Research suggests that the explicit reasoning we offer to ourselves and to others is often rationalization, that we act instead on instincts, inclinations, stereotypes, emotions, neurobiology, habits, reactions, evolutionary pressures, unexamined principles, or justifications other than the ones we think we’re acting on, then we tell a post hoc story to justify our actions. I consider two benefits of rationalization, once we realize that rationalization is sincere. It allows us to work out, under practical pressure of rational consistency, which are (...) good reasons to act on. Rationalization also prompts us to establish meaningful patterns out of merely permissible options. (shrink)

Research suggests that the explicit reasoning we offer to ourselves and to others is often rationalization, that we act instead on instincts, inclinations, stereotypes, emotions, neurobiology, habits, reactions, evolutionary pressures, unexamined principles, or justifications other than the ones we think we’re acting on, then we tell a post hoc story to justify our actions. This is troubling for views of moral progress according to which moral progress proceeds from our engagement with our own and others’ reasons. I consider an account (...) of rationalization, based on Robert Audi’s, to make clear that rationalization, unlike simple lying, can be sincere. Because it can be sincere, and because we also have a desire to be consistent with ourselves, I argue that rationalization sets us up for becoming better people over time, and that a similar case can be made to explain how moral progress among groups of people can proceed via rationalization. (shrink)

The question ‘ What is addiction?’ seems to ask for a clinical or biological answer. The research on addiction has progressed much faster in biology and neuroscience than our philosophical understanding of that research.1 Therefore, it can be tempting to look to the relevant psychology or neuroscience to answer our philosophical questions, which ends up treating addiction entirely as a psychological or neurological matter. However, many of our questions about addiction are not fundamentally biological or neurological questions. Here, I suggest (...) that an answer to one question about addiction, the question of what addiction is, turns on the decidedly more philosophical. (shrink)

Scrupulosity raises fascinating issues about the nature of moral judgment and about moral responsibility. After defining scrupulosity, describing its common features, and discussing concrete case studies, we discuss three peculiar aspects of moral judgments made by scrupulous patients: perfectionism, intolerance of uncertainty, and moral thought-action fusion. We then consider whether mesh and reasons-responsiveness accounts of responsibility explain whether the scrupulous are morally responsible.

People with Scrupulosity have rigorous, obsessive moral beliefs that lead to extreme and compulsive moral acts. These fascinating outliers raise profound questions about human nature, mental illness, moral belief, responsibility, and psychiatric treatment. Clean Hands? Uses a range of case studies to examine this condition and its philosophical implications.

Scrupulosity is a form of OCD where patients obsess about morality and sometimes compulsively confess or atone. It involves chronic doubt and anxiety as well as deviant moral judgments. This chapter argues that Scrupulosity is a mental illness and that its distortion of moral judgments undermines, or at least reduces, patients’ moral responsibility. The authors go on to argue that this condition challenges popular deep-self theories of responsibility, which assert that one is only blameworthy or praiseworthy for actions that arise (...) from one’s deep self, from what one truly values. Patients with ego-syntonic Scrupulosity, however, identify with their condition and seem to have cares that reflect their deep selves, yet do not seem fully responsible for their actions or their consequences, such as neglecting the needs of their loved ones. Other theories, particularly reasons-responsiveness theories, better capture the ways in which responsibility in Scrupulosity is reduced. (shrink)

Research suggests that the explicit reasoning we offer to ourselves and to others is often rationalization, that we act instead on instincts, inclinations, stereotypes, emotions, neurobiology, habits, reactions, evolutionary pressures, unexamined principles, or justifications other than the ones we think we’re acting on, then we tell a post hoc story to justify our actions. This is troubling for views of moral progress according to which moral progress proceeds from our engagement with our own and others’ reasons. I consider an account (...) of rationalization, based on Robert Audi’s, to make clear that rationalization, unlike simple lying, can be sincere. Because it can be sincere, and because we also have a desire to be consistent with ourselves, I argue that rationalization sets us up for becoming better people over time, and that a similar case can be made to explain how moral progress among groups of people can proceed via rationalization. (shrink)

We sometimes want to understand irrational action, or actions a person undertakes given that their acting that way conflicts with their beliefs, their desires, or their goals. What is puzzling about all explanations of such irrational actions is this: if we explain the action by offering the agent’s reasons for the action, the action no longer seems irrational, but only a bad decision. If we explain the action mechanistically, without offering the agent’s reasons for it, then the explanation fails to (...) explain the behavior as an action at all. I focus on cases that result from compulsion or irresistible desire, especially addiction, and show that this problem of explaining irrational actions may be insurmountable because, given the constraints on action explanations, we cannot explain irrational actions both as irrational and as actions. (shrink)

Why characterize addiction at all? George Graham reasonably points out that a good understanding of addiction should exchange “surface resemblances…[for] real facts about explanatory forces”. Understanding causes and cures of addiction will indeed help addicts’ lives more than the best characterization could. But we should beware the false dichotomy. Determining “real facts about explanatory forces” is valuable, and so is characterizing “surface resemblances.”Philosophers’ déformation professionnelle often inclines us to look for essential features of natural phenomena, leading to broad definitions that (...) capture disparate phenomena. But, instead of characterizing addiction in general, why not. (shrink)

Philosophical Psychology, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-4, Ahead of Print.

Cognitive enhancement (CE) covers a broad spectrum of methods, including behavioral techniques, nootropic drugs, and neuromodulation interventions. However, research on their use in children has almost exclusively been carried out in high-income countries with limited understanding of how experts working with children view their use in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs). This study examines perceptions on cognitive enhancement, their techniques, neuroethical issues about their use from an LMICs perspective.Seven Indian experts were purposively sampled for their expertise in bioethics, child (...) development and child education. In-depth interviews were conducted using a semi-structured topic guide to examine (1) understanding of CE, (2) which approaches were viewed as cognitive enhancers, (3) attitudes toward different CE techniques and (4) neuroethical issues related to CE use within the Indian context. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed before thematic analysis.Findings indicate Indian experts view cognitive enhancement as a holistic positive impact on overall functioning and well-being, rather than improvement in specific cognitive abilities. Exogenous agents, and neuromodulation were viewed with skepticism, whereas behavioral approaches were viewed more favorably. Neuroethical concerns included equitable access to CE, limited scientific evidence and over-reliance on technology to address societal problems. This highlights the need for more contextually relevant neuroethics research in LMICs. (shrink)

Philosophical lessons come in many different shapes and sizes. Some lessons are big, some are small. Some lessons go deep and have a big impact, some are shallow and have almost none. Some lessons are not really philosophical at all or would not really be lessons for an audience of academic philosophers. I mention these truisms not to disparage this informative book on 'moral OCD' (moral obsessive-compulsive disorder, or 'Scrupulosity') but rather to emphasize how difficult it can be to discern (...) the book's intended audience, given its interdisciplinary aims and structure. That question is never explicitly addressed (it is admittedly a slim book, slimmer than it appears), but the question has consequences for how to think about the book's ultimate value, and for whom. The book might attract two groups in particular: philosophers working on the nature of responsibility (the subject of the book's longest chapter) and psychiatric researchers or mental health professionals interested in moral philosophy and the philosophy of mental illness. I will return to what moral philosophers can learn from moral OCD, but there will be spoilers. (shrink)

The moral domain is broader than the empathy and justice concerns assessed by existing measures of moral competence, and it is not just a subset of the values assessed by value inventories. To fill the need for reliable and theoretically grounded measurement of the full range of moral concerns, we developed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire on the basis of a theoretical model of 5 universally available sets of moral intuitions: Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity. We present evidence for the (...) internal and external validity of the scale and the model, and in doing so we present new findings about morality: Comparative model fitting of confirmatory factor analyses provides empirical justification for a 5-factor structure of moral concerns; convergent/discriminant validity evidence suggests that moral concerns predict personality features and social group attitudes not previously considered morally relevant; and we establish pragmatic validity of the measure in providing new knowledge and research opportunities concerning demographic and cultural differences in moral intuitions. These analyses provide evidence for the usefulness of Moral Foundations Theory in simultaneously increasing the scope and sharpening the resolution of psychological views of morality. (shrink)

This paper investigates force shift, a phenomenon in which the canonical discourse conventions, or force, associated with a clause type can be overridden to yield polar questions with the help of additional force-indicating devices. Previous studies attribute force shift to the presence of a complex question force component operating on semantic content. Based on utterance particles and particle clusters in Cantonese, we analyze force shift as resulting from compositional operations on force-bearing expressions. We propose that a simplex force, such as (...) assertion or question, denotes unanchored sentence acts, while a force-shifting particle like Cantonese _ho2_ is an anchoring function anchoring a sentence act to the speaker while querying whether or not the addressee can perform the sentence act. The proposed semantics makes predictions about _ho2_’s interactions with addressee-changing operations and imperatives, as well as about a larger family of force shift phenomena. (shrink)

Dependencies are identified in two recently proposed first-order axiom systems for plane hyperbolic geometry. Since the dependencies do not specifically concern hyperbolic geometry, our results yield two simpler axiom systems for absolute geometry.

The present article examines how people’s belief in an afterlife, as well as closely related supernatural beliefs, may open an empirical backdoor to our understanding of the evolution of human social cognition. Recent findings and logic from the cognitive sciences contribute to a novel theory of existential psychology, one that is grounded in the tenets of Darwinian natural selection. Many of the predominant questions of existential psychology strike at the heart of cognitive science. They involve: causal attribution (why is mortal (...) behavior represented as being causally related to one’s afterlife? how are dead agents envisaged as communicating messages to the living?), moral judgment (why are certain social behaviors, i.e., transgressions, believed to have ultimate repercussions after death or to reap the punishment of disgruntled ancestors?), theory of mind (how can we know what it is “like” to be dead? what social-cognitive strategies do people use to reason about the minds of the dead?), concept acquisition (how does a common-sense dualism interact with a formalized socio-religious indoctrination in childhood? how are supernatural properties of the dead conceptualized by young minds?), and teleological reasoning (why do people so often see their lives as being designed for a purpose that must be accomplished before they perish? how do various life events affect people’s interpretation of this purpose?), among others. The central thesis of the present article is that an organized cognitive “system” dedicated to forming illusory representations of (1) psychological immortality, (2) the intelligent design of the self, and (3) the symbolic meaning of natural events evolved in response to the unique selective pressures of the human social environment. (shrink)

There is legal uncertainty and academic disagreement as to the legal status of biological material that has become separated from the person. This article sets out the two criteria upon which the assessment of the legal status of ‘separated biological material’ ought to be made. It is suggested here that any argument concerning the legal status of separated biological material needs to (i) assess which ownership entitlements in the material the law ought recognize and (ii) assess which set of legal (...) rules ought to be used to protect these ownership entitlements. There are also limits to the way these two criteria ought to operate. First, the considerations that are necessary to justify an ownership entitlement in a body part vary between different types of ownership entitlements. Second, whether there is a necessary connection between recognizing an ownership entitlement and protecting the entitlement in a particular way also varies in terms of the type of ownership entitlement in question. By isolating these two criteria, and identifying the limits to their operation, this article prescribes an analytical framework through which the law and academic commentary can be viewed. (shrink)

Burnout has important ramifications for employees and organizations and preventing burnout forms an ethical issue for managers. However, the role of the leader and especially the role of ethical aspects of leadership have received relatively little attention in relation to burnout to date. We conducted a survey among employees (N = 386) of a Dutch retail organization, nested in 122 teams with a leader. Our first contribution is that we empirically show the hypothesized opposing relationships of ethical and passive leadership (...) behavior with follower burnout. Furthermore, we examined two job characteristics as mechanisms that link these forms of leadership and burnout. Lastly, we show that the positive relationship of ethical leadership with burnout via role clarity (but not overload) is dependent on the degree of passive leadership the leader is perceived to display. Our results suggest that organizations should promote ethical leadership behaviors and limit passive leadership behaviors by stimulating leaders to be active in their role and use their social influence to promote ethical conduct. (shrink)

Gut Reactions is an interdisciplinary defense of the claim that emotions are perceptions of changes in the body.

Jesse Prinz argues that recent work in philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology supports two radical hypotheses about the nature of morality: moral values are based on emotional responses, and these emotional responses are inculcated by culture, not hard-wired through natural selection. In the first half of the book, Jesse Prinz defends the hypothesis that morality has an emotional foundation. Evidence from brain imaging, social psychology, and psychopathology suggest that, when we judge something to be right or wrong, we are (...) merely expressing our emotions. Prinz argues that these emotions do not track objective features of reality; rather, the rightness and wrongness of an act consists in the fact that people are disposed to have certain emotions towards it. In the second half of the book, he turns to a defense of moral relativism. Moral facts depend on emotional responses, and emotional responses vary from culture to culture. Prinz surveys the anthropological record to establish moral variation, and he draws on cultural history to show how attitudes toward practices such as cannibalism and marriage change over time. He also criticizes evidence from animal behavior and child development that has been taken to support the claim that moral attitudes are hard-wired by natural selection. Prinz concludes that there is no single true morality, but he also argues that some moral values are better than others; moral progress is possible. Throughout the book, Prinz relates his views to contemporary and historical work in philosophical ethics. His views echo themes in the writings of David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche, but Prinz supports, extends, and revises these classic theories using the resources of cutting-edge cognitive science. The Emotional Construction of Morals will stimulate and challenge anyone who is curious about the nature and origin of moral values. (shrink)

Writers in the propositions literature consider the Benacerraf objection serious, often decisive. The objection figures heavily in dismissing standard theories of propositions of the past, notably set-theoretic theories. I argue that the situation is more complicated. After explicating the propositional Benacerraf problem, I focus on a classic set-theoretic theory of propositions, the possible worlds theory, and argue that methodological considerations influence the objection’s success.

We analyse Hutto & Myin's three arguments against computationalism [Hutto, D., E. Myin, A. Peeters, and F. Zahnoun. Forthcoming. “The Cognitive Basis of Computation: Putting Computation In Its Place.” In The Routledge Handbook of the Computational Mind, edited by M. Sprevak, and M. Colombo. London: Routledge.; Hutto, D., and E. Myin. 2012. Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds Without Content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Hutto, D., and E. Myin. 2017. Evolving Enactivism: Basic Minds Meet Content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press]. The Hard Problem (...) of Content targets computationalism that relies on semantic notion of computation, claiming that it cannot account for the natural origins of content. The Intentionality Problem is targeted against computationalism using non-semantic accounts of computation, arguing that it fails in explaining intentionality. Theion Problem claims that causal interaction between concrete physical processes and abstract computational properties is problematic. We argue that these a... (shrink)

Power enthusiasts are engaged in two projects: developing a decent metaphysical account of powers, and applying that account in order to make progress on various other philosophical issues, ranging from narrowly related topics such as causality to further removed ones such as free will, reasoning, or perception. I argue that an intermediate step may be taken, one that explores ‘varieties of power’ while still staying within the realm of, of ‘pure’ powers metaphysics. Taking this intermediate step provides a much more (...) interesting basis for those involved in project, ‘applied’ powers metaphysics. I articulate four such varieties of power by exploring various dimensions in which the explanatory profile of a power can be extended. I then briefly survey how these relate to various further metaphysical issues. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article explores the relationship between the operation of combat drones and the martial virtue courage. The article proceeds in three parts. Part one develops a brief account of virtue generally, and the martial virtue courage in particular. Part two discusses why critics suggest that drone operation does not fit the orthodox conceptualization of courage and, in some instances, even erodes the virtue. Part three explores how these criticisms are flawed. This section of the paper goes on to argue that (...) the criticisms are predicated on a twofold misunderstanding. The first involves improperly truncated conceptualizations of courage, which are, in part, predicated upon a narrow definition of risk. From this narrow definition of risk springs the conclusion that drone operation must be riskless. The second misunderstanding follows from the first and involves the failure to grasp properly how courage can be cultivated and required in drone operation. The paper concludes with a discussion of how, pr.. (shrink)

In Furnishing the Mind, Jesse Prinz attempts to swing the pendulum back toward empiricism.

It is generally agreed that dispositions cannot be analyzed in terms of simple subjunctive conditionals (because of what are called “masked dispositions” and “finkish dispositions”). I here defend a qualified subjunctive account of dispositions according to which an object is disposed to Φ when conditions C obtain if and only if, if conditions C were to obtain, then the object would Φ ceteris paribus . I argue that this account does not fall prey to the objections that have been raised (...) in the literature. (shrink)

À travers quels langages, outils et pratiques pouvons-nous comprendre la destruction écologique et la violence racialisée en tant que processus unifié à l’œuvre dans la production du monde? Comment pouvons-nous, à la fois, habiter et interrompre cette conjoncture catastrophique? Qui sommes-nous pour cela, d’ailleurs? Je m’inspire de la provocation de Christina Sharpe (2016) en faveur du « travail de sillage » pour étudier ces questions dans le contexte du monde océanique. En travaillant à travers différents genres et en puisant dans (...) diverses sources, j’expérimente des thèmes de perte, de sensation, d’échelle, d’incertitude, de persistance et de temps, pour chercher un récit qui pourrait suggérer un avenir différent au milieu d’une catastrophe en cours. (shrink)

The modal account of luck is the predominant account of luck in epistemology and ethics. In the first half of this paper, I discuss three possible interpretations of the modal account and raise objections to each. I then raise an objection to all plausible versions of the modal account, that is, that whether an event is lucky or the extent to which it is a matter of luck will depend on what initial conditions or features of the event one holds (...) constant across nearby possible worlds. However, there is often reasonable disagreement about what the relevant initial conditions of an event are, and the modal account of luck has no means of determining which description of the event is correct. As such, the modal account is subject to a kind of reference class problem, and the view cannot actually tell us the extent to which certain events are a matter of luck. (shrink)

Childhood obesity is in important respects a result of legal policies that influence both dietary intake and physical activity. The law must shift focus away from individual risk factors alone and seek instead to promote situational and environmental influences that create an atmosphere conducive to health. To attain this goal, advocates should embrace a population-wide model of public health, and policymakers must critically examine the fashionable rhetoric of consumer choice.

Although contemporary powers metaphysics largely understands itself as a metaphysical realist undertaking, recently powers have come to the surface also within an idealist context. This paper aims to characterize and motivate an absolute idealist conception of powers. I compare realist and idealist powers metaphysics in their respective responses to Humean scepticism concerning powers, thereby motivating the claim that the very idea of a power is actually best understood as an idealist idea. I continue to characterize the absolute idealist’s understanding of (...) power, for which it is necessary to see that the content of her power notion is inseparable from the way in which she arrives at that notion. I close with a brief reflection on the absolute idealist’s understanding of the power of thought, which is where idealist and realist powers metaphysics diverge most radically. (shrink)

Humeans take reality to be devoid of ‘necessary connections’: things just happen. Laws of nature are to be understood in terms of what ‘just happens’, not vice versa. Here the Humean needs some conception of what it is that ‘just happens’ – a conception of the Humean mosaic. Lewis’s Humeanism incorporates such a conception in the form of a Lewis-style metaphysics of objects, properties, and modality. Newer versions of Humeanism about laws of nature, such as the Better Best Systems approach, (...) typically reject such a Lewisian metaphysics, but it remains unclear what they can offer in its place. By exploring different candidate conceptions, this paper sheds light on the limits of Humeanism about laws of nature: not all conceptions of the Humean mosaic form a suitable basis for a Humean theory of laws. In fact, only a metaphysics roughly in line with Lewis’s will do. The paper ends with a tentative generalization of this result, thus pointing to the ‘limit’ of Humeanism in general: taking the Humean way of thinking to its limit results in a rejection of the whole idea of such a mosaic – and hence of Humean mosaic-based accounts of anything. (shrink)

The Conscious Brain brings neuroscientific evidence to bear on enduring philosophical questions. Major philosophical and scientific theories of consciousness are surveyed, challenged, and extended.

This article aligns two complementary claims: that sexual penetration should be considered a wrong and that consent requires express words and conduct that manifest a person’s willingness or acquiescence towards the specific act. If sexual penetration is a wrong, it will only be justified if there are reasons that permit the action and if these were the ones that the defendant acted on. A person’s internal attitude of willingness or acquiescence towards the specific act can provide the necessary guiding reasons (...) to justify the wrong. However, words and conduct that manifest or express this internal attitude are also needed in order to provide the applicable explanatory reasons to justify the wrong. Alternatively, expressive consent can excuse the wrong by justifying the defendant’s mistake as to the applicable guiding reasons. Without the requirement of expressive consent, the criminal law is unable to capture the culpability of defendants whose deliberation over the use of force on another person did not include the other person’s expression of willingness to engage in a penetrative sexual act. (shrink)

It is sometimes said by legal scholars that ‘hard cases make bad law’, by which they mean an extreme case provides a poor lens through which to view general laws. It can be said in retort that ‘bad laws make hard cases’; implying that the case may be a controversial one only because the general laws that govern it are poorly formulated. The same tension may be found in medical ethics. Perhaps extreme cases provide a poor lens through which to (...) view general ethical standards, or perhaps the case is controversial by virtue of the prevailing ethical standards being poorly formulated. It becomes important to consider whether a case is controversial or extreme. At first blush, the case of ‘Mrs A’—outlined in this edition by Miller et al 1—is both. The article by Miller et al raises a series of ethical questions concerning Advanced Euthanasia Directives and highlights weaknesses in the Dutch regulatory procedures. Also included in this edition are responses to the Miller et al article, by Menzel2 and Jongsma et al.3 These responses challenge some of implications that Miller et al seek to draw from the case. Miller et al have also replied to Jongsma et al in this edition.4 While the Miller et al article provides a detailed account of the formulation …. (shrink)

The feature article in this edition outlines and then critically examines the Nuffield Council of Bioethics’ Report, ‘Genome Editing and Human Reproduction: Social and Ethical issues’. While Christopher Gyngell, Hilary Bowman-Smart & Julian Savulescu, ‘support the approach taken by the Nuffield Council’,1 their findings are stronger than those in the Report, arguing that - beyond being permissible - many instances of heritable genome editing will be moral imperatives. A collection of engaging responses to this feature article are provided by Rachel (...) Horton & Anneke M Luccason, Pete Mills, and Sarah Chan. As a short-sighed introvert, I am going to leave aside my concerns about Gyngell’s and colleagues’ account of the weak and unhappy gene pool in which I swim, and instead focus on their talk of moral imperatives. Gyngell and colleagues construct their moral imperative argument by way of analogy. The most straightforward, and perhaps most compelling, claim concerns single gene disorders. I reconstruct the claim in the following way: 1. There is a moral imperative to screen newborns for phenylketonuria. 2. If it were possible, there would be a moral imperative to provide replacement enzyme therapy for PKU. 3. By analogy, if it were possible, there would be a moral imperative to make safe genome edits which prevent PKU. The same analogical interference is claimed in arguments in favour of: editing around 27 mutations associated with coronary heart disease, editing to shift individuals of low or …. (shrink)

Aesthetics is a normative domain. We evaluate artworks as better or worse, good or bad, great or grim. I will refer to a positive appraisal of an artwork as an aesthetic appreciation of that work, and I refer to a negative appraisal as aesthetic depreciation. (I will often drop the word “aesthetic.”) There has been considerable amount of work on what makes an artwork worthy of appreciation, and less, it seems, on the nature of appreciation itself. These two topics are (...) related, of course, because they nature of appreciation may bear on what things are worthy of that response, or at least on what things are likely to elicit it. So I will have some things to say about the latter. But I want to focus in this discussion on appreciation itself. When we praise a work of art, when we say it has aesthetic value, what does our praise consist in? This is a question about aesthetic psychology. I am interested in what kind of mental state appreciation is. What kind of state are we expressing when we say a work of art is “good”? This question has parallels in other areas of value theory. In ethics, most notably, there has been much attention lavished on the question of what people express when they refer to an action as “morally good.” One popular class of theories, associated with the British moralists and their followers, posits a link between moral valuation and emotion. To call an act morally good is to express an emotion toward that act. I think this approach to morality is right on target (Prinz, 2007). Here I want to argue that an emotional account of aesthetic valuation is equally promising. There are important differences between the two domains, but both have an affective foundation. I suspect that valuing of all kinds involves the emotions. Here I will inquire into the role of emotions in aesthetic valuing. I will not claim that artworks express emotions or even that they necessarily evoke emotions.. (shrink)

Chalmers (Mind 120(479): 587–636, 2011a) presents an argument against “referentialism” (and for his own view) that employs Bayesianism. He aims to make progress in a debate over the objects of belief, which seems to be at a standstill between referentialists and non-referentialists. Chalmers’ argument, in sketch, is that Bayesianism is incompatible with referentialism, and natural attempts to salvage the theory, Chalmers contends, requires giving up referentialism. Given the power and success of Bayesianism, the incompatibility is prima facie evidence against referentialism. (...) In this paper, I review Chalmers’ arguments and give some responses on behalf of the referentialist. (shrink)

Life poses a threat to materialism. To understand the phenomena of animate nature, we make use of a teleological form of explanation that is peculiar to biology, of explanations in terms of what I call the ‘vital categories’ – and this holds even for accounts of underlying physico-chemical ‘mechanisms’. The materialist claims that this teleological form of explanation does not capture what is metaphysically fundamental, whereas her preferred physical form of explanation does. In this essay, I do three things. (1) (...) I argue that the ‘vital categories’, such as life form and life-process, do not reduce to the ‘physical categories’ and show that there are no grounds for the materialist's metaphysically limiting claim; (2) I sketch a positive view on how vital and physical explanations can both apply to a given phenomenon, and on how they interrelate; and (3) I show that this view meshes nicely with evolutionary theory, despite being committed to a form of ‘biological essentialism’. (shrink)

Laplacean determinism remains a popular theory among philosophers and scientists alike, in spite of the fact that the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, with which it is inconsistent, has been around for more than fifty years. There are a number of reasons for its continuing popularity. One, recently articulated by Honderich, is that there are too many possible interpretations of quantum mechanics, and the subject is too controversial even among physicists to be an adequate basis for overturning determinism. Nevertheless, quantum (...) mechanics is an enormously successful theory, considering the quantity and variety of its predictions which have been verified under conditions never dreamt of by its originators; and the Copenhagen Interpretation is the only widely accepted interpretation of it. Although a hidden variable theory consistent with the results of quantum mechanics is not impossible, one of its major advocates admits that it is highly speculative, and far from adequately developed. Yet such a theory would be needed to reconcile Laplacean determinism with quantum mechanics; most of the controversies alluded to by Honderich are irrelevant. (shrink)

Much earlier work claims that appositives and expressives are invariably speaker-oriented. These claims have recently been challenged, most extensively by Amaral et al. (Linguist and Philos 30(6): 707–749, 2007). We are convinced by this new evidence. The questions we address are (i) how widespread are non-speaker-oriented readings of appositives and expressives, and (ii) what are the underlying linguistic factors that make such readings available? We present two experiments and novel corpus work that bear directly on this issue. We find that (...) non-speaker-oriented readings, while rare in actual language use, are systematic. We also find that non-speaker-oriented readings occur even outside of attitude predications, which leads us to favor an account based in pragmatically-mediated perspective shifting over one that relies on semantic binding by attitude predicates. (shrink)

Because much of the recent philosophical interest in functions has been motivated by their application in biology and other sciences, most of the ensuing discussions have focused on functional explanations to the neglect of the practical role of functional knowledge. This practical role is essential for understanding how users form plans involving artifacts. We introduce the concept of instrumental function which is intended to capture the features of functional claims that are relevant to practical—in particular, instrumental—reasoning. We discuss the four (...) primary features of an instrumental function ascription, the teleological component of such ascriptions and give a clear definition of malfunction in terms of incapability to perform as well as “normal” tokens of the same type. (shrink)

We investigated whether (a) people positively reevaluate the characters of recently dead others and (b) supernatural primes concerning an ambient dead agent serve to curb selfish intentions. In Study 1, participants made trait attributions to three strangers depicted in photographs; one week later, they returned to do the same but were informed that one of the strangers had died over the weekend. Participants rated the decedent target more favorably after learning of his death whereas ratings for the control targets remained (...) unchanged between sessions. This effect was especially pronounced for traits dealing with the decedent’s prosocial tendencies (e.g., ethical, kind). In Study 2, a content analysis of obituaries revealed a similar emphasis on decedents’ prosocial attributes over other personality dimensions (e.g., achievement-relatedness, social skills). Finally, in Study 3, participants who were told of an alleged ghost in the laboratory were less likely to cheat on a competitive task than those who did not receive this supernatural prime. The findings are interpreted as evidence suggestive of adaptive design. (shrink)