Two Roles for Probability in a Theory of Fitness (IV-L)
Marshall D. Abrams, Colgate University
According to the propensity interpretation of fitness and its elaborations, biological fitness is a function of probabilistic dispositions known as "propensities". I argue that whether or not biological processes involve non-trivial propensities, we will still need another sort of objective probability in order to provide a foundation for fitness. This sort of probability must have an appropriate connection to relative frequencies, which propensity does not. If biological processes do involve non-trivial propensities, then the alternative sort of probability would provide a distribution over propensity distributions. In any event, the claim that fitness is a function of objective probabilities remains plausible, and the prospects for a suitable probabilistic basis for fitness look good.
Likelihoods and Intelligent Design: On William Dembski's Explanatory Filter and the Nature of Evidence (VI-G)
Paul C. Anders, University of Wisconsin-Madison
William Dembski, one of the most influential proponents of intelligent design, focuses his arguments for design on what he calls an explanatory filter. I look at Dembski's proposed filter and his reconstruction of the design inference based upon it. I take up a critical evaluation of Dembski's design inference that is based on the likelihood principle concerning the nature of evidential support. As I argue, Dembski employs an absolutist notion of evidence within the framework of statistical hypothesis testing. Based on the likelihood interpretation of the nature of evidence, I show why Dembski's construal of the nature of evidence, and his conclusion based on that construal, are problematic. I discuss Dembski's response to this likelihoods-based criticism and argue that he fails to see its severity. By accepting the applicability of comparative likelihood analysis in the inference to design, Dembski seriously undermines his own employment of the design inference.
Standards, Advice, and Practical Reason (V-L)
Chrisoula Andreou, University of Utah
Is there a mode of sincere advice in which the standards
of the adviser are put aside in favor of the standards of the advisee?
There are two sorts of cases that seem to be such that the adviser
is evaluating things from within the advisee's system of standards even
though this system conflicts with her own; but I argue that these cases
are best interpreted in ways that dissolve this appearance. I then argue
that the nature of sincere advice precludes an adviser's putting aside
her own system of standards in favor of a competing system of standards.
It follows that, contrary to what some have suggested, it cannot be
that practical reason judgments—which are concerned with what an
agent has reason to do
or not to do and which can figure as advice—evaluate actions from
within the agent's (as opposed to the judger's) system of standards.
On the Supposed Duty to Promote Others' Perfection (V-K)
Willem F. Bakker, Washington University in Saint Louis
The substantive nature of Immanuel Kant's Metaphysics of Morals begets controversy regarding the work's consistency with its formal foundations and regarding the practical duties it recommends. One of the disputed claims of the Metaphysics of Morals is that the Doctrine of Virtue includes an imperfect duty to promote others' happiness, but not a duty to promote others' perfection as well. Some commentators on Kant's work justify, to support their interpretative projects, the addition of such a duty. I will consider whether such additions are consistent with Kant's system.
Model Theoretic versus Metaphysical Interpretations of Necessity in Kripke's Naming and Necessity (IV-N)
Roberta Ballarin, Southern Methodist University
I examine Kripke's Naming and Necessity and argue that this rich monograph contains, not one, but two alternative conceptual frameworks for interpreting necessity. In the first model theoretic framework, possible worlds play a crucial role. By making intuitive sense of `where' the worlds are and `what' they were made of, Kripke opens the road for treating the model theory as an interpretation of necessity. But, in addition, Naming and Necessity offers us a second interpretive framework, one I call `The Metaphysical Necessity Interpretation', in which possible worlds play no role. I argue that there is an inherent tension between the two frameworks. In our quest for the intended interpretation, we have to make a choice.
Reliabilism and the Skeptical Paradox (III-H)
Kelly M. Becker, University of New Mexico
Contextualists in the theory of knowledge often claim the following advantage over reliabilism. The contextualist can explain why the skeptic's premises in the argument from ignorance are so convincing, hence how skepticism itself can seem so persuasive, whereas the non-contextualist reliabilist ignores the intuitive appeal of the skeptic's argument simply by denying the principle that knowledge is closed under known entailment. Contextualists accuse the reliabilist who denies closure of epistemological revisionism. I aim to rebut this charge on behalf of the reliabilist, explaining both how reliabilism can make sense of the bothersome nature of skeptical hypotheses and why the denial of closure only seems to be unpalatable.
Reliabilism and Deflationism (III-H)
James R. Beebe, Louisiana State University
I discuss the question of whether deflationary theories
of truth are compatible with reliabilist epistemology. After examining
Alvin Goldman's comments on reliabilism, truth, and deflationism, I
show how the fact that deflationary theories of truth allow for the
strong recognition-transcendence of truth makes them clearly compatible
with the externalist character of reliabilism. I then show how deflationism's
claim that truth never performs any explanatory work does not
conflict with reliabilism's attempt to explain epistemic justification
in terms of the truth conduciveness of belief-forming processes.
On (Ethical) Certainty (VII-K)
Martin Benjamin, Michigan State University
In On Certainty, Wittgenstein developed a radically new response to epistemological skepticism. There are convictions, he argues, that are immune to doubt. They are not, however, a matter of reason or intellect. Our conviction that we're embodied, for example, is rarely expressed as a proposition. It is more a matter of action or practice than thought or theory. Such certainties are the hinges on which knowledge, belief, and inquiry turn. Individuals who "in deed" doubt them have become, we sometimes say, "unhinged." After sketching Wittgenstein's conception of certainty, I extend it to ethics. There are ethical convictions, I suggest, about which there can be no genuine or sane doubt. More a matter of doing than saying, such certainties are the hinges on which ethical knowledge, belief, and inquiry turn. Genuine and total skepticism in ethics is no less unhinged than genuine and total skepticism in epistemology.
Hume's Account of the Motivation to be Just (II-L)
Lorraine L. Besser-Jones, Stanford University
Hume's account of the motivation to be just is one that resists easy interpretation and consequently has produced widespread disagreement among his interpreters. The source of this disagreement is Hume's circle argument, a particularly obscure argument in which Hume sets forth two requirements on the motive to be just, and concludes that the only motive that fits the first requirement _ the sense of duty _ fails to meet the second requirement. The standard move made by Hume's interpreters is to dismiss Hume's claim that the sense of duty is the only motive that can serve as the motive to justice and to instead look for some other candidate motive, such as self-interest, habit, or self-hatred. Following Stephen Darwall's analysis of the just disposition, I explore a more novel approach to understanding Hume's account of the motivation to be just: this is to investigate the sense of duty and the disposition of the just person driven by it.
Moral Realism without Values? (X-G)
Noell Birondo, University of Arizona
According to a recent, and promising, account of normative (or "justifying") reasons, the very facts of the natural world can themselves be normative considerations. They can be reasons for believing certain things as well as reasons for acting in certain ways. Such a view, in its ethical incarnation, can plausibly be called a "realist" account of reasons for action, an account that aims to undermine the widely held thought that reasons for action would be metaphysically problematic if they were not constituted by some of the psychological states (e.g., by beliefs and desires) of the agent whose reasons they are. The position suggests that we distinguish between a traditional realism about moral value, and a perhaps not so traditional realism about reasons for action. Here I consider the prospects for a realist account of reasons for action that can disclaim the need for a realist account of value.
Expressive-Assertivism and "The Embedding Objection" (II-J)
Daniel R. Boisvert, California State University-Bakersfield
This paper is part of a larger project in which I argue for, and defend, a metaethical theory I call expressive assertivism. The theory has most in common with Hare's prescriptivism, Stevenson's emotivism, and, more recently, with David Copp's realist-expressivism. I first explain the three general features of the theory and locate it relative to other well-known metaethical theories. I then defend it from two of a family of objections commonly referred to as the "embedding objection." My defense of the theory from these two embedding objections suggests how the three features, at times working together, can be employed to defend expressive-assertivism from all embedding objections.
Mill's Higher Pleasures: Not What They Seem (VIII-K)
Troy Booher, University of Utah
Traditionally, Mill's test for higher pleasures is read (i) as recognizing inherent qualities in pleasures and (ii) as resulting in a lexical ordering of higher and lower pleasures. Yet both results create problems. First, many scholars have recognized that it is difficult to makes sense of how pleasures can have inherent qualities. Second, a lexical ordering leads to counterintuitive results: large quantities of lower pleasures sometimes morally trump the pleasure derived from, e.g., listening to Beethoven (a higher pleasure for Mill). I argue that Mill's account produces neither result. Contrary to the traditional reading of Mill, Mill's test for higher pleasures does not compare individual pleasures, but rather compares a capacity for one pleasure with a large quantity of another. By recognizing this, we see why Mill is committed neither to a lexical ordering nor to identifying inherent qualities in pleasures.
Hume's Volte-Face on Personal Identity (II-L)
Glenn L. Branch, National Center for Science Education
In the appendix to the Treatise, Hume wrote, "I have not yet been so fortunate as to discover any very considerable mistakes in the reasonings deliver'd in the preceding volumes, except on one article" — namely, his theory of personal identity. I argue that Hume was responding to Butler's objection to Locke's theory of personal identity; because the core of Hume's theory of personal identity is Lockean, it is as vulnerable to Butler's objection as Locke's. In Treatise I.iv.6, Hume contended that the idea of the self is originally acquired from reflecting on a series of memories. But, acquiescing in Butler's assumption that personal identity is part of what is remembered, Hume came to believe that in order to have any memories it is necessary to have the idea of the self. Thus his theory of personal identity involved a fatal circularity.
Rules that Bend without Breaking (IX-B)
Jeffrey C. Brand-Ballard, George Washington University
Can we ever "bend" a rule of law without
"breaking" it? In other words, can we ever deviate from a
rule without either simply ignoring it or committing ourselves to a
standing exception to the rule? I support the affirmative. It develops
an original form of rule-sensitive particularism and defends it against
the views of writers such as Larry Alexander, Emily Sherwin, and Frederick
Schauer who argue that legal reasoning must take rules more seriously
than any form of
particularism allows. I suggest that previous writers have neglected
the position I defend because they operate with overly simple theories
of inferential reason. They fail to distinguish between two theses,
which I call internalism and redundancy. Once we draw this distinction,
conceptual space appears for a theory that falls between formalism and
pure particularism: a coherent form of rule-sensitive particularism.
Hegel's Idea of a Civil Religion for Modern Societies (VIII-M)
Andrew Buchwalter, University of North Florida
Focusing on his simultaneous separation of church and state and conjunction of religion and politics, I explore Hegel's account of a civil religion for modern societies. Hegel is shown: (1) to furnish the components of a modern republicanism, one attentive to the ethico-cultural conditions of a liberal political order; (2) to supply the underpinnings for a creed of tolerance in a culture devoid of any one substantive creed; and (3) to advocate a comprehensive approach to politics devoted to articulating what is most authoritative for a people, even while supporting plural notions of the good and an appreciation of the limits of a civil religion regarding the political domain it nonetheless sustains. I contribute to current reassessments of the boundary between the religious and the secular.
Evil, Privation, and Value: The Privation of Augustine's Account of Evil (VIII-J)
Todd C. Calder, University of Western Ontario
According to Augustine's "privation account of evil," evil consists in a lack of substance, being or goodness that ought to exist by nature. I discuss three problem with Augustine's theory of evil: (1) the existence of a contrary theory of evil which is no less supported by available evidence, (2) its reliance on the problematic assumption that each thing has a nature or essence and (3) its inability to characterize many paradigmatic cases of evil. My ultimate goal is to reveal the failings of the Privation Account in order to clear the way for a better understanding of the nature of evil.
Massive Reduplication and the Relation between Thought and Experience (X-J)
Cheryl K. Chen, Bryn Mawr College
I consider an influential argument for the claim that perceptual experience plays a necessary role in making it possible for us to have thoughts about particular spatio-temporal objects. According to this argument, we cannot refer to particular objects using descriptions containing only general terms. This is because it is possible that the scenes we describe are "massively reduplicated" somewhere else in the universe; since we cannot rule out the possibility that pure descriptions are multiply satisfied, our thoughts about spatio-temporal particulars must exploit an essentially perceptual form of demonstrative reference. I argue that the possibility of massive reduplication is only a threat if we make controversial assumptions about reference and knowledge. These assumptions may lead to overly narrow restrictions on what sorts of things we can refer to and they make it unnecessary to appeal to the possibility of massive reduplication in the first place.
Endangered Species and the Right to Die (VII-L)
Frank Chessa, Bates College
Assuming that both humans and nonhuman organisms have intrinsic value, I extend the concept of a "death with dignity" to the natural world. The analysis utilizes a case study. Recently, an effort has been undertaken to save the Razorback Sucker, an endangered species of fish in the Colorado River. Razorback are bred and raised in captivity, and transferred to the river only when large enough to survive predation by nonnative fish species. While this effort is well intentioned, there is little chance that the Razorback will again live unassisted in the Colorado River. There may be human-centered reasons for saving the Razorback. However, just as respecting a person sometimes requires limiting her life-sustaining medical treatment, so too respecting the Razorback requires removing human assistance with its reproductive cycle. Both the view that individual fish have interests, and the view that species have interests, are considered.
Much Ado about Non-Things: Cartesian Idea Theory and the Doctrine of Material Falsity (IX-J)
David L. Clemenson, University of St. Thomas, Minnesota
In the Third Meditation (AT 7:43-44), Descartes says that if cold is a non-thing our idea of cold is "materially false." What he meant by this has been much debated, but most commentators agree that this passage commits Descartes to the claim that there can be ideas (in the strict sense: AT 7:37) of non-things—specifically, absences or privations. This assumption originates with Antoine Arnauld, author of the Fourth Objections to the Meditations. Yet it entails well-known and formidable difficulties for the Cartesian theory of ideas. I try to remove these difficulties by showing that AT 7:43-44 does not entail that there can be ideas of non-things. Doing so strips the material falsity remarks of their intrigue. Instead of holding the key to some arcane doctrine of sensations as ideas with privative or self-defeating content, they are just a roundabout way of saying that certain sensory ideas are confused.
Ethical Internalism and Cognitive Theories of Motivation (IX-H)
Allen Coates, Vanderbilt University
A number of philosophers maintain that practical judgments in general, and moral judgments in particular, are both cognitive and motivating; I call this view cognitive internalism. Cognitive internalism purports to defend the idea that moral demands are categorical, that is, independent of agents' desires. However, I argue that showing that some judgments are both cognitive and motivating is neither necessary nor sufficient to defend the categorical nature of morality.
Public Reasons and Practical Solipsism: A Reconstruction of Korsgaard's Private Reasons Argument (V-L)
Mary Clayton Coleman, Bard College
In lecture four of The Sources of Normativity, Christine Korsgaard argues that we are required to be moral. Her argument for this claim is complicated and rich, and it has drawn a great deal of critical discussion. I reconstruct her argument with two objectives in mind. First, I aim to show that the most frequently made criticism of the argument is misplaced. Second, I isolate what I take to be its most important weakness, viz., that it does not show us why we should not be practical solipsists.
Unsafe Knowledge (III-K)
Juan M. Comesaña, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Many epistemologists think that if someone knows that p, then his belief that p is "safe," where a belief that p by a subject S is safe in this sense if and only if S would not believe that p on the same basis without it being so that p. I argue that safety is not necessary for knowledge.
Is Reid a Mysterian? (VII-O)
Rebecca E. Copenhaver, Lewis & Clark College
I argue against a contemporary reading of Reid as a mysterian about the mind. I argue that Reid's nonnecessitarianism about causality and his contingent necessitarianism about the laws of nature show that Reid does not hold that mind, unlike body, is fundamentally resistant to explanation by Newtonian science. I will argue that according to Reid, the science of the mind founders not because the mind is mysterious, but because of those who are still searching for causes, and causes, whether of material or immaterial phenomena, are mysterious, according to Reid.
Empathy and Self Other Differentiation (IX-H)
Amy Coplan, California State University-Fullerton
The concept of empathy suffers from vagueness and ambiguity. My goal is to help clarify the concept of empathy by developing an explanatory account that highlights self-other differentiation, a critical feature of empathy that has been underemphasized in most of the literature. In the first section, I provide a general characterization of empathy as a complex imaginative process that integrates cognition and emotion. I focus in the second section on self-other differentiation, explaining what it is and why it is important. In the third and final section, I briefly explore two psychological experiences that lack self-other differentiation and that are often confused with empathy. The goal of this section is to further reinforce the significance of self-other differentiation by showing some of the effects of its absence.
A Field Guide to Levels (V-N)
Carl F. Craver, Washington University
The intuition that the world can be ordered into a hierarchy of levels is multiply ambiguous. The levels metaphor can be disambiguated by keeping track of what items are sorted into levels, what relations sort them into different levels, and what relation places them at a given level. I distinguish eight readings of the levels metaphor and focus attention on one central variety: levels of mechanisms. I then show how levels of mechanisms sustain many common intuitions about levels (e.g., that they are ordered by size and degree of organization) but fail to sustain others (e.g., that things at different levels interact causally, or that levels correspond to sciences and theories).
Anti-Realism Meets Amoral Twin Earth (X-G)
Andrew M. Cullison, University of Rochester
Terrence Horgan and Mark Timmons argue that any version of moral realism consistent with philosophical naturalism will suffer from a moral Twin Earth argument. I consider two recent arguments against their position. I then offer an alternative response. I argue that alternatives to moral realism are subject to a parallel amoral Twin Earth argument. It should be apparent that Twin Earth thought experiments cannot settle the debate between realists and anti-realists.
A Variety of Minds in the Third and Fifth Meditations (IX-J)
David R. Cunning, University of Iowa
After arriving at the result that God exists, at the end of the Fifth Meditation, Descartes says that it is "now" that he is in a position to know other things. We might think that this means that Descartes's meditator is not in a position to discharge hyperbolic doubt before the Fifth Meditation and, accordingly, that the Third Meditation arguments for God's existence do not do so on their own. Here I argue that Descartes is targeting a variety of minds in the Meditations and that for some (and perhaps most) meditators the Fifth Meditation is unnecessary. On my reading, Descartes holds that some meditators do not even need to know that God exists to overcome hyperbolic doubt, though he has reasons for not advertising that this is so.
Descartes's Quasi-Platonism about Mathematical Essences (VIII-L)
Raffaella De Rosa and Otávio Bueno, both, University of South Carolina
We argue that Descartes is a "quasi-platonist" about mathematical essences and that his quasi-platonism resolves the prima facie inconsistency between the two accounts of essences that Descartes offers in Meditation Five and the Principles. Meditation Five suggests that Descartes was a platonist about mathematical essences. The Principles suggests that he held some kind of "conceptualist" view about such essences. We argue that Descartes was neither a platonist nor a conceptualist. Crucial to our interpretation of Descartes is his dispositional nativism. His doctrine of innate ideas allows him to endorse a hybrid view that we call "quasi-platonism", which avoids the pitfalls of Gassendi's conceptualism without falling into the troubles of platonism. Descartes's account of the nature of mathematical essences is explained, and the tension between the two texts dissolved.
Berkeley's Metaphysical Criticisms of the Calculus (VIII-L)
Katherine Dunlop, University of California-Los Angeles
I argue that Berkeley's primary criticism of the Newtonian calculus is aimed at the "metaphysical" presuppositions to which the Analysts are committed, not the formal validity of their reasoning. Berkeley maintains that the notion of a "fluxion", which is fundamental to the Newtonian calculus, is, in fact, inconceivable. The formation of such an idea involves an illegitimate abstraction from our conceptions of space and time. On my view, Berkeley's criticism of the notion of fluxions is rooted in deep considerations about the representation of three-dimensional space rather than arbitrary limitations on our perpetual capacities. I appeal to Berkeley's discussion of the conception of space in the New Theory of Vision to explain his objections to the calculus in The Analyst.
A Puzzle about Perception (IV-J)
Andrew Egan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Western Washington University, and James John, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The following theses form an inconsistent triad: REPRESENTATIONISM: The phenomenal properties of a perceptual experience are identical to (some of) the experience's representational properties. PHENOMENAL INTERNALISM: The phenomenal properties of a perceptual experience supervene on the intrinsic properties of the experience's subject. STRONG EXTERNALISM: None of the representational properties of a perceptual experience is fixed by the intrinsic properties of the experience's subject. The fact that these three theses are jointly inconsistent is one of the emerging problems in the recent literature on the philosophy of perception and consciousness. It is a problem because the theses are all quite attractive. Our aim is to make the problem explicit and survey the options for resolving it.
Can an Atheist Believe in God? (X-H)
Andrew Eshleman, University of Arkansas-Little Rock
Some philosophers have proposed that one might be an atheist yet rationally choose to live as if God exists. That is, in spite of their rejection of theistic metaphysics, they hold that it is reasonable for an atheist to pursue a form of life shaped by full engagement with theistic religious language and practice, once language and belief about God are interpreted in the appropriate non-realist manner. My aim is to develop this suggestion a bit more fully along two fronts. First, I engage in some conceptual spadework to distinguish more clearly some possible varieties of religious non-realism. Second, in response to two important objections, I seek to articulate the version of non-realism that provides the most promising support for the proposal that an atheist might rationally choose to lead a theistic form of life.
Why Searle Is a Property Dualist (VIII-N)
Edward C. Feser, Loyola Marymount University
John Searle has tried to stake out a middle position in the philosophy of mind between materialism and property dualism, which he calls "biological naturalism". But biological naturalism has seemed to many of Searle's critics to be in substance little more than property dualism under another name. I argue that those critics are correct, and in particular that the four lines of argument Searle has put forward clearly to distinguish his view from property dualism all fail.
Normative Realism, Constructivism, and the Instrumental Principle (X-G)
William J. FitzPatrick, Virginia Tech University
Christine Korsgaard has recently argued that a realist
view of instrumental normativity is incoherent: treating the instrumental
principle (that one ought to take the means to one's ends) as a normative
truth, on a realist model, allegedly commits one to a muddled view of
rational motivation. This failure of realism, she thinks, indicates
a general problem for normative realism of any kind, while her proposed
treatment of instrumental normativity supports her alternative Kantian
constructivist approach to normativity in general. I show that her
arguments against realism about the instrumental principle fail, and
that an investigation of instrumental normativity neither casts any
general doubt on realism nor provides any support for constructivism
in connection with other forms of normativity. In fact, Korsgaard's
own attempt to locate normativity in threats to identity or agency lands
her in the very same muddle she thought she had diagnosed for the realist.
Realist Commitments and Mass-Energy Equivalence (VI-L)
Francisco Flores, California Polytechnic University
As part of his recent effort to provide a philosophical interpretation of E=mc2, Lange (2001) has argued that the conversion between mass and energy is illusory. I examine Lange's interpretation in some detail and argue that it is untenable. Lange searches for an explanation for the conversion of energy into mass in terms of the behavior of the constituents of matter. However, E=mc2 and the "conversion" it entails must be presupposed by any physical theory that describes the behavior of a whole in terms of its parts. Consequently, I argue that the conversion between mass and energy will never receive this kind of explanation. Nevertheless, I argue, the conversion between mass and energy is a real physical process, even according to Lange's criteria. This is because all observers agree on the change to the properties of physical systems brought about by a conversion between mass and energy.
Plato's Undividable Line: Contradiction and Method
in Republic VI
(VII-M)
Richard F. Foley, Eastern Illinois University
Plato's arithmetical instructions entail that the line be divided so that the middle two segments, representing mathematical and physical objects, are of equal length. Yet Plato's subsequent analysis shows that he believes that these segments are of unequal length because the domains that they represent are not of equally real or knowable objects. I show that this contradiction is intentional, and that later recapitulation at 534a reveals that Plato himself was aware that the middle two segments are equal. I argue that this contradiction is a sophisticated device designed to spur the reader of the Republic to follow the four epistemic stages represented by the line itself. Most significantly, recognition of this mathematical contradiction acts as a goad, spurring philosophical reflection just in the way that Plato advocates in the Republic more generally.
Universal Skepticism (X-K)
Bryan R. S. Frances, University of Leeds
The Holy Grail for the skeptic is universal skepticism, according to which you know nothing at all, not even that you have hands, that 2 + 2 = 4, that you exist, or even that it seems to you that you exist. I will be putting forward a set of delicious new arguments for universal skepticism. And yes, I do take them as offering a serious possibility that at least for some of us, for some parts of our adult lives, universal skepticism is true. The reason is that the new skeptical arguments utilize skeptical hypotheses utterly unlike any of the traditional ones: these are hypotheses that many genuine experts think are actually true.
Metaphysics of Property Identity and the "Hard" Problem of Consciousness (II-M)
Brian Garrett, California State University-Fullerton
I shall present an argument against Chalmers's infamous modal claims regarding the irreducibility of consciousness. Chalmers claims that the logical possibility of "zombie worlds" - worlds physically indiscernible from the actual world but which lack consciousness - reveal that consciousness is a distinct fact in addition to the physical facts. Although I like the conclusion, today I shall argue skeptically that alternate metaphysical assumptions undermine Chalmers's arguments. I shall argue that if we reject what I call Chalmers's Humean assumptions regarding property identity, then the worlds Chalmers imagines are not, in fact, logically possible. I shall also argue that if we retain the Humean assumption, we face a form of conceptual indeterminacy: it is unclear whether we are conceiving physically indiscernible worlds rather than mere causal-nomologically indiscernible, yet physically distinct, possible worlds. More importantly, I argue that the deep distinction between qualitative and non-qualitative properties is lost.
Sensations and Circularity (IV-J)
Joshua Gert, Florida State University
C. L. Hardin has criticized Paul Churchland's functionalist account of sensations of red as being uninformative. This is because Churchland's account specifies red things as a relevant input, and beliefs about red things as a relevant output. But according to Hardin, red things themselves are identified by appeal to sensations of red, since the class of red things is so heterogeneous physically that nothing connects them except their relation to human sensations of red. I defend Churchland by arguing that the correctness of a functional analysis does not depend upon our ability to give necessary and sufficient conditions for items to be members of the classes of inputs or outputs. It depends only on whether there are fixed classes of inputs and outputs to which we can refer, and on whether the entity to be analyzed is whatever plays a specifiable causal role in mediating between members of those classes.
A Partial Defense of Physician-Assisted Suicide (VII-L)
Michael B. Gill, University of Arizona
In The Case against Assisted Suicide, Leon Kass, Edmund Pellegrino, and Daniel Callahan contend that it is always wrong for a physician to assist in suicide because such assistance violates the intrinsic moral duty of medicine. I argue that Kass, Pellegrino, and Callahan fail to provide clear grounds for their conception of medicine's intrinsic moral duty, and that their opposition to physician-assisted suicide is based not on the special moral nature of medicine but on a contentious general moral principle.
More on Blameworthiness and Alternative Possibilities (II-I)
Geoffrey C. Goddu, University of Richmond
The derivation of the generally held principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) _ roughly "you are morally responsible only if you could do otherwise," from an even more generally held moral principle, K (for Kant), that, roughly speaking, "ought implies can" _ has recently been the focus of significant debate. I shall argue that by focusing on PAP interpreted in terms of commissions alone an alternative derivation of PAP interpreted in terms of omissions is being overlooked. The advantage of the new derivation is that it avoids many of the criticisms directed at the original derivation.
An Anti-Individualistic Semantics for `Empty' Natural Kind Terms (I-N)
Sanford C. Goldberg, University of Kentucky
Boghossian presents an argument against semantic anti-individualism, AI, in the course of which he argues that AI has no way to individuate the concepts expressed by `empty', extensionless natural kind terms (see also Segal 2000 for a related criticism). I respond to Boghossian. My narrow aim for doing so is to suggest that the resources AI has for individuating concepts are more substantive that is commonly thought; my more ambitious aim is to draw lessons regarding the nature of semantic characterizations of concepts: what we have a right to expect from such characterizations, and what we should not expect from them.
Cartesian Time (VIII-L)
Geoffrey A. Gorham, St. Olaf College
In certain writings, Descartes says that time is nothing but the daily motion of the sun, or even a mere "mode of thought." Such doctrines, though common among the late scholastics, seem ill suited to Cartesian science. If time is nothing but diurnal motion, then the speed of the sun could not be decreased in a collision, contrary to the third law of motion. If time is a mere mode of thought, then the laws of nature are in some sense ideal. I argue against several recent commentators that Cartesian time is, in a certain sense, independent of both motion and thought. I show that Descartes transforms the scholastic distinction between tempus and duratio so that the former is relative to motion and thought while the latter is an objective feature of all things. The result is that Descartes's conception of time is ultimately closer to Newton's than to the scholastics'.
Thomas Reid's Notion of Visible Figure (VII-O)
Giovanni B. Grandi, University of Western Ontario
In his Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764), Reid distinguished the visible figure of an object from its tangible figure. I will outline the two accounts he gave of visible figure. First, Reid described visible figure as the two-dimensional projection of the outline of an object on the surface of a sphere with the eye at its center. Second, he described visible figure as the position that the parts of an object have with regard to the eye. I will show how these two accounts are compatible by distinguishing different tasks in Reid's account of visible figure: an ontological description of visible figure, a phenomenological description, and, bridging the gap between the two, an explanation of a purely visual observer's experience to a blind mathematician.
Etiquette as a System of Categorical Imperatives (III-G)
Paul Alan Green, Mount St. Mary's College-Los Angeles
In "Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives" and other essays, Philippa Foot has attacked the claim that there are reasons to be moral independent of one's inclinations. She attempts to sever the connection between the "non-hypothetical use of `should'" and the categorical imperative by considering the cases of club rules and etiquette, where, according to her, we have the former without having the latter. I argue that there are moral reasons to be polite and obey the rules of one's club, and, hence, Foot begs the question when she assumes these rules are not categorical imperatives. Thus, her argument is seriously undermined.
Simplicity and Error Avoidance (VI-G)
Franz-Peter Griesmaier, University of Wyoming
The preference for simpler theories over their more complex competitors has long been a puzzle, primarily because it is hard to see why simplicity should be indicative of truth. I agree with this sentiment and propose instead that simplicity should be thought of as linked to justification. I argue that procedures for error avoidance are important for epistemic justification, and that choosing the simpler of two competing theories is such a procedure.
Against Fictionalism (X-K)
Allan J. Hazlett, Brown University
I defend the view that some positive existential mathematical statements are true. My opponent is the fictionalist, who denies this. My argument for anti-fictionalism about mathematics comes in two parts. First, I argue that the burden of proof is on the fictionalist to show that no positive existential mathematical statements are true. Some such statements certainly appear to be true (`Two plus two is four', for example); we should not deny that these statements are true without good reason. Second, I argue that the best reasons that have been given to deny that these sentences are true are not good reasons.
How Peer Evaluations can be Deceptive (V-N)
Charles M. Hermes, Florida State University
Recently Alfred Mele revised his cognitive peers test, which originated from Self-Deception Uunmasked, to deal with a problematic case. While the revision is an improvement upon the original, it still falls prey to two different kinds of counterexamples. Nevertheless, because the test captures something important about self-deception, the proper response to these difficulties is to improve upon, instead of abandon, Mele's method. Therefore, after exploring the difficulties that are still present in his account, I shall suggest modifications that lead to a stronger version of the cognitive peers test.
Locke's Ideational Definition of Knowledge and Knowledge's Reality (I-M)
Benjamin D. Hill, Illinois Wesleyan University
A common criticism of Locke's ideational definition of knowledge is that it contradicts his accounts of knowledge's reality and sensitive knowledge. Here it is argued that the ideational definition of knowledge is compatible with knowledge of idea-independent reality. The key is Locke's notion of the signification. Nominal agreements obtain if and only if the ideas' descriptive contents are the ground for truth; real agreements obtain only if their total denotation are the grounds for truth. It is the signification of the ideas that determine whether they denote real or fantastical objects. Three types of ideas, simple quality ideas, modal ideas, and relational ideas, necessarily signify real objects. The fourth type, the ideas of substances, are only real if those particular combinations of qualities have been perceived to co-exist. Locke's ideas are intrinsically either real or fantastical, and thus his models of truth and knowledge's reality are far from typical correspondence theories.
I, Immanuel: Building a Robot to Understand Kant's Transcendental Turn (VII-N)
Lawrence M. Hinman, University of San Diego
Kant's transcendental turn is notoriously difficult to teach to students. I argue that problems that Kant faced in the first half of Critique of Pure Reason are the same problems that computer scientists face in the design of a robot. Understanding the basic steps in designing a robot can help students in understanding the Transcendental Analytic and the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories in the first Kritik. All incoming visual data need to be "stamped" with a time and place stamp if they are to be meaningful; or, to put it in Kant's language, space and time are a priori forms of intuition. Furthermore, individual pieces of data then must be related to one another according to certain basic rules. For example, there must be some basic rule that various pictures of an object are pictures of the same object; in Kant's words, the concept of a physical object is an a priori category of the understanding and a necessary condition of the possibility of any meaningful experience at all. Thinking about designing an elementary robot can help us to understand Kant's transcendental turn.
Temptation, Autonomy, and the Problem of Entrapment (II-K)
Paul M. Hughes, University of Michigan-Dearborn
I argue that entrapment compromises and sometimes even undermines the autonomy of those it targets. This is because all proactive law enforcement subjects people to strong temptations to commit crimes. In legitimate proactive law enforcement, such temptations interfere with the autonomy of those subject to them, but in a way that augments their preexisting intention to commit (or continue to commit) a crime. In illegitimate proactive law enforcement (i.e., entrapment) such temptations violate the autonomy of those induced into committing crimes either by creating the intention to commit crime, or by subjecting persons to temptations to commit crime of such strength that nearly anyone would succumb to them. Allowing temptation to negate criminal liability via the legal defense of entrapment implicitly recognizes that entrapment violates autonomy in these ways.
Pragmatics and Epistemic Justification (IX-K)
Leo W. Iacono, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Epistemic justification is importantly related to truth: it is a property that makes it more likely, in some sense, that a belief is true. Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath have recently argued, however, that pragmatic considerations are also relevant to the epistemic justification of a belief. According to them, facts about a subject's goals and interests can make the difference between a belief's being epistemically justified or not, even though these facts do not make it more or less likely that the belief is true. Here I show that their argument is not successful.
Charity and the Normativity of Meaning (VI-N)
Henry Jackman, York University
It has frequently been suggested that meaning is, in some important sense, normative. However, precisely what is particularly normative about it is often left without any satisfactory explanation, and the "normativity thesis" has thus, justly, been called into question. That said, it will be argued here that the intuition that meaning is "normative" is on the right track, even if many of the purported explanations for meaning's normativity are not. In particular, rather than being particularly social, the normativity of meaning may follow from the more logical/epistemic relations between use and meaning. Because of this, some use-based theories will still be able to accommodate the normativity of meaning by allowing that while meaning supervenes upon use, the function from use to meaning is a normative one.
The Liar Paradox and Ontology (III-J)
Jeffrey Johnson, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The liar paradox has usually been analyzed from a semantical perspective. I analyze the liar paradox from an ontological perspective. I call a language L meeting the following conditions an ontology-respecting language: (1) If a predicate P of L represents a property and a name n of L represents an object, then the expression Pn is a sentence of L. (2) If P represents a property, n represents an object, and Pn is a sentence of L, then Pn is true if the object represented by n has the property represented by P, false if the object does not have the property. I argue that no ontology-respecting language can have both a predicate F representing the property of falsity and a name s representing the expression Fs. I show that traditional solutions to the paradox do not affect this conclusion, and I attempt to draw some consequences.
Second-Order Desert and the Problem of Moral Luck (II-I)
Troy Jollimore, California State University-Chico
"Moral luck" refers to the fact that circumstances
beyond an agent's control can affect moral evaluations of that agent.
This seems to conflict with the judgment that it is simply unfair to
blame an agent for things beyond her control. However, the appearance
of inconsistency is illusory. This becomes apparent once we distinguish
between first-order desert (whether an agent deserves to be blamed
for doing something bad) and second-order desert (whether an
agent deserves to deserve to be blamed.) Moreover, desert is not transitive:
that an agent deserves to be blameworthy does not imply that
she is blameworthy. Seeing this lets us solve the problem of
moral luck, by holding circumstances beyond
an agent's control to be relevant to determinations of first-order desert
(regarding blame, praise, etc.) but not to determinations of second-order
desert. Thus, the apparent inconsistency is resolved.
Paying the Price for Transitivity (IV-N)
Christopher Michael Kane, Brown University
I defend David Lewis's counterfactual account of causation from the most common class of counterexamples to the transitivity of causation. The counterexamples all feature three events. The first event causes the second event in virtue of causing some irrelevant feature of it. The second event then causes the third event. Counterintuitively, transitivity seems to rule that the first event is a cause of the third event, despite the fact the first event makes no difference in the occurrence of the third event. I dissolve the problematic case by arguing that rather than causing the second event, the first event actually causes a change in that event. This change is an event in its own right, which takes the second event as its object. Since the first event does not cause the second event, transitivity no longer applies to this case, and the counterexample is resolved.
Of Carts and Horses: On the Primacy of the Virtues (III-G)
Jason Kawall, Colgate University
I respond to a range of basic, intuitive objections often raised against the primacy of the virtues _ i.e., the claim that our concepts of the virtues (or virtuous characters) are explanatorily primary, and that other moral concepts such as rightness or goodness are to be understood in terms of the virtues. The objections all appear to rest on a deeply felt intuition that the virtues simply must be derivative in some way either from right actions or good states of affairs. My goal is to articulate and defend some of the underlying intuitions guiding virtue theorists against these charges. This is not intended to demonstrate that the virtue theorists are in fact correct _ rather, I only hope to show that their project is viable and need not be abandoned in the face of these common objections.
Moorean Facts (IV-M)
Thomas P. Kelly, University of Notre Dame
A Moorean fact, in the words of David Lewis, is "one of those things that we know better than we know the premises of any philosophical argument to the contrary." Although appeals to Moorean facts are denigrated by some, such appeals are championed by others. Indeed, the need to respect Moorean facts is often emphasized in explicit discussions of philosophical methodology. Despite this, the concept of a Moorean fact has received relatively little extended scrutiny. The aim is to contribute to the rectification of this state of affairs.
Law Necessitarianism and the Importance of Being Intuitive (III-F)
Daniel Korman, University of Colorado-Boulder
It is widely recognized that law necessitarianism
_ the thesis that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary _
has counterintuitive implications. Proponents of law necessitarianism
are typically quite casual about these counterintuitive implications,
simply pointing out that we often make mistakes
in supposing that what we can imagine or conceive is in fact metaphysically
possible. I argue that these counterintuitive implications pose a far
more serious threat to law necessitarianism than its proponents seem
to recognize, insofar as (a) law necessitarianism requires that there
be a posteriori necessities, and (b) the only known arguments for a
posteriori necessities—those of Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam—are
entirely founded upon evidence from intuition. So, the casual dismissal
of intuition threatens to undermine any reasons that the law necessitarian
might have for supposing that there are a posteriori necessities. I
consider various ways in which the law necessitarian might try to defend
scientific essentialism without invoking intuition, or in which the
law necessitarian might try to explain away the particular intuitions
that conflict with the theory while still maintaining that intuition
is generally reliable.
Almost Indiscernible Objects and the Suspect Strategy (II-N)
Kathrin Koslicki, Tufts University
I argue, by means of a representative example, that a surprisingly widespread strategy in metaphysics is suspect for methodological or other reasons and hence ought to be abandoned. My representative example is Alan Gibbard's classic defense of contingent identity in Gibbard (1975). The strategy in question, which I label `The Suspect Strategy' (TSS), aims at excluding certain kinds of troublesome contexts (e.g., contexts like `____ is essentially a statue') from a general metaphysical principle (e.g., Leibniz's Law (LL)), whose truth the proponent wishes to uphold; this exclusion of properties, I argue, proceeds by questionable means. Among the consequences of the rejection of (TSS) are (i) a relatively tolerant conception of the relation between linguistic contexts and the properties they denote, as well as (ii) a universe populated with numerically distinct yet almost indiscernible objects.
Locke on Consciousness (I-M)
Uriah Kriegel, University of Arizona
Locke's theory of consciousness is often appropriated as a forerunner of present-day Higher-Order Perception (HOP) theories, but not much is said about it beyond that. I offer an interpretation of Locke's account of consciousness that portrays it as crucially different from current-day HOP theory, both in detail and in spirit. It is argued that there are good historical and philosophical reasons to attribute to Locke the view not that conscious states are accompanied by higher-order perceptions, but rather than conscious states constitute perceptions of themselves.
Can Minimalism about Truth be Meta-Ethically Neutral? (VII-K)
Charles B. Kurth, Arizona State University
Minimalists about truth _ for example, Paul Horwich
and Stephen Leeds _ concede that their theory may be inconsistent with
the details of certain meta-ethical accounts. However, they claim that
the meta-ethics can be revised so as to conform with minimalism. Moreover,
they insist that this can be done without compromising the distinctive
claims of the meta-ethical accounts in question. Minimalism, they assure,
can be meta-ethically neutral. But investigation reveals that a minimalist
about truth must also be a minimalist about reference. Furthermore,
in order for certain meta-ethical accounts _ specifically, the
cognitive naturalism of Richard Boyd or David Brink _ to make good on
their distinctive claims, they must adopt a non-minimal account of reference.
Assurances to the contrary, minimalism cannot be meta-ethically neutral.
It Takes Two to Tango: Reductionism and Non-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony (X-J)
Jennifer Lackey, Northern Illinois University
How precisely do we successfully acquire justified belief from either the spoken or written word of others? This question is at the center of the epistemology of testimony, and the current philosophical literature contains only two general options for answering it: reductionism and non-reductionism. While reductionists argue that testimonial justification is reducible to sense perception, memory, and inductive inference, non-reductionists maintain that testimony is just as basic epistemically as these other sources. My aim is to challenge the current terms of the debate, first by showing that there are serious problems afflicting both reductionism and non-reductionism and second, by suggesting an alternate, hybrid, view of testimonial justification.
Goldman on Knowledge as True Belief (IX-K)
Pierre G. Le Morvan, College of New Jersey
Alvin Goldman contends that, in addition to the familiar sense or use of the term `knowledge', according to which knowledge is at least true justified belief, there is a weaker yet strict sense or use of the term `knowledge', according to which knowledge amounts to nothing more than information-possession or mere true belief. I argue that Goldman has failed to show that there is such a weaker sense, and that, even if he had shown this, he has not shown that this putative weaker sense is a strict one by his own criterion for strictness.
Four Cartesian Theses about Sensory Ideas (IX-J)
Michael LeBuffe, Texas A&M University
Reason, one might naturally think, has a regulatory function over sensory ideas: where sensory ideas are misleading, as for example the sight of an oar in water leads us to think it bent, it is a function of reason to correct them. I find in Descartes four theses about sensory ideas, which I hope clarify his positions on how error arises from sensory ideas, the ways in which such error may be avoided, and the ways in which ideas of reason may help us to avoid error. Descartes, it turns out, does think that reason regulates sensory ideas, but his account of the way in which reason performs this function may be surprising. Most importantly, it is not, for Descartes, a further understanding of the object of the misleading sensory idea that helps to regulate the idea, but a further understanding of the sensory idea itself.
Spinoza's Proofs of the Existence of God (VII-O)
Martin T. Lin, University of Toronto
It is often thought that although Spinoza develops
a bold and distinctive conception of God (the unique substance, or Natura
Naturans, in which all else inheres and which possesses infinitely
many attributes, including extension), the arguments that he offers
which purport to prove God's existence contribute nothing new to natural
theology. Rather, he is seen as just another participant in
the seventeenth century revival of the ontological argument initiated
by Descartes and taken up by Malebranche and Leibniz, among others.
That this is the case is both puzzling and unfortunate. It is puzzling
because although Spinoza does offer an ontological proof for the existence
of God, he also offers three other non-ontological proofs. It is unfortunate
because these other non-ontological proofs are both more convincing
and more interesting than his ontological proof. I offer reconstructions
and assessments of all four of Spinoza's proofs.
Gassendi on Intellectual Indifference and Human Freedom (VII-O)
Antonia LoLordo, University of Virginia and Jack Davidson, Iowa State University
Almost all seventeenth-century philosophers held that humans are free _ but their accounts of human freedom differ dramatically. In contrast to Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, and Leibniz, who hold that all cognitive and volitional actions and events are determined, Gassendi believed that free actions cannot be determined. Gassendi also subscribed to intellectualism, the view we cannot at the same time both judge that x is better than y and choose y. This implies the will is fully determined by the intellect. Gassendi is also committed to the claim that judgments of the intellect are fully determined by the ideas or appearances present to the mind. These two claims together seem to imply a result that would be completely unacceptable to Gassendi, namely, that what we choose is fully determined by our ideas and perceptions. We explore Gassendi's solution to the above problem and his general account of human freedom.
Another Modern Myth: That Some Entities Possess Full Moral Status (VII-K)
Robert P. Lovering, American University
In the contemporary debate on moral status, many philosophers embrace the following basic moral principles: (1) The principle of limited proportionality: The degree to which an entity E possesses moral status is limitedly proportional to the degree to which E possesses morally relevant properties; and, (2) The principle of full moral status: Upon reaching a threshold degree of possession of morally relevant properties, the degree to which E possesses morally relevant properties may increase limitlessly, but the degree to which E possesses moral status remains the same. I argue that these principles should be rejected. Specifically, I argue that the principle of limited proportionality should be jettisoned in favor of its contrary, the principle of limitless proportionality. And since the principle of limited proportionality is a necessary condition for the principle of full moral status, I contend that this latter principle ought to be rejected as well.
A Conservative Modal Semantics with Applications to
De Re Necessities
(I-N)
Kirk Ludwig, University of Florida
I sketch a modal semantics that is ontologically and
epistemically conservative in two senses. First, it introduces no intensional
entities in the machinery required to give the recursive semantics.
Second, it exhibits truths about what is necessary and possible as conceptual
truths. The semantics accommodates both de dicto and de re modal claims,
including claims in which a quantifier taking wide
scope over a modal operator controls a variable inside its scope. Moreover,
it does this without commitment to Aristotelian essentialism.
Psychopathic Unreason and Morality (V-L)
Heidi L. Maibom, Carleton University
There is a fairly entrenched debate in moral philosophy concerning whether our moral judgements are the expression of emotions or reason. Rationalists maintain that when we judge that something is wrong, we do so based on reason. Sentimentalists, on the other hand, deny that reason plays an interesting role in moral judgements. Such judgements are expressions of emotions or sentiments. Someone who is bad is not irrational, but may be lacking in sympathy (cf. Hume, 1777/1975). Sentimentalists have never been very impressed with rationalist arguments and vice versa. To many it is not obvious that, say, is it irrational not to universalize your maxims (underlying intentions) or to treat others only as means to an end. And unless it can be shown that some general rational deficits affect moral reasoning, they are unlikely to be persuaded. Recently, the situation has gotten even worse, for some philosophers of a sentimentalist bend have argued that there is no evidence of any general rational deficit in a group of individuals that are prime examples of immoralists: psychopaths (e.g., Nichols, 2002a). They do have significant emotional deficits, however, including lack of empathy. This lends at least initial support to sentimentalism. In the absence of powerful arguments to the effect that being immoral really is irrational, rationalists should provide some reasons for us to think that psychopaths do indeed have rational defects of one sort or another. I defend rationalism against the threat of psychopathy. I argue that psychopaths have pervasive deficits in their practical reason, something that the experimental literature makes clear. These deficits are the sorts of deficits that impact the ability to make good decisions. They also filter into the ability to act morally. Consequently, the sorts of deficits that psychopaths suffer from are rational and affect morality. I do not show that being immoral is irrational, but that having irrational shortcomings poses problems for moral reason and action. The benefit of this treatment is that it allows us to put more flesh on the rationalists' claim that being immoral is irrational.
Origins of Otherness: A Juxtaposition of Simone de Beauvoir and Emmanuel Levinas (IX-I)
Jen McWeeny, University of Oregon
Both Simone de Beauvoir and Emmanuel Levinas describe
"the Other" as that which cannot be known propositionally
in its totality because what the Other is cannot be explained using
the theoretical, linguistic, and historical conceptions available to
one for its comprehension. A scrutiny of this characterization locates
the origins of the philosophical problematic of otherness in a collective
failure to remember that words, theories, and written histories are
mere representations of people and encounters between them. In light
of this origin, the ethical relation, in both lived encounters between
people and in the practice of philosophy, is dependent upon an intimate
awareness of the lack of correspondence between
a person and her or his expression. Both de Beauvoir and Levinas recognize
that although all expression inadequately represents a lived encounter,
some forms of expression, namely speech and literature, are better than
expressions that take the form of exhaustive theories.
Moral Realism and Reasons to Act (VII-K)
Chris D. Meyers, Southern Methodist University
Naturalist moral realism (NMR) implies reason-externalism, the view that moral facts or properties do not by themselves provide reasons to act. As I will show, reason-externalism is implausible because normativity (reason to act) is an essential part of moral concepts. Any theory about reasons to act cannot be merely a supplement to the moral theory, but must be part of the theory itself. Thus, for NMR to provide a complete moral theory it must provide reasons to act that are conceiving-independent, but such reasons would not escape Mackie's queerness objection.
The Policy-Based Approach to Identification (V-N)
Christian B. Miller, University of Notre Dame
In a number of recent papers, Michael Bratman has defended a policy-based theory of identification that represents the most sophisticated and compelling development of a broadly hierarchical approach to the problems about identification to which Harry Frankfurt drew our attention over thirty years ago. Elsewhere I have argued that hierarchical accounts cannot avoid well-known problems with higher-order regresses, and that, as a result, we should adopt a broadly valuational model in their place. Since Bratman motivates his own view with objections to value-based approaches, and since his positive proposal is both interesting and important in its own right, it is certainly worth considering the viability of his account in some detail.
Motive-Utilitarianism Revisited (VIII-L)
Eric Moore, Longwood University
Robert Adams's paper, "Motive Utilitarianism," has often been cited with admiration as an important contribution to the problems facing utilitarianism. I will show how easy it is to get trapped in a dilemma in the case of Jack in the cathedral. Next, I will propose a solution that takes seriously Adams's claims about the utility-augmenting power of motives. However, I will show that this solution does not provide support for the radical claims that Adams makes about how we should revise act-utilitarianism. Finally, I will argue that one of Adams's key responses to the dilemma about Jack is simply implausible, and so undermines his whole case.
The Epistemological Argument against Desert (II-I)
Jeffrey Moriarty, California State University-Long Beach
Despite its intuitive plausibility as a distributive
criterion, most contemporary political philosophers deny that justice
requires giving people what they deserve. Worries about the robustness
of human agency are an important source of anti-desert arguments. According
to a familiar one, the influence of genes and environment on people's
actions and traits undermines all desert-claims. According to
a less familiar _ but more plausible _ argument, the influence of
genes and environment on people's actions and traits undermines some
desert-claims (or all desert-claims to an extent). But, it says,
we do not know which ones (or to what extent). I examine this "epistemological"
argument against desert as it is found in the works of Henry Sidgwick
and John Rawls. After considering some preliminary problems with it,
I give reason to believe it fails. I emphasize the importance of justice
relative to efficiency and attempt to construct a practical way of measuring
desert.
Fichte and the Moral(s) of Moore's Paradox (VIII-M)
Dean F. Moyar, Johns Hopkins University
I connect recent discussions of Moore's Paradox to central claims of J. G. Fichte's idealism. In particular, I show that the normativity of self-consciousness that Fichte developed in terms of intellectual intuition is nearly identical to claims found in the work of Sydney Shoemaker and Richard Moran. By relating this contemporary work to Fichte's moral theory, I show that Fichte's claim that conscience is an infallible absolute criterion is defensible. While Shoemaker's self-intimation of belief thesis resembles Fichte's claim about conscience as an immediate second-order belief, it is Moran's reflections on first-person authority in agency that decisively illuminate Fichte's thesis. Infallible conscience is not the claim that whatever I decide to do is right, but rather that in reaching a practical conclusion I must be committed to, and willing to defend, the reasons that justify my action.
Conceiving Artificial Life: Merleau-Ponty and Computational
Models
(IX-I)
Christopher Nagel, California State University-Stanislaus
Usual interpretations of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology may lead us to doubt the relevance of artificial life as a project investigating life, on the grounds that a-life would be a reduction of lived experience to an abstract algorithm. On the contrary, the main line of a-life research is based on a theoretical and methodological rejection of reduction and algorithm. The hypothesis under investigation posits that life is found in persistent emergent patterns. This construal of life is in significant ways compatible with Merleau-Ponty's accounts in The Structure of Behavior and Phenomenology of Perception. In both discourses, life is an ambiguous term that remains an undefined background concept. In that case, paradoxically, as examinations of life these discourses cannot explain life at all.
Rationality, Moral Status, and Marginal Cases (VII-L)
Alastair J. Norcross, Rice University
I argue that any attempt to justify the claim that humans have a higher moral status than other animals by appealing to some version of rationality as the morally relevant difference between humans and animals will fail on at least two counts. It will fail to give an adequate answer to the argument from marginal cases, and, more importantly, it will fail to make the case that such a difference is morally relevant to the status of animals as moral patients as opposed to their status as moral agents.
True Lies: Robustness and Idealizations in Ecological
Explanations
(IV-K)
Jay Odenbaugh, Lewis & Clark College
It is a truism that models in theoretical ecology are highly idealized. These idealizations are inescapable given the complexity of ecological systems. Likewise, philosophers of science commonly assume that purported scientific explanations are genuine explanations only if true, or at least approximately true. If correct, most of the theoretical explanations ecologists offer are not genuine explanations. I argue that robustness analysis can help us avoid this conclusion using examples from the work of Henry Horn on modeling forest succession as a process. In one sense, false models can explain phenomena.
Some Good and Some Not so Good Arguments for Necessary Laws (III-F)
William Russell Payne, Independent Scholar
I consider a few arguments in favor of the view that properties have their causal powers essentially. This view, which I call property essentialism, entails that nomic relations between properties hold of necessity and hence that causal laws are necessarily true. I find support for property essentialism and its consequences in the undesirable modal consequences of the view that nomic relations hold between universals contingently. I then explain how property essentialism can accommodate our apparent intuition that causal laws are contingent. Finally I argue that the means by which property essentialism can accommodate this apparent intuition undermines another apparent avenue of support for property essentialism, its utility in addressing the problem of law for supporting counterfactuals.
Deflationism and Imperatives (IV-N)
Dean Pettit, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
A number of deflationists about truth have held the view that to say of a sentence or proposition that it is true is not to say something about that sentence or proposition, but is rather merely to say or express what the sentence or proposition says about the world. To say that `Snow is white' is true, for example, is just to say that snow is white. I refer to this thesis as transparency. What I argue is that transparency is false. Specifically, I argue that transparency fails to get right the reading of certain imperative sentences that embed occurrences of the truth predicate.
Valid Competing Moral Codes (IX-B)
Betsy C. Postow (University of Tennessee)
I call a moral code valid if it is sufficiently well
justified to make it worthy of being adopted by someone to guide her
behavior. What justifies a moral code is the fact that it is issued
by a moral theory that satisfies appropriate meta-level criteria for
the evaluation of moral theories. But, I argue, appropriate meta-level
criteria presumably confer validity on some competing moral codes. So
we will sometimes need to deal with people who accept a moral code that
we reasonably take to be valid despite its conflict with our own code.
I suggest a
way in which, without abandoning allegiance to our own moral code, we
can accord special consideration to a competing moral code that we take
to be valid. I argue that according special consideration to such codes
is rationally indicated.
Reciprocity Confronts Reasonable Disagreement: From Liberal to Democratic Legitimacy (IV-K)
David A. Reidy, University of Tennessee
In Political Liberalism and other later writings, Rawls undertook to retheorize the legitimacy of coercive political authority in a liberal democracy without violating the assumption that, under conditions of freedom, citizens will forever reasonably disagree over comprehensive moral, religious, and philosophical doctrines as well as many very important political issues. To do so without abandoning his commitment to the ideal of reciprocity, Rawls developed his liberal principle of legitimacy. I argue that this principle is wildly utopian because it presupposes of citizens a reasoned consensus immune to reasonable dissent far richer than we have any reason to expect of them. I then suggest how we might move from within Rawls's own thinking toward a more plausible democratic conception of legitimacy. To do so, however, we must leave behind Rawls's ideal of reciprocity understood as an ideal of reciprocity in judgment.
Categorically Denied: Kant's Criticism of Chinese Philosophy (II-J)
Gregory M. Reihman, Stanford University
Philosophers who bring Kant and Chinese philosophy together typically do so either in the hopes of illuminating one in the light of the other or with the intention of supplementing one with features of the other. I explore somewhat different terrain by discussing the grounds of Kant's own interpretation of Chinese thought. Although Kant's comments on this topic are so reliably negative that one may be tempted to conclude that they were shaped more by prejudice than by serious consideration, I show how his interpretation was actually guided by his unique ways of thinking about religion, metaphysics, and ethics. In this way, I demonstrate that his criticism is more carefully considered and internally consistent that it may initially appear to be.
Non-Transparent Meaning (VI-N)
Steven Rieber, Georgia State University
I develop a class of counterexamples to the claim that meanings are transparent, i.e., that a person must know whether two of her expressions have the same meaning. Purported cases of nontransparency usually involve true, meaning-preserving philosophical analyses which a speaker might fail to know. But that requires a correct, non-trivial analysis, and these are difficult to come by. I show that incorrect analyses more easily yield instances of non-transparency. These cases also show that concepts need not be transparent _ a person may not know whether two of her concepts are identical. Thus we are left with the puzzle of explaining why a person may be unable to tell how her meanings (or concepts) differ.
Why Dispositions are (Still) Distinct From their Bases and Causally Impotent (III-M)
Bradley Rives, University of Maryland
In his recent book, Dispositions, Stephen Mumford argues for the following two claims: (1) each disposition is token-identical with its categorical base; (2) dispositions are causally efficacious. (1) is a crucial component of Mumford's "neutral monism," according to which the categorical/dispositional distinction is merely semantic, and not ontological. I argue that (1) is implausible, for disposition tokens seem to have different modal properties than their categorical-base tokens. Familiar arguments against (2) rely on the claim that dispositions are "second-order" properties. I show that proponents of the causal impotence of dispositions need not burden themselves with this "second-order" construal of dispositions. For a metaphysically precise argument against (2) applies equally well to dispositions construed as "first-order" properties. I conclude by considering the implications of this argument for the existence of dispositional properties.
Expression in Music: Genuine Expression or Doggy Appearance? (X-I)
Jenefer Robinson, University of Cincinnati
Emotions are not states but processes that are constantly changing and developing. Music is preeminently well suited to expressing the way emotions change and develop over time by mirroring processes of emotional change and development in a musical persona. By contrast, Peter Kivy and Stephen Davies advance a "doggy theory" of musical expressiveness according to which music is expressive of emotions simply by mirroring expressive vocal and behavioral gestures. I argue that the doggy theory severely limits what music is able to express. In songs such as Brahms's "Immer leise," and in some "pure" instrumental pieces, there is a character or persona in the music who is expressing his/her emotions, not just putting on a doggy face, and how the music accomplishes this is by mirroring changes and developments in the character's emotional state over time.
Groove (Nonconceptual Content and Qualia) (IV-M)
Tiger C. Roholt, Columbia University
Common examples of qualia involve perceptions of colors;
examples of one type of nonconceptual content involve shades
of colors and colored walls (or carpets) in various lighting contexts.
Each line of thought can be construed as attempting to give an account
of perceptual quality. But what is the relation between an account
of a perceptual quality given in terms of qualia and one given in terms
of nonconceptual representational content? A fruitful example would
bring out the differences between these two kinds of perceptual quality
more effectively than the traditional examples; such an example is groove
in contemporary music. After criticizing cognitivist accounts of musical
nuances (those suggested by Daniel Dennett and Diana Raffman), I give
an account of groove in terms of nonconceptual representational content
(drawing from Merleau-Ponty, Christopher Peacocke, and Sean Kelly).
I conclude that this account does not deliver the feel (quale)
of a groove, which is the essential feature; however, the account does
provide the means for individuating the
quale of different grooves. This manner of specifying qualia is relevant
to other examples of qualia as well.
Why Natural Selection is Color Blind (IV-L)
Michael D. Root, University of Minnesota
Differences between blacks and whites in the incidence of a disease like sickle-cell anemia or hypertension, or differences in the metabolism of a drug are sometimes attributed to natural selection. On this view, at some point in human history, the races were subject to different selection pressures and, as a result, differ today in a genetic trait. Such explanations, I argue, rest on the mistaken belief that nature can discriminate between individuals based on their race; natural selection, I explain, is color blind, and, as a result, adaptive explanations of racial differences in genetic traits are mistaken. Only people like us can discriminate between blacks and whites, and as a result, were any genetic differences between the races adaptive, they would be due to what Darwin called artificial rather than natural selection.
Empirical Constraints on the Problem of Free Will (I-J)
Peter W. Ross, California State University-Pomona
With the development of cognitive science since the 1970s, philosophers look to science to revitalize long-standing disputes about metaphysics and the mind. In a recent case in point, philosophers and psychologists, including Robert Kane, Daniel C. Dennett, and Daniel M. Wegner, are exploring how science can provide useful constraints for the debate about the problem of free will. I will attempt to clarify the current discussion of the problem by broadly considering how empirical research is applicable. I will point out that while determinism is an empirical claim, it has become a red herring. Furthermore, I will argue that empirical findings do not apply to one basic dimension of the problem, namely the dispute between compatibilism and incompatibilism. However, I will show that empirical research can provide useful constraints in connection with another fundamental dimension, namely the dispute between libertarianism, which claims that indeterminacy is sufficient for freedom, and hard determinism and compatibilism, which deny this.
Scientifically Based Moral Realism: The Explanatory and Motivational Power of Weird Properties (VII-K)
William A. Rottschaefer, Lewis & Clark College
I support a scientifically based moral realism. Anti-realists argue that moral facts are explanatorily epiphenomenal, ontologically weird, and motivationally vacuous. I use empirical findings about moral internalization to show that moral facts are causally relevant to moral actions. I illustrate how moral explanations using moral facts have an explanatory structure similar to selection theories in biology and psychology. Finally, I use an empirically based theory of moral agency and of moral motivation to understand how moral facts are relevant to moral motivation.
Adaptive Cognition (III-M)
Patrick W. Rysiew, University of British Columbia
Does the fact that we are the product of natural selection somehow ensure that we are epistemically adept? As expressed by Dennett, the optimistic view is that "[n]atural selection guarantees that most of an organism's beliefs will be true, most of its strategies rational." Meanwhile, pessimists cite a variety of reasons, including empirical findings about humans' natural inference-making tendencies, for thinking that true belief and/or rationality are more or less irrelevant, from a selectional point of view. Here, examples of cognitive processes illustrating the distinction are used to argue that both sides in this dispute err in failing to distinguish between merely reliable cognitive processes _ those tending to produce more true beliefs than false _ and rational ones _ those the outputs of which are based on reasons, reasons that bear logical relations to the beliefs they support.
Tracking Versus Safety: Some Counterexamples (III-K)
Joe R. Salerno, Saint Louis University
I deal with what has been taken to be a solid counterexample to Nozick's tracking condition. Sosa, among others, purports that Nozick's theory of knowledge is committed to the implausible view that it is impossible to know that I am not mistaken in believing p. The suggestion is that Sosa's safety condition is a better candidate for an externalist account of warrant. I disagree for two reasons. First, I argue that it is possible to track the truth of the claim that I am not mistaken in believing p. And second, there is a unique kind of counterexample that threatens both Nozick's tracking condition and Sosa's safety condition. It involves cases of intentional Gettierization.
Why Socrates Mocks His Interlocutors (VII-M)
Daniel R. Sanderman, Lewis & Clark College
Despite the fact that examples of Socrates mocking his interlocutors can be found often in Plato's dialogues, most recent scholarship on Socratic irony has been focused upon defining what sort of irony Socrates is using. The questions of why Socrates would choose mocking irony over rational argumentation and how Socrates believes mocking his interlocutors benefits them are briefly considered in these works, but no in-depth examination exists. I examine and answer both of these questions by questioning the widely accepted view of Socrates's moral psychology and move in the direction of a new understanding, recently put forth by Brickhouse and Smith, that is based upon the recognition of nonrational human motivators.
Disjunctive Causes (IX-L)
Ana Carolina Sartorio, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Most people believe that, at least barring exceptional cases involving absences or symmetric overdetermination, causes cannot be disjunctive. I argue against this assumption: I argue that there are good reasons to believe that disjunctive conditions can be causes in perfectly ordinary circumstances.
Knowing Which Questions to Beg (X-J)
Sarah Sawyer, University of Kansas
Michael McKinsey has argued that psychological externalism is incompatible with privileged access to thought content. The form of McKinsey's argument can be represented as follows, where `SKAP [p]' is understood as `that p is knowable a priori by S'.
(1) SKAP [S thinks that p]
(2) SKAP [If S thinks that p then S meets external condition E]
Therefore (3) SKAP [S meets external condition E]
(1) is entailed by the privileged access thesis; (2) is entailed by psychological externalism; but (3) is prima facie absurd. My aim is twofold. First, I will discuss an intriguing response to the McKinsey paradox offered by Martin Davies and Crispin Wright, and show that it fails. I argue that they mistake an a priori warrant for a warrant sufficient to defeat the skeptic. Second, I will offer a brief sketch of my own solution.
Liberalism's Bind (IV-K)
Steven P. Scalet, Binghamton University
Liberalism is often distinguished by a "freestanding" method of justification. The idea is to justify liberal principles without relying on or assessing religious and philosophical differences that divide reasonable people. Some traditions and persons, however, will reject this method of justification. What type of intellectual engagement do freestanding liberals owe those who reject these terms?
The hope is to find a basis for living together by restricting the grounds for defending claims about justice. But restricting these grounds also limits what can be said to those who reject this method of justification and the resulting liberal theory. This limitation introduces a problem that I will call "the bind of freestanding liberalism" or, in short, "liberalism's bind". Adopt a freestanding method of political justification; disrespect those who reject this method of political justification. That is liberalism's bind. I examine this problem. I then describe a solution.
Locke and Intellectual Property Rights (II-K)
Michael J. Scanlan, Oregon State University
I consider certain features of Locke's account in Chapter V of his Second Treatise concerning how a natural right of ownership can arise in previously unowned goods. We note that some take this theory to be still applicable in our own day in situations of original acquisition of ownership in intellectual property. I explain how a quasi-Lockean theory could support a very limited natural right to a species of intellectual property. But it also notes that this theory by itself is not strong enough to support a natural right in an intellectual property of the sort given by copyright. Such property rights must be provided as a result of positive law.
Contrastive Causation (IX-L)
Jonathan M. Schaffer, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Causation is widely assumed to be a binary relation: c causes e. I argue that causation is a quaternary, contrastive relation: c rather than C* causes e rather than E*, where C* and E* are nonempty sets of contrast events. Or at least, I argue that treating causation as contrastive helps resolve some paradoxes, such as whether absences are causal, and whether events are fragile.
The Integrity of Assertion in Being and Time (IX-H)
Joseph K. Schear, University of Chicago
Hubert Dreyfus and David Cerbone claim that Heidegger's account of assertion (Aussage) in Being and Time is in fact an account of two distinct notions of assertion that must be sharply distinguished. Heidegger simply confused matters by calling them both `assertion'. After showing that the textual evidence proposed for this interpretive claim is seriously flawed, the author challenges the main argument offered in support of the claim _ the argument from context-dependence _ by subjecting it to phenomenological critique. A positive proposal emerges out of the critique. The integrity of assertion in Heidegger's account, far from inviting some kind of artificial bifurcation, is the key to unlocking one of Heidegger's central contributions to the theory of assertion, that the truth of an assertion consists in its letting an entity show up just as it is.
Moods, Emotions, and Morality (IX-H)
Michael Schleifer, Université du Québec à Montréal
In her book Upheavals of Thought, Martha Nussbaum offers a conceptual distinction between moods and emotions. I argue that she underestimates the importance of moods, their relation to emotions, and their relevance for the moral life. I try to show how moods are both conceptually and causally tied to emotions. Nussbaum maintains that her analysis is valid, insofar as it is faithful to the "phenomena." I accept her criterion, which I believe is in keeping with the Aristotelian perspective which we share. In several areas of our lived experience, however, her analysis fails by this very criterion. One of these is the field of psychopathology, particularly the condition of clinical depression. I also point out that she has neglected the importance of one facet of the affective life, namely "temperament." In a similar fashion, she undervalues the role of temperament's close cousin, namely "mood."
Nietzsche, Naturalism, and Modern Self-Making (VIII-M)
David L. Sherman, University of Montana-Missoula
In recent years, there has been an increasing tendency
to see Nietzsche, first and foremost, as a "naturalist." If
those touting this line were only contending that Nietzsche rejects
all metaphysical explanations of phenomena, religious or otherwise,
they would no doubt be correct, but trivially so. These commentators
go well beyond this contention, however, for they privilege the scientific
perspective over all others, and consequently run afoul of Nietzsche's
perspectivism. Nowhere is this transgression more evident than in their
claim
that Nietzsche's naturalism is incompatible with any meaningful notion
of self-creation. In response, I contend that Nietzsche's commitment
to self-creation falls squarely within the modern problematic, which
privileges the notion of genuine self-determination, and that the clue
for reconciling his naturalism with his commitment to self-creation
can be discovered in Kant's critical philosophy. Kant's refusal to surrender
the phenomenological perspective of freedom and responsibility to the
Newtonian physics that the First Critique ostensibly makes good
is a harbinger of Nietzsche's commitment to both naturalism and a meaningful
notion of self-creation, which, in turn, finds its fuller expression
in Sartre's phenomenology.
Shoemaker on Emergence (II-N)
Warren E. Shrader, University of Notre Dame
There are myriad characterizations of emergence present in the literature, but I restrict my attention to a view I call Minimal Ontological Emergence (MOE). I provide what I take to be the three necessary conditions on MOE and then embark upon a discussion and analysis of Sydney Shoemaker's recent well-developed account of MOE, one that entails the dependence between emergent properties and physical properties is one of "mere supervenience". Shoemaker's account is unique and intriguing in that it characterizes emergent properties as a special type of microstructural property. However, I argue that given Shoemaker's understanding of microstructural properties, his account fails to satisfy the minimum necessary conditions on MOE. I suggest a revision to Shoemaker's description of emergent properties that results in a more satisfactory theory, and conclude by gesturing toward an account of MOE incorporating this revised understanding of an emergent microstructural property, one that entails the dependence relation holding between emergent properties and physical properties is causal dependence.
How Does Phenomenology Constrain Object-Seeing? (IV-J)
Susanna C. Siegel, Harvard University
It is hardly controversial that seeing has a visual phenomenology. What is more controversial is its role in seeing ordinary objects, such as people, fish, and bananas. Some philosophers hold that it does not matter for object-seeing what sort of visual phenomenology would change with changes in the object seen. A pure counterfactual analysis, they say, can reveal the nature of the object-seeing relation. I will argue that visual phenomenology plays a role in object-seeing that is often overlooked. Though I will not offer a complete account of what makes a visual experience connect to a particular object, I hope to make some progress on this front by defending an account of how phenomenology constrains object-seeing.
The Divided Line and United Psychê in Plato's Republic (VII-L)
May Sim, Oklahoma State University
Plato presents us with a tripartite soul in Republic
IV. The desiring part (to epithumêtikon), the high-spirited
part (to thumoeides) and the reasoning part (to logistikon)
are proven by the principle of non-contradiction to be three distinct
faculties that allow us to long for bodily pleasures, to be passionate
or courageous, and to use reason, respectively. However, Plato also
presents the
simile of the line with its four affections (pathêmata)
corresponding to four types of objects in Book VI. These are, noêsis
(understanding), dianoia (thought), pistis (belief or
trust) and eikasia (image-thinking), corresponding to the forms,
mathematicals, visible things and images like reflections and shadows,
respectively. How these four affections fit in with the three parts
of the soul is left unclear. I propose an interpretation of the divided
line that not only clarifies the relation between the four affections,
but also illuminates the tripartition and unifies the two accounts of
the soul.
Responsibility and the Failure of the Counterexample Strategy (VII-P)
Daniel Speak, Azusa Pacific University
Harry Frankfurt's counterexample argument against PAP has done much to inspire confidence in compatibilist intuitions regarding determinism and moral responsibility. This confidence is not, I believe, properly supported by Frankfurt-style argumentation. Even if suitably nuanced examples can be constructed that both preserve dialectical propriety and genuinely eliminate the ability to do otherwise, such examples cannot save moral responsibility from the threat of causal determinism. This is because the principle that underlies our intuitions in Frankfurt-type cases cannot safely be extended to the context of determinism. Contrary to initial appearances, then, the counterexample strategy does not advance the compatibilist project.
Dancy's Particularism and the Point of Moral Principles (IX-B)
Rebecca Stangl, University of Notre Dame
According to Jonathan Dancy, there are no substantive moral principles. Instead, what are typically called `moral principles' should be understood as heuristic devices that direct us toward features of a situation that can be morally relevant. This heuristic understanding of moral principles, Dancy argues, solves two outstanding puzzles in moral epistemology. It explains both the usefulness of imaginary cases in moral reasoning and the way in which particular cases can serve as tests of moral principles. I argue, pace Dancy, that his account of moral principles as `heuristic' rather than substantive neither solves these questions in moral epistemology nor accurately accounts for the role such principles play in reaching and justifying particular moral judgments.
Two Kantian Conceptions of Aesthetic Experience (X-I)
Robert A. Stecker, Central Michigan University
I will identify two different conceptions of aesthetic experience that can be derived from Kant's Critique of Judgment, one of the most influential works on the topic. We will see that neither provides an adequate conception, but for different reasons. The view most commonly associated with Kant, among other problems, is just not extensionally adequate. A view that might be truer to the Third Critique is extensionally adequate but fails to give coherent account of why this extension should be classified under a single concept.
Acting From Duty and Self-Interest (V-K)
Steven Sverdlik, Southern Methodist University
I examine two of the principal arguments for the Kantian thesis that only obligatory actions motivated only by the sense of duty have moral worth. Both have a clear gap in them. They assume that agents with impure motivation must deny that a moral obligation is a sufficient reason to act. But Kantianism itself insists on a principle that guarantees that an obligation is a sufficient reason to act _ a principle I call the Conditionality of Non-Moral Goods (CNMG). Therefore, any agent who accepts CNMG will not pose the risk of moral wrongdoing that is the concern of the two arguments. I use CNMG to formulate a revised Kantian principle on moral worth that does not insist on pure moral motivation.
Problems with Galston's Pluralist Liberalism (IV-K)
Robert B. Talisse, Vanderbilt University
In Liberal Pluralism, William Galston attempts to revive the Berlinian project of deriving liberal political commitments from value pluralist premises. In this way, Galston, like Berlin, offers a "comprehensive" liberal theory. The author shows that Galston's arguments fail for reasons similar to those that plagued Berlin's. The conclusion is that value pluralists cannot be comprehensive liberals and vice versa.
Conventionalism about Promise Keeping (V-K)
Sergio Tenenbaum, University of Toronto
To what extent, if at all, does the duty to keep promises rely on the existence of social practices or conventions? Can the moral obligation to keep promises be explained without relying on the existence of such practices and conventions? Could the same obligation be generated without the practice of promising? I will call "conventionalism" any view that endorses a negative answer to the two last questions. I will argue for a compromise position. My claim is that Scanlon is correct that the ground of obligation involved in making a promise is no different than other obligations. However, I argue that one cannot undertake an obligation with the same content as the obligation to keep a promise without the existence of a social practice or convention.
How's it Going?: Judgments of Overall Life-Satisfaction and Philosophical Theories of Well-Being (VIII-K)
Valerie Tiberius, University of Minnesota
Empirical psychology tells us that people's assessments of how their lives are going overall vary with context. I argue that the context relativity of these assessments raises a problem for philosophical theories that assume that overall life-satisfaction is part of well being. If such theories are supposed to answer to our practical concerns, then they need to make sense of comparisons of levels of well being. But if our subjective assessments of how life is going overall vary with context in the way they seem to do, then it is unclear which assessment we ought to pay attention to in making comparisons. I argue that in order to solve this problem we must constrain the kinds of overall assessments that are relevant to well being. The position defended is that assessments made from an appropriately reflective perspective are the ones to be taken seriously in our thinking about well being.
Aristotle on Nature and Natural Motion (VI-H)
Richard Tierney, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
In the Physics Aristotle def