Recent work in developmental psychology indicates that children naturally think that psychological states continue after death. One important candidate explanation for why this belief is natural appeals to the idea that we believe in immortality because we can't imagine our own nonexistence. This paper explores this old idea. To begin, I present a qualified statement of the thesis that we can't imagine our own nonexistence. I argue that the most prominent explanation for this obstacle, Freud's, is problematic. I go on (...) to describe some central features of contemporary cognitive accounts of the imagination, and I argue that these accounts provide an independently motivated explanation for the imaginative obstacle. While the imaginative obstacle does not dictate a belief in immortality, it does, I maintain, facilitate such a belief. (shrink)

From the first time I encountered the problem of free will in college, it struck me that a clear-eyed view of free will and moral responsibility demanded some form of nihilism. Libertarianism seemed delusional, and compatibilism seemed in bad faith. Hence I threw my lot in with philosophers like Paul d’Holbach, Galen Strawson, and Derk Pereboom who conclude that no one is truly moral responsible. But after two decades of self- identifying as a nihilist, it occurred to me that I (...) had continued to treat my friends. (shrink)

It is widely noted that physicalism, taken as the doctrine that the world contains just what physics says it contains, faces a dilemma which, some like Tim Crane and D.H. Mellor have argued, shows that “physicalism is the wrong answer to an essentially trivial question”. I argue that both problematic horns of this dilemma drop out if one takes physicalism not to be a doctrine of the kind that might be true, false, or trivial, but instead an attitude or oath (...) one takes to formulate one’s ontology solely according to the current posits of physics. (shrink)

When philosophers and psychologists think about consciousness, they generally focus on one or more of three features: phenomenality , intentionality , and introspectibility . Using examples from empirical psychology and neuroscience, I argue that consciousness is not a unitary state, that, instead, these three features characterize different and dissociable states, which often happen to occur together. Understanding these three features as dissociable from each other will resolve philosophical disputes and facilitate scientific investigation.

Many philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition have held that the predominant modern western theories of ethics like Kant’s deontological theory and Mill’s Utilitarianism have failed to deliver as a “theory” of ethics. In other words, they are not successful as “decision procedures” whereby one can determine which action from a multitude of actions open before the agent would be right and therefore morally obligatory for him to do. In fact, the basic concepts of moral obligation, impartiality, and objectivity of moral (...) standards has been questioned and pitted against the “personal point of view” of the agent. It has been held that the “moral goods” have to be given up for the sake of the “personal goods.” Is this a systemic fault which is linked with the normative nature of ethics? Or, can we understand ethics in a manner where it can be objective and yet not have to give up on the plurality of moral and nonmoral goods? Can ethical theory in this sense function as an “action guide to moral practice”? These are some questions that will be taken up in the paper against the backdrop of the views of the critics of ethical theory. (shrink)

Peer commentary on: Blumenthal-Barby, J. S. (2016). Biases and heuristics in decision making and their impact on autonomy. The American Journal of Bioethics, 16(5), 5-15.

In this essay I consider the argument that Bernard Williams advances in ‘The Makropolus Case’ for the meaninglessness of immortality. I also consider various counter-arguments. I suggest that the more clearly these counter-arguments are targeted at the spirit of Williams's argument, rather than at its letter, the less clearly they pose a threat to it. I then turn to Nietzsche, whose views about the eternal recurrence might appear to make him an opponent of Williams. I argue that, properly interpreted, these (...) views in fact make him an ally. (shrink)

This paper introduces this mini-series on vertical equity in health care. It reflects on the fact that by and large equity policies in health care have failed and that there is a need for positive discriminationto promote equity better in future. This positive discrimination is examined under the heading of`vertical equity'. The paper considers Varian's notion of 'envy' as a basis for equity in health care but concludes that this is not a helpful route to go down. Better it would (...) seem to pursue the idea from Sen of 'freedoms' and 'communitarian claims' (as raised previously by this author). While it is argued that procedural justice is to be preferred in the longer run as a basis for equity there are gains in adopting a short run goal of promoting distributive justice. Some preliminary evidence is presented on the weighting of health gains to reflect such vertical equity concerns. (shrink)

This paper offers a critique of the Bayesian interpretation of quantum mechanics with particular focus on a paper by Caves, Fuchs, and Schack containing a critique of the “objective preparations view” or OPV. It also aims to carry the discussion beyond the hardened positions of Bayesians and proponents of the OPV. Several claims made by Caves et al. are rebutted, including the claim that different pure states may legitimately be assigned to the same system at the same time, and the (...) claim that the quantum nature of a preparation device cannot legitimately be ignored. Both Bayesians and proponents of the OPV regard the time dependence of a quantum state as the continuous dependence on time of an evolving state of some kind. This leads to a false dilemma: quantum states are either objective states of nature or subjective states of belief. In reality they are neither. The present paper views the aforesaid dependence as a dependence on the time of the measurement to whose possible outcomes the quantum state serves to assign probabilities. This makes it possible to recognize the full implications of the only testable feature of the theory, viz., the probabilities it assigns to measurement outcomes. Most important among these are the objective fuzziness of all relative positions and momenta and the consequent incomplete spatiotemporal differentiation of the physical world. The latter makes it possible to draw a clear distinction between the macroscopic and the microscopic. This in turn makes it possible to understand the special status of measurements in all standard formulations of the theory. Whereas Bayesians have written contemptuously about the “folly” of conjoining “objective” to “probability,” there are various reasons why quantum-mechanical probabilities can be considered objective, not least the fact that they are needed to quantify an objective fuzziness. But this cannot be appreciated without giving thought to the makeup of the world, which Bayesians refuse to do. Doing this on the basis of how quantum mechanics assigns probabilities, one finds that what constitutes the macroworld is a single Ultimate Reality, about which we know nothing, except that it manifests the macroworld or manifests itself as the macroworld. The so-called microworld is neither a world nor a part of any world but instead is instrumental in the manifestation of the macroworld. Quantum mechanics affords us a glimpse “behind” the manifested world, at stages in the process of manifestation, but it does not allow us to describe what lies “behind” the manifested world except in terms of the finished product—the manifested world, for without the manifested world there is nothing in whose terms we could describe its manifestation. (shrink)

Critics often charge that agent-causal libertarianism is unintelligible due to the uniqueness of agent-causation—the sui generis causal relationship said to be involved when agents make free choices. This paper presents five objections, which are taken to be the only good objections, to agent-causal libertarianism and argues they all fail to show agent-causal libertarianism is unintelligible. The first four objections fail outright. The fifth objection fails in a special way. Naturalistic agent-causal libertarian theories succumb to this fifth objection; theistic agent-causal libertarian (...) theories do not. This entails that if agent-causal libertarianism is intelligible, then it is only so within theism. (shrink)

Uniqueness implies singularity, incomparability. Nonetheless, as applied to everything within the human lifeworld, including ourselves, uniqueness is relativized. This becomes clear in the tension between “commonsensical” and “scientific” perspectives on the human. Our commonsense approach posits that human beings are unique among animals—unique because of our properties, most especially our consciousness, as well as because of our significance and value. From a scientific perspective, however, the uniqueness of the human—if it can be affirmed at all—is possibly a matter of degree, (...) not kind. Additionally, the scientific perspective prescinds from judgments of the value of the human. To join these perspectives, without giving up on the importance of either one, is a philosophical and theological challenge. A Jewish approach to the challenge is offered here. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.1 (2003) 1-21 [Access article in PDF] Did Habermas Cede Nature to the Positivists? Gordon R. Mitchell Jürgen Habermas's "colonization of the lifeworld" thesis (1987, 332-73) posits that many of society's pathologies are due to the tendency of institutions to convert social issues that ought to be sorted out by a debating citizenry into technical problems ripe for resolution by expert bureaucracies, thus pre-empting important public (...) discussion. Habermas has attempted to lay bare the pernicious effects of this colonization process in his analysis of public opinion polling, welfare policy, education, German reunification, immigration, and other social issues (see Habermas 1997, 1994, and 1970; Holub 1992). In each of these contexts, Habermas has publicly challenged the encroachment of scientistic modes of decision-making into spheres where joint communicative action by deliberating citizens would yield more appropriate and legitimate judgments. This critical impulse is also evident in Habermas's methodological reflections on the proper role of academic scholarship, where he has argued vigorously against attempts to graft "objectivating" methods of natural scientific inquiry onto research projects in the social sciences (1971, 304-17).From all of this, one might gather that Habermas's commitment to rolling back the influence of technical forms of reasoning is connected to some intrinsic quarrel he has with the natural sciences. Yet such a sweeping generalization is hard to sustain in light of the fact that Habermas does not oppose technical reasoning per se; he recognizes that the daunting complexity of social life in late capitalism requiresthat certain "steering" tasks be delegated to systems that utilize largely instrumental logics to co-ordinate action. Likewise, he acknowledges that the disciplines of the natural sciences necessarily play important supporting roles in such steering projects.One normative presupposition of Habermas's colonization thesis is that there exists some proper boundary demarcating where the sphere of technical reasoning ends and the realm of communicative rationality begins. [End Page 1] On one side of this boundary, Habermas has provided many details on what he sees as the essential qualities of a properly functioning "public sphere," where "new social movements" continuously reweave the threads of communicative fabric holding society together (1996, 359-87), and where "historico-hermeneutic" academic study reflects on public life, sluicing insight back into the capillaries of democratic deliberations (1987, 374-403).What lies on the other side of the boundary is murkier. The proper role of natural scientific investigation has received relatively scant attention in Habermas's critical theory of society, and this has led to some confusion regarding his account of the natural sciences, as well as debate over whether this account has political purchase. One would think that sympathetic commentators, such as Helen Longino (who bases much of her own coherence theory of scientific truth on Habermas), would have reassuring things to say on this point. Yet her lukewarm assessment that, "in trying to clear a space for an autonomous social and critical theory, [Habermas] has ceded nature to the positivists" (1990, 202), raises questions about the flexibility and scope of Habermas's theory of communicative action as a basis for critique of scientific practice.One way to test Habermas's account of the natural sciences on this count is to put his views in conversation with science studies commentators who share a similar commitment to the idea that dialogue and argumentation are constitutive elements of scientific practice. Such an approach recasts the "ceding to positivism" question into a moment of controversy over the role of dialogue, not only as an essential motor driving the scientific enterprise, but also as a vehicle for democratic decision-making on issues related to the purpose and direction of scientific inquiry in society.Part one of this essay locates discursive norms embedded pragmatically in the notion of scientific objectivity. By bringing a modified version of Habermas's theory of communicative action into conversation with other approaches to science studies that foreground intersubjective dialogue as the key motor driving the scientific enterprise, I develop a foundation for robust criticism of systematically distorted scientific communication. Specific strategies of... (shrink)

Many of us experience the activities which fill our everyday lives as meaningful, and to do so we must (and do) hold them to be important. However, reflection undercuts this confidence: our activities are aimed at ends which are arbitrary, in that we have reason to regard our taking them so seriously as lacking justification; they are comparatively insignificant; and they leave little of any real permanence. Even though we take our activities seriously, and our everyday lives to be important, (...) on reflection they seem less meaningful than we suppose. Thomas Nagel claims that this discrepancy is inevitable, and thus that our lives are absurd and to be approached with irony. The aim of this paper is to explore whether it is inevitable, and in particular to examine recent formulations (of Peter Singer, Robert Nozick, and others) of the old idea that we can transcend this absurdity by forming attachments less susceptible to being undercut. (shrink)

An explanation is given of why it is in the nature of inquiry into whether or not p that its aim is fully achieved only if one comes to know that p or to know that not-p and, further, comes to know how one knows, either way. In the absence of the latter one is in no position to take the inquiry to be successfully completed or to vouch for the truth of the matter in hand. An upshot is that (...) although knowledge matters because truth matters this should not be understood to mean that knowledge matters because true belief matters. (shrink)

Philip Goff has recently argued that due to the ‘subject-summing problem’, panpsychism cannot explain consciousness. The subject-summing problem is a problem which is analogous to the physicalist's explanatory gap; it is a gap between the micro-experiential facts and the macro-experiential facts. Goff also suggests that there could be a solution by way of a ‘phenomenal bonding relation’, but believes that this solution is not up to scratch because we cannot form a positive not-merely-role-playing concept of this relation. In this paper, (...) I argue that the phenomenal bonding solution is up to scratch. I argue that the panpsychist, by carefully inspecting their phenomenology and scrutinising their concepts, can form a positive concept of the phenomenal bonding relation. By doing this they can start to get around their explanatory gap. (shrink)

Biologists' current habit of explaining each feature of human life separately through its evolutionary function — its assumed tendency to enhance each individual's reproductive prospects — is unworkable. It also sits oddly with these scientists' official rejection of teleology, since it treats all life as a process which does have an aim, namely, to perpetuate itself. But that aim is empty because it is circular. If we want to understand the behaviour of living things (including humans) we have to treat (...) them seriously as subjects, creatures with needs, tendencies and directions of their own. The supposedly objective idea of a world of objects without subjects is an unprofitable fantasy. (shrink)

Weak psychological egoism is the doctrine that anything an agent does intentionally, that agent does at least expecting thereby to realize one of her self-regarding ends. (Strong psychological egoism, by contrast, is the doctrine that agents act always intending thereby to realize a self-regarding end.) Though weak psychological egoism is a doctrine ultimately answerable to empirical evidence, we presently have excellent a priori reasons for accepting it and attempting to construct psychological theories that include it as an organizing principle. These (...) reasons have mainly to do with the idea that to understand the motivation behind an action, we need to understand the force of the consideration that motivates the agent, and the way to do this is to find a self-regarding end associated in the agent''s mind with acting on that consideration. (shrink)

(2002). Global Nihilism and Local Meanings? Dreyfus on Kierkegaard and Heidegger Today. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 34, No. 4, pp. 395-401.

This paper comprises three sections. First, we offer a traditional defence of deontology, in the manner of, for example, W.D. Ross (1965). The leading idea of such a defence is that the right is independent of the good. Second, we modify the now standard account of the distinction, in terms of the agent-relative/agentneutral divide, between deontology and consequentialism. (This modification is necessary if indirect consequentialism is to count as a form of consequentialism.) Third, we challenge a value-based defence of deontology (...) proposed by Quinn (1993), Kamm (1989, 1992), and Nagel (1995). (shrink)

Christina Lafont has argued that the early Heidegger's reflections on truth and understanding are incompatible with ‘the supposition of a single objective world’. This paper presents her argument, reviews some responses that the existing Heidegger literature suggests, and offers what I argue is a superior response. Building on a deeper exploration of just what the above ‘supposition’ demands, I argue that a crucial assumption that Lafont and Haugeland both accept must be rejected, namely, that different ‘understandings of Being’ can be (...) viewed as offering ‘rival perspectives’ on a common subject-matter. I develop this case by drawing on an alternative account of what a Heideggerian ‘understanding of Being’ might be like. (shrink)

If philosophy consists of conceptual analysis, is it thereby debarred from being a science? This article argues that it is not and that philosophy so conceived is a science. The argument takes the form of careful attention to the meaning of “science,” “experiment,” “empirical,” and related words. Philosophy is a formal science. This does not mean it is not part of the humanities. The role of observation in other kinds of science is investigated. There is more methodological homogeneity in the (...) various sciences, including philosophy, than has been recognized, despite some clear differences. Seeing this helps restore philosophy to its rightful place in the academic firmament. (shrink)

In the philosophical literature on consciousness and the mind-body problem, the conceivability argument against physicalism is usually taken to support a form of dualism between physicality and phenomenality. Usually, the discussion focuses on the qualitative character of experience, which is what the phenomenal feel of a given experience is like. By contrast, the subjective character of experience, or its individuation to a given first-person subject, tends to be set aside. The aim of this paper is to present a new and (...) more robust version of the conceivability argument for dualism that appeals to the subjective character of experience. Drawing on insights by philosophers in the phenomenological tradition, I conceptualise the first-person subjective character of experience as a transcendental condition of possibility for phenomenality that cannot be reduced to third-person facts about the physical world. Given this, the mind-body problem as it pertains to consciousness does not merely concern the inability of the set of physical facts about a brain state to capture the qualitative character of experience, but concerns the existential issue of why this brain state is accompanied by first-person subjectivity at all. This allows us to reconceive the conceivability argument in a way that presents a stronger case for dualism than the traditional version of the argument. (shrink)

There is a fundamental disagreement about which norm regulates assertion. Proponents of factive accounts argue that only true propositions are assertable, whereas proponents of non-factive accounts insist that at least some false propositions are. Puzzlingly, both views are supported by equally plausible (but apparently incompatible) linguistic data. This paper delineates an alternative solution: to understand truth as the aim of assertion, and pair this view with a non-factive rule. The resulting account is able to explain all the relevant linguistic data, (...) and finds independent support from general considerations about the differences between rules and aims. (shrink)

There is a considerable effort in current theorizing about psychological phenomena to eliminate minds and selves as a vestige of folk theories. The pertinent strategies are quite varied and may focus on experience, cognition, interests, responsibility, behavior and the scientific explanation of these phenomena or what they purport to identify. The minimal function of the notion of self is to assign experience to a suitable entity and to fix such ascription in a possessive as well as a predicative way. It (...) is usually argued that Hume formulated an empiricist account of experience that obviated the need for reference to selves; and recent arguments mustered by Derek Parfit claim to show how to preserve experience, interest, responsibility usually assigned selves and persons without invoking any such entities. The argument here advanced demonstrates that Hume actually concedes the minimal use of the notion of self, that there appear to be no convincing grounds for eliminating it, that there are critical uses for the notion that render it ineliminable, that admission is neutral regarding the nature of selves, and that Parfit''s arguments in particular fail. There appear, therefore, to be no empiricist or materialist grounds for the eliminative move. A large recent literature that favors various eliminative strategies is canvassed and shown to be inadequate to its task and unlikely (for principled reasons) to be able to achieve its eliminative objective. (shrink)

T. M. Scanlon has argued that the intentions with which one acts, or more specifically, one’s reasons for acting, are non-derivatively irrelevant to the moral permissibility of one’s actions. According to one of his arguments in favor of that thesis, it can be permissible to act for one reason rather than another only if one can choose to act for a reason but, since that choice is impossible since believing as will is impossible, one can be permitted to act but (...) one cannot be permitted to act for a reason. This paper aims to show that that argument is unsound. It first argues that the assumption that choosing an action is necessary for it being an object of a moral duty or permission cannot be made consistent with Scanlon’s idea that the same does not hold for an action being an object of blame. It then argues that even if direct control over forming beliefs is impossible, it is not impossible to choose one’s reason for action and, therefore, to be permitted or forbidden to act for it. (shrink)

Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed.

The question examined in this article is whether the contemporary world system is leading to a world society. World system connotes that we live in an increasingly interdependent world. The author examines the nature of world system in relation to world society. Then the author examines the nature of the world system as a growing interconnected global order, and the yet non-existent world or global society, a society as a network of social relations with mutual expectations and normative consensus. Difference (...) perspectives of world society are discussed, followed by a focus on cosmopolitan ethics and transnational civil society. Institutions of democratic world society and the implications are examined. The author concludes: more and more people come to live in a single world system; a transnational civil society and an international public space are growing; a global communitarian culture and a cosmopolitan ethics are gaining ground. (shrink)

An influential objection to the view that intentions are non-derivatively relevant to the moral permissibility of actions states that if intentions were relevant to permissibility in such a way, one would have to take them into account in decision making, which would be odd (in some morally relevant sense of ‘oddness’). The paper outlines and assesses three candidates for the oddness: that considering intentions in decision making is an unordinary practice, that it is impossible or conceptually confused, and that it (...) assigns intentions the weight as moral considerations that they intuitively do not have. The paper rejects the first two and shows that the third is probably what motivates most critics of the relevance of intentions who raise this objection. If this is correct, the objection is a non-starter as it assumes what it has to prove. Towards the end, it is argued that the objection does not serve as a plausible error theory either. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present a conceptual review and analysis of symptom understanding. Subjective bodily sensations occur abundantly in the normal population and dialogues about symptoms take place in a broad range of contexts, not only in the doctor’s office. Our review of symptom understanding proceeds from an initial subliminal awareness by way of attribution of meaning and subsequent management, with and without professional involvement. We introduce theoretical perspectives from phenomenology, semiotics, social interactionism, and discourse analysis. Drew (...) Leder’s phenomenological perspectives deal with how symptom perception occurs when any kind of altered balance brings forward a bodily attention. Corporeality is brought to explicit awareness and perceived as sensations. Jesper Hoffmeyer’s biosemiotic perspectives provide access to how signs are interpreted to attribute meaning to the bodily messages. Symptom management is then determined by the meaning of a symptom. Dorte E. Gannik’s concept “situational disease” explains how situations can be reviewed not just in terms of their potential to produce signs or symptoms, but also in terms of their capacity to contain symptoms. Disease is a social and relational phenomenon of containment, and regulating the situation where the symptoms originate implies adjusting containment. Discourse analysis, as presented by Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell, provides a tool to notice the subtle ways in which language orders perceptions and how language constructs social interaction. Symptoms are situated in culture and context, and trends in modern everyday life modify symptom understanding continuously. Our analysis suggests that a symptom can only be understood by attention to the social context in which the symptom emerges and the dialogue through which it is negotiated. (shrink)

I attempt to rebut Dean Zimmerman's novel argument (2010), which he presents in support of substance dualism, for the conclusion that, in spite of its popularity, the combination of property dualism with substance materialism represents a precarious position in the philosophy of mind. I take issue with Zimmerman's contention that the vagueness of ‘garden variety’ material objects such as brains or bodies makes them unsuitable candidates for the possession of phenomenal properties. I also argue that the ‘speculative materialism’ that is (...) available to a substance materialist property dualist who abandons the identification of persons with such garden variety objects is significantly more attractive than Zimmerman allows. Although I do not attempt to refute its substance dualist rival, I conclude that the combination of property dualism with substance materialism can withstand Zimmerman's objections. (shrink)

Justice entitles everyone in the world, including future generations, to an equitable share of the benefits of the world's natural resources. I argue that even though both Rawls and his libertarian critics seem hostile to it, this resource equity principle, suitably clarified, is a major part of an adequate strict compliance theory of global justice whether or not we take a libertarian or a Rawlsian approach. I offer a defence of the resource equity principle from both points of view.

Many philosophers of action, including Bratman and Mele, conceive intentions functionally, as executive states: intentions are mental states that represent an action and tend to cause this action. In the philosophical tradition (e.g. for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Leibniz, Kant) another function of intentions, which may be called “volitive”, played a much more prominent role: intentions are mental states that represent what kind of actions we want and prefer to be realised and thus, in a possibly rational way, synthesise our motivational, (...) desiderative, and perhaps affective as well as cognitive attitudes towards this action. This paper argues that intentions must fulfil both functions and then develops a concept of ‘intention’ that integrates both functions. One reason for including the volitive function in the definition of ‘intention’ is that only via this function the value of actions as such is realised, namely to enable the person, the kernel of the self to express herself and to control the world. Various forms of dissociation of the two functions are discussed and a proposal how to deal with such cases in the definition of ‘intention’ is developed. (shrink)

Scientism is a philosophy which purports to define what the world ‘really is’. It adopts what the philosopher Thomas Nagel called ‘an epistemological criterion of reality’, defining what is real as that which can be discovered by certain quite specific methods of investigation. As a consequence all features of experience not revealed by those methods are deemed ‘subjective’ in a way that suggests they are either not real, or lie beyond the scope of meaningful rational inquiry. This devalues capacities that (...) (we argue) are in fact essential components of good reasoning and virtuous practice. Ultimately, the implications of scientism for statements of value undermine value-judgements essential for science itself to have a sound basis. Scientism has implications, therefore, for ontology, epistemology and also for which claims we can assert as objective truths about the world. Adopting scientism as a world view will have consequences for reasoning and decision-making in clinical and other contexts. We analyse the implications of this approach and conclude that we need to reject scientism if we are to avoid stifling virtuous practice and to develop richer conceptions of human reasoning. (shrink)

Editors' introduction to 3rd thematic issue on philosophy of medicine.

This paper sketches a new and somewhat heterodox metaphysical theory of consciousness: the “many-worlds theory”. It drops the assumption that all conscious subjects’ experiences are features of one and the same world and instead associates different subjects with different “first-personally centred worlds”. We can think of these as distinct “first-personal realizers” of a shared “third-personal world”, where the latter is supervenient, in a sense to be explained. This is combined with a form of modal realism, according to which different subjects’ (...) first-personally centred worlds are all real, though only one of them is present for each subject. The theory offers a novel way of capturing the irreducibly subjective nature of conscious experience without lapsing into solipsism. The paper also looks at some scientific theories of consciousness, such as integrated information theory, through the proposed lens and reconsiders the hard problem of consciousness. (shrink)

This paper concerns a prima facie tension between the claims that (a) agents have normative reasons obtaining in virtue of the nature of the options that confront them, and (b) there is a non-trivial connection between the grounds of normative reasons and the upshots of sound practical reasoning. Joint commitment to these claims is shown to give rise to a dilemma. I argue that the dilemma is avoidable on a response dependent account of normative reasons accommodating both (a) and (b) (...) by yielding (a) as a substantial constraint on sound practical reasoning. This fact is shown to have significance for the contemporary dialectic between moral realists and their opponents. (shrink)

While the idea of art as self-expression can sound old-fashioned, it remains widespread—especially if the relevant ‘selves’ can be social collectives, not just individual artists. But self-expression can collapse into individualistic or anthropocentric self-involvement. And compelling successor ideals for artists are not obvious. In this light, I develop a counter-ideal of creative receptivity to basic features of the external world, or artistic objectivity. Objective artists are not trying to express themselves or reach collective self-knowledge. However, they are also not disinterested (...) or emotionless. They can be unmoved by personal feelings and human concerns, but they are still receptive—just attuned to the more elemental forces that creatively inspire them. I elaborate this ideal in dialogue with John Ruskin’s influential critique of the pathetic fallacy. By contextualizing Ruskin’s view vis-à-vis Romantic and Modernist poetics, post-Kantian aesthetics, modern environmental art, and contemporary theories of expressiveness, I show how it indirectly motivates my account. (shrink)

The new biotechnology raises expectations for modifying human behaviour through its use. This article focuses on the ethical analysis of the not so remote possibility of rehabilitating criminals by means of neurotechnological techniques. The analysis is carried out from a synthetic position of, on the one hand, the consequentialist conception of what is right and, on the other hand, the emphasis on individual liberties. As a result, firstly, the ethical appropriateness of adopting a general predisposition for allowing the neurorehabilitation of (...) prisoners only if it is safe and if they give their consent will be defended. But, at the same time, reasons will be given for requiring, in certain circumstances, the exceptional use of neurotechnology to rehabilitate severely psychopathic prisoners, even against their will, from the same ethical perspective. (shrink)

En este trabajo defiendo una concepción de la filosofía práctica como disciplina impura y normativa. La impureza exige una mirada más sensible a elementos aportados por disciplinas empíricas y a revalorizar la importancia de la historia para el análisis conceptual. La normatividad requiere abandonar la pretensión de neutralidad de la filosofía práctica. Sostengo que la impureza y la normatividad hacen de la filosofía práctica una disciplina intelectualmente próspera. Para defender esta concepción, explicito una crítica a un modo erróneo de caracterizar (...) la filosofía analítica. Además, distingo la filosofía teórica respecto de la filosofía práctica y explicito con qué rasgos de la filosofía analítica me comprometo. (shrink)

Several philosophers have argued that if we examine our lives in context of the cosmos at large, sub specie aeternitatis, we cannot escape life's meaninglessness. To see our lives as meaningful, we have to shun the point of view of the cosmos and consider our lives only in the narrower context of the here and now. I argue that this view is incorrect: life can be seen as meaningful also sub specie aeternitatis. While criticizing arguments by, among others, Simon Blackburn, (...) Nicholas Rescher, and Thomas Nagel, I show that what determines assessments of the meaning of a life are the standards of meaningfulness one endorses rather than the size of the context in which that life is assessed. Employing non-demanding standards of meaningfulness to assess a life is compatible with examining it in the context of the cosmos at large. That is also the case if we accept Nagel's claim that to examine a life sub specie aeternitatis is to examine it externally, impersonally and objectively: life can be evaluated as meaningful also when under these perspectives if the standards of meaningfulness we adopt are not overly challenging. Nor does the contingency of our existence, realized sub specie aeternitatis, render our life meaningless. Contrary to a commonly accepted view, then, examining our lives sub specie aeternitatis does not necessitate that we see them as meaningless. (shrink)