The value of extending the human lifespan remains a key philosophical debate in bioethics. In building a case against the extension of the species-typical human life, Nicolas Agar considers the prospect of transforming human beings near the end of their lives into Galapagos tortoises, which would then live on decades longer. A central question at stake in this transformation is the persistence of human consciousness as a condition of the value of the transformation. Agar entertains the idea that consciousness could (...) persist in some measure, but he thinks little is to be gained from the transformation because the experiences available to tortoises pale in comparison to those available to human beings. Moreover, he thinks persisting human consciousness and values would degrade over time, being remade by tortoise needs and environment. The value available in the transformation would not, then, make the additional years of life desirable. Agar’s account does not, however, dispose of the tortoise transformation as a defensible preference. Some people might still want this kind of transformation for symbolic reasons, but it would probably be better that no continuing human consciousness persist, since that consciousness would be inexpressible as such. Even so, it is not irrational to prefer various kinds of lifespan extension even if they involve significant modifications to human consciousness and values. (shrink)

Bioconservative commentators argue that parents should not take steps to modify the genetics of their children even in the name of enhancement because of the damage they predict for values, identities and relationships. Some commentators have even said that adults should not modify themselves through genetic interventions. One commentator worries that genetic modifications chosen by adults for themselves will undermine moral agency, lead to less valuable experiences and fracture people's sense of self. These worries are not justified, however, since the (...) effects of modification will not undo moral agency as such. Adults can still have valuable experiences, even if some prior choices no longer seem meaningful. Changes at the genetic level will not always, either, alienate people from their own sense of self. On the contrary, genetic modifications can help amplify choice, enrich lives and consolidate identities. Ultimately, there is no moral requirement that people value their contingent genetic endowment to the exclusion of changes important to them in their future genetic identities. Through weighing risks and benefits, adults also have the power to consent to—and assume the risks of—genetic modifications for themselves in a way not possible in prenatal genetic interventions. (shrink)

Some commentators argue that conception constitutes the onset of human personhood in a metaphysical sense. This threshold is usually invoked as the basis both for protecting zygotes and embryos from exposure to risks of death in clinical research and fertility medicine and for objecting to abortion, but it also has consequences for certain religious perspectives, including Catholicism whose doctrines directly engage questions of personhood and its meanings. Since more human zygotes and embryos are lost than survive to birth, conferral of (...) personhood on them would mean – for those believing in personal immortality – that these persons constitute the majority of people living immortally despite having had only the shortest of earthly lives. For those believing in resurrection, zygotes and embryos would also be restored to physical lives. These outcomes do not mean that conception cannot function as a metaphysical threshold of personhood, but this interpretation carries costs that others do not. For example, treating conception as a moral threshold of respect for human life in general, rather than as a metaphysical threshold of personhood, would obviate the prospect of the afterlife being populated in the main by persons who have never lived more than a few hours or days. (shrink)

Some parents have taken steps to ensure that they have deaf children, a choice that contrasts with the interest that other parents have in enhancing the traits of their children. Julian Savulescu has argued that, morally speaking, parents have a duty to use assisted reproductive technologies to give their children the best opportunity of the best life. This view extends beyond that which is actually required of parents, which is only that they give children reasonable opportunities to form and act (...) on a conception of a life that is good for them. Does the selection of deaf children violate that responsibility? Morally speaking, parents should refrain from using assisted reproductive treatments or prenatal interventions in order to have a child with a disability. Deafness and other disabilities represent intrinsic disadvantages that cannot be offset by other advantages that families and society can offer to people. By the same token, neither should parents seek enhancements of intelligence or physical traits that would undercut intrinsic goods of human life in similar ways. These moral arguments do not, however, sustain the judgment that the law should necessarily interfere with parents' decisions in these matters, even if those choices are morally unwise. (shrink)

Researchers are working to derive sperm from banked testicular tissue taken from pre-pubertal boys who face therapies or injuries that destroy sperm production. Success in deriving sperm from this tissue will help to preserve the option for these boys to have genetically related children later in life. For the twin moral reasons of preserving access and equity in regard to having such children, clinicians and researchers are justified in offering the option to the parents of all affected boys. However, some (...) parents may wish to decline the option to bank tissue from their boys because the technique may seem too unfamiliar or unusual, but over time people may become more comfortable with the technique as they have done with other novel assisted reproductive treatments. Other parents may wish to decline the option because of moral or religious reasons. A prominent natural law theory holds, for example, that the ARTs that would be involved in using sperm derived from banked tissue to produce a child are morally objectionable. Some parents might not want to bank tissue in order to shield their son from using ARTs they see as objectionable. Clinicians and researchers should respect parents who wish to decline banking tissue, but parents should ordinarily embrace choices that protect the possible interests their sons may have as adult men, including the wish to have genetically related children. (shrink)

There are no technologies at the present time that would allow parents to select the sexual orientation of their children. But what if there were? Some commentators believe that parents should be able to use those techniques so long as they are effective and safe. Others believe that these techniques are unethical because of the dangers they pose to homosexual men and women in general. Both sides point to motives and consequences when trying to analyse the ethics of this question. (...) These arguments are reviewed, and it is concluded that opponents of these technologies have not shown good reason why the law or policy should override parental choice in this matter. In general, therefore, if technologies become available to choose the sexual orientation of children, parents should be allowed to use them, provided they are safe and disrupt no interest of the child. This use will, at the very least, protect homosexual children from parents who do not want them, but it will also allow parents who want homosexual children to make that choice as well. (shrink)

It is unclear that United States schools are doing sufficient work to identify and protect the interests of their LGB students this analysis, we rely on certain public-health research in social epidemiology to show that discrimination against LGB adolescents imposes morally significant harms to both adolescents and community. We apply "trust” and “social capital” to educational standards and practices as foundations for educational practices that work toward full equality of LGB students in regard to opportunity and other primary social goods.

This paper is about the nature of God’s pre-creation knowledge of possible creatures. I distinguish three theories: non-qualitative singularism, qualitative singularism, and qualitative generalism, which differ in terms of whether the relevant knowledge is qualitative or non-qualitative, and whether God has singular or merely general knowledge of creatures. My main aim is to argue that qualitative singularism does not depend on a version of the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles to the effect that, necessarily, qualitatively indiscernible individuals are identical. It (...) follows that qualitative singularism does not depend on the view that possible creatures categorically have qualitative individual essences. (shrink)

Inducing the rubber hand illusion (RHI) requires that participants look at an imitation hand while it is stroked in synchrony with their occluded biological hand. Previous explanations of the RHI have emphasized multisensory integration, and excluded higher cognitive functions. We investigated the relationship between the RHI and higher cognitive functions by experimentally testing task switch (as measured by switch cost) and mind wandering (as measured by SART score); we also included a questionnaire for attentional control that comprises two subscales, attention-shift (...) and attention-focus. To assess experience of RHI, the Botvinick and Cohen (1998) questionnaire was used and illusion onset time was recorded. Our results indicate that rapidity of onset reliably indicates illusion strength. Regression analysis revealed that participants evincing less switch cost and higher attention-shift scores had faster RHI onset times, and that those with higher attention-shift scores experienced the RHI more vividly. These results suggest that the multi-sensory hypothesis is not sufficient to explain the illusion: higher cognitive functions should be taken into account when explaining variation in the experience of ownership for the rubber hand. (shrink)

Emotional hardcore and other music genres featuring screamed vocals are puzzling for the appreciator. The typical fan attaches appreciative value to musical screams of emotional pain all the while acknowledging it would be inappropriate to hold similar attitudes towards their sonically similar everyday counterpart: actual human screaming. Call this the screamed vocals problem. To solve the problem, I argue we must attend to the anti-sublimating aims that get expressed in the emotional hardcore vocalist’s choice to scream the lyrics. Screamed vocals (...) help us see the value in rejecting (a) restrictive social norms of emotional expressiveness and (b) restrictive artistic norms about how one ought to express or represent pain in art, namely that if one is going to do so they must ensure the pain has been ‘beautified’. In developing this second point I argue that emotional hardcore is well-suited (though not individually so) for putting pressure on longstanding views in the history of aesthetics about the formal relationship between art and human pain. (shrink)

In his recent book Bad Beliefs and Why They Happen to Good People, Neil Levy argues that conspiracy theories result from the same rational processes that underlie epistemic success. While we think many of Levy’s points are valuable, like his criticism of the myth of individual cognition and his emphasis on the importance of one’s social epistemic environment, we believe that his account overlooks some important aspects. We argue that social deference is an active process, and as such can be (...) helped or hindered by epistemic virtues and vices. With this in mind, holders of bad beliefs acquire more responsibility than is considered by Levy. (shrink)

There’s a growing sense among philosophers of religion that Humean arguments from evil are some of the most formidable arguments against theism, and skeptical theism fails to undermine those arguments because they fail to make the inferences skeptical theists criticize. In line with this trend, Wes Morriston has recently formulated a Humean argument from evil, and his chief defense of it is that skeptical theism is irrelevant to it. Here I argue that skeptical theism is relevant to Humean arguments. To (...) do this, I reveal the common structure of skeptical theism’s critiques. Seeing the common structure reveals why some versions of skeptical theism are irrelevant to Humean arguments from evil. It also points the way forward to formulating a relevant version. By combining skeptical theism with a plausible principle concerning reasonable belief, I formulate a version of skeptical theism that undermines Morriston’s argument that is also immune from his objections. (shrink)

This paper critically examines Michael Zimmerman’s account of basic final value in The Nature of Intrinsic Value. Zimmerman’s account has several positive features. Unfortunately, as I argue, given one plausible assumption about value his account derives a contradiction. I argue that rejecting that assumption has several implausible results and that we should instead reject Zimmerman’s account. I then sketch an alternative account of basic final value, showing how it retains some of the positive features of Zimmerman’s account while avoiding its (...) pitfalls. (shrink)

This paper describes both an exegetical puzzle that lies at the heart of Frege’s writings—how to reconcile his logicism with his definitions and claims about his definitions—and two interpretations that try to resolve that puzzle, what I call the “explicative interpretation” and the “analysis interpretation.” This paper defends the explicative interpretation primarily by criticizing the most careful and sophisticated defenses of the analysis interpretation, those given my Michael Dummett and Patricia Blanchette. Specifically, I argue that Frege’s text either are inconsistent (...) with the analysis interpretation or do not support it. I also defend the explicative interpretation from the recent charge that it cannot make sense of Frege’s logicism. While I do not provide the explicative interpretation’s full solution to the puzzle, I show that its main competitor is seriously problematic. (shrink)

In a recent article, David Kyle Johnson has claimed to have provided a ‘refutation’ of skeptical theism. Johnson’s refutation raises several interesting issues. But in this note, I focus on only one—an implicit principle Johnson uses in his refutation to update probabilities after receiving new evidence. I argue that this principle is false. Consequently, Johnson’s refutation, as it currently stands, is undermined.

Skeptical theism is a family of responses to arguments from evil. One important member of that family is Stephen Wykstra’s CORNEA-based criticism of William Rowe’s arguments from evil. A cornerstone of Wykstra’s approach is his CORNEA principle. However, a number of authors have criticized CORNEA on various grounds, including that it has odd results, it cannot do the work it was meant to, and it problematically conflicts with the so-called common sense epistemology. In this paper, I explicate and defend a (...) CORNEA principle. After sketching a brief argument for it, I show how it can be acquitted of these recent charges. (shrink)

Fricker‘s Epistemic Injustice discusses the idea of testimonial injustice, specifically, being harmed in one‘s capacity as a knower. Fricker‘s own theory of testimonial injustice emphasizes the role of prejudice. She argues that prejudice is necessary for testimonial injustice and that when hearers use a prejudice to give a deficit to the credibility of speakers hearers intrinsically harm speakers in their capacity as a knower. This paper rethinks the connections between prejudice and testimonial injustice. I argue that many cases of prejudicial (...) credibility deficits do not intrinsically harm speakers. Further, I suggest that prejudice is not necessary for harming speakers. I provide my own proposal on which testimonial injustice occurs when speaker‘s capacity as a giver of knowledge is interfered with in important ways. My proposal does not give prejudice any essential role. (shrink)

According to Realism about Epistemic Value, there is such a thing as epistemic value and it is appropriate to evaluate things—e.g., beliefs—for epistemic value because there is such a thing as epistemic value. Allan Hazlett's A Luxury of the Understanding is a sustained critique of Realism. Hazlett challenges proponent of Realism to answer explanatory questions while not justifiably violating certain constraints, including two proposed naturalistic constraints. Hazlett argues they cannot. Here I defend Realism. I argue that it is easy for (...) proponents of Realism to answer Hazlett's explanatory questions. The interesting issue is whether those answers violate Hazlett's naturalistic constraints. My own view is that epistemic value is irreducible to natural properties; it thus violates Hazlett's proposed constraints. I argue that this is justifiable because Hazlett fails to convincingly motivate his naturalistic constraints and there is reason for thinking epistemic value is irreducible to natural properties anyway. (shrink)

Two views continue to be defended today. One is that the account of eudaimonia in EN 10 is inconsistent with claims made about it in other books of the work. The other view is that the account in EN 10 is consistent with other claims made in the other books because Aristotle presents one account of perfect eudaimonia by portraying it as consisting solely in contemplative activity. I call this view the intellectualist interpretation. I then argue that neither view is (...) correct because although Aristotle’s position is consistent, he does not hold that the perfect eudaimonia for a human being involves nothing but excellent theoretical activity. His philosopher possesses and exercises the moral excellences and practical wisdom and so some portion of his happiness consists in these activities as well as contemplative activity. (shrink)

This paper uses an extended discussion of Nietzsche’s essay “The Greek State” to uncover the political aspects of his early thinking. The paper builds on a similar discussion of another essay from the same period, “Homer on Competition,” in arguing that Nietzsche’s thinking is based on a confrontation with the work of Plato. It is argued that the key to understanding “The Greek State” is seeing it, in its entirety, as an enigmatic interpretation and re-writing of Plato’s Republic. Nietzsche interprets (...) the Republic as Plato’s accomplishment of the task of the genuine philosopher: the legislation of values and the moulding of human character. (shrink)

In response to historical challenges, advocates of a sophisticated variant of scientific realism emphasize that theoretical systems can be divided into numerous constituents. Setting aside any epistemic commitment to the systems themselves, they maintain that we can justifiably believe those specific constituents that are deployed in key successful predictions. Stathis Psillos articulates an explicit criterion for discerning exactly which theoretical constituents qualify. I critique Psillos's criterion in detail. I then test the more general deployment realist intuition against a set of (...) well-known historical cases, whose significance has, I contend, been overlooked. I conclude that this sophisticated form of realism remains threatened by the historical argument that prompted it. A criterion for scientific realism Assessing the criterion A return to the crucial insight: responsibility A few case studies Assessing deployment realism. (shrink)

According to a common view, animals have moral status. Further, a standard defense of this view is the Argument from Consciousness: animals have moral status because they are conscious and can experience pain and it would be bad were they to experience pain. In a series of papers :277–291, 2015a, J Agric Environ Ethics 28:11270–1138, 2015b, J Agric Environ Ethics 30:37–54, 2017), Timothy Hsiao claims that animals do not have moral status and criticizes the Argument from Consciousness. This short (...) paper defends the Argument from Consciousness by providing two simple responses to Hsiao’s criticism. (shrink)

Ernest Sosa and others have proposed a safety condition on knowledge: If S knows p, then in the nearest (non-actual) worlds in which S believes p, p is true.1 Colloquially, this is the idea that knowing requires not being easily mistaken. Here, I will argue that like another condition requiring a counterfactual relation between a subject’s belief and the world, viz. Robert Nozick’s sensitivity condition, safety leads, in certain cases, to the unacceptable result that knowledge is not closed under known (...) implication. (shrink)

This chapter corrects for Susan Sontag's undeserved neglect by contemporary ethical philosophers by bringing awareness to some of the unique metaethical insights born of her reflections on photographic representations of evil. I argue that Sontag's thought provides fertile ground for thinking about: (1) moral perception and its relation to moral knowledge; and (2) the epistemic and moral value of our emotional responses to the misery and suffering of others. I show that, contrary to standard moral perception theory (e.g. Blum 1994), (...) Sontag holds that we can have general moral perceptual knowledge. I then explore Sontag's idea that certain emotional responses, like sympathy and compassion, can sometimes be impertinent, in virtue of their having false or illusory content. I explain why this is so, and show the epistemic and motivational problems it poses for moral sentimentalism. (shrink)

The central claim of Schopenhauer’s account of human motivation is that ‘cognition is the medium of motives’. In light of motivation’s cognitively mediated structure, he contends that human beings are caused to act by ‘mere thoughts’, what he refers to metaphorically as ‘fine, invisible threads’. Despite this avowedly intellectualist handling of the subject, some commentators remain convinced that Schopenhauer is best read as accepting the ‘Humean truism’ that reason alone never motivates; rather, motivation always has its source in desire together (...) with instrumental belief (Young 1987). Here, I raise some doubts for the Humean reading by arguing that it does not take sufficient account of the transformative effects of cognitive mediation, effects which support cases of non-desiderative motivation. I argue in particular that Schopenhauer permits cases of motivation by the essentially cognitive states of imagination and recognition. Tracing this intellectualist strand in Schopenhauer’s view of motivation has two important results. First, it unmasks an important structural role for Besonnenheit (reflectiveness) in his account of practical agency, thereby revealing a unified thread running throughout his system; second, we alight on a possible ‘expressivist’ picture of his account of motivation, something it shares with his broader theory of action. (shrink)

Rønnow-Rasmussen’s The Value Gap is an extended argument for Value Dualism, the view that both goodness and goodness for are coherent value concepts that are not fully understandable in terms of each other. In the first part of the book, he criticizes attempts to fully understand one type of value in terms of the other. In the second part of the book, he argues that both concepts are value concepts by appealing to a “Fitting Attitude” analysis of value concepts. This (...) book review exposits Rønnow-Rasmussen’s argument for Dualism, and his proposed analysis of both goodness and goodness for. More critically, it briefly defends a strategy for understanding goodness for in terms of goodness and criticizes Rønnow-Rasmussen’s proposed analysis of goodness for. (shrink)

Critics of persuasive advertising argue that it undermines the autonomy of consumers by manipulating their desires in morally problematic ways. My aim is this paper is to refine that argument by employing a conception of autonomy that is not at odds with certain forms of manipulation. I argue that the charge of manipulation is not sufficient for condemning persuasive advertising. On my view, manipulation of an agent’s desires through advertising is justifiable in cases where the agent accepts the process through (...) which the desires were developed. I show how the standard manipulation objection proves too much as it would also condemn cases of that kind. I argue that this distinction is especially important when we consider the implications of “new media.” In addition to increasing vulnerability to manipulation, new media have considerable impacts on well-being. By siding with the traditional autonomy argument, we would be compelled to take an implausible stand against all forms of manipulation through advertising, but I suggest that only a proper subset of those cases are morally problematic. This conclusion opens up a space for persuasive advertising that is permissible while nevertheless condemning cases that violate consumers’ autonomy. (shrink)

Peter Singer argues, on consequentialist grounds, that individuals ought to be vegetarian. Many have pressed, in response, a causal impotence objection to Singer’s argument: any individual person’s refraining from purchasing and consuming animal products will not have an important effect on contemporary farming practices. In this paper, I sketch a Singer-inspired consequentialist argument for vegetarianism that avoids this objection. The basic idea is that, for agents who are aware of the origins of their food, continuing to consume animal products is (...) morally bad because it leads to not appropriately disvaluing the origins of their food. That is a morally bad outcome that can be avoided by becoming vegetarian. (shrink)

In a series of papers, Adam Leite has developed a novel view of justification tied to being able to responsibly justify a belief. Leite touts his view as faithful to our ordinary practice of justifying beliefs, providing a novel response to an epistemological problem of the infinite regress, and resolving the “persistent interlocutor” problem. Though I find elements of Leite’s view of being able to justify a belief promising, I hold that there are several problems afflicting the overall picture of (...) justification. In this paper, I argue that despite its ambitions, Leite’s view fails to solve the persistent interlocutor problem and does not avoid a vicious regress. (shrink)

In this paper I start with the familiar accusation that divine command ethics faces a "Euthyphro dilemma". By looking at what Plato’s ’Euthyphro’ actually says, I argue that no such argument against divine-command ethics was Plato’s intention, and that, in any case, no such argument is cogent. I then explore the place of divine commands and inspiration in Plato’s thought more generally, arguing that Plato sees an important epistemic and practical role for both.

This paper looks at an argument strategy for assessing the epistemic closure principle. This is the principle that says knowledge is closed under known entailment; or (roughly) if S knows p and S knows that p entails q, then S knows that q. The strategy in question looks to the individual conditions on knowledge to see if they are closed. According to one conjecture, if all the individual conditions are closed, then so too is knowledge. I give a deductive argument (...) for this conjecture. According to a second conjecture, if one (or more) condition is not closed, then neither is knowledge. I give an inductive argument for this conjecture. In sum, I defend the strategy by defending the claim that knowledge is closed if, and only if, all the conditions on knowledge are closed. After making my case, I look at what this means for the debate over whether knowledge is closed. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker, developing an idea of Wittgenstein’s, argues that we are immune to error through misidentification relative to the first-person pronoun. Although we might be liable to error when “I” (or its cognates) is used as an object, we are immune to error when “I” is used as a subject (as when one says, “I have a toothache”). Shoemaker claims that the relationship between “I” as-subject and the mental states of which it is introspectively aware is tautological: when, say, we (...) judge that “I feel pain,” we are tautologically aware that feels pain is instantiated and that it is instantiated in oneself. Moreover, he contends that this relationship holds not just for bodily sensations, but also for the sense of agency and for visual perception. But we deny that this relationship is tautological; instead, we treat Shoemaker’s principle (IEM) as a hypothesis. We then proceed to show that certain pathological states and experimentally-induced illusions can be adduced to show that IEM describes not a necessary relationship but a contingent relationship, one that sometimes fails to obtain. That we are not immune to error in the way Shoemaker describes has grave consequences for many aspects of his ideas concerning the first-person perspective. In the course of arguing that these empirical phenomena count against IEM, we also show that not only can the content of conscious experience be misrepresented, so too can the subject: that is, not only can the what of conscious experience be misrepresented, so too can the who. (shrink)

There are two primary arguments against scientific realism, one pertaining to underdetermination, the other to the history of science. While these arguments are usually treated as altogether distinct, P. Kyle Stanford's ‘problem of unconceived alternatives’ constitutes one kind of synthesis: I propose that Stanford's argument is best understood as a broad modus ponens underdetermination argument, into which he has inserted a unique variant of the historical pessimistic induction. After articulating three criticisms against Stanford's argument and the evidence that he offers, (...) I contend that, as it stands, Stanford's argument poses no threat to contemporary scientific realism. Nonetheless, upon identifying two useful insights present in Stanford's general strategy, I offer an alternative variant of the modus ponens underdetermination argument, one that, although historically informed by science, requires no inductive premises. I contend that this non-inductive but historically informed variant of the modus ponens clarifies and considerably strengthens the case against scientific realism. (shrink)

Humean arguments from evil are some of the most powerful arguments against Theism. They take as their data what we know about good and evil. And they argue that some rival to Theism better explains, or otherwise predicts, that data than Theism. However, this paper argues that there are many problems with various methods for defending Humean arguments. I consider Philo’s original strategy; modern strategies in terms of epistemic probability; phenomenological strategies; and strategies that appeal to scientific and metaphysical explanations. (...) None of these methods have been sufficiently developed to provide a clear and distinctive defense of Humean arguments. Defenders of Humean arguments need to spend more time on the underlying methodology of their arguments. (shrink)

This paper seeks to explain and evaluate, by an analytic method, the conflict between determinism and free will from the viewpoint of two physicalist reductionist philosophers, namely, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris. Dennett is a compatibilist philosopher who tries to show compatibility between determinism and free will, while Sam Harris is a non-compatibilist philosopher who turns to determinism with the thesis that our thoughts and actions have been pre-determined by the neurobiological events associated with them, and thus, considers free will (...) to be an illusion. Therefore according to him, we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions. However, Dennett tries to establish the existence of free will through the use of concepts like control and deliberation and defends ‘free will worth wanting’. Therefore, if we take the agency of the agent and the absence of determinism as two criteria for free will, Dennett accepts both and Harris denies them; since there is neurobiological determinism, and all of Dennett’s deliberations, etc. are also determined neurobiologically. Between the two conditions of free will, Dennett accepts that the origin of action must be in the agent; however, he refutes the condition of alternate possibilities, establishing his view based on a causal theory. As a Neo-Darwinist, he explains human beings’ physical and mental phenomena based on evolution theory and despite accepting causal determinism, he shows how the agent can still have agency in decisions and actions. As a result, he does not consider determinism to requisite compulsion. In his philosophical system, one can change the future that has not yet taken place. This decision-making regarding the future takes place through the process of deliberation, which has a special place in Dennett’s view. On the other hand, by adhering to Libet’s neurological experiments, Harris refutes both conditions of free will and considers the cause of all human being actions to arise from activities of the brain and concludes that one cannot have any conscious control over one’s actions. As a result, he emerges as a non-compatibilist determinist. In both his works, The Moral Landscape and Free Will, Harris addresses the topic of free will. In Free Will, he criticizes the view of compatibilists like Dennett, who responds to those criticisms in his article, ‘Reflections on Free Will, Review of Sam Harris’ Free Will’. Like Harris, Dennett too addresses free will in his two important books, Elbow Room and Freedom Evolves. Following an analysis of the views of Dennett and Harris and explaining the criticisms of the two regarding each other, the present article will show that neither Dennett, considering the rest of the elements of his philosophical views in philosophy of mind and philosophy of action can well justify compatibilism, nor can Harris, considering his neurological approach defend his determinist idea. The conflict that is present in Dennett’s views causes his explanation of the agent being the origin of his action to also be indefensible. Furthermore, due to the incompatibility of the different elements of his view and the vagueness of his idea regarding the effect of unconscious intentions on action, Harris too is placed in a weak position. In contrast to Harris’ supposition, a human is not “a puppet [who] is free as long as he loves his strings”; rather, a human chooses, makes decisions and acts according to his own will. As a result, despite the objections that apply to both philosophers, Dennett’s view is more acceptable than Harris’ in terms of the effort to justify free will; even though neither have been apparently successful in defending their own ideas. (shrink)

This article endeavors to identify the strongest versions of the two primary arguments against epistemic scientific realism: the historical argument—generally dubbed “the pessimistic meta-induction”—and the argument from underdetermination. It is shown that, contrary to the literature, both can be understood as historically informed but logically validmodus tollensarguments. After specifying the question relevant to underdetermination and showing why empirical equivalence is unnecessary, two types of competitors to contemporary scientific theories are identified, both of which are informed by science itself. With the (...) content and structure of the two nonrealist arguments clarified, novel relations between them are uncovered, revealing the severity of their collective threat against epistemic realism and its “no-miracles” argument. The final section proposes, however, that the realist’s axiological tenet “science seeks truth” is not blocked. An attempt is made to indicate the promise for a nonepistemic, purely axiological scientific realism—here dubbed “Socratic scientific realism.”. (shrink)

In On Reflection, Hilary Kornblith criticizes Sosa’s distinction between animal and reflective knowledge. His two chief criticisms are that reflective knowledge is not superior to animal knowledge and that Sosa’s distinction does not identify two kinds of knowledge. I argue that Sosa can successfully avoid both of these charges.

We explore new connections between the epistemologies of mental rehearsal and suppositional reasoning to offer a novel perspective on skilled behavior and its relationship to practical knowledge. We argue that practical knowledge is "easy" in the sense that, by manifesting one's skills, one has a priori propositional justification for certain beliefs about what one is doing as one does it. This proposal has wider consequences for debates about intentional action and knowledge: first, because agents sometimes act intentionally in epistemically hazardous (...) environments, these justified beliefs do not always rise to the level of (practical) knowledge. Second, practical knowledge is more intimately related to basic knowledge than has been appreciated. Third, an attractive "middle way" opens between the Anscombian tradition of defending a necessary connection between intentional action and practical knowledge and the more recent tradition of explaining away substantive epistemic conditions on intentional action. (shrink)

This article adapts John Rawls’s writings, arguing that past injustice can change what we ought to publicly affirm as the standard of justice today. My approach differs from forward-looking approaches based on alleviating prospective disadvantage and backward-looking historical entitlement approaches. In different contexts, Rawls’s own concern for the ‘social bases of self-respect’ and equal citizenship may require public endorsement of different principles or specifications of the standard of justice. Rawls’s difference principle focuses on the least advantaged socioeconomic group. I argue (...) that a historicized difference principle considers the relative standing of racial, gender, and other historically stigmatized groups; provides their members assurance by weakening incentives to manipulate justice to another group’s advantage; and may result in policies resembling reparations, though justified by forward-looking considerations of self-respect and public assurance. I then examine how disrespectful justifications were historically used to forcibly include indigenous peoples as citizens. While Rawls thinks providing citizens one package of basic liberties signals respect, indigenous self-government could better support self-respect. I invoke Rawlsian international justice, which calls for mutual respect between peoples. Indigenous peoples’ status should reflect their past and persisting peoplehood, providing assurance by weakening incentives to unjustly transform international into domestic contexts. (shrink)

What we call “the evidential argument from evil” is not one argument but a family of them, originating (perhaps) in the 1979 formulation of William Rowe. Wykstra’s early versions of skeptical theism emerged in response to Rowe’s evidential arguments. But what sufficed as a response to Rowe may not suffice against later more sophisticated versions of the problem of evil—in particular, those along the lines pioneered by Paul Draper. Our chief aim here is to make an earlier version of skeptical (...) theism more responsive to the type abductive atheology pioneered by Draper. In particular, we suggest a moderate form of skeptical theism may be able to resist Draper’s abductive atheology. (shrink)

Samuel Clarke was one of Spinoza's earliest and fiercest opponents in England. I uncover three related Clarkean arguments against Spinoza's metaphysic that deserve more attention from readers today. Collectively, these arguments draw out a tension at the very heart of Spinoza's rationalist system. From the conjunction of a necessary being who acts necessarily and the principle of sufficient reason, Clarke reasons that there could be none of the diversity we find in the universe. In doing so, Clarke potentially reveals an (...) inconsistent triad in Spinoza. Responses to this inconsistency map onto a deep division in the contemporary Spinoza literature. I conclude that Clarke's arguments provide a new approach to the recently revived debate over acosmic interpretations of Spinoza and point to new interpretive possibilities. (shrink)

Religion’s persistent and new visibility in political life has prompted a significant global debate. One of its key features concerns the nature and impact of secularization. This book intervenes in two ways. Firstly, it provides summative accounts of the history, culture and legal interactions that have informed Australia’s unique example. Secondly, it critically analyzes secular political theory concerning the public sphere, deliberative politics and democratic practices. The compendium aims to propel the debate in new directions and promote urgently needed public (...) understanding. My own contribution focused on hermeneutics in deliberative democracies. (shrink)

Across time and cultures, envy is widely regarded as a vice. This paper provides a theory of viciousness that explains why envy is a vice. First, it sketches an account of the trait of envy, utilizing some of the social psychology literature on social comparisons. Second, it considers some theories of vices—including Neo-Aristotelian, Kant’s, and Driver’s consequentialism—and briefly argues that they are not adequate in general or with regard to envy. Lastly it articulates a theory of viciousness on which a (...) trait’s degree of viciousness is determined by its disposition to produce actions and attitudes that are of disvalue; it then applies this theory to envy. (shrink)

This thesis is primarily an attempt at solving some issues in Schopenhauer’s theory of salvation. My aim is to provide ways in which Schopenhauer’s soteriology could work. It is a partially reconstructive project in that I will be bringing to the forefront some of Schopenhauer’s assertions at the expense of others. My aim is to show that we are able to provide a much more cohesive and satisfying reading of Schopenhauer’s philosophical project if we let go of some of the (...) more orthodox assumptions in the Schopenhauer scholarship – chief amoung these being that Schopenhauer is committed to the view that the will constitutes ultimate reality. While this reading is a departure from the vast majority of the traditional readings of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, I believe it has the twin advantages of both aligning Schopenhauer’s thought much closer with the eastern traditions he believes his work is in sympathy with, and ultimately, providing a new platform from which to assess the ‘traditional’ reading of Schopenhauer’s thought as ‘hopelessly pessimistic’. It is my contention that while it remains true that Schopenhauer is very much a pessimist about the world as manifested will, it is the perceived difficulties of his philosophy of salvation that have provided the most significant road block preventing critics from seeing that there are dimensions to Schopenhauer’s thought that cannot so easily be labelled as either pessimistic or optimistic. This thesis is an attempt to shed light on possible new readings of Schopenhauer’s project in light of attempts to resolve issues in his soteriology. I begin with the question – why do we need saving? I attempt to answer this through an analysis of the terms ‘will’, ‘will-to-life’ and ‘affirmation and negation of the will-to-life’. Next, I attempt to argue that the will should not be seen as ultimate reality in Schopenhauer’s system and that this is both closer to the account which Schopenhauer himself was inclining towards later in his writings as well asa necessary sacrifice in order to save Schopenhauer from more problematic inconsistencies. I next attempt to solve inconsistencies in Schopenhauer’s account of personal identity. I argue that there can only be a denial of the will-to-life if there is more to our identity than willing. I will also examine the possibility of a denial of the will-to-life at all. I will be engaging with recent scholarship from Christopher 3 Janaway on the possibility of negating the will-to-life and the implications of this for Schopenhauer’s account of willing. I will then attempt to resolve the on-going debate in the secondary literature concerning Schopenhauer’s ethical pronouncements and his theory of the negation of the will-to-life. I will argue, contrary to Sandra Shapshay and Tristan Ferrell, that it is possible to be one in whom the will has denied itself while remaining one who wills ethically and that this can be the case if we focus our attention on what Schopenhauer may truly mean by a compassionate will to help others. Next, I will be asking why exactly it is good to be one in whom the will has denied itselfand what this means for our understanding of value for the will-less subject. Finally, I will be focusing on Schopenhauer’s pessimism and how a new reading of Schopenhauer’s soteriology means that we can introduce new ways of assessing both the world as well as the place of Schopenhauer’s philosophical system within it. Ultimately, I will conclude that any interpretation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy presents the scholar with a choice and that we are subsequently only able to make new evaluative assessments on Schopenhauer’s philosophy, as well push back against the charge that it is wholly pessimistic, if we choose to accept major revisions to his metaphysics of the will. However, because Schopenhauer himself seemed to be moving towards such revisions, we should not be afraid of doing so either. (shrink)

Skeptical theism is a family of responses to the evidential problem of evil. What unifies this family is two general claims. First, that even if God were to exist, we shouldn’t expect to see God’s reasons for permitting the suffering we observe. Second, the previous claim entails the failure of a variety of arguments from evil against the existence of God. In this essay, we identify three particular articulations of skeptical theism—three different ways of “filling in” those two claims—and describes (...) their role in responding to evidential arguments of evil due to William Rowe and Paul Draper. But skeptical theism has been subject to a variety of criticisms, several of which raise interesting issues and puzzles not just in philosophy of religion but other areas of philosophy as well. Consequently, we discuss some of these criticisms, partly with an eye to bringing out the connections between skeptical theism and current topics in mainstream philosophy. Finally, we conclude by situating skeptical theism within our own distinctive methodology for evaluating world views, what we call “worldview theory versioning.”. (shrink)

Bare particulars tend to get a bad rap. But often, the arguments lodged against bare particulars seem to miss important aspects of the theoretical context of bare particulars. In particular, these arguments fail to situate bare particulars within a constituent ontology with substrates, and thus fail to appreciate an important consequence of that context: the need for two types of exemplification. In this paper, I do three things. First, I motivate and describe the need, given bare particulars, for two types (...) of exemplification, and explore more generally how constituent ontologies with substrates ought to think about exemplification. Second, I show how Andrew Bailey’s (2012) new argument against bare particulars fails when that need is charitably considered. Third, I highlight where bare particular theory ought to be pressed, which turns out to be precisely its account of exemplification. (shrink)