Dylan Balfour

Thesis title: The Cluelessness Argument

Biography

Background

I'm interested in "cluelessness" - the idea that we know only a tiny proportion of our actions' total consequences. More specifically, I'm investigating whether cluelessness poses a threat to consequentialism, and how it might affect the decision-making of effective altruists. I also have broader interests in epistemology, decision theory, and philosophy of religion.

 

Publications

'Pascal's Mugger Strikes Again'. Utilitas. Forthcoming.

'Second-Personal Theodicy: Coming to Know Why God Permits Suffering by Coming to Know God Himself'. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. Forthcoming. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-020-09763-x

'Review of Hilary Greaves & Theron Pummer (eds.) Effective Altruism: Philosophical Issues (Oxford: OUP, 2019)' Journal of Moral Philosophy. Forthcoming.

Talks

'The Ubiquity of Muggings: Expected Utility and the Future of Humanity'. Understanding Value IX, University of Sheffield, December 2020.

'The Ubiquity of Muggings: Expected Utility and the Future of Humanity'. Ethics: Its Theory and Application from Antiquity to Postmodernity, University of Zagreb, May 2020.

'The Ubiquity of Muggings: Expected Utility and the Future of Humanity'. Graduate Work in Progress Seminar, University of Edinburgh, April 2020.

'Expanding the Situationist Challenge to Reliabilism About Memory'. Ninth Annual Graduate Epistemology Conference, University of Edinburgh, May 2019.

'Second-Personal Theodicy: Coming to Know Why God Permits Suffering by Coming to Know God Himself'. Benedictine Society, University of York, September 2017.                

Teaching

PHIL08015: Morality and Value (Autumn 2020)

PHIL08016: Greats: From Plato to the Enlightenment (Spring 2020)

PPLS Writing Centre (2019-20)

Dr Martin Smith

Dr Guy Fletcher

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