Exclusionary defeat is Joseph Raz’s proposal for understanding the more complex, layered structure of practical reasoning. Exclusionary reasons are widely appealed to in legal theory and consistently arise in many other areas of philosophy. They have also been subject to a variety of challenges. I propose a new account of exclusionary reasons based on their justificatory role, rejecting Raz’s motivational account and especially contrasting exclusion with undercutting defeat. I explain the appeal and coherence of exclusionary reasons by appeal to commonsense (...) value pluralism and the intermediate space of public policies, social roles, and organizations. We often want our choices to have a certain character or instantiate a certain value and in order to do so, that choice can only be based on a restricted set of reasons. Exclusion explains how pro tanto practical reasons can be disqualified from counting towards a choice of a particular kind without being outweighed or undercut. (shrink)

Standard accounts of civil disobedience include nonviolence as a necessary condition. Here I argue that such accounts are mistaken and that civil disobedience can include violence in many aspects, primarily excepting violence directed at other persons. I base this argument on a novel understanding of civil disobedience: the special character of the practice comes from its combination of condemnation of a political practice with an expressed commitment to the political. The commitment to the political is a commitment to engaging with (...) others as co-members in the on-going political project of living together. I show how such an understanding of civil disobedience is superior to the Rawlsian strain of thought, which focuses on fidelity to law. Rawls was concerned with civil disobedience solely in the context of overriding political obligation. The project of characterizing a contestatory political practice that can be distinguished and used in a wider variety of contexts than Rawls is concerned with, including under illegitimate regimes, beyond the nation-state, or on behalf of anarchism, requires a different understanding of civil disobedience. (shrink)

Political legitimacy is best understood as one type of a broader notion, which I call institutional legitimacy. An institution is legitimate in my sense when it has the right to function. The right to function correlates to a duty of non-interference. Understanding legitimacy in this way favorably contrasts with legitimacy understood in the traditional way, as the right to rule correlating to a duty of obedience. It helps unify our discourses of legitimacy across a wider range of practices, especially including (...) the many evaluations we increasingly make of international institutions of various sorts, but also including domestic institutions. (shrink)

Knowledge of human uses of animals is an important, but understudied, aspect of how humans treat animals. We developed a measure of one kind of knowledge of human uses of animals – knowledge of factory farming. Studies 1 (N = 270) and 2 (N = 270) tested an initial battery of objective, true or false statements about factory farming using Item Response Theory. Studies 3 (N = 241) and 4 (N = 278) provided evidence that responses to a 10-item Knowledge (...) of Factory Farming Scale predicted a reduction in consumption of animal products (rs = −.17- −.27) and approval of political actions aimed at factory farming (rs = .2 – .24). Path models from Studies 3 and 4 suggested that different kinds of knowledge uniquely predicted different outcomes. The Knowledge of Factory Farming scale was a unique predictor of approval of political actions concerning factory farmed animals but not animal consumption. Knowledge of Animals Used as Food predicted animal consumption but not political actions concerning farmed animals. These results highlight that different kinds of knowledge can be relevant for different animal related outcomes. (shrink)

The essays collected in this special issue explore what legitimacy means for actors and institutions that do not function like traditional states but nevertheless wield significant power in the global realm. They are connected by the idea that the specific purposes of non-state actors and the contexts in which they operate shape what it means for them to be legitimate and so shape the standards of justification that they have to meet. In this introduction, we develop this guiding methodology further (...) and show how the special issue’s individual contributions apply it to their cases. In the first section, we provide a sketch of our purpose-dependent theory of legitimacy beyond the state. We then highlight two features of the institutional context beyond the state that set it apart from the domestic case: problems of feasibility and the structure of international law. (shrink)

I argue for a new conception of practical authority based on an analysis of the relationship between authority and subject. Commands entail a demand for practical deference, which establishes a relationship of hierarchy and vulnerability that involves a variety of signals and commitments. In order for these signals and commitments to be justified, the subject must be under a preexisting duty, the authority’s commands must take precedence over the subject’s judgment regarding fulfillment of that duty, the authority must accept the (...) position and responsibilities of command, and the authority must be sufficiently trustworthy relative to how vulnerable the subject makes herself by deferring. This results in an instrumentalist conception of practical authority that can be favorably compared to Joseph Raz’s famous service conception. The relational conception’s main advantage is that it focuses on the authority as much as the subject, requiring that the authority accept responsibility for the relationship and be sufficiently trustworthy. (shrink)

Institutions undertake a huge variety of constitutive purposes. One of the roles of legitimacy is to protect and promote an institution’s pursuit of its purpose; state legitimacy is generally understood as the right to rule, for example. When considering legitimacy beyond the state, we have to take account of how differences in purposes change legitimacy. I focus in particular on how differences in purpose matter for the stringency of the standards that an institution must meet in order to be legitimate. (...) An important characteristic of an institution’s purpose is its deontic status, i.e. whether it is morally impermissible, merely permissible, or mandatory. Although this matters, it does so in some non-obvious ways; the mere fact of a morally impermissible purpose is not necessarily delegitimating, for example. I also consider the problem of conflicting, multiple, and contested institutional purposes, and the different theoretical roles for institutional purpose. Understanding how differences in purpose matter for an institution’s legitimacy is one part of the broader project of theorizing institutional legitimacy in the many contexts beyond the traditional context of the state. (shrink)

I argue that legitimacy discourses serve a gatekeeping function. They give practitioners telic standards for riding herd on social practices, ensuring that minimally acceptable versions of the practice are implemented. Such a function is a necessary part of implementing formalized social practices, especially including law. This gatekeeping account shows that political philosophers have misunderstood legitimacy; it is not secondary to justice and only necessary because we cannot agree about justice. Instead, it is a necessary feature of actual human social practices, (...) which must be implemented via practitioners' discretion in changing contexts. (shrink)

Contrary to the widely accepted consensus, Christopher Heath Wellman argues that there are no pre-institutional judicial procedural rights. Thus commonly affirmed rights like the right to a fair trial cannot be assumed in the literature on punishment and legal philosophy as they usually are. Wellman canvasses and rejects a variety of grounds proposed for such rights. I answer his skepticism by proposing two novel grounds for procedural rights. First, a general right against unreasonable risk of punishment grounds rights to an (...) institutionalized system of punishment. Second, to complement and extend the first ground, I more controversially propose a right to provision of the robust good of security. People have a right to others' protecting for avoiding wrongfully harming them: when I take an action that is reasonably expected to threaten the protected interests of others, I must take appropriate care to avoid setting back those interests. Inflicting punishment on someone--intentionally harming them in response to a violation--is prima facie wrongful, so I can only count as taking appropriate care in punishing when I follow familiar procedures that reliably and redundantly test whether they are liable to such punishment, i.e. whether they have forfeited their right against punishment through a culpable act. (shrink)

Currently, there are many advocacy interventions aimed at reducing animal consumption. We report results from a lab (N = 267) and a field experiment (N = 208) exploring whether, and to what extent, some of those educational interventions are effective at shifting attitudes and behavior related to animal consumption. In the lab experiment, participants were randomly assigned to read a philosophical ethics paper, watch an animal advocacy video, read an advocacy pamphlet, or watch a control video. In the field experiment, (...) we measured the impact of college classes with animal ethics content versus college classes without animal ethics content. Using a pretest, post-test matched control group design, humane educational interventions generally made people more knowledgeable about animals used as food and reduced justifications and speciesist attitudes supporting animal consumption. None of the interventions in either experiment had a direct, measurable impact on self-reported animal consumption. These results suggest that while some educational interventions can change beliefs and attitudes about animal consumption, those same interventions have small impacts on animal consumption. (shrink)

This chapter provides empirical evidence about everyday attitudes concerning euthanasia. These attitudes have important implications for some ethical arguments about euthanasia. Two experiments suggested that some different descriptions of euthanasia have modest effects on people’s moral permissibility judgments regarding euthanasia. Experiment 1 (N = 422) used two different types of materials (scenarios and scales) and found that describing euthanasia differently (‘euthanasia’, ‘aid in dying’, and ‘physician assisted suicide’) had modest effects (≈3 % of the total variance) on permissibility judgments. These (...) effects were largely replicated in Experiment 2 (N = 409). However, in Experiment 2, judgments about euthanasia’s moral permissibility were best predicted by the voluntariness of the treatment. Voluntariness was a stronger predictor than some demographic factors and some domain general elements of moral judgments. These results help inform some debates about the moral permissibility of euthanasia (e.g., the slippery slope argument) suggesting that some of the key premises of those arguments are unwarranted. (shrink)

The replicability and importance of the correlation between cognitive style and religious belief have been debated. Moreover, the literature has not examined distinct psychological accounts of this relationship. We tested the replicability of the correlation (N = 5284; students and broader samples of Canadians, Americans, and Indians); while testing three accounts of how cognitive style comes to be related to belief in God, karma, witchcraft, and to the belief that religion is necessary for morality. The first, the dual process model, (...) posits that analytical thinking is recruited in overriding intuitions related to supernatural beliefs. The second, the expressive rationality model, posits that analytical thinking is recruited in supporting already-held beliefs in an identity-protective manner. And the third, the counter-normativity rationality model, posits that analytical thinking is recruited to question beliefs supported by prevailing cultural norms. In Study 2, we tested the replicability of our results in a re-analysis of published data. The association between analytic thinking style and beliefs was replicated. We conclude that whereas the counter-normativity rationality model was contradicted by the data, both the dual process and expressive rationality models received varying degrees of empirical support, but neither model fully accounted for all the patterns in the data. (shrink)

Does martial arts practice contribute to psychological well-being in professional martial artists? If so, what are the specific ways that martial arts practice accomplishes this? It has been a long-standing and widely held belief that martial arts practice can contribute to psychological well-being, however, there has been a lack of empirical research in the psychological literature focused on investigating the details of this hypothesis. The purpose of this research is therefore to investigate the impact of a paradigmatic martial arts practice—shadowboxing—on (...) the psychological well-being of professional martial artists. In this article I present the results from an original empirical study on professional Muay Thai practitioners (n = 14) that reveals how a martial arts practice (shadowboxing) contributes to their overall psychological well-being by contributing to their positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. I present general results for how shadowboxing contributes to the psychological well-being of these professional martial artists overall, as well as more specific results for how shadowboxing contributes to the psychological well-being of these professional martial artists based on factors such as their gender, fight experience, and training location. This article also provides qualitative first-person reports from professional Muay Thai practitioners (n = 14) about their use of visualization and mental imagery and their experience of flow while shadowboxing, offering unique insight into the minds of professional martial artists as they are actively engaged in their craft. Finally, this article discusses the value and limitations of the present study and outlines suggestions for future research. (shrink)

The study area was a small lowland river valley within a range of 4750 m length and approx. 150 m width (about 62 ha), situated in the south-east of Poland, in the middle of Sandomierz Basin (Fig. 1). Flora and the chosen most valuable plant communities of the river bed with adjacent ecotone zone were investigated in 2007. During the study 291 species of vascular plants were found. Among them 10 are protected: Batrachium peltatum, Convallaria majalis, Dactylorhiza majalis, Daphne mezereum, (...) Frangula alnus, Hedera helix, Lycopodium annotium, Nuphar lutea, Utricularia vulgaris, and Viburnum opulus. Other species were considered to be value-raising, e.g. Achillea ptarmica, Batrachium circinatum, Calla palustris, Crepis paludosa, Hottonia palustris, Hypochoeris glabra, Senecio ovatus or Valeriana dioica. The number of antropophytes with the amount of 10% is relatively low. Most valuable plant communities represent 3 types of Nature 2000 habitats: natural eutrophic lakes with Magnopotamion or Hydrocharition – code 3150, transition and quaking bogs – code 7140-1, and alluvial forests with Alnus glutinosa and Fraxinus excelsior – code 91E0-3. Human activities brought about the emergence of 3 different areas within the valley: channeled river site (K), natural river bed site (N) and agricultural field site (P). Those areas differ significantly in terms of the composition of flora, vegetation and biological diversity. Most valuable is (P) and the least is (K). The greatest potential source of danger for biodiversity is the wrong forester’s management, especially interference in the natural processes (the planned building of the extra pond) and preventing wooden biomass accumulation. (shrink)

In this paper, we set out to investigate the following question: if science relies heavily on induction, does philosophy of science rely heavily on induction as well? Using data mining and text analysis methods, we study a large corpus of philosophical texts mined from the JSTOR database (n = 14,199) in order to answer this question empirically. If philosophy of science relies heavily on induction, just as science supposedly does, then we would expect to find significantly more inductive arguments than (...) deductive arguments and abductive arguments in the published works of philosophers of science. Using indicator words to classify arguments by type (namely, deductive, inductive, and abductive arguments), we search through our corpus to find patterns of argumentation. Overall, the results of our study suggest that philosophers of science do rely on inductive inference. But induction may not be as foundational to philosophy of science as it is thought to be for science, given that philosophers of science make significantly more deductive arguments than inductive arguments. Interestingly, our results also suggest that philosophers of science do not rely on abductive arguments all that much, even though philosophers of science consider abduction to be a cornerstone of scientific methodology. (shrink)

Abstract: Might knowledge normatively govern conversations and not just their discrete constituent thoughts and (assertoric) actions? I answer yes, at least for a restricted class of conversations I call aimed conversations. On the view defended here, aimed conversations are governed by participatory know-how - viz., knowledge how to do what each interlocutor to the conversation shares a participatory intention to do by means of that conversation. In the specific case of conversations that are in the service of joint inquiry, the (...) view defended is that interlocutors (A, B, ... n) must intentionally inquire together into whether p, by means of an aimed conversation X, only if A,B, ... n know how to use X to find out together whether p. The view is supported by considerations about instrumental rationality, shared intentionality, the epistemology of intentional action, as well as linguistic data. (shrink)

Drawing on the epistemology of logic literature on anti-exceptionalism about logic, we set out to investigate the following metaphilosophical questions empirically: Is philosophy special? Are its methods (dis)continuous with science? More specifically, we test the following metaphilosophical hypotheses empirically: philosophical deductivism, philosophical inductivism, and philosophical abductivism. Using indicator words to classify arguments by type (namely, deductive, inductive, and abductive arguments), we searched through a large corpus of philosophical texts mined from the JSTOR database (N = 435,703) to find patterns of (...) argumentation. The results of our quantitative, corpus-based study suggest that deductive arguments are significantly more common than abductive arguments and inductive arguments in philosophical texts overall, but they are gradually and steadily giving way to non-deductive (i.e. inductive and abductive) arguments in academic philosophy. (shrink)

Five experiments investigated the role of spatial connectedness between a pair of objects presented in the change detection task for the actual capacity of visual working memory (VWM) in healthy young adults (total N = 405). Three experiments yielded a surprising nonlinear relationship between the proportion of pair-wise connected objects and capacity, with the highest capacity observed for homogenous displays, when either all objects were connected or disjointed. A drop in capacity, ranging from an average of a quarter of an (...) object out of three objects maintained in VWM, was noted when only some objects were connected while others were disjointed. As indicated by another two experiments, this effect was specific to double-feature encoding, but disappeared when single visual features had to be memorized. No existing theoretical model of VWM can directly explain this novel effect. Overall, the nonlinear effect of spatial connectedness implies that representations in VWM possess hierarchical structure defined by wholes, parts, features, and their relations, and the heterogeneity of such a structure hinders VWM performance, while homogeneity facilitates it. (shrink)

We investigate a recently devised polyhedral semantics for intermediate logics, in which formulas are interpreted in n-dimensional polyhedra. An intermediate logic is polyhedrally complete if it is complete with respect to some class of polyhedra. The first main result of this paper is a necessary and sufficient condition for the polyhedral completeness of a logic. This condition, which we call the Nerve Criterion, is expressed in terms of Alexandrov’s notion of the nerve of a poset. It affords a purely combinatorial (...) characterisation of polyhedrally complete logics. Using the Nerve Criterion we show, easily, that there are continuum many intermediate logics that are not polyhedrally complete but which have the finite model property. We also provide, at considerable combinatorial labour, a countably infinite class of logics axiomatised by the Jankov–Fine formulas of ‘starlike trees’ all of which are polyhedrally complete. The polyhedral completeness theorem for these ‘starlike logics’ is the second main result of this paper. (shrink)

Neil Sinhababu and I presented Backward Clock, an original counterexample to Robert Nozick’s truth-tracking analysis of propositional knowledge. Fred Adams, John Barker and Murray Clarke argue that Backward Clock is no such counterexample. Their argument fails to nullify Backward Clock which also shows that other tracking analyses, such as Dretske’s and one that Adams et al. may well have in mind, are inadequate.

The paper argues that on three out of eight possible hypotheses about the EPR experiment we can construct novel and realistic decision problems on which (a) Causal Decision Theory and Evidential Decision Theory conflict (b) Causal Decision Theory and the EPR statistics conflict. We infer that anyone who fully accepts any of these three hypotheses has strong reasons to reject Causal Decision Theory. Finally, we extend the original construction to show that anyone who gives any of the three hypotheses any (...) non-zero credence has strong reasons to reject Causal Decision Theory. However, we concede that no version of the Many Worlds Interpretation (Vaidman, in Zalta, E.N. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy 2014) gives rise to the conflicts that we point out. (shrink)

Defenders of the Kantian maxim, i.e. ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, defend the maxim taking the term “implication” in the sense of ‘entailment’. But if it is granted that “implication” means entailment, then it can be shown that the Kantian maxim that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ is false. Sinnott-Armstrong attempts to prove the falsity of the maxim by his argument from Self-Imposed Impossibility in which he offers his famous example of Adams. But Sinnott-Armstrong’s example of Adams appears to be not strong (...) enough to prove the falsity of the maxim; it is a subject to be captured by a version of the maxim, namely the Maxim-KT. That is why two new examples of the argument from Self-Imposed Impossibility are presented in this paper which are stronger and are able to prove the falsity of the Kantian maxim. (shrink)

Contents: Anna Lemańska, The Autonomous Philosophy of Nature ; Anna Latawiec, The Progress in the Philosophy of Nature ; Grzegorz Bugajak, Philosophy of Nature, Realism, and the Postulated Ontology of Scientific Theories ; Maria-Magdalena Weker, Multi-dimensional Image of the World ; Jarosław Kukowski, The Application of Principia Mathematica and Principia Metaphisica for Resolving the Incommensurate Paradigms. The Comparative Study in Philosophy of Physics and Philosophy of Nature ; Danuta Ługowska, The Dilemmas Concerning the Essence of Life ; Adam Świeżyński, The (...) Beginning of the Universe in the Concept of Creation and in Contemporary Cosmology. The Philosopher’s of Nature Considerations . (shrink)

I assess Churchland's views on folk psychology and conceptual thinking, with particular emphasis on the connection between these topics.

Proponents of epistocracy worry that high levels of voter ignorance can harm democracies. To combat such ignorance, they recommend allocating comparatively more political power to more politically knowledgeable citizens. In response, some recent critics of epistocracy contend that epistocratic institutions risk causing even more harm, since much evidence from political psychology indicates that more politically knowledgeable citizens are typically more biased, less open-minded, and more prone to motivated reasoning about political matters than their less knowledgeable counterparts. If so, perhaps epistocratic (...) institutions will perform worse epistemically than corresponding democratic institutions. Call this 'the problem of epistocratic irrationality'. This paper argues that the problem of epistocratic irrationality can be overcome. First, I argue that critics of epistocracy have overlooked several complications regarding the psychological data they claim shows that more knowledgeable citizens are less politically rational. Second, I argue that appropriately designed epistocratic institutions could overcome the problem of epistocratic irrationality even if such critics have interpreted the data correctly. I first explore whether refined selection mechanisms could allow epistocrats to avoid empowering less rational citizens, before assessing the prospects of implementing only those epistocratic institutions with a solid track record of reliable performance. (shrink)

It would be good to have a Bayesian decision theory that assesses our decisions and thinking according to everyday standards of rationality — standards that do not require logical omniscience (Garber 1983, Hacking 1967). To that end we develop a “fragmented” decision theory in which a single state of mind is represented by a family of credence functions, each associated with a distinct choice condition (Lewis 1982, Stalnaker 1984). The theory imposes a local coherence assumption guaranteeing that as an agent's (...) attention shifts, successive batches of "obvious" logical information become available to her. A rule of expected utility maximization can then be applied to the decision of what to attend to next during a train of thought. On the resulting theory, rationality requires ordinary agents to be logically competent and to often engage in trains of thought that increase the unification of their states of mind. But rationality does not require ordinary agents to be logically omniscient. (shrink)

Politics is full of people who don’t care about the facts. Still, while not caring about the facts, they are often concerned to present themselves as caring about them. Politics, in other words, is full of bullshitters. But why? In this paper I develop an incentives-based analysis of bullshit in politics, arguing that it is often a rational response to the incentives facing different groups of agents. In a slogan: bullshit in politics pays, sometimes literally. After first outlining an account (...) of bullshit (Section 1), I discuss the incentives driving three different groups of agents to bullshit: politicians, the media, and voters (Section 2). I then examine several existing proposals to combat bullshit in politics, arguing that each will fail because they ignore the relevant underlying incentives (Section 3). I conclude somewhat pessimistically that a certain amount of bullshit in politics is inevitable (Section 4). (shrink)

What makes democracy valuable? One traditional answer holds that participating in democratic self-government amounts to a kind of autonomy: it enables citizens to be the authors of their political affairs. Many contemporary philosophers, however, are skeptical. We are autonomous, they argue, when important features of our lives are up to us, but in a democracy we merely have a say in a process of collective choice. In this paper, we defend the possibility of democratic autonomy, by advancing a conception of (...) it which is impervious to this objection. At the core of our account is the idea of joint authorship. You are a joint author of something when that thing expresses your joint intentions. Democracy may not make any one of us sole author of our political affairs, but it can make us their joint authors. It is in such joint authorship, we claim, that the intrinsic value of democratic self-government consists. (shrink)

In order to predict and explain behavior, one cannot specify the mental state of an agent merely by saying what information she possesses. Instead one must specify what information is available to an agent relative to various purposes. Specifying mental states in this way allows us to accommodate cases of imperfect recall, cognitive accomplishments involved in logical deduction, the mental states of confused or fragmented subjects, and the difference between propositional knowledge and know-how .

People’s beliefs about normality play an important role in many aspects of cognition and life (e.g., causal cognition, linguistic semantics, cooperative behavior). But how do people determine what sorts of things are normal in the first place? Past research has studied both people’s representations of statistical norms (e.g., the average) and their representations of prescriptive norms (e.g., the ideal). Four studies suggest that people’s notion of normality incorporates both of these types of norms. In particular, people’s representations of what is (...) normal were found to be influenced both by what they believed to be descriptively average and by what they believed to be prescriptively ideal. This is shown across three domains: people’s use of the word ‘‘normal” (Study 1), their use of gradable adjectives (Study 2), and their judgments of concept prototypicality (Study 3). A final study investigated the learning of normality for a novel category, showing that people actively combine statistical and prescriptive information they have learned into an undifferentiated notion of what is normal (Study 4). Taken together, these findings may help to explain how moral norms impact the acquisition of normality and, conversely, how normality impacts the acquisition of moral norms. (shrink)

Support for the biological concept of race declined slowly but steadily during the second half of the twentieth century. However, debate about the validity of the race concept has recently been reignited. Genetic-clustering studies have shown that despite the small proportion of genetic variation separating continental populations, it is possible to assign some individuals to their continents of origin, based on genetic data alone. Race naturalists have interpreted these studies as empirically confirming the existence of human subspecies, and by extension (...) biological races. However, the new racial naturalism is not convincing. The continental clusters appealed to by race naturalists are arbitrary and superficial groupings, which should not be elevated to subspecies status. Moreover, the criteria applied to humans are not consistent with those used to define subspecies in nonhuman animals, and no rationale has been given for this differential treatment. (shrink)

This paper defends the concept of racialization against its critics. As the concept has become increasingly popular, questions about its meaning and value have been raised, and a backlash against its use has occurred. I argue that when “racialization” is properly understood, criticisms of the concept are unsuccessful. I defend a definition of racialization and identify its companion concept, “racialized group.” Racialization is often used as a synonym for “racial formation.” I argue that this is a mistake. Racial formation theory (...) is committed to racial ontology, but racialization is best understood as the process through which racialized – rather than racial – groups are formed. “Racialization” plays a unique role in the conceptual landscape, and it is a key concept for race eliminativists and anti-realists about race. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a challenge to Adam Smith’s specialization recommendations, at least according to the “unzany” interpretation suggested by his famous pin factory example. I present it while attempting the style of a notable fiction writer from the Indian sub-continent, as befits the challenge. I have adapted the style slightly for the Western setting.

Models as Make-Believe offers a new approach to scientific modelling by looking to an unlikely source of inspiration: the dolls and toy trucks of children's games of make-believe.

Politics abounds with bad language: lying and bullshitting, grandstanding and virtue signaling, code words and dogwhistles, and more. But why is there so much bad language in politics? And what, if anything, can we do about it? In this paper I show how these two questions are connected. Politics is full of bad language because existing social and political institutions are structured in such a way that the production of bad language becomes rational. In principle, by modifying these institutions we (...) can reduce the prevalence of bad language. However, as I show, such practical efforts are fraught with difficulties. After first outlining an account of bad language (Section 1), I examine the rationality of three different types of bad language: inaccurate language, insincere language, and unclear language (Section 2). Next, I discuss the possibility of implementing institutional reforms to improve the quality of political discourse (Section 3). However, I then outline and discuss two serious complications for institutional reforms—namely, they create risk of abuse, and they could preclude instances of seemingly bad language that, in fact, are socially beneficial (Section 4). I conclude with some thoughts about how to pursue institutional reform in an appropriately circumspect manner (Section 5). (shrink)

Many contemporary democratic theorists are democratic egalitarians. They think that the distinctive value of democracy lies in equality. Yet this position faces a serious problem. All contemporary democracies are representative democracies. Such democracies are highly unequal: representatives have much more power than do ordinary citizens. So, it seems that democratic egalitarians must condemn representative democracies. In this paper, I present a solution to this problem. My solution invokes popular control. If representatives are under popular control, then their extra power is (...) not objectionable. Unfortunately, so I argue, in the United States representatives are under loose popular control. (shrink)

In this paper I defend anti-realism about race and a new theory of racialization. I argue that there are no races, only racialized groups. Many social constructionists about race have adopted racial formation theory to explain how ‘races’ are formed. However, anti-realists about race cannot adopt racial formation theory, because it assumes the reality of race. I introduce interactive constructionism about racialized groups as a theory of racialization for anti-realists about race. Interactive constructionism moves the discussion away from the dichotomous (...) (social vs. biological) metaphysics that has marred this debate, and posits that racialized groups are the joint products of a broad range of non-racial factors, which interact. (shrink)

In a recent paper, María Pía Méndez (2022) offers an epistemic critique of epistocracy according to which the sort of politically well-informed but homogenous groups of citizens that would be empowered under epistocracy would lack reliable access to information about the preferences of less informed citizens. Specifically, they would lack access to such citizens’ preferences regarding the form that policies ought to take—that is, how these policies ought to be implemented. Arguing that this so-called Information Gap Problem militates against epistocracy, (...) Méndez instead recommends that we respond to problems created by widespread voter ignorance by improving the flow of information between political actors by adopting some participatory democratic institutions. In this paper I argue that the severity of the Information Gap Problem for epistocracy is overstated. After first sketching some background (Section 1), I argue that it is hard to see why information about citizens’ preferences for the form that policies ought to take is important enough that the expected costs of epistocracy outweigh its expected benefits if it selectively empowers people who lack access to such information (Section 2). Moreover, different forms of epistocracy are less threatened by the Information Gap Problem, assuming it is indeed a problem. For some forms of epistocracy, it may be no problem whatsoever. However, I conclude by suggesting that Méndez touches upon some more serious problems for epistocracy (Section 3). First, even setting aside the Information Gap Problem, there are open questions about the possible epistemic inferiority of epistocracy relative to democracy. Second, more comprehensive accounts of political competence that move beyond the possession of sufficient levels of political information are much harder to reliably test for, thus complicating the task of devising effective epistocratic selection mechanisms. Lastly, epistocracy arguably creates a serious risk of abuse that may outweigh any other benefits it brings. More research is needed to determine how (and whether) epistocrats can respond to such challenges. (shrink)

Conceptual engineers endeavor to improve our concepts. But their endeavors face serious practical difficulties. One such difficulty – rational conceptual conflict - concerns the degree to which agents are incentivized to impede the efforts of conceptual engineers, especially in many of the contexts within which conceptual engineering is viewed as a worthwhile pursuit. Under such conditions, the already difficult task of conceptual engineering becomes even more difficult. Consequently, if they want to increase their chances of success, conceptual engineers should pay (...) closer attention to – and devise strategies to mitigate – rational conceptual conflict. After outlining the phenomenon at greater length and mapping its connections to other similar practical problems (Section 1), I explore the dynamics of such conflict by way of several detailed case studies (Section 2). In particular, I focus on cases driven by material, social, and moral incentives. I then consider some important methodological implications of rational conceptual conflict (Section 3). Among other things, I argue that conceptual engineers should focus more heavily on cultivating settings that modify the payoffs and penalties associated with conceptual conflict. By such indirect means, they can incentivize conceptual cooperation rather than conflict, thus making it easier to achieve success in conceptual engineering. Section 4 concludes. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the metaphysics of race as a valuable philosophical project against deflationism about race. The deflationists argue that metaphysical debate about the reality of race amounts to a non-substantive verbal dispute that diverts attention from ethical and practical issues to do with ‘race.’ In response, I show that the deflationists mischaracterize the field and fail to capture what most metaphysicians of race actually do in their work, which is almost always pluralist and very often normative and (...) explicitly political. Even if debates about the reality of race turn out to be verbal disputes, they are substantive, and worth having. (shrink)

I consider Glimcher's claim to have given an account of mental functioning that is at once neurological and decision-theoretical. I am skeptical, but remark on some good ideas of Glimcher's.

Orthodox decision theory gives no advice to agents who hold two goods to be incommensurate in value because such agents will have incomplete preferences. According to standard treatments, rationality requires complete preferences, so such agents are irrational. Experience shows, however, that incomplete preferences are ubiquitous in ordinary life. In this paper, we aim to do two things: (1) show that there is a good case for revising decision theory so as to allow it to apply non-vacuously to agents with incomplete (...) preferences, and (2) to identify one substantive criterion that any such non-standard decision theory must obey. Our criterion, Competitiveness, is a weaker version of a dominance principle. Despite its modesty, Competitiveness is incompatible with prospectism, a recently developed decision theory for agents with incomplete preferences. We spend the final part of the paper showing why Competitiveness should be retained, and prospectism rejected. (shrink)

Organizations have neither a right to the vote nor a weighty right to life. We need not enfranchise Goldman Sachs. We should feel few scruples in dissolving Standard Oil. But they are not without rights altogether. We can owe it to them to keep our promises. We can owe them debts of gratitude. Thus, we can owe some things to organizations. But we cannot owe them everything we can owe to people. They seem to have a peculiar, fragmented moral status. (...) What explains this? Individualistic views explain this in terms of individualistic notions alone. Such notions don’t invoke any distinctive features of organizations. They just invoke the features of individual members of organizations. Collectivistic views, instead, explain this in terms of collective notions alone. Such notions don’t invoke the features of individual members of organizations. They just invoke the features of those organizations. We argue that neither approach works. Instead, one needs to synthesize the two approaches. Some individual interests, we think, are distinctively collective. We, as individuals, have a distinctive interest in playing a part in successful collective action. From this, so we argue, flows the apparently peculiar, fragmented moral status of organizations. (shrink)

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn attention to the technology’s transformative potential, including what some see as its prospects for causing large-scale harm. We review two influential arguments purporting to show how AI could pose catastrophic risks. The first argument — the Problem of Power-Seeking — claims that, under certain assumptions, advanced AI systems are likely to engage in dangerous power-seeking behavior in pursuit of their goals. We review reasons for thinking that AI systems might seek power, that (...) they might obtain it, that this could lead to catastrophe, and that we might build and deploy such systems anyway. The second argument claims that the development of human-level AI will unlock rapid further progress, culminating in AI systems far more capable than any human — this is the Singularity Hypothesis. Power-seeking behavior on the part of such systems might be particularly dangerous. We discuss a variety of objections to both arguments and conclude by assessing the state of the debate. (shrink)

Experimental research suggests that people draw a moral distinction between bad outcomes brought about as a means versus a side effect (or byproduct). Such findings have informed multiple psychological and philosophical debates about moral cognition, including its computational structure, its sensitivity to the famous Doctrine of Double Effect, its reliability, and its status as a universal and innate mental module akin to universal grammar. But some studies have failed to replicate the means/byproduct effect especially in the absence of other factors, (...) such as personal contact. So we aimed to determine how robust the means/byproduct effect is by conducting a meta-analysis of both published and unpublished studies (k = 101; 24,058 participants). We found that while there is an overall small difference between moral judgments of means and byproducts (standardized mean difference = 0.87, 95% CI 0.67 – 1.06; standardized mean change = 0.57, 95% CI 0.44 – 0.69; log odds ratio = 1.59, 95% CI 1.15 – 2.02), the mean effect size is primarily moderated by whether the outcome is brought about by personal contact, which typically involves the use of personal force. (shrink)

Klein’s account of epistemic justification, infinitism, supplies a novel solution to the regress problem. We argue that concentrating on the normative aspect of justification exposes a number of unpalatable consequences for infinitism, all of which warrant rejecting the position. As an intermediary step, we develop a stronger version of the ‘finite minds’ objection.

I develop several new arguments against claims about "cognitive phenomenology" and its alleged role in grounding thought content. My arguments concern "absent cognitive qualia cases", "altered cognitive qualia cases", and "disembodied cognitive qualia cases". However, at the end, I sketch a positive theory of the role of phenomenology in grounding content, drawing on David Lewis's work on intentionality. I suggest that within Lewis's theory the subject's total evidence plays the central role in fixing mental content and ruling out deviant interpretations. (...) However I point out a huge unnoticed problem, the problem of evidence: Lewis really has no theory of sensory content and hence no theory of what fixes evidence. I suggest a way of plugging this hole in Lewis's theory. On the resulting theory, which I call " phenomenal functionalism", there is a sense in which sensory phenomenology is the source of all determinate intentionality. Phenomenal functionalism has similarities to the theories of Chalmers and Schwitzgebel. (shrink)

In “Radical Interpretation” (1974), David Lewis asked: by what constraints, and to what extent, do the non-intentional, physical facts about Karl determine the intentional facts about him? There are two popular approaches: the reductive externalist program and the phenomenal intentionality program. I argue against both approaches. Then I sketch an alternative multistage account incorporating ideas from both camps. If we start with Karl's conscious experiences, we can appeal to Lewisian ideas to explain his other intentional states. This account develops the (...) multistage Lewisian approach presented at the end of my earlier "Does Phenomenology Ground Mental Content?" (2013). (shrink)

Slurs possess interesting linguistic properties and so have recently attracted the attention of linguists and philosophers of language. For instance the racial slur "nigger" is explosively derogatory, enough so that just hearing it mentioned can leave one feeling as if they have been made complicit in a morally atrocious act.. Indeed, the very taboo nature of these words makes discussion of them typically prohibited or frowned upon. Although it is true that the utterance of slurs is illegitimate and derogatory in (...) most contexts, sufficient evidence suggests that slurs are not always or exclusively used to derogate. In fact, slurs are frequently picked up and appropriated by the very in-group members that the slur was originally intended to target. This might be done, for instance, as a means for like speakers to strengthen in-group solidarity. So an investigation into the meaning and use of slurs can give us crucial insight into how words can be used with such derogatory impact, and how they can be turned around and appropriated as vehicles of rapport in certain contexts among in-group speakers. In this essay I will argue that slurs are best characterized as being of a mixed descriptive/expressive type. Next, I will review the most influential accounts of slurs offered thus far, explain their shortcomings, then provide a new analysis of slurs and explain in what ways it is superior to others. Finally, I suggest that a family-resemblance conception of category membership can help us achieve a clearer understanding of the various ways in which slurs, for better or worse, are actually put to use in natural language discourse. (shrink)