Results for 'Ken Barker'

168 found
Order:
  1. Go Figure: Understanding Figurative Talk.Mihaela Popa-Wyatt - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (1):1-12.
    We think and speak in figures. This is key to our creativity. We re-imagine one thing as another, pretend ourself to be another, do one thing in order to achieve another, or say one thing to mean another. This comes easily because of our abilities both to work out meaning in context and re-purpose words. Figures of speech are tools for this re-purposing. Whether we use metaphor, simile, irony, hyperbole, and litotes individually, or as compound figures, the uses are all (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  2. Well-being, Disability, and Choosing Children.Matthew J. Barker & Robert A. Wilson - 2019 - Mind 128 (510):305-328.
    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 (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  3. Monism and Material Constitution.Stephen Barker & Mark Jago - 2014 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 95 (1):189-204.
    Are the sculpture and the mass of gold which permanently makes it up one object or two? In this article, we argue that the monist, who answers ‘one object’, cannot accommodate the asymmetry of material constitution. To say ‘the mass of gold materially constitutes the sculpture, whereas the sculpture does not materially constitute the mass of gold’, the monist must treat ‘materially constitutes’ as an Abelardian predicate, whose denotation is sensitive to the linguistic context in which it appears. We motivate (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  4. Kant on Modality.Colin Marshall & Aaron Barker - forthcoming - In Andrew Stephenson & Anil Gomes (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Kant. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
    This chapter analyzes several key themes in Kant’s views about modality. We begin with the pre-critical Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God, in which Kant distinguishes between formal and material elements of possibility, claims that all possibility requires an actual ground, and argues for the existence of a single necessary being. We then briefly consider how Kant’s views change in his mature period, especially concerning the role of form and thought in defining modality. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  5. How Much Ambiguity Aversion? Finding Indifferences between Ellsberg's Risky and Ambiguous Bets.Ken Binmore, Lisa Stewart & Alex Voorhoeve - 2012 - Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 45 (3):215-38.
    Experimental results on the Ellsberg paradox typically reveal behavior that is commonly interpreted as ambiguity aversion. The experiments reported in the current paper find the objective probabilities for drawing a red ball that make subjects indifferent between various risky and uncertain Ellsberg bets. They allow us to examine the predictive power of alternative principles of choice under uncertainty, including the objective maximin and Hurwicz criteria, the sure-thing principle, and the principle of insufficient reason. Contrary to our expectations, the principle of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  6. Being Positive About Negative Facts.Mark Jago & Stephen Barker - 2012 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85 (1):117-138.
    Negative facts get a bad press. One reason for this is that it is not clear what negative facts are. We provide a theory of negative facts on which they are no stranger than positive atomic facts. We show that none of the usual arguments hold water against this account. Negative facts exist in the usual sense of existence and conform to an acceptable Eleatic principle. Furthermore, there are good reasons to want them around, including their roles in causation, chance-making (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   60 citations  
  7. An Indexical Theory of Conditionals.Ken Warmbrōd - 1981 - Dialogue 20 (4):644-664.
    Language theorists have recently come to have an increasing appreciation for the fact that context contributes heavily in determining our interpretation of what is said. Indeed, it now seems clear that no complete understanding of a natural language is possible without some account of the way in which context affects our interpretation of discourse. In this paper, I will attempt to explore one facet of the language – context relationship, namely, the relation between conditionals and context. The first part of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  8. Presupposition and entailment.John A. Barker - 1976 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 17 (2):272-278.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. Epistemic Conditionals.Ken Warmbrōd - 1983 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 64 (3):249-265.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  10. The autonomy of psychology in the age of neuroscience.Ken Aizawa & Carl Gillet - 2011 - In Phyllis McKay Illari Federica Russo (ed.), Causality in the Sciences. Oxford University Press. pp. 202--223.
    Sometimes neuroscientists discover distinct realizations for a single psychological property. In considering such cases, some philosophers have maintained that scientists will abandon the single multiply realized psychological property in favor of one or more uniquely realized psychological properties. In this paper, we build on the Dimensioned theory of realization and a companion theory of multiple realization to argue that this is not the case. Whether scientists postulate unique realizations or multiple realizations is not determined by the neuroscience alone, but by (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  11. Motivating the Search for Alternatives to Personal OmniGod Theism: The Case from Classical Theism.Ken Perszyk - 2018 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 10 (4):97-118.
    Analytic philosophers of religion typically take God to be ‘the personal omniGod’ – a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, and who creates and sustains all else that exists. Analytic philosophers also tend to assume that the personal omniGod is the God of ‘classical’ theism. Arguably, this is a mistake. To be consistent, a classical theist or her supporter must deny that God is literally a person. They need not, however, deny the aptness of using personal language, or of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  12. When Traditional Essentialism Fails: Biological Natural Kinds.Robert A. Wilson, Matthew J. Barker & Ingo Brigandt - 2007 - Philosophical Topics 35 (1-2):189-215.
    Essentialism is widely regarded as a mistaken view of biological kinds, such as species. After recounting why (sections 2-3), we provide a brief survey of the chief responses to the “death of essentialism” in the philosophy of biology (section 4). We then develop one of these responses, the claim that biological kinds are homeostatic property clusters (sections 5-6) illustrating this view with several novel examples (section 7). Although this view was first expressed 20 years ago, and has received recent discussion (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   106 citations  
  13. Let's Not Do Responsibility Skepticism.Ken M. Levy - 2023 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 40 (3):458-73.
    I argue for three conclusions. First, responsibility skeptics are committed to the position that the criminal justice system should adopt a universal nonresponsibility excuse. Second, a universal nonresponsibility excuse would diminish some of our most deeply held values, further dehumanize criminals, exacerbate mass incarceration, and cause an even greater number of innocent people (nonwrongdoers) to be punished. Third, while Saul Smilansky's ‘illusionist’ response to responsibility skeptics – that even if responsibility skepticism is correct, society should maintain a responsibility‐realist/retributivist criminal justice (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  14. Abduction and Composition.Ken Aizawa & Drew B. Headley - 2022 - Philosophy of Science 89 (2):268-82.
    Some New Mechanists have proposed that claims of compositional relations are justified by combining the results of top-down and bottom-up interlevel interventions. But what do scientists do when they can perform, say, a cellular intervention, but not a subcellular detection? In such cases, paired interlevel interventions are unavailable. We propose that scientists use abduction and we illustrate its use through a case study of the ionic theory of resting and action potentials.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  15. Normative Ignorance: A Critical Connection Between the Insanity and Mistake of Law Defenses.Ken Levy - 2020 - Florida State University Law Review 47:411-443.
    This Article falls into three general parts. The first part starts with an important question: is the insanity defense constitutionally required? The United States Supreme Court will finally try to answer this question next term in the case of Kahler v. Kansas. -/- I say “finally” because the Court refused to answer this question in 2012 when it denied certiorari to an appeal brought by John Joseph Delling, a severely mentally ill defendant who was sentenced to life in prison three (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Criminal Responsibility.Ken M. Levy - 2019 - In Robert D. Morgan (ed.), SAGE Encyclopedia of Criminal Psychology. Sage Publishing. pp. 269-272.
    This invited entry offers a brief overview of criminal responsibility. -/- The first part starts with a question: is Clyde criminally responsible for killing his girlfriend Bonnie? The answer: it depends. Particular circumstances determine whether Clyde is guilty of murder, guilty of manslaughter, not guilty because he has a good excuse, or not guilty because he has a good justification. -/- The second part addresses the complicated relationship between criminal responsibility and moral responsibility. Until recently, both concepts were considered to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  17. On Not Blaming and Victim Blaming.Joel Chow Ken Q. & Robert H. Wallace - 2020 - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 39 (3):95-128.
    In this paper we show that being blameworthy for not blaming and being blameworthy for victim blaming are structurally similar. Each involve the two traditional contours of moral responsibility: a knowledge condition and a control condition. But interestingly, in these cases knowledge and control are importantly interrelated. Being in a relationship with another person affords us varying degrees of knowledge about them. This knowledge in turn affords agents in relationships varying degrees of influence over one another. Cases where an agent (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  18. Dangerous Psychopaths: Criminally Responsible But Not Morally Responsible, Subject to Criminal Punishment And to Preventive Detention.Ken Levy - 2011 - San Diego Law Review 48:1299-1395.
    I argue for two propositions. First, contrary to the common wisdom, we may justly punish individuals who are not morally responsible for their crimes. Psychopaths – individuals who lack the capacity to feel sympathy – help to prove this point. Scholars are increasingly arguing that psychopaths are not morally responsible for their behavior because they suffer from a neurological disorder that makes it impossible for them to understand, and therefore be motivated by, moral reasons. These same scholars then infer from (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  19. The Phenomenology of Sensorimotor Understanding.Ken Pepper - 2014 - In M. Bishop A. Martin (ed.), Contemporary Sensorimotor Theory. Springer. pp. 53-65.
    This paper draws on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy to sketch a phenomenological interpretation of the enactivist notion of sensorimotor understanding. I begin by situating Noë’s enactive theory of vision in relation to Husserlian phenomenology. I then raise three related objections to Noë’s treatment of sensorimotor understanding in terms of practical knowledge of possibilities for action. Finally, I appeal to Phenomenology of Perception to show how two of its major operative concepts – the ‘body schema’ and ‘sedimentation’ – can help to plug (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  20. Variable Classes.Ken Siegel - 1977 - Philosophy Research Archives 3:787-792.
    In his paper "Why a Class Can't Change Its Members," Richard Sharvy appears to establish the impossibility of the existence of a variable class—that is, a class that at one time has a member that is not a member of it at another time. I first indicate the importance of Sharvy's argument for our understanding of the concept of identity in the contexts of time and modality, and I summarize his argument. Sharvy says that a class C that has one (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  21. Is Descartes a Temporal Atomist?Ken Levy - 2005 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 13 (4):627 – 674.
    I argue that Descartes' Second Causal Proof of God in the Third Meditation evidences, and commits him to, the belief that time is "strongly discontinuous" -- that is, that there is actually a gap between each consecutive moment of time. Much of my article attempts to reconcile this interpretation, the "received view," with Descartes' statements about time, space, and matter in his other writings, including his correspondence with various philosophers.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  22. The multiple realization of human color vision revisited.Ken Aizawa - 2022 - Frontiers in Psychology 13.
    Over the last 25 years, there has been a concerted effort to settle questions about multiple realization by bringing detailed scientific evidence to bear. Ken Aizawa and Carl Gillett have pursued this scientific approach to multiple realization with a precise theory and applications. This paper reviews the application of the Dimensioned approach to human color vision, addressing objections that have appeared in the literature.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  23. Biological Individuals.Robert A. Wilson & Matthew J. Barker - 2024 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    The impressive variation amongst biological individuals generates many complexities in addressing the simple-sounding question what is a biological individual? A distinction between evolutionary and physiological individuals is useful in thinking about biological individuals, as is attention to the kinds of groups, such as superorganisms and species, that have sometimes been thought of as biological individuals. More fully understanding the conceptual space that biological individuals occupy also involves considering a range of other concepts, such as life, reproduction, and agency. There has (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  24. On Three Arguments Against Metaphysical Libertarianism.Ken M. Levy - 2023 - Review of Metaphysics 76 (4):725-748.
    I argue that the three strongest arguments against metaphysical libertarianism—the randomness objection, the constitutive luck objection, and the physicalist objection—are actually unsuccessful and therefore that metaphysical libertarianism is more plausible than the common philosophical wisdom allows. My more positive thesis, what I will refer to as “Agent Exceptionalism,” is that, when making decisions and performing actions, human beings can indeed satisfy the four conditions of metaphysical libertarianism: the control condition, the rationality condition, the ultimacy condition, and the physicalism condition.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  25. Does Situationism Excuse? The Implications of Situationism for Moral Responsibility and Criminal Responsibility.Ken Levy - 2015 - Arkansas Law Review 68:731-787.
    In this Article, I will argue that a person may be deserving of criminal punishment even in certain situations where she is not necessarily morally responsible for her criminal act. What these situations share in common are two things: the psychological factors that motivate the individual’s behavior are environmentally determined and her crime is serious, making her less eligible for sympathy and therefore less likely to be acquitted. -/- To get to this conclusion, I will proceed in four steps. In (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  26. Baumann on the Monty Hall Problem and Single-Case Probabilities.Ken Levy - 2007 - Synthese 158 (1):139-151.
    Peter Baumann uses the Monty Hall game to demonstrate that probabilities cannot be meaningfully applied to individual games. Baumann draws from this first conclusion a second: in a single game, it is not necessarily rational to switch from the door that I have initially chosen to the door that Monty Hall did not open. After challenging Baumann's particular arguments for these conclusions, I argue that there is a deeper problem with his position: it rests on the false assumption that what (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  27. Against Purity.Jonathan Barker - 2023 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9.
    A fundamental fact is “pure” just in case it has no grounded entities—ex. Tokyo, President Biden, the River Nile, {Socrates}, etc.—among its constituents. Purity is the thesis that every fundamental fact is pure. I argue that Purity is false. My argument begins with a familiar conditional: if Purity is true, then there are no fundamental “grounding facts” or facts about what grounds what. This conditional is accepted by virtually all of Purity’s defenders. However, I argue that it is also the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  28. The Emperor's New Metaphysics of Powers.Stephen Barker - 2013 - Mind 122 (487):605-653.
    This paper argues that the new metaphysics of powers, also known as dispositional essentialism or causal structuralism, is an illusory metaphysics. I argue for this in the following way. I begin by distinguishing three fundamental ways of seeing how facts of physical modality — facts about physical necessitation and possibility, causation, disposition, and chance — are grounded in the world. The first way, call it the first degree, is that the actual world or all worlds, in their entirety, are the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   37 citations  
  29. Letter Regarding Canada's Bill C-7, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) and Disability.Robert A. Wilson & Matthew J. Barker - manuscript
    This letter was submitted to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Government of Canada, on 29th January, 2021, as final debate over Bill C-7 was being undertaken in the Senate regarding MAiD and the strong opposition to the legislation expressed across the Canadian disability community. It draws on our individual and joint work on eugenics, well-being, and disability.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  30. Grounding and the Myth of Ontological Innocence.Jonathan Barker - 2021 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (2):303-318.
    According to the Ontological Innocence Thesis (OIT), grounded entities are ontologically innocent relative to their full grounds. I argue that OIT entails a contradiction, and therefore must be discarded. My argument turns on the notion of “groundmates,” two or more numerically distinct entities that share at least one of their full grounds. I argue that, if OIT is true, then it is both the case that there are groundmates and that there are no groundmates. Therefore, so I conclude, OIT is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  31. Material Objects and Essential Bundle Theory.Stephen Barker & Mark Jago - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (12):2969-2986.
    In this paper we present a new metaphysical theory of material objects. On our theory, objects are bundles of property instances, where those properties give the nature or essence of that object. We call the theory essential bundle theory. Property possession is not analysed as bundle-membership, as in traditional bundle theories, since accidental properties are not included in the object’s bundle. We have a different story to tell about accidental property possession. This move reaps many benefits. Essential bundle theory delivers (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  32. On the Rationalist Solution to Gregory Kavka's Toxin Puzzle.Ken Levy - 2009 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 90 (2):267-289.
    Gregory Kavka's 'Toxin Puzzle' suggests that I cannot intend to perform a counter-preferential action A even if I have a strong self-interested reason to form this intention. The 'Rationalist Solution,' however, suggests that I can form this intention. For even though it is counter-preferential, A-ing is actually rational given that the intention behind it is rational. Two arguments are offered for this proposition that the rationality of the intention to A transfers to A-ing itself: the 'Self-Promise Argument' and David Gauthier's (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  33. Methods Matter: Beating the Backward Clock.Murray Clarke, Fred Adams & John A. Barker - 2017 - Logos and Episteme 8 (1):99-112.
    In “Beat the (Backward) Clock,” we argued that John Williams and Neil Sinhababu’s Backward Clock Case fails to be a counterexample to Robert Nozick’s or Fred Dretske’s Theories of Knowledge. Williams’ reply to our paper, “There’s Nothing to Beat a Backward Clock: A Rejoinder to Adams, Barker and Clarke,” is a further attempt to defend their counterexample against a range of objections. In this paper, we argue that, despite the number and length of footnotes, Williams is still wrong.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  34. Commentary on Szmukler: Mental Illness, Dangerousness, and Involuntary Civil Commitment.Ken Levy & Alex Cohen - 2016 - In Daniel D. Moseley Gary J. Gala (ed.), Philosophy and Psychiatry: Problems, Intersections, and New Perspectives. Routledge. pp. 147-160.
    Prof. Cohen and I answer six questions: (1) Why do we lock people up? (2) How can involuntary civil commitment be reconciled with people's constitutional right to liberty? (3) Why don't we treat homicide as a public health threat? (4) What is the difference between legal and medical approaches to mental illness? (5) Why is mental illness required for involuntary commitment? (6) Where are we in our efforts to understand the causes of mental illness?
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  35. The Ultimate Argument Against Dispositional Monist Accounts of Laws.Stephen Barker & Benjamin Smart - 2012 - Analysis 72 (4):714-722.
    Bird argues that Armstrong’s necessitarian conception of physical modality and laws of nature generates a vicious regress with respect to necessitation. We show that precisely the same regress afflicts Bird’s dispositional-monist theory, and indeed, related views, such as that of Mumford & Anjum. We argue that dispositional monism is basically Armstrongian necessitarianism modified to allow for a thesis about property identity.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   31 citations  
  36. Criminal Responsibility.Ken Levy - 2022 - In Joseph Keim Campbell, Kristin M. Mickelson & V. Alan White (eds.), A Companion to Free Will. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 406-413.
    I explicate the conditions required for criminal responsibility, provide an overview of criminal defenses, distinguish criminal responsibility from both tort liability and moral responsibility, and explicate the current state of the insanity defense.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  37. Why Retributivism Needs Consequentialism: The Rightful Place of Revenge in the Criminal Justice System.Ken Levy - 2014 - Rutgers Law Review 66:629-684.
    Consider the reaction of Trayvon Martin’s family to the jury verdict. They were devastated that George Zimmerman, the defendant, was found not guilty of manslaughter or murder. Whatever the merits of this outcome, what does the Martin family’s emotional reaction mean? What does it say about criminal punishment – especially the reasons why we punish? Why did the Martin family want to see George Zimmerman go to jail? And why were – and are – they so upset that he didn’t? (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  38. Pure versus Hybrid Expressivism and the Enigma of Conventional Implicature.Stephen Barker - 2014 - In Guy Fletcher & Michael Ridge (eds.), Having It Both Ways: Hybrid Theories and Modern Metaethics. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 199-222.
    Can hybridism about moral claims be made to work? I argue it can if we accept the conventional implicature approach developed in Barker (Analysis 2000). However, this kind of hybrid expressivism is only acceptable if we can make sense of conventional implicature, the kind of meaning carried by operators like ‘even’, ‘but’, etc. Conventional implictures are a form of pragmatic presupposition, which involves an unsaid mode of delivery of content. I argue that we can make sense of conventional implicatures, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  39. The Solution to the Real Blackmail Paradox: The Common Link Between Blackmail and Other Criminal Threats.Ken Levy - 2007 - Connecticut Law Review 39:1051-1096.
    Disclosure of true but reputation-damaging information is generally legal. But threats to disclose true but reputation-damaging information unless payment is made are generally criminal. Many scholars think that this situation is paradoxical because it seems to involve illegality mysteriously arising out of legality, a criminal act mysteriously arising out of an independently legal threat to disclose conjoined with an independently legal demand for money. -/- But this formulation is not quite right. The real paradox raised by the different legal statuses (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  40. Why the Late Justice Scalia Was Wrong: The Fallacies of Constitutional Textualism.Ken Levy - 2017 - Lewis and Clark Law Review 21 (1):45-96.
    My article concerns constitutional interpretation and substantive due process, issues that played a central role in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), one of the two same-sex marriage cases. (The other same-sex marriage case was United States v. Windsor (2013).) -/- The late Justice Scalia consistently maintained that the Court “invented” substantive due process and continues to apply this legal “fiction” not because the Constitution supports it but simply because the justices like it. Two theories underlay his cynical conclusion. First is the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  41. Cohesion, Gene flow, and the Nature of Species.Matthew J. Barker & Robert A. Wilson - 2010 - Journal of Philosophy 107 (2):59-77.
    A far-reaching and influential view in evolutionary biology claims that species are cohesive units held together by gene flow. Biologists have recognized empirical problems facing this view; after sharpening the expression of the view, we present novel conceptual problems for it. At the heart of these problems is a distinction between two importantly different concepts of cohesion, what we call integrative and response cohesion. Acknowledging the distinction problematizes both the explanandum of species cohesion and the explanans of gene flow that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  42. Killing, Letting Die, and the Case for Mildly Punishing Bad Samaritanism.Ken Levy - 2010 - Georgia Law Review 44:607-695.
    For over a century now, American scholars (among others) have been debating the merits of “bad Samaritan” laws — laws punishing people for failing to attempt easy and safe rescues. Unfortunately, the opponents of bad Samaritan laws have mostly prevailed. In the United States, the “no-duty-to-rescue” rule dominates. Only four states have passed bad Samaritan laws, and these laws impose only the most minimal punishment — either sub-$500 fines or short-term imprisonment. -/- This Article argues that every state should criminalize (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  43. Why It Is Sometimes Fair to Blame Agents for Unavoidable Actions and Omissions.Ken Levy - 2005 - American Philosophical Quarterly 42 (2):93 - 104.
    It is generally thought that ought implies can. If this maxim is correct, then my inability to do otherwise entails that I cannot be blamed for failing to do otherwise. In this article, however, I use Harry Frankfurt’s famous argument against the "Principle of Alternative Possibilities" (PAP) to show that the maxim is actually false, that I can be blamed for failing to do otherwise even in situations where I could not have done otherwise. In these situations, I do not (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  44. Ambiguity Attitudes, Framing and Consistency.Alex Voorhoeve, Ken G. Binmore, Arnaldur Stefansson & Lisa Stewart - 2016 - Theory and Decision 81 (3):313-337.
    We use probability-matching variations on Ellsberg’s single-urn experiment to assess three questions: (1) How sensitive are ambiguity attitudes to changes from a gain to a loss frame? (2) How sensitive are ambiguity attitudes to making ambiguity easier to recognize? (3) What is the relation between subjects’ consistency of choice and the ambiguity attitudes their choices display? Contrary to most other studies, we find that a switch from a gain to a loss frame does not lead to a switch from ambiguity (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  45. Blocking Blockage.Ken Levy - 2016 - Philosophia 44 (2):565-583.
    The Blockage Argument is designed to improve upon Harry Frankfurt’s famous argument against the Principle of Alternative Possibilities by removing the counterfactual intervener altogether. If the argument worked, then it would prove in a way that Frankfurt’s argument does not that moral responsibility does not require any alternative possibilities whatsoever, not even the weakest “flicker of freedom”. -/- Some philosophers have rejected the Blockage Argument solely on the basis of their intuition that the inability to do otherwise is incompatible with (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  46. Hume, the New Hume, and Causal Connections.Ken Levy - 2000 - Hume Studies 26 (1):41-75.
    In this article, I weigh in on the debate between "Humeans" and "New Humeans" concerning David Hume's stance on the existence of causal connections in "the objects." According to New Humeans, Hume believes in causal connections; according to Humeans, he does not. -/- My argument against New Humeans is that it is too difficult to reconcile Hume's repeated claims that causal connections are inconceivable with any belief that they these inconceivable somethings still exist. Specifically, Hume either assumes or does not (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  47. It's Not Too Difficult: A Plea to Resurrect the Impossibility Defense.Ken Levy - 2014 - New Mexico Law Revview 45:225-274.
    Suppose you are at the gym trying to see some naked beauties by peeping through a hole in the wall. A policeman happens by, he asks you what you are doing, and you honestly tell him. He then arrests you for voyeurism. Are you guilty? We don’t know yet because there is one more fact to be considered: while you honestly thought that a locker room was on the other side of the wall, it was actually a squash court. Are (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  48. The Solution to the Problem of Outcome Luck: Why Harm Is Just as Punishable as the Wrongful Action that Causes It.Ken Levy - 2005 - Law and Philosophy 24 (3):263-303.
    A surprisingly large number of scholars believe that (a) we are blameworthy, and therefore punishable, only for what we have control over; (b) we have control only over our actions and intentions, not the consequences of our actions; and therefore (c) if two agents perform the very same action (e.g., attempting to kill) with the very same intentions, then they are equally blameworthy and deserving of equal punishment – even if only one of them succeeds in killing. This paper argues (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  49. Gonzales v. Oregon and Physician-Assisted Suicide: Ethical and Policy Issues.Ken Levy - 2007 - Tulsa Law Review 42:699-729.
    The euthanasia literature typically discusses the difference between “active” and “passive” means of ending a patient’s life. Physician-assisted suicide differs from both active and passive forms of euthanasia insofar as the physician does not administer the means of suicide to the patient. Instead, she merely prescribes and dispenses them to the patient and lets the patient “do the rest” – if and when the patient chooses. One supposed advantage of this process is that it maximizes the patient’s autonomy with respect (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  50. Insanity Defenses.Walter Sinnott-Armstrong & Ken Levy - 2011 - In John Deigh & David Dolinko (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of the Criminal Law. Oxford University Press. pp. 299--334.
    We explicate and evaluate arguments both for and against the insanity defense itself, different versions of the insanity defense (M'Naghten, Model Penal Code, and Durham (or Product)), the Irresistible Impulse rule, and various reform proposals.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
1 — 50 / 168