THIS PAPER ARGUES THAT GLOBAL SUPERVENIENCE IS NOT\nEQUIVALENT TO KIM'S STRONG SUPERVENIENCE (AS HE HAS ARGUED\nIT IS) AND THAT IT DOES NOT ENTAIL THE TYPE OR TOKEN\nREDUCIBILITY OF THE SUPERVENIENT PROPERTIES TO THE\nPROPERTIES UPON WHICH THEY SUPERVENE (AS STRONG\nSUPERVENIENCE DOES). IT THEN TURNS TO AN EXAMINATION OF THE\nARGUMENT THAT GLOBAL SUPERVENIENCE IS EQUIVALENT TO\nIMPLICIT DEFINABILITY WHICH ACCORDING TO BETH'S THEOREM\nENTAILS EXPLICIT DEFINABILITY. THE AUTHOR HOPES TO SHOW\nTHAT GLOBAL SUPERVENIENCE IS A DISTINCT AND ESPECIALLY\nINTERESTING RELATION WHICH CAPTURES ASPECTS OF THE\nRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN (...) PHYSICAL PROPERTIES AND THOSE\nPROPERTIES WHICH ARE DETERMINED BY THEM THAT OTHER\nRELATIONS DO NOT DO JUSTICE TO. (shrink)

There are two opposed interpretations of truth-theoretic semantic theories: a reductive, atomistic interpretation and a non-reductive, holistic interpretation. This dissertation examines the motivations and metaphysical presuppositions of these two opposed interpretations of semantic theory. ;Chapter one outlines the two interpretations and the metaphysical considerations which motivate the reductive account. Chapters two and three examine two of the most important arguments for the irreducibility of semantics which motivate the holistic interpretation: the argument from the permutability of reference, and the argument from (...) the incompatibility in the "constitutive principles" of intentional theories and physical theory. In both cases I conclude that the argument is unsuccessful. Chapter four looks at arguments for the reducibility of reference to physical or functional terms and concludes that these arguments are also unconvincing. In chapter five I argue that the "token identity" strategy for reconciling irreducibility with physicalism is unsuccessful and begin developing an account of what physicalism requires. This account is more fully developed in chapter six where I argue that neither the reduction of non-physical properties to physical properties nor the reduction of all scientific theories to physical theory is required for compatibility with physicalism. I conclude that the issue of reducibility in semantics is an empirical one and that the metaphysical arguments used to motivate the reductive semantic program are misguided. (shrink)

The incidence and moral implications of cheating depend on how it is defined and measured. Research that defines and operationalizes cheating as an inventory of acts, that is, “cheating in any form,” has often fueled concern that cheating is reaching “epidemic proportions.” Such inventory measures appear, however, to conflate moral and administrative conceptions of the problem. Inasmuch as the immorality of behavior is a function of moral judgment, academic misconduct is immoral only when it is intentional, and the greatest moral (...) weight should be ascribed to violations that students judge to be the most “serious.”. (shrink)

Gwen Bradford presents the first systematic account of what achievements are, and why they are worth the effort. She argues that more things count as achievements than we might have thought, and offers a new perfectionist theory of value in which difficulty, perhaps surprisingly, plays a central part in characterizing achievements.

This paper argues that the proponents of epistemological scientism must take some stand on scientific methodology. The supporters of scientism cannot simply defer to the social organisation of science because the social processes themselves must meet some methodological criteria. Among such criteria is epistemic evaluability, which demands intersubjective access to reasons. We derive twelve theses outlining some implications of epistemic evaluability. Evaluability can support weak and broad variants of epistemological scientism, which state that sciences, broadly construed, are the best sources (...) of knowledge or some other epistemic goods. Since humanities and social sciences produce epistemically evaluable results, narrow types of scientism that take only natural sciences as sources of knowledge require additional argumentation in their support. Strong scientism, which takes sciences as the only source of knowledge, also needs to appeal to some further principles since evaluability is not an all-or-nothing affair. (shrink)

Pain, failure and false beliefs all make a life worse, or so it is plausible to think. These things and possibly others seem to be intrinsically bad—no matter what further good comes of them they make a life worse pro tanto. In spite of the obvious badness, this is difficult to explain. While there are many accounts of well-being, few are up to the challenge of a univocal explanation of ill-being. Perfectionism has particular difficulty. Otherwise, it is a theory that (...) has quite a lot in its favour. This paper proposes a new valuation scheme for perfectionism, the tripartite scheme, which affords perfectionism the resources to give a comprehensive account of robust bads and has further additional advantages for the view. (shrink)

As ever more advanced digital systems are created, it becomes increasingly likely that some of these systems will be digital minds, i.e. digital subjects of experience. With digital minds comes the risk of digital suffering. The problem of digital suffering is that of mitigating this risk. We argue that the problem of digital suffering is a high stakes moral problem and that formidable epistemic obstacles stand in the way of solving it. We then propose a strategy for solving it: Access (...) Monitor Prevent (AMP). AMP uses a ‘dancing qualia’ argument to link the functional states of certain digital systems to their experiences—this yields epistemic access to digital minds. With that access, we can prevent digital suffering by only creating advanced digital systems that we have such access to, monitoring their functional profiles, and preventing them from entering states with functional markers of suffering. After introducing and motivating AMP, we confront limitations it faces and identify some options for overcoming them. We argue that AMP fits especially well with—and so provides a moral reason to prioritize—one approach to creating such systems: whole brain emulation. We also contend that taking other paths to digital minds would be morally risky. (shrink)

Comparisons of rival explanations or theories often involve vague appeals to explanatory power. In this paper, we dissect this metaphor by distinguishing between different dimensions of the goodness of an explanation: non-sensitivity, cognitive salience, precision, factual accuracy and degree of integration. These dimensions are partially independent and often come into conflict. Our main contribution is to go beyond simple stipulation or description by explicating why these factors are taken to be explanatory virtues. We accomplish this by using the contrastive-counterfactual approach (...) to explanation and the view of understanding as an inferential ability. By combining these perspectives, we show how the explanatory power of an explanation in a given dimension can be assessed by showing the range of answers it provides to what-if-things-had-been-different questions and the theoretical and pragmatic importance of these questions. Our account also explains intuitions linking explanation to unification or to exhibition of a mechanism. (shrink)

This paper defends the view that discovering that our universe is fine-tuned should make us more confident that other universes exist. My defense exploits a distinction between ideal and non-ideal evidential support. I use that distinction in concert with a simple model to disarm the most influential objection—the this-universe objection—to the view that fine-tuning supports the existence of other universes. However, the simple model fails to capture some important features of our epistemic situation with respect to fine-tuning. To capture these (...) features, I introduce a more sophisticated model. I then use the more sophisticated model to show that, even once those complicating factors are taken into account, fine-tuning should boost our confidence in the existence of other universes. (shrink)

Most research on cross-cultural emotion recognition has focused on facial expressions. To integrate the body of evidence on vocal expression, we present a meta-analysis of 37 cross-cultural studies...

Many philosophers tacitly accept the View: consciousness is necessary for being a welfare subject. That is, in order to be an eligible bearer of welfare goods and bads, an entity must be capable of phenomenal consciousness. However, this paper argues that, in the absence of a compelling rationale, we are not licensed to accept the View, because doing so amounts to fallacious reasoning in theorizing about welfare: insisting on the View when consciousness is not in fact important for welfare value (...) in a systematic and significant way is objectionably “consciousist.” As a result, the View does not advance our understanding of the value of consciousness. The paper further diagnoses why we may be attracted to the View, and what we should accept instead. (shrink)

This article gives an account of what makes achievements valuable. Although the natural thought is that achievements are valuable because of the product, such as a cure for cancer or a work of art, I argue that the value of the product of an achievement is not sufficient to account for its overall value. Rather, I argue that achievements are valuable in virtue of their difficulty. I propose a new perfectionist theory of value that acknowledges the will as a characteristic (...) human capacity, and thus holds that the exercise of the will, and therefore difficulty, is intrinsically valuable. (shrink)

In the Nicomachean Ethics, one of Aristotle’s most frequent characterizations of the virtuous agent is that she acts for the sake of the fine (to kalon). In IX.8, this pursuit of the fine receives a more specific description; virtuous agents maximally assign the fine to themselves. In this paper, I answer the question of how we are to understand the fine as individually and maximally acquirable. I analyze Nicomachean Ethics IX.7, where Aristotle highlights virtuous activity (energeia) as central to the (...) fine, and argue that when virtuous agents pursue the fine, what they are pursuing is virtuous activity. I then address various problems, like how virtuous people can maximize virtuous activity yet sacrifice their lives, which would seem to amount to sacrificing future opportunities to virtuous activity and therefore not maximizing it. I also eliminate alternative interpretations that do not take virtuous activity as necessary to the fine, for example the common good interpretation, whereby virtuous agents pursuing the fine amounts to their pursuing the common good. (shrink)

Fraser highlights an unattractive feature of Mohist ethics: the Mohists, while criticizing their Confucian contemporaries, restrict one’s pursuits to the most basic sorts of goods. Fraser suggests that the Mohists assume the perpetuity of scarce resources, which leads to a commitment to austerity, which in turn leads them to deny a plausible third way between austerity and excess. In their defence, I argue that the Mohists do not assume perpetuity of scarce resources but rather the hedonic treadmill. And instead of (...) begging the question by assuming austerity and then denying a moderate alternative to excess, the Mohists take the hedonic treadmill to preclude a principled stopgap between austerity and excess, leaving austerity as the only acceptable option. Finally, these dynamics illuminate a feature that should make us wary of parallels to Millian utilitarianism: the maximization principle of the latter is absent from Mohism, and this goes hand-in-hand with austerity. (shrink)

Three experiments investigated level of processing effects on a variety of direct and indirect memory tasks, in the context of a processing theory of dissociations. Subjects studied words in five encoding conditions and received one of ten memory tests. In Experiment 1, four tests previously classified as conceptual showed a robust LOP effect, as did a direct perceptual test of graphemic cued recall. An indirect perceptual word fragment completion test was unaffected by LOP. Experiment 2 showed that a new indirect (...) version of a graphemic cued test was not affected by LOP. In Experiment 3, guided by a generation/recognition model, we constructed three new direct tests in which subjects identified words that were graphemically, phonologically, or semantically similar to studied words. The three tests differed in their sensitivity to study conditions, but LOP had no effect in any case, despite the involvement of deliberate conscious recollection. Contemporary explanatory frameworks couched as dichotomies do not provide an adequate account of the results. It seems necessary instead to specify the types of information activated by each encoding condition, the types of information required by each test, and how encoding and retrieval processes are modified by task instructions. (shrink)

What does the passage of time consist in? There are some suggestive metaphors. âEvents approach us, pass us, and recede from us, like sticks and leaves floating on the river of time.â âWe are moving from the past into the future, like ships sailing into an unknown ocean.â There is surely something right and deep about these metaphors. But how close are they to the literal truth? In this book Bradford Skow argues that they are far from the literal (...) truth. Skowâs argument takes the form of a defense of the block universe theory of time, a theory that, in many ways, treats time as a dimension of reality that closely resembles the three dimensions of space. Opposed to the block universe theory of time are theories that take the metaphors more seriously: presentism, the moving spotlight theory, the growing block theory, and the branching time theory. These are theories of ârobustâ passage of time, or âobjective becoming.â Skow argues that the best of these theories, the block universe theoryâs most worthy opponent, is the moving spotlight theory, the theory that says that âpresentnessâ moves along the series of times from the past into the future. Skow defends the moving spotlight theory against the objection that it is inconsistent, and the objection that it cannot answer the question of how fast time passes. He also defends it against the objection that it is incompatible with Einsteinâs theory of relativity. Skow proposes several ways in which the moving spotlight theory may be made compatible with the theory of relativity. Still, this book is ultimately a defense of the block universe theory, not of the moving spotlight theory. Skow holds that the best arguments against the block universe theory, and for the moving spotlight theory, start from the idea that, somehow, the passage of time is given to us in experience. Skow discusses several different arguments that start from this idea, and argues that they all fail. (shrink)

This paper discusses the epistemic import of highly abstract and simplified theoretical models using Thomas Schelling’s checkerboard model as an example. We argue that the epistemic contribution of theoretical models can be better understood in the context of a cluster of models relevant to the explanatory task at hand. The central claim of the paper is that theoretical models make better sense in the context of a menu of possible explanations. In order to justify this claim, we introduce a distinction (...) between causal scenarios and causal mechanism schemes. These conceptual tools help us to articulate the basis for modelers’ intuitive confidence that their models make an important epistemic contribution. By focusing on the role of the menu of possible explanations in the evaluation of explanatory hypotheses, it is possible to understand how a causal mechanism scheme can improve our explanatory understanding even in cases where it does not describe the actual cause of a particular phenomenon. (shrink)

In this chapter we examine Moti Mizrahi’s claim that philosophers’ opposition of scientism is founded on their worry that scientism poses “a threat to the soul or essence of philosophy as an a priori discipline”. We find Mizrahi’s methodology for testing this thesis wanting. We offer an alternative hypothesis for the increased resistance of scientism: the antipathy started as a reaction to the New Atheist movement. We also consider two varieties of weak scientism, narrow and broad, and argue that narrow (...) versions of scientism draw unnatural and unfounded distinctions within science. Mizrahi belongs somewhere between these two types, but he commits the same mistakes as proponents of the narrow variety. We demonstrate that Mizrahi’s defence of weak scientism is problematic, once again, due to methodological reasons. As an alternative, we propose that weak scientism should be based on epistemic opportunism. Epistemic opportunism explains the success of science with scientists’ willingness to adopt any methods that demonstrably work. We also show how opportunistic scientism can avoid charges of triviality. (shrink)

Perfectionism, the view that well-being is a matter of developing characteristically human capacities, has relatively few defenders in the literature, but plenty of critics. This paper defends perfectionism against some recent formulations of classic objections, namely, the objection that perfectionism ignores the relevance of pleasure or preference for well-being, and a sophisticated version of the ‘wrong properties’ objection, according to which the intuitive plausibility of the perfectionist ideal is threatened by an absence of theoretical pressure to accept putative wrong properties (...) cases. The paper argues these objections are unsuccessful, but introduce a new worry, the Deep Problem: Perfectionism fails to offer a satisfying foundational justification for why developing the human essence is valuable. The paper responds to the deep problem, ultimately arguing that it is a puzzle put to all theories of well-being to provide a justification for their normative significance. (shrink)

This article compares causal and constitutive explanation. While scientific inquiry usually addresses both causal and constitutive questions, making the distinction is crucial for a detailed understanding of scientific questions and their interrelations. These explanations have different kinds of explananda and they track different sorts of dependencies. Constitutive explanations do not address events or behaviors, but causal capacities. While there are some interesting relations between building and causal manipulation, causation and constitution are not to be confused. Constitution is a synchronous and (...) asymmetric relation between relata that cannot be conceived as independent existences. However, despite their metaphysical differences, the same key ideas about explanation largely apply to both. Causal and constitutive explanations face similar challenges (such as the problems of relevance and explanatory regress) and both are in the business of mapping networks of counterfactual dependence—i.e. mechanisms—although the relevant counterfactuals are of a different sort. In the final section the issue of developmental explanation is discussed. It is argued that developmental explanations deserve their own place in taxonomy of explanations, although ultimately developmental dependencies can be analyzed as combinations of causal and constitutive dependencies. Hence, causal and constitutive explanation are distinct, but not always completely separate forms of explanation. (shrink)

Dualism holds that some mental events are fundamental and non-physical. I develop a prima facie plausible causal argument for dualism. The argument has several significant implications. First, it constitutes a new way of arguing for dualism. Second, it provides dualists with a parity response to causal arguments for physicalism. Third, it transforms the dialectical role of epiphenomenalism. Fourth, it refutes the view that causal considerations prima facie support physicalism but not dualism. After developing the causal argument for dualism and drawing (...) out these implications, I subject the argument to a battery of objections. Some prompt revisions to the argument. Others reveal limitations in scope. It falls out of the discussion that the causal argument for dualism is best used against physicalism as a keystone in a divide and conquer strategy. (shrink)

This study explored a dimensional approach to vocal expression of emotion. Actors vocally portrayed emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness) with weak and strong emotion intensity. Listeners (30 university students and 6 speech experts) rated each portrayal on four emotion dimensions (activation, valence, potency, emotion intensity). The portrayals were also acoustically analysed with respect to 20 vocal cues (e.g., speech rate, voice intensity, fundamental frequency, spectral energy distribution). The results showed that: (a) there were distinct patterns of ratings of activation, (...) valence, and potency for the different emotions; (b) all four emotion dimensions were correlated with several vocal cues; (c) listeners' ratings could be successfully predicted from the vocal cues for all dimensions except valence; and (d) the intensity dimension was positively correlated with the activation dimension in the listeners' ratings. (shrink)

Though not myself a physicalist, I develop a new argument against antiphysicalist positions that are motivated by zombie arguments. I first identify four general features of phenomenal states that are candidates for non-physical types; these are used to generate different types of zombie. I distinguish two antiphysicalist positions: strict dualism, which posits exactly one general non-physical type, and pluralism, which posits more than one such type. It turns out that zombie arguments threaten strict dualism and some pluralist positions as much (...) as they threaten physicalism—indeed, more so, since such positions need zombies to motivate them as alternatives to physicalism—and that the only pluralist position that escapes zombie arguments has a radically inflated ontology. (shrink)

Journal Name: SATS Issue: Ahead of print.

It has been not atypical for commentators to argue that Aristotelian friendship features disinterested concern for others, that is, concern for others that is completely independent of one's own happiness. Often, the relevant commentators point to some normative features of Aristotelian friendship, wishing goods for the other's sake and loving the other for herself, where these are assumed to be disinterested. While the disinterested interpretations may be correct overall, I argue that wishing goods for the other's sake and loving the (...) other for herself constitute a dubious foundation for disinterested interpretations. For wishing goods for the other's sake does not involve a reason for action on the other's behalf, and the primary point of loving the other for herself is the role of the other in facilitating one's own happiness, specifically conceived of by Aristotle in terms of one's own virtuous activity. (shrink)

This book first argues that what philosophers are really after, or at least should be after, when they seek a theory of explanation, is a theory of answers to why-questions. The book's main thesis, then, is a theory of reasons why. Every reason why some event happened is either a cause, or a ground, of that event. Challenging this thesis are many examples philosophers have thought they have found of "non-causal explanations." Reasons Why uses two ideas to show that these (...) examples are not counterexamples to the theory it defends. First is the idea that not every part of a good response to a why-question is part of an answer to that why-question. Second is the idea that not every reason why something is a reason why an event happened is itself a reason why that event happened. (shrink)

Prompted by a 2019 essay by Jonathan Moreno in the Hastings Center Report, the Center's board of directors undertook a careful examination of the name of its preeiminent award, the Henry Knowles Beecher Award, which has been given to twenty‐nine individuals who have made lifetime contributions to bioethics. citing new research that revealed that Beecher's earlier experimentation on drugs had involved nonconsenting adults, Moreno urged the Center to reevaluate honoring Beecher through this award. After reviewing the relevant published evidence and (...) holding extensive discussions, the board decided to rename the award. We also took the opportunity to reframe the award to emphasize quality of scholarship and impact on thinking, practice, and policy rather than lifetime achievement. The new name—the Founders’ Award of The Hastings Center—reflects our desire to honor not only the Center's cofounders, Daniel Callahan and Willard Gaylin, but also others who helped found the field of bioethics. With great pride, the Center has announced that Patricia King of the Georgetown University Law Center is the 2021 recipient of the Founders’ Award. A distinguished civil rights lawyer, King was instrumental in ensuring justice as one of the three principles of The Belmont Report. (shrink)

Why is pain bad? The most straightforward theory of pain's badness,dolorism, appeals to the phenomenal quality of displeasure. In spite of its explanatory appeal, the view is too straightforward to capture two central puzzles, namely pain that is enjoyed and pain that is not painful. These cases can be captured byconditionalism, which makes the badness of displeasure conditional on an agent's attitude. But conditionalism fails where dolorism succeeds with explanatory appeal. A new approach is proposed,reverse conditionalism, which maintains the explanatory (...) appeal of dolorism, but gives attitudes a value-defeating role. It is argued that this view does best in fulfilling the desiderata and capturing the cases. (shrink)

After distinguishing three conceptions of virtue and its impact on ordinary attachments to external goods such as social status, power, friends, and wealth, this paper argues that the Confucian Analects is most charitably interpreted as endorsing the wholehearted internalization conception, on which virtue reforms but does not completely extinguish ordinary attachments to external goods. I begin by building on Amy Olberding’s attack on the extinguishing attachments conception, but go on to criticize her alternative, resolute sacrifice conception, on which the virtuous (...) retain their ordinary attachments to external goods but are able to master them and willingly settle for virtue. I argue that we should reject this view because, unlike the wholehearted internalization conception, it cannot capture the facts that virtue silences or attenuates attachment to viciously obtained external goods and that virtue grounds positive emotional and cognitive self-assessments that are incompatible with some ordinary attachments to external goods. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new form of virtue ethics—patient-centered virtue ethics—and argues that it is better placed to compete with Contractualism, Kantianism, and Utilitarianism, than existing agent and target-focused forms of virtue ethics. The opening part of the paper draws on T.M. Scanlon’s methodological insights to clarify what a theory of narrow morality should aim to accomplish, and the remaining parts argue that while familiar agent and target-focused forms of virtue ethics fail to meet those criteria, patient-centered forms promise to (...) do better. In addition, the paper rebuffs some prominent objections to virtue ethics that don’t adequately take into account the distinction between giving an account of the nature and importance of moral rightness and wrongness and giving an account of what makes acts right and wrong. (shrink)

Achievement is among the central goods in life, but just what is achievement, and how is it valuable? There is reason to think that it is a constitutive part of wellbeing; yet, it is possible to sacrifice wellbeing for the sake of achievement. How might it have been worthwhile, if not in terms of wellbeing? Perhaps, achievement is an intrinsic good, or perhaps it is valuable in terms of meaning in life. This article considers various ways in which we can (...) understand the nature and value of achievement, as well as the significance of achievement for other areas of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

In this chapter I will employ a well-known scientific research heuristic that studies how something works by focusing on circumstances in which it does not work. Rather than trying to describe what scientific understanding would ideally look like, I will try to learn something about it by observing mundane cases where understanding is partly illusory. My main thesis is that scientists are prone to the illusion of depth of understanding (IDU), and as a consequence they sometimes overestimate the detail, coherence, (...) and depth of their understanding. I will analyze the notion of understanding and its relation to a sense of understanding. In order to make plausible the claim that these are often disconnected, I will describe an interesting series of psychological experiments by Frank Keil and his coauthors that suggests that ordinary people routinely overestimate the depth of their understanding. en I will argue that we should take seriously the possibility that scientific cognition is also aðected by IDU and spell out some possible causes of explanatory illusions in science. I will conclude this chapter by discussing how scientific explanatory practices could be improved and how the philosophy of science might be able to contribute to this process. (shrink)