In this paper I explore the nature of confabulatory explanations of action guided by implicit bias. I claim that such explanations can have significant epistemic benefits in spite of their obvious epistemic costs, and that such benefits are not otherwise obtainable by the subject at the time at which the explanation is offered. I start by outlining the kinds of cases I have in mind, before characterising the phenomenon of confabulation by focusing on a few common features. Then I introduce the notion of epistemic innocence to capture the epistemic status of those cognitions which have both obvious epistemic faults and some significant epistemic benefit. A cognition is epistemically innocent if it delivers some epistemic benefit to the subject which would not be attainable otherwise because alternative (less epistemically faulty) cognitions that could deliver the same benefit are unavailable to the subject at that time. I ask whether confabulatory explanations of actions guided by implicit bias have epistemic benefits and whether there are genuine alternatives to forming a confabulatory explanation in the circumstances in which subjects confabulate. On the basis of my analysis of confabulatory explanations of actions guided by implicit bias, I argue that such explanations have the potential for epistemic innocence. I conclude that epistemic evaluation of confabulatory explanations of action guided by implicit bias ought to tell a richer story, one which takes into account the context in which the explanation occurs.

In some neuropsychological disorders, distorted reports seem to fill gaps in people's memory of their past, where people's self‐image, history, and prospects are often enhanced. False beliefs about the past compromise both people's capacity to construct a reliable autobiography and their trustworthiness as communicators. However, such beliefs contribute to people's sense of competence and self‐confidence, increasing psychological well‐being. Here, we consider both the psychological benefits and epistemic costs and argue that distorting the past is likely to also have epistemic benefits that cannot be obtained otherwise, such as enabling people to exchange information, receive feedback, and retain key beliefs about themselves.

I propose a new model of implicit bias, according to which implicit biases are constituted by unconscious imaginings. I argue that my model accommodates characteristic features of implicit bias, does not face the problems of the doxastic model, and is uniquely placed to accommodate the structural heterogeneity in the category of implicit bias. Finally I turn to how my view relates to holding people accountable for their biases and what we know about intervention strategies.

I argue that explanations of doxastic transparency which go via an appeal to an aim or norm of belief are problematic. I offer a new explanation which appeals to a biological function of our mechanisms for belief production. I begin by characterizing the phenomenon, and then move to the teleological and normative accounts of belief, advertised by their proponents as able to give an explanation of it. I argue that, at the very least, both accounts face serious difficulties in this endeavour. These difficulties are a function of seeking an explanation of transparency at the agential level, either with the subject aiming at truth, or being guided by a norm of truth. I adopt a motivational account of belief, one which severs the connection between belief and truth, and supplement this with an account of actual world beliefs. My alternative explanation is found at the sub-intentional, non-agential level, secured by biology. This explanation casts transparency not as related to the nature of deliberation over what to believe, but rather as contingently characterizing the beliefs of some believers, namely those with a particular biological history. My explanation thus parts company with what has come before along two dimensions: it moves away from transparency being something related to the agent's aims or commitments, and it understands it as a contingent phenomenon. I close by considering an objection to my view-that transparency must not be understood as a contingent phenomenon-and a nearby alternative position which avoids this consequence. I respond to this objection and give reasons not to endorse the nearby alternative. I conclude that my explanation does not face the difficulties of those offered by teleologists and normativists, and, that by moving away from agential explanations, and casting transparency as contingent, we can provide a successful explanation of it.

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When subject to the choice-blindness effect, an agent gives reasons for making choice B, moments after making the alternative choice A. Choice blindness has been studied in a variety of contexts, from consumer choice and aesthetic judgement to moral and political attitudes. The pervasiveness and robustness of the effect is regarded as powerful evidence of self-ignorance. Here we compare two interpretations of choice blindness. On the choice error interpretation, when the agent gives reasons she is in fact wrong about what her choice is. On the choice change interpretation, when the agent gives reasons she is right about what her choice is, but she does not realise that her choice has changed. In this paper, we spell out the implications of the two interpretations of the choice-blindness effect for self-ignorance claims and offer some reasons to prefer choice change to choice error.

If belief has an aim by being a (quasi) intentional activity, then it ought to be the case that the aim of belief can be weighed against other aims one might have. However, this is not so with the putative truth aim of belief: from the first-person perspective, one can only be motivated by truth considerations in deliberation over what to believe (exclusivity). From this perspective then, the aim cannot be weighed. This problem is captured by David Owens's Exclusivity Objection to belief having an aim ). Conor McHugh (20122013) has responded to this problem by denying the phenomenon of exclusivity and replacing it with something weaker: demandingness. If deliberation over what to believe is characterised by demandingness and not exclusivity, this allows for the requisite weighing of the truth aim. I argue against such a move by suggesting that where non-evidential considerations play a role in affecting what we believe, these considerations merely change the standards required for believing in a particular context, they do not provide non-evidential reasons for forming or withholding belief, which are considered as such from the deliberative perspective. Exclusivity thus remains, and so too does Owens's objection. ExclusivityExclusivity is said to characterise deliberation over what to believe-only truthrelated considerations can be motivating reasons. This claim should be read descriptively, as a fact about our belief formation, not as a claim about how one ought to deliberate. McHugh characterises exclusivity thus:when you deliberate about whether to believe a proposition, only considerations you take to be relevant to the truth of that proposition-i.e., evidence-can be motivating reasons for believing the proposition, reasons for which you adopt the doxastic attitude of belief to that proposition. (McHugh 2013(McHugh : 1118 To claim exclusivity is not to claim that beliefs are formed exclusively in response to considerations relating to the truth of p, rather, it is to claim that 'one cannot deliberately, and in full awareness, as it were, let one's beliefs be guided by anything but truth' (Steglich-Petersen 2006: 503). This is not to deny that beliefs can be influenced by non-epistemic factors. Provided that these non-epistemic factors are not acknowledged as reasons to believe by the deliberator, exclusivity does not rule out their influencing the content or fixation of deliberative beliefs.An account of belief should explain why when we deliberate over what to believe, we can only take truth-related considerations into account. Alternatively,

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