Proceedings And Addresses
January, 2006 (Volume 79, Issue 3)
Abstracts of Symposium Papers
The Meaning and Meaningfulness of Terrorism (II-G)
Mohammed Abed, University of Wisconsin–Madison
This paper sets out criteria of adequacy for a definition of terrorism. I argue that accounts of the meaning of terrorism that smuggle intrinsic wrongness into the concept itself and definitions that rule out the intentions and motives behind “paradigm acts” of terrorism do not meet these criteria and are therefore conceptually inadequate. The former obstructs further philosophical enquiry into the ethical status of terrorism while the latter fails to distinguish terrorism from other forms of political violence. I then present a definition of terrorism that meets this set of criteria. On my view, the concept of terrorism can be defined in terms of the means employed by terrorists, the “logic” of the act, its meaningfulness, and the ultimate objectives that terrorists have in mind. In particular, I show that as well as subsuming “paradigm” instances, the definition encompasses cases of terrorism not widely recognized as such and therefore undercuts the claim that the concept of terrorism is not amenable to definition.
Quasi-Independence, Fitness, and Advantageousness (VIII-I)
Kevin Brosnan, University of Wisconsin
I argue that the idea of “quasi-independence” (Lewontin 1978) cannot be understood without attending to the distinction between fitness and advantageousness ones. A positive correlation between an advantageous trait and a disadvantageous one may, or may not, prevent the advantageous trait from evolving. The quasi-independence criterion is aimed at specifying the conditions under which advantageous traits will evolve under natural selection. Contrary to what others have argued (Sterelny (1992) and Sterelny and Griffiths (1999)), these conditions must involve a precise quantitative measure of, a) the extent to which advantageous traits are beneficial, and b) the degree to which they are correlated. Driscoll (2004) recognizes the need for such a measure, but I argue that she does not provide the correct formulation. The account of quasi-independence that I offer clarifies this point, and in addition, illuminates the ways this concepts has been misused; e.g., in arguments seeking to replace sociobiology with evolutionary psychology (Sterelny and Griffiths 1999), and in arguments advanced by many evolutionary psychologists supporting a modular view of the mind (Tooby and Cosmides 1992).
Respect for Persons and the Doctrine of Religious Restraint (VIII-J)
Chris Eberle, Independent Scholar
The Doctrine of Religious Restraint is the claim that a citizen in a liberal democracy should not support a policy for which she has only a religious rationale even if she properly regards that rationale as probative and, indeed, even if that rationale is probative. The most prominent argument for the Doctrine of Religious Restraint appeals to the claim that we ought to treat each person as having equal moral standing: citizens ought to obey the Doctrine of Religious Restraint because doing so is required in order for citizens to respect one another as persons who have equal moral standing. But I argue that that argument is not sound: there is no sense in which a citizen who supports a public policy solely on religious grounds thereby disrespects her compatriots.
Sacred Mountains and Beloved Fetuses: Can Loving or Worshipping Something Give It Moral Status? (XI-L)
Elizabeth Harman, New York University
Suppose an indigenous tribe worships a mountain and believes that hiking harms the mountain. Some hikers want to hike on the mountain, but they could have a somewhat less enjoyable hike elsewhere. The tribe’s worship provides some reason against hiking on the mountain, even if the tribe will never find out about the hiking. We might explain the reason by saying that the mountain actually comes to have moral status by being worshipped by the tribe. Indeed, given the reasons we have to be respectful in our treatment of objects that others consider sacred, we might think that worshipping or caring deeply about something gives it moral status. (Mary Anne Warren has such a view.) I argue that this initially attractive claim has unacceptable implications. In particular, it implies that anti-abortion protesters can endow moral status upon the fetus of a pregnant woman who is planning to abort.
The Reductivist’s Troubles with Mental Causation (II-F)
Eric Hiddleston, Wayne State University
I present a “problem of mental causation,” and argue that the “Reductive Materialism” of Jaegwon Kim and David Lewis has no good solution to it. Kim and Lewis must either deny special science explanations generally, or deny a plausible premise I call “Explanatory Realism” (roughly, that good explanations cite causes). I argue that the “Nonreductive” Materialist has an adequate solution.
Emergence: a Response to Kim (XI-K)
Brannon McDaniel, University of Virginia
In his recent book, Physicalism, Or Something Near Enough (Princeton, 2005), Jaegwon Kim sets out a strengthened version of his “supervenience” argument, in which he claims that several varieties of nonreductive physicalism are committed to mental properties “downwardly” causing physical properties. Causation of this sort is thought to be problematic, since no framework yet supplied has succeeded in explaining how mental properties can maintain their causal efficacy; the work claimed for mental properties can seemingly be assigned to physical properties. I provide an account centered on the familiar notion of emergence, and the position that is developed fits squarely within Kim’s family of nonreductive physicalist views. I specifically argue for the following conclusions: emergence occurs only at a given level of ontological complexity; mentality should be construed as the exemplification of a causally-efficacious universal by a particular entity. An unproblematic account of downward causation is motivated, explained, and shown to be compatible with Kim’s requirements, while avoiding the supposed difficulties inherent in such a position.
The Chickenhawk Argument (XI-J)
Cheyney Ryan, University of Oregon
The chickenhawk charge is a recurring feature of the political landscape but it is far from clear what its argument is. Some say there is no argument, that the charge is only a form of illogical ad hominem invective. This essay argues that, properly construed, the issues raised by the chickenhawk charge are perfectly valid ones that raise the fundamental concerns about the place of personal responsibility with respect to war in a democracy.
From Nihilism to Monism (V-K)
Jonathan M. Schaffer, University of Massachusetts–Amherst
Mereological nihilism is the view that everything is simple. Extant discussions of nihilism assume that such simples will be many and small—some plurality of point particles or other wee bits of matter. Existence monism is the view that only the world exists. Such monism is a version of nihilism, since it entails that all that exists is one big simple—a partless, seamless One. I will argue that nihilism culminates in monism. The main argument for nihilism is that it provides the simplest sufficient ontology, and monism provides the simplest of sufficient ontologies. What will emerge is a story about how commonsense is divided. On the one hand, commonsense ontology embraces mereological composites. On the other hand, commonsense methodology demands the simplest sufficient ontology. This is the story about what commonsense is divided between—on the one hand folk mereology, and on the other, not the Democritean idea of atoms in the void, but rather the Parmenidean vision of a seamless One.
The Fundamental Limits of Reason in Descartes’s Moral Thought (XI-I)
Gary Steiner, Bucknell University
The importance of morality in Descartes’s thought has been all but overlooked in contemporary English-language scholarship on Descartes. The central importance of morality in Descartes’s thought is reflected by the influence of Christian thinkers such as Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas on Descartes’s conception of the human being. The foundations of morality in Descartes’s thought are Christian commitments that Descartes shares with these thinkers. This foundational dimension of Descartes’s thought is often overlooked because Descartes’s strong emphasis on technological thinking and his program to use physics to render human beings “the masters and possessors of nature have led many commentators to see him as a purely secular thinker. But even Descartes’s ideal for the mastery of nature is ultimately grounded in Christian thought, although it comes into conflict with traditional Christian ideals. Descartes’s commitment to Christian piety and his commitment to the autonomy of human reason stand in an irreconcilable tension with one another. This tension is between an “angelic” Christian commitment to live in accordance with God’s dictates, and an “earthly” or technological ideal reflected in Descartes’s endeavor to use autonomous human reason to ground scientific practice. Descartes’s “angelic” commitments are reflected in his acknowledgment that articles of faith like the Trinity cannot be demonstrated by rational insight, and in his ideal of generosity, which he describes in unmistakably Christian terms. Descartes’s technological orientation is evident in his repeated attempts to argue for the self-sufficiency of reason and his reduction of nature to an object of manipulation and domination in the service of human material welfare. Descartes never resolves the tension in his thought between angelic and earthly aspirations. Rethinking Descartes’s own ambivalence about morality promises to shed light on the respective roles that reason and faith can play in contemporary moral reflection.
Evolution and the Schizophrenia of Quasi-realism about Normativity (V-J)
Sharon Street, New York University
When quasi-realists put on their hats as metaethical theorists, they say that to make a normative claim is to express a certain state of mind (such as planning). Yet when they put on their hats as participants in normative discourse, they say that normative truths hold independently of these same states of mind. While holding both positions simultaneously might seem to embody an unacceptable schizophrenia, quasi-realists have forcefully argued that there is no inconsistency whatsoever involved in holding both positions. For many of us, however, the impression of an untenable schizophrenia is hard to shake. In this paper, I argue that this lingering impression is right, and that it is Darwinian considerations which enable us to see this. I argue that we cannot prevent our naturalistic understanding of the Darwinian origins of our normative capacities from interacting and ultimately conflicting with the view that there are independent normative truths—even if we understand this latter claim in the exact manner directed by quasi-realists. For expository purposes, I focus mostly on Allan Gibbard’s quasi-realist position as presented in Thinking How to Live, but I believe the conclusions I reach are of broader significance, applying across the board to quasi-realist views on normativity.
Source Incompatibilism and Its Alternatives (V-I)
Kevin L. Timpe, University of California–San Diego
In current debates about moral responsibility, it is commonplace to differentiate two fundamentally different incompatibilist positions: Leeway Incompatibilism and Source Incompatibilism. In the present paper, I argue that his is a bad dichotomy. Those forms of Leeway Incompatibilism that have no appeal to “origination” or “ultimacy” are problematic, which suggests that incompatibilists should prefer Source Incompatibilism. I then differentiate two sub-classifications of Source Incompatibilism. Narrow Source Incompatibilism holds that alternative possibilities are outside the scope of what is required for moral responsibility. Wide Source Incompatibilism maintains that while ultimacy is most fundamental to moral responsibility, an agent meeting the ultimacy condition will also have alternative possibilities, thereby also satisfying an alternative possibilities condition. I give reasons to think that aversion of Wide Source Incompatibilism is the most promising incompatibilist position.
Defending a Possibilist Insight in Consequentialist Thought (XI-H)
Jean-Paul Vessel, New Mexico State University
There is a heated dispute among consequentialists concerning the following deontic principle:
DC: O(a & b) g O(a) & O(b)
The principle states that for any acts a and b, if it is obligatory for a specific agent to do the compound act a & b, then that agent is obligated to do a and is also obligated to do b—the deontic operators distribute over conjunction. Possibilists—those who believe that we should always pursue a “best” possible course of action available to us—accept the principle as true. Actualists—those who believe that certain future facts about the actual world can generate obligations incompatible with the best possible course of action available to us—reject the principle as false. I’m out to defend DC from the actualist attack. In this essay, I briefly present the central actualist argument against DC. I then show that possibilism has all of the resources to explain the phenomena with which actualists are so concerned. Next, I try to diagnose the actualists’ malcontent. Finally, I attempt to shed some light on the nature of consequentialist conditionals by incorporating possibilist insights into semantics for subjunctive conditionals appropriate for consequentialist theorizing.
New Foundations for Imperative Logic I: Logical Connectives (XI-G)
Peter B. M. Vranas, Iowa State University
Imperatives cannot be true or false, so they are shunned by logicians. And yet imperatives can be combined by logical connectives. “Kiss me and hug me’’ is the conjunction of “kiss me’’ with “hug me.” This example may suggest that declarative and imperative logic are isomorphic: just as the conjunction of two declaratives is true exactly if both conjuncts are true, the conjunction of two imperatives is satisfied exactly if both conjuncts are satisfied--what more is there to say? Much more, I argue. “If you love me, kiss me” a conditional imperative, mixes a declarative antecedent (“you love me’’) with an imperative consequent (“kiss me’’). It is satisfied if you love and kiss me, violated (if you love but don’t kiss me), and avoided if you don’t love me. So we need a logic of three-valued imperatives which mixes declaratives with imperatives. I develop such a logic.
Mohammed Abed, University of Wisconsin–Madison
This paper sets out criteria of adequacy for a definition of terrorism. I argue that accounts of the meaning of terrorism that smuggle intrinsic wrongness into the concept itself and definitions that rule out the intentions and motives behind “paradigm acts” of terrorism do not meet these criteria and are therefore conceptually inadequate. The former obstructs further philosophical enquiry into the ethical status of terrorism while the latter fails to distinguish terrorism from other forms of political violence. I then present a definition of terrorism that meets this set of criteria. On my view, the concept of terrorism can be defined in terms of the means employed by terrorists, the “logic” of the act, its meaningfulness, and the ultimate objectives that terrorists have in mind. In particular, I show that as well as subsuming “paradigm” instances, the definition encompasses cases of terrorism not widely recognized as such and therefore undercuts the claim that the concept of terrorism is not amenable to definition.
Quasi-Independence, Fitness, and Advantageousness (VIII-I)
Kevin Brosnan, University of Wisconsin
I argue that the idea of “quasi-independence” (Lewontin 1978) cannot be understood without attending to the distinction between fitness and advantageousness ones. A positive correlation between an advantageous trait and a disadvantageous one may, or may not, prevent the advantageous trait from evolving. The quasi-independence criterion is aimed at specifying the conditions under which advantageous traits will evolve under natural selection. Contrary to what others have argued (Sterelny (1992) and Sterelny and Griffiths (1999)), these conditions must involve a precise quantitative measure of, a) the extent to which advantageous traits are beneficial, and b) the degree to which they are correlated. Driscoll (2004) recognizes the need for such a measure, but I argue that she does not provide the correct formulation. The account of quasi-independence that I offer clarifies this point, and in addition, illuminates the ways this concepts has been misused; e.g., in arguments seeking to replace sociobiology with evolutionary psychology (Sterelny and Griffiths 1999), and in arguments advanced by many evolutionary psychologists supporting a modular view of the mind (Tooby and Cosmides 1992).
Respect for Persons and the Doctrine of Religious Restraint (VIII-J)
Chris Eberle, Independent Scholar
The Doctrine of Religious Restraint is the claim that a citizen in a liberal democracy should not support a policy for which she has only a religious rationale even if she properly regards that rationale as probative and, indeed, even if that rationale is probative. The most prominent argument for the Doctrine of Religious Restraint appeals to the claim that we ought to treat each person as having equal moral standing: citizens ought to obey the Doctrine of Religious Restraint because doing so is required in order for citizens to respect one another as persons who have equal moral standing. But I argue that that argument is not sound: there is no sense in which a citizen who supports a public policy solely on religious grounds thereby disrespects her compatriots.
Sacred Mountains and Beloved Fetuses: Can Loving or Worshipping Something Give It Moral Status? (XI-L)
Elizabeth Harman, New York University
Suppose an indigenous tribe worships a mountain and believes that hiking harms the mountain. Some hikers want to hike on the mountain, but they could have a somewhat less enjoyable hike elsewhere. The tribe’s worship provides some reason against hiking on the mountain, even if the tribe will never find out about the hiking. We might explain the reason by saying that the mountain actually comes to have moral status by being worshipped by the tribe. Indeed, given the reasons we have to be respectful in our treatment of objects that others consider sacred, we might think that worshipping or caring deeply about something gives it moral status. (Mary Anne Warren has such a view.) I argue that this initially attractive claim has unacceptable implications. In particular, it implies that anti-abortion protesters can endow moral status upon the fetus of a pregnant woman who is planning to abort.
The Reductivist’s Troubles with Mental Causation (II-F)
Eric Hiddleston, Wayne State University
I present a “problem of mental causation,” and argue that the “Reductive Materialism” of Jaegwon Kim and David Lewis has no good solution to it. Kim and Lewis must either deny special science explanations generally, or deny a plausible premise I call “Explanatory Realism” (roughly, that good explanations cite causes). I argue that the “Nonreductive” Materialist has an adequate solution.
Emergence: a Response to Kim (XI-K)
Brannon McDaniel, University of Virginia
In his recent book, Physicalism, Or Something Near Enough (Princeton, 2005), Jaegwon Kim sets out a strengthened version of his “supervenience” argument, in which he claims that several varieties of nonreductive physicalism are committed to mental properties “downwardly” causing physical properties. Causation of this sort is thought to be problematic, since no framework yet supplied has succeeded in explaining how mental properties can maintain their causal efficacy; the work claimed for mental properties can seemingly be assigned to physical properties. I provide an account centered on the familiar notion of emergence, and the position that is developed fits squarely within Kim’s family of nonreductive physicalist views. I specifically argue for the following conclusions: emergence occurs only at a given level of ontological complexity; mentality should be construed as the exemplification of a causally-efficacious universal by a particular entity. An unproblematic account of downward causation is motivated, explained, and shown to be compatible with Kim’s requirements, while avoiding the supposed difficulties inherent in such a position.
The Chickenhawk Argument (XI-J)
Cheyney Ryan, University of Oregon
The chickenhawk charge is a recurring feature of the political landscape but it is far from clear what its argument is. Some say there is no argument, that the charge is only a form of illogical ad hominem invective. This essay argues that, properly construed, the issues raised by the chickenhawk charge are perfectly valid ones that raise the fundamental concerns about the place of personal responsibility with respect to war in a democracy.
From Nihilism to Monism (V-K)
Jonathan M. Schaffer, University of Massachusetts–Amherst
Mereological nihilism is the view that everything is simple. Extant discussions of nihilism assume that such simples will be many and small—some plurality of point particles or other wee bits of matter. Existence monism is the view that only the world exists. Such monism is a version of nihilism, since it entails that all that exists is one big simple—a partless, seamless One. I will argue that nihilism culminates in monism. The main argument for nihilism is that it provides the simplest sufficient ontology, and monism provides the simplest of sufficient ontologies. What will emerge is a story about how commonsense is divided. On the one hand, commonsense ontology embraces mereological composites. On the other hand, commonsense methodology demands the simplest sufficient ontology. This is the story about what commonsense is divided between—on the one hand folk mereology, and on the other, not the Democritean idea of atoms in the void, but rather the Parmenidean vision of a seamless One.
The Fundamental Limits of Reason in Descartes’s Moral Thought (XI-I)
Gary Steiner, Bucknell University
The importance of morality in Descartes’s thought has been all but overlooked in contemporary English-language scholarship on Descartes. The central importance of morality in Descartes’s thought is reflected by the influence of Christian thinkers such as Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas on Descartes’s conception of the human being. The foundations of morality in Descartes’s thought are Christian commitments that Descartes shares with these thinkers. This foundational dimension of Descartes’s thought is often overlooked because Descartes’s strong emphasis on technological thinking and his program to use physics to render human beings “the masters and possessors of nature have led many commentators to see him as a purely secular thinker. But even Descartes’s ideal for the mastery of nature is ultimately grounded in Christian thought, although it comes into conflict with traditional Christian ideals. Descartes’s commitment to Christian piety and his commitment to the autonomy of human reason stand in an irreconcilable tension with one another. This tension is between an “angelic” Christian commitment to live in accordance with God’s dictates, and an “earthly” or technological ideal reflected in Descartes’s endeavor to use autonomous human reason to ground scientific practice. Descartes’s “angelic” commitments are reflected in his acknowledgment that articles of faith like the Trinity cannot be demonstrated by rational insight, and in his ideal of generosity, which he describes in unmistakably Christian terms. Descartes’s technological orientation is evident in his repeated attempts to argue for the self-sufficiency of reason and his reduction of nature to an object of manipulation and domination in the service of human material welfare. Descartes never resolves the tension in his thought between angelic and earthly aspirations. Rethinking Descartes’s own ambivalence about morality promises to shed light on the respective roles that reason and faith can play in contemporary moral reflection.
Evolution and the Schizophrenia of Quasi-realism about Normativity (V-J)
Sharon Street, New York University
When quasi-realists put on their hats as metaethical theorists, they say that to make a normative claim is to express a certain state of mind (such as planning). Yet when they put on their hats as participants in normative discourse, they say that normative truths hold independently of these same states of mind. While holding both positions simultaneously might seem to embody an unacceptable schizophrenia, quasi-realists have forcefully argued that there is no inconsistency whatsoever involved in holding both positions. For many of us, however, the impression of an untenable schizophrenia is hard to shake. In this paper, I argue that this lingering impression is right, and that it is Darwinian considerations which enable us to see this. I argue that we cannot prevent our naturalistic understanding of the Darwinian origins of our normative capacities from interacting and ultimately conflicting with the view that there are independent normative truths—even if we understand this latter claim in the exact manner directed by quasi-realists. For expository purposes, I focus mostly on Allan Gibbard’s quasi-realist position as presented in Thinking How to Live, but I believe the conclusions I reach are of broader significance, applying across the board to quasi-realist views on normativity.
Source Incompatibilism and Its Alternatives (V-I)
Kevin L. Timpe, University of California–San Diego
In current debates about moral responsibility, it is commonplace to differentiate two fundamentally different incompatibilist positions: Leeway Incompatibilism and Source Incompatibilism. In the present paper, I argue that his is a bad dichotomy. Those forms of Leeway Incompatibilism that have no appeal to “origination” or “ultimacy” are problematic, which suggests that incompatibilists should prefer Source Incompatibilism. I then differentiate two sub-classifications of Source Incompatibilism. Narrow Source Incompatibilism holds that alternative possibilities are outside the scope of what is required for moral responsibility. Wide Source Incompatibilism maintains that while ultimacy is most fundamental to moral responsibility, an agent meeting the ultimacy condition will also have alternative possibilities, thereby also satisfying an alternative possibilities condition. I give reasons to think that aversion of Wide Source Incompatibilism is the most promising incompatibilist position.
Defending a Possibilist Insight in Consequentialist Thought (XI-H)
Jean-Paul Vessel, New Mexico State University
There is a heated dispute among consequentialists concerning the following deontic principle:
DC: O(a & b) g O(a) & O(b)
The principle states that for any acts a and b, if it is obligatory for a specific agent to do the compound act a & b, then that agent is obligated to do a and is also obligated to do b—the deontic operators distribute over conjunction. Possibilists—those who believe that we should always pursue a “best” possible course of action available to us—accept the principle as true. Actualists—those who believe that certain future facts about the actual world can generate obligations incompatible with the best possible course of action available to us—reject the principle as false. I’m out to defend DC from the actualist attack. In this essay, I briefly present the central actualist argument against DC. I then show that possibilism has all of the resources to explain the phenomena with which actualists are so concerned. Next, I try to diagnose the actualists’ malcontent. Finally, I attempt to shed some light on the nature of consequentialist conditionals by incorporating possibilist insights into semantics for subjunctive conditionals appropriate for consequentialist theorizing.
New Foundations for Imperative Logic I: Logical Connectives (XI-G)
Peter B. M. Vranas, Iowa State University
Imperatives cannot be true or false, so they are shunned by logicians. And yet imperatives can be combined by logical connectives. “Kiss me and hug me’’ is the conjunction of “kiss me’’ with “hug me.” This example may suggest that declarative and imperative logic are isomorphic: just as the conjunction of two declaratives is true exactly if both conjuncts are true, the conjunction of two imperatives is satisfied exactly if both conjuncts are satisfied--what more is there to say? Much more, I argue. “If you love me, kiss me” a conditional imperative, mixes a declarative antecedent (“you love me’’) with an imperative consequent (“kiss me’’). It is satisfied if you love and kiss me, violated (if you love but don’t kiss me), and avoided if you don’t love me. So we need a logic of three-valued imperatives which mixes declaratives with imperatives. I develop such a logic.