Growing-Block theorists hold that past and present things are real, while future things do not yet exist. This generates a puzzle: how can Growing-Block theorists explain the fact that some sentences about the future appear to be true? Briggs and Forbes develop a modal ersatzist framework, on which the concrete actual world is associated with a branching-time structure of ersatz possible worlds. They then show how this branching structure might be used to determine the truth values of future contingents. They (...) point out three different ways of interpreting the logical connectives, which give rise to three different logics of the open future: one supervaluationist, one corresponding to Lukasiewicz's strong Kleene logic, and one intuitionist. (shrink)

What is it to be a woman? What is it to be a man? We start by laying out desiderata for an analysis of 'woman' and 'man': descriptively, it should link these gender categories to sex biology without reducing them to sex biology, and politically, it should help us explain and combat traditional sexism while also allowing us to make sense of the activist view that gendering should be consensual. Using a Putnam-style 'Twin Earth' example, we argue that none of (...) the existing analyses in the feminist literature succeeds in meeting all of our desiderata. Finally, we propose a positive account that we believe can satisfy all the desiderata outlined. According to our theory, the genders 'woman' and 'man' are individuated not by their contemporary connections to sex biology, but by their historical continuity with classes that were originally closely connected to sex biology. (shrink)

We show that five important elements of the ‘nomological package’— laws, counterfactuals, chances, dispositions, and counterfactuals—needn’t be a problem for the Growing-Block view. We begin with the framework given in Briggs and Forbes (in The real truth about the unreal future. Oxford studies in metaphysics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012 ), and, taking laws as primitive, we show that the Growing-Block view has the resources to provide an account of possibility, and a natural semantics for non-backtracking causal counterfactuals. We show (...) how objective chances might ground a more fine-grained concept of feasibility, and furnished a places in the structure where causation and dispositions might fit. The Growing-Block view, thus understood, provides the resources to explain the close link between modality and tense, so that it predicts modal change as time passes. This account lets us capture not only what the future might hold for us, and also what might have been. (shrink)

One of the standard approaches to the metaphysics of personal identity has some counter-intuitive ethical consequences when combined with maximising consequentialism and a plausible doctrine about aggregation of consequences. This metaphysical doctrine is the so-called ‘multiple occupancy’ approach to puzzles about fission and fusion. It gives rise to a new version of the ‘utility monster’ problem, particularly difficult problems about infinite utility, and a new version of a Parfit-style ‘repugnant conclusion’. While the article focuses on maximising consequentialism for simplicity, the (...) problems demonstrated apply more widely to a range of ethical views, especially flavours of consequentialism. This article demonstrates how these problems arise, and discusses a number of options available in the light of these problems for a consequentialist tempted by a multiple occupancy metaphysics. (shrink)

Philosophers often talk about the things we say, or believe, or think, or mean. The things are often called ‘propositions’. A proposition is what one believes, or thinks, or means when one believes, thinks, or means something. Talk about propositions is ubiquitous when philosophers turn their gaze to language, meaning and thought. But what are propositions? Is there a single class of things that serve as the objects of belief, the bearers of truth, and the meanings of utterances? How do (...) our utterances express propositions? Under what conditions do two speakers say the same thing, and what (if anything) does this tell us about the nature of propositions? There is no consensus on these questions—or even on whether propositions should be treated as things at all. During the second Propositions and Same-Saying workshop, which took place on July 19–21 2010 at the University of Sydney, philosophers debated these (and related) questions. The workshop covered topics in the philosophy of language, perception, and metaphysics. The present volume contains revised and expanded versions of the papers presented at the workshop. (shrink)

We reply to recent papers by John Turri and Ben Bronner, who criticise the dispositionalised Nozickian tracking account we discuss in “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know.” We argue that the account we suggested can handle the problems raised by Turri and Bronner. In the course of responding to Turri and Bronner’s objections, we draw three general lessons for theories of epistemic dispositions: that epistemic dispositions are to some extent extrinsic, that epistemic dispositions can have manifestation conditions concerning circumstances where (...) their bearers fail to exist, and that contrast is relevant to disposition attributions. (shrink)

Some environmentalists have argued that an effective ecological conscience may be rooted in a perspective that is either anthropocentric or sentiocentric. But, neither seems to have had any substantial effect on the ways in which our species treats nature. In looking to successfully awaken the ecological conscience, the focus should be on extending moral consideration to the land (wherein doing so includes all of the soils, waters, plants, animals, and the collectivity of which these things comprise) by means of coming (...) to love the land. Coming to love the land involves coming to view the land’s interests as our own—and, conferring upon the land a kind of moral patient-hood. In order to perceive the land’s “subjectivity,” and so, to come to love the land, we must relearn the way to look at the land by viewing its personality through the lens of he or she who can already do so, i.e., the nature writer. (shrink)

In the book “A Theory of Justice”, John Rawls examines the notion of a just society. More specifically, he develops a conception of justice—Justice as Fairness—derived from his novel interpretation of the social contract. Central to his account are two lexically-ordered principles of justice by which primary social institutions, or the basic structure of society, are ideally to be organized and regulated. Broadly speaking, the second of Rawls’ two principles pertains to “the distribution of income and wealth”, and its formulation (...) is to be understood as an expression of Rawls’ Difference Principle—roughly, the principle that “inequality in expectation is permissible only if lowering it would make the [worst-off] class even more worse off.”1 2 I want to suggest that Rawls’ Difference Principle (DP) entails the following worrisome outcome: Because DP maximizes the absolute level of expectation (and disregards the relative level), it authorizes potentially immense levels of inequality, such that this inequality itself can become a source of social discord and injustice. This paper will (§2) present Rawls’ formulation of DP, (§3) motivate the worrisome outcome entailed by DP, and (§4) offer a prima facie plausible solution in the form of an addendum to DP. (shrink)

In the essay “Reasonable Religious Disagreements,” Dr. Richard Feldman examines reasonable disagreements between peers. More specifically, he asks whether such disagreements are possible, and also whether the parties to such a disagreement could think that both their own belief and the belief of their peer with whom they disagree are reasonable. Feldman argues that there cannot be any such thing as a reasonable disagreement, and furthermore, that the parties to a disagreement are not epistemically licensed to think that their own (...) belief and their opponents belief are both reasonable. As Feldman notes, “open and honest discussion seems to have the puzzling effect of making reasonable disagreement impossible”. My project herein will be (in §2) to explain Feldman’s notion of a reasonable disagreement, and then reconstruct and assess his argumentation, and (in §3) advance three objections to Feldman’s argument. I will focus on denying Feldman’s answer to his first question—that reasonable disagreement between peers is not possible—and my suggestion is that if any of these three objections to Feldman’s argument go through, then the argument falls. And if Feldman’s argument falls, then his argument no longer provides grounds for our thinking that reasonable disagreement is impossible. (shrink)

In the essay “Epistemic Self-Trust and the Consensus Gentium Argument,” Dr. Linda Zagzebski examines the reasonableness of religious belief. More specifically, she argues that truth demands epistemic self-trust—roughly, a trust in the reliability of our own faculties. Furthermore, it is asserted that this self-trust commits me to an epistemic trust in others, which in turn provides grounds for believing that because many other people (to whom we have granted this epistemic trust) believe in God, this prevalence of belief thereby provides (...) a reason for me to believe in God, too. A critical step in Zagzebski’s argument is the move from epistemic self-trust to granting this sort of trust to other people—a move for which a sub-argument can be drawn out of her essay. My paper’s focus will be to examine Zagzebski’s sub-argument for her second premise (i.e., granting epistemic trust to others) to which I will advance two objections. (shrink)