Like most writing on human behavior, these articles lack a coherent framework and so I hesitate to recommend this book to anyone, as the experienced ought to have about the same perspective I do, and the naïve will mostly be wasting their time. Since I find most of these essays obviously off the mark or just very dull, I can't generate much enthusiasm for commenting on them, so after providing what I consider a reasonable precis of a framework (see (...) my other articles for an expanded version) I provide cursory comments on the various articles. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date account of Wittgenstein, Searle and their analysis of behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle (2016). -/- Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may download from this site my e-book ‘Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Michael Starks (2016)- Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ by Michael Starks First Ed. 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX . (shrink)

Recent debates about the most appropriate political agents for realising social justice have largely focused on the potential value of national political parties on the one hand, and trade unions on the other. Drawing on the thought of Murray Bookchin, this article suggests that democratic municipalist agents – democratic associations of local residents that build and empower neighbourhood assemblies and improve the municipal provision of basic goods and services – can often also make valuable contributions to projects of just social (...) change. I identify a long-term and a more short-term argument for the value of democratic municipalist agency in Bookchin's thought and claim that the latter provides a compelling case for the valuable contributions this form of action can make to the achievement of a wide variety of visions of social justice. This provides a useful partial corrective to recent political theorising about the nature of the partisanship and trade unionism necessary to secure social justice. (shrink)

Suppose we wish to decide which of a pair of actions has better consequences in a case in which both actions result in infinite utility. Peter Vallentyne and others have proposed that one action has better consequences than a second if there is a time after which the cumulative utility of the first action always outstrips the cumulative utility of the second. I argue against this principle, in particular I show how cases may arise in which up to any point (...) of time action a1 produces more utility than action a2, yet for each individual involved a2 produces more utility. (shrink)

In this article, I offer an account of what one of the short-term political aims of proponents of greater equality ought to be. I claim that the strengthening of reflective capacity—citizens’ ability to impose a temporary level of distance from their commitments, to consider alternatives to them, and to evaluate their origins and validity—ought to be one key aim of egalitarian politics under present political conditions. I then propose activist-led education programs as one desirable means to deliver this end of (...) strengthened reflective capacity. Where activist-led education provides plentiful informational resources and opportunities to practice deploying one’s reflective capacity, and also emphasizes and encourages intellectual humility, it seems well placed to help bring about this aim. Activist-led education programs are commonly subject to what I term the indoctrination worry, but I try to show that there are not good grounds for concluding in advance of further study that the delicate balancing of ends that permissible activist-led education requires is either categorically unachievable, or avoidable in the way these objectors often press. The argument thus provides presumptive grounds for considering the proliferation of suitably organized activist-led education programs an important component of a broader strategy of egalitarian social change. (shrink)

It is well known that the following features hold of AR + T under the strong Kleene scheme, regardless of the way the language is Gödel numbered: 1. There exist sentences that are neither paradoxical nor grounded. 2. There are 2ℵ0 fixed points. 3. In the minimal fixed point the weakly definable sets (i.e., sets definable as {n∣ A(n) is true in the minimal fixed point where A(x) is a formula of AR + T) are precisely the Π1 1 sets. (...) 4. In the minimal fixed point the totally defined sets (sets weakly defined by formulae all of whose instances are true or false) are precisely the ▵1 1 sets. 5. The closure ordinal for Kripke's construction of the minimal fixed point is ωCK 1. In contrast, we show that under the weak Kleene scheme, depending on the way the Gödel numbering is chosen: 1. There may or may not exist nonparadoxical, ungrounded sentences. 2. The number of fixed points may be any positive finite number, ℵ0, or 2ℵ0 . 3. In the minimal fixed point, the sets that are weakly definable may range from a subclass of the sets 1-1 reducible to the truth set of AR to the Π1 1 sets, including intermediate cases. 4. Similarly, the totally definable sets in the minimal fixed point range from precisely the arithmetical sets up to precisely the ▵1 1 sets. 5. The closure ordinal for the construction of the minimal fixed point may be ω, ωCK 1, or any successor limit ordinal in between. In addition we suggest how one may supplement AR + T with a function symbol interpreted by a certain primitive recursive function so that, irrespective of the choice of the Godel numbering, the resulting language based on the weak Kleene scheme has the five features noted above for the strong Kleene language. (shrink)

I EXPLORE ONE WAY IN WHICH THE THEORY OF RELATIVE IDENTITY (DEVELOPED ALONG LINES SUGGESTED BY GEACH’S WRITINGS) CAN BE USED TO UNDERSTAND THE WAY LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS IN TRINITARIAN DOCTRINE. THIS INCLUDES A DISCUSSION OF REDUPLICATIVE PROPOSITIONS.

There is a conception of hell that holds that God punishes some people in a way that brings about endless suffering and unhappiness. An objection to this view holds that such punishment could not be just since it punishes finite sins with infinite suffering. In answer to this objection, it is shown that endless suffering, even intense suffering, is consistent with the suffering being finite. Another objection holds that such punishment is contrary to God's love. A possible response to this (...) objection is developed. (shrink)

I will argue that the Kane-Widerker objection to Frankfurt examples is much weaker than is generally recognized. The Kane-Widerker objection holds that proponents of Frankfurt examples beg the question against incompatibilist accounts of free and responsible action by constructing examples that tacitly assume a compatibilist account of moral responsibility; that is, they assume that one can have non-derivative responsibility for choices that were not undetermined prior to their occurrence. The notion of an event, E, being ‘undetermined prior to its occurrence’ (...) is ambiguous. It can mean either (1) with respect to each time t prior to E’s occurrence, it is not the case that at t E’s occurrence is determined to take place, or it can mean (2) with respect to the whole collection of times prior to E’s occurrence, E’s occurrence is not determined to take place. Kane’s argument shows that (under certain constraints) if a choice is to be undetermined (in the second sense) prior to its occurrence, then a prior-sign Frankfurt example cannot be successful. But he fails to show that prior-sign Frankfurt examples cannot be constructed in which the choice is undetermined (in the first sense) prior to its occurrence, and he would need to do so in order to sustain his charge that those using Frankfurt examples beg the question against traditional incompatibilist accounts of responsibility. Widerker’s argument avoids the above problem, but at the cost of only applying to a rather restricted set of Frankfurt examples. (shrink)

This paper addresses the so-called paradox of fiction, the problem of explaining how we can have emotional responses towards fiction. I claim that no account has yet provided an adequate explanation of how we can respond with genuine emotions when we know that the objects of our responses are fictional. I argue that we should understand the role played by the imagination in our engagement with fiction as functionally equivalent to that which it plays under the guise of acceptance in (...) practical reasoning, suggesting that the same underlying cognitive-affective mechanisms are involved in both activities. As such, our imaginative engagement with fiction un-problematically arouses emotions, but only to the extent that we are not occurrently attending to our epistemic relation to the fiction i.e. fully attending to the fact that the object of our response is merely fictional. In order to illuminate this idea I examine a recent proposal that the phenomenology of attention is partially non-attributive, and I argue that emotional phenomenology too shares this characteristic. (shrink)

According to the free-will defence, the exercise of free will by creatures is of such value that God is willing to allow the existence of evil which comes from the misuse of free will. A well-known objection holds that the exercise of free will is compatible with determinism and thus, if God exists, God could have predetermined exactly how the will would be exercised; God could even have predetermined that free will would be exercised sinlessly. Thus, it is held, the (...) free-will defence cannot be used as a partial account of why God should have allowed evil to exist. I investigate this objection using Kripke's apparatus for treating modalities and natural kinds to explore the nature of the incompatibilism required by the free-will defence. I show why the objection fails even if the standard arguments for compatibilism are acceptable. This is because the modality involved in the incompatibilism needed by the free-will defence differs from the modality involved in the compatibilism that is supported by standard compatibilist arguments. Finally, an argument is sketched for a variety of incompatibilism of the kind needed by the free-will defence. (shrink)

Frankfurt examples are frequently used in arguments designed to show that agents lacking alternatives, or lacking ‘regulative control’ over their actions, can be morally responsible for what they do. I will maintain that Frankfurt examples can be constructed that undermine those very arguments when applied to actions for which the agent bears fundamental responsibility.

The notion of computability is developed through the study of the behavior of a set of languages interpreted over the natural numbers which contain their own fully defined satisfaction predicate and whose only other vocabulary is limited to "0", individual variables, the successor function, the identity relation and operators for disjunction, conjunction, and existential quantification.

ABSTRACT This paper explores the role of aesthetic judgements in mathematics by focussing on the relationship between the epistemic and aesthetic criteria employed in such judgements, and on the nature of the psychological experiences underpinning them. I claim that aesthetic judgements in mathematics are plausibly understood as expressions of what I will call ‘aesthetic-epistemic feelings’ that serve a genuine cognitive and epistemic function. I will then propose a naturalistic account of these feelings in terms of sub-personal processes of representing and (...) assessing the relation between cognitive processes and certain properties of the stimuli at which they are directed. (shrink)

Frankfurt style examples (FSEs) have played an important role in the development of metaphysical accounts of moral agency. The legitimacy of this approach often requires that FSEs be metaphysically possible. I argue that, given our current knowledge of the nature of decision-making, we have no grounds to accept the metaphysical possibility of many standard FSEs involving a device that can be triggered to bring about a predetermined decision.

Many philosophers accept with certainty that we are morally responsible but take it to be an open question whether determinism holds. They treat determinism as epistemically compatible with responsibility. Should one who accepts this form of epistemic compatibilism also hold that determinism is metaphysically compatible with responsibility—that it is metaphysically possible for determinism and responsibility to coexist? John Martin Fischer gives two arguments that appear to favor an affirmative answer to this question. He argues that accounts of responsibility, such as (...) his, that are neutral with respect to whether responsible actions are determined have a "resiliency" that counts in their favor. Furthermore, he criticizes libertarians who argue on a priori grounds that determinism cannot coexist with responsibility and who admit that they would retract their argument if determinism were shown to hold; this "metaphysical flip-flopping" is said to render their positions implausible. I assess the merits of these arguments. (shrink)

Classical utilitarianism attempts to reduce the moral significance of the individual to something more basic: the value of the individual is seen as fully grounded in considerations of utility maximization. This paper criticizes this aspect of utilitarianism and tries to do so through an appeal to considerations that would be acceptable to one who embraces utilitarianism. First, an example is developed in which (1) a pair of mutually exclusive actions each yield infinite utility; (2) neither action can be said to (...) yield more utility than the other, and (3) one of the actions is clearly preferable. This provides a case in which the moral significance of the individual cannot be fully reduced to considerations of utility maximizing features of the action. A second example, developed along the lines of the first example, involves only finite utilities. (shrink)

P. T. Geach has argued that it is impossible to demonstrate that the doctrine of the Trinity is consistent. I try to show why -- on a common understanding of the notion of consistency -- his reasoning is flawed and why, on Geach’s own principles, one should expect that if the doctrine of the Trinity is true then it will be possible to prove that the doctrine is consistent, and it will be possible to do this in a way that (...) makes no appeal to the truth of any religious doctrine. (shrink)

A language in which we can express arithmetic and which contains its own satisfaction predicate (in the style of Kripke's theory of truth) can be formulated using just two nonlogical primitives: (the successor function) and Sat (a satisfaction predicate).

In this paper I wish to defend a particular form of the traditional, and now almost wholly unfashionable, notion of an aesthetic attitude.

Contemporary accounts of the Trinity and Incarnation sometimes employ aspects of Peter Geach's theory of relative identity. Geach's theory provides an account not merely of identity predicates, but also proper names and restricted quantification. In a previous work I developed an account of the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation incorporating these three aspects of Geach's theory and tried to show how each might contribute to our understanding of the doctrines. Joseph Jedwab has recently argued that my account—or any that (...) employs Geach's treatment of restricted quantifiers—leads to serious doctrinal errors. I reply to his criticisms. (shrink)

This essay reframes salient issues in discussions of free will using conceptual apparatus developed in the works of Saul Kripke, with particular attention paid to his little-discussed technical notion of a prejudice. I begin by focusing on how various forms of modality (metaphysical, epistemic, and conceptual) underlie alternate forms of compatibilism and discuss why it is important to avoid conflating these forms of compatibilism. The concept of a prejudice is then introduced. We consider the semantic role of prejudices, in particular (...) conditions in which prejudices turn out to express metaphysically necessary truths. With that as background, I discuss a set of prejudices involving the notion of choice. We consider the role these prejudices might play, should they turn out to be true, in determining the answer to various compatibility questions concerning the nature of moral responsibility and choice. (shrink)

Abstract: In the Philebus, Socrates constructs a dialectical argument in which he purports to explain to Protarchus why the pleasure that spectators feel when watching comedy is a mixture of pleasure and pain. To do this he brings in phthonos (malice or envy) as his prime example (47d-50e). I examine the argument and claim that Socrates implicitly challenges Protarchus’ beliefs about himself as moderate and self-knowing. I discuss two reasons to think that more is at stake in the argument than (...) the mixed pleasure and pain of comic malice. (shrink)

Mechanistic explanations satisfy widely held norms of explanation: the ability to manipulate and answer counterfactual questions about the explanandum phenomenon. A currently debated issue is whether any nonmechanistic explanations can satisfy these explanatory norms. Weiskopf argues that the models of object recognition and categorization, JIM, SUSTAIN, and ALCOVE, are not mechanistic yet satisfy these norms of explanation. In this article I argue that these models are mechanism sketches. My argument applies recent research using model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging, a novel (...) neuroimaging method whose significance for current debates on psychological models and mechanistic explanation has yet to be explored. (shrink)

Research notes of Mark Pettinelli about cognitive science, cognitive psychology.

The best writing of Mark Pettinelli, about cognitive psychology, cognitive science, etc.

Provides an overview of Mark Sharlow's philosophical work with summaries of his positions. Includes references and links to his writings.

Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), which include local food and Fair Trade, work to mitigate some of the many shortcomings of mainstream food systems. If AFNs have the potential to make the world’s food systems more just and sustainable (and otherwise virtuous) then we may have good reasons to scale them up. Unfortunately, it may not be possible to increase the market share of AFNs while preserving their current forms. Among other reasons, this is because there are limits to both the (...) productive capacities of small owner-operated farms and to the distribution capacities of Farmers Markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). These limits tell in favor of AFN partnerships with larger producers and distributors. But some advocates of AFNs have worried that these partnerships would sacrifice too much. (shrink)

This Ideas and Opinions article revisits an argument from Judith Jarvis Thomson in her essay “A Defense of Abortion” that abortion can be an ethical choice even if we assume that fetuses have full moral personhood and moral rights. The authors examine the implications of laws that require a pregnant person to care for another with their body and what other impositions states may also require of citizens to care for others.

Hegel for the most part insists we support existing practices: they have endured, have socialized us, are our home. At times Hegel seems to demand conformity, to leave no room for dissent or disobedience. Hegel gives great weight to the authority of the state and of custom. But Hegel does not leave the individual confronted with an unjust state powerless. To Hegel, we are obligated to obey the law if we are at home in the state, if its practices, institutions (...) and laws are rational, if the free will "comes into existence" in it. But on Hegel's view, if the practices, institutions and laws of the state are not rational, we are not obligated to comply with their demands. Few recognize that Hegel even allows for justified disobedience, let alone that he can tell us anything about the conditions under which disobedience is justified. This is partly attributable to the fact that important texts concerning Hegel's views have only recently been discovered and published. For example, in a passage from one of these texts, a set of notes of Hegel's lectures on political philosophy, Hegel declares that if my free will does not come into existence in the state, I have no corresponding duty to the state. My purpose is to articulate a distinctive Hegelian theory of justified disobedience, show how it differs both from the traditional understandings of Hegel's views and from contemporary approaches to the problem of justified disobedience, and briefly to point to some difficulties with Hegel's position that need to be worked out if it is to be a satisfactory alternative. (shrink)

Beliefs are concrete particulars containing ideas of properties and notions of things, which also are concrete. The claim made in a belief report is that the agent has a belief (i) whose content is a specific singular proposition, and (ii) which involves certain of the agent's notions and ideas in a certain way. No words in the report stand for the notions and ideas, so they are unarticulated constituents of the report's content (like the relevant place in "it's raining"). The (...) belief puzzles (Hesperus, Cicero, Pierre) involve reports about two different notions. So the analysis gets the puzzling truth values right. (shrink)

Using path-breaking discoveries of cognitive science, Mark Johnson argues that humans are fundamentally imaginative moral animals, challenging the view that morality is simply a system of universal laws dictated by reason. According to the Western moral tradition, we make ethical decisions by applying universal laws to concrete situations. But Johnson shows how research in cognitive science undermines this view and reveals that imagination has an essential role in ethical deliberation. Expanding his innovative studies of human reason in Metaphors We (...) Live By and The Body in the Mind, Johnson provides the tools for more practical, realistic, and constructive moral reflection. (shrink)

An archive of Mark Sharlow's two blogs, "The Unfinishable Scroll" and "Religion: the Next Version." Covers Sharlow's views on metaphysics, epistemology, mind, science, religion, and politics. Includes topics and ideas not found in his papers.

In a recent paper published in this journal, Giubilini, Douglas and Savulescu argue that we have given insufficient weight to the moral importance of fairness in our account of the best policies for non-medical exemptions to childhood immunization requirements. They advocate for a type of policy they call Contribution, according to which parents must contribute to important public health goods before their children can receive NMEs to immunization requirements. In this response, we argue that Giubilini, Douglas and Savulescu give insufficient (...) weight to the moral importance parental liberty in ways that count against their preferred type of NMEs policy and threaten public support for mandatory vaccination laws and public health initiatives generally. (shrink)

Review article on Alexander Schnell’s book “Hinaus: Entwürfe zu einer phänomenologischen Metaphysik und Anthropologie” (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2011). According to Schnell, an exclusively descriptive phenomenology is not enough; phenomenology must also be constructive. He thus outlines an ambitious project for constructive phenomenology that promises (1) to provide an ultimate justification for knowledge and (2) to ground a phenomenological metaphysics and anthropology, each of which is centered on the “image” (Bild). Insofar as Schnell fills in the details of this outline, (...) his analysis is careful, provocative, and filled with insight. (shrink)

In Epistemological Disjunctivism, Duncan Prichard defends his brand of epistemological disjunctivism from three worries. In this paper I argue that his responses to two of these worries are in tension with one another.

This collection of articles is almost all of the psychological writings of Mark Pettinelli.

In “On Sense and Reference,” surrounding his discussion of how we describe what people say and think, identity is Frege’s first stop and his last. We will follow Frege’s plan here, but we will stop also in the land of make-believe.

Gossip is often serious business, not idle chitchat. Gossip allows those oppressed to privately name their oppressors as a warning to others. Of course, gossip can be in error. The speaker may be lying or merely have lacked sufficient evidence. Bias can also make those who hear the gossip more or less likely to believe the gossip. By examining the social functions of gossip and considering the differences in power dynamics in which gossip can occur, we contend that gossip may (...) be not only permissible but virtuous, both as the only reasonable recourse available and as a means of resistance against oppression. (shrink)

Unemployment has been at historically high rates for an extended period, and while it has recently improved in certain countries, the unemployment that remains may be becoming structural. Aside from inequality, unemployment is accordingly the problem that is most likely to put critical pressure on our political institutions, disrupt the social fabric of our way of life, and even threaten the continuation of liberalism itself. Despite the obvious importance of the problem of unemployment, however, there has been a curious lack (...) of attention paid to this issue by contemporary non-Marxist political philosophers. Non-Marxists typically view unemployment as a technical matter, and doing something about it a question of means not ends, with the solution to this question depending on the kind of empirical determinations about what causes what that are best left to economists, not political philosophers. But I think this is a mistake. Because work is a major part of our social life, as well as something that for a great many people grounds their sense of who they are and provides the basis of their sense of self-respect, those unable to find work are missing out on a great deal of what makes for a meaningful life, and not just the economic benefits that social cooperation has to offer. Those who are unemployed accordingly have something to complain about, even if we do not let them starve, and the rest of us (or at least the institutions that represent us) may have some sort of moral obligation to take action to increase the number of employment opportunities currently available regardless of any uncertainty surrounding the effects that any actions open to us might have. The nature and extent of this moral obligation is what On Unemployment is dedicated to exploring. (shrink)

Most philosophers find it puzzling how beliefs could wrong, and this leads them to conclude that they do not. So there is much philosophical work to be done in sorting out whether I am right to say that they do, as well as how this could be so. But in this paper I will take for granted that beliefs can wrong, and ask instead when beliefs wrong. My answer will be that beliefs wrong when they falsely diminish. This answer has (...) three parts: that beliefs wrong only when they are false, that beliefs wrong only when they diminish, and that false diminishment is sufficient for wronging. I will seek to elaborate on and defend all three of these claims, but it is the first to which I will give the most attention. (shrink)