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?Agnostic/undecided
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Agnostic/undecided
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Agnostic/undecidedThey strike me as equally plausible.
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Lean toward: yes
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Agnostic/undecided
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Accept: non-skeptical realismI have to pound the table on this one.
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Agnostic/undecidedI used to be a determinist but now I don't know what to think.
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheismAtheism all the way baby!
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Agnostic/undecidedI used to consider myself an empiricist but now I have no pony in this race.
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Lean toward: non-Humean
Logic: classical or non-classical?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Agnostic/undecidedI think of myself as a metaethical pluralist here: both realism and anti-realism are equally plausible. I used to be a die hard anti-realist, but now I'm what I call a "working realist": I treat realism, per David Brink's suggestion, as a "working hypothesis." But I'm also, probably unlike David, haunted by the plausibility of anti-realism.
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Insufficiently familiar with the issueI don't know what the issue is here but I generally don't like the term "non-naturalism". I suspect that whatever is being called "non-naturalism" here could be thought of as a legitimate form of naturalism unless it's just supernaturalism.
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?The question is too unclear to answerI think that the mind is certainly a function of and dependent on brain processes, and I'm certainly not a substance dualist with respect to the mind. I find mental emergentism, which I take to be a form of property dualism here, to be pretty attractive.
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Accept: cognitivism
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Accept: externalism
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Agnostic/undecidedAll I can say is that I'm a non-consequentialist who thinks that consequences still matter.
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Lean toward: psychological view
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Lean toward: egalitarianismI really like Elizabeth Anderson's relational egalitarian view.
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Lean toward: scientific realism
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Agnostic/undecided
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Lean toward: switch
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Lean toward: correspondence
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possible