Expressivists famously have important and difficult problems with semantics and logic. Their difficulties providing an adequate account of the semantics of material conditionals involving moral terms, and explaining why they have the right semantic and logical properties – for example, why they validate modus ponens – have received a great deal of attention. Cian Dorr [2002] points out that their problems do not stop here, but also extend to epistemology. The problem he poses for expressivists is the problem of (...) class='Hi'>wishful thinking. David Enoch [2003] has claimed that expressivists can avoid wishful thinking, and offered a fairly detailed account of how. In this paper I explain the details of Enoch’s account, and why his reasoning fails in several different places. (shrink)

David Enoch recently defended the idea that there are valid inferences of the form ‘it would be good if p, therefore, p’. I argue that Enoch's proposal allows us to infer the absurd conclusion that ours is the best of all possible worlds.

This paper makes the case that when wishful thinking ill-founds belief, the belief depends on the desire in ways can be recapitulated at the level of perceptual experience. The relevant kinds of desires include motivations, hopes, preferences, and goals. I distinguish between two modes of dependence of belief on desire in wishful thinking: selective or inquiry-related, and responsive or evidence-related. I offers a theory of basing on which beliefs are badly-based on desires, due to patterns of (...) dependence that can found in the relationship between experiences and desires as well. This conclusion brings us a large part of the way to the conclusion that like beliefs, experiences can be ill-founded by depending on a desire. (shrink)

It is argued that wishful thinking is an informal logical fallacy and is distinguished from self-deception and delusion. Wishful thinking is unique in that a human desire is the starting point, which remains unfulfilled because of insufficient or no evidence or ignorance, despite the agent’s beliefs. It contrasts with self-deception, a more serious mental state in which the agent hides or denies the truth from himself, regardless of whether it is desired. Wishful thinking is (...) a logical fallacy, depending on the agent’s genuine beliefs as an epistemic dilemma or merely a harmless fantasy. pp. 30–42. (shrink)

What is W. V. O. Quine’s relationship to classical pragmatism? Although he resists the comparison to William James in particular, commentators have seen an affinity between his “web of belief” model of theory confirmation and James’s claim that our beliefs form a “stock” that faces new experience as a corporate body. I argue that the similarity is only superficial. James thinks our web of beliefs should be responsive not just to perceptual but also to emotional experiences in some cases; Quine (...) denies this. I motivate James’s controversial view by appealing to an episode in the history of medicine when a researcher self-experimented by swallowing a vial of bacteria that at the time had not been studied in much detail. The researcher’s commitment to his own as-yet untested hypothesis was based in part on emotional considerations. Finally, I argue that Quine’s insistence that emotions can never be relevant to adjusting our web of belief reflects a tacit holdover of one of logical positivism’s crucially anti-pragmatist commitments—that philosophy of science should focus exclusively on the context of justification, not the context of discovery. James’s emphasis on discovery as a (perhaps the) crucial locus for epistemological inquiry is characteristic of pragmatism in general. Since Quinean epistemology is always an epistemology of justification, he is not happily viewed as a member of the pragmatist tradition. (shrink)

"Does torture work?" is a factual rather than ethical or legal question. But legal and ethical discussions of torture should be informed by knowledge of the answer to the factual question of the reliability of torture as an interrogation technique. The question as to whether torture works should be asked before that of its legal admissibility—if it is not useful to interrogators, there is no point considering its legality in court.

The concept of Substantial motion (حركت جوهرى) is fundamentally flawed and severely muddled. Aristotle and Mulla Sadra’s conception of motion, substance (جوهر) and substantial form صورت نوعيه)) were all based on a severe misunderstanding of nature as later was established by the scientists and philosophers that came after them. Here, by recalling the established facts of modern science, particularly the universally accepted scientific fact that, properties of objects are reducible to the motion of their electrons and there’s no such thing (...) as ‘substantial form’ much less substance, the author puts an end to a 400-year-old glorious error called ‘substantial motion’. Naturally any attempt to reconcile the paradigms of modern physics with Aristotle/Sadra paradigms of form/matter and substance/accidents, and to try to draw parallel between the two and revive their philosophy would be an exercise in futility. (shrink)

SummaryHolm Tetens develops in his book „Gott denken. Ein Versuch über rationale Theologie“ theoretical and practical arguments against a naturalistic and in favour of a theistic understanding of reality. In my paper I focus on Teten’s claim that we are rationally justified to hope for the truth of classical theism. I distinguish between rationally justified and unjustified forms of hope and argue that we are rationally justified to hope for the redemption of reality as promised by classical theism. However, this (...) hope has a weaker basis of justification than Tetens seems to assume because serious objections to classical theism ought to be taken into consideration as well. (shrink)

Action can only be spontaneous and impulsive if not guided by contemplation; contemplation, on the other hand, may only be luxurious playfulness if not either purposed - or suitable - to motivate action. This volume seeks to prove what may seem self-evident to common sense, but adhering to common sense is never pointless nor excessive. Next to this, Thinking in Action is the offspring of friendship, respect and commitment between two academic communities, the Hellenic and the Serbian philosophical communities, (...) that admittedly have a lot in common, especially with regard to philosophy, and hopefully as many differences as needed in order to secure a long-lasting and fertile exchange of ideas; it is also the natural-born child of necessity: philosophy is about argumentation, debate and confrontation. Thinking in Action inaugurates Hellenic-Serbian Philosophical Dialogue Series that entertains no hesitation in being as ambitious as any philosophical series could be: it seeks to establish a permanent, wide and rich channel of fruitful philosophical interaction between the two philosophical communities. Having high aspirations is one thing; meeting these aspirations as well as the expectations of the reader is a totally different one. We wish Thinking in Action, the first volume of the Hellenic-Serbian Philosophical Dialogue Series, apart from being the initial step of a long journey, will also be a fascinating one to the reader. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify Design Thinking and its use in NGOs in Gaza Strip. In order to achieve the objectives of the study and to test its hypotheses, the analytical descriptive method was used, relying on the questionnaire as a main tool for data collection. The study society was one of the decision makers in the local NGOs in the Gaza Strip. The study population reached 78 local NGOs in Gaza Strip. The overall inventory of the possible study (...) community was based mainly on the use of the SPSS in processing and analyzing the data obtained through the survey tool. Smart-PLS was also used to construct the structural equation model (SEM) Analyzing the relationship between study variables. The study found that Design Thinking mediates the relationship between the management of process design and decision making with a holistic effect. The study showed the interest of local NGOs in creating a good mental image in the local community. And the ownership of local NGOs to the expertise and technical skills required to implement the projects, and showed the adoption of local NGOs in their activities to meet the needs of the beneficiaries and their wishes, and local NGOs analyze the problem, and causes, through data relevant to the decision, based on reference data for decision-making. The main recommendations of the study are: The need for senior management in the local NGOs in Gaza Strip to adopt the methodology of design thinking because of its impact on the sustainability of the projects, design the technical feasibility study and meet the wishes of the beneficiaries. (shrink)

The conventional wisdom about advance care planning holds that the normative force of my prior wishes is simply that they are mine. It is their connection to me that matters. This paper challenges conventional thinking. I propose that the normative force of prior wishes does not depend exclusively on personal identity. Instead, it sometimes depends on a special relationship that exists between a prior, capacitated person and a now incapacitated person. I consider what normative guidance governs persons who stand (...) in a special relationship, and contrast these with the standard model of respect for autonomy. My conclusion is that advance care planning for individuals who have lost decision-making capacity should incorporate the virtues of prudence and integrity, even when one and the same person ceases to exist, and respect for personal autonomy is no longer relevant. (shrink)

Argument-mapping software abounds, and one of the reasons is that using the software has been shown to teach/promote/improve critical thinking skills. These positive results are very encouraging, but they also raise the question of whether the computer tutorial environment is producing these results, or whether learning argument mapping, even with just paper and pencil, is sufficient. Based on the results of two empirical studies, I argue that the basic skill of being able to represent an argument diagrammatically plays an (...) important role in the improvement of critical-thinking skills. While these studies do not offer a direct comparison between the two methods, it is important for anyone wishing to employ argument mapping in the classroom to know that significant results can be obtained even with the most rudimentary of tools. (shrink)

Perceptual dogmatism holds that if it perceptually seems to S that P, then S thereby has prima facie perceptual justification for P. But suppose Wishful Willy's desire for gold cognitively penetrates his perceptual experience and makes it seem to him that the yellow object is a gold nugget. Intuitively, his desire-penetrated seeming can't provide him with prima facie justification for thinking that the object is gold. If this intuitive response is correct, dogmatists have a problem. But if dogmatists (...) have a problem, you do too (well, most of you anyway). Reliabilists have denounced dogmatism's cognitive penetration problems, but they have problems with cognitive penetration that are even worse. (shrink)

The paper is a partly provocative essay edited as a humanitarian study in philosophy of science and social philosophy, reflecting on the practical, “anti-metaphysical” turn taken place since the 20th century and continuing until now. The article advocates that it is about time it to be overcome because it is the main obstacle for the further development of exact and natural sciences including mathematics therefore restoring the unity of philosophy and sciences in the dawn of modern science when the great (...) scientists were philosophers as a necessary condition for their revolutionary achievements, and the physicists were simultaneously mathematicians not less than philosophers and even theologians as Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz were just as their predecessors, Copernicus or Galileo Galilei. The revolution in science accomplished by them needed philosophy since any scientific revolution, then necessarily growing into social, needs philosophy; and if ones wish to prevent social revolutions originating from fundamental scientific discoveries, in turn relying on the close link of sciences and philosophy, they are to cut the link at issue, and just that happened in the 20th centuries therefore implicitly heralding a “brave new world” of eternal normal science without revolutions whether scientific or social. Fukuyama’s “end of history” requires an “end of scientific history” as it is an obligatory premise, and separating sciences from philosophy is sufficient for that, though proclaimed quite otherwise: as overcoming metaphysics preventing sciences and substituting them by quasi-sciences. Particularly, that “anti-metaphysical turn” has established for science to obey society absolutely and thoroughly, obviously a condition contradicting the scientific and social revolutions in Modernity featured by the domination of science over society by the mediation of philosophy able to translate all epochal scientific discoveries as social corollaries. A special attention is paid to quantum mechanics, being the frontier of physics in the 20th century, where that anti-metaphysical turn is discernibly concentrated and may be notated by the famous slogan “Shut up and calculate!” regardless of its authorship. Just the revolutionary discoveries in physics, for example those of “dark mass” and “dark energy” or entanglement force now its rejection therefore restoring the unity of philosophy, mathematics and physics, made ever possible the establishment of modern science by its emancipation from religion, and thus and ind final analysis, from society. (shrink)

There are at least three basic phenomena that philosophers traditionally classify as paradigm cases of irrationality. In the first two cases, wishful thinking and self-deception, a person wants something to be true and therefore ignores certain relevant facts about the situation, making it appear to herself that it is, in fact, true. The third case, weakness of will, involves a person undertaking a certain action, despite taking herself to have an all-things-considered better reason not to do so. While (...) I think that Stephen Colbert's notion of "truthiness" might be able to fit the mold of each of these three kinds of irrationality, it applies most directly to cases of wishful thinking and self-deception — and it’s these two types of irrationality that I discuss extensively in this paper. As we will see, there are some troubling philosophical problems that arise regarding phenomena like self-deception. But we can use the concept of truthiness to show how these “paradoxes of irrationality” may be resolved without denying the fundamental irrationality of truthiness itself. -/- An earlier version of this paper ("Truthiness, Self-Deception, and Intuitive Knowledge") appeared in "The Daily Show and Philosophy" (2007). (shrink)

As the opening line of Dickens' classic novel suggests, it is very often the case that people can imagine both better and worse alternatives to their present reality. Although Dickens was writing about events that occurred over two centuries ago, it remains just as true today that we clearly live in neither the best nor the worst of possible worlds. For instance, we can wish for the amelioration of present difficulties in the Middle East yet still take comfort in the (...) fact that the threat of nuclear war has been greatly reduced since the end of the Cold War. On a more mundane level, it is easy for us to imagine how various aspects of our lives, such as our jobs, marriages, or physical fitness, could be both better and worse. Undoubtedly due to the pervasiveness and intrinsically fascinating qualities of this phenomenon of imagining alternatives to reality, there has been a veritable explosion of research in recent years on what have been termed mental simulation and counterfactual thinking processes. This chapter speculates upon and provides evidence for the antecedents and consequences of two types of counterfactuals: upward (it could have been better) and downward (it could have been worse). The importance of studying the antecedents and consequences of counterfactual direction lie in the differential structures, emotions, intentions, inferences, and behavioral consequences of upward versus downward counterfactual thinking. (shrink)

This book is the result of Searle's stay in the Munster University Philosophy Dept in 2009 and all the papers except his introductory one and his final response are from persons associated with Munster. However all the papers were written or revised later and so are one of the most up to date looks at his views available as of mid 2013. S has in my view made more fundamental contributions to higher order descriptive psychology (philosophy) than anyone since Wittgenstein (...) and has been writing world class material for over 50 years. He is also (like W before him) regarded as the best standup philosopher alive and has taught and lectured worldwide. He is also one of the clearest and most careful writers in the field so one would think that every philosopher writing an article on his work would have an up to date and accurate understanding of his ideas. Unfortunately this book shows that this is far from true. All the 11 articles make major mistakes regarding his views and regarding what he (and I) would regard as an accurate description of behavior. -/- Searle's obliviousness (which he shares with most philosophers) to the modern two systems framework and to the full implications of W’s “radical” epistemology as stated most dramatically in his last work ‘On Certainty’, is most unfortunate (as I have noted in many reviews). It was Wittgenstein who did the first and best job of describing the two systems (though nobody else has noticed) and OC represents a major event in intellectual history. Not only is Searle unaware of the fact that his framework is a straightforward continuation of W, but everyone else is too, which accounts for the lack of any significant reference to W in this book. As usual one also notes no apparent acquaintance with Evolutionary Psychology, which can enlighten all discussions of behavior by providing the real ultimate evolutionary and biological explanations rather than the superficial proximate cultural ones. -/- However, his comment on p212 is right on the money—the ultimate explanation (or as W insists the description) can only be a naturalized one which describes how mind, will, self, intention work and cannot meaningfully eliminate them as ‘real’ phenomena. Recall Searle’s famous review of Dennett’s ‘Conscious Explained’ entitled “Consciousness explained away”. And this makes it all the more bizarre that Searle should repeatedly state that we don’t know for sure if we have free will and that we have to ‘postulate’ a self (p218-219). As he notes “The neuro-biological processes and the mental phenomena are the same event, described at different levels” and “How can conscious intentions cause bodily movement?…How can the hammer move the nail in virtue of being solid? …If you analyze what solidity is causally…if you analyze what intention-in-action is causally, you see analogously there is no philosophical problem left over.” -/- Also I would state “The heart of my argument is that our linguistic practices, as commonly understood, presuppose a reality that exists independently of our representations.” (p223) as “Our life shows a world that does not depend on our existence and cannot be intelligibly challenged.” This book is valuable principally as a recent synopsis of the work of one the greatest philosophers of recent times. But there is also value in analyzing his responses to the many basic confusions manifested in the articles by others. Since this review I have written many articles extending the framework of the logical structure of rationality and commenting in depth on Searle and Wittgenstein which are all readily available on the net. -/- 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)

In this essay we argue for the Janus-faced nature of hope. We show that attempts to sanitise the concept of hope either by separating it conceptually from other phenomena such as wishful thinking, or, more generally, by seeking to minimise the negative aspects of hope, do not help us to understand the nature of hope and its functions as regards religion. Drawing on functional accounts of religion from Clifford Geertz and Tamas Pataki, who both—in their different ways—see the (...) function of religion in terms of its capacity to satisfy deep psychological needs, we demonstrate that religion uniquely positions itself with regard to hope’s two faces, simultaneously exploiting positive and negative aspects of hope. (shrink)

This paper begins with a discussion the role of less-than-admirable epistemic emotions in our respectable, indeed admirable inquiries: nosiness, obsessiveness, wishful thinking, denial, partisanship. The explanation for their desirable effect is Mandevillian: because of the division of epistemic labour individual epistemic vices can lead to shared knowledge. In fact it is sometimes essential to it.

The etiology of a perceptual belief can seemingly affect its epistemic status. There are cases in which perceptual beliefs seem to be unjustified because the perceptual experiences on which they are based are caused, in part, by wishful thinking, or irrational prior beliefs. It has been argued that this is problematic for many internalist views in the epistemology of perception, especially those which postulate immediate perceptual justification. Such views are unable to account for the impact of an experience’s (...) etiology on its justificational status, McGrath, Siegel, and Vahid ). Our understanding of what we have been told can also be affected by, for example, wishful thinking or irrational background beliefs. I argue that testimonial beliefs based on such states of understanding can thus be rendered unjustified. This is problematic not only for internalist immediate justification views of testimony, but also for some externalist views, such as the form of proper functionalism endorsed by Burge, and Graham. The testimonial version of the argument from etiology, unlike the perceptual variant, does not rest on the controversial hypothesis that perception is cognitively penetrable. Furthermore, there is a stronger case for the claim that testimonial justification can be undermined by etiological effects since, I argue, testimonial beliefs can be based on the background mental states which affect our understanding of what is said, and our states of understanding are rationally assessable. (shrink)

You shouldn’t have done it. But you did. Against your better judgment you scrolled to the end of an article concerning the state of race relations in America and you are now reading the comments. Amongst the slurs, the get-rich-quick schemes, and the threats of physical violence, there is one comment that catches your eye. Spencer argues that although it might be “unpopular” or “politically incorrect” to say this, the evidence supports believing that the black diner in his section will (...) tip poorly. He insists that the facts don’t lie. The facts aren’t racist. In denying his claim and in believing otherwise, it is you who engages in wishful thinking. It is you who believes against the evidence. You, not Spencer, are epistemically irrational. -/- My dissertation gives an account of the moral-epistemic norms governing belief that will help us answer Spencer and the challenge he poses. We live in a society that has been shaped by racist attitudes and institutions. Given the effects of structural racism, Spencer’s belief could have considerable evidential support. Spencer notes that it might make him unpopular, but he cares about the truth and he is willing to believe the unpopular thing. But, Spencer’s belief seems racist. Spencer asks, however, how could his belief be racist if his beliefs reflect reality and are rationally justified? Moreover, how could he wrong anyone by believing what he epistemically ought to believe given the evidence? In answer, I argue that beliefs can wrong. (shrink)

This paper is a concise survey of recent expressivist theories of discourse, focusing on the ethical case. For each topic discussed recent trends are summarised and suggestions for further reading provided. Issues covered include: the nature of the moral attitude; ‘hybrid’ views according to which moral judgements express both beliefs and attitudes; the quasi-realist programmes of Simon Blackburn and Allan Gibbard; the problem of creeping minimalism; the nature of the ‘expression’ relation; the Frege-Geach problem; the problem of wishful (...) class='Hi'>thinking; the role of moral intuitions; expressivism in aesthetics. (shrink)

The ways in which we exercise intentional agency are varied. I take the domain of intentional agency to include all that we intentionally do versus what merely happens to us. So the scope of our intentional agency is not limited to intentional action. One can also exercise some intentional agency in omitting to act and, importantly, in producing the intentional outcome of an intentional action. So, for instance, when an agent is dieting, there is an exercise of agency both with (...) respect to the agent’s actions and omissions that constitute her dieting behavior and in achieving the intended outcome of losing weight. In our mental lives we exercise intentional agency both in performing mental actions and when we intentionally produce certain outcomes at which our mental actions are aimed. The nature and scope of our intentional agency in our mental lives with respect to controlling the acquisition of mental states such as belief, desire, and intention is a topic that is of interest in its own right. In this essay, I will focus solely on our control over coming to believe. Understanding what sort of control we have our beliefs has far-reaching implications. For instance, theorizing about self-deception and wishful thinking is aided by theorizing about what if any intentional agency we can exercise with respect to acquiring beliefs. Another often mentioned concern that motivates thinking about doxastic agency comes from religion (when conversion requires a change of belief). We also hold persons morally and epistemically responsible for beliefs they have or fail to have. Finally, some deontological theories of epistemic justification require that agents be able to exercise a robust form of doxastic control. Fruitful work on any of these problems requires that we have an account of our intentional agency in acquiring beliefs. There are at least three loci of doxastic control. The first is over acquiring beliefs. The second is over maintaining beliefs. The third is over how we use our beliefs. I am chiefly concerned with the first locus of doxastic control in this essay, but I will say something about the second locus along the way. Also, I will only consider one way we might exercise control over acquiring beliefs. Specifically, I will present an argument against direct doxastic voluntarism (DDV). By “DDV” I mean to refer to the thesis that it is conceptually possible for agents to consciously exercise the same sort of direct voluntary control over coming to acquire a doxastic attitude—such as belief, suspension of belief, and disbelief—that they exercise over uncontroversial basic actions. If DDV is correct, then coming to believe can be a basic action-type. DDV, or something very close to it, was Bernard Williams’ target in his 1973 paper, “Deciding to Believe.” Williams’s argument is widely regarded as having been a failure. But I think that Williams was on to something in his paper. Hence, in this paper, while I do not attempt to resurrect Williams’s argument, I develop and defend a revised argument for a thesis that is quite close to Williams’s. I will proceed as follows. First, I will discuss Bernard Williams’ (1973) failed attempt at showing that DDV is conceptually impossible. This will be followed by a discussion of some constraints on our belief-forming activities. I will then clarify my target a bit more than Williams does in his original paper. Finally, I will present my own argument against the conceptual possibility of DDV. (shrink)

Williams puts forward and develops his theory of integrity on the basis of criticizing utilitarianism and Kantian ethics as too demanding to make enough room for personal projects. Instead, his integrity theory advocates that we should act out of commitments with which we deeply identify ourselves. In doing so, we express who we really are and make our life meaningful. If not so, our integrity would be violated and we may lose ourselves. Such a description of the self in moral (...) life is criticized as solipsism for that it makes the relationship between one’s projects and himself only be regulated by himself. This paper aims to point out that such criticism is inappropriate. To show the inaccuracy of the criticism, the author will analyze the relationship between the self and others in two aspects. The first aspect is about the structure of formation of desires and others, and the second one is about the action responsibility and others. After analysis, in the first aspect of desires, the self needs others to form and stabilize desires, beliefs and motivations to cooperate with others. Others help the self to sustain the sense of reality to prevent the self from forming wishful thinking. As to action, others’ need for response is an important element in ascribing the self’s action responsibility. The self acquires self-conception, self-cognition and self-identity through the interaction with others. Thus, others play an essential role in Williams’ theory of integrity. Although there are some flaws in Williams’ integrity theory, to reexamine his theory is conducive to our understanding of moral life. (shrink)

The distinction between propositional and doxastic justification is normally applied to belief. The goal of this paper is to apply the distinction to faith and hope. Before doing so, I discuss the nature of faith and hope, and how they contrast with belief—belief has no essential conative component, whereas faith and hope essentially involve the conative. I discuss implications this has for evaluating faith and hope, and apply this to the propositional/doxastic distinction. There are two key upshots. One, bringing in (...) faith and hope makes salient additional normative categories, including the way the distinction between epistemic and practical justification interacts with the distinction between propositional and doxastic justification. Two, a paradigm example of propositional without doxastic justification is a belief that is evidentially supported but based on wishful thinking. Surprisingly, parallel cases of faith and hope may actually enjoy both propositional and doxastic justification. I conclude by exploring what it might look like for faith and hope to have propositional justification without doxastic justification. (shrink)

The following four assumptions plausibly describe the ideal rational agent. (1) She knows what her beliefs are. (2) She desires to believe only truths. (3) Whenever she desires that P → Q and knows that P, she desires that Q. (4) She does not both desire that P and desire that ~P, for any P. Although the assumptions are plausible, they have an implausible consequence. They imply that the ideal rational agent does not believe and desire contradictory propositions. She neither (...) desires the world to be any different than she thinks it is, nor thinks it is any different than she desires it to be. The problem of preserving our intuitions about desire, without embracing the implausible conclusion, is what I call “the Wishful Thinking Puzzle.” In this paper, I examine how this puzzle arises, and I argue that it is surprisingly difficult to solve. Even the decision theoretic conception of desire is not immune to the puzzle. One approach, the contrastive conception of desire, does avoid the puzzle without being ad hoc, but it remains too inchoate to win our full confidence. (shrink)

According to Cian Dorr, non-cognitivism has the implausible implication that arguments like the following are cases of wishful thinking: If lying is wrong, then the souls of liars will be punished in the afterlife; lying is wrong; therefore, the souls of liars will be punished in the afterlife. Dorr further claims that if non-cognitivism implies that the above argument and similar arguments are cases of wishful thinking, then non-cognitivism remains implausible even if one solves the so-called (...) Frege-Geach problem. Dorr’s claims have faced a number of objections, but I believe that Dorr is on to something. So, after summarizing Dorr’s argument and briefly describing three flaws in what Dorr claims, I shall present a distinct objection to non-cognitivism and use the preceding to show what Dorr’s argument gets right and what it gets wrong. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Why Gaia?Massimo Pigliucci (bio)The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet, Michael Ruse, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. 272 pages.“The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet tells a story that comes out of the 1960s, a story that reflects all of the beliefs and enthusiasms and tensions of that decade.” So begins Michael Ruse’s fascinating, if at times puzzling, exploration of James Lovelock’s famous idea that our (...) planet is, in a serious scientific sense, a living organism with a tendency of taking care of (her)self. But why tell this particular story, especially considering that Gaia hardly makes an appearance in today’s scientific or philosophical publications, and doesn’t even seem quite that popular with the lay public as it used to be? Because, as Ruse tells us near the end of the book, at the onset of chapter seven: “the paradox that set us on our path [is] why the scientific community reacted so negatively to the Gaia hypothesis, whereas the public reaction was so positive.”As it turns out, there is a good answer to that conundrum, one that Ruse himself lays out clearly in the last chapter of the book, and which makes the reader wonder why this should count a paradox at all. But we will get there in due time. First, the basics: the so-called Gaia hypothesis is the brainchild of iconoclastic inventor-turned-independent-scientist James Lovelock, who later got significant help in elaborating (and promoting) his ideas from another iconoclast, biologist Lynn Margulis. By the time you get to the end of Ruse’s engaging book, however, you won’t have gained a particularly good understanding of what the hypothesis actually consists. But that’s not Ruse’s fault, it is Lovelock’s (and Margulis’). At times it sounds like the entirely uncontroversial claim that the Earth’s [End Page 117] biosphere is a somewhat homeostatic system—i.e., a biophysical system that is resistant to major changes, at the least within a certain range (the planet’s atmosphere, after all, did change dramatically early on, increasing its oxygen content as a result of the evolution of photosynthetic organisms—the anaerobic life forms that had up to that point been dominant did not appreciate the novelty). At other times the claim is downright preposterous: the Earth literally is a living organism (according to Lovelock) (Chapter 7),1 a finding that allegedly puts in question the whole Darwinian view of biological evolution (according to Margulis) (Chapter 7), a position that can only be characterized as nonsense on stilts. At yet other moments, Gaia is presented as just a metaphor to help us wrap our minds around the complexities (and homeostatic properties) of the world’s ecosystems (Chapter 8). It is this never-ending oscillation between the trivial and the bizarre that has led the majority of scientists to write off Gaia, to the chagrin of Lovelock, Margulis, and a large number of New Age tree huggers from the 1960s.Indeed, the scientific reaction to Gaia was swift and ranging from the condescending to the unforgiving. Evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith—never one to mince words—called it “an evil religion” (Chapter 2). Another evolutionary biologist, Stephen Jay Gould (whose own disagreements with Maynard Smith became legendary) said that “Gaia strikes me as a metaphor, not a mechanism” (Chapter 2). Ecologist Robert May, who eventually became president of the Royal Society, called Lovelock “a holy fool” (Chapter 2). The highly respected theoretical biologist W.D. Hamilton said that in order for the hypothesis to work, it would require “treaties between Neptune and Zeus, a Gaian Interpol, conventions about bills of lading for chemical transport by air and water, and so on” (Chapter 7). Finally, Richard Dawkins accused Lovelock of committing the fallacy of “the BBC theorem,” assuming (or wishfully thinking) that the world is a harmonious place, just like in naive BBC nature documentaries (Chapter 2).You get the gist: pretty much from the beginning, and with very few exceptions, the scientific establishment rejected Gaia on the grounds that it is not a scientific hypothesis at all, and that its main tenets actually go against pretty... (shrink)

It is not that scientists make an hypothesis first, and then try to find the data to fit that hypothesis. Rather, the process is first observation, then an hypothes is made to describe the data, then conclude that the data has been described by the hypothesis. But this is not an explanation of the phenomenon. It is merely a description of the data in different terms, usually mathematics. It is essentially a tautology. Thus to observe various points and connect them (...) by a line or curve, then to find the mathematical formula that will construct that curve is said to be the law of the curve or the law governing the data points. If those data points happen to be the positions of a planet in space at different times, then the mathematical equation that produces the points on that curve is called the law of motion of the planets. Now, in origin of life studies, observation reveals that life comes from life only. There is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that life is produced out of non-living matter. It was Louis Pasteur who disproved this theory of abiogenesis. From a purely empirical viewpoint, therefore, we have no justification for stating that life comes from inanimate matter. The evidence is that throughout the entire history of modern science such a production of life from matter has never been observed. The question is: Why make a hypothesis about something that has never been observed? If we want to be scientific, then our hypothesis must match the data. Life comes from life is observed all over the Earth, and we might say, all over the universe as far as we have observed it. So where is the justification for claiming otherwise? Rather, we must conclude that the claim that life comes from matter is completely unscientific because it is not a conclusion based on any empirical observation at all. It is purely wishful thinking — a “naturalistic” or materialistic ideology that is masquerading as science. It is thus doubly deceitful since it is not only an unproven belief but an ideology that poses as a scientific theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Iddo Landau responds:I believe that there is much to learn from Gilead's arguments, and that his paper adds to the understanding of the themes presented in the original discussion. However, in the end I do not think that the claims I made are rebuffed.Gilead should be commended for expanding the discussion of the Mandarin thought experiment (henceforth: Mandarin) from the existentialist context, to which it was limited in my (...) original article, to the Kantian one. This is a fruitful move. However, we should keep in mind that in Kantianism—unlike existentialism—to be autonomous is to be moral. Thus, some of my claims may be understood differently in existentialist and Kantian contexts. I wrote, "I would like to argue, however, that it [the Mandarin thought experiment] also casts doubt on an important and central existentialist notion: the value of being an authentic, autonomous individual, who behaves as he or she does not because of fear of what others would say, but because he or she genuinely chooses this or that course of action" ("To Kill a Mandarin," p. 95). But to claim, in a Kantian context, that the Mandarin casts doubt on the value of being autonomous is to suggest that the Mandarin casts doubt on the value of being moral, which it certainly does not. Similarly, in a Kantian context it cannot be the case that "if we were true, autonomous individuals... we would have killed an unknown person," since a Kantian autonomous individual is moral and would not kill an innocent person. In the existentialist context, however, things are different; there, autonomy is not tantamount to morality, and the suggestion that we should be autonomous creates many risks. When reading Gilead, I at times felt that he was examining certain expressions that had originally been set in an existentialist context, where autonomy does not equal morality, as though they had been presented in a Kantian one.Gilead also seems to overstate my position on the ability to behave morally when social supervision is revoked. He suggests that, in my [End Page 158] view, "in order to behave morally, respecting the moral law or value is certainly less than enough" and that I regard as "self-deception or simply wishful thinking... any attempt at thinking... that other motives (such as the respect for the moral law) are sufficient to behave morally." However, I do not make such strong claims. I do not think that respecting the moral law is insufficient for behaving morally, only that many (even if not all) will not choose to mind the moral law. Nor do I think that, when there is no external social supervision, it is impossible to remain moral, or that no one can successfully withstand the temptation that the Mandarin presents, or that any view that people are able to withstand the temptation and act morally without social supervision is self-deception. However, I do believe that the number of people who can withstand the temptation, and act morally when there is no social supervision, is significantly smaller than we like to think. Unfortunately, if complete secrecy is guaranteed and the return value for wrongdoing is sufficiently high, many, including "nice" people like you and me, who condemn immoral behavior and are considered by others and themselves as perfectly decent, will either kill an innocent person or have significant difficulties in refraining from doing so.But I should point out, first, that this is an empirical, objective question, and thus not in line with the subjectivist, personal character of much of the original paper. Second, I should note that while I cannot present a satisfactory empirical proof for my assessment, there is nevertheless some basis for it: too many people, upstanding people like you and me, told me time and again that they would accept the Mandarin deal, or at least find it difficult to resist it. Gilead thinks that only very few would so respond, but does not present any empirical evidence for this claim, not even as limited and unscientific as mine, stating that he simply believes "the opposite to be the case." He also feels the suggestion to be annoying. I agree that it is... (shrink)

The idea that Eastern and Western societies should do everything together because they're exactly the same and their interests are identical is not, as some would have it, a sign of evolutionary maturity or scientific insight, but a desperate form of political manipulation, new Western imperialism, and, yes, wishful thinking. Surely our cultural differences and identities make the world more colorful." Thorsten Pattberg's East-West Dichotomy discusses the philosophical concept that two diametrically opposed hemispheres exist - East and West. (...) As the Peking University scholar demonstrates with numerous examples, their cultures and way of thinking differ radically; one could say they are 180 degrees apart. Pattberg's underlying argument is that because of the dichotomy Westerners, who are mostly rugged individualists, are more analytic and deductive in their thinking, while Easterners, who are more focused on the collective, favor a more intuitive, inductive, "holistic" approach to life. Moreover, he explores the origin and the future of the dichotomy, and shows how it has shaped the West's and the East's different attitudes towards nature, philosophy (both epistemology and ethics), as well as gender and society. Pattberg also shows his willingness to take on any potential critic of his theory in his chapter "Problems with the Dichotomy." This book is a valuable resource for those eager to gain a better understanding of the "Western" and "Eastern" psyches and of how they both harmonize and clash. (shrink)

It is astonishing that we humans are able to have, act on and express moral beliefs. This dissertation aims to provide a better philosophical understanding of why and how this is possible especially when we assume metaethical expressivism. Metaethical expressivism is the combination of expressivism and noncognitivism. Expressivism is the view that the meaning of a sentence is explained by the mental state it is conventionally used to express. Noncognitivism is the view that the mental state expressed by a moral (...) sentence is a noncognitive, desire-like state. The central question of this dissertation is this: "How can metaethical expressivists explain that we are able to express moral beliefs?" The shortest answer this dissertation will give is the following: "by becoming `dispositional expressivists´." Dispositional expressivists hold that moral beliefs are dispositions to be in certain mental states that resemble desires. More precisely, a central thesis of this study is that to hold a moral belief is to be disposed to be in a desire-like, noncognitive state where this state has some specific structure. This dissertation arrives at and justifies this thesis by making a number of steps. It starts with preparing the ground by developing a general theory of what it is for a sentence to express a mental state. Roughly, this theory states that for a sentence to express a mental state is for that sentence to be conventionally used to perform a speech act which counts as sincere only if the user or speaker is in that mental state. This theory of expressing satisfies all the constraints that must be satisfied for it to be compatible with the purposes of metaethical expressivism. The next step is to provide a solution to the most notorious semantic problem confronting metaethical expressivism, the problem of explaining how sentences containing moral words can have compositional meaning and stand in logical relations also known as the Frege-Geach or embedding problem. Building on the research of Mark Schroeder, a new expressivist semantics, called `Attitude Semantics´, will be developed for a first-order language. The motivating idea underlying attitude semantics is that expressivists can avoid the problematic feature of so-called `biforcation´ if they treat the structures of the mental states expressed by moral sentences as well as that expressed by non-moral sentences as being isomorphic. In order to give those structures a philosophically interesting interpretation, it will be suggested that we treat sentences as expressing dispositional states. As a toy example we will treat the sentence `murder is wrong´ as expressing the disposition to be for blaming for murder. After dealing with the Frege-Geach problem, I turn to the metaethical expressivists' project of quasi-realism. Two major goals of this project are to explain how moral sentence can be truth-apt and how the states expressed by them can be regarded as moral beliefs. In order to establish those goals I critically examine a number of theories of truth-aptness by providing counterexamples to them. I then present my own theory which says that a sentence is truth-apt iff and because there is a conventional way to use it to express a belief. What is new about this theory is that it treats expressing a belief as being explanatorily more basic than being truth-apt. Belief, according to this theory, explains truth-aptness, not vice versa. This has the important consequence that it shows that what I call the `orthodox strategy´ of quasi-realists is mistaken and needs to be inverted: expressivists must `earn the right´ to moral belief before they can establish that moral sentences are truth-apt, and not the other way round. The second part of this dissertation is then concerned with the question of what it is to hold a moral belief and how they can figure in rational reasoning. In short: it is concerned with earning the right to moral belief. After discussing the major problems confronting a noncognitivist theory of belief, most importantly what I call the `tightrope problem´, I argue for a dispositional form of noncognitivism about moral belief that combines elements from Eric Schwitzgebel's dispositionalism about belief and Sebastian Köhler's `conceptual role expressivism´. This dispositional noncognitivism perfectly matches and justifies the dispositionalist interpretation of the expressivist semantics developed before. In order to fully earn the right to moral belief, however, metaethical expressivists must also deal with several epistemological objections concerning the rationality of moral belief. The first objection I deal with comes from Derek Baker and is directed against Mark Schroeder's specific development of expressivism. I deal with this objection because my own theory bears close resemblance to Schroeder's theory and so it might be worried that it confronts the same issues. Fortunately, we will see that Baker's objection rest on a number of mistaken assumptions and so neither applies to Schroeder's expressivism nor to the version which I defend in this study. The other epistemological objection to metaethical expressivism I deal with is Cian Dorr's famous wishful-thinking objection. In contrast to previous replies to this objection I attack it by directly questioning the central assumption on which it rests, namely that reasoners can never be justified in basing a factual belief on a desire-like state. I argue that this is false, and that under certain conditions reasoning from desire-like mental states to factual beliefs is justified. My argument shows that even if holding a moral belief is being in a desire-like noncognitive state, basing factual belief on a moral belief can give one an epistemic reason for the factual belief. Hence, even if moral thoughts are wishes, moral thinking is not wishful thinking. I take my arguments to earn the dispositional expressivist the right to moral belief. By the previously defended theory of truth-aptness in terms of belief, this allows the dispositional expressivists to conclude that moral sentences are also truth-apt. This finishes the quasi-realist project of this dissertation. In the last part of this dissertation I switch gears and present two unnoted problems for metaethical expressivists having to do with explaining moral motivation. Both arguments are surprisingly simple. The first one is this: if motivation requires a belief as well as a desire (Humeanism), and moral judgments motivate by themselves (internalism), then moral judgments cannot be desires only. If this argument is sound, it shows that the famous `motivation argument´ not only entails the falsity of cognitivism, but also the falsity of noncognitivism. The second argument is the following: moral judgments when combined with suitable external desires motivate to act (externalism), but if motivation requires belief as well as desire (Humeanism), then moral judgments cannot be desires only. I discuss several ways in which noncognitivists might want to deal with those problems, but leave it as an open question whether those solutions will ultimately be viable. Overall, this dissertation makes serious contributions to the research program of metaethical expressivism. It makes proposals for how to solve a number of notorious problems, such as the Frege-Geach problem in semantics and the wishful-thinking problem in epistemology. Besides this, however, it also raises two new problems for metaethical expressivism in the philosophy of action. For those reasons this dissertation will be of interest for anyone who wants to defend or criticize expressivism in metaethics, and more generally, anyone who wants to better understand our astonishing ability to express moral beliefs. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the popular “information transmitted” interpretation of absolute judgments, and to provide an alternative interpretation if one is needed. Design/methodology/approach – The psychologists Garner and Hake and their successors used Shannon’s Information Theory to quantify information transmitted in absolute judgments of sensory stimuli. Here, information theory is briefly reviewed, followed by a description of the absolute judgment experiment, and its information theory analysis. Empirical channel capacities are scrutinized. A remarkable coincidence, the (...) similarity of maximum information transmitted to human memory capacity, is described. Over 60 representative psychology papers on “information transmitted” are inspected for evidence of memory involvement in absolute judgment. Finally, memory is conceptually integrated into absolute judgment through a novel qualitative model that correctly predicts how judgments change with increase in the number of judged stimuli. Findings – Garner and Hake gave conflicting accounts of how absolute judgments represent information transmission. Further, “channel capacity” is an illusion caused by sampling bias and wishful thinking; information transmitted actually peaks and then declines, the peak coinciding with memory capacity. Absolute judgments themselves have numerous idiosyncracies that are incompatible with a Shannon general communication system but which clearly imply memory dependence. Research limitations/implications – Memory capacity limits the correctness of absolute judgments. Memory capacity is already well measured by other means, making redundant the informational analysis of absolute judgments. Originality/value – This paper presents a long-overdue comprehensive critical review of the established interpretation of absolute judgments in terms of “information transmitted”. An inevitable conclusion is reached: that published measurements of information transmitted actually measure memory capacity. A new, qualitative model is offered for the role of memory in absolute judgments. The model is well supported by recently revealed empirical properties of absolute judgments. (shrink)

Moral, social, political, and other “nonepistemic” values can lead to bias in science, from prioritizing certain topics over others to the rationalization of questionable research practices. Such values might seem particularly common or powerful in the social sciences, given their subject matter. However, I argue first that the well-documented phenomenon of motivated reasoning provides a useful framework for understanding when values guide scientific inquiry (in pernicious or productive ways). Second, this analysis reveals a parity thesis: values influence the social and (...) natural sciences about equally, particularly because both are so prominently affected by desires for social credit and status, including recognition and career advancement. Ultimately, bias in natural and social science is both natural and social— that is, a part of human nature and considerably motivated by a concern for social status (and its maintenance). Whether the pervasive influence of values is inimical to the sciences is a separate question. (shrink)

This paper explores the socio-epistemic practice of shopping for experts. I argue that expert shopping is particularly likely to occur on what Thi Nguyen calls cognitive islands. To support my argument, I focus on macroeconomics. First, I make a prima-facie case for thinking that macroeconomics is a cognitive island. Then, I argue that ordinary people are particularly likely to engage in expert shopping when it comes to macroeconomic matters. In particular, I distinguish between two kinds of expert shopping, which (...) I call cynical and wishful, and introduce the notion of assisted expert shopping, which occurs when people or organizations shop for experts on behalf of other people. I argue that assisted expert shopping can sometime result in what I call a propagandistic use of expertise. Finally, I critically examine some possible reasons for optimism and find them wanting. I conclude by suggesting that that much of what I said about shopping for macroeconomic experts might also apply mutatis mutandis to other policy-relevant domains of expertise. (shrink)

Intuitively, affect plays an indispensable role in self-deception’s dynamic. Call this view “affectivism.” Investigating affectivism matters, as affectivists argue that this conception favours the non-intentionalist approach to self-deception and offers a unified account of straight and twisted self-deception. However, this line of argument has not been scrutinized in detail, and there are reasons to doubt it. Does affectivism fulfill its promises of non-intentionalism and unity? We argue that it does, as long as affect’s role in self-deception lies in affective filters—that (...) is, in evaluation of information in light of one’s concerns. We develop this conception by taking into consideration the underlying mechanisms governing self-deception, particularly the neurobiological mechanisms of somatic markers and dopamine regulation. Shifting the discussion to this level can fulfill the affectivist aspirations, as this approach clearly favours non-intentionalism and offers a unified account of self-deception. We support this claim by criticizing the main alternative affectivist account—namely, the views that self-deception functions to reduce anxiety or is motivated by anxiety. Describing self-deception’s dynamic does not require intention; affect is sufficient if we use the insights of neuroscience and the psychology of affective bias to examine this issue. In this way, affectivism can fulfill its promises. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 215-232 [Access article in PDF] Eighteenth-Century Print Culture and the "Truth" of Fictional Narrative Lisa Zunshine As a session entitled "Truth" at a recent Modern Language Association of America annual convention has demonstrated, the obsession with the epistemologies of truth is alive and well. Our "familiar ways of thinking and talking about truth," as one of the speakers, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, observed, remain (...) "theoretically elusive, discursively slippery, and hard or perhaps impossible to articulate clearly in relation to other current concepts and ideas" 1 --an irresistible invitation to further thinking and talking on the subject. My essay enters this conversation by attempting to contemplate truth not as a stable attribute but as a ongoing attribution, that is, not as an inherent property but rather as a dynamic process predicated upon functional idiosyncrasies of our evolved cognitive architecture. The broad question posed here is this: What if our never-ending quest for truth is itself cognitively constructed and the various forms that this quest takes manifest the (not necessarily harmonious) interaction between our evolved cognitive capacities and the ever-changing specifics of our cultural environment?Consider just one of the forms of such an interaction, namely, our age-long preoccupation with the "truth" of literary narrative. In many respects, this preoccupation is counterproductive: the most "fantastic" story contains a number of contingently useful "truths" about the world, whereas the most "factual" narrative manipulates facts by virtue of being a narrative or a subjective arrangementof information. Still, we persevere in wanting to put the label "fiction" or "nonfiction" onto any story that comes our way. As I will argue, the bookstore's organization of its sections satisfies this species of "cognitive" craving as well as [End Page 215] reinforces it, making it seem culturally inevitable. Viewed from this perspective, our culture appears to be a multifaceted feedback mechanism engaged in the process of satisfying, reinforcing, struggling with, and manipulating our cognitive predispositions.The cultural manipulation of our cognitive predispositions is the topic of the present essay, which discusses several examples of such manipulation that respond to our desire to assign a certain "truth-value" to a given narrative, i.e., to attach a label to it announcing its "factuality" or "fictionality." "Truth-value" is a loaded term, resisting definition, and liable to lead me into trouble. Imperfect as it is, however, I need it in order to shuffle between two scholarly discourses that do not (yet) have much vocabulary in common: literary criticism and cognitive science. The reason for turning to cognitive science in my discussion of literary narrative is that cognitive anthropologists and psychologists frequently engage the same problems that we do when we ask, What is "Fiction"? How is it different from "History"? How do we decide whether what we are reading is "true?" The key difference between the two approaches is, however, that whereas the literary critic focuses on specific texts produced and read in specific cultural circumstances, the cognitive anthropologist pays attention to the cross-cultural insistence with which people wish to and often claim to distinguish "truth" from "fiction" and inquires into the possible evolutionary history of the cognitive architecture implicated in our never-ending quest for "truth." The latter perspective can thus be useful for literary studies because, by suggesting that our evolved cognitive architecture often "encourages" us to construe the world as a negotiation of "truths" and "nontruths," this perspective begins to account--at least on some level--for the fact that people may approach a complex cultural artifact, such as a novel, with a "truth"/"non-truth" binary in mind that is ultimately not very productive. 2 Evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists frequently point to disjunctions between the tasks that our brain evolved to solve and the tasks that we have to deal with in the modern environment; our vexed insistence on determining the truth-value of the 500-page printed narrative--not an object one would come across in the Pleistocene--can be seen as yet another instance of such a disjunction.Thus, I suggest that, on the... (shrink)

*This work is no longer under development* Two major themes in the literature on indicative conditionals are that the content of indicative conditionals typically depends on what is known;1 that conditionals are intimately related to conditional probabilities.2 In possible world semantics for counterfactual conditionals, a standard assumption is that conditionals whose antecedents are metaphysically impossible are vacuously true.3 This aspect has recently been brought to the fore, and defended by Tim Williamson, who uses it in to characterize alethic necessity by (...) exploiting such equivalences as: A⇔¬A A. One might wish to postulate an analogous connection for indicative conditionals, with indicatives whose antecedents are epistemically impossible being vacuously true: and indeed, the modal account of indicative conditionals of Brian Weatherson has exactly this feature.4 This allows one to characterize an epistemic modal by the equivalence A⇔¬A→A. For simplicity, in what follows we write A as KA and think of it as expressing that subject S knows that A.5 The connection to probability has received much attention. Stalnaker suggested, as a way of articulating the ‘Ramsey Test’, the following very general schema for indicative conditionals relative to some probability function P: P = P 1For example, Nolan ; Weatherson ; Gillies. 2For example Stalnaker ; McGee ; Adams. 3Lewis. See Nolan for criticism. 4‘epistemically possible’ here means incompatible with what is known. 5This idea was suggested to me in conversation by John Hawthorne. I do not know of it being explored in print. The plausibility of this characterization will depend on the exact sense of ‘epistemically possible’ in play—if it is compatibility with what a single subject knows, then can be read ‘the relevant subject knows that p’. If it is more delicately formulated, we might be able to read as the epistemic modal ‘must’. (shrink)

It is natural to think of political philosophy as being concerned with reflection on some of the ways in which groups of human beings come together to confront together the problems that they face together: in other words, as the domain, par excellence, of collective action. From this point of view it might seem surprising that the notion of collective obligation rarely assumes centre-stage within the subject. If there are, or can be, collective obligations, then these must surely constrain the (...) ways in which we can act collectively. Indeed, one might even suspect that considerations about collective obligations ought to play a central role in demarcating the form that any legitimate form of political organization ought to take. -/- Elsewhere I have argued that we have good reasons for accepting the existence of global collective obligations - in other words, collective obligations which fall on the world’s population as a whole.(Wringe 2006, 2010, forthcoming, under review) For example, the existence of such obligations provides a plausible solution to a problem which is sometimes thought to arise if we think that individuals have a right to have their basic needs satisfied. In this paper, I shall argue that in many situations, forward-looking global obligations give rise to an obligation on individuals to work towards bringing into existence and support an institutional system which will enable their obligations to be met. Call such an obligation the ‘Obligation to Promote Satisfactory Global Institutions.’ I shall also examine a significant challenge to this line of argument, which I call the ‘Pluralist Challenge’ One might suppose that the ‘Obligation to Promote Satisfactory Global Institutions’ could be met by providing strategic support to attempts to modify and extend existing international institutions. After all, creating new institutions is a difficult matter: perhaps it would be better, especially where stringent obligations are concerned, to concentrate on those institutions which we already have. On the other hand, existing international institutions are subject to a range of significant moral and ethical criticisms. It would simply be naïve to suppose that their existence of such institutions is based on an international consensus about what justice requires; and it is not clear how we could motivate individuals who have severe ethical reservations about the existence of such institutions, or why we should wish to. This suggests that those who think that there are global collective obligations, and that such obligations should play an important role in shaping how we think of international distributive justice are faced with a significant dilemma: either support a program of extending and strengthening existing institutions in a way which risks entrenching some existing forms of injustice; or commit oneself to a program of attempting to build new institutions which will have to compete with those institutions we have already and which are unlikely to be in a position to meet help us to discharge our collective obligations at any point in the near future. Neither option seems satisfactory. I shall argue that our response should be to look for plausible ethical constraints on how international institutions should be developed, and suggest that these constraints are likely to take a cosmopolitan form. (shrink)

In this paper, I wish to criticize the notion that consensus is an epistemology. While I have never seen it explicitly claimed that “consensus is an epistemology,” I have nonetheless seen it implied in many scholarly (and layperson) articles. This occurs whenever articles cite, “a majority of scholars agree that…” or “most scientists/researchers think…” In our democratic, individualistic society, we put a value on high value votes and the quantification of majority viewpoints, whether it be in political polls (due to (...) living in a democracy), online on websites with ranking or voting systems such as Reddit, YouTube, or Instagram. The danger here is we may defer too much to the consensus view without appropriate justification. I will give several reasons why we should be skeptical of appeals to consensus (including a consensus of experts), which include its non-obvious link to ontology, the fact that consensus changes, and a lack of specificity of who counts as an ``expert,'' the lack of specificity on how to handle consensus (if it does occur), and epistemic undercutting defeaters from evolutionary epistemology. While an appeal to consensus may not tell us much about whether a theory is true, they can give us practical or pragmatic reasons for trusting a position. (shrink)

In the first part of this series it was argued that there is an inextricable bond between economic and cultural liberalism such that when Catholics identify the faith with the defence of neoliberal economics, even though they may oppose abortion, they end up promoting exactly that which they oppose. In this the second part this point is expanded upon and the argument made more explicit and that by reference to Pope Francis’ recent Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudium Evangelii. The Exhortation evidences a (...) view of matters economic that sits ill with capitalism, a point understood by Catholic commentators who champion Neoliberalism. This essay argues that Francis’ comments are nothing new, especially when compared to what John Paul II and Benedict XVI have written on the subject; indeed, that Francis’ Exhortation can be seen as a tempering of their critique of economic liberalism. The essay attempts to tease out what it is that informs the critique of the popes and shows that it has to do with what flows out from the rejection of metaphysics proper, a rejection that defines Modernity, and which ends in the deracination of all things such that even the very concept of ‘substance’ is dissolved and, thereby, all is made plastic and malleable, including human life. The important point the essay wishes to make is this: the popes are quite clear that the form a culture’s economy takes can both ground and exacerbate this anti-essentialist logic, what’s more the economy above all others that does this is the one they identify with neoliberal capitalism. As a consequence, Catholics who champion this form of economic theory must think seriously as to whether or not they or the popes are wrong on this matter. (shrink)

Soon there will be sex robots. The creation of such devices raises a host of social, legal and ethical questions. In this article, I focus in on one of them. What if these sex robots are deliberately designed and used to replicate acts of rape and child sexual abuse? Should the creation and use of such robots be criminalised, even if no person is harmed by the acts performed? I offer an argument for thinking that they should be. The (...) argument consists of two premises. The first claims that it can be a proper object of the criminal law to regulate wrongful conduct with no extrinsically harmful effects on others. The second claims that the use of robots that replicate acts of rape and child sexual abuse would be wrongful, even if such usage had no extrinsically harmful effects on others. I defend both premises of this argument and consider its implications for the criminal law. I do not offer a conclusive argument for criminalisation, nor would I wish to be interpreted as doing so; instead, I offer a tentative argument and a framework for future debate. This framework may also lead one to question the proposed rationales for criminalisation. (shrink)

In recent years Mullins and Craig have argued that there is a problem for a timeless God creating, with Mullins formulating the argument as follows: (1) If God begins to be related to creation, then God changes. (2) God begins to be related to creation. (3) Therefore, God changes. (4) If God changes, then God is neither immutable nor timeless. (5) Therefore, God is neither immutable nor timeless. In this paper I argue that all the premises, (1), (2), and (4) (...) are false, and then provide a revised formulation of the argument which more clearly represents what Mullins and Craig wish to argue, given the explication and commentary they give when discussing this objection to timelessness. I then call into question this argument, and conclude by stating what I think Mullins and Craig should really be arguing given the specific views they have about creation ex nihilo and in virtue of what timelessness requires. (shrink)

Schopenhauer’s philosophical engagement with Spinoza spreads over many fronts, and an adequate – not to say, complete – treatment of the topic, should cover at least the following issues: Schopenhauer’s critique (and misunderstanding) of Spinoza’s pivotal concept of causa sui; Schopenhauer’s claim that Spinoza confused reason [ratio] and cause [causa]; the relationship between Schopenhauer’s and Spinoza’s monisms; the eminent role that both philosophers assign to causality; and finally, Schopenhauer’s view of the world as a macroanthropos, as opposed to Spinoza’s attack (...) on anthropomorphic thinking. An attempt to reconstruct a genuine philosophical dialogue between Schopenhauer and Spinoza should begin by setting the record straight and clarifying the former’s mis-readings of the latter (and there are quite a few of this kind ). We could also benefit from comparing Schopenhauer’s reception of Spinoza’s with that of Schopenhauer’s German contemporaries. Regrettably our space here is limited and so if we wish to treat any of the issues in any depth, we must restrict the scope of the current chapter. For this reason, I have decided to concentrate on two central issues: animal rights (Part I) and evil (Part II). These issues are, clearly, at least as important as the others listed above. (shrink)

Recent work by Brian Skyrms offers a very general way to think about how information flows and evolves in biological networks — from the way monkeys in a troop communicate, to the way cells in a body coordinate their actions. A central feature of his account is a way to formally measure the quantity of information contained in the signals in these networks. In this paper, we argue there is a tension between how Skyrms talks of signalling networks and his (...) formal measure of information. Although Skyrms refers to both how information flows through networks and that signals carry information, we show that his formal measure only captures the latter. We then suggest that to capture the notion of flow in signalling networks, we need to treat them as causal networks. This provides the formal tools to define a measure that does capture flow, and we do so by drawing on recent work defining causal specificity. Finally, we suggest that this new measure is crucial if we wish to explain how evolution creates information. For signals to play a role in explaining their own origins and stability, they can’t just carry information about acts: they must be difference-makers for acts. (shrink)

Our life with art is suffused with trust. We don’t just trust one another’s aesthetic testimony; we trust one another’s aesthetic actions. Audiences trust artists to have made it worth their while; artists trust audiences to put in the effort. Without trust, audiences would have little reason to put in the effort to understand difficult and unfamiliar art. I offer a theory of aesthetic trust, which highlights the importance of trust in aesthetic sincerity. We trust in another’s aesthetic sincerity when (...) we rely on them to fulfill their commitments to act for aesthetic reasons — rather than for, say, financial, social, or political reasons. We feel most thoroughly betrayed by an artist, not when they make bad art, but when they sell out. This teaches us something about the nature of trust in general. According to many standard theories, trust involves thinking the trusted to be cooperative or good-natured. But trust in aesthetic sincerity is different. We trust artists to be true to their own aesthetic sensibility, which might involve selfishly ignoring their audience’s needs. Why do we care so much about an artist’s sincerity, rather than merely trusting them to make good art? We emphasize sincerity when wish to encourage originality, rather than to demand success along predictable lines. And we ask for sincerity when our goal is to discover a shared sensibility. In moral life, we often try to force convergence through coordinated effort. But in aesthetic life, we often hope for the lovely discovery that our sensibilities were similar all along. And for that we need to ask for sincerity, rather than overt coordination. (shrink)

Is the self narratively constructed? There are many who would answer yes to the question. Dennett (1991) is, perhaps, the most famous proponent of the view that the self is narratively constructed, but there are others, such as Velleman (2006), who have followed his lead and developed the view much further. Indeed, the importance of narrative to understanding the mind and the self is currently being lavished with attention across the cognitive sciences (Dautenhahn, 2001; Hutto, 2007; Nelson, 2003). Emerging from (...) this work, there appear to be a variety of ways in which we can think of the narrative construction of the self and the relationship between the narrative self and the embodied agent. I wish to examine two such ways in this paper. The first I shall call the abstract narrative account, this is because its proponents take the narrative self to be an abstraction (Dennett, 1991; Velleman, 2006). Dennett, for example, refers to the self as a centre of narrative gravity, to be thought of as analogous to a mathematical conception of the centre of gravity of an object. The second I shall call the embodied narrative account and this is the view that the self is constituted both by an embodied consciousness whose experiences are available for narration and narratives themselves, which can play a variety of roles in the agent’s psychological life. (shrink)

Scholars have widely assumed that the aspects of Kant’s virtue theory that nod to ancient ethics must be cashed out with reference to Aristotle. Interpreters then worry that Kant's conception of virtue as a “moral strength of will” (Doctrine of Virtue, 6:405) must be tantamount to Aristotle’s notion of “continence” (enkrateia) — the state of a person who knows the good, and acts accordingly, but must overcome strong countervailing impulses in order to do so. The result plays into caricatures of (...) Kantian ethics as valorising a joyless standard of duty, which these Aristotelian-oriented commentators (rightly) wish to resist. However, the worry is misplaced. I show that Kant is not thinking about Aristotle here, but is instead engaged with a specifically Stoic approach to ethics as a dimension of natural teleology. I draw on this context to show that Kant’s virtue-as-strength idea is not marred in the ways it appears to be when read through an Aristotelian lens. (shrink)

Stereotypes shape inferences in philosophical thought, political discourse, and everyday life. These inferences are routinely made when thinkers engage in language comprehension or production: We make them whenever we hear, read, or formulate stories, reports, philosophical case-descriptions, or premises of arguments – on virtually any topic. These inferences are largely automatic: largely unconscious, non-intentional, and effortless. Accordingly, they shape our thought in ways we can properly understand only by complementing traditional forms of philosophical analysis with experimental methods from psycholinguistics. This (...) paper seeks, first, to bring out the wider philosophical relevance of stereotypical inference, well beyond familiar topics like gender and race. Second, we wish to provide philosophers with a toolkit to experimentally study these ubiquitous inferences and what intuitions they may generate. This paper explains what stereotypes are, and why they matter to current and traditional concerns in philosophy – experimental, analytic, and applied. It then assembles a psycholinguistic toolkit and demonstrates through two studies how potentially questionnaire-based measures can be combined with process measures to garner evidence for specific stereotypical inferences and study when they ‘go through’ and influence our thinking. (shrink)