Proceedings and Addresses: January, 2003 (Volume 76, Issue 3): Abstracts of Volunteered Colloquium and Symposium Papers

Proceedings And Addresses
January, 2003 (Volume 76, Issue 3)

Abstracts of Volunteered Colloquium and Symposium Papers

Robust Local Alternatives and Responsibility, V-I

Robert F. Allen (Central Michigan University)

The Principle of Robust Local Alternatives (PRLA) states that an agent is responsible for doing something only if she could have performed a "robust" alternative: another action having a different moral or practical value. Defenders of PRLA maintain that it is not refuted by a "Frankfurt case," given that its agent can be seen as having had such an alternative provided that we properly specify that for which she is responsible. I argue here against two versions of this defense. First, I show that those who maintain that a "Frankfurt agent" is responsible for voluntarily performing her action must attach moral significance to her luck. I then discuss Carl Ginet's strategy of temporally qualifying ascriptions of responsibility, arguing that his counterexample to the principle that `If an agent is responsible for doing A @ t, then she is responsible for doing A simpliciter' is not analogous to a Frankfurt case.

Ideal Worlds and the Transworld Untrustworthy, VII-H

Michael J. Almeida (University of Texas, San Antonio)

The celebrated Free Will Defense was designed to show that the Ideal World Thesis presents no challenge to theism. The Ideal World Thesis states that, in any world in which God exists, he can actualize a world containing moral good and no moral evil. I consider an intriguing two-stage argument that Michael Bergmann advances for the Free Will Defense and show that the argument provides atheologians no reason to abandon the Ideal World Thesis. I show next that the existence of worlds in which every essence is transworld untrustworthy provides atheologians with no better reason to abandon the Ideal World Thesis. I conclude that neither the Free Will Defense nor Bergmann's Revised Free Will Defense is a convincing response to the atheological challenge.

Jackson's Retraction, III-W

Torin Alter (University of Alabama)

In "Postscript on Qualia" (1998) Frank Jackson announced that he rejects his famous knowledge argument against physicalism. In a new paper, "Mind and Illusion", he explains why. He appeals to representationalism-roughly, the view that phenomenal character consists wholly in representational character-to help explain where his knowledge argument goes awry. I argue that representationalism provides no basis for rejecting the knowledge argument. Fans of the knowledge argument may grant arguendo that representational character exhausts phenomenal character; but the physicalist must
still face a representationalist version of the Mary challenge, which inherits the difficulty of the original.

The Entanglements of the Present: A Freudian Analysis of Hegel's Philosophy of History, IV-L

Matthew C. Altman and Cynthia D. Coe (both Monmouth College)

Hegel and Freud both make the claim that nothing wholly passes away that has once been present in mental life. But the meaning of this claim is quite different for each of them, and an analysis of its implications for their diverse conceptions of historical consciousness can help us trace the critique of the Enlightenment in post-Hegelian Continental thought. For Hegel the past is preserved in a rational narrative through which Spirit actualizes its freedom. In contrast, for Freud such an appropriation gives rise to symptoms of the exclusion of the unhistorical from history. By focusing on the exemplary issue of racism and Eurocentrism, we argue against the adequacy of an idealist conception of the past as an other that can be rationally incorporated. Freud's attention to the claim that the unhistorical makes on us entails that tarrying with the negative in pursuit of freedom always remains an incomplete task.

Two Types of Freedom in Sartre and Locke, III-V

Kristana Arp (Long Island University)

This paper makes a distinction between two types of freedom: ontological freedom (freedom of the will) and freedom from constraint. I use this distinction to defend Sartre's account of freedom in Being and Nothingness, to comment on Locke's analysis of liberty and volition in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding and to point out some surprising similarities between their two positions.

Thinking Clearly about Violence, II-L

Allan Bäck (Kutztown University)

I discuss the recent history of the analysis of `violence', in philosophy and in social science. I propose and defend definitions for `forcefulness', `aggression', and two senses of `violence': one basic and the other pejorative. I also distinguish the violent act from the violent person. Doing all this enables us to have clear criteria for violence without settling substantive issues through stipulative definition. I shall claim that every act violent in the basic sense is prima facie wrong, but that some can be morally justified.

Temporal Parts and Superluminal Motion, VIII-H

Yuri Balashov (University of Georgia)

Hud Hudson has recently suggested a scenario intended to show that, assuming the doctrine of temporal parts and a sufficiently liberal view of composition, there are material objects that move faster than light. I accept Hudson's conditional but contend that his modus ponens is less plausible that the corresponding modus tollens. Reversed in this way, the argument stemming from the scenario raises the cost of mereological liberalism and advances the case for a principled restriction on diachronic composition.

Sexism and Phenomenological Method in Sartre's Analysis of Bad Faith, III-V

Philip J. Bartok (University of Notre Dame)

Sartre's analysis of bad faith in Being and Nothingness has been the subject of much recent critical attention by feminist philosophers, who argue that it is rendered invalid by virtue of its reliance upon undefended (and indefensible) sexist presuppositions. I examine here two versions of this objection. The first, I contend, may be dismissed on the grounds that it rests upon a misunderstanding of the method that Sartre employs in his analysis. The second can be shown to be merely a special case of the more general objection, leveled against Sartre by Peter Caws and others, that his method involves an untenable "elevation of the particular to world-historical status". Neither succeeds, then, in demonstrating that his analysis of bad faith is compromised by his alleged sexism.

Hume's "On Miracles" without the Muddles: Against Earman's Reading, VIII-K

Lon Becker (Colgate University)

In this paper I look at three of the components of Hume's argument "On Miracles" which John Earman claims to be muddled. I show that these sections only come out muddled because Earman assigns the straight rule of induction to Hume. If one instead reads Hume as illustrating that our beliefs are always revisable, then these passages cease to be muddled. The three components that I look at are Hume's definition of miracles, the Indian prince example, and the resurrection of Queen Elizabeth.

Paving the Ground for a Competitive Virtue Theory: The Nature of our Moral Reasons,VII-M

Lorraine Besser-Jones (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

A common view of morality holds that moral requirements give reasons to act that override others reasons that could conflict with it. This view endorses the overridingness thesis ("OT"), according to which it is never rational for an agent to do what morality forbids. Many tend to interpret OT in Kantian terms, equating a reason's being overriding with its being categorical. However, many also have been lead to reject OT itself because of the problems that arise when we interpret it in Kantian terms of categoricity. As a result of these problems, many give up on the concept of overridingness completely and turn to a pure virtue theory that focuses primarily on the importance of virtuous character traits, rather than on the concept of our moral duties. Here, I will present an alternative understanding of overridingness that goes beyond the standard Kantian dichotomy of categorical and hypothetical reasons and enables us to move to a virtue-based theory without relinquishing the concept of an overriding moral duty.

Reciprocity and Mutual Respect, V-H

Colin Bird (University of Virginia)

This paper suggests that political philosophers have misconstrued the relationship between mutual respect and reciprocity. Contrary to some commonly expressed views, I suggest that mutuality and reciprocity are not equivalent in the context of respect. Taking account of these differences casts doubt on the idea that we can understand mutual respect in terms of reciprocity. The dependence rather lies in the opposite direction: the sort of egalitarian reciprocity widely canvassed by political philosophers today requires the presence of mutual respect, not the other way around.

Hume's Epistemological Compatibilism, VIII-K

Timothy A. Black (University of Utah)

Hume's suggestion that our inductive beliefs are causally determined by custom is disturbing because it seems naturally to give way to the claim that we cannot be epistemically responsible for our inductive beliefs. Thus, given a modern, normative conception of epistemic value, we seem naturally to be led to a thoroughgoing skepticism about our inductive beliefs. Yet we can resist this push toward a skeptical interpretation of Hume. In this paper, I explain how Hume can both assign epistemic value to inductive beliefs, where we have a normative conception of such value, and maintain that our inductive beliefs are causally determined by custom. In doing so, I will in effect argue that Hume is a compatibilist about inductive belief: He maintains both that we are causally determined by custom to hold such beliefs, but that we can nevertheless be epistemically responsible for holding them.

Atomistic Learning in Fully Distributed Systems, VII-J

James Blackmon, David Byrd, Robert Cummins, Pierre Poirier, and Martin Roth (all University of California, Davis)

We argue that atomistic learning _ learning that requires training only on a novel item to be learned _ is problematic for fully distributed connectionist networks _ networks in which every weight is available for change in every learning situation. This is potentially significant because atomistic learning appears to be commonplace in humans and most non-human animals. We briefly review various proposed fixes, concluding that the most promising strategy to date involves training on pseudopatterns along with novel items, a form of learning that is not strictly atomistic, but which looks very much like it "from the outside."

Leibniz's De Summa Rerum and the Panlogistic Interpretation of the Theory of Simple Substances, X-I

Andreas Blank (University of Pittsburgh)

According to the panlogistic interpretation of Leibniz's metaphysics, simple substances — minds, souls, and `bare' monads — are identical with complete concepts, i.e., abstract, logical entities. This paper tries to explore some difficulties that arise for the panlogistic interpretation with regard to Leibniz's De summa rerum (1675-1676). The view
defended in the De summa rerum is that ideas and existing things stand in a close relationship to each other, but are distinct entities. Similarly, in the De summa rerum Leibniz puts forward a theory of ideas according to which minds and ideas cannot be identical because they belong to different ontological categories: minds to the category of substances, ideas to the category of modifications.

Modified Occam's Razor, IX-Z

Thomas D. Bontly (University of Connecticut)

In linguistics and the philosophy of language, it is commonplace to distinguish between the semantic content of a sentence and the additional pragmatic content that may be generated by its utterance. One grounds for drawing this distinction is called by Paul Grice "Modified Occam's Razor": "Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity." This paper examines the justification for Modified Occam's Razor and its relation to parsimony principles in natural science at large. It is argued that the justification of the Grice's Razor rests on certain contingent facts about human psychology, without which the use of parsimony principles in linguistics would make little sense.

Sexual Objectification and Kantian Ethics, X-J

Elizabeth Brake (University of Calgary)

I argue that Kant's distinction between justice and virtue has important implications for feminist theory and philosophical discussions of sexual ethics. I begin by reconstructing Kant's own account of sexual objectification, which is found in his discussion of sex and marriage. Kant offers a valuable analysis of objectification, but wrongly (I argue) construes it as a violation of a duty of justice. Drawing on Kant's account of objectification, I show that it is not a failure in justice, but rather a failure in virtue. This leads to a criticism of the claim that sexual objectification can be remedied through law, since external legislation cannot remedy a lack of virtue. This point has implications for feminist theory. I also suggest a positive account of how objectification, as a failure of virtue, should be addressed.

Contractualism and Deontic Restrictions, X-E

Jeffrey Brand-Ballard (George Washington University)

In response to the charge that deontic (agent-centered) restrictions are paradoxical, several recent writers propose that such restrictions find support within T.M. Scanlon's contractualism. I suggest that this claim is only interesting if the restrictions supported by contractualism are stronger than those supported by indirect consequentialism. I argue that, in fact, contractualism cannot support deontic restrictions any stronger than those supported by indirect consequentialism. I explain how contractualists have mislocated the source of the paradox of restrictions. The paradox arises under any moral theory which defines right actions in patient-focused terms. Consequentialism and contractualism share this feature. This is why contractualism cannot support stronger deontic restrictions than indirect consequentialism supports.

Oppression and Epistemic Advantage: Why the View is Better From the Margins, VII-N

Audre Jean Brokes (Saint Joseph's University)

I examine one version of the claim that oppressed persons enjoy an epistemic advantage vis-a-vis their more privileged counterparts: a view originally developed by Charles Mills. I argue that this view succeeds only in establishing what I call "Weak Epistemic Advantage" (which I distinguish from Strong Epistemic Advantage) because it depends on an implausible Empiricist account of concept formation and acquisition.

Minding the Gap in Plato's Republic, III-S

Eric Brown (Washington University in St. Louis)

In Plato's Republic, Socrates attempts to show that it is always better to do what is just than to do what is unjust by showing that it is always better to have a just soul than to have an unjust soul. Most interpreters have thought that there is a gap here: why should we assume that the psychologically just are also practically just? The dominant response has been to suggest that Plato plugs the gap by appealing to the motivational power of the psychologically just person's knowledge. I argue that the gap-filling interpretation is badly undersupported by the text of the Republic and is contradicted by what Socrates says about the philosophers' decision to rule. I propose instead that there is never a gap in the Republic, for the entire work reflects two beliefs about the importance of early childhood education, first that those who are raised well do what justice requires, and second that those who are not raised well cannot be psychologically just. I tease out of the Republic the evidence for these two beliefs, which together entail that no one who is psychologically just is practically unjust, and I suggest how they should change our view of Plato's ethics.

The Problem of Compatibilism in Philosophy of Religion,
VII-H

James Cain (Oklahoma State University)

The problem of compatibilism plays an important role in the free will defense, in the problem of reconciling omniscience with free will, and in the question of whether divine punishment can be just. I argue that the notion of compatibility is ambiguous and that by distinguishing two important senses of compatibility we can come to a better understanding of these debates. In part one, I distinguish two senses of compatibility: conceptual compatibility and metaphysical compatibility. Some features of the notion of metaphysical compatibility are developed in terms of Kripke's accounts of metaphysical possibility, natural kinds and essential properties. In part two, I look at the problem of compatibilism as it pertains to the free will defense. In part three, I consider the problem of compatibilism in regard to omniscience and divine justice, and sketch an argument for metaphysical incompatibilism.

Agamben and the Ethics and Politics of Infancy, V-L

Matthew Calarco (Sweet Briar College)

In this paper, I seek to examine Giorgio Agamben's rethinking of the "ground" of community in terms of "infancy." The primary aim of the essay is to begin to elaborate a notion of community that is not limited to a humanist/anthropocentric criteria of belonging. I argue that Agamben's remarks on infancy are useful for such a project insofar as they call into question certain logocentric and humanist conceptions of community; yet, at the same time, I am critical of Agamben's attempt to limit infancy to the human alone, excluding animals and other non-human beings. I interrogate this anthropocentric limit in his work with a careful analysis of Agamben's discussion of the "endosomatic" and "esosomatic" inheritance of language, and the manner in which he employs this distinction to reconfigure the limit separating human beings from animals. In conclusion, I bring recent writings by Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy to bear on the lingering anthropocentrism in Agamben's work.

Casuistry and Reflective Equilibrium, IX-T

Martin Calkins (Santa Clara University)

This paper argues that although casuistry and reflective equilibrium seem alike, the two processes are not identical and interchangeable. Rather, they have different characteristics that enable them to make important contributions to ethical decision-making. This means that neither is more sophistivated or crude than the other and that each is useful to moral problem solving in its own way.

Defending Socrates's Case against Thrasymachus, VI-X

Richard Cameron (University of Alaska, Anchorage)

Scholars agree that Socrates's arguments in book i of the Republic are bad, even that they are so obviously bad that they must be meant to tell us something (e.g., that at this stage in his development Plato is critical of Socratic method; that book i lays out its shortcomings; and that subsequent books pursue the same issues in a new Platonic fashion). But agreement is bad for business in scholarship, and this agreement in particular deserves to be undermined. Socrates's arguments in book i are eminently defensible, philosophically rich, and lead organically into the deeper concerns raised in book ii. Moreover, Socrates's responses fully engage the expressed views of the notoriously angry and recalcitrant Thrasymachus. And so Socrates's defeat of Thrasymachus's comes in the standard elenctic fashion, built from his interlocutor's sincere beliefs. Such, at any rate, is the burden of this essay.

`Lodging in the Words': Semantics and Metaphorical Content, IX-Z

Elisabeth Camp (University of California, Berkeley)

Several people have recently employed some version of an embedding argument to argue for a semantic treatment of metaphor. I consider two such arguments. The first, offered by David Hills, examines the behavior of metaphors within larger stretches of discourse, and appeals to the fact that hearers can take up and extend the initial figure of speech, to agree or disagree with the content metaphorically expressed. The second, offered by Josef Stern, examines the behavior of metaphors within more complex sentences, and appeals to the fact that the interpretation of the whole sentence seems to be constrained by a metaphorical interpretation of its parts. I argue that neither argument establishes that the semantic contents of the words uttered have been altered; and I sketch my own, pragmatic account of the relevant behavior.

More Beta Blues, V-I

Joseph Keim Campbell (Washington State University)
Jason Turner (Florida State University)

Support for incompatibilism is substantially undercut by Coin Toss, an example offered by McKay and Johnson (1996), which proves that van Inwagen's (

) and thus his Third Argument for incompatibilsm (1983 and 1989) are invalid. Crisp and Warfield (2000) claim that examples like Coin Toss are not worrisome to incompatibilsts since they can be circumvented with the aid of ()-like principles immune to the counterexamples. We rebut Crisp and Warfield's argument and show that all (

)_like versions of the Consequence Argument fail for one of three reasons: (i) a version of Coin Toss proves that the (

)-like principle is invalid, or (ii) a version of Coin Toss weakens the intuitive force behind the ()-like principle, or (iii) the ()-like principle begs the question.

The Possibility of Moral Reasoning, VIII-D

David K. Chan (University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point)

Is there a form of moral reasoning that is distinguishable from the instrumental form of practical reasoning? Agents can choose not to do what would best satisfy their goals because, by engaging in moral reasoning, they judge it immoral to do so. In this paper, I examine the possibility that moral agents have moral and prudential reasons that are distinct from each other. I suggest that in a moral struggle, moral reasoning responds to a second-order desire that is concerned with the moral acceptability of the instrumental means to an agent's ends. The presence of this desire in conflicted agents, who may not have moral ends, provides an intermediate stage in the process of moral transition. I conclude that moral reasoning that conflicts with prudential reasoning about means may not only be possible, but may well be a preliminary step on the way to moral reasoning about ends.

Is the Sex of the Knower Epistemologically Significant?,
VII-N

Frank Chessa (Bates College)

The Sex of the knower is epistemologically significant in the same sense that the height of a person is, in certain circumstances, epistemologically significant. This straightforward sense of epistemological significance may seem to trivialize women's knowing. However, when the details of the account are filled in, women's status as uniquely situated knowers yields an extensive range of knowledge to which others have only limited or indirect access. Further, women's status as knowers has political consequences which yield two policy recommendations. Finally, rather than being a competitor to epistemological relativist accounts of women's knowledge, the straightforward account is compatible with and perhaps complementary to relativistic accounts.

Race, Capital Punishment, and Two Kinds of Arbitrariness,
IX-Y

Michael J. Cholbi (Brooklyn College, CUNY)

Advocates of capital punishment often deny the relevance of empirical evidence showing that racial minorities are executed at higher rates than whites. I argue that such denials confuse two senses in which a punishment can be arbitrarily administered: (a) A punishment can be inflicted randomly. (b) A punishment can be administered on irrelevant grounds. Their position is convincing under (a), but capital punishment is arbitrarily administered in sense (b). I then present a positive argument for a moratorium on capital punishment on the basis of the aforementioned empirical evidence. My argument holds that racial minorities as a class face greater costs for murder than do other individuals, and that this difference in costs does not correlate with desert and is best explained by race. As a result, racial minorities do not enjoy an equal status under the law with respect to murder and its costs.

Relational Autonomy _ Some Worries: A Qualified Case for Individualism, IX-U

John P. Christman (Penn State University)

Philosophical suspicion of the normative presuppositions of liberalism has often focused on the alleged hyper-individualism of the conception of autonomy and the autonomous person operating at its center. Feminists have been especially vocal in the claim that the idea of autonomy central to liberal politics must be reconfigured so as to be more sensitive to relations of care, interdependence, and mutual support that define our lives and which have traditionally marked the realm of the feminine. Emerging from this discussion is a view of the autonomous person _ "relational autonomy" _ that attempts to fully embrace this social conception of the self. However, when conceptions of "relational" autonomy are spelled out in detail, certain difficulties arise which should give us some pause in the utilization of such notions in the formulation of liberal principles of justice, especially those
motivated by feminist and other liberatory concerns. In this paper I want to examine both the presuppositions and the normative, political, implications of certain relational conceptions of autonomy, in particular regarding their role in the theoretical structure of principles of justice. I suggest that "social" conceptions of the self upon which these models of autonomy are constructed should be understood as more variable and multifaceted than is typically done. And I further suggest that relational conceptions of autonomy often contain elements which are in some tension with themselves, specifically between their anti-individualist elements (which I embrace) and their perfectionist elements (which I raise concerns about). In the end I attempt to defend "proceduralist" accounts of autonomy which do more to take account of the ways in which we are (in various ways) socially constituted than is typically allowed.

Enriching Justice: The Ideal of Autonomy and The Ideal of Reciprocity as Coinciding, V-H

Andrew Jason Cohen (James Madison University)

Justice may be understood as concerned with how institutions should enforce contracts. That has been thought, though, to mean that there can be no justice amongst family members and friends since those relationships are governed by affection rather than contract. Moreover, some suggest that even contractual relations should be judged according to some underlying fairness of the exchange and not simply on whether it was freely agreed upon. Here I argue that both of these claims indicate a need to expand the goods taken into account when considering whether a situation is just. I argue that determining whether a situation is just requires going beyond consideration of mere material goods received to consider less easily measured factors.

Hume's Consequent Skepticism, VIII-K

Mark Collier (Stanford University)

According to the naturalist interpretation, Hume's skepticism is intended to clear the way for his imagination-based explanation of belief formation. This reading, however, cannot adequately account for why Hume falls into despair when he reflects back upon the results of his investigations. Hume takes himself to have established not only (1) that belief formation depends upon the faculty of the imagination, but also (2) that the imagination gives rise to illusory beliefs about the world, and (3) that philosophical reflection is incapable of correcting these illusions. Hume's skepticism does not clear the way for his imagination-based explanation, then, but rather his skepticism is consequent to his discovery that the faculty of the imagination is unreliable.

Self-Righteous Anger: A Case Study in Evolutionary Ethics, II-H

Justin D'Arms (Ohio State University)

People often get angry about moral transgressions. Less often, but not infrequently, they also get angry at innocent people around them who aren't similarly angry about the moral transgressions. Is such "self-righteous" anger ever reasonable? I give a qualified defense of it on the basis of evolutionary considerations. It's tempting to follow Philip Kitcher in expecting that conclusions delivered by evolutionary ethics are inevitably going to be either unsurprising or fallacious. But if my defense is plausible, it suggests a novel way of thinking about how evolutionary considerations might be relevant to ethics: by helping us to elicit rationales for emotions that can change our normative assessments of them.

Classroom Relativism: Insights & Opportunities, VIII-L

Nancy Daukas (Guilford College)

This paper offers a diagnosis of student relativism. It argues that students often mistakenly take relativism to follow from important but unarticulated epistemic insights that implicitly underlie their relativistic stance. Those insights are well worth exploring, as is the fact that they do not imply relativism. Relativism in the classroom therefore often presents a valuable window of pedagogical opportunity.

Many Explanatory Gaps, One Solution, VII-J

Liam Dempsey (University of Western Ontario)

This paper considers the so-called explanatory gap between brain activity and conscious experience. A number of different, though closely related, explanatory gaps are distinguished and a monistic account of conscious experience, a version of Herbert Feigl's "double-access theory," is advocated as a solution. Although double-access theory is a version of the mind-body identity thesis, it in no way "eliminates" conscious experience; rather, it provides a parsimonious and explanatorily fruitful theory of the consciousness-body relation which faithfully preserves the nature of conscious experience while going quite far in "bridging" the various explanatory gaps distinguished below.

Philosophical Anarchism and the Duty to Obey the Law, II-L

Patrick Durning (Tufts University)

Philosophical anarchists claim that there is no widespread duty to obey the laws of any existing state. To argue for this claim, they present counter-examples and they argue that, as free and equal people each individual could only have a duty to obey the law if he agreed to obey the law or did something else to bind himself to the state, but that few people have done such things. Although support for their position is growing, the philosophical anarchists have not proven their case. Their counter-examples do not rule out a duty to obey the law, and their other arguments leave open the possibility that free and equal people could have a non-voluntaristic duty to obey the law. I present two
arguments for a duty to obey the law that regard people as free and equal, but do not require that an individual bind himself to obey the law. The first strategy holds that those we live among have a say over certain matters, and that, regarding these matters, most people say to obey the law. The second strategy holds that our baseline duties are those that everyone would have to honor to make ideal human relations possible. One ideal is that people live together without coercion. Since we can only live good lives free of coercion if we abide by common rules about property, and since our society's common rule is to obey the property laws, we have a duty to obey property laws.

Second-Order Predication and the Metaphysics of Properties, I-M

Andrew Egan (MIT)

Once we've realized that properties can't be identified with the set of their actual instances, an appealing move is to identify them instead with the set of their actual and possible instances. David Lewis is the most prominent defender of this theory of properties. Unfortunately, there's a fatal objection to this theory. Fortunately, there's another theory in the neighborhood that has the same benefits and avoids the fatal problem. Unfortunately, Lewis has already given us an apparently sound argument against the replacement theory. Fortunately, the argument is only apparently sound.

Stem Cells, Non-Reproductive Cloning and the Intend/Foresee Distinction, X-L

William J. FitzPatrick (Virginia Tech)

Michael Sandel claims that "if cloning-for-biomedical-research is morally wrong, then so is all embryonic stem cell research, and so is any version of in vitro fertilization that creates and discards excess embryos," any concerns about exploitation that might arise for non-reproductive cloning arise equally for the other practices. I argue, first, that the various cases are not in fact on a moral par. A plausible application of the intend/foresee distinction brings out special moral difficulties that arise for cloning but not for IVF practices, or even for the medical use of leftover IVF embryos. I then defend this account against a common objection to any such use of the intend/foresee distinction. Finally, I consider whether the special moral concerns over cloning are sufficiently important to warrant opposing it even if one accepts the other practices. I argue that they are not, and that such a hybrid position is ultimately unwarranted.

Problems with the Garber-Dear Theory of the Disappearance of Descartes' Method, VIII-J

Roger Florka (Ursinus College)

Daniel Garber and Peter Dear share the view that Descartes' early method _ as found in the Regulae _ plays no role in his later published work. They characterize the method as tidy (having determinate phases and steps) and narrow (limited to solving particular, isolated problems).
They have different explanations of what supersedes the method, but they share a crucial appeal to the interconnectedness of all knowledge, a doctrine operative throughout Descartes' career. I find in the explanations offered by Garber and Dear grounds to criticize their own characterization of the method as essentially tidy and narrow, which in turn undermines their evidence for the absence of the method in Descartes' later work. I conclude by suggesting that an illegitimate separation between epistemology and metaphysics generates a misunderstanding of the method and its role in the Meditations.

Character and Evil in Kant's Moral Anthropology, VII-L

Patrick R. Frierson (Whitman College)

This paper describes and resolves an apparent conflict in Kant's account of character. At times, Kant associates character with moral virtue, but his primary example of character is one who is evil _ Sulla. I show that despite some statements that suggest an identity of character with virtue, ultimately character is simply a matter of acting on stable maxims. Thus it is consistent with being morally evil. Then I explain why, for Kant, there is a close connection between character and moral virtue: character is a necessary condition of moral virtue and the good will is the most authentic form of character. By showing how to reconcile these apparently contradictory strands in Kant's account of character, I shed some light on the way in which character function in Kant's moral anthropology.

Respect, Compassion, and Political Ideology, V-H

Eric Gampel (California State University, Chico)

Politics in the United States is marked by a spirited contest between what are called `liberals' and `conservatives'. What could explain the existence of these opposing ideological camps? Are they simply `accidents' of a history of party politics? That certainly isn't the way political advocates see the matter, assuming their political views are an outgrowth of core values. Yet when theorists have sought to articulate those core values, it has turned out to be more difficult than one might expect. In this paper, I propose that the difference between conservative and liberal is in whether the moral emotion of respect or compassion is considered more significant for assessing public policy. I argue that this explanation is both parsimonious and psychologically plausible, and that it is of interest to political philosophy as well as practical politics.

Value Realism and the Internalism/Externalism Debate, VI-U

Ernesto V. Garcia (Columbia University)

In much recent literature, the debate over Williams' internalism about reasons has been framed by externalist opponents in terms of what we might call a defense of `value realism'. Williams famously defends the view that reasons for action must be linked with an individual agent's peculiar `subjective motivational set', or `S'. Critics such as McDowell, Scanlon, and Parfit, I argue, challenge Williams' position by pointing to the existence of `practical truths' that exist, in a realist way, independent
of any particular agent's S, either as part of a `non-relativistic' or `universal' S that all humans ought to conform to (McDowell, Scanlon), or as `normative truths' in the world that hold true regardless of any facts about human psychology (Parfit). I argue that, as presently formulated, the internalist/externalist debate has arrived at a stalemate, with both sides of the debate in a clear way simply begging the question against one another. I propose a new framework for the general debate here, suggesting that we formulate internalism in a `skeptical' (as opposed to Williams' `subjectivist') manner. By doing so, we allow for the possibility that values could exist in a `realist' way as propounded by many externalists, but suspend judgment about them, insisting that externalists make their case why we ought to accept their claims about external reasons as rationally superior to our own. Seen in this light, externalist theories, it will be shown, arguably appears to reduce to a bare dogmatic Moorean-like question-begging assertion that such values just do exist _ assertions that need not move their internalist opponents.

Zarathustra's Dilemma and the Embodiment of Moral Ideals, VII-I

Jonathan Garthoff (University of California, Los Angeles)

In this paper I defend and expand on John Rawls's view that major social institutions _ what Rawls calls the `basic structure of society' _ play a distinctive role in moral theory. I argue that a wide array of our moral relations are not purely interpersonal, but rather are essentially mediated by these institutions. Such moral relations are essentially socially mediated in the sense that they are specified by, and in part constituted by, the social institutions in our society. I propose that we think of these social institutions as, to the extent that they specify and constitute moral relations among individuals, embodying moral ideals.

Reproductive Rights and Sexual Rights: The Cases of Abortion and Prostitution, X-J

Jeffrey Gauthier (University of Portland)

Activists for prostitutes' rights have long argued that a woman's right to practice prostitution rests on the same basic right to make private decisions concerning her own body that many feminists have claimed is at the heart of reproductive freedom. Although activists have often developed this parallel in libertarian terms that most feminists would reject, certain feminist considerations also suggest symmetry between the cases for legalizing abortion and prostitution. I show that despite important parallels between the practices, they are fundamentally different when considered in the context of women's reproductive and sexual exploitation. While a right to abortion protects a woman's right to have her reproductive choices governed by her own reproductive preferences, legal recognition of prostitution contracts infringes on a woman's right to have her sexual choices governed by her own sexual preferences.

God's Creation Limits and the Problem of Evil, VII-H

Heimir Geirsson (Iowa State University) and Michael Losonsky (Colorado State University)

The logical problem of evil centers on the apparent inconsistency of the following two propositions: God is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good; There is evil in the world. As Mackie notes, the inconsistency of these propositions depends on what he called "quasi-logical" principles, such as "good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can, and there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do." This is the problem that Alvin Plantinga takes to task in his celebrated response to the problem of evil. We aim to defend Mackie's case and question Plantinga's free will defense. However, we also want to show that there is another way of raising the problem of evil, centered on the following proposition: It is possible that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good and it was within his power to create a world containing moral good and no moral evil.

Plato's Form of the Good and the Defense of Justice in the Republic: A Sketch of a Defense, VI-X

Jyl Gentzler (Amherst College)

Without knowledge of the Form of the good, Socrates declares in the Republic, knowledge of anything good is impossible. Since the main purpose of the Republic is to demonstrate that justice is one of the "finest" and "greatest" goods, Socrates' disavowal of knowledge of the Form of the good seems to call into question his ability to accomplish this goal. In the Republic, Socrates explicitly rejects the identification of the good with pleasure or with knowledge, identifications that he had endorsed in other dialogues; but without any other conception of the good to put in its place, it seems impossible to determine whether justice truly is among the greatest goods. Although he never offers us an explicit account of the Form of the good, Socrates does share some of his views about goodness. These statements provide the basis for an account of the Form of the good that plays an important, if inexplicit, role in Plato's defense of justice.

The Expressive Power of Punishment: A Critique of Hampton, IV-I

Heather J. Gert, Linda Radzik, Michael Hand (all Texas A&M University)

Early on, Jean Hampton rejected retributivism. In her later writings, however, she takes herself to be defending it. In these writings she develops an expressive theory of punishment. Unlike Feinberg, Hampton claims wrongdoings as well as punishments are expressive. (Unlike Feinberg, she also talks of both actions as providing evidence.) Wrongdoings assert that the victim is less valuable than the person who has victimized her. On her view we are obligated to punish precisely because we are obligated to respond to this false moral claim. Punishment expresses the moral truth that victim and wrongdoer are equally valuable. In this paper we argue that Hampton's argument
would work only if she held that exerting power over another provides evidence (albeit defeasible) of one's greater value. This is clearly a premise that neither she nor her readers are likely to accept.

Problems for Moral Twin Earth Arguments, II-H

Joshua Gert (Florida State University)

Terry Horgan and Mark Timmons have recently presented a series of papers in which they argue against what has come to be called the `new wave' moral realism and moral semantics of David Brink, Richard Boyd, Peter Railton, and a number of other philosophers. The central idea behind Horgan and Timmons's criticism of these `new wave' theories has been extended by Sean Holland to include the sort of realism that drops out of response-dependent accounts that make use of an analogy between moral properties and secondary qualities. In this paper, I argue that Holland's extension depends crucially on the fact that his target is a direct response-dependent account of moral value. His argument does not work against such accounts of more basic normative notions such as `harm' or `benefit'. And these more basic notions may then serve as the basic normative building blocks for an indirectly response-dependent moral theory.

The Metaphysics of Realization, Multiple Realizability and The Special Sciences, V-M

Carl Gillett (Illinois Wesleyan University)

The `received' view of multiple realizability (henceforth `MR') and the special sciences was laid out in the seventies in Jerry Fodor's famous paper. Amongst a clutch of recent critiques of the received view, Lawrence A. Shapiro's (2000) stands out. For Shapiro defends a precise, and prima facie plausible, criterion for MR that he then uses to critique the received view of both MR and special sciences themselves. However, like other critics, Shapiro does not offer a precise account of realization and it appears plausible that such an account is a necessary step in any precise understanding of multiple realization. My main goal will be to argue this oversight is indeed damaging and that work on the metaphysics of realization has an important role to play in the philosophy of psychology. For I will show that differences over the metaphysics of realization are inextricably bound-up with broader disputes over the nature, and extent, of MR. As a result, I shall argue that although we should endorse Shapiro's important criterion for MR, his criticisms of the received view plausibly beg the question against his opponents.

Tamir, Rawls, and the Temple Mount, III-Y

Owen Goldin (Marquette University)

What gives ethical and political validity to a state? This is to ask what a state is for and to provide a means to determine whether or not a constitution is just. In this paper I compare the account given by Tamir in Liberal Nationalism with that of Rawls, in order to clarify the decisive differences. Although both recognize the importance of particular associations and the moral imperative to be fair, Tamir places priority
on the first and Rawls on the second. I explore their practical implications in regard to the ethical defensibility of Israel's self-identification as a Jewish state and to conflicting nationalistic territorial claims for the Temple Mount (Haram esh-Sharif) in Jerusalem. I suggest that if Tamir is correct in her analysis of nationalism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a problem that is without a philosophical solution, even though it is sought by rational agents of good will.

The Doctrine of Excuses, VIII-M

Michael J. Gorr (Illinois State University)

Jurists typically define an excuse as a psychological state of the defendant in virtue of which she is not to blame Ñ and hence not criminally liable Ñ for her behavior. Typical excuses are duress, insanity, provocation and certain kinds of mistake. What I term `The Doctrine of Excuses' (DOE) is the claim that a legal system ought (morally) to recognize at least some defenses of this sort. In this paper I focus on a series of arguments by contemporary philosophers which purport to provide a justification for DOE. I attempt to show that each of these arguments is unsatisfactory, particularly those that involve an appeal to such nonconsequentialist values as fairness. I then conclude by briefly outlining a consequentialist (though non-utilitarian) approach to justifying DOE that seems intuitively attractive yet involves no objectionable moral or metaphysical commitments.

Unnatural Epistemology, IV-K

John D. Greenwood (City University of New York)

"Naturalized" philosophers of mind regularly appeal to the empirical psychological literature in support of the "theory-theory" account of the natural epistemology of mental state ascription (to self and others). It is argued that such appeals to the empirical psychological literature are not philosophically neutral, but in fact presuppose the "theory-theory" account. It is suggested that a plausible explanation of the popularity of the "theory-theory" account is because it is generally assumed that alternative accounts in terms of introspection (and simulation) presuppose a discredited "inner ostensive definition" account of the meaning of mental state terms. However, the "inner ostensive definition" account is not the only alternative to the "theory-theory" account of the meaning of mental state terms, and in any case commitment to a "theory-theory" account of the meaning of mental state terms does not mandate commitment to a "theory-theory" account of the epistemology of mental state ascription.

The Phenomenology and Intentionality of Emotion, V-M

York H. Gunther (California State University, Northridge)

In this paper I argue that based on their distinctive phenomenology, emotional experiences differ from higher cognitive and motivational states in that their force is an indissoluble aspect of their content. I begin by defending the claim that the attitude (force) types of emotions, unlike those of higher cognitive or motivational states, have distinctive phenomenological (feeling) types. Next, I underscore the intimacy
between these feelings and emotional contents. And finally, I suggest that this intimacy is to be explained by the fact that emotions violate the force/content distinction. I conclude by briefly drawing a consequence concerning the desegregation of psychology and semantics.

How To Russell The Incompleteness Argument, IX-V

Richard Hanley (University of Delaware)

According to the Referentialist, a definite description used referentially is a referring expression. According to the Russellian, a definite description is a non-referring expression whether or not it is used referentially. It is widely agreed that the strongest Referentialist challenge to the Russellian concerns the case of an `incomplete' definite description used referentially. I argue for a new way to meet this challenge, a version of the `implicit' approach I call Singular Russellianism.

Conceptual Analysis and the Intuition Method: A Critique of Another Paradigm of Philosophy, II-K

Maralee Harrell (Colorado College)

One of the most prominent contemporary philosophical methods is conceptual analysis aided by philosophical intuition. Recently, philosophers and psychologists have noted various problems with this method, with respect to concept representation and the assumptions of incorrigible intuition. I argue, however, that these criticisms are missing a deeper issue with respect to the epistemological, as well as the social and political, consequences of this kind of philosophical inquiry. On of the most important assumptions this method makes is that the author is a paradigm, or ideal knower. This assumption, however, is not only unwarranted, but has the effect of reinforcing the views of the powerful few while ignoring the views of communities that could provide valuable insight into contemporary philosophical issues. I propose an alternative approach to philosophy, which is more naturalistic in conception.

Korsgaard, Particularism and the Antichrist: A Defense of Particularist Agency, VI-Y

Angie Harris (University of Utah)

The defining characteristic of particularism as a theory of practical reasoning is that each situation is unique in its details and therefore places unique demands on the agent who must make a decision about what to do in that situation. The implication of this characteristic is considered extreme because it either denies the possibility of general principles for action, or it does not allow room for general principles to guide one, in any meaningful way, in making decisions. In this paper, I shall consider an argument offered by Christine Korsgaard, which, if successful, would prove fatal for particularism as a theory of practical reasoning. Contra Korsgaard, I aim to show that her argument for the impossibility of particularistic willing fails by way of providing an alternative account of particularistic agency defined in terms of a self-fashioning aesthetic character that is not subject to Korsgaard's conclusion.

Here I Am/Hineyni: The Hebrew Verse in Levinas's Ethical Philosophy, III-Y

Marjorie Hass (Muhlenberg College)

While Levinas's central conceptual vocabulary is drawn from a traditional Torah framework, his philosophical method subjects these concepts to rigorous critique. The verse, he has said, serves as an example, but never as evidence. In this paper, I analyze the nature of the Biblical example and its hermeneutic function from the perspective of a central case: Levinas's repeated evocation of the biblical Hineyni (Here I am). I argue that the example of the verse carries traces of its prophetic context even as it contributes to a philosophical ethics. Specifically, I show that for Levinas, the primary ethical situation is exemplified by the ambiguous and fragmented call of the prophet Isaiah rather than the more definitive situations and choices of the Biblical patriarchs.

Desire Satisfactionism and Hedonism, I-J

Christopher C. Heathwood (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

Hedonism and the desire-satisfaction theory of welfare ("desire satisfactionism") are typically seen as archrivals in the contest over identifying what makes one's life go best. It is surprising, then, that the most plausible form of hedonism just is the most plausible form of desire satisfactionism. How can a single theory of welfare be a version of both hedonism and desire satisfactionism? The answer lies in what pleasure is: pleasure is, in my view, the believed satisfaction of desire. The bulk of the paper is spent riding the dialectics that get us to the most plausible forms of hedonism and desire satisfactionism.

Is "Inclusion" Really Inclusive?, IX-Y

Anita Ho (College of St. Catherine)

Although various policies have been enacted in recent decades to promote inclusion of marginalized populations into the mainstream society, persistent inequality makes one question if such measures are truly inclusive. I argue that many so-called "inclusive" attempts do not include the interests of people of diverse backgrounds. Rather, they suppress differences and reinforce the mainstream assumptions about normality. Using the example of disability, I argue that many attempts to "include" people with disabilities in the mainstream society are exclusionary. They try to "include" this population by making them conform to the non-disabled paradigm. I argue that we need to distinguish policies that reinforce the non-disabled ideology from those that truly address diversity. I argue that a truly inclusive society abandons the uncritical notion that being species-typical is optimal. It acknowledges that various forms of existence can all have intrinsic value, and enacts policies that will help promote and accommodate diversity.

Dualism and Secondary Quality Eliminativism: Putting A New Spin on the Knowledge Argument, III-W

Emmett L. Holman (George Mason University)

Frank Jackson formulated his knowledge argument as an argument for dualism, and that is how it has always been taken. In this paper I eventually address one proposed strategy for refuting it, a strategy that makes use of the idea of so-called `recognitional concepts'. But first I show how the argument can also be used to support secondary quality eliminativism: the view that the secondary qualities are physically uninstantiated. In addition to being of interest in its own right, this new argument puts the refutational strategy alluded to in a new perspective. Even though I will argue that the strategy doesn't succeed in any case, the occurrence of this new argument poses additional problems for it.

Objectifying Subjects, V-L

Jeffery Hoover (Coe College)

Discussions of objectification as a form of potentially harmful treatment commonly assume that to objectify persons is to fail to relate to them as subjects. To the extent or manner in which we treat individuals as objects, to that same extent or manner do we fail to treat them as having subjectivity. This prevailing assumption is too simplistic. Most forms of objectifica-tion rely on an implicit recognition of the subjectivity of the objectified, without which we could not make sense of the objectifier's aims. These forms of objectification depend on their being a willful or desirous subject that can satisfy objectifier's aims for recognition, pleasure, or subjugation. Objectification is best understood as what subjects do to others who they recognize as possessing subjectivity. Objectification can and often does occur in relationships between individuals who treat each other for the most part as subjects.

`All Feelings Are Mutual,' or the Transference of Everyday Life: Spinoza and Lacan, V-L

Noah Horwitz (Loyola University of Chicago)

While Lacanian psychoanalysis has been accused by many of ignoring the role of affect in subjective life, Lacan puts forward a difficult thesis concerning the nature of affects: "Feelings are always reciprocated." This thesis is eminently Spinozistic. In my paper, I attempt to explain the mutuality of passions (with emphasis on the fundamental passions love and hate) by showing how both Lacan and Spinoza in combination attempt to demonstrate this difficult thesis. I will also argue that, surprisingly, their responses to the reciprocation and ignorance characterizing affects can be seen to overlap insofar as their ethical orientations coincide. In this manner, the fruitful relationship between Lacan, the post-Freudian theoretician, and Spinoza, the ideal rationalist, will come to the fore not simply in terms of a conflict between desire qua lack (Lacan) and desire qua conatus (Spinoza), but in terms of the ethical relation one should take to the passions.

To Desire to Desire, II-J

Insoo Hyun and Arthur Falk (Both Western Michigan University)

David Lewis's dispositional theory of value identifies valuing with desiring to desire. Therefore a value is that which people are disposed under ideal conditions to desire to desire. For something is a value if and only if people would be disposed under ideal conditions to value it. The first claim licenses a substitution in the third claim, which yields the second claim. We argue that Lewis's first claim is false. All the conditions necessary for analyzing value are first order. Lewis's reference to second order desires should be replaced by a reference to the kind of beliefs that have first order desires internally connected to them in some less-than-analytic way. In support of this, we reanalyze weakness of will as conflict between de re and de dicto desires _ and analyze the inverse of weakness, involving Thomas Gradgrind and his children in Dickens's Hard Times.

Temporal Externalism and Epistemic Theories of Vagueness, VI-W

Henry Jackman (York University)

`Epistemic' theories of vagueness notoriously claim that (despite the appearances to the contrary) all of our vague terms actually have perfectly sharp boundaries, and that their vagueness consists in our inability to know just where these boundaries lie. Epistemic theories are typically criticized for failing to explain (1) the source of the ignorance postulated, and (2) how our terms could come to have such precise boundaries. Such criticisms typically assume, however, both that the meaning of a term is determined by its use, and that the relevant facts about its use are limited to those facts available at (or possibly before) the time of the expression's utterance. However, if one allows that our meaning constitutive linguistic practices can extend into the future, then the two standard challenges to epistemicism mentioned above have less bite. We are ignorant of our terms' precise boundaries because these precise boundaries are partially constituted by usage that has yet to occur. Treating our meaning constitutive practices as `unfinished' in this way not only explains how our terms get the determinate meanings they do (and why we are ignorant of them), but also allows one to understand our commitment to determinacy as a practical rather than a merely theoretical one. This `normative epistemicism' about vagueness brings with it a commitment to an admittedly non-standard conception of what sorts of usage can affect what we currently mean, but it's overall theoretical cost seems less substantial than those associated with its better-known descriptive counterparts.

What is an Experience?, IV-K

Michael Jacovides (Purdue University)

I advance three initial theses on what an experience is: 1) experiences cannot occur without their underlying states or events, 2) experiences do not represent anything, and 3) experiences share many qualities with the events and states that underlie them. In light of these theses and the examples supporting them, I conclude that an experience begins when its possessor become aware of the underlying event or state, whether this is the beginning of the event or state or not. The experience ends when its possessor ceases to be aware of the event or state, again, whether this is the end of the event or state or not. The experience is the event composed by the portion of the event or state that occurs during that period and also everything that the person is aware of during that time.

Rethinking Kant's Conception of Space, VII-L

Andrew Janiak (Duke University)

Due to the repeated discussions of Leibniz and Newton in the Transcendental Aesthetic, it is typically thought that Kant's idealist conception of space is intended to replace Leibnizian relationalism and Newtonian absolutism per se. Yet prima facie, this view is puzzling. Whereas relationalism and absolutism are conceptions of space's potential dependence on objects and all possible relations among them, Kant claims that space is dependent on "intuition." My contention is that his idealism is intended to replace Leibnizian and Newtonian conceptions of space only to the extent that they represent distinct construals of the overarching view that space is "real," i.e., independent of intuition, or of perception per se. The key to this reading lies in seeing that Leibniz, in various texts, and Newton, in Principia mathematica, do in fact argue that space is independent of perception per se. Recognizing this shared conception illuminates Kant's project in the Transcendental Aesthetic.

All Individuals May Be Made Worse Off Under Any Nonwelfarist Principle, VIII-M

Louis Kaplow and Steven Shavell (both Harvard Law School)

Nonwelfarist principles — notably, deontological principles — are often advanced to guide moral decisions. The types of choices addressed by such principles typically seem, on their face, to involve conflicts of interests among individuals. Nevertheless, it can be demonstrated that any nonwelfarist principle will, in some circumstances, favor choices that make all individuals worse off. This conclusion has important implications for moral theories that are understood to support nonwelfarist principles.

Contemporary Postcolonial Philosophies of Culture. Leitmotivs and New Orientations, VI-Z

Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab (Columbia University)

These remarks are based on a comparative critical examination of twentieth century texts in philosophy of culture from Latin America, Africa and the Arab world. Their aim is twofold: first, to present the common Leitmotivs of this literature; and secondly, to show the changes occurring in the ways of approaching them in the course of the century. The central concern dominating the postcolonial philosophy of culture in all three regions is that of cultural decolonization. In reaction to Western colonial hegemony, efforts are deployed towards self-definition and self-affirmation. The domain of culture is considered to be a crucial ground of self-determination. A search is engaged for a culture of one's own and for a thought of one's own, in a struggle for intellectual independence, for the right to think for oneself. Throughout the decades there is a growing awareness of the pitfalls and challenges in seeking such an independence under conditions of post- and neo-colonialism.

Skepticism in The Early Descartes, VIII-J

Matthew Kisner (University of California, San Diego)

This paper is concerned with a line of inquiry from the later Regulae, in which Descartes questions whether reason is adequate to provide the knowledge necessary for science, Descartes' earliest consideration of questions surrounding the justification of knowledge. I argue that the later Regulae responds to a problem with Mersenne's treatment of skepticism. Mersenne concedes to the skeptic that we cannot have certain knowledge of real essences. This concession is a consequence of Mersenne's implicit commitment to a metaphysical theory, according to which the natural light of the understanding provides knowledge of divine ideas _ the archetypes of things or the possibles. Descartes' theory of simple natures in the later Regulae counters Mersenne's treatment of skepticism by rejecting the metaphysical framework on which it rests by dispensing with the notion that our knowledge of essences is guaranteed by divine ideas.

Pride and Self Approval, IV-M

Adam Kovach (Haverford College)

I argue that pride manifests itself in patterns of judgment, which are consistent with a certain reasoning bias. A proud person can take facts about the self as grounds for self-approval, without taking similar facts about others as grounds for approving of them. I further argue that this pattern of judgments is not constitutive of pride, but causally dependent on it. Pride is thus a state of mind functionally related to but distinct from judgments of self-approval. This way of understanding the structure of pride cuts a path through some difficulties facing cognitive theories of pride and similar emotions.

Memory as a Generative Epistemic Source, III-X

Jennifer Lackey (Pomona College)

It is widely assumed that memory has only the capacity to preserve epistemic features that have been generated by other sources. Specifically, if S knows (justifiedly believes/rationally believes) that p via memory at T2, then it is argued that (i) S must have known (justifiedly believed/rationally believed) that p when it was originally acquired at T1, and (ii) S must have acquired knowledge that p (justification with respect to p/rationality with respect to p) at T1 via a non-memorial source. Thus, according to this view, memory cannot make an unknown proposition known, an unjustified belief justified, or an irrational belief rational—it can only preserve what is already known, justified, or rational. In this paper, however, I argue that condition (i) is false and, a fortiori, that condition (ii) is false. Hence, I show that, contrary to received wisdom in contemporary epistemology, memory can function as a generative epistemic source.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen: Moral Valence, Defeasibility, and Privileged Conditions, X-E

Mark N. Lance and Margaret Little (both Georgetown University)

Moral particularlism is seen by many, including most opponents and some supporters, to require a rejection of moral theory in at least some important sense. We argue that much of the perceived anti-theoretical import of particularism arises out of a narrow sense of what constitutes an explanatory principle. We argue for the apparently paradoxical conclusion that there can be generalizations which are explanatory and necessary, yet ineliminable exception-laden. More important, when properly understood, such defeasible generalizations allow us to better understand the entire terrain of moral understanding.

Academic Civility and Questioning Motives, II-K

Edward Langerak (St. Olaf College)

Referring to John Rawls' argument for self-imposed restrictions when debating coercive legislation, I argue on similar grounds that we should impose on ourselves a restriction against publicly questioning each other's motives in most faculty debates. I consider and reject the reason that motive judging is unreliable, and then give a moral and a practical reason against doing it. I raise and reply to the claim by post-Nietzschean "hermeneutics of suspicion" proponents that such a restriction asks them to bracket central elements of their outlook, including ones that they firmly believe are important and useful in campus debates.

Are There any Nonmotivating Reasons for Action?, II-J

Noa Latham (University of Calgary)

In this paper I challenge the popular view that not all the reasons that rationalised an agent's action are reasons for which she acted, that motivated her action, that were causally relevant to her action, or that explained her action. It is a view that is often assumed in legal statutes and theories of moral worth, as well as in various philosophical
discussions. For the sake of simplicity I cast the discussion in terms of nonmotivating reasons. My strategy is to consider a number of seemingly plausible criteria of nonmotivating reasons and to argue that none are acceptable. The criteria examined involve neurophysiology, counterfactuals, the timing of the action, and the method of deliberation. I conclude that there are no nonmotivating reasons. The moral and legal intuitions that appeared to require nonmotivating reasons can be recaptured to a considerable extent using other notions.

`Enough is Enough': What the Contextualist Should Really Say to the Skeptic, X-H

Krista Lawlor (Stanford University)

Contextualism is a new solution to the skeptical problem of our knowledge of the external world. Adopting contextualism, according to its recent defenders, lets us say everything that common sense would have us say: in ordinary contexts, such knowledge-reports as, "I know I have hands" are true, but in skeptical contexts such reports turn false. Making peace with the skeptic, contextualists say, is only common sense. I argue that contextualists have not been common-sensical enough. Contextualism, as recently defended, concedes victory to the skeptic. The irenic solution to the so-called "skeptical paradox" is to blame, and I argue, can be discarded. Another approach to the skeptical paradox is available for the contextualist. J.L. Austin's insights into conversations about knowledge help us frame an alternative contextualist solution.

Rigidity and Response-Dependence, X-G

Mark LeBar (Ohio University)

Response-dependent properties are, roughly, properties things have in virtue of their capacity to provoke a response. Rigid construals of response-dependence fix such properties by reference to the responses normal observers actually have in the actual world, while non-rigid construals fix such properties by reference to the responses in whatever possible world the property is instantiated. Some think that non-rigid versions of response-dependent accounts of e.g., color properties and values have implausible implications for ascriptions of values and properties, and reject non-rigid construals on that basis. I argue that such objections to non-rigid response-dependent characterizations of such properties are both ill founded and irrelevant.

Concepts of Political Activity, II-L

Crista Lebens (University of Wisconsin, Whitewater)

We must broaden the notion of what counts as political action. To facilitate this project I draw on the work of Iris Marion Young and Chantal Mouffe. Both have done important work on the intersections of politics and identity. Both seek useful and liberatory changes to existing political structures in order to make them more democratic. However, in terms of arguing for the political dimension of private space, I turn to Mouffe rather than Young, who holds a more limited concept of politics. Mouffe's project of radical democracy serves better to argue that private actions and spaces are indeed political.

Necessary Connections and Continuous Creation: Malebranche's Two Arguments for Occasionalism, V-K

Sukjae Lee (Ohio State University, Newark)

Malebranche presents two major arguments for occasionalism: the `no necessary connection' (NNC) and the `conservation is but continuous creation' (CCC) arguments. NNC appears prominently in his Search After Truth but surrenders the spotlight to CCC in his later major work, Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion. This change is motivated by the strategic advantage CCC has over NNC in responding to concurrentism, an alternative to occasionalism with regard to divine and secondary causation in nature. I argue that what lay at the heart of NNC, namely, the necessary efficaciousness of divine volition, is insufficient to establish the causal impotency of creatures, for concurrentism can consistently maintain both God's necessary efficaciousness and genuine creaturely causation. The continuous creation principle, however, was shared by concurrentists and, given Malebranche's forceful inference from this principle to occasionalism in CCC, the concurrentist now has to resist the inference, a challenge which shifts the dialectical balance.

Spinoza's Account of Akrasia, I-L

Martin Lin (University of Toronto)

Perhaps the central problem which preoccupies Spinoza as a moral philosopher is the conflict between reason and passion. He belongs to a long tradition that sees the key to happiness and virtue as mastery and control by reason over the passions. This mastery, however, is hard won, as the passions often overwhelm its power and subvert its rule. When reason succumbs to passion, we act against our better judgment. Such action is often termed `akratic'. Many commentators have complained that the psychological principles that Spinoza appeals to in his account of akrasia are mere ad hoc modifications to his philosophical psychology. I show, on the contrary, that these principles follow from some of the most important and interesting aspects of Spinoza's philosophy of mind.

In Defense of the Epistemological Argument, X-G

Clayton Littlejohn (University of Nebraska, Lincoln)

In Naming and Necessity, Kripke shows that the descriptivist is committed to the apriority of the proposition expressed by `If Gödel exists, Gödel is the discoverer of incompleteness' and then, using his Gödel/Schmidt example, appears to show that this could not be justified or known apriori. Recently, it has been argued that Kripke's epistemological argument rests on mistaken assumptions regarding the apriori. While Kripke may have imported mistaken assumptions regarding the apriori into his discussion, we can still use Kripke's example and basic argumentative strategy to establish the epistemological inadequacy of descriptivism.

Saying in Carnap's Logical Syntax of Language, III-U

Eric J. Loomis (University of South Alabama)

In his Logical Syntax of Language, Carnap claimed that Wittgenstein's Tractatus misconceived the scope of logic and, as a result, the nature of philosophy. I argue that the disagreement rested upon different conceptions of the degree to which philosophy could specify a priori limits upon the possible forms that a language could take. I claim that by the time he wrote the Logical Syntax, Carnap had adopted a radical conventionalist position which excluded any such a priori limitations. This new conventionalism received its expression in Carnap's "Principle of Tolerance." I discuss two ways in which this principle has been interpreted, and then further argue that under either interpretation, Carnap had no non-question-begging way of defending his conventionalism against Wittgenstein.

A Case for Categorical Reasons, II-J

Adrienne M. Martin (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

What makes something a reason to act? One popular view, which we might call "instrumentalism," recognizes that acts are often instrumental to achieving the agent's desires, and sees reasons as arising from this instrumentality. Chief among the appeals of instrumentalism is the sense that it has the virtue of being the simplest theory that explains the most, so it looks to be just the sort of thing we should adopt if we are no-nonsense people who are uninflated by the hot air of "too much philosophy." In this paper, I argue that a view according to which we have some reasons for acting that are not dependent on our desires provides a better reconstruction of the way we think about our practical reasons in everyday life than does instrumentalism.

What is Frege's Theory of Demonstratives?, X-G

Fritz J. McDonald (City University of New York)

Philosophical theories of the meaning and reference of demonstrative expressions such as `that' and `today' are typically framed in response to the ideas of Gottlob Frege. John Perry (1977) offers his theory as a replacement for a Fregean theory that he considers flawed. Gareth Evans (1996) offers his theory as an interpretation of a Fregean theory that he considers correct. The basis for these responses is a brief discussion of demonstratives in Frege's late paper "Thought." Prima facie, the discussion in "Thought" is inconsistent with certain central theses of Frege's philosophy. Not surprisingly, philosophers have interpreted Frege's theory of demonstratives in radically different ways. In this paper, a different interpretation of Frege's theory of demonstratives is offered, an interpretation that accords well with Frege's views on sense and reference.

Motivational Internalism and Reliably Connected Moral Agents, X-E

Christian Miller (University of Notre Dame)

In chapter three of The Moral Problem, Michael Smith attempts to shift the burden of proof back onto motivational externalists who deny that there is a conceptual connection between moral judgements and motivation. More specifically, his project in the first half of the chapter is two-fold: to deflate the amoralist objection to his own preferred brand of internalism, and to then raise an important objection against the externalist's ability to plausibly account for certain reliable motivational connections in moral agents. Given limitations of space, my concern in this paper is solely with Smith's argument against externalism. By now, several prominent externalists have already weighed in on this interesting argument, but their responses have been largely unsuccessful. Nonetheless, I argue that there is a rather straightforward way of salvaging the view.

Erotic Voices From the Margins: The Social Dimensions of Love in Hegel and Julian of Norwich, IV-L

Ellen Miller (Rowan University)

In this paper, I wish to show, first, the fragmentation in Western philosophical and theological discourse that produces brokenness between men/women and body/spirit. I then argue that Hegel's early writings on love should not be included among those feminists criticize. Julian of Norwich's writings offer a mediating voice between feminist and Hegel's views. Her medieval voice can be read alongside feminist explanations of love as process. This paper challenges understandings of mystical experiences as private in order to emphasize their political potential. This is important if we wish to uncover the ethical dimension of religious activities. Hegel and Julian of Norwich share an understanding of spirituality that resonates with work being forged in feminist philosophy of religion. Julian of Norwich, Hegel and feminists share an emphasis on moving readers into the margins of their texts where transformation in the world might occur.

A Solution to the Problem of Doxastic Shift, V-J

Marc A. Moffett (University of Colorado, Boulder)

The Problem of Doxastic Shift is that the relations of knowledge and belief prima facie take different kinds of entities as their object _ facts, on the one hand; propositions, on the other. Consequently, epistemic principles that quantify over both types of objects (e.g., everything x knows, x believes) appear to involve a category mistake. I argue that the problem may be solved by defining the extension of a proposition in terms of facts or states-of-affairs, rather than truth-values. Given this, we can make use of the operation of descriptive predication (utilized, for instance, in the analysis of generic sentences) in order to "shift" the predication expressed by an attitude report from the proposition to the fact associated with that proposition. As a result, we can account for The Problem of Doxastic Shift without sacrificing either the relational theory of the attitudes or the singular term analysis of `that'-clauses.

Making Hegel Explicit: Robert Brandom's Normative Inferentialism, IV-L

Lydia L. Moland (Boston University)

In several recent publications, Robert Brandom has made the somewhat enigmatic claim that his philosophy is in part inspired by Hegel. Especially in Articulating Reasons, Brandom is however sometimes vague about the nature of his debt to Hegel and neglects to cite specific passages in Hegel that might allow his readers to reconstruct Hegel's influence. When he does cite Hegel, including in Tales of the Mighty Dead, he generally refers to the Science of Logic or the Phenomenology of Spirit. In this paper, I instead consider possible parallels between Brandom's normative inferentialist approach and Hegel's discussion of norms within institutions as described in the Philosophy of Right and the Philosophy of Spirit. I argue that Hegel's goal in these works is indeed to make normatively explicit what is implicit in social practices and institutions and that Brandom is therefore justified in claiming an affinity with Hegel.

What does the Conservation of Energy have to do with Physicalism?, X-F

Barbara Montero (Georgia State University)

The conservation of energy law, a law of physics that states that the total energy of any closed system is always conserved, is a bedrock principle that has achieved both broad theoretical and experimental support. Yet if either interactive dualism or epiphenomenalism is correct, it is thought that the mind can affect physical objects in violation of the conservation of energy. Thus, some claim, the conservation of energy grounds an argument for physicalism. While critics of the argument focus on the implausibility of transference theories of causation, I argue that even if causation requires the transference energy, once we accept the other required premises of the argument, which constitute the real argument for physicalism that lies behind any supposed argument from the conservation of energy, the law of the conservation of energy is revealed as irrelevant to the question of whether the mental is physical.

Does Virtue Ethics Imply a Contradiction?, VII-M

Andrew Moore (University of Otago, New Zealand)

Suppose virtue ethics claims that an action is right if and only if it is what a virtuous person would characteristically do in the circumstances; and wrong if and only if it is what a vicious person would characteristically do in the circumstances. This paper explores the idea that there are circumstances in which a virtuous person and a vicious person would each characteristically perform the same action, and hence that virtue ethics implies a contradiction.

Prosaic Beauty of Philosophy: Walter Benjamin, II-K

Brendan Moran (University of Calgary)

At least since Adorno, there have been persistent contentions that Benjamin's works are based on a dualism of truth and communication. For Benjamin, however, the tension of word and communication is the ever-renewable possibility for performance of the beauty of philosophy. This performance is not only a deduction into concepts, but also entails (contrary to what is contended in some criticisms of Benjamin's conception and practice of philosophy) a discursive perseverance apparently distinguishing the performance from an art work. Considering art to be a registration of the inexpressible, Benjamin does indeed propose and attempt an art of philosophy. Yet he conceives and attempts philosophy as distinctly "prosaic" in its unending, discursive sobering of historical bond. Contrary to the common tendency to oppose beauty and communicative rationality, however, Benjamin considers philosophy to be irresponsible _ unphilosophical _ if it is without the play of art within it.

Dreaming, Deception, and Descartes' Painter Analogy, X-I

William Edward Morris (Illinois Wesleyan University)

Descartes' Painter Analogy occurs in Meditation I, sandwiched in between the Argument from Dreaming (DA) and the Deceiver or Evil Genius Argument (EGA). Marleen Rozemond has recently argued that we need to pay more attention to the Analogy. When we do, she maintains, not only will we understand the relation between DA and EGA better, but also we will have a deeper appreciation of the structure of Meditation I as a whole. I agree with both of these claims and applaud her attempt to give Descartes' Painter Analogy its due. Unfortunately, I disagree with her readings of the Analogy, the DA, and the EGA. In addition, I think she misuses her own methodological strictures, although I agree with them in principle. In this paper, I hope to shed some new light on the famous arguments she considers by looking both at her account and the arguments themselves in more detail.

Autonomy Protection, Rationality, Libertarianism, and a Positive Right to Health Care, X-K

Dale Murray (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

I argue that a positive right to health care is consistent with libertarianism through the protection of autonomy. I first demonstrate some contrasts between coercion and brute and option luck. I then show that Nozickean libertarians are primarily concerned with protections of autonomy necessary for the opportunity to lead a meaningful life. However, libertarians also claim that autonomous decisions must be ones made rationally (the "rationality criterion"). Interestingly, they usually appeal only to a minimal state that is composed of a standing army and police force that protect against coercion and fraud. I insist that for proper protections for autonomy to aid in gaining a meaningful life, a more extensive state that protects against coercion and option and brute luck is necessary. Once more, just as police forces protect
against coercive actions, health care institutions need to protect against bad brute and option luck to meet the rationality criterion.

Reichenbach's Relation to Naturalism, VII-K

Jennifer Nagel (University of Toronto)

In recent literature on a priori knowledge, there has been great interest in the early work of Hans Reichenbach, but little consensus on what his position amounts to. According to Michael Friedman, the work of Reichenbach delivers a new conception of a priori knowledge flexible enough to accommodate the scientific developments of the 20^th century, and robust enough to offer a genuine alternative to naturalism. According to Philip Kitcher, the flexibility is one sign that what is being developed is not a conception of a priori knowledge at all, but a conception of knowledge in which even our deepest principles are settled empirically. Meanwhile, Penelope Maddy contends that what Reichenbach offers us is "clearly a version of proto-naturalism." I think Friedman is right about the contrast between Reichenbach and naturalism, but I'll argue that it's hard to state this contrast in terms the naturalist would feel obliged to accept.

Luminosity and the Safety of Knowledge, V-J

Ram Neta and Guy Rohrbaugh (both University of Utah)

In his recent Knowledge and its Limits, Timothy Williamson argues that no non-trivial mental state is such that being in that state suffices for one to be in a position to know that one is in it, i.e., that mental states are not `luminous' as most philosophers suppose. His argument depends on a `safety' requirement on knowledge, that one's confident belief could not easily have been wrong if it is to count as knowledge. We argue that the safety requirement is ambiguous; on one interpretation it is obviously true but useless to his argument, and on the other interpretation it is false.

Davidson on First-Person Authority, V-M

A. Minh Nguyen (University of Louisville)

One of the most entrenched intuitions about the mental is that every person enjoys special authority with respect to his own present intentional states. This alleged mark of the mental has been the focus of much of Davidson's recent philosophizing. Davidson offers four different accounts of first-person authority. Each of these attempts to trace the source of first-person authority to some necessary feature of the interpretation of speech. This paper argues that none of them works.

Descartes and Malebranche on the Dustbin Theory of Mind, V-K

Lawrence Nolan (California State University, Long Beach) and John Whipple

Descartes is often accused of subscribing to the "Dustbin Theory" of the mind. According to this view, Descartes the scientist began by banishing sensible qualities from the physical world and conceiving matter as pure extension. Finding no other place to locate these qualities, he swept them into the dustbin of the mind. This interpretation bolsters an objection that was first leveled by Malebranche, namely that he lacks a clear idea of the mind and must argue for the mental status of sensible qualities indirectly, by appealing to the clear idea of body. We defend Descartes against this objection, showing how he has principled and systematic reasons stemming from his methodology and his diagnosis of how our sensory ideas become confused for rejecting any kind of indirect argument. We conclude by urging that Malebranche, not Descartes, is the true dustbin theorist.

The Metaphysics of Emergence, IX-W

Timothy O'Connor (Indiana University)

I explore a specific concept of ontological property emergence, one which may have fruitful application to nonreductive conceptions of both the qualitative character of conscious states and the nature of mental causation. Of central importance to developing a concept capable of bearing its intended load is to recognize that the relationship of micro-level structures and macro-level emergent properties should be dynamic and causal, not static and formal (in a quasi-logical sense). Contemporary discussions of emergence by Kim, McLaughlin, and Shoemaker all tend, to varying degrees, to assimilate the concept of emergence to the dominant nonreductive physicalist (NRP) picture. Insofar as this leads them to assume that the emergent property synchronically supervenes on the microphysical property which is its `base,' the assimilation generates confusion. Emergent properties are basic properties, token-distinct in character and propensity from any microphysically structured properties of their bearers. Standard forms of supervenience will fail for such phenomena (although a hitherto-unnoticed form may obtain). The explanation of their appearance in certain complex systems must be in terms of a causal, not purely formal, relationship to underlying and preceding structures. I give an abstract model of how this might go and respond to metaphysical and epistemological objections to the emergentist picture.

The Hypothetical Method and the Arguments of Plato's Phaedo, IX-X

John A. Palmer (University of Florida)

This paper first draws attention to certain indications that the Phaedo's arguments are designed to function as something other than proofs and argues that they should be understood as proceeding along the analytic or "upward" path to the first principles from which a proper demonstration might proceed. Identifying certain expectations Plato's employment of the hypothetical method in the Meno raises regarding the role of this method in the Phaedo, the paper proceeds to consider the extent to which these expectations are borne out by its arguments. It concludes with some brief comments on the epistemological position of Socrates and his interlocutors.

Distributional Properties, I-M

Josh Parsons (University of St. Andrews)

This paper discusses a distinctive kind of property that I call "distributional" properties, which include, for example, the property of being polka-dotted (a colour-distributional property) and the property of being hot at one end and cold at the other (a heat-distributional property). I argue that distributional properties exist in whatever sense others properties exist, that they do not simply reduce to the non-distributional properties of points, and that they are implicated in the correct analysis of change.

Malebranche on Ideas, Indirect Perception, and Vision in God, V-K

Andrew Pessin (Kenyon College)

In this paper I sketch a new interpretation of Malebranche's conception of ideas, and show how this interpretation sheds new light on Malebranche's key doctrines of indirect perception and vision in God. Briefly, I offer three arguments to think that Malebranche's ideas may be construed as "possible divine volitions," where these are conceptually distinguishable aspects of God, primitively possessed of representational content, by whose exercise God manifests His efficacy. In light of the interpretation, I next defend the claim that Malebranche in fact does not subscribe to a "veil of ideas" representationalism (as many commentators believe), and go on to give two alternative accounts of what he means by saying that we perceive bodies only "indirectly." Finally I show how his "vision in God" doctrine fits with my interpretation, along the way casting a new spin on how to understand his long-running debate with Arnauld on the nature of ideas.

De Re Mentalizing and the Simulation-Theory/Theory-Theory Debate, IV-K

Matthew Phillips (Rutgers University)

Investigation of De re attitude attributions _ attitude attributions in which one or more of the quantifiers appearing inside the sentential complement of the attitude verb in the surface syntax is semantically interpreted outside the sentential complement _ yields substantial ground for preferring Theory-Theoretic (TT) to Simulation-Theoretic (ST) accounts of attitude attribution. First, I outline the model of mentalizing which standard accounts of ST offers. Then I illustrate by example that it seems intuitively clear that de re attitude attributions figure in agents' episodes of mentalizing. Then I show that attention to the structure of de re attitude attributions reveals that it is impossible for ST to accommodate de re mentalizing. Finally, I develop a simple formal system within the TT framework (broadly construed), within which de re mentalizing is accommodated and one of the most compelling considerations against TT and in favor of ST is neutralized.

Why Functionalism Does Not Entail Computationalism, II-I

Gualtiero Piccinini (University of Pittsburgh)

I reconstruct the origin of functionalism and computational functionalism. I argue that functionalism does not entail computational functionalism, and thus does not entail computationalism. The reason for the widespread impression that computationalism is a consequence of functionalism is due, I argue, to the widespread conflation between the notion of functional analysis and that of computational description. Functional analysis should be kept distinct from computational description, and functionalism should not be taken to entail computationalism.

The Tractatus and the Dispensability of Mathematical Objects, I-M

Sílvio J. Mato Pinto (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana - México)

The debate over the dispensability of mathematical entities in science has recently divided realists and nominalists. Following Quine and Goodman, realists have maintained that scientific discourse cannot be regimented without quantifying over numbers; led by Hartry Field, nominalists, in turn, have advanced the thesis that mathematical discourse extends the language of nominalized science conservatively and therefore does not increase the ontological commitments of scientific theories. In this paper, I will be concerned with showing that the nominalist thesis of dispensability is not that novel; it was already present in Wittgenstein's Tractatus, although certainly not in such a sophisticated way as Field presents it. The early Wittgenstein's nominalism is shown to follow from his conception of mathematical expressions as standing for metalinguistical rules, a conception that survives in the later phase of his philosophy.

Computability and Newcomb's Problem, VI-Y

Kenneth Presting (Oxford Global Resources, Inc.)

In the context of game theory, agents which are modeled by Turing machines have been investigated by Ken Binmore, David Canning, and others. This paper explores a suggestion of Binmore's, that Newcomb's Problem may be understood as an instance of self-reference akin to the Liar paradox. A non-technical presentation of the Halting Problem of computation theory is provided (with more technical details in footnotes). The Newcomb situation is then analyzed first as a decision under uncertainty. In this form, there is no optimal decision rule, nor is it possible for a predictor to be reliable. Analysis of Newcomb's Problem as a probabilistic decision under risk is examined briefly, from a perspective of objective frequency in finite populations. The main result is that the question of a predictor's having a given degree of reliability may not be effectively decided.

Contextualism, Skepticism and Warranted Assertibility Manœuvres, X-H

Duncan Pritchard (University of Stirling)

Attributer contextualists maintain that the verb `knows' is context-sensitive in the sense that the truth conditions of a sentence of the form "S knows that p" can be dependent upon the ascriber's context. One natural objection against attributer contextualism is that it confuses the impropriety of certain assertions which ascribe knowledge to agents with the falsity of those assertions. In an influential article, Keith DeRose has defended attributer contextualism against this charge by proposing constraints on what he calls "warranted assertibility manœuvres" of this sort. This paper argues that, contra DeRose, the warranted assertibility manœuvre directed at attributer contextualism is able to meet the constraints that DeRose lays down.

Tarski, Soames and the Metalinguistic Liar, IV-J

Greg Ray (University of Florida)

I offer an interpretation of a familiar, but poorly understood argument of Tarski's-concerning the Liar Paradox and the definability of truth predicates. Scott Soames' (1999) reading of Tarski on this score is treated in critical detail. I maintain that Soames' reading vies with the textual evidence, and would make Tarski's position inconsistent in an unsubtle way. I also argue that Soames does not finally have a coherent interpretation of Tarski. This is all most unfortunate, since Soames ultimately arrogates to himself a key position that he has denied to Tarski and which is rightfully Tarski's own.

Rawls on Peoples, Persons and Human Rights, X-K

David Reidy (University of Tennessee)

In this paper I examine and defend Rawls's doctrine of human rights. I advance two theses. The first is that human rights are, on the best reading of Rawls's doctrine, ultimately grounded in the fundamental interest of each and every human being to the social conditions minimally necessary to membership in a well-ordered people (ideally a
constitutional republic). The second is that in an original position argument aimed at the identification of principles of international justice there are good reasons even for agents representing only liberal democratic peoples to refuse to consent to a doctrine of human rights that incorporates as human rights the ful