There has been a great deal of discussion in the recent philosophical literature of the relationship between the minimalist theory of truth and the expressivist metaethical theory. One group of philosophers contends that minimalism and expressivism are compatible, the other group contends that such theories are incompatible. Following Simon Blackburn (manuscript), I will call the former position ‘compatibilism’ and the latter position ‘incompatiblism.’ Even those compatibilist philosophers who hold that there is no conflict or tension between these two theories—minimalism and (...) expressivism—typically think that some revision of minimalism is required to accommodate expressivism. The claim that there is such an incompatibility, I will argue, is based on a misunderstanding of the historical roots of expressivism, the motivations behind the expressivist theory, and the essential commitments of expressivism. I will present an account of the expressivist theory that is clearly consistent with minimalism. (shrink)

One of the main problems of personal identity is supposed to be how we relate to our bodies. A few philosophers endorse what is called a 'bodily criterion of personal identity': they say that we are our bodies, or at any rate that our identity over time consists in the identity of our bodies. Many more deny this--typically on the grounds that we can imagine ourselves coming apart from our bodies. But both sides agree that the bodily criterion is an (...) important view which anyone thinking about personal identity must consider. (shrink)

The sheer multitude of criteria of empirical significance has been taken as evidence that the pre-analytic notion being explicated is too vague to be useful. I show instead that a significant number of these criteria—by Ayer, Popper, Przełęcki, Suppes, and David Lewis, among others—not only form a coherent whole, but also connect directly to the theory of definition, the notion of empirical content as explicated by Ramsey sentences, and the theory of measurement; two criteria by Carnap and Sober are trivial, (...) but can be saved and connected to the other criteria by slight modifications. A corollary is that the ordinary language defense of Lewis, the conceptual arguments by Ayer and Popper, the theoretical considerations by Przełęcki, and the practical considerations by Suppes all apply to the same criterion or closely related criteria. Furthermore, the equivalence of some criteria allows for their individual justifications to be taken cumulatively and, together with the entailment relations between nonequivalent criteria, suggest criteria for general auxiliary assumptions, comparative criteria, and more liberal conceptions of observation. (shrink)

Summary In chapter one I reject the thesis that a relation of partial entailment holds between probability evidence and conclusion, as also the claim that the propositions of applied geometry are synthetic a priori. By way of balance, I suggest that there may be a sense in which necessary conditions of discourse transcend the distinction between a priori and empirical. In chapter two I reject the claim that logical relations in the form of intrinsic probability enter into the no-miracles argument, (...) which I suggest is frequency-connected in its more systematic applications, so that it belongs within a system. I begin chapter three with a critique of an attempted formal probability solution to Hume’s problem, and I now suggest that inductive inference has application only within a system in which its validity is pre-supposed in its premises, a concomitant of which is that the sceptic about induction cannot stop short of global scepticism. Since my aim is to show that global scepticism is self-refuting, given that intentionality may be analysed in terms of a system, I now develop that analysis by devoting chapter four to an examination of Wittgenstein on meaning and understanding. In chapter five I reject his thesis equating meaning and understanding with use, arguing instead that they are irreducible and subject to dispositionality conditions, and in furtherance of that argument I try to solve the problem of the authoritativeness of belief avowals by showing again that there are necessary conditions of discourse. These are such that selfascribing belief, crediting oneself with understanding and with being suitably disposed, are inherent in reasoning. In chapter six I weave the threads of the previous discussion into a solution by arguing that the sceptic about induction, who is committed to global scepticism, necessarily refutes himself. In chapter seven, on the problem of other minds, I attempt a solution by modifying the arguments used against inductive scepticism. (shrink)

My aim is to challenge recent attempts at reconciling moral realism and naturalism by pushing ethical naturalists into a dilemma. According to one horn of the dilemma, ethical naturalists must either build unique facts and properties about divergent social structures into their subvenient sets of natural facts and properties, and so jeopardize the objectivity of moral truths, or insist, in the face of all possible worlds in which people have different moral beliefs than ours, that they are all mistaken—this despite (...) the fact that the belief-forming mechanism responsible for their moral beliefs was never concerned with the truth of those beliefs in the first place. This will bring me to suggest that moral properties might only weakly supervene upon natural phenomena. But, according to the other horn of the dilemma, weak supervenience is a defeater for moral knowledge. (shrink)

Psychopaths pose a challenge to those who make claims about the strength of moral assessments. These individuals are entirely unmoved by the moral rules that they articulate and purportedly espouse. Psychopaths appear rationally intact but are emotionally broken. In some cases, they commit horrendous crimes yet show no guilt, no remorse. Sentimentalists claim that the empirical evidence about psychopaths’ affective deficits supports that moral judgment is rooted in emotion and that psychopaths do not make genuine moral judgments—they can’t. Here, I (...) challenge an explanation of psychopathy that indicts psychopaths’ emotional impairments alone. I conclude that there are rational requirements for moral motivation and that psychological and neuroscientific research support that psychopaths do not make the grade. (shrink)

In this thesis, I will explore the epistemological evolutionary debunking arguments in meta-ethics. I will defend these arguments by accomplishing two tasks: I will offer the best way to understand the EDA and I will also respond to two strongest objections to the EDA. Firstly, in Part I of this thesis, I will offer my account of how the EDA should be best formulated. I will start from how evolution has significantly influenced our moral beliefs. I will then explain why, (...) due to their evolutionary origin, our moral beliefs are not tracking the moral truth reliably. Furthermore, I will argue that the fact that our moral beliefs are not tracking the moral truth also provides an undercutting and a higher-order defeater for those beliefs. As a result, I will conclude that the epistemic status of our moral beliefs is undermined because of these two kinds of defeaters. Secondly, in Part II of this thesis, I will turn my attention to the two strongest objections to the EDA – the Conceptual Truth Objection and the Third Factor Objection. I will first offer two responses to the Conceptual Truth Objection and, based on these two responses, I will argue that the Conceptual Truth Objection fails as a challenge to the EDA. I will then also argue that there currently doesn’t exist an acceptable version of the Third Factor Objection and it is also unlikely that such a version could be constructed in the future. I will finally conclude that both objections are problematic and they are thus unable to give us reason to doubt the EDA. (shrink)

Understanding a normative concept like oppression requires attention to not only its harms but also the causes of those harms. In other words, a complete understanding of such a concept requires a proper causal explanation. This causal explanation can also inform and constrain our moral response to such harms. Therefore, the conceptual explanatory framework that we use to inform our moral diagnosis and our moral response become significant. The first goal of this dissertation is to propose complexity theory as the (...) proper framework for not only explaining a social phenomenon like oppression but also understanding the proper sites for social change. The second goal of this dissertation is to answer three interrelated questions about how we should respond, morally, to a chronic and complex social problem like racial or gender inequality: (1) Why do the current interventions to address these problems fail? (2) Do social movements play any unique role in addressing these problems? (3) What is our individual responsibility to participate in social movements? In response, I argue that the explanatory frameworks that we choose to understand the cause(s) of social problems can be the source of the inadequacy of our intervention. I argue that a proper social and moral intervention needs to capture the complex and dynamic nature of the social world. I also show that changing the explanatory framework allows us to see the unique role social movements play in making effective and sustainable social change possible. Finally, I conclude supporting such movements is a moral imperative. (shrink)

Moral language displays a characteristic duality. On the one hand, moral claims seem to be similar to descriptive claims: To say that an act is right seems to be a matter of making an assertion, thus indicating that the speaker has a moral belief about which she can be correct or mistaken. On the other hand, moral claims seem to be different from descriptive claims: There is a sense in which, by claiming that an act is right, a speaker indicates (...) that she is inclined to perform the act, to want others to perform it, and to react with praise towards those who do it. Hybrid theories maintain that utterances of moral sentences have both a descriptive and a practical linguistic function. In this thesis, I investigate how a hybrid theory can best accommodate the descriptive and the practical aspects of moral language. I evaluate and criticize the way that existing hybrid theories have proposed to explain the duality of moral language. The main arguments against these views are that they either: fail to accommodate the way that the practical or attitudinal import of moral claims vary across different contexts and linguistic environments; or that they fail to show how the practical or attitudinal import is reliably inferred by interlocutors in virtue of general communicative principles. I develop and defend a new hybrid theory called ‘dynamic descriptivism’. This theory accommodates the duality of moral language by appeal to the way that moral utterances affect a dimension of communication which consists of the shared assumptions that interlocutors mutually assume to mutually accept. Moreover, I discuss a problem which has affected a wide range of theories of moral language – including existing hybrid theories – which is the problem of explaining what it is that interlocutors disagree about when they disagree about matters of morality. I argue that that dynamic descriptivism offers new resources for solving this problem. (shrink)

Kirjoituksessa argumentoin, että metafysiikka on ollut valistusta, vaikka se edelleen kaipaa lisää valistumista, kun valistus ymmärretään avoimena prosessina, joka ei ole ajasta ja paikasta riippuvaista. Käsittelen ensin sitä, mitä metafysiikka ja valistus ovat. Sitten lausun länsimaisen metafysiikan historiasta hyvin lyhyesti. Päätän esseen argumentoimalla, että metafysiikka on valistunutta siinä mielessä, että klassisen substanssi-ominaisuus-skeeman sokeasta seuraamisesta on pitkälti päästy eroon. Metafysiikka kaipaa kuitenkin lisää valistusta ja kriittistä tarkastelua, jotta vapaudumme täysin kyseisen skeeman ja modernin predikaatti-logiikan johdatuksen aiheuttamasta kolmesta ongelmallisesta suositusta (tausta)oletuksesta: (1) (...) perustavat partikulaariset yksilöoliot ovat (periaatteessa) laskettavia, (2) ne eivät ole relationaalisia ja (3) ominaisuudet ovat ontologisesti riippuvaisia kantajistaan. (shrink)

Scientism has more notoriety than history proper for it has been identified with “positivism”, “reductionism”, “materialism” or “Marxism”, or even held responsible for the enforcement of science at the expense of other human affairs. The idea that scientific research yields the best possible knowledge lies at the very definition of “scientism”. However, even when science has shown a considerable amount of theoretical and practical successes, a rational confidence put on it as a mean for solving any factual problem has been (...) denounced as illegitimate, defective, or dogmatic. Thereby, after revisiting the varieties of the meaning of scientism, I argue for a reasonable defense of scientism against some of its prevailing criticisms. Hence, it will be sustained that science is the most reliable approach for attaining knowledge without detriment of other valuable human activities insofar these do not address factual or cognitive questions nor are at odds with a scientific worldview. (shrink)

The "standard account" of Wittgenstein’s relations with the Vienna Circle is that the early Wittgenstein was a principal source and inspiration for the Circle’s positivistic and scientific philosophy, while the later Wittgenstein was deeply opposed to the logical empiricist project of articulating a "scientific conception of the world." However, this telegraphic summary is at best only half-true and at worst deeply misleading. For it prevents us appreciating the fluidity and protean character of their philosophical dialogue. In retrospectively attributing clear-cut positions (...) to Wittgenstein and his interlocutors, it is very easy to read back our current understanding of familiar distinctions into a time when those terms were used in a much more open-ended way. The paper aims to to provide a broader perspective on this debate, starting from the protagonists’ understanding of their respective positions. Too often, the programmatic statements about the nature of their work that are repeated in manifestoes, introductions, and elementary textbooks have occupied center stage in the subsequent secondary literature. Consequently, I focus on a detailed examination of a turning point in their relationship. That turning point is Wittgenstein's charge, in the summer of 1932, that a recently published paper of Carnap's, "Physicalistic Language as the Universal Language of Science", made such extensive and unacknowledged use of Wittgenstein's own ideas that Wittgenstein would, as he put it in a letter to Schlick, "soon be in a situation where my own work shall be considered merely as a reheated version or plagiarism of Carnap’s." While the leading parties in this dispute shared a basic commitment to the primacy of physicalistic language, and the view that all significant languages are translatable, there was a remarkable lack of mutual understanding between them, and deep disagreement about the nature of the doctrines they disputed. Three quarters of a century later, we are so much more conscious of the differences that separated them than the points on which they agreed that it takes an effort of historical reconstruction to appreciate why Wittgenstein once feared that his own work would be regarded as a pale shadow of Carnap’s. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin and Richard Rorty are sometimes thought to be diametrically opposed philosophers, particularly in their approach to foundational questions in moral thought. Dworkin is a champion of truth and objectivity in morality. Rorty, by contrast, is a great pragmatist who subscribed to a deflated vision of truth and unambiguously renounced objectivity, in favor of what he called “solidarity”. If their stated -isms and alliances were not evidence enough of discord, they also criticized one another in print, particularly on these (...) foundational, or metaethical, questions. The point of this chapter is to show that things are not what they seem: Rorty and Dworkin largely agree on metaethics. The difference between them is largely a difference in emphasis. (shrink)

For the first time, in the formal axiomatic epistemology theory Sigma such a theorem is formally proved which means that under the condition of knowledge a-priori-ness, a statement of formal-axiological equivalence of moral-evaluation-functions is logically equivalent to logic equivalence of corresponding statements of being. For the first time it is shown that this theorem undermines universality of the conception of Hume and Moore. A precise definition is given for the formal axiomatic theory Sigma, which is a result of logical formalization (...) of the universal philosophical epistemology; and a relevant interpretation of this formal theory is submitted. The formal proof of the theorem can be examined by readers step by step as it is accomplished in accordance with the formalism standards. (shrink)

Given the fundamental role that concepts play in theories of cognition, philosophers and cognitive scientists have a common interest in concepts. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of controversy regarding what kinds of things concepts are, how they are structured, and how they are acquired. This chapter offers a detailed high-level overview and critical evaluation of the main theories of concepts and their motivations. Taking into account the various challenges that each theory faces, the chapter also presents a novel approach (...) to concepts that is organized around two ideas. The first is a pluralistic view of differing types of conceptual structure. The second is a model that treats concepts as atomic representations that are linked to various types of conceptual structures. (shrink)

What is the relation of logic to thinking? My dissertation offers a new argument for the claim that logic is constitutive of thinking in the following sense: representational activity counts as thinking only if it manifests sensitivity to logical rules. In short, thinking has to be minimally logical. An account of thinking has to allow for our freedom to question or revise our commitments – even seemingly obvious conceptual connections – without loss of understanding. This freedom, I argue, requires that (...) thinkers have general abilities to respond to support and tension among their thoughts. And these abilities are constituted by following logical rules. So thinkers have to follow logical rules. But there isn’t just one correct logic for thinking. I show that my view is consistent with logical pluralism: there are a range of correct logics, any one of which a thinker might follow. A logic for thinking does, however, have to contain certain minimal principles: Modus Ponens and Non-Contradiction, and perhaps others. We follow logical rules by exercising logical capacities, which display a distinctive first-person/third-person asymmetry: a subject can find the instances of a rule compelling without seeing them as instances of a rule. As a result, there are two limits on illogical thinking. First, thinkers have to tend to find instances of logical rules compelling. Second, thinkers can’t think in obviously illogical ways. So thinking has to be logical – but not perfectly so. When we try to think, but fail, we produce nonsense. But our failures to think are often subjectively indistinguishable from thinking. To explain how this occurs, I offer an account of nonsense. To be under the illusion that some nonsense makes sense is to enter a pretence that the nonsense is meaningful. Our use of nonsense within the pretence relies on the role of logical form in understanding. Finally, while the normativity of logic doesn’t fall directly out of logical constitutivism, it’s possible to build an attractive account of logical normativity which has logical constitutivism as an integral part. I argue that thinking is necessary for human flourishing, and that this is the source of logical normativity. (shrink)

Philosophy of medicine encompasses a broad range of methodological approaches and theoretical perspectives—from the uses of statistical reasoning and probability theory in epidemiology and evidence-based medicine to questions about how to recognize the uniqueness of individual patients in medical humanities, person-centered care, and values-based practice; and from debates about causal ontology to questions of how to cultivate epistemic and moral virtue in practice. Apart from being different ways of thinking about medical practices, do these different philosophical approaches have anything in (...) common? Are they committed to incompatible assumptions about the nature of science and its relationship to experience, value, and the art of medicine, or are different approaches nonetheless complementary? The chapter examines the questions these different approaches and perspectives raise and considers why so many theorists of medicine seek to find a “base” or “center” for medicine—as though there is, or should be, some general conceptual thread linking the things we call “usual clinical practice” in the real world. It further considers whether there are alternative approaches to the philosophy of medicine, which do not embody this philosophical assumption; and it suggests that a key tool for evaluating approaches must be their ability to contribute something of genuine value to clinical medicine. (shrink)

The subject of this essay-based dissertation is Hume’s natural philosophy. The dissertation consists of four separate essays and an introduction. These essays do not only treat Hume’s views on the topic of natural philosophy, but his views are placed into a broader context of history of philosophy and science, physics in particular. The introductory section outlines the historical context, shows how the individual essays are connected, expounds what kind of research methodology has been used, and encapsulates the research contributions of (...) the essays. The first essay treats Newton’s experimentalist methodology in gravity research and its relation to Hume’s causal philosophy. It is argued that Hume does not see the relation of cause and effect as being founded on a priori reasoning, similar to the way in which Newton criticized non-empirical hypotheses about the causal properties of gravity. Contrary to Hume’s rules of causation, the universal law does not include a reference either to contiguity or succession, but Hume accepts it in interpreting the force and the law of gravity instrumentally. The second article considers Newtonian and non-Newtonian elements in Hume more broadly. He is sympathetic to many prominently Newtonian themes in natural philosophy, such as experimentalism, critique of hypotheses, inductive proof, and the critique of Leibnizian principles of sufficient reason and intelligibility. However, Hume is not a Newtonian philosopher in many respects: his conceptions regarding space and time, the vacuum, the specifics of causation, the status of mechanism, and the reality of forces differ markedly from Newton’s related conceptions. The third article focuses on Hume’s Fork and the proper epistemic status of propositions of mixed mathematics. It is shown that the epistemic status of propositions of mixed mathematics, such as those concerning laws of nature, is that of matters of fact. The reason for this is that the propositions of mixed mathematics are dependent on the Uniformity Principle. The fourth article analyzes Einstein’s acknowledgement of Hume regarding special relativity. The views of the scientist and the philosopher are juxtaposed, and it is argued that there are two common points to be found in their writings, namely an empiricist theory of ideas and concepts and a relationist ontology regarding space and time. (shrink)

According to G. E. Moore, moral expertise requires abilities of several kinds: the ability to factor judgments of right and wrong into (a) judgments of good and bad and (b) judgments of cause and effect, (2) the ability to use intuition to make the requisite judgments of good and bad, and (3) the ability to use empirical investigation to make the requisite judgments of cause and effect. Moore’s conception of moral expertise is thus extremely demanding, but he supplements it with (...) some very simple practical guidance. (shrink)

Philosophical debates on the nature and significance of values in scientific knowledge and practices have differentiated cognitive (or epistemic) values from noncognitive (non-epistemic, such as moral or political) ones. The significance of cognitive values has come to be more or less commonly accepted, but the place of noncognitive values is much more controversial. Analysis and debate on values-related dimensions of scientific knowledge and inquiry has been on the rise in contemporary philosophy of science since 1970. This chapter provides an overview (...) of some current philosophical work on the subject and its possible impact on school science education. -/- First, a sample of these philosophical stances is presented, with emphasis on three different authors who recognise the role of non-epistemic values in scientific activity, without necessarily relinquishing a place for objectivity. Then, some of the rationales for including teaching about values in science education are addressed. The science education and philosophy education research is deployed to sketch some issues that would have to be taken into consideration when introducing one particular type of values – ethics related issues – in the secondary education classroom. -/- Finally, the desirability of a greater interaction among science and philosophy educators is emphasised. Mutual knowledge of the convergences and divergences in approach to values in scientific knowledge and practices, and the challenges posed by teaching about them, can lead to richer and more nuanced approaches to the common aspects in their respective topics. (shrink)

Inquiry teaching can be viewed as an approach for communicating the knowledge and practices of science to learners. In its various forms inquiry offers potential learning opportunities and poses constraints on what might be available to learn. Philosophical analysis offers ways of understanding inquiry, knowledge, and social practices. This chapter will examine philosophical problems that arise from teaching science as inquiry. Observation, experimentation, measurement, inference, explanation, and modeling pose challenges for novice learners who may not have the conceptual and epistemic (...) knowledge to engage effectively in such scientific practices in inquiry settings. Science learning entails apprenticeship and socialization into a legacy of conceptual knowledge and epistemic practices (Kelly. Inquiry, Activity, and Epistemic Practice. In R. Duschl & R. Grandy (Eds.) Teaching Scientific Inquiry: Recommendations for Research and Implementation (pp. 99–117; 288–291). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2008). Modern science increasingly relies on abstract and computational models that are not readily constructed from the student-driven questions that often function as an early step in inquiry approaches to instruction. Thus, engaging students in the epistemic practices of science poses challenges for educators. -/- The argument developed in this chapter draws from an epistemological position that makes clear the need for building from extant disciplinary knowledge of a relevant social group in order to learn through inquiry. Establishing a social epistemology in educational settings provides opportunities for students to engage in ways of speaking, listening, and explaining that are part of constructing knowledge claims in science (Kelly and Chen. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 36, 883–915, 1999). This perspective on epistemology emphasizes the importance of dialectical processes in science learning. Thus, an inquiry-oriented pedagogy needs to attend to developing norms and practices in educational settings that provide opportunities to learn through and about inquiry. By considering the situated social group as the epistemic subject, inquiry teaching and learning can be viewed as creating opportunities for supporting the conceptual, epistemic, and social goals of science education (Duschl. Review of Research in Education, 32, 268–291, 2008; Kelly. Inquiry, Activity, and Epistemic Practice. In R. Duschl & R. Grandy (Eds.) Teaching Scientific Inquiry: Recommendations for Research and Implementation (pp. 99–117; 288–291). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2008). -/- The chapter addresses the philosophical considerations of inquiry in science education by identifying the epistemological constraints to teaching science as inquiry, reviewing the potential contributions of philosophy of science to discussions regarding inquiry, considering how social epistemology aligns with developments in psychology of learning with understandings about science, and offering ways that philosophical analysis can contribute to the on-going conversations regarding science education reform. (shrink)

In this paper, we reply to Tom Sorell’s criticism of our engagement with the history of philosophy in our book, The Theory and Practice of Experimental Philosophy. We explain why our uses of the history of philosophy are not undermined by Sorell’s criticism and why our position is not threatened by the dilemma Sorell advances. We argue that Sorell has mischaracterized the dialectical context of our discussion of the history of philosophy and that he has mistakenly treated our use of (...) the history of philosophy as univocal, when in fact we called on the history of philosophy in several different ways in our text. We conclude with some remarks about the scope of philosophy generally and experimental philosophy specifically. (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)

I offer an explicit account of the underdetermination thesis as well as of the many challenges it poses to scientific realism; a way to answer to these challenges is explored and outlined, by shifting attention to the content of theories. I argue that, even if we have solid grounds (as I contend we do) to support that some varieties of the underdetermination thesis are true, scientific realism can still offer an adequate picture of the aims and achievements of science.

The aim of this work is to demarcate, develop, and defend the commitments and consequences of metaethical minimalism. Very roughly, this is the position that a commitment to objective moral truths does not require any accompanying ontological commitments. While there are few, if any, who call themselves “metaethical minimalists”, I endeavor to uncover existing articulations of metaethical minimalism which have been presented under different names, attempting to identify the common ground between them. As I interpret the position, all metaethical minimalists (...) are committed to the same positive pair of claims (what I call the Objectivity Thesis): “a) Moral truths are strongly mind-independent; b) there are moral truths.” Taken by itself, however, this pair of claims is not sufficient for differentiating their view from the moral realist’s. Consequently, the minimalist must also articulate that which they are denying about the non-minimalist approach, or what I call the “negative ontological thesis”. I offer my own version of this negative thesis and argue for its dialectical advantages. -/- In Chapters 3 and 4, I focus my attention on attacks on the viability of metaethical minimalism in the form of two “challenges” that aim to problematize a commitment to objective moral truths absent any accompanying ontological commitment. The big-picture takeaway from these chapters is that minimalism can defend itself by playing to the dialectical advantage I find for it in Chapter 2 as well as by being creative about minimalist constructions/reworkings of plausible principles/lines of reasoning that seem to contradict it. -/- The temptation to embrace quietism is strong among minimalists, but in Chapters 5, 6, and 7 I aim to show that there is a positive alternative available for the minimalist interested in developing a full picture of their position. Chapter 5 is aimed at providing an adequate understanding of the distinction between the objects of purely normative thoughts and objects of thoughts about reality. Building on this are Chapters 6 and 7, which argue in favor of an account of the relationship between emotion and evaluative knowledge that is consistent with metaethical minimalism. (shrink)

According to ethical neo-expressivism, all declarative sentences, including those used to make ethical claims, have propositions as their semantic contents, and acts of making an ethical claim are properly said to express mental states, which (if motivational internalism is correct) are intimately connected to motivation. This raises two important questions: (i) The traditional reason for denying that ethical sentences express propositions is that these were thought to determine ways the world could be, so unless we provide an analysis of ethical (...) terms in terms of natural properties, are we not committed to the Moorean conclusion that ethical sentences describe sui generis “nonnatural” ways the world could be? (ii) If we reject the claim that motivational attitudes constitute any part of the semantics of ethical sentences, are we not committed to denying the intuition behind motivational internalism after all? This chapter argues for negative answers to both of these questions. (shrink)

The recurring claim that the construct of psychopathy is value laden often is not qualified in enough detail. The chapters in this part of the volume, instead, investigate in depth the role and significance of values in different aspects of the construct of psychopathy. Following these chapters, but also by offering a background to them, we show how certain values are involved in the characterisation of psychopathy, inform societal needs satisfied by this construct, and have a central role in determining (...) whether psychopathy is a mental disorder. Moreover, we relate this description to our criticism of the view that the entrenchment of the notion of psychopathy with values in principle renders it irreconcilable with sound psychiatric theory and practice. However, we also recognize that the value-ladenness of psychopathy leaves open other important challenges. Meeting them needs addressing interdisciplinary interrelated issues that have empirical, normative, and theoretical dimensions. (shrink)

When it comes to the metaethical task of explaining and making sense of what it is that we are doing while doing ethics, the subject of moral objectivity occupies an important and special place within that task. Thus, it is often agreed that being able to explain and justify the objective features of common moral practice is one of if not the most important task for any metaethical theory to undertake. In this dissertation, I tackle the issue of ethical objectivity (...) on behalf of metaethical constructivism. To be more precise, my aim is to make plausible, strengthen, and defend the constructivist original contribution to contemporary metaethics by developing a novel constructivist account on the objectivity of ethics. While the account that I develop herein presents a novel and independent approach to the subject of moral objectivity on behalf of constructivism, it also places itself between the two other positions within the constructivist camp that openly strive to secure ethical objectivity – namely Kantianism on the one hand, and the more recently developed Humean objectivist view on the other. It is for the latter reason that I call my own view the hybrid view. (shrink)

This project is an investigation into the prospects for an antirealist theory of essence. Essentialism is the claim that at least some things have some of their properties essentially. Essentialist discourse includes claims such as “Socrates is essentially human”, and “Socrates is accidentally bearded”. Historically, there are two ways of interpreting essentialist discourse. I call these positions ‘modal essentialism’ and ‘neo-Aristotelian essentialism’. According to modal essentialism, for Socrates to be essentially human is for it to be necessary that he be (...) a human if he exists, and for Socrates to accidentally have a beard is for it to be contingent that Socrates has a beard if he exists. According to neo-Aristotelian essentialism, objects have definitions in something like the way words do. For Socrates to be essentially human but accidentally bearded is for it to be part of the definition of Socrates that he is human, but not part of that definition that he is bearded. I argue that both are susceptible to antirealist interpretation. This thesis sets about showing that this is the case. In Chapters One and Two I investigate neo-conventionalist theories of modality, in the hope of using such a position to develop an antirealist modal essentialism. In Chapter Three I discuss the debate between modal and neo-Aristotelian essentialism and conclude that it is by no means settled. In Chapter Four I develop an antirealist neo-Aristotelian essentialism based on the mechanism of one of the neo-conventionalist accounts of modality. In Chapter Five I argue that this account is in a better position to give an essentialist theory of necessity than its realist counterparts. I conclude that, regardless of whether one is a modal or neo-Aristotelian essentialist, antirealist essentialism is a viable theory of essence that is worthy of consideration in contemporary debate. (shrink)

Ken Wilber insists that valid knowledge must be derived from paradigms: sets of injunctions and social practices that lead to replicable experiences. In this article, I examine Wilber's claims that the theory still includes the essentials of premodern traditions, because the essentials of those traditions consist of a phenomenological core of practices leading to mystical experience. Drawing on the works of Robert Sharf and Wilhelm Halbfass and on close readings of primary texts, this article argues that mystical paradigms of replicable (...) experience are not in fact the essentials of these traditions--neither for the majority of practitioners nor even for their revered teachers or masters. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of this point for constructive integral work. (shrink)

There is a classic disagreement in moral psychology about the mental states that constitute the sincere acceptance of moral claims. Cognitivists hold that these states are beliefs aiming at a correct description of the world; whereas non-cognitivists argue that they must be some other kind of attitude. Mark Eli Kalderon has recently presented a new argument for non-cognitivism. He argues that all cognitivist inquiries include certain epistemic obligations for the participants in cases of disagreement in the inquiry. I will provide (...) additional support for this claim. Kalderon then claims that our moral inquiry lacks the required epistemic obligation and that therefore it must be non-cognitive. I will show that Kalderon’s case against the required obligation fails and furthermore provide some evidence for the existence of this obligation. Therefore, his argument for non-cognitivism is not sound and provides no pressure against cognitivism. (shrink)

A rigorous approach to the study of the mind–body problem is suggested. Since humans are able to talk about consciousness (produce phenomenal judgments), it is argued that the study of neural mechanisms of phenomenal judgments can solve the hard problem of consciousness. Particular methods are suggested for: (1) verification and falsification of materialism; (2) verification and falsification of interactionism; (3) falsification of epiphenomenalism and parallelism (verification is problematic); (4) verification of particular materialistic theories of consciousness; (5) a non-Turing test for (...) machine consciousness. A complex research program is constructed that includes studies of intelligent machines, numerical models of human and artificial creatures, language, neural correlates of con- sciousness, and quantum mechanisms in brain. (shrink)

Possible and narrative worlds are traditionally the most influential tools for explaining our understanding of fiction. One obvious implication of this is considering fiction as a matter of pretence. The theory I offer claims that it is a mistake to take truth as a substantial notion. This view rejects possible worlds and pretence as decisive features in dealing with fiction. Minimalist theory of fiction offers a solution that gives a way to combine a philosophical theory of meaning and views of (...) literary theory. Narrative worlds approach saves its usefulness since its focus is more in the psychological process of reading. Minimalist theory of fiction is based on the minimal theory of truth and the use theory of meaning. The idea of language games as a practice of constructing contextual meanings is also decisive. A sentence is not true because it corresponds to a fact but because it is used in a right way in certain circumstances. The rejection of the possible worlds approach is thus based on the idea that understanding fiction is essentially about recognizing the constant interplay between different texts and contexts. Better understanding makes different interpretations possible. (shrink)

Broad consensus exists in development studies that development involves achieving and sustaining a so-called “good life.” Considerably less agreement exists, however, as to what the goal of such a life consists in and what the best practices are for bringing such a life about. The varying and competing types of approaches to development currently on offer, including cultural-economic approaches, capabilities approaches, and happiness approaches, are the conceptual by-products of this discord. The impasse between these approaches owes in part to the (...) vagueness and seeming incommensurability of value judgments. It owes in equal part to three common and interwoven tendencies when it comes to how values are approached in development theory and practice. These include: the tendency to view values as fixed and final; the tendency to formulate and evaluate means distinctly from ends; and the tendency to equate the individual character of value experience with value subjectivism, though it is wholly compatible with value objectivism. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze these value tendencies while offering a theoretical reconstruction of each utilizing conceptual resources from philosophical pragmatism, especially John Dewey’s version it. It is argued that, by adopting a more pragmatic approach to values, development theorists and practitioners can constructively move past the present impasse in development studies. (shrink)

This paper traces missing links in the history of economic thought. In outlining Hume's concept of 'the reflexive mind' it shows that this opened frontiers between philosophy and psychology which Bertrand Russell denied and which logical positivism in philosophy and positive economics displaced. It relates this to Hume's influence not only on Smith, but also on Schopenhauer and the later Wittgenstein, with parallels in Gestalt psychology and recent findings from neural research and cognitive psychology. It critiques Kant's reaction to Hume's (...) claim that one may assume but cannot prove cause and effect and how Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis has been Kantian but wrong in claims for axioms that are universal truths. It illustrates how Samuelson's presumption that language and mathematics are 'identical' was as mistaken as the logical atomism of Russell and the early Wittgenstein, relates this to Kleinian splitting, denial and projective identification and suggests that recovery of greater realism in economics needs to regain links with such philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

In this introductory chapter, I not only present the essays that make up this volume but also I offer an extensive critical overview of moral skepticism with the hope that it will turn out to be useful particularly to the uninitiated reader. I first provide a taxonomy of varieties of moral skepticism, then discuss the main arguments advanced in their favor, and finally summarize the ten essays here collected, which deal with one or more of those skeptical stances and arguments.

This and the following lessons cover the topic of Vedānta and ethics. Vedānta has two meanings. The first is the literal sense – “End of Vedas” – and refers to the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads—the latter part of the Vedas. The second sense of “Vedanta” is a scholastic one, and refers to a philosophical orientation that attempts to explain the cryptic Vedānta Sūtra (Brahma Sūtra) of Bādarāyaṇa, which aims at being a summary of the End of the Vedas. We shall pursue (...) the question of ethics in both senses of Vedānta. In this module we shall examine the ethical theory of Deontology found in the Upaniṣads. Having explored the implications of this model for moral philosophy, we can reflect upon the three commentarial approaches. In this lesson, we will examine Śaṅkara’s Advaita approach. Advaita Vedānta, especially in Śaṅkara's form, presents a version of moral scepticism, or more strongly, moral irrealism. In this account, there is nothing objective about ethics: it mediates our desires-oriented psychology, and should be dispensed with along with the desire-oriented psychology. Śaṅkara seems to come close to doing the impossible: saying insightful things about what he takes to be a fiction, which is the individual self, for which ethics is essential. (shrink)

One of the features of John Locke’s moral philosophy is the idea that morality is based on our beliefs concerning the future good. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding II, xxi, §70, Locke argues that we have to decide between the probability of afterlife and our present temptations. In itself, this kind of decision model is not rare in Early Modern philosophy. Blaise Pascal’s Wager is a famous example of a similar idea of balancing between available options which Marcelo Dascal (...) has discussed in his important 2005 article “The Balance of Reason”. -/- Leibniz, however, was not always satisfied with this kind of simple balancing. In his commentary to Locke’s Essay, Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain, II, xxi, §66, he presented an alternative model which is based on an idea of plural, mutually conflicting inclinations. This kind of model, called as vectorial theory of rational decision by Simo Knuuttila, fits well with Leibniz’s theory of the soul where volitions are formed as a kind of compromise between different inclinations to different goods. -/- I will present these two models and show how they illustrate the practical rationality of Locke and Leibniz and how their moral philosophies differ, although being similar in certain respects. The topics include Leibniz’s criticism of Lockean hedonism and the discussion of akratic behaviour in II, xxi of Essay and Nouveaux essais. (shrink)

Un biologiste fait une découverte incompatible avec des conceptions religieuses de la vie bonne. En classe, un professeur d'université profite de son exposé magistral pour faire la promotion d'une idéologie politique. Un fonds de recherche des sciences sociales refuse de financer un projet visant à résoudre le problème de la sous-représentation des femmes en politique, affirmant qu'une telle recherche n'est pas scientifique. Tous ces exemples témoignent de l'interaction constante entre, d'une part, l'enseignement et la recherche scientifique, et d'autre part, les (...) enjeux normatifs au sein de sphères d'influence. Les sciences doivent-elles être neutres? La normativité des sciences est-elle inévitable? Et de quoi parle-t-on lorsque nous faisons référence à la neutralité scientifique? Cette entrée exposera les principales réponses à ces trois questions. Après avoir clarifié le cadre conceptuel et la problématique de cette entrée, nous explorerons les approches wébérienne et positiviste en faveur de la neutralité des sciences. Ces deux perspectives seront confrontées à divers objections, notamment celles du pragmatisme américain. En réponse à l’ethos mertonien des sciences, nous présenterons finalement la critique féministe selon laquelle les disciplines scientifiques ne peuvent pas faire l’économie d’objectifs éthiques, politiques ou sociaux. Pour des raisons de simplicité, cette entrée approfondira surtout des modèles et arguments issus de l’économie, de la biologie et des sciences de la santé, des disciplines ayant été au cœur des controverses entourant la neutralité des sciences. (shrink)

Aesthetic non-cognitivists deny that aesthetic statements express genuinely aesthetic beliefs and instead hold that they work primarily to express something non-cognitive, such as attitudes of approval or disapproval, or desire. Non-cognitivists deny that aesthetic statements express aesthetic beliefs because they deny that there are aesthetic features in the world for aesthetic beliefs to represent. Their assumption, shared by scientists and theorists of mind alike, was that language-users possess cognitive mechanisms with which to objectively grasp abstract rules fixed independently of human (...) responses, and that cognizers are thereby capable of grasping rules for the correct application of aesthetic concepts without relying on evaluation or enculturation. However, in this article I use Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations to argue that psychological theories grounded upon this so-called objective model of rule-following fail to adequately account for concept acquisition and mastery. I argue that this is because linguistic enculturation, and the perceptual learning that’s often involved, influences and enables the mastery of aesthetic concepts. I argue that part of what’s involved in speaking aesthetically is to belong to a cultural practice of making sense of things aesthetically, and that it’s within a socio-linguistic community, and that community’s practices, that such aesthetic sense can be made intelligible. (shrink)

Moral nihilism maintains that value judgments cannot be justified. In this paper I argue against two prominent nihilistic theories: error theory and expressivism. First I present a meta-valuation thesis, which holds that it would be more valuable if at least some value judgments were justified. Second I argue for a value-justification thesis, which holds that the greater value of value-justifying theories warrants a rejection of nihilistic theories. This latter thesis requires a pragmatist premise: justified beliefs are the most valuable of (...) possible beliefs. With this premise and a critique of meta-ethical theory choice, I argue that meta-ethical justification proceeds via an atypical form of the method of reflective equilibrium. Since this particular method cannot produce a justification for error theory or expressivism, I conclude that these two forms of moral nihilism should be rejected in favor of more valuable meta-ethical theories. (shrink)

In a recent discussion of disenchantment and re-enchantment Charles Taylor suggests that it is possible to respond to the disenchanted view of the world, in which meaning and value are understood as subjective projections, by articulating a re-enchanted sense of nature or the universe from the perspective of human ‘agency-in-the-world’, in which meaning and value are objective. The question I address in this thesis is, what could it mean to articulate a re-enchantment from within our ‘agency-in-the-world’? In Chapter One I (...) examine the work of John McDowell in order to explore the possibility that he gives sense to the idea of a re-enchantment from within our agency-in-the-world. I conclude that he provides one way of doing so. However I argue that McDowell’s naturalism of second nature can seem limited as it does not address the ‘proto-religious’ dimension to Taylor’s understanding of re-enchantment. In Chapter Two I turn to the work of Roger Scruton to consider whether he provides a re-enchantment from within our agency-in-the-world that does accommodate this proto-religious dimension. I conclude that he does, but raise concerns about how convincing Scruton’s re-enchantment is. I argue that, from a McDowellian point of view, a case can be made that Scruton implicitly accepts as true certain significant elements of the disenchanted view of the world. In Chapter Three I look to the later Heidegger for an alternative re-enchantment from within our agency-in-the-world that attempts to accommodate the proto-religious. I focus on two interpretations of the later Heidegger given by Julian Young and Charles Taylor. In response to a worry put forward by Young, I argue that Charles Taylor’s interpretation can accommodate a proto-religious dimension. In my Conclusion I argue that McDowell’s naturalism of second nature and the understanding of our agency-in-the-world as presented by Taylor’s Heidegger, form interestingly continuous re-enchantments. On this basis I argue that although McDowell himself does not extend his idea of second nature to accommodate the proto-religious, the example of later Heidegger shows that there is nothing inherently limited about the framework of second nature that means it cannot be extended to encompass important proto-religious responses to the world. (shrink)

O objectivo deste artigo consiste em introduzir a noção de conhecimento a priori e os problemas que a envolvem. Começa-se por caracterizar o conhecimento a priori e aquilo que o distingue do conhecimento a posteriori para de seguida avaliar-se as dificuldades que uma compreensão adequada da noção de independência da experiência enfrenta. A noção de a priori é distinguida da de necessidade, à qual, tradicionalmente, tem sido associada. Por fim, o problema do a priori é formulado e as principais teorias (...) que a ele respondem brevemente discutidas. (shrink)