Whatever one makes of the relationship between free will and moral responsibility – e.g. whether it’s the case that we can have the latter without the former and, if so, what conditions must be met; whatever one thinks about whether artificially intelligent agents might ever meet such conditions, one still faces the following questions. What is the value of moral responsibility? If we take moral responsibility to be a matter of being a fitting target of moral blame or praise, what (...) are the goods attached to them? The debate concerning ‘machine morality’ is often hinged on whether artificial agents are or could ever be morally responsible, and it is generally taken for granted (following Matthias 2004) that if they cannot, they pose a threat to the moral responsibility system and associated goods. In this paper, I challenge this assumption by asking what the goods of this system, if any, are, and what happens to them in the face of artificially intelligent agents. I will argue that they neither introduce new problems for the moral responsibility system nor do they threaten what we really (ought to) care about. I conclude the paper with a proposal for how to secure this objective. (shrink)

This chapter puts to rest for all of eternity the self-undermining charge against conciliationism.

Traditionally, Aristotle is held to believe that philosophical contemplation is valuable for its own sake, but ultimately useless. In this volume, Matthew D. Walker offers a fresh, systematic account of Aristotle's views on contemplation's place in the human good. The book situates Aristotle's views against the background of his wider philosophy, and examines the complete range of available textual evidence. On this basis, Walker argues that contemplation also benefits humans as perishable living organisms by actively guiding human life (...) activity, including human self-maintenance. Aristotle's views on contemplation's place in the human good thus cohere with his broader thinking about how living organisms live well. A novel exploration of Aristotle's views on theory and practice, this volume will interest scholars and students of both ancient Greek ethics and natural philosophy. It will also appeal to those working in other disciplines including classics, ethics, and political theory. (shrink)

This chapter offers a complete account of Aristotle’s underexplored treatment of the virtue of wittiness (eutrapelia) in Nicomachean Ethics IV.8. It addresses the following questions: (1) What, according to Aristotle, is this virtue and what is its structure? (2) How do Aristotle’s moral psychological views inform Aristotle’s account, and how might Aristotle’s discussions of other, more familiar virtues, enable us to understand wittiness better? In particular, what passions does the virtue of wittiness concern, and how might the virtue (and its (...) attendant vices) be related to the virtue of temperance (and its attendant vices)? (3) How does wittiness, as an ethical virtue, benefit its possessor? (4) How can Aristotle resolve some key tensions that his introducing a virtue of wittiness apparently generates for his ethics? In addition to exploring these questions, this chapter challenges some commonly accepted accounts of Aristotle’s views on the nature of the laughable. (shrink)

While Spelke provides powerful support for concept nativism, her focus on understanding concept nativism through six innate core knowledge systems is too confining. There is also no reason to suppose that thecurse of a compositional mindconstitutes a principled reason for positing less innate structure in explaining the origins of concepts. Any solution to such problems must take into account poverty of the stimulus considerations, which argue for postulating more innate structure, not less.

According to the analysis of concessive conditionals suggested by Crupi and Iacona, a concessive conditional $$p{{\,\mathrm{\hookrightarrow }\,}}q$$ p ↪ q is adequately formalized as a conjunction of conditionals. This paper presents a sound and complete axiomatic system for concessive conditionals so understood. The soundness and completeness proofs that will be provided rely on a method that has been employed by Raidl, Iacona, and Crupi to prove the soundness and completeness of an analogous system for evidential conditionals.

“What is the structure of thought?” is as central a question as any in cognitive science. A classic answer to this question has appealed to a Language of Thought (LoT). We point to emerging research from disparate branches of the field that supports the LoT hypothesis, but also uncovers diversity in LoTs across cognitive systems, stages of development, and species. Our letter formulates open research questions for cognitive science concerning the varieties of rules and representations that underwrite various LoT-based systems (...) and how these variations can help researchers taxonomize cognitive systems. (shrink)

Controversial and provocative, To Be Real is a blueprint for the creation of a new political force.

One relatively neglected challenge in ethical artificial intelligence (AI) design is ensuring that AI systems invite a degree of emotional and moral concern appropriate to their moral standing. Although experts generally agree that current AI chatbots are not sentient to any meaningful degree, these systems can already provoke substantial attachment and sometimes intense emotional responses in users. Furthermore, rapid advances in AI technology could soon create AIs of plausibly debatable sentience and moral standing, at least by some relevant definitions. Morally (...) confusing AI systems create unfortunate ethical dilemmas for the owners and users of those systems, since it is unclear how those systems ethically should be treated. I argue here that, to the extent possible, we should avoid creating AI systems whose sentience or moral standing is unclear and that AI systems should be designed so as to invite appropriate emotional responses in ordinary users. (shrink)

I briefly defend the philosophical cogency of inclusivism about human flourishing, the view that intrinsic goods are valuable for the sake of flourishing by somehow composing flourishing. In particular, I consider the stuctured inclusivist view that intrinsic goods are components of flourishing as body parts are components of a body. As a test case, I examine the conception of human flourishing offered by the early Confucian philosopher Mengzi (Mencius). I argue that by appealing to Mengzi’s account, one can respond to (...) worries (such as those of Richard Kraut) about how such a structured inclusivism could possibly make sense. (shrink)

This chapter examines key Confucian worries about the Aristotelian sophos as a model of human flourishing. How strong are these worries? Do Aristotelians have good replies to them? Could the Aristotelian sophos, and this figure's distinguishing feature, sophia, be more appealing to the Confucian than they initially appear?

I frame my argument by way of Hayek's tendency to treat Hume and Smith as central articulations of the rule of law. The rest of the paper explores their defense of clientelism. First, I introduce Hume’s ideas on the utility of patronage in his essay, “Of the Independency of Parliament.” I argue that in Hume clientelism just is a feature of parliamentary business. It seems ineliminable. I then contextualize Hume’s account by comparing it to Montesquieu’s account of this system of (...) patronage in Book XIX, chapter 27 of The Spirit of the Laws. Montesquieu primarily treats it as a species of bad corruption. However, he also sees some benefits to it. I then turn to Smith and I show that he echoes Hume’s analysis of corruption in an easily ignored passage in Wealth of Nations. I then show that for Smith one argument in favor of a kind of federal parliamentary union between Great Brittain and her American colonies lies in its ability to facilitate and make more efficient the system of patronage by the Crown. While Smith’s account of these matters is quite Humean, one can discern in Smith a distinct cost-benefit argument for the acceptance of the necessity of a system of patronage in the service of the peaceful expansion and entrenchment of the rule of law in his proposal for parliamentary union. (shrink)

In Plato’s Symposium, the mysterious Apollodorus recounts to an unnamed comrade, and to us, Aristodemus’ story of just what happened at Agathon’s drinking party. Since Apollodorus did not attend the party, however, it is unclear what relevance he could have to our understanding of Socrates’ speech, or to the Alcibiadean “satyr and silenic drama” (222d) that follows. The strangeness of Apollodorus is accentuated by his recession into the background after only two Stephanus pages. What difference—if any—does Apollodorus make to the (...) Symposium? Does his inclusion call the dramatic and philosophical unity of the work into question? I argue that despite initial appearances, Plato has important philosophical reasons for including Apollodorus as a character. Far from being an odd appendage to an otherwise complete narrative, the figure of Apollodorus is useful for our understanding of Socrates’s conception of eros later in the work. (shrink)

Whole Brain Emulation has been championed as the most promising, well-defined route to achieving both human-level artificial intelligence and superintelligence. It has even been touted as a viable route to achieving immortality through brain uploading. WBE is not a fringe theory: the doctrine of Computationalism in philosophy of mind lends credence to the in-principle feasibility of the idea, and the standing of the Human Connectome Project makes it appear to be feasible in practice. Computationalism is a popular, independently plausible theory, (...) and Connectomics a well-funded empirical research program, so optimism about WBE is understandable. However, this optimism may be misplaced. This article argues that WBE is, at best, no more compelling than any of the other far-flung routes to achieving superintelligence. Similarly skeptical conclusions are found regarding immortality. The essay concludes with some positive considerations in favor of the Biological Theory of consciousness, as well as morals about the limits of Computationalism in both artificial intelligence and the philosophy of mind more generally. (shrink)

In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois introduces double consciousness as a result of racial prejudice and oppression. Explained as a state of confliction felt by black Americans, Du Bois presents double consciousness as integral to understanding the black experience. Later philosophers question the importance of double consciousness to current race discussions, but this paper contends that double consciousness provides valuable insights into black and white relations. To do this, I will utilize the modern slang term, “Oreo,” to (...) highlight how a perceived incompatibility between blacks and whites could prevent America from achieving a greater unity. (shrink)

In some recent works, Crupi and Iacona have outlined an analysis of ‘if’ based on Chrysippus’ idea that a conditional holds whenever the negation of its consequent is incompatible with its antecedent. This paper presents a sound and complete system of conditional logic that accommodates their analysis. The soundness and completeness proofs that will be provided rely on a general method elaborated by Raidl, which applies to a wide range of systems of conditional logic.

This paper, which is a homage to the life and work of Stephen Gaukroger, explores competing receptions of Spencer’s programmatic synthetic philosophy. In so doing, I show how T.H Huxley and C.S. Peirce reconfigured a familiar, long-standing debate about cosmogeny and cosmology in the early modern period.

We propose four policies of ethical design of human-grade Artificial Intelligence. Two of our policies are precautionary. Given substantial uncertainty both about ethical theory and about the conditions under which AI would have conscious experiences, we should be cautious in our handling of cases where different moral theories or different theories of consciousness would produce very different ethical recommendations. Two of our policies concern respect and freedom. If we design AI that deserves moral consideration equivalent to that of human beings, (...) that AI should be designed with self-respect and with the freedom to explore values other than those we might impose. We are especially concerned about the temptation to create human-grade AI pre-installed with the desire to cheerfully sacrifice itself for its creators’ benefit. (shrink)

In fragments of the lost Protrepticus, preserved in Iamblichus, Aristotle responds to Isocrates’ worries about the excessive demandingness of theoretical philosophy. Contrary to Isocrates, Aristotle holds that such philosophy is generally feasible for human beings. In defense of this claim, Aristotle offers the progress argument, which appeals to early Greek philosophers’ rapid success in attaining exact understanding. In this paper, I explore and evaluate this argument. After making clarificatory exegetical points, I examine the argument’s premises in light of pressing worries (...) that the argument reasonably faces in its immediate intellectual context, the dispute between Isocrates and Aristotle. I also relate the argument to modern concerns about philosophical progress. I contend that the argument withstands these worries, and thereby constitutes a reasonable Aristotelian response to the Isocratean challenge. (shrink)

According to Nicomachean Ethics I.7 1098a16–18, eudaimonia consists in activity of soul “according to the best and most final” virtue. Ongoing debate between inclusivist and exclusivist readers of this passage has focused on the referent of “the best and most final” virtue. I argue that even if one accepts the exclusivist's answer to this reference question, one still needs an account of what it means for activity of soul to accord with the best and most final virtue. I examine the (...) nature of this accordance relation and defend a novel inclusivist reading of the whole passage. (shrink)

Confucius and Aristotle both put a primacy on the task of ethical self-cultivation. Unlike Aristotle, who emphasizes the instrumental value of legal punishment for cultivation’s sake, Confucius raises worries about the practice of punishment. Punishment, and the threat of punishment, Confucius suggests, actually threatens to warp human motivation and impede our ethical development. In this paper, I examine Confucius’ worries about legal punishment, and consider how a dialogue on punishment between Confucius and Aristotle might proceed. I explore how far apart (...) these thinkers actually stand, and examine the possibilities for a rapprochement between them. Doing so brings to light the self-cultivation perspective’s range of resources for thinking about punishment’s justification. (shrink)

What did Heidegger learn and fail to learn from Laozi and Zhuangzi? This book reconstructs Heidegger's philosophy through its engagement with Daoist and Asian philosophy and offers a Daoist transformation of Heidegger on things, nothingness, and freedom. PDF includes the introduction, bibliography, and index.

The overwhelming majority of those who theorize about implicit biases posit that these biases are caused by some sort of association. However, what exactly this claim amounts to is rarely specified. In this paper, I distinguish between different understandings of association, and I argue that the crucial senses of association for elucidating implicit bias are the cognitive structure and mental process senses. A hypothesis is subsequently derived: if associations really underpin implicit biases, then implicit biases should be modulated by counterconditioning (...) or extinction but should not be modulated by rational argumentation or logical interventions. This hypothesis is false; implicit biases are not predicated on any associative structures or associative processes but instead arise because of unconscious propositionally structured beliefs. I conclude by discussing how the case study of implicit bias illuminates problems with popular dual-process models of cognitive architecture. (shrink)

Inquiry, Volume 57, Issue 1, Page 55-96, February 2014.

Fragments of Aristotle’s lost Protrepticus seem to offer inconsistent arguments for the value of contemplation (one argument appealing to contemplation's uselessness, the other appealing to its utility). In this paper, I argue that these arguments are mutually consistent. Further, I argue that, contrary to first appearances, Aristotle has resources in the Protrepticus for explaining how contemplation, even if it has divine objects, can nevertheless be useful in the way in which he claims, viz., for providing cognitive access to boundary markers (...) (horoi) of the human good. (shrink)

I argue that Smith proposed a new kind of imperialism, which we would describe as a species of ‘federalism,’ and that his plan influenced Bentham and Kant in their federal projects, although they seem to have been unaware of each other’s proposals. In what follows, I outline Smith’s position. I then describe Kant’s and Bentham’s debts to Smith in turn. This will also allow for greater clarity about the nature of early liberalism.

This paper describes a thought experiment that shows that people can travel faster than the speed of light: we are not bound by Einstein’s speed limit. Of course, any two-bit sci-fi story can describe faster-than-light travel. The difference is that the thought experiment proposed here is consistent with Einstein’s theory. The way to extricate ourselves from this seeming contradiction is to acknowledge that persons are not entirely physical. In other words, the explanation for why faster-than-light travel is possible for persons, (...) yet consistent with our best physics, is that persons are not wholly physical. The thought experiment also has implications for our understanding of death, specifically, the death of the body may not be the death of the person. (shrink)

The guiding thread of the paper is the diagnosis that the advanced division of cognitive labor (that is, intellectual specialization) engenders a set of perennial, political and epistemic challenges (Millgram 2015) that, simultaneously, also generate opportunities for philosophy. In this paper, I re-characterize the nature of synthetic philosophy as a means to advance and institutionalize philosophy. For my definition of synthetic philosophy see section 2. In section 1, I treat Plato’s Republic as offering two models to represent philosophy's relationship to (...) the other sciences within the advanced division of labor. I highlight that for Plato intellectual specialization is central not just to economic, but also to political life. And, yet, that the very dispersion of scientific expertise, and its esoteric nature, also generates non-trivial challenges to the recognition and political utilization of knowledge. From Plato we can infer that in imperfect circumstances, philosophy’s self-constitution is, in part, a response to these challenges in political epistemology. However, how philosophy is institutionalized differs through time. In section 2, I re-introduce my conceptualization of synthetic philosophy and restate it. This makes visible that synthetic philosophy is already widely practiced in the profession as philosophy of the special sciences, PPE, formal modelling, public philosophy, etc. I use recent work by Dorst (2023) to illustrate synthetic philosophy and to identify some of the processes that give rise to the need for it. In sections 2-3, I contrast my account with the evolving ways that Philip Kitcher has conceptualized synthetic philosophy in order to make more precise the version promoted here. I do so not just because Kitcher and I use the same term, ‘synthetic philosophy,’ but because the temptations inherent in Kitcher’s approach should be resisted. -/- . (shrink)

A Bayesian mind is, at its core, a rational mind. Bayesianism is thus well-suited to predict and explain mental processes that best exemplify our ability to be rational. However, evidence from belief acquisition and change appears to show that we do not acquire and update information in a Bayesian way. Instead, the principles of belief acquisition and updating seem grounded in maintaining a psychological immune system rather than in approximating a Bayesian processor.

I examine Zhu Xi's investigation thesis, the claim that a necessary condition (in ordinary cases) for one’s acting fully virtuously is one’s investigating the all-pervasive pattern in things (gewu格物). I identify four key objections that the thesis faces, which I label the rationalism, elitism, demandingness, and irrelevance worries. Zhu Xi, I argue, has resources for responding to each of these worries, and for defending a broadly intellectualist conception of fully virtuous agency.

For a period of several years the philosopher of science Hasok Chang has promoted various inter-related views including pluralism, pragmatism, and an associated view of natural kinds. He has also argued for what he calls the persistence of everyday terms in the scientific view. Chang claims that terms like phlogiston were never truly abandoned but became transformed into different concepts that remain useful. On the other hand, Chang argues that some scientific terms such as acidity have suffered a form of (...) “rupture”, especially in the case of the modern Lewis definition of acids. Chang also complains that the degree of acidity of a Lewis acid cannot be measured using a pH meter and seems to regard this as a serious problem. The present paper examines some of these views, especially what Chang claims to be a rupture in the definition of acidity. It is suggested that there has been no such rupture but a genuine generalization, on moving from the Brønsted-Lowry theory to the Lewis theory of acidity. It will be shown how the quantification and measurement of Lewis acidity can easily be realized through the use of equilibrium theory and the use of stability constants. (shrink)

The notion of domain specificity plays a central role in some of the most important debates in cognitive science. Yet, despite the widespread reliance on domain specificity in recent theorizing in cognitive science, this notion remains elusive. Critics have claimed that the notion of domain specificity can't bear the theoretical weight that has been put on it and that it should be abandoned. Even its most steadfast proponents have highlighted puzzles and tensions that arise once one tries to go beyond (...) an initial intuitive sketch of what domain specificity involves. In this paper, we address these concerns head on by developing an account of what it means for a cognitive mechanism to be domain specific that overcomes the obstacles that have made domain specificity seem so problematic. We then apply this understanding of domain specificity to one of the key debates that it has figured prominently in—the rationalism-empiricism debate concerning the origins of cognitive traits—and introduce several related theoretical notions that work alongside domain specificity in helping to clarify what makes a view more (or less) rationalist. This example illustrates how the notion of domain specificity can, and should, continue to play a central role in ongoing debates in cognitive science. (shrink)

Programs of drug testing welfare recipients are increasingly common in US states and have been considered elsewhere. Though often intensely debated, such programs are complicated to evaluate because their aims are ambiguous – aims like saving money may be in tension with aims like referring people to treatment. We assess such programs using a proportionality approach, which requires that for ethical acceptability a practice must be: reasonably likely to meet its aims, sufficiently important in purpose as to outweigh harms incurred, (...) and lower in costs than feasible alternatives. In the light of empirical findings, we argue that the programs fail the three requirements. Pursuing recreational drug users is not important in the light of costs incurred, while dependent users who may require referral are usually identifiable without testing and typically need a broader approach than one focussing on drugs. Drug testing of welfare recipients is therefore not ethically acceptable policy. (shrink)

In the opening of Plato’s Lysis, Socrates criticizes the love-besotted Hippothales’ way of speaking to, and about, Hippothales’ yearned-for Lysis. Socrates subsequently proceeds to demonstrate (ἐπιδεῖξαι) how Hippothales should converse with Lysis (206c5–6). But how should we assess Socrates’ criticisms of, and demonstration to, Hippothales? Are they defensible by Socrates’ own standards, as well as independent criteria? In this note, I first articulate and assess Socrates’ criticisms of Hippothales. Second, I identify, examine, and respond to puzzles to which Socrates’ demonstration (...) to Hippothales gives rise. (shrink)

I examine and compare Confucian wu-wei rule and Aristotelian non-imperative rule as two models of non-impositional rule. How exactly do non-impositional rulers, according to these thinkers, generate order? And how might a Confucian/Aristotelian dialogue concerning non-impositional rule in distinctively political contexts proceed? Are Confucians and Aristotelians in deep disagreement, or do they actually have more in common than they initially seem?

The cognitive science of belief is a burgeoning field, with insights ranging from detailing the fundamental structure of the mind, to explaining the spread of fake news. Here we highlight how new insights into belief acquisition, storage, and change can transform our understanding of psychiatric disorders. Although we focus on monothematic delusions, the conclusions apply more broadly. -/- .

In the Laws, Plato argues that legislation must not only compel, but also persuade. This is accomplished by prefacing laws with preludes. While this procedure is central to the legislative project of the dialogue, there is little interpretative agreement about the strategy of the preludes. This paper defends an interpretation according to which the strategy is to engage with citizens in a way that anticipates their progress toward a more mature evaluative outlook, and helps them grow into it. This paper (...) shall refer to this strategy as proleptic engagement. While the virtuous ways of life required by law are intimately connected to happiness, the preludes do not persuade by spelling out this connection. Rather, they persuade by telling citizens what they need to hear so that they can come to appreciate this connection for themselves, in the context of their own lives. While the preludes are many and varied, this paper argues that all preambular material can be understood as proleptic engagement. (shrink)

The literature of Twelve Step groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous contains apparently contradictory implications regarding powerlessness and personal responsibility. In this essay I examine the treatment of these concepts in Twelve Step literature and their implications for the self-conception of people in these programs. In the first section, I examine the literature to demonstrate that addicts are presented as powerless over, yet responsible for, their addictive behaviors. In the second section, I outline two potential ways people in Twelve Step programs (...) might reconcile this contradiction within their self-conception, but I argue that neither is satisfactory. In the third section, I draw on Paul Ricoeur's theory of narrative identity to develop an account of how someone ni a Twelve Step group could coherently understand herself as both powerless and responsible. (shrink)

PDF with introduction and front and back materials. Abstract: A provocative examination of the consequences of Levinas’s and Adorno’s thought for contemporary ethics and political philosophy. This book unfolds a dialogue between Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor W. Adorno, using their thought to address contemporary environmental and social-political situations. Eric S. Nelson explores the “non-identity thinking” of Adorno and the “ethics of the Other” of Levinas with regard to three areas of concern: the ethical position of nature and “inhuman” material (...) others such as environments and animals; the bonds and tensions between ethics and religion and the formation of the self through the dynamic of violence and liberation expressed in religious discourses; and the problematic uses and limitations of liberal and republican discourses of equality, liberty, tolerance, and their presupposition of the private individual self and autonomous subject. Thinking with and beyond Levinas and Adorno, this work examines the possibility of an anarchic hospitality and solidarity between material others and sensuous embodied life. -/- “This is an extremely impressive, original, and thorough treatment of two key twentieth-century thinkers and their applicability to the most pressing social and political issues of our time.” — Jeffrey A. Bernstein, author of Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History -/- “This book is an excellent and timely contribution to political and environmental philosophy, located around a nuanced historical and philosophical approach to Levinas and Adorno. It will be of great interest to anyone concerned with these figures or with the current moment.” — Martin Shuster, author of Autonomy after Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism, and Modernity. (shrink)

Number words seemingly function both as adjectives attributing cardinality properties to collections, as in Frege’s ‘Jupiter has four moons’, and as names referring to numbers, as in Frege’s ‘The number of Jupiter’s moons is four’. This leads to what Thomas Hofweber calls Frege’s Other Puzzle: How can number words function as modifiers and as singular terms if neither adjectives nor names can serve multiple semantic functions? Whereas most philosophers deny that one of these uses is genuine, we instead argue that (...) number words, like many related expressions, are polymorphic, having multiple uses whose meanings are systematically related via type shifting. (shrink)

In reasoning, we draw conclusions from multiple premises. But thinkers can be fragmented. And if there is no single fragment of the agent that thinks all of the premises, then the agent cannot draw any conclusions from them. It follows that reasoning from multiple premises depends on their being thought together. But what is it to think premises together? What is the condition that contrasts with fragmentation? This paper provides an answer to this question that is simple but compelling: to (...) think premises together is to attribute those very thoughts to one and the same self. The ability to reason depends on the ability to attribute the thoughts from which one reasons to oneself. Reasoning—at least the sort of reasoning that we do—requires de se thought. (shrink)

An analysis of a valenced corpus of English words revealed that words that rhyme with slurs are rated more poorly than their synonyms. What at first might seem like a bizarre coincidence turns out to be a robust feature of slurs, one arising from their phonetic structure. We report novel data on phonaesthetic preferences, showing that a particular class of phonemes are both particularly disliked, and overrepresented in slurs. We argue that phonaesthetic associations have been an overlooked source of some (...) of the more peculiar, arational aspects of slurs. We conclude by drawing broader morals about the evolution of the lexicon. (shrink)

Aristotle’s views on the choiceworthiness of friends might seem both internally inconsistent and objectionably instrumentalizing. On the one hand, Aristotle maintains that perfect friends or virtue friends are choiceworthy and lovable for their own sake, and not merely for the sake of further ends. On the other hand, in Nicomachean Ethics IX.9, Aristotle appears somehow to account for the choiceworthiness of such friends by reference to their utility as sources of a virtuous agent’s robust self-awareness. I examine Aristotle’s views on (...) the utility and choiceworthiness of friends, and offer a novel reading of Nicomachean Ethics IX.9. On this reading, Aristotle accepts a version of instrumental conditionalism about final value, that is, the thesis that goods (including friends) can be choiceworthy for their own sake (i.e., possess final or end value) at least partly on account of their instrumental properties. In articulating what sort of instrumental conditionalism it is reasonable to attribute to Aristotle, I argue that Aristotle appeals to the utility of perfect friends as part of a broadly material causal account of why such friends are choiceworthy for their own sake. On this reading, perfect friends are not choiceworthy for the sake of their utility in eliciting self-awareness; rather, their choiceworthiness for their own sake is (at least partly) realized in, or constituted by, their conduciveness to the virtuous agent’s self-awareness. This reading, I argue, frees Aristotle from the charge of inconsistency: Aristotle can appeal to the conduciveness of perfect friends to the virtuous agent’s self-awareness as a way of explaining why such friends are choiceworthy for their own sake. (shrink)

Moorean arguments are a popular and powerful way to engage highly revisionary philosophical views, such as nihilism about motion, time, truth, consciousness, causation, and various kinds of skepticism (e.g., external world, other minds, inductive, global). They take, as a premise, a highly plausible first-order claim (e.g., cars move, I ate breakfast before lunch, it’s true that some fish have gills) and conclude from it the falsity of the highly revisionary philosophical thesis. Moorean arguments can be used against nihilists in ethics (...) (error theorists), too. Recently, error theorists have recognized Moorean arguments as a powerful challenge and have tried to meet it. They’ve argued that moral Moorean premises seem highly credible to us, but aren’t, by offering various debunking explanations. These explanations all appeal to higher-order evidence—evidence of error in our reasoning. I argue that drawing attention to higher-order evidence is a welcome contribution from error theorists, but that the higher-order evidence actually counts further against error theoretic arguments—including their debunking explanations—and further in favor of Moorean arguments and the commonsense views they support. Along the way I answer a few prominent objections to Moorean arguments: that they are objectionably question-begging, rely on categorizing some facts as “Moorean Facts”, and that reports of one’s credence in a proposition bears no interesting relation to that proposition’s credibility. (shrink)

Arguments from consciousness to God’s existence (ACs) contend that physicalism is too problematic to explain the mind’s ultimate source. They add that theism probably better explains this source in terms of God making us in his own image (with conscious, unified, rational minds). But ACs are problematic too. First, physicalism has various competitors beside theism. Russellian monism and dual-aspect theory are examples. Second, all these theories, including theism, are seriously flawed. For example, it’s tied to traditional dualism, which has causal (...) issues (according to Murphy, Churchland, and other physicalists). But we argue that this theistic dualism can be refined to avoid its issues—and the issues in all other theories. So, it probably explains the mind’s origin better than other theories. We rely here on Lowe’s dualism, where the mind’s subject exists immaterially yet spatially, and is a unified, simple entity (unlike neural aggregates with their quite separate parts). This turns the tables on Churchland, Murphy, and other advocates for scientism. -/- . (shrink)

After presenting evidence about categorization behavior, this paper argues for the following theses: 1) that there is a border between perception and cognition; 2) that the border is to be characterized by perception being modular (and cognition not being so); 3) that perception outputs conceptualized representations, so views that posit that the output of perception is solely non-conceptual are false; and 4) that perceptual content consists of basic-level categories and not richer contents.