“In competitive archery, risk assessment has minimal bearing on quality of performance, since the archer has so little choice over shot selection. By contrast, in a hunt, shots vary in quality according to how well selected they may be.” WellsMayLittlesChoicesQualityRiskShotsPerformancesContrastSelectionHuntsVarySelectedAssessmentArcherArchery Author:Ernest Sosa
“The success of an archery shot may bring food to the hunter's starving family, or may constitute a horrible murder. But these outcomes are irrelevant to the assessment of that shot as a hunter-archery shot, as an attempt to hit prey without running excessive risk of failure.” MayRunningRiskShotsMurderHorribleOutcomesIrrelevantHuntersPreyStarvingAssessmentArchery Author:Ernest Sosa
“If a shot aimed at aptness succeeds aptly, it is then fully apt, since it is not only apt but also aptly apt. But the full aptness of such an attempt is entirely compatible with its being a horrible murder, if the "hunter" is an assassin and the prey his victim. That hunter's shot may still be outstandingly, fully apt, if it manifests the agent's competence in both archery dexterity and shot selection.” IfsMayStillsSucceedShotsMurderVictimHorribleAgentsHuntersSelectionPreyCompetenceAssassinsCompatibleArcheryDexterity Author:Ernest Sosa
“One does not avoid incompetence if one makes an attempt whose likelihood of success is too low. This seems little more than analytic: when the performance is in a domain that imposes standards of risk, attempts may or may not meet such standards. And the relevant competence of agents then includes reliably enough meeting those standards.” IfsMayLittlesDoeEnoughSeemsRiskLowsStandardsPerformancesMeetingsAgentsRelevantDomainCompetenceIncompetenceLikelihoodAnalytics Author:Ernest Sosa
“The risk pertinent to a particular attempt (and to its evaluation as an attempt of its sort) is the risk that the agent will fail to attain the end constitutive of that attempt. This risk of failure is coordinate with how likely or unlikely it may be that the agent will then succeed.” MayEndsFailingRiskParticularSucceedAgentsUnlikelyEvaluationCoordinatesPertinent Author:Ernest Sosa
“When there are conflicts of observation, when experiments cannot be replicated, scientists may then retreat to a study of the various specific observations so as to explain the conflict, in the course of which they would make use of the concept of observation, or of some specification of that concept.” MayUseCoursesStudyConflictConceptsScientistVariousExperimentsObservationRetreatSpecifications Author:Ernest Sosa
