- Submit
-
Browse
- All Categories
- Metaphysics and Epistemology
- Value Theory
- Science, Logic, and Mathematics
- Science, Logic, and Mathematics
- Logic and Philosophy of Logic
- Philosophy of Biology
- Philosophy of Cognitive Science
- Philosophy of Computing and Information
- Philosophy of Mathematics
- Philosophy of Physical Science
- Philosophy of Social Science
- Philosophy of Probability
- General Philosophy of Science
- Philosophy of Science, Misc
- History of Western Philosophy
- Philosophical Traditions
- Philosophy, Misc
- Other Academic Areas
- More
Switch to: References
Citations of:
Add citations
You must login to add citations.
|
|
|
The author defends the claim that there are cases in which we should promote irrationality by arguing (1) that it is sometimes better to be in an irrational state of mind, and (2) that we can often influence our state of mind via our actions. The first claim is supported by presenting cases of irrational _belief_ and by countering a common line of argument associated with William K. Clifford, who defended the idea that having an irrational belief is always worse (...) |
|
|
Les principaux aspects psychologiques et philosophiques détachés du film Solaris réalisé par Andrei Tarkovski, ainsi que les techniques cinématographiques utilisées par le réalisateur pour transmettre ses messages aux spectateurs. Dans « Introduction », je présente brièvement les éléments pertinents de la biographie de Tarkovski et un aperçu du roman Solaris de Stanislav Lem et du film Solaris réalisé par Andrei Tarkovsky. Dans « Technique cinématographique », je parle du rythme spécifique des scènes, du mouvement radical déclenché par Tarkovski dans le (...) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I argue for a soft compatibilist theory of free will, i.e., such that free will is compatible with both determinism and indeterminism, directly opposite hard incompatibilism, which holds free will incompatible both with determinism and indeterminism. My intuitions in this book are primarily based on an analysis of meditation, but my arguments are highly syncretic, deriving from many fields, including behaviorism, psychology, conditioning and deconditioning theory, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, simulation theory, etc. I offer a causal/functional analysis of (...) |
|
|
Los experimentos mentales son dispositivos epistémicos de la imaginación, o de análisis de problemas filosóficos, que recorren las fronteras de aquella, desde el sillón. Dichas fronteras tocan dilemas perennes de la filosofía: cuestiones de la metafísica, como el tiempo, el espacio y la realidad, el problema de la libertad y el determinismo, la naturaleza de la mente, la identidad personal, los argumentos acerca del significado, las posibilidades, fuentes y condiciones del conocimiento, las relaciones entre discurso y lógica, la ética, cuestiones (...) |
|
|
A collection of essays, mostly original, on the actual and possible positions on free will available to Buddhist philosophers, by Christopher Gowans, Rick Repetti, Jay Garfield, Owen Flanagan, Charles Goodman, Galen Strawson, Susan Blackmore, Martin T. Adam, Christian Coseru, Marie Friquegnon, Mark Siderits, Ben Abelson, B. Alan Wallace, Peter Harvey, Emily McRae, and Karin Meyers, and a Foreword by Daniel Cozort. |
|
|
Some philosophers believe that a change in motive alone is sometimes sufficient to bring about a change in the deontic status (rightness or wrongness) of an action. I refer to this position as âweak motivismâ, and distinguish it from âstrongâ and âpartial motivismâ. I examine a number of cases where our intuitive judgements appear to support the weak motivistâs thesis, and argue that in each case an alternative explanation can be given for why a change in motive brings about (or, (...) |
|
|
The aim of this paper is to determine whether the present generation should preserve non-human living things for future generations, even if in the future all the contributions these organisms currently make to human survival in decent conditions were performed by adequate technology and future people's preferences were satisfied by this state of affairs. The paper argues it would be wrong to leave a world without non-human living plants, animals and other organisms to future generations, because such a world would (...) |
|
|
The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 8, Page 32-33, August 2012. |
|
|
This paper considers three general views about the nature of moral obligation and three particular answers concerning the following question: if on Monday you lend me a book that I promise to return to you by Friday, what precisely is my obligation to you and what constitutes its fulfillment? The example is borrowed from W.D. Ross, who in The Right and the Good proposed what he called the Objective View of obligation, from which he inferred what is here called the (...) |
|
|
Evidence of the pervasiveness of neural reuse in the human brain has forced a revision of the standard conception of modularity in the cognitive sciences. One persistent line of argument against such revision, however, cites the evidence of cognitive dissociations. While this article takes the dissociations seriously, it contends that the traditional modular account is not the best explanation. The key to the puzzle is neural redundancy. The article offers both a philosophical analysis of the relation between reuse and redundancy (...) |
|
|
The leading hypothesis concerning the “reuse” or “recycling” of neural circuits builds on the assumption that evolution might prefer the redeployment of established circuits over the development of new ones. What conception of cognitive architecture can survive the evidence for this hypothesis? In particular, what sorts of “modules” are compatible with this evidence? I argue that the only likely candidates will, in effect, be the columns which Vernon Mountcastle originally hypothesized some 60 years ago, and which form part of the (...) |
|
|
What is the impact of genetics and genomics on issues of identity and what do we mean when we speak of identity? This paper explores how certain concepts of identity used in philosophy can be brought together in a multi-layered concept of identity. It discusses the concepts of numerical, qualitative, personal and genetic identity-over-time as well as rival concepts of genomic identity-over-time. These are all understood as layers in the multi-layered concept of identity. Furthermore, the paper makes it clear that (...) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ABSTRACT“How should a person lead her life?” The purpose of this paper is to suggest some principles (not a complete list) which will serve us ‘intellectual instruments’ for assessing forms of life. These principles are utilitarian in nature, and, as I will argue, essential to a reasonably rich account of personal well-being. The principles suggested are not instrumental, that is, they determine the worthiness of a form of life led by an agent irrespective of whether it satisfies her existing desires (...) |
|
|
“How should a person lead her life?” The purpose of this paper is to suggest some principles (not a complete list) which will serve us ‘intellectual instruments’ for assessing forms of life. These principles are utilitarian in nature, and, as I will argue, essential to a reasonably rich account of personal well-being. The principles suggested are not instrumental, that is, they determine the worthiness of a form of life led by an agent irrespective of whether it satisfies her existing desires (...) |
|
|
The central claim of the Parfitian psychological approach to personal identity is that the fact about personal identity is underpinned by a non-branching psychological continuity relation. Hence, for the advocates of the Parfitian view, it is important to understand what it is for a relation to take or not take a branching form. Nonetheless, very few attempts have been made in the literature of personal identity to define the non-branching clause. This paper undertakes this task. Drawing upon a recent debate (...) |
|
|
Psychological Sequentialism holds that no causal constraint is necessary for the preservation of what matters in survival; rather, it is sufficient for preservation if two groups of mental states are similar enough and temporally close enough. Suppose that one’s body is instantaneously dematerialized and subsequently, by an amazing coincidence, a collection of molecules is configured to form a qualitatively identical human body. According to Psychological Sequentialism, these events preserve what matters in survival. In this article, I examine some of the (...) |
|
|
A primary argument against the badness of death (known as the Symmetry Argument) appeals to an alleged symmetry between prenatal and posthumous nonexistence. The Symmetry Argument has posed a serious threat to those who hold that death is bad because it deprives us of life’s goods that would have been available had we died later. Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer develop an influential strategy to cope with the Symmetry Argument. In their attempt to break the symmetry, they claim that (...) |
|
|
Parfit's requirements for an ideal Theory X cannot be fully met since the Mere Addition Principle and Non-Antiegalitarianism imply the Repugnant Conclusion: Theory X does not exist. However, since the Repugnant Conclusion is really compelling, the Impersonal Total Principle should be adopted for impartial comparisons concerning future generations. Nevertheless, where our own interests are affected, we may yet choose to be partial, trading off our concern for future goodness with our self-interests. Theory X' meets all Parfit's requirements except the Mere (...) |
|
|
While many theories of well-being are able to capture some of our central intuitions about well-being, e.g. avoiding alienation worries, they typically do so at the cost of not being able to capture others, e.g. explaining deprivation. However, both of these intuitions are important and any comprehensive theory of well-being ought to attempt to strike the best balance in responding to both concerns. In light of this, I develop and defend a theory of well-being which holds that our well-being depends, (...) |
|
|
Jennings and Nanay argue against my claim that action entails attention by providing putative counterexamples to the claim that action entails a Many–Many Problem. This reply demonstrates that they have misunderstood the central notion of a pure reflex on which my argument depends. A simplified form of the argument from pure reflex to the Many–Many Problem as a necessary feature of agency is given, and putative counterexamples of action without attention are addressed. Attention is present in every action. In passing, (...) |
|
|
In this paper I argue against Divers and Miller's 'Lightness of Being' objection to Hale and Wright's neo-Fregean Platonism. According to the 'Lightness of Being' objection, the neo-Fregean Platonist makes existence too cheap: the same principles which allow her to argue that numbers exist also allow her to claim that fictional objects exist. I claim that this is no objection at all" the neo-Fregean Platonist should think that fictional characters exist. However, the pluralist approach to truth developed by WQright in (...) |
|
|
As the trolley problem runs its course, consequentialists tend to adopt one of two strategies: silently take comfort in the fact that deontological rivals face their own enduring difficulties, or appeal to cognitive psychology to discredit the deontological intuitions on which the trolley problem depends. I refer to the first strategy as silent schadenfreude and the second as debunking attack. My aim in this paper is to argue that consequentialists ought to reject both strategies and instead opt for what I (...) |
|
|
This paper examines the idea of an extended unit of action, which is the idea that the reasons for or against an individual action can depend on the qualities of a larger pattern of action of which it is a part. One concept of joint action is that the unit of action can be extended in this sense. But the idea of an extended unit of action is surprisingly minimal in its commitments. The paper argues for this conclusion by examining (...) |
|
|
This paper explores some of the values that underpin health care and how these relate more specifically to the values and ethics of palliative care. The paper focuses on the concept of autonomy because autonomy has emerged as a foundational concept in contemporary health care ethics and because this is an opportunity to scratch the surface of this concept in order to reveal something of its complexity, a necessary precaution when applying the concept to the context of palliative care. The (...) |
|
|
In his landmark paper, , Michael Stocker introduces an affliction that is, according to his diagnosis, endemic to all modern ethical theories. Stocker's paper is well known and often cited, yet moral schizophrenia remains a surprisingly obscure diagnosis. I argue that moral schizophrenia, properly understood, is not necessarily as disruptive as its name suggests. However, I also argue that Stocker's inability to demonstrate that moral schizophrenia constitutes a reductio of modern ethical theories does not rule out the possibility that he (...) |
|
|
From Hegel to Engels, Sartre and Ruyer (Ruyer, 1933), to name only a few, materialism is viewed as a necropolis, or the metaphysics befitting such an abode; many speak of matter’s crudeness, bruteness, coldness or stupidity. Science or scientism, on this view, reduces the living world to ‘dead matter’, ‘brutish’, ‘mechanical, lifeless matter’, thereby also stripping it of its freedom (Crocker, 1959). Materialism is often wrongly presented as ‘mechanistic materialism’ – with ‘Death of Nature’ echoes of de-humanization and hostility to (...) |
|
|
The topic of self-interest raises large and intractable philosophical questions–most obviously, the question “In what does self-interest consist?” The concept, as opposed to the content of self-interest, however, seems clear enough. Self-interest is interest in one's own good. To act self-interestedly is to act on the motive of advancing one's own good. Whether what one does actually is in one's self-interest depends on whether it actually does advance, or at least, minimize the decline of, one's own good. Though it may (...) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
On the strict liability view, excusably ignorant agents must cover all the wrongful costs they have inadvertently brought onto others, although it is undisputed that they are not at fault. On the fault liability view, victims need not be compensated by excusably ignorant harmers. To some, both views appear harsh. Under fault liability, those who cause harm are seen as getting off scot-free while victims suffer. Under strict liability, agents are viewed as being burdened without any fault of their own. (...) |
|
|
|
|
|
Viele Menschen halten Patientenverfügungen für ein geeignetes Mittel, um selbstbestimmt zu entscheiden, wie mit ihnen im Fall schwerer Demenz umgegangen werden soll. Die meisten Bioethiker stimmen ihnen zu: Demenzverfügungen seien Ausdruck der „verlängerten Autonomie“ der Patientin. Doch ob sie recht haben, ist unklar. Dem viel beachteten Identitätseinwand zufolge sind die Ausstellerin der Verfügung und ihre schwer demente Nachfolgerin numerisch verschieden: Sie sind zwei und nicht eins. Wenn das stimmt, kann die Ausstellerin nicht verfügen, wie mit ihr im Falle schwerer Demenz (...) |
|
|
Has the time come to put to bed the concept of a harm threshold when discussing the ethics of reproductive decision making and the legal limits that should be placed upon it? In this commentary, we defend the claim that there exist good moral reasons, despite the conclusions of the non-identity problem, based on the interests of those we might create, to refrain from bringing to birth individuals whose lives are often described in the philosophical literature as ‘less than worth (...) |
|
|
The view that it is better for life to be created free of disability is pervasive in both common sense and philosophy. We cast doubt on this view by focusing on an influential line of thinking that manifests it. That thinking begins with a widely-discussed principle, Procreative Beneficence, and draws conclusions about parental choice and disability. After reconstructing two versions of this argument, we critique the first by exploring the relationship between different understandings of well-being and disability, and the second (...) |
|
|
In this quite modestly ambitious essay, I'll generally just assume that, for the most part, our "scientifically informed" commonsense view of the world is true. Just as it is with such unthinking things as planets, plates and, I suppose, plants, too, so it also is with all earthly thinking beings, from people to pigs and pigeons; each occupies a region of space, however large or small, in which all are spatially related to each other. Or, at least, so it is (...) |
|
|
John Rawls's famous difference principle is capable of at least four distinct statements, each of which occurs in A Theory of Justice. According to what I shall term the Crude Principle it is a necessary and sufficient condition for the justice of an institutional scheme which expands social and economic inequality that, subject to the satisfaction of more weighty principles, it increases the level of advantage of the least advantaged. Expressing this principle Rawls writes that,Assuming the framework of institutions required (...) |
|
|
In some sense, survival seems to be an intrinsic matter. Whether or not you survive some event seems to depend on what goes on with you yourself —what happens in the environment shouldn’t make a difference. Likewise, being a person at a time seems intrinsic. The principle that survival seems intrinsic is one factor which makes personal fission puzzles so awkward. Fission scenarios present cases where if survival is an intrinsic matter, it appears that an individual could survive twice over. (...) |
|
|
David Wallace has given a decision-theoretic argument for the Born Rule in the context of Everettian quantum mechanics. This approach promises to resolve some long-standing problems with probability in EQM, but it has faced plenty of resistance. One kind of objection charges that the requisite notion of decision-theoretic uncertainty is unavailable in the Everettian picture, so that the argument cannot gain any traction; another kind of objection grants the proof’s applicability and targets the premises. In this article I propose some (...) |
|
|
Imagine you and your friend Pierre agreed on meeting each other at a café, but he does not show up. What is the difference between a friend’s not showing up meeting? and any other person not coming? In some sense, all people who did not come show the same kind of behaviour, but most people would be willing to say that the absence of a friend who you expected to see is different in kind. In this paper, I will spell (...) |
|
|
Revisionary theories of logic or truth require revisionary theories of mind. This essay outlines nonclassically based theories of rational belief, desire, and decision making, singling out the supervaluational family for special attention. To see these nonclassical theories of mind in action, this essay examines a debate between David Lewis and Derek Parfit over what matters in survival. Lewis argued that indeterminacy in personal identity allows caring about psychological connectedness and caring about personal identity to amount to the same thing. The (...) |
|
|
In a recent letter to Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, British columnist and climate change gadfly George Monbiot pleaded with Canada to clean up its greenhouse gas emissions act. The letter appeared just a week before the Copenhagen climate conference. In it, Monbiot alleged that Canada's newly acquired status as oil superpower threatens to ?brutalize? the country, as it has other oil-rich countries (Monbiot, G. 2009. Please, Canada, clean up your act, The Globe and Mail, November 30, A15). (...) |
|
|
Although the Evans argument against vague identity has been much discussed, proposah for blocking it have not so far satisfied general conditions which any solution ought to meet. Moreover, the relation between ontically vague identity and ontic vagueness more generally has not yet been satisfactorily addressed. I advocate a way of resisting the Evans argument which satisfies the conditions. To show how this approach can vindicate particular cases of ontically vague identity, I develop a framework for describing ontic vagueness in (...) |
|
|
In recent years, the question of whether prospective parents might have a moral obligation to select against disability in their offspring has piqued the attention of many prominent philosophers and bioethicists, and a large literature has emerged surrounding this question. Rather than looking to the most common arguments given in support of a positive response to the abovementioned question, such as those focusing on the harms disability may impose on the child created, duties and role-specific obligations, and impersonal ‘harms’, a (...) |
|
|
The ArgumentEugenics is generally regarded as evil; but what was its sin? Racism, class bias, and violation of reproductive freedom, which tainted objectionable eugenic interventions, are not part of the core notion of eugenics. A number of candidates have been suggested as the wrong inherent in eugenics, ranging from statism to the impossibility of consensus on the ideal human being. It is most plausible to view eugenics as sharing moral dilemmas with much of public health, and the critical issues as (...) |
|
|
This paper reflects on the relationship between theory and practice in bioethics, by using various concepts drawn from debates on innovation in healthcare research—in particular debates around how best to connect up blue skies ‘basic’ research with practical innovations that can improve human lives. It argues that it is a mistake to assume that the most difficult and important questions in bioethics are the most abstract ones, and also a mistake to assume that getting clear about abstract cases will automatically (...) |
PhilPapers logo by Andrea Andrews and Meghan Driscoll.
This site uses cookies and Google Analytics (see our terms & conditions for details regarding the privacy implications). Use of this site is subject to terms & conditions.
All rights reserved by The PhilPapers Foundation
Server: philpapers-web-659b74868d-w5f9g uwo