The main contribution of this article is to apply Herbert Marcuse’s work in contemporary neoliberal society. Specifically, this article will focus on Marcuse’s critique of advanced industrial society and the role that technology plays in the quantification of the self. In this article, I will argue that in recent years, the development of technology has created the possibility to measure, calculate and quantify even the most trivial aspects of our lives, reducing people to numbers. The quantification of people is done (...) with the specific purpose of enhancing efficacy and productivity. I will unpack this notion by first looking to Marcuse’s critique of an advanced industrial society which he argues has the unique purpose of quantifying people to achieve a universal norm of calculated efficiency. Specifically, I will refer to Marcuse’s critique of industrial rationality as the prevailing rationality in advanced industrial societies which encourages the quantification of people. Secondly, I argue that Marcuse’s critique has evolved in the work of contemporary thinkers such as political economist Wendy Brown and cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han. I argue that Brown expands on Marcuse’s theories and contextualises those theories in contemporary neoliberalism. Specifically, I will focus on the concept of governmentality as a political rationality in neoliberal societies and how it advances a one-dimensional political passivity in neoliberal subjects. Finally, I refer to Han, whose theories explore the influence of new forms of technology in a neoliberal society and the development of the neoliberal subject as a “quantified self”. (shrink)

This article argues that the gig economy is an exploitative extension of the informal economy. With its decentralised promise of individual entrepreneurship, I will argue that it places undue burdens on the worker as an ‘independent contractor’ that would otherwise be upheld by the employer. I will do so by applying a Marcusian analysis of the gig economy, highlighting two primary concerns. First, Marcuse’s critique of ‘industrial rationality’ explains how industrial rationality creates the framework for – and justification of – (...) exploitation within the gig economy. Second, as Wendy Brown notes, following Marcuse, the gig economy promotes the neoliberal notion of ‘self-care’ as a means of absolving corporations from any duty towards their employees. More specifically, ‘self-care’ within the gig economy forms part of the exploitation of workers within the informal economy which is often viewed as a buffer to absorb the unemployed within a neoliberal society. Building on this critique, I refer to the work of Byung-Chul Han and his concept of ‘self-exploitation,’ arguing that the gig economy should be considered an extension of an informal economy, in which workers are left in a perpetual state of servitude. (shrink)

Dewey’s book is the first systematic attempt at a pragmatistic logic (since the work of Peirce). Because of the ambiguity of the concept of pragmatism, the author rejects the concept in general. But, if one interprets pragmatism correctly, then this book is ‘through and through Pragmatistic’. What he understands as ‘correct’ will become clear in the following account. The book takes its subject matter far beyond the traditional works on logic. It is a material logic first in the sense that (...) the matter of logic (the ‘objects’, that with which logical thought has to do) is thoroughly included in the cycle of investigation, and logical ‘forms’ are discussed only in their constitutional connection with this .. (shrink)

This article provides an analysis of how the philosophy of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, particularly their treatment of the "Problem of the One and the Many," can help inform Sam Harris's attempt to ground ethics in the empirical sciences in his 2010 book The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. -/- The paper shows how Aristotle and Aquinas's thought can: • Explaining how the sciences are organized and why they will not produce multiple, competing measures of goodness (...) and well-being; • Resolving the “moral paradoxes” that Harris finds himself unable to find a solution to, by demonstrating how the human good essentially involves a “common good,” and how goodness always relates to the whole; • Providing us with a better explanation for why selfless behavior is good and why it is “good for us” to be virtuous; • Providing Harris with a better definition of freedom as self-determination; and • Showing how neither a recognition that the sciences must play a major role in ethics, nor naturalistic explanations of human behavior, need to preclude our orientation towards a transcendent good. (shrink)

Many of Margaret Cavendish’s criticisms of Thomas Hobbes in the Philosophical Letters (1664) relate to the disorder and damage that she holds would result if Hobbesian pressure were the cause of visual perception. In this paper, I argue that her “two men” thought experiment in Letter IV is aimed at a different goal: to show the explanatory potency of her account. First, I connect Cavendish’s view of visual perception as “patterning” to the “two men” thought experiment in Letter IV. Second, (...) I provide a potential reply on Hobbes’s behalf that appeals to physiological differences between perceivers’ sense organs, drawing upon Hobbes’s optics in De homine. Third, I argue that such a reply would misunderstand Cavendish’s objective of showing the limited explanatory resources available in understanding visual perception as pressing when compared to her view of visual perception as patterning. (shrink)

Decision theory and folk psychology both purport to represent the same phenomena: our belief-like and desire- and preference-like states. They also purport to do the same work with these representations: explain and predict our actions. But they do so with different sets of concepts. There's much at stake in whether one of these two sets of concepts can be accounted for with the other. Without such an account, we'd have two competing representations and systems of prediction and explanation, a dubious (...) dualism. Folk psychology structures our daily lives and has proven fruitful in the study of mind and ethics, while decision theory is pervasive in various disciplines, including the quantitative social sciences, especially economics, and philosophy. My interest is in accounting for folk psychology with decision theory -- in particular, for believe and wanting, which decision theory omits. Many have attempted this task for belief. (The Lockean Thesis says that there is such an account.) I take up the parallel task for wanting, which has received far less attention. I propose necessary and sufficient conditions, stated in terms of decision theory, for when you're truly said to want; I give an analogue of the Lockean Thesis for wanting. My account is an alternative to orthodox accounts that link wanting to preference (e.g. Stalnaker (1984), Lewis (1986)), which I argue are false. I argue further that want ascriptions are context-sensitive. My account explains this context-sensitivity, makes sense of conflicting desires, and accommodates phenomena that motivate traditional theses on which 'want' has multiple senses (e.g. all-things-considered vs. pro tanto). (shrink)

The conditions of transport and slaughter at the end of their lives are a major challenge to the welfare of agricultural animals. • End-of-life experiences should be of a greater ethical concern than others of similar intensity and duration, due to their position in the animal’s life. • End-of-life welfare can have both internal importance to the animals and external ethical importance to human decision-makers. • We should pay extra care to ensure that the conditions during transport and slaughter are (...) as positive as possible. (shrink)

Scepticism about ought simpliciter is the view that there is no such thing as what one ought simpliciter to do. Instead, practical deliberation is governed by a plurality of normative standpoints, each authoritative from their own perspective but none authoritative simpliciter. This paper aims to resist such scepticism. After setting out the challenge in general terms, I argue that scepticism can be resisted by rejecting a key assumption in the sceptic’s argument. This is the assumption that standpoint-relative ought judgments bring (...) with them a commitment to act in accordance with those judgments. Instead, I propose an alternative account of our normative concepts according to which only ought simpliciter judgments commit one to acting in accordance with those judgments. In addition to answering the sceptical challenge, the proposal offers an independently motivated account of what makes a concept normatively authoritative. (shrink)

Many critics, Descartes himself included, have seen Hobbes as uncharitable or even incoherent in his Objections to the Meditations on First Philosophy. I argue that when understood within the wider context of his views of the late 1630s and early 1640s, Hobbes's Objections are coherent and reflect his goal of providing an epistemology consistent with a mechanical philosophy. I demonstrate the importance of this epistemology for understanding his Fourth Objection concerning the nature of the wax and contend that Hobbes's brief (...) claims in that Objection are best understood as a summary of the mechanism for scientific knowledge found in his broader work. Far from displaying his confusion, Hobbes's Fourth Objection in fact pinpoints a key weakness of Descartes's faculty psychology: its unintelligibility within a mechanical philosophy. (shrink)

You want to see the concert, but don’t want to take a long drive (even though the concert is far away). Such *strongly conflicting desire ascriptions* are, I show, wrongly predicted incompatible by standard semantics. I then object to possible solutions, and give my own, based on *some-things-considered desire*. Considering the fun of the concert, but ignoring the drive, you want to see the concert; considering the boredom of the drive, but ignoring the concert, you don’t want to take the (...) drive. (shrink)

I examine how co-parents should handle differing commitments about how to raise their child. Via thought experiment and the examination of our practices and affective reactions, I argue for a thesis about the locus of parental authority: that parental authority is invested in full in each individual parent, meaning that that the command of one parent is sufficient to bind the child to act in obedience. If this full-authority thesis is true, then for co-parents to command different things would be (...) for them to contest one another’s authority. The only course that respects the authority of both parents is for co-parents to agree to command the same thing. Further, what is commanded must not result from a ‘capitulation’ by one co-parent, rather, it should result from a compromise. Parental authority involves a duty to deliberate about which commands it is best to give the child. If a command results from a capitulation, one parent will rightly think of themselves as not having fulfilled their parental duty. Parental compromises are not best understood as bargains or conflicts, but by the metaphor of gifts given by each parent out of respect for the other’s authority. (shrink)

I offer an alternative account of the relationship of Hobbesian geometry to natural philosophy by arguing that mixed mathematics provided Hobbes with a model for thinking about it. In mixed mathematics, one may borrow causal principles from one science and use them in another science without there being a deductive relationship between those two sciences. Natural philosophy for Hobbes is mixed because an explanation may combine observations from experience (the ‘that’) with causal principles from geometry (the ‘why’). My argument shows (...) that Hobbesian natural philosophy relies upon suppositions that bodies plausibly behave according to these borrowed causal principles from geometry, acknowledging that bodies in the world may not actually behave this way. First, I consider Hobbes's relation to Aristotelian mixed mathematics and to Isaac Barrow's broadening of mixed mathematics in Mathematical Lectures (1683). I show that for Hobbes maker's knowledge from geometry provides the ‘why’ in mixed-mathematical explanations. Next, I examine two explanations from De corpore Part IV: (1) the explanation of sense in De corpore 25.1-2; and (2) the explanation of the swelling of parts of the body when they become warm in De corpore 27.3. In both explanations, I show Hobbes borrowing and citing geometrical principles and mixing these principles with appeals to experience. (shrink)

A letter replying to Bayne et al. "Tests for consciousness in humans and beyond", 2024, arguing that the search for consciousness "beyond" healthy adult humans should begin with other animals.

This article argues that existing approaches to programming ethical AI fail to resolve a serious moral-semantic trilemma, generating interpretations of ethical requirements that are either too semantically strict, too semantically flexible, or overly unpredictable. This paper then illustrates the trilemma utilizing a recently proposed ‘general ethical dilemma analyzer,’ GenEth. Finally, it uses empirical evidence to argue that human beings resolve the semantic trilemma using general cognitive and motivational processes involving ‘mental time-travel,’ whereby we simulate different possible pasts and futures. I (...) demonstrate how mental time-travel psychology leads us to resolve the semantic trilemma through a six-step process of interpersonal negotiation and renegotiation, and then conclude by showing how comparative advantages in processing power would plausibly cause AI to use similar processes to solve the semantic trilemma more reliably than we do, leading AI to make better moral-semantic choices than humans do by our very own lights. (shrink)

Several recent commentators argue that Thomas Hobbes’s account of the nature of science is conventionalist. Engaging in scientific practice on a conventionalist account is more a matter of making sure one connects one term to another properly rather than checking one’s claims, e.g., by experiment. In this paper, I argue that the conventionalist interpretation of Hobbesian science accords neither with Hobbes’s theoretical account in De corpore and Leviathan nor with Hobbes’s scientific practice in De homine and elsewhere. Closely tied to (...) the conventionalist interpretation is the deductivist interpretation, on which it is claimed that Hobbes believed sciences such as optics are deduced from geometry. I argue that Hobbesian science places simplest conceptions as the foundation for geometry and the sciences in which we use geometry, which provides strong evidence against both the conventionalist and deductivist interpretations. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

According to the Desiderative Lockean Thesis, there are necessary and sufficient conditions, stated in the terms of decision theory, for when one is truly said to want. What one is truly said to want, it turns out, varies remarkably by context—and to an underappreciated degree. To explain this context-sensitivity, and closure properties of wanting, I advance a Desiderative Lockean view that is distinctive in having two context-sensitive parameters.

ABSTRACT Co-parents who differ in their ideal child rearing policies should compromise, argues Marcus William Hunt. Josh Milburn and Carlo Alvaro dispute this when it comes to veganism. Milburn argues that veganism is a matter of justice and that to compromise over justice is (typically) impermissible. I suggest that compromise over justice is often permissible, and that compromise over justice may be required by justice itself. Alvaro offers aesthetic, gustatory, and virtue-based arguments for ethical veganism, showing that veganism involves (...) sensibilities and virtues, and argues that veganism involves a belief. Alvaro takes this to show that parental compromise is impermissible. I suggest that Alvaro’s arguments are implausible and that the shaping of a child’s sensibilities and virtues is an apt matter for parental compromise. (shrink)

An important problem for decision-makers in society deals with the efficient and equitable allocation of scarce resources to individuals and groups. The significance of this problem is rapidly growing since there is a rising demand for scarce resources all over the world. Such resource dilemmas belong to a conceptually broader class of situations known as social dilemmas. In this type of dilemma, individual choices that appear ‘‘rational’’ often result in suboptimal group outcomes. In this article we study how people make (...) monetary allocation decisions between the community where they live and a neighbouring community, with the aim of finding out to what extent these decisions are subject to biased over-weighting. The manuscript reports four experiments that deal with the way individuals make such allocation decisions when the potential beneficiaries are such communities. The specific goal of these experiments is to gauge the amount of bias in the weights that people assign to the various beneficiaries. Taken together, the results from all the four experiments suggest that making the gain of the neighbouring community prominent to a higher extent de-biases the outcomes (the prominence effect) compared to when own community gain is made prominent. Place identity is discussed as a potentially important factor in this connection. Hence, it may be argued that there seems to be some kind of a pro-self component that is able to explain a large part of the variance observed for the prominence effect. Connections between such a factor and in-group favouritism are discussed. A strength of the study was that these major results appeared to be quite robust when considered as task effects, as the salience of the manipulated context factors in the studies (in terms of reliable main or interaction effects) did not distort them. (shrink)

Across two studies the hypotheses were tested that stressful situations affect both leadership ethical acting and leaders' recognition of ethical dilemmas. In the studies, decision makers recruited from 3 sites of a Swedish multinational civil engineering company provided personal data on stressful situations, made ethical decisions, and answered to stress-outcome questions. Stressful situations were observed to have a greater impact on ethical acting than on the recognition of ethical dilemmas. This was particularly true for situations involving punishment and lack of (...) rewards. The results are important for the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of an organization, especially with regard to the analysis of the Stressors influencing managerial work and its implications for ethical behavior. (shrink)

This paper examines Hobbes’s criticisms of Robert Boyle’s air-pump experiments in light of Hobbes’s account in _De Corpore_ and _De Homine_ of the relationship of natural philosophy to geometry. I argue that Hobbes’s criticisms rely upon his understanding of what counts as “true physics.” Instead of seeing Hobbes as defending natural philosophy as “a causal enterprise … [that] as such, secured total and irrevocable assent,” 1 I argue that, in his disagreement with Boyle, Hobbes relied upon his understanding of natural (...) philosophy as a mixed mathematical science. In a mixed mathematical science one can mix facts from experience with causal principles borrowed from geometry. Hobbes’s harsh criticisms of Boyle’s philosophy, especially in the _Dialogus Physicus, sive De natura aeris_, should thus be understood as Hobbes advancing his view of the proper relationship of natural philosophy to geometry in terms of mixing principles from geometry with facts from experience. Understood in this light, Hobbes need not be taken to reject or diminish the importance of experiment/experience; nor should Hobbes’s criticisms in _Dialogus Physicus_ be understood as rejecting experimenting as ignoble and not befitting a philosopher. Instead, Hobbes’s viewpoint is that experiment/experience must be understood within its proper place – it establishes the ‘that’ for a mixed mathematical science explanation. (shrink)

This article argues that philosophers and laypeople commonly conceptualize moral truths or justified moral beliefs as discoverable through intuition, argument, or some other purely cognitive or affective process. It then contends that three empirically well-supported theories all predict that this ‘Discovery Model’ of morality plays a substantial role in causing social polarization. The same three theories are then used to argue that an alternative ‘Negotiation Model’ of morality—according to which moral truths are not discovered but instead created by actively negotiating (...) compromises—promises to reduce polarization by fostering a progressive willingness to ‘work across the aisle’ to settle moral issues cooperatively. This article then examines potential methods for normatively evaluating polarization, arguing there are prima facie reasons to favor the Negotiation Model over the Discovery Model based on their hypothesized effects on polarization. Finally, I outline avenues for further empirical and philosophical research. (shrink)

The status of the laws of nature in Hobbes’s Leviathan has been a continual point of disagreement among scholars. Many agree that since Hobbes claims that civil philosophy is a science, the answer lies in an understanding of the nature of Hobbesian science more generally. In this paper, I argue that Hobbes’s view of the construction of geometrical figures sheds light upon the status of the laws of nature. In short, I claim that the laws play the same role as (...) the component parts – what Hobbes calls the “cause” – of geometrical figures. To make this argument, I show that in both geometry and civil philosophy, Hobbes proceeds by a method of synthetic demonstration as follows: 1) offering a thought experiment by privation; 2) providing definitions by explication of “simple conceptions” within the thought experiment; and 3) formulating generative definitions by making use of those definitions by explication. In just the same way that Hobbes says that the geometer should “put together” the parts of a square to learn its cause, I argue that the laws of nature are the cause of peace. (shrink)

Algorithms wield increasing control over our lives—over the jobs we get, the loans we're granted, the information we see online. Algorithms can and often do wield their power in a biased way, and much work has been devoted to algorithmic bias. In contrast, algorithmic neutrality has been largely neglected. I investigate algorithmic neutrality, tackling three questions: What is algorithmic neutrality? Is it possible? And when we have it in mind, what can we learn about algorithmic bias?

I claim that there is pro tanto moral reason for parents to not raise their child on a vegan diet because a vegan diet bears a risk of harm to both the physical and the social well-being of children. After giving the empirical evidence from nutrition science and sociology that supports this claim, I turn to the question of how vegan parents should take this moral reason into account. Since many different moral frameworks have been used to argue for veganism, (...) this is a complex question. I suggest that, on some of these moral frameworks, the moral reason that some parents have for not raising their child on a vegan diet on account of this risk is plausibly as strong as the reason they have for raising their child on a vegan diet. In other words, the moral reason I outline is weighty enough to justify some vegan parents in plausibly finding it permissible to not raise their child on a vegan diet. (shrink)

School boosters are tax-exempt organizations that engage in fundraising efforts to provide public schools with supplementary resources. This paper argues that prevailing forms of school boosting are defeasibly unjust. Section 1 shows that inequalities in public education funding in the United States violate John Rawls’s two principles of domestic justice. Section 2 argues that prevailing forms of school boosting exacerbate and plausibly perpetuate these injustices. Section 3 then contends that boosting thereby defeasibly violates Rawlsian principles of nonideal theory for rectifying (...) injustice. Thus, boosting should be presumptively either made illegal or substantially reformed. Finally, Section 4 responds to potential objections. (shrink)

How do you know what you want? Philosophers have lately developed sophisticated accounts of the practical and doxastic knowledge that are rooted in the point of view of the subject. Our ability to just say what we are doing or what we believe—that is, to say so authoritatively, but not on the basis of observation or evidence—is an aspect of our ability to reason about the good and the true. However, no analogous route to orectic self-knowledge is feasible. Knowledge of (...) desire is distinctive in being a matter of our affective response to imagined prospects. An examination of this idea yields the following thesis: I know what I want just in case the object pursued in anticipation of a certain pleasure actually yields the anticipated pleasure. (shrink)

The effect of violent video games is among the most widely discussed topics in media studies, and for good reason. These games are immensely popular, but many seem morally objectionable. Critics attack them for a number of reasons ranging from their capacity to teach players weapons skills to their ability to directly cause violent actions. This essay shows that many of these criticisms are misguided. Theoretical and empirical arguments against violent video games often suffer from a number of significant shortcomings (...) that make them ineffective. This essay argues that video games are defensible from the perspective of Kantian, Aristotelian, and utilitarian moral theories. (shrink)

The dominant theory of the evolution of moral cognition across a variety of fields is that moral cognition is a biological adaptation to foster social cooperation. This chapter argues, to the contrary, that moral cognition is likely an evolutionary exaptation: a form of cognition where neurobiological capacities selected for in our evolutionary history for a variety of different reasons—many unrelated to social cooperation—were put to a new, prosocial use after the fact through individual rationality, learning, and the development and transmission (...) of social norms. This chapter begins with a brief overview of the emerging behavioral neuroscience of moral cognition. It then outlines a novel theory of moral cognition that I have previously argued explains these findings better than alternatives. Finally, it shows how the evidence for this theory of moral cognition and human evolutionary history together suggest that moral cognition is likely not a biological adaptation. Instead, like reading sheet music or riding a bicycle, moral cognition is something that individuals learn to do—in this case, in response to sociocultural norms created in our ancestral history and passed down through the ages to enable cooperative living. (shrink)

Michael Huemer argues that cross-cultural convergence toward liberal moral values is evidence of objective moral progress, and by extension, evidence for moral realism. Nathan Cofnas claims to debunk Huemer’s argument by contending that convergence toward liberal moral values can be better explained by ‘two related non-truth-tracking processes’: self-interest and its long-term tendency to result in social conditions conducive to greater empathy. This article argues that although Cofnas successfully debunks Huemer’s convergence argument for one influential form of moral realism – Robust (...) Moral Realism, which holds that moral facts are non-natural, stance-independent normative facts – Cofnas’s debunking argument broadly supports a second type of moral realism: Enlightened Self-Interest Realism, the view that moral facts are reducible to stance-dependent requirements of instrumental (‘means-end’) rationality. Finally, this article argues that insofar as different Enlightened Self-Interest Realist theories make specific predictions about the intra- and inter-personal mechanisms behind moral convergence toward liberalism, empirical observations of cross-cultural convergence can provide independent support for Enlightened Self-Interest Realism. I conclude that this is an important mark in favor of Enlightened Self-Interest Realism over Robust Moral Realism. (shrink)

This paper shows that several live philosophical and scientific hypotheses – including the holographic principle and multiverse theory in quantum physics, and eternalism and mind-body dualism in philosophy – jointly imply an audacious new theory of free will. This new theory, "Libertarian Compatibilism", holds that the physical world is an eternally existing array of two-dimensional information – a vast number of possible pasts, presents, and futures – and the mind a nonphysical entity or set of properties that "read" that physical (...) information off to subjective conscious awareness (in much the same way that a song written on an ordinary compact-disc is only played when read by an outside medium, i.e. a CD-player). According to this theory, every possible physical “timeline” in the multiverse may be fully physically deterministic or physically-causally closed but each person’s consciousness still entirely free to choose, ex nihilo, outside of the physical order, which physically-closed timeline is experienced by conscious observers. Although Libertarian Compatibilism is admittedly fantastic, I show that it not only follows from several live scientific and philosophical hypotheses, I also show that it (A) is a far more explanatorily powerful model of quantum mechanics than more traditional interpretations (e.g. the Copenhagen, Everett, and Bohmian interpretations), (B) makes determinate, testable empirical predictions in quantum theory, and finally, (C) predicts and explains the very existence of a number of philosophical debates and positions in the philosophy of mind, time, personal identity, and free will. First, I show that whereas traditional interpretations of quantum mechanics are all philosophically problematic and roughly as ontologically “extravagant” as Libertarian Compatibilism – in that they all posit “unseen” processes – Libertarian Compatibilism is nearly identical in structure to the only working simulation that human beings have ever constructed capable of reproducing (and so explaining) every general feature of quantum mechanics we perceive: namely, massive-multiplayer-online-roleplaying videogames (or MMORPGs). Although I am not the first to suggest that our world is akin to a computer simulation, I show that existing MMORPGs (online simulations we have already created) actually reproduce every general feature of quantum mechanics within their simulated-world reference-frames. Second, I show that existing MMORPGs also replicate (and so explain) many philosophical problems we face in the philosophy of mind, time, personal identity, and free will – all while conforming to the Libertarian Compatibilist model of reality. -/- I conclude, as such, that as fantastic and metaphysically extravagant as Libertarian Compatibilism may initially seem, it may well be true. It explains a number of features of our reality that no other physical or metaphysical theory does. (shrink)

Are the circumstances in which moral testimony serves as evidence that our judgement-forming processes are unreliable the same circumstances in which mundane testimony serves as evidence that our mundane judgement-forming processes are unreliable? In answering this question, we distinguish two possible roles for testimony: (i) providing a legitimate basis for a judgement, (ii) providing (‘higher-order’) evidence that a judgement-forming process is unreliable. We explore the possibilities for a view according to which moral testimony does not, in contrast to mundane testimony (...) play role (i), but can play role (ii). We argue that standard motivations for rejecting this hybrid position are unpersuasive but suggest that a more compelling reason might be found in considering the social nature of morality. (shrink)

Consider the following three claims. (i) There are no truths of the form ‘p and ~p’. (ii) No one holds a belief of the form ‘p and ~p’. (iii) No one holds any pairs of beliefs of the form {p, ~p}. Irad Kimhi has recently argued, in effect, that each of these claims holds and holds with metaphysical necessity. Furthermore, he maintains that they are ultimately not distinct claims at all, but the same claim formulated in different ways. I find (...) his argument suggestive, if not entirely transparent. I do think there is at least an important kernel of truth even in (iii), and that (i) ultimately explains what’s right about the other two. Consciousness of an impossibility makes belief in the obtaining of the corresponding state of affairs an impossibility. Interestingly, an appreciation of this fact brings into view a novel conception of inference, according to which it consists in the consciousness of necessity. This essay outlines and defends this position. A central element of the defense is that it reveals how reasoners satisfy what Paul Boghossian calls the Taking Condition and do so without engendering regress. (shrink)

Theorists have long debated whether John Rawls’ conception of justice as fairness can be extended to nonideal (i.e. unjust) social and political conditions, and if so, what the proper way of extending it is. This paper argues that in order to properly extend justice as fairness to nonideal conditions, Rawls’ most famous innovation – the original position – must be reconceived in the form of a “nonideal original position.” I begin by providing a new analysis of the ideal/nonideal theory distinction (...) within Rawls’ theoretical framework. I then systematically construct a nonideal original position, showing that although its parties must have Rawls’ principles of ideal justice and priority relations as background aims, the parties should be entirely free to weigh those aims against whatever burdens and benefits they might face under nonideal conditions. Next, I show that the parties ought to aim to secure for themselves a special class of nonideal primary goods: all-purpose goods similar to Rawls’ original primary goods, but which in this case are all-purpose goods individuals might use to (A) promote Rawlsian ideals under nonideal conditions, (B) weigh Rawls’ principles of ideal justice and priority relations against whatever burdens and benefits they might face under nonideal conditions, and (C) effectively pursue their most favored weighting thereof. I then defend a provisional list of nonideal primary goods which include opportunities to participate effectively in equitable and inclusive grassroots reform movements guided by a series of substantive aims. Finally, I briefly speculate on how the parties to the nonideal original position might deliberate to principles of nonideal justice for distributing nonideal primary goods, suggesting that those goods should be distributed in proportion to unjust disadvantage. (shrink)

This paper presents a unified theory of reality, which integrates two interdependent frameworks: Cellular Primary Consciousness Theory (CPCT) and Open and Closed Systems Theory (OCST). Although CPCT and OCST can each stand as individual theories, they are, in this work, combined to form a cohesive explanation of both the mechanics and purpose of the universe. CPCT posits that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of all life, extending to even the simplest cells, rather than being an emergent property exclusive to complex (...) neural systems. Drawing upon evidence from quantum mechanics, cell biology, and systems theory, CPCT challenges traditional views on the origins of consciousness by suggesting that awareness is a universal property present from the cellular level. OCST, which forms the second component of this unified theory, examines the nature of the universe as a closed system subject to the laws of entropy. This theory explores how the universe is moving toward maximum entropy, where meaning and contrasts dissolve. However, beyond this closed system lies the realm of an open system—a domain of infinite potential that transcends the dualities and limitations of the physical universe. This open system offers a philosophical explanation for existence and the possibility of eternal meaning. Together, these two theories provide a novel and cohesive framework that addresses both the mechanics of consciousness and the ultimate purpose of the universe. The integration of CPCT and OCST bridges scientific evidence from quantum biology and systems theory with philosophical explorations of existence, presenting a comprehensive vision of reality as both a closed physical system and an open metaphysical one. This unified theory encourages a reexamination of our place in the cosmos, suggesting that beyond the observable universe lies an infinite realm of potential where consciousness and meaning endure. (shrink)

This article argues that if panpsychism is true, then there are grounds for thinking that digitally-based artificial intelligence may be incapable of having coherent macrophenomenal conscious experiences. Section 1 briefly surveys research indicating that neural function and phenomenal consciousness may be both analog in nature. We show that physical and phenomenal magnitudes—such as rates of neural firing and the phenomenally experienced loudness of sounds—appear to covary monotonically with the physical stimuli they represent, forming the basis for an analog relationship between (...) the three. Section 2 then argues that if this is true and micropsychism—the panpsychist view that phenomenal consciousness or its precursors exist at a microphysical level of reality—is also true, then human brains must somehow manipulate fundamental microphysical-phenomenal magnitudes in an analog manner that renders them phenomenally coherent at a macro level. However, Sect. 3 argues that because digital computation abstracts away from microphysical-phenomenal magnitudes—representing cognitive functions non-monotonically in terms of digits—digital computation may be inherently incapable of realizing coherent macroconscious experience. Thus, if panpsychism is true, digital AI may be incapable of achieving phenomenal coherence. Finally, Sect. 4 briefly examines our argument’s implications for Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory theory of consciousness, which we contend may need to be supplanted by a theory of macroconsciousness as analog microphysical-phenomenal information integration. (shrink)

Due to a production error, two block-quotations were originally omitted from the final publication. These passages have been corrected in the web-version on the journal’s website (DOI: 10.1111/phil.12282), but cannot be corrected in the print/PDF version. Readers of the PDF version, please note the two corrections herein.

How homogenous are the sources of human motivation? Textbook Humeans hold that every human action is motivated by desire, thus any heterogeneity derives from differing objects of desire. Textbook Kantians hold that although some human actions are motivated by desire, others are motivated by reason. One question in this vicinity concerns whether there are states such that to be in one is at once take the world to be a certain way and to be motivated to act: the state-question. My (...) question here is different: whether passion and reason constitute distinct sources of human motivation: the source question. In this essay, I defend an affirmative answer to the source-question while remaining neutral on the state-question. I distinguish between what I call orectic desires, which are associated with the appetites, and anorectic desires, which are associated with judgments of the good. I argue that the two sorts of desires constitute distinct sources of motivation initially on the basis of their differing epistemological profiles. Specifically, self-attributions of anorectic desires are governed by the transparency condition, self-attributions of orectic desires are not. It emerges from this discussion that the motivation for performing an action arises in very different ways from each sort of desire. This difference, in turn, is explained by their differing relations to the will. Roughly, an orectic desire influences the will, but an anorectic desire is the will. The motivation to perform some of our actions derives simply from the determination that they are to-be-done—from reason. (shrink)

This short blog article presents a solution to the “Scandal of Deduction,” the counter-intuitive finding that no new information is generated by either deduction or deterministic computation. I argue that, since physical computation necessarily involves communications, we cannot expect computation to reduce our uncertainty until it has been completed and its output received as a “message.” This has a number of implications for how we understand semantic theories of information.

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)

Alex Byrne contends that women are (simply) adult human females, claiming that this thesis has considerably greater initial appeal than the justified true belief (JTB) theory of knowledge. This paper refutes Byrne’s thesis in the same way the JTB theory of knowledge is widely thought to have been refuted: through simple counterexamples. Lessons are drawn. One lesson is that women need not be human. A second lesson is that biology and physical phenotypes are both irrelevant to whether someone is a (...) woman, and indeed, female in a gendered sense. A third lesson is that trans women, cis women, alien women, and robot women are all women because to be a woman is to be an adult gendered female. This paper does not purport to settle complex normative questions of ethics or justice, including whether the ordinary meaning of “woman” ought to be retained or changed—though I do note plausible implications for these debates. This paper does purport to settle what the ordinary meaning of “woman” is, and in that regard contribute to important conceptual ground-clearing regarding what constitutes an ameliorative or revisionary definition of “woman.”. (shrink)

The paper investigates whether imaginative states about propositions can be assessed in terms of fittingness (also known as correctness, appropriateness, aptness). After characterizing propositional imaginings and explaining the idea of fittingness, I present some considerations in favour of the no conditions view: imagining seems to be the sort of action that cannot be done unfittingly, and imaginings have no external cognitive nor conative goals in light of which they could be unfitting. I then examine the local conditions view, that there (...) can be fittingness conditions on imaginings, but that these are inherited from the mental projects in which imaginings can play a role. Given that there are virtues of the imagination such as creativity and spontaneity, and given that imaginings are subject to purposive mechanisms, and given that there are cases in which it is unfitting to fail to imagine, I endorse the general conditions view, on which imaginings have a goal, and therefore fittingness conditions, even outside the context of mental projects. I then examine 4 versions of the general conditions view and argue that imaginings aim to make contents available to mental projects. (shrink)

In a widely discussed forthcoming article, “What you can't expect when you're expecting,” L. A. Paul challenges culturally and philosophically traditional views about how to rationally make major life-decisions, most specifically the decision of whether to have children. The present paper argues that because major life-decisions are transformative, the only rational way to approach them is to become resilient people: people who do not “over-plan” their lives or expect their lives to play out “according to plan”—people who understand that beyond (...) a certain limit, life cannot be rationally planned and must be accepted as it comes. I show that this focus on resilience—on self-mastery—stands in direct opposition to culturally dominant attitudes toward decision-making, which focus not on the self-mastery but on control and mastery over one's surroundings. In short, I argue that if Paul's general point about transformative experiences is correct, it follows that we rationally ought to adopt a very different approach to life choices, self-development, and the moral education of our children than currently-dominant cultural norms and practices suggest. (shrink)

This study examined correlations between moral value judgments on a 17-item Moral Intuition Survey (MIS), and participant scores on the Short-D3 “Dark Triad” Personality Inventory—a measure of three related “dark and socially destructive” personality traits: Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy. Five hundred sixty-seven participants (302 male, 257 female, 2 transgendered; median age 28) were recruited online through Amazon Mechanical Turk and Yale Experiment Month web advertisements. Different responses to MIS items were initially hypothesized to be “conservative” or “liberal” in line with (...) traditional public divides. Our demographic data confirmed all of these hypothesized categorizations. We then tested two broad, exploratory hypotheses: (H1) the hypothesis that there would be “many” significant correlations between conservative MIS judgments and the Dark Triad, and (H2) the hypothesis that there would be no significant correlations between liberal MIS judgments and Machiavellianism or Psychopathy, but “some” significant correlations between liberal MIS judgments and Narcissism. Because our hypotheses were exploratory and we ran a large number of statistical tests (62 total), we utilized a Bonferroni Correction to set a very high threshold for significance (p = .0008). Our results broadly supported our two hypotheses. We found eleven significant correlations between conservative MIS judgments and the Dark Triad—all at significance level of p < .00001—but no significant correlations between the Dark Triad and liberal MIS judgments. We believe that these results raise provocative moral questions about the personality bases of moral judgments. In particular, we propose that because the Short-D3 measures three “dark and antisocial” personality traits, our results raise some prima facie worries about the moral justification of some conservative moral judgments. (shrink)

Chapter 1 of this book argued that moral philosophy should be based on seven principles of theory selection adapted from the sciences. Chapter 2 argued that these principles support basing normative moral philosophy on a particular problem of diachronic instrumental rationality: the ‘problem of possible future selves.’ Chapter 3 argued that a new moral principle, the Categorical-Instrumental Imperative, is the rational solution to this problem. Chapter 4 argued that the Categorical-Instrumental Imperative has three equivalent formulations akin to but superior to (...) Kant’s formulations of the Categorical Imperative. Chapter 5 argued that my principle’s three formulations make it rational to adopt a Moral Original Position to derive moral principles. The present chapter derives Four Principles of Fairness from the Moral Original Position--principles of coercion minimization, mutual assistance, fair negotiation, and virtue—and unifies them into a single principle of rightness: Rightness as Fairness. Finally, this chapter argues that Rightness as Fairness entails a novel approach to applied ethics called ‘principled fair negotiation’, illustrating how the theory provides a plausible new framework for addressing applied cases including lying, suicide, trolleys, torture, distribution of scarce resources, poverty, and the ethical treatment of animals. (shrink)

A compositional semantics for anankastic conditionals (‘If you want p, you must φ’) has been elusive. Condoravdi and Lauer (2016) decisively object to all semantics that precede their own. CL's view rests on a response to *the problem of conflicting goals*; CL use an interpretation of 'want' on which an agent's desires don't conflict with her beliefs. But a proper response requires lack of conflict with the facts. CL's view fails. Anankastic conditionals are still a mystery.

This article argues that diverse theorists have reasons to theorize about fairness in nonideal conditions, including theorists who reject fairness in ideal theory. It then develops a new all-purpose model of ‘nonideal fairness.’ §1 argues that fairness is central to nonideal theory across diverse ideological and methodological frameworks. §2 then argues that ‘nonideal fairness’ is best modeled by a nonideal original position adaptable to different nonideal conditions and background normative frameworks (including anti-Rawlsian ones). §3 then argues that the parties to (...) the model have grounds to seek a variety of remedial social, legal, cultural, and economic ‘nonideal primary goods’ for combating injustice, as well as grounds to distribute these goods in an equitable and inclusive manner. Finally, I illustrate how the model indexes the nonideal primary goods it justifies to different nonideal contexts and background normative frameworks, illustrating why diverse theorists should find the model and its output principles attractive. (shrink)

Is it impossible for a person to do something intentionally without knowing that she is doing it? The phenomenon of self-deceived agency might seem to show otherwise. Here the agent is not lying, yet disavows a correct description of her intentional action. This disavowal might seem expressive of ignorance. However, I show that the self-deceived agent does know what she's doing. I argue that we should understand the factors that explain self-deception as masking rather than negating the practical knowledge characteristic (...) of intentional action. This masking takes roughly the following form: when we are deceiving ourselves about what we are intentionally doing, we don't think about our action because it's painful to do so. (shrink)