Room SKN 1116 Lecture Time Wed 2:30-5:00

HB Office Hours Friday 9-11 on Zoom, or by appointment HB Zoom ID 663 599 6109 HB Email bhogal@umd.edu

Texts

Readings with be posted on ELMS/linked to from here.

Assignments

There will be one paper on any topic related to the course. The paper is worth 80% of the final grade and is due one month after the last class – that is 6/8.

Those enrolled for credit will be expected to come to class with at least two questions about each reading for that session, and more generally, should be ready to discuss the details of the readings. This type of class participation is worth 20%.

Policies

Policies relevant to graduate courses are found here. Topics that are addressed in these various policies include academic integrity, student and instructor conduct, accessibility and accommodations, attendance and excused absences, grades and appeals, copyright and intellectual property.

The use of AI writing tools like ChatGPT is not allowed.

Schedule

This schedule is tentative and incomplete. It will likely change depending on student interest.

1/24: Coincidences

• Lando, Coincidence and Common Cause

• Bhogal, Coincidences and the Grain of Explanation

1/31: Debunking

• Street, A Darwinian dilemma for realist theories of value

• Vavova, Debunking Evolutionary Debunking

2/7: Debunking

• Enoch, The epistemological challenge to metanormative realism - how best to understand it, and how to cope with it

• Bhogal, What's the coincidence in debunking?

2/14: Debunking

• Clarke-Doane, Morality and Mathematics: The Evolutionary Challenge

• Bhogal, Explanationism versus Modalism in Debunking (and Theory Choice)

2/21: Moral Worth

• Markovits, Acting for the Right Reasons

• Sliwa, Moral worth and moral knowledge

2/28: Moral Worth

• Johnson King, Accidentally Doing the Right Thing

• Isserow, Moral Worth and Doing the Right Thing by Accident

3/6: Calling out for explanation

• Baras, Calling for explanation, Chapters 1-2

3/13: Calling out for explanation

• Baras, Calling for explanation, Chapters 3-4

3/20 Spring Break

3/27: Luck

• Lackey, What luck is not

• Pritchard, The Modal Account of Luck

• Hales, Why Every Theory of Luck is Wrong

4/3: Calling out for explanation

• Baras, Calling for explanation, Chapters 5-6

• Lange, For crying out loud

4/10: Moral Luck

• Williams and Nagel, Moral Luck

4/17: Moral Luck

• Zimmerman, Taking Luck Seriously

• Hanna, Moral Luck Defended

4/24: More on Debunking

• Bengson, Grasping the Third Realm

5/1: Fine-Tuning

• Hawthorne and Isaacs, Fine-Tuning Fine-Tuning

5/8: TBD