About

Jennifer Rose Carr is an associate professor in the department of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. She completed her PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her research primarily focuses on epistemology, with particular emphasis on formal epistemology, epistemic decision theory, belief modeling, and metaepistemology. Additionally, she works on decision theory, exploring the philosophical aspects of rational choice and decision-making processes. Her interests also extend to the philosophy of language, especially the study of modals and conditionals, as well as to metaethics, where she investigates moral uncertainty, metanormative decision theory, and deontic modality. Her work integrates formal methods with philosophical inquiry to address foundational questions in these areas.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Epistemology
• Philosophy
• Mathematical economics
• Sociology
• Mathematics
• Economics
• Psychology
• Microeconomics

Selected publications

• Against the truth norm

  Philosophical Studies · 2025-09-07

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• Interventions in inquiry

  Synthese · 2025-04-22 · 2 citations

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• The hard problem of intertheoretic comparisons

  Philosophical Studies · 2021 · 3 citations

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  • Computer Science
  • Epistemology
  • Mathematical economics
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• Why Ideal Epistemology?

  Mind · 2021 · 89 citations

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  • Sociology
  • Epistemology
  • Philosophy

  Abstract Ideal epistemologists investigate the nature of pure epistemic rationality, abstracting away from human cognitive limitations. Non-ideal epistemologists investigate epistemic norms that are satisfiable by most humans, most of the time. Ideal epistemology faces a number of challenges, aimed at both its substantive commitments and its philosophical worth. This paper explains the relation between ideal and non-ideal epistemology, with the aim of justifying ideal epistemology. Its approach is meta-epistemological, focusing on the meaning and purpose of epistemic evaluations. I provide an account on which the fundamental difference between ideal and non-ideal epistemic evaluations is that only the non-ideal epistemic ‘ought’ implies any substantive ‘can’. I argue that only ideal epistemic evaluations are ‘normatively robust’: they are neither conventional nor seriously context-sensitive. Non-ideal epistemic evaluations are normatively non-robust, exhibiting both conventionality and serious context-sensitivity from an interesting variety of distinct sources. For this reason, non-ideal epistemic evaluations won’t characterize the fundamental nature of epistemic rationality. Non-ideal epistemic rationality depends, not merely on what’s epistemically valuable, but also on modally contingent epistemic conventions and contextually contingent constraints on epistemic options. If we want a normatively robust theory of epistemic rationality, ideal epistemology is the only game in town.

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• Normative Uncertainty without Theories

  Australasian Journal of Philosophy · 2020 · 16 citations

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  • Computer Science
  • Epistemology
  • Mathematical economics

  How should an agent act under normative uncertainty? We might extend the orthodox theory of rational choice to the case of uncertainty between competing normative theories. But this requires that the values assigned by different normative theories be comparable. This paper defends a strategy for avoiding the need for intertheoretic value comparisons: instead of comparing competing moral theories, I argue that values can be represented in terms of a de dicto specification of value. I provide a decision theory for de dicto values that generalises expected utility theory, and I compare the proposal with alternative strategies for avoiding the problem of intertheoretic comparisons.

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• Imprecise evidence without imprecise credences

  Philosophical Studies · 2019-09-09 · 20 citations

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• Subjective Probability and the Content/Attitude Distinction

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2019-01-24 · 17 citations

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  On an attractive, naturalistically respectable theory of intentionality, mental contents are a form of measurement system for representing behavioral and psychological dispositions. This chapter argues that a consequence of this view is that the content/attitude distinction is measurement system relative. As a result, there is substantial arbitrariness in the content/attitude distinction. Whether some measurement of mental states counts as characterizing the content of mental states or the attitude is not a question of empirical discovery but of theoretical utility. If correct, this observation has ramifications in the theory of rationality. Some epistemologists and decision theorists have argued that imprecise credences are rationally impermissible, while others have argued that precise credences are rationally impermissible. If the measure theory of mental content is correct, however, then neither imprecise credences nor precise credences can be rationally impermissible.

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• A modesty proposal

  Synthese · 2019-07-29 · 9 citations

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• Epistemic Utility Theory and the Aim of Belief

  Philosophy and Phenomenological Research · 2017-09-11 · 93 citations

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• Epistemic Expansions

  Res Philosophica · 2015-01-01 · 23 citations

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Education

• Ph.D.

  MIT