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: yes
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Accept: Platonism
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?The question is too unclear to answerAccept that some aesthetic claims are simply true, but that the truth-makers concern how subjects of a certain sort would react. Objective in as much as it posits a fact of the matter, but subjective in as much as those facts concern how things are or would be for certain subjects.
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Accept an intermediate viewQuine's criticism was never that there is no distinction to be drawn here -- only that the distinction could not bear the weight of the philosophical work it was being asked to do. So yes, we can distinguish 'red is a colour' from 'fire trucks are red'. Can this distinction be specified in a manner that allows it to do the work that Carnap wanted it to do? No.
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Accept: externalism
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Accept: non-skeptical realism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Accept: compatibilism
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?The question is too unclear to answer
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Lean toward: contextualism
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Accept: non-Humean
Logic: classical or non-classical?Accept: classical
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: externalism
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Accept: moral realism
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Accept: naturalism
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Accept: physicalism
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Accept: cognitivism
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: internalism
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Accept another alternativeIf the Ace Predictor predicts by means of time travel then this shows how one box can be rational. The problem looks like a paradox because the causal mechanism by means of which the predictor predicts is unspecified. For some means, rational action is possible. (A solution I owe to Townsend, who points out that Newcombe was mates with Benford, who wrote Timescape.)
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Accept: virtue ethics
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Lean toward: representationalism
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Accept: biological view
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Lean toward: egalitarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Lean toward: Millian
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Accept: scientific realism
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Lean toward: death
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Lean toward: B-theory
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Accept: switch
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Accept: correspondence
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Accept: conceivable but not metaphysically possible