8 found
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  1. Some moral benefits of ignorance.Jimmy Alfonso Licon - 2023 - Philosophical Psychology 36 (2):319-336.
    When moral philosophers study ignorance, their efforts are almost exclusively confined to its exculpatory and blameworthy aspects. Unfortunately, though, this trend overlooks that certain kinds of propositional ignorance, namely of the personal costs and benefits of altruistic actions, can indirectly incentivize those actions. Humans require cooperation from others to survive, and that can be facilitated by a good reputation. One avenue to a good reputation is helping others, sticking to moral principles, and so forth, without calculating the personal costs of (...)
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  2. Sceptical Thoughts on Philosophical Expertise.Jimmy Alfonso Licon - 2012 - Logos and Episteme 3 (3):449-458.
    My topic is two-fold: a reductive account of expertise as an epistemic phenomenon, and applying the reductive account to the question of whether or not philosophers enjoy expertise. I conclude, on the basis of the reductive account, that even though philosophers enjoy something akin to second-order expertise (i.e. they are often experts on the positions of other philosophers, current trends in the philosophical literature, the history of philosophy, conceptual analysis and so on), they nevertheless lack first-order philosophical expertise (i.e. expertise (...)
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  3. The Epistemology of Moral Praise and Moral Criticism.Jimmy Alfonso Licon - 2021 - Episteme 20 (2):337-348.
    Are strangers sincere in their moral praise and criticism? Here we apply signaling theory to argue ceteris paribus moral criticism is more likely sincere than praise; the former tends to be a higher-fidelity signal (in Western societies). To offer an example: emotions are often self-validating as a signal because they're hard to fake. This epistemic insight matters: moral praise and criticism influence moral reputations, and affect whether others will cooperate with us. Though much of this applies to generic praise and (...)
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  4. Better Spent Elsewhere Why Philosophy Should Be Funded Less.Jimmy Alfonso Licon - 2024 - The Independent Review 29 (1):71-87.
    If you’ve got millions of dollars to donate, don’t donate them to academic philosophy. Producing philosophical articles and books faces diminishing returns and diverts money and attention from more important causes. Many philosophy books and articles contradict each other; at best, only some can be correct. Philosophy classes are poor at instilling critical thinking skills. Resources that would be spent on philosophy would be better spent elsewhere.
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  5. The Immorality of Procreation.Jimmy Alfonso Licon - 2012 - Think 11 (32):85-91.
    In this paper, I argue the practice of procreation is immoral regardless of the consequences of human presence such as climate change and overpopulation; the lack of consent, interests and moral desert on the part of nonexistent individuals means someone could potentially suffer in the absence of moral justification. Procreation is only morally justified if there is some method for acquiring informed consent from a non-existent person; but that is impossible; therefore, procreation is immoral.
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  6. That seems wrong: pedagogically defusing moral relativism and moral skepticism.Jimmy Alfonso Licon - 2023 - International Journal of Ethics Education 8 (2):335-349.
    Students sometimes profess moral relativism or skepticism with retorts like ‘how can we know?’ or ‘it’s all relative!’ Here I defend a pedagogical method to defuse moral relativism and moral skepticism using phenomenal conservatism: if it seems to S that p, S has defeasible justification to believe that p; e.g., moral seemings, like perceptual ones, are defeasibly justified. The purpose of defusing moral skepticism and relativism is to prevent these metaethical views from acting as stumbling blocks to insightful ethical inquiry (...)
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  7. Another Argument for Animalism: The Argument from Causal Powers.Jimmy Alfonso Licon - 2012 - Prolegomena 11 (2):169-180.
    The causal powers that I have, such as the ability to go to the store for cold beer, for instance are the same causal powers as those had by the human animal closely associated with me. That is, the biological organism that invariably stares back at me, whenever I look in the mirror. Thus, if I want to avoid gratuitous causal overdetermination – i.e. if I want to avoid positing two separate individuals with identical, and thus redundant, causal powers – (...)
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  8. Freedom of Expression and the Argument from Self-Defense.Jimmy Alfonso Licon - 2022 - Think 21 (62):23-31.
    Some philosophers hold that stifling free expression stifles intellectual life. Others reply that freedom of expression can harm members of marginalized groups by alienating them from social life or worse. Yet we should still favour freedom of expression, especially where marginalized groups are concerned. It's better to know who has repugnant beliefs as it allows marginalized groups to identify threats: free expression qua self-defence.
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