My philosophical views

The answers shown here are not necessarily the same provided as part of the 2009 PhilPapers Survey. These answers can be updated at any time.

See also:

QuestionAnswerComments
A priori knowledge: yes or no?Accept: yesBut there is a misunderstanding about its significance.
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Accept: nominalism
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?The question is too unclear to answer
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Accept: no
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Accept both
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Accept: non-skeptical realism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Lean toward: compatibilism
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Accept both
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Accept: contextualism
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Accept an intermediate view
Logic: classical or non-classical?Lean toward: classical
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Skip
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Lean toward: moral realismBoth perspectives are used in their respective philosophical schools.
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Accept: naturalism
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Accept: physicalism
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Lean toward: non-cognitivism
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Accept bothMoral action the result of experiential evidence considered in the context of personal judgement; even others judgement, which of course can be considered an external influence.
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Skip
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Lean toward: virtue ethics
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Accept: representationalism
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Skip
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Lean toward: libertarianismMuch of course depends on how the issue is defined. But I tend to regard govt as antithetical to justice, but not because it exists, but because of its moral relationship to others as a set of institutional values.
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Skip
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Accept: scientific realism
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Reject both
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Skip
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Reject bothIt is unrealistic rationalism to engage in such thinking without recognition of a context. The question implies that there are only two choices, but realism tells us there are a great many others. Hypotheticals are fraught with problems...which is why they ought not be used.
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Accept more than one
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Lean toward: metaphysically possible