Rocky Mountain Phi

intrinsic magnitudes and value

2011-09-30T15:01:00.002-06:00

intrinsic features, on one view, are non-relational. so if F is intrinsic to a, then whether a is F does not depend whether a is related to some distinct thing, b or b's features, such that b is non-overlapping with a. magnitudes, on another view, are relational. whether a is F to degree n depends upon a's relation to other things that are F.

these views are incompatible.

if relationalism about magnitudes is true, then there is no such thing as intrinsic value that comes in degrees (on one common way of cashing out intrinsicness).

it's surprising that this incompatibility hasn't received more attention. if i'm correct, the very fate of, for example, consequentialism depends upon a very controversial thesis in metaphysics.

or should we instead say that we simply learned that a controversial thesis in metaphysics is false, and via ethical inquiry?

Risking Lives to Save Lives

2011-07-17T05:17:00.005-06:00

This post comes as a result of a conversation I had with my firefighter friend, Kevin (a Certified Badass).

Setup: A two story house catches fire and very soon after the fire department arrives to fight the blaze. The Acting Lieutenant (AL) is the person, let's say, solely responsible for coordinating how the fire will be fought e.g., he or she directs personnel on the ground, determines where to position the fire trucks and equipment, maintains communication with police and medical staff, etc. Finally, a single individual is trapped on the second story and is running out of time.

Suppose AL is a consequentialist, in which case he might reason as follows:

(1) the goodness of saving the trapped victim is an intrinsically valuable state of affairs.

(2) the goodness of having his firefighters go home relatively unscathed is an intrinsically valuable state of affairs.

(3) the conjunction of (1) & (2) is a better SOA than either conjunct obtaining by itself.

(4) the probability of (1) & (2) obtaining is lowered each passing minute.

(5) there is a time T* such that prior to T* the probability of both conjuncts obtaining is greater than .5 but after T* the probability is lower than .5

Of all the possible outcomes prior to T* (3) is what drives AL to make the decisions that he does; after that time, however, he must choose between (1) or (2). While it's possible such that (1) & (2) obtain after T* has passed, AL can only get this consequence if he determines that the goodness of (1) is sufficient to risk the intrinsic value of (2) i.e., the firefighters risk their lives to save the trapped victim. On the other hand, if AL determines that risking the value of (2) is not sufficient given T*, then the intrinsic value of (1) will be lost (along with the conjunction). In other words, the decision procedure AL goes through appears context dependent on T*, plus whether or not he believes risking one SOA is sufficient to save another.

But suppose AL is a Kantian, in which case he might reason as follows:

(1) I have duties to my fellow firefighters and to the trapped victim.

(2) In order to most fully satisfy the categorical imperative (CI), and thus act out of reverence for the moral law so as to instantiate a good will, I must generalize my maxims.

(3) I generalize one maxim to the affect that I don’t use the lives of my firefighters merely as a means to save the trapped victim.

(4) I generalize another maxim to the affect that I don’t use the trapped victim’s circumstances merely as a means to save the lives of my firefighters.

(5) I have a duty to treat both parties as ends-in-themselves (or, as part of the kingdom of ends).

It seems to me that the time indexed properties had in the consequentialist scenario can be applied to the Kantian just as well e.g., “there is a time T*” and so forth. I suggest the difference in the two cases that is morally relevant for our consideration is the following: Con-AL is limited to the amount of intrinsic value he can produce posterior to time T* iff he acts so as to have (2) obtain—in which case the goodness of (1) is lost. He knows that the conjunction of (1) & (2) obtaining is a better SOA than (2) by itself; yet after time T* AL intentionally acts so as to pick a less valuable SOA. Is he allowed to do this? One response: ‘yes’ because if he chooses (1) and things turn ugly, possibly he loses both SOAs—no saving the trapped victim and no firefighters going home unharmed. Call this the ‘negative conjunction’. Surely, (2) obtaining by itself is a better SOA than the negative conjunction. But because Con-AL can’t know the answer to the negative conjunction unless he acts on (1), and since acting on (1) after time T* is possibly worse than acting on (2) alone, Con-AL is rationally compelled to act on (2). Thus, he is limited to the amount of value he can produce.

The Kantian response to the fire scenario, I think, is better and much simpler: K-AL is not limited to the amount of value he can produce insofar as he treats both parties as end-in-themselves, even to that point at which T* has passed provided

(i) going after the victim was initiated out of respect for their life, and (ii) not going after the victim was initiated out of respect for the firefighters’ lives—not because the victim has lost their value. So while it’s true that the victim might lose their life, K-AL’s non-action was never out of disrespect for the victim. Both acts have great moral worth and no value loss.

Thoughts?

-Joseph

Is it Irrational to be Immoral? I think so.

2011-03-21T11:53:00.002-06:00

If I fail to do what is moral, am I also failing to heed rationality? Conversely, if I succeed in doing what is moral am I being rational? This pair of questions is hotly contested in moral philosophy. Humeans (inasmuch as they are in line with Hume) say no, and Kantians and Virtue Ethicists say yes. Consequentialists get uneasy when they realize no answer to this question falls out from their theory, but I’ve found that most, when pressed, end up siding with the Humeans.

Here’s a brief argument that that Kantian/Virtue Ethics position is correct (actually two arguments slammed together):

1.) Responding to reasons is rational; failing to respond to reasons is irrational. (Assumption)

2.) You have reasons to behave morally and reasons for not behaving immorally. (Assumption; though I see a case for claiming it is a tautology.)

3.) So, a.) all else equal, inasmuch as you behave morally you are being rational in that regard and b.) all else equal, inasmuch as you fail to behave morally you are being irrational in that regard. (1-2 MP)

Perhaps it could be objected that I’m using reasons so broadly that it becomes trivial. I do not think that is the case; the Humean, it seems to me, is genuinely committed to rejecting my conclusion.

Philosophical Currency

2011-02-28T22:00:00.004-07:00

Greetings Friends,

Dan L. and I had a conversation today about a topic I'm calling "philosophical currency". Here is my claim: just as a million Euros can't buy a pack of gum in the US until it's converted into US dollars, so too certain arguments can't purchase intellectual ground until they've been converted into philosophical arguments. I take it that such a claim is uncontroversial. What's of interest to me, I suppose, is to figure out just what that currency amounts to.

To give you an idea of what I have in mind, here's an example: two people are arguing over the moral status of abortion and homosexuality. One of the participants invokes Scripture to prove his case; the other participant invokes the method of reflective equilibrium to prove hers. The debate ends in a stalemate--but not before the one who invoked Scripture realizes that no matter how many biblical verses he dishes out, the other participant won't be moved. She won't be moved, that is, until his arguments are converted into philosophical currency.

No doubt science, theology, history, etc. have their own standards, practices, and in-house debates. I suppose I'm wondering if features like (to borrow from David Boonin) the theoretical virtues, which include parsimony, salience, explanatory scope, inference to the best explanation, together with rigorous logically valid arguments, makes for philosophical currency. The kind of currency of interest to philosophers.

Your thoughts are appreciated.

There Ought to Be More Women

2011-02-18T14:48:00.003-07:00

The blog Feminist Philosophers noted this past Sunday that we'll be having "a symposium devoted to a critical examination of [Judith Jarvis] Thomson's famous article ["A Defense of Abortion"]," and that the symposium speakers are "a bunch of dudes discussing what women should be allowed to do with their bodies." They also note, ironically, I think, that the morality of abortion "[m]ust be one of those topics that women just aren't interested in."

I think that it's safe to say that the main claim being made by Feminist Philosophers is

C. There ought to be more women participating in CU's JJT symposium.

I've been trying to formulate an argument for (C), as I'm sure that some plausible argument can be made. However, I'm not positive which of my potential formulations is the formulation the Feminist Philosophers author(s) would find most congenial. I'm hoping that, through this post, we can find a good argument for (C), since (C) strikes me as intuitively plausible. Full disclosure: I haven't read all 67 comments on the original blog post, so I may be restating things that have already been said, or I may be ignorant of proposals given in support of (C).

This strikes me as very plausible:

2. In any philosophical discussion of x, since philosophy's main goal is truth with respect to x, the only purely philosophical reason we should consider for including or excluding any person, S, from the discussion of x is whether S's inclusion or exclusion from the discussion of x will tend toward a discovery of the truth with respect to x.

And (2) strikes me as relevant to our discussion here, so (2) should be a premise in the argument which has (1) as its conclusion. This also seems relevant (and is obviously true):

1. The only speakers participating in CU's JJT symposium are male.

So here's how the argument looks so far:

1. The only speakers participating in CU's JJT symposium are male.

2. In any philosophical discussion of x, since philosophy's main goal is truth with respect to x, the only purely philosophical reason we should consider for including or excluding any person, S, from the discussion of x is whether S's inclusion or exclusion from the discussion of x will tend toward a discovery of the truth with respect to x.

.
.
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C. There ought to be more women participating in CU's JJT symposium.

An easy way to get to (C) is to hold (3):

3. There oughtn't be a philosophical event in which all the speakers (participants) are male.

If (3) is true, and all we're concerned with is the gender makeup of a philosophical event, then it's plausible that we'd have to deny (2). The genders of participants in a philosophical discussion itself doesn't seem to have much to do with whether the discussion will tend toward truth. Maybe there's an argument for (3) that I'm overlooking, but I'll set (3) aside for now as implausible.

Here's another potential way of getting from (1) and (2) to (C):

4. If the speakers at any philosophical event are all male, then the discussion at that event will not tend toward a discovery of truth as much as it would if the speakers at that event were not all male.

Given (4) and some other premises that are easy to fill in, we could get from (1) and (2) to (C). But (4) isn't obviously true, as it isn't clear why a group of all men couldn't have a discussion that tends towards a discovery of truth at a level equal to that of discussion by a group of men and women, or just women.

Here's yet another potential way of getting from (1) and (2) to (C):

5. If a philosophical discussion regarding the morality of an issue that is disproportionately relevant to women is occurring, some women ought to be involved.

Given (5) and some other premises that are easy to fill in, we could get from (1) and (2) to (C). I think (5) is plausible given (2) only if we think that

6. If a philosophical discussion regarding the morality of an issue that is disproportionately relevant to women is occurring, then there will be more tending toward truth with respect to that issue if some women are involved in the discussion.

Should we think that (6) is true? Maybe. It might be the case that

7. Women and men are in such differing epistemic situations that women have a perspective on the morality of issues that are disproportionately relevant to women such that the inclusion of women in such a discussion tends the discussion toward truth in a way that is greater than if women are not included.

An aside: I think we should all agree that this is false:

8. If a philosophical discussion regarding the morality of an issue that is disproportionately relevant to x (where x is some group of people) is occurring, then there will be more tending toward truth with respect to that issue if some x's are involved in the discussion.

Were (8) true, children ought to be involved in discussions of the morality of our treatment of children, murderers ought to be involved in discussions of the morality of punishing murderers. . . But (8) certainly isn't the only way to get from (1) and (2) to (C).

I could generate extra premises to get from (1) and (2) to (C) for a while longer, but I think that a defense of (6) and (7) is perhaps the best way to get to (C). Are (6) and (7) defensible? Am I missing an easier way to get from (1) and (2) to (C)?

A Test for the Semantic Contents of Some Aesthetic Judgments

2011-02-18T10:45:00.002-07:00

There is certainly a distinction to be made between the following judgments:

1. "x is aesthetically meritorious."
2. "I am aesthetically pleased by x."

But when someone says

3. "x is good,"

what are they expressing? Is it (1) or (2) or some combination of the two or something else entirely?

In this post, I will propose a demarcation criterion, an epistemically accessible test, for determining whether a token of (3) has semantic content similar to a token of (1) or similar to a token of (2). My claim will be that the semantic content of a token of (3) is externalistically determined, but that by demanding internalistic justifications for a tokening of (3), we can determine what that semantic content is.

So I was at this ballet featuring the music of Paper Bird. The music was so good. And a fellow audience member expressed a similar sentiment when she exclaimed, at intermission,

4. "The music is so good."

What was she saying? I propose that if I had asked this audience member

5. "Why do you think that?"

I would be able to determine if (4) had semantic content similar to (1) or similar to (2). If my fellow ballet-goer had replied to (5) with an instantiation of either of the following:

6. "x has aesthetic property y in case condition z is satisfied, and condition z is satisfied, so x has property y."

7. "S is an authority on whether x has aesthetic property y, and S has said that x has aesthetic property y, so x has property y."

then my fellow ballet-goer would have shown that (4) has semantic content similar to (1). If, instead, the ballet-goer had responded to (5) with something like

8. "I can just tell."

or

9. "Because I feel a certain way about x."

then the ballet-goer would have shown that (4) has semantic content similar to (2).

So note that the content is externalistic, determined by factors at least partially epistemically opaque to the speaker, but the test itself is internalistic.

I'll defend the criterion against any objections, if there are any. What do you think?

What Dan's Students Believe

2011-02-01T23:52:00.012-07:00

I had about 30 students of mine fill out a survey intended to gauge their real or avowed opinions. Some of the questions (1, 2, 3, 5) are the exact same as a previous survey conducted by Andrew Chapman (posted here). I’m including the results of my survey here, though not in the order in which they were asked on the form. The form itself, in its entirety, is reproduced at the bottom of the post.

THE RESULTS

Metaphysics:

1. Humans have free will. Agree: 86% - Disagree: 7% - Not Sure: 7%

2. God exists. Agree: 59% - Disagree: 17% - Not Sure: 24%

Epistemology:

3. In order to know something, that thing must be true (e.g., in order to know that the earth is round, it must be true that the earth is round). Agree: 31% - Disagree: 55% - Not Sure: 14%

4. The world as I experience it might completely be an illusion (e.g., I might be dreaming, hooked up to the Matrix, etc.). Agree: 37% - Disagree: 44% - Not Sure: 19%

Ethics:

5. Causing animals unnecessary harm is immoral. Agree: 83% - Disagree: 3% - Not Sure: 13%

6. I (the person filling out this survey) eat meat. Agree: 93% - Disagree: 7% - Not Sure: 0%

7. Abortion (during any stage of pregnancy) is immoral. Agree: 14% - Disagree: 66% - Not Sure: 21%

8. All moral judgments (for instance, “Rape is wrong.”) are not absolutely or universally true; they could be true or false depending on what society you are in. Agree: 52% - Disagree: 24% - Not Sure: 24%

Political philosophy:

9. A citizen of the United States should be allowed to say anything he pleases, even to advocate violent revolution, if he does no violent act himself. Agree: 57% - Disagree: 36% - Not Sure: 7%

10. It is wrong for the government to tax the wealthy at a higher rate than the poor. Agree: 15% - Disagree: 59% - Not Sure: 26%

Science:

11. Life on earth evolved from earlier forms of life by a process of natural selection. Agree: 79% - Disagree: 14% - Not Sure: 7%

12. Global warming is happening. Agree: 55% - Disagree: 15% - Not Sure: 30%

13. Global warming is primarily caused by human activity.* Agree: 30% - Disagree: 15% - Not sure: 18%

* Students only answered question 13 if they answered “Agree” to question 12. The percentages for question 13 nevertheless take into account all the students who took the quiz, since it is more illuminating to say “30% of the students polled think global warming is primarily caused by human activity,” etc.

SOME COMMENTS ON THE RESULTS

Question 2:

There seems to be a strikingly larger percentage of theists in this class (59%) than in Andrew’s recitations (27%).

Question 3:

This version of the question includes an example, where Andrew’s did not, so it’s hard to compare the results, but given the results from either survey (17% and 31%) it seems that most students don’t think that truth is a necessary condition of knowledge. Although I can’t argue it completely here, I think this indicates that linguistic usage has changed (and perhaps is still changing).

Questions 5 and 6:

93% of my students eat meat, and 83% of them think causing animals unnecessary harm is immoral. Beyond the fact that they have odd ideas of necessity, I really don’t know what to say about this.

Question 8:

It seems pedagogically valuable to know that about half of the students are at least avowed moral relativists.

Question 9:

This question was asked in the famous Middletown study by Robert and Helen Lynd in 1929. In it, about 75% of the respondents disagreed with the statement, compared with 36% in my survey (though the Middletown study did not include a “not sure” option). It thus seems that people have gotten more tolerant of free speech (or perhaps more inclined to violent revolution!).

What follows is the survey itself.

Any thoughts on the results?

THE SURVEY ITSELF

An Informal Survey

Read this before beginning:

Please don’t write your name on this (in order to keep these anonymous).

If you don’t want to complete this survey (or any questions in it), you don’t have to.

This has no bearing on the current class and is only done out of curiosity.

Read the statements, and then circle “Agree,” “Disagree,” or “Not Sure.”

---------------------

A citizen of the United states should be allowed to say anything he pleases, even to advocate violent revolution, if he does no violent act himself.

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

Humans have free will.

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

Causing animals unnecessary harm is immoral.

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

Life on Earth evolved from earlier forms of life by a process of natural selection.

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

Abortion (during any stage of pregnancy) is immoral.

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

In order to know something, that thing must be true. (e.g., in order to know that the earth is round, it must be true that the earth is round).

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

All moral judgments (for instance, “Rape is wrong.”) are not absolutely or universally true; they could be true or false depending on what society you are in.

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

Global warming is happening.

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

If you answered AGREE to the previous question, answer the next question (otherwise skip over it):

Global warming is caused primarily by human activity.

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

God exists.

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

I (the person filling out this survey) eat meat.

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

It is wrong for the government to tax the wealthy at a higher rate than the poor.

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

The world as I experience it might completely be an illusion (e.g., I might be dreaming, hooked up to the Matrix, etc.).

AGREE

DISAGREE

NOT SURE

"Begging the Question"

2011-01-24T19:03:00.002-07:00

This is from last year, but upon it I just stumbled, and simultaneously edifying and entertaining I found it.

Language Log: "Begging the question": we have answers

Willard van Orman Quine, Evil Genius

2011-01-07T21:49:00.003-07:00

Consider the following three semantic theories:

Atomism: there are some expressions whose meaning does not depend on the meanings of any other expressions

Anatomism: the meanings of all expressions depend on the meanings of some other expressions (that is, every expression is such that its meaning depends on the meaning of at least one other expression)

Holism: the meanings of all expressions depend on the entire semantic framework within which they occur (that is, the meaning of every expression in a language depends on the meanings of all other expressions in that language)

I think that holism, the position of Willard van Orman Quine, is false.* I believe that entertaining holism is analogous to entertaining Descartes’ thesis of systematic deception by an evil genius (note that I use ‘systematic deception’ to refer to the thesis that one is being deceived about everything). There is a semantic and epistemic foundation that undermines the thesis of systematic deception. The same foundation undermines holism.

How do I know that I am not being systematically deceived by an evil genius? The nature of my immediate, present experience is such that I cannot possibly be mistaken about it. For example, though an evil genius may well deceive me about the existence of a red stapler on my desk, he cannot trick me into thinking that I fail to have a red experience when I am in fact having one. Similarly, he cannot trick me into thinking that I do not exist, since having thoughts (including the thought that I do not exist) assures me of my own existence.

Holism is similar in some respects to Descartes’ thesis of systematic deception. If holism is true, then all beliefs are open to revision--including beliefs about our immediate, present experience. Since the meaning (or meaningfulness) of a given sentence depends upon the entire theory of meaning (or meaningfulness), that is, upon the entire semantic framework within which a language user is operating, individual sentences do not have important implications for one’s experience. Hence, I cannot be sure of the meaning of ‘I am having a red experience’ considered by itself.

But of course if one has immediate experiences, one can create expressions to refer to those immediate experiences. For example, I can stipulate that ‘red’ refers to the sort of experience I am having in a particular region of my visual field. Since the experience is immediate, the meaning of such expressions is not open to revision (note: my thought is that this account does not require us to give an account of the concepts of meaningfulness or meaning, though it may have implications for these concepts; this is a potential problem spot for this argument--see below). Expressions like ‘I am having a red experience now’ do have important implications for my experience, even when considered completely on their own. Not even Quine, genius though he was, could confuse me about the content of such expressions. Hence holism is false, replaced with either semantic atomism or a narrow anatomism (according to which some rather small cluster of expressions is foundational, where the meanings of the foundational expressions depend only on the meanings of other foundational expressions).

My primary concern with this argument is that it will be viewed either as question-begging or as so obvious that it isn’t worth stating. What are your thoughts?

*Quine may not be a holist in this strict sense. He may instead accept a very broad anatomism.

Guest Post: David Barnett

2011-01-04T12:17:00.005-07:00

We've been trying to post this in the comments of my (Michaela) earlier post about men in philosophy. It hasn't worked, so I'm creating a guest post for the comment. Read on:

Michaela, you raise an interesting worry based on what ought to be an uncontroversial fact: that men in philosophy are uniquely vulnerable to a certain type of harm. From what I’ve seen, the negative responses to your post (here and on Feminist Philosophers) all involve bad reasoning, ranging from informal fallacies of (i) responding to an argument by denigrating its author, (ii) arguing that a claim is false based on its origin (the “Genetic Fallacy”), and (iii) misrepresenting an opponent’s position (“the Straw Woman”), to appealing to unsupported and implausible premises, to drawing conclusions that don’t follow from their premises (or don’t have premises). I don’t mean to pick on Alison Jaggar’s choices in particular, but since they are displayed in the comments on your post, I’ll use them as examples.

The first point consists of a short, invalid, argument that it’s not worth having a blog devoted to the experiences of men in philosophy. In addition to being invalid, the argument commits the Straw Woman fallacy. You never claimed that it’s worth having such a blog. What you claimed was that, “In short, there is a way to harm men in philosophy that seems to be not applicable, or very close to not applicable, in the case of women: falsely accusing them of sexist behavior or sexual harassment.” You suggested that everyone, including feminists, should be concerned about this unique possible harm, and you expressed a worry that such concern might not be realized in the current embodiment of the “What it’s Like” project.

The second point consists of an invalid argument that feminists should not spend time talking about false harassment charges. To avoid another Straw Woman, let’s take the conclusion to be that feminists should not be concerned about false harassment charges and/or that such concern should not affect their blogging. This conclusion is drawn on the basis of the author’s intuition that such charges are as rare as false rape charges. While there are good reasons to doubt this intuition, for present purposes let’s grant it. Clearly, it doesn’t follow that feminists should not be concerned about false harassment charges, inside or outside of blogging. Many bad things in the world are both rare and deserving of concern.

The third point is about institutional harassment codes. It’s unclear how this is relevant. If the suggestion is that these codes are the source of false accusations of sexism and harassment, then the suggestion seems implausible and in need of argument.

The fourth point consists of a bare statement that there is no reason to think that there is any particular problem for men in philosophy. But you gave some reason for what seems to be obvious anyway, namely, that men are uniquely vulnerable to harm from false charges of harassment. Surely men are so vulnerable. Surely the vulnerability is particular to men. And surely the vulnerability constitutes a problem, that is, something bad. How big the problem is is another question, one that you did not raise. To show that there is no such problem, a good *reason* or *argument* would need to be given. A bare statement that there is no reason to think that there is such a problem does not suffice.

The fifth point consists of an inference from the first four points to the conclusion that there is no problem for projects like the What it’s Like blog. But each of the first four points is either irrelevant, unsupported, implausible, or some combination thereof. So no good reason has been given for this conclusion.

The other negative responses to your post seem to me to be at least as bad in reasoning as this one.

You expressed a worry based on what ought to be uncontroversial: that men are uniquely vulnerable to *a certain sort of harm*, and that everyone, including feminists, ought to be concerned about this fact. I think your worry deserves legitimate, serious, discussion. And I hope the poorly reasoned, dismissive, responses you’ve gotten do not discourage you from posting your ideas in the future.

-David Barnett

How not to argue against relativism and subjectivism

2010-12-30T14:09:00.003-07:00

I have recently come across two versions of an argument against moral subjectivism and relativism. the arguments are both based on the claim that agents are necessarily commited to an objective value system when they act. As much as I love to see relativism and subjectivism suffer defeat, I don't think this particular line of reason is particularly promising.

The argument is put forward in both Thomas Nagel's book "The Last Word" and Henry B. Veatch's older and more obscure book, "Rational Man: A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics." Nagel's version of the argument targets subjectivism and Veatch's targets relativism, but the differences between the two do not seem to matter for a general presentation of the argument. Here is how Veatch's version on page 44 of "Rational Man" :

"The only trouble [with relativism] is that no human being can stop with just having convictions, he also has to live and to act. But to act is to choose and to choose is to manifest a preference for one course of action. However, to manifest any such human preference means that, consciously or unconsciously, implicitly or explicitly, one has made a judgement of value as to which course of action is the better or the wiser or the more suitable or preferable. But what standard of value could the ethical relativist employ in making such judgements? The whole point of his relativism lies precisely in the fact that he intends to challenge the validity of any and every standard of value. On what possible basis, then, can the relativist act and choose and manifest his preference for doing one thing rather than another?"

Here is my attempt to reconstruct Veatch's argument:

1.) The relativist/subjectivist rejects every standard of value. (Assumption)

2.) The relativist/subjectivist must act. (Assumption)

3.) For any A, if A must act, A must express preference for one state of affairs over another. (Assumption (or perhaps tautology?))

4.) If A must express preference for one state of affairs over another, then A is committed to some standard of value. (Assumption (Or perhaps tautology?))

5.) So, the relativist/subjectivist is committed to some standard of value. (2-4 Modus Ponens)

6.) So, the relativist/subjectivist rejects every standard of value but, since he must act, is also committed to some standard of value. (1, 5, Conjunction)

In my opinion, this argument can't get off the ground because of the false first premise. The relativist/subjectivist does not reject every standard of value (or the "validity" of every standard of value, whatever that means.) The nihilist or error theorist rejects every standard of value, but the relativist/subjectivist merely understands standards of value to relative or subjective in nature. His system of valuation might just be "whatever I happen to want at this instant." It's only the commitment to an objective account of value that causes problems for subjectivism and relativism as I understand them and the argument above does not establish such a commitment.

We might be able recycle the argument for some good use, by swapping "relativist/subjectivst for "nihilist." It is certainly true of nihilists that they reject every standard of value, as they reject value itself. Now, I think, the most vulnerable premise in the argument becomes premise 4. Can we really make inferences from deeds to theoretical commitments? I'm inclined to say yes, but many think that move is sketchy. Let's bracket that concern for now.

If the recycled version of the argument works, then we would have established that he who acts is committed to some standard of value. Since we all act, we are all committed to some standard of value, though we don't yet know if that standard is subjective or objective in nature. For that, we need an argumentative suppliment. Enter Nagel. After presenting an argument very much like the reformulated version of Veatch's argument, Nagel, in "The Last Word" points out that reasons seem to be general.

If X is a reason for agent A to perform act P at time T1, and it is present at time T2 but is not a reason for A to perform P then, we need some explanation as to why. Clearly, something about the circumstances must be different between T1 and T2, Nagel reasons. Given the generality of reasons in time, why would we think they are not general among agents as well? It seems that, given similar circumstances, if X is a reason for agent A to perform act P at time T1, it ought to be a reason for agent B to perform act P at T1 as well. But if we accept that reasons apply to all agents, have we not accepted objectivity in reasons? The burden of proof is on the subjectivist or relativist to show us why not.

Nagel's argument against subjectivism avoids the error of Veatch's version, but I still have some doubts about how much it really establishes. If reasons turn out to be proattitudes then all Nagel's argument would establish is that two agents who have the same proattitudes have reasons to do the same thing in the same circumstances. Subjectivists are perfectly comfortable with that kind of objectivity about value, so Nagel's version, too, fails to really undermine subjectivism and relativism.

I conclude that this line of argument against relativism and subjectivism does not seem promising.

How We Should Grade

2010-12-24T08:25:00.007-07:00

This past semester, I came to realize that I have no idea what any of the letter grades that we assign our students mean. So I looked up the University of Colorado's "Uniform Grading Policy" (available here), and it says this:

A superior/excellent
B good/better than average
C competent/average
D below average
F failing

This explanation was of almost no help. A is superior. Superior to what? I kind of know what `excellent' means, but I'm not sure that my colleagues and I are of the same opinion as to its meaning. There's a hint of the overly subjective in `excellent'. C is competent or average. `Average' is troubling. Is that the average grade we should be giving? Is a C what the average student in the class should be getting? The average student in the university? The average student anywhere in any subject? Should we be changing the requirements necessary to receive a C based on student performance on individual assignments? Also, what is `competency'? If a student can tell me the necessary and sufficient conditions for S to be a believer in position X, does that make S `competent'? I have no idea.

If a student correctly answers 70% of the questions on an examination, does that mean she should receive a C-? What if no student answered more than 70% of the questions on the exam correctly? Should that student receive an A? If the average percentage of correct answers on student tests is 70%, does the student receiving a 70% get a C? I have no idea.

In the introductory lecture to his Open Yale lecture for his Death course (available here), Shelly Kagan says this:

A means excellent. Now excellent does not mean publishable. Excellent does not mean you are God's gift to philosophy [laughter]. So it's crucial to understand it doesn't mean that the only way you're going to get an A is to be God's gift to philosophy. A means excellent work for a first class in philosophy. This is an introductory class. It does not presuppose any background in philosophy. Still, to get an A, you've got to show some flair for the subject. You've got to show not only have you understood the ideas that have been put forward in the readings and in the lectures and so forth, but you see how to sort of put them together in the paper in a way that shows you've got some aptitude here. You did it in a way that made us take note. That's what we try to reserve As for.

I think Kagan is right. I also think that Martin Sheen's President Bartlett in the series The West Wing is right when he says:

It's not our job to appeal to the lowest common denominator, Doug; it's our job to raise it. (s03e02)

So here's my positive proposal for what letter grades should mean:

A This is outstanding work that is unusual in its quality. If you consistently produced work like this, you could, or even ought to, begin a serious academic study of philosophy.

B This is very good work, and is of much higher quality than ought to be expected from a student at your level. This work does everything required, and then quite a bit more.

C This work does everything required in a clear, concise way. You have met the standards set forth.

D This is bad work. This work misses key elements of what is required. It is, perhaps, unclear, unphilosophical, overly emotional, or otherwise unsatisfactory.

F This is very bad work. It is so far off of what is required that it will count for no credit for this assignment. The work might not be bad qua work, but it is not appropriate for this assignment.

Notice that I don't talk about `average' in my descriptions. To my mind, if every student in the class produces outstanding work, then the mean grade for the class should be an A. I've yet to see an academic argument for altering our grading standards so that we strive for, say, a B- average in our classes, regardless of the quality of the work produced. Also, if every student in our classes does bad work, then it seems to me that the average for the class should be, at best, a D. It is not our job to pander; it is our job to educate.

Obviously this is a cursory, preliminary sketch of something I'll need to work out in more detail. Thoughts? I should note that I'm only sympathetic to academic arguments. As I said, it is our job to educate.

How Are Religion and Science Supposed to Conflict?

2010-12-24T07:20:00.004-07:00

I stopped paying attention to Richard Dawkins and his ilk a while ago, and I've never paid much attention to creationists of any brand. Recently, however, the `the claims of science and those of religion conflict with one another' folks have been strident enough that I've overheard them. I confess that I have no idea why these people say what they say, and I fear that they don't either. I'm hoping that someone can help me out.

To my mind, properly scientific claims and properly religious claims have very little to do with one another. Of course, both science and religion attempt to describe the way the world actually is, but it doesn't seem to me as though they're talking about the same areas of the world. Science is talking about the realm of the empirical and causally efficacious while religion is talking about the realm of the empirically transcendent, the realm of ultimate meaning, purpose, and explanation. (Maybe I'm making a Stephen Jay Gould-esque `non-overlapping magisteria'-type claim here.)

When creationists claim the Earth is 6000ish years old, they're making (very poorly supported) scientific claims. When Sam Harris says that science can tell us what we ought to do morally, he is making (simply false) philosophical or religious claims. When Richard Dawkins tells us that the fact of biological evolution shows the non-existence of all gods, he is making middle school-level philosophical mistakes in order to justify religious claims.

So where is the conflict supposed to lie?

How is philosophy an a priori discipline?

2010-12-22T00:29:00.001-07:00

I have heard it said that philosophy is an a priori discipline, but I am by no means clear on how this is the case. Many, many philosophical ideas seem to be empirically based. For instance, Aristotle’s notion of potency, like much else in his philosophy, comes on to the scene from empirical observation of the world. He rejected the unchanging world of Parmenides precisely because he took seriously the world he saw, touched, heard and tasted. Other examples abound.

Nor is it the case that the a priori is exclusively the domain of philosophy, since we have mathematics, a separate discipline, which is also a priori. My opinion is that philosophy is not, or at least not purely, an a priori discipline and the conviction that it is reflects the long-standing bias for deduction over induction, abduction and argument from analogy, which are all vital to truth-seeking. But perhaps I’m missing something.

Atheism, Theism, and Choice

2010-12-20T07:54:00.005-07:00

Over at Maverick Philosopher, Bill Vallicella writes:

Thus atheism is bred in the bone before it is born in the brain. The atheist feels it in his bones and guts that the universe is godless and that theistic conceptions are so many fairy tales dreamt up for false consolation. This world is just too horrifying to be a divine creation: meaningless unredeemed suffering; ignorance and delusion; the way nature, its claws dripping with blood, feasts on itself; moral evil and injustice -- all bespeak godlessness. There can't be a God of love behind all this horror! For most atheists, theism is not a Jamesian live option. What point, then, in debating them?

Much of this claim strikes me as false. I worry that this claim paints philosophers as particularly unphilosophical when it comes to their beliefs with respect to gods. I also worry, since there is nothing doxastically unique about godly belief, that if Vallicella is correct, philosophers are particularly unphilosophical when it comes to most, if not all, of their beliefs.

So the claims are these:

1. Belief in X is temporally prior to consideration of reasons for belief in X.

2. We must believe certain things before we can examine reasons for believing those things, or it's epistemically permissible to believe certain things before we can examine reasons for believing those things.

3. Debate about topic X is in some way fruitless because beliefs about topic X were formed before reasons for beliefs about topic X were considered.

I am a counterexample to Claim 1. I was brought up non-religious (as opposed to religious or anti-religious). I never felt `in my bones and guts' that the universe is godless, and `evil', if that's a thing, has never had a theistic or atheistic pull for me. Yet I am an atheist because I considered reasons, and found certain of them compelling, and others of them not compelling.

As far as Claim 2 is concerned: If a person was brought up religious or anti-religious, it is conceivable that it would seem to that person that they were non-rationally pulled in one or the other direction, toward theism or atheism. But I see no reason to think that the non-articulability of reasons is evidence for the non-existence of reasons. Children, to my mind, consider reasons insofar as they are able. `My parents, friends, teachers, and mentors believe in God' is a pretty good reason for belief in God, as far as a child is concerned. `My house got broken into' is a pretty good reason for disbelief in God, as far as a child is concerned. Whether they can supply these reasons later on in life oughtn't be an issue.

And as for Claim 3, I'll only offer a very simple (and I think compelling) argument (although I think a more complex, and equally compelling, argument could be given): If Claim 3 were true, then much of philosophy would be fruitless. It is not the case that much of philosophy is fruitless. Therefore, Claim 3 is false. We should think the first premise is true since philosophical methodology is a practice of giving and asking for reasons to believe that certain claims are true, and there is a presupposition that the methodology has at least some chance of success at convincing interlocutors to adopt or abandon certain claims. We should think that the second premise is true because we all do philosophy.

what I wish I had posted on what it's like to be a woman in philosophy:

2010-12-11T10:48:00.003-07:00

What I wish I had posted on what it's like to be a woman in philosophy (in addition to, not instead of, my other post):

I have a general worry with this project, even though I think that overall it is admirable and interesting. The worry is that men in philosophy are also often treated in very bad ways in part because of their gender, their sexuality, or because of situations in which gender plays a large role. Men are gossiped about, manipulated, and can be really hurt-- both professionally and emotionally-- by things that seem to me quite similar to much of what people are pointing out here. I know a number of men who have been demonized by other philosophers, male and female, for unfair reasons, and it is clear that these men would not have been so demonized had they been women. (a lot of the posts at what it's like to be a woman in philosophy seem to push this counterfactual: if I had been male, this would not have happened to me...) Now of course, some men are demonized for fair reasons-- but so, I imagine, are some women. Though there is clearly a major imbalance of power in philosophy, and women are clearly overall in a much worse position than men, in the cases I'm thinking of, women really do have the power to destroy mens careers/hurt them emotionally in much the same way that we worry that men are doing to us all the time in the philosophy world (in the same way that has constantly been pointed out on the blog). Yes, some men do horrible stuff, are reported, and never have anything bad happen to them. But others do nothing wrong and are publicly accused of doing act X or are reported to the University for cases of sexual harassment, discrimination, etc., where there really is none of this going on. In short, there is a way to harm men in philosophy that seems to be not applicable, or very close to not applicable, in the case of women: falsely accusing them of sexist behavior or sexual harassment. When this is public, and the accusee is someone who lacks tenure (junior faculty, graduate student, etc.), it really does have the power to do serious damage to someone's career, as well as his emotional/mental health.

I'm curious what people think about this. I believe that feminists, and everyone (in part because everyone should be a feminist) should be concerned about how our society, and in particular the world of academic philosophy, is so gendered/dichotomized. But we shouldn't only be concerned about how this affects women, even if it seems (as at least is true in academic philosophy) that it is women who bear the brunt of the negative consequences of sexism, in all its forms. I know multiple men who have been badly hurt by having certain assumptions made about them precisely because they are men. Part of the worry is that these men will end up feeling alienated/ angered by feminism, if feminism is construed in such a way as to totally leave their experiences out of the picture, or deny that those experiences are harmful, etc. I think it is sometimes ok (even good) to alienate/anger people. But this doesn't seem to me like one of those cases. Feminists should be concerned with the negative effects of gendered behavior/sexism on men as well as women.

A Perfectly Biblical Argument Against DADT

2010-12-08T17:46:00.003-07:00

As we all know, Don't Ask Don't Tell is a policy prohibiting service members of branches of the United States military from asking about the sexual orientation of fellow service members and from disclosing their own non-heterosexuality (presumably it's fine to say `I'm straight!'). Note that there is nothing in the DADT previsions that prohibits non-heterosexuals from serving in the military; they're just not allowed to say they're not heterosexual. There are all sorts of good arguments against Don't Ask, Don't Tell. There are no good arguments in favor of it. The bad arguments in favor of it are typically Biblical in nature (specifically stemming from a particularly homophobic reading of Holy Scripture, one that I'm nearly certain is erroneous). Let's play this `the Bible ought to dictate military policy' game. Here's a Biblical argument against Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

1. Sinning ought to be prevented.
2. Policies encouraging sinning ought to be prevented (from 1).
3. The Ninth Commandment forbids us from bearing false witness.
4. A plausible interpretation of the Ninth Commandment is that we oughtn't lie.
5. Relevantly, withholding relevant information is as sinful as lying.
6. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a policy encouraging lying.
7. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a policy encouraging sinning.
therefore
8. Don't Ask, Don't Tell ought to be prevented.

So there you go. In order to follow the Commandments, you can't be a supporter of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Should we take candy from babies?

2010-12-07T08:50:00.004-07:00

Here's an argument from Act Utilitarianism that we should take candy from babies:

1. Adults have more finely-tuned taste buds than do babies.

2. If adults have more finely-tuned taste buds than do babies, then adults enjoy candy more than babies do.

3. If adults enjoy candy more than babies do, then adults receive more pleasure from candy than babies do.

4. Adults receive more pleasure from candy than babies do. (MP x2, 1,2,3)

5. If A receives more pleasure from x than B receives from x, and if B already has x, and if the displeasure resulting from taking x from B and giving it to A does not outweigh the pleasure gained from taking x from B and giving it to A, then x morally ought to be given to A rather than B. (Act Utilitarianism)

6. Babies already have candy.

7. The displeasure resulting from taking candy from babies and giving it to adults does not outweigh the pleasure gained from taking candy from babies and giving it to adults.

8. Candy morally ought to be taken from babies and given to adults. (&I, MP, 4,5,6,7)

So go forth, Act Utilitarians, and right this moral injustice by taking candy from babies!

How would you define Analytic Metaphysics?

2010-11-21T09:26:00.004-07:00

Here's a stab:

Analytic Metaphysics is an anti-idealist reductive program that investigates the nature of reality by investigating the notions of dependence, fundamentality, and grounding, and by showing which objects are the ground of the world of everyday experience.

What do others think?

Does the categorical imperative generate a contradiction of the will?

2010-11-14T23:17:00.002-07:00

This is a short one. Elijah Millgram has a fascinating argument that purports to show that Kantian ethics is contradictory. The essence of the matter is this: Kantian ethics, at least as interpreted by many neo-Kantians, holds that universalize-ability is extremely important. Universalize-ability of rules/maxims can be recast negatively as the absence of exceptions to rules/maxims. When I cheat on my taxes, for instance, I make an exception of myself to a rule that applies to all (bracket concerns about Kantian anarchism, please.) If neo-Kantianism is right, in this exception-ness lies the the essence of the wrongness of the deed.

Now, Millgram notes, exceptions aren’t always a bad thing; sometimes they work in our favor. A policeman decides not to give a ticket to a private citizen who was clearly speeding and driving on a license one day expired. A professor decides to turn a blind eye to the fact that a student has turned in a paper one minute passed the deadline. If these things became routine they would be problematic, but such exceptions granted once in a blue moon do no harm. Indeed, who among us could really will that no exceptions whatsoever be granted to us or our friends from here on out? If you can’t will this, it seems like Kantian ethics fails its own test. In other words, the first exemption granted must be to itself! But that would be the undoing of Kantian ethics.

What do we think of this line of argument? Myself, I find it quite cogent.

A Teaching Frustration

2010-11-14T21:28:00.005-07:00

I started this as a not-so-related comment on Mike Z's post, but decided I might as well make it a separate thing.

When I grade I find myself torn between a generous attitude toward poor or sloppy work (they're just starting out, maybe lecture/recitation wasn't clear, they have a lot on their plates, philosophy is hard, etc) and a more hard line stance (I should only grade the work, nothing more). The same thing goes for accepting excuses on late papers/missed tests/poor attendance/whatever. This is complicated by the fact that some students genuinely try hard and fall short and others are lazy tricksters trying to pull one over on us and then there are many points in between. I've overheard countless conversations among undergrads in the hallway that include lines like the following:

"I got super wasted and wrote that paper in 45 minutes and still got a B!"
"I didn't do any of the readings and just BSed my way through the test."
"I slept in that class most of the time but I'll probably still get an A."
"That class is pointless, if I do poorly on the test/paper, I'll just go complain to the TA/prof and get a better grade/extension/re-write."

This is not just a CU thing. I heard (and yes, maybe [regrettably] said) such things when I was an undergrad. Maybe it is just a form of boasting or empty conversation, but there's something that feels more malicious about it. Hearing this sort of stuff decreases my empathy for students who seem to genuinely want to learn and do well in the face of those who want an A for the least amount of work possible.

What do y'all think about this? Do you feel the same conflict I do? How do you deal with it, if so?

Check Out What This Student Wrote...

2010-11-10T08:45:00.006-07:00

I’m wondering about the ethics of sharing our students’ work with our colleagues. We all have some students who, for one reason or another, are just not ready for a philosophy class. And those students sometimes can write stupefyingly bizarre or offensive sentences in their essays. And sometimes we share those sentences with fellow philosophers and teachers in order to amuse ourselves or to relieve some of the frustration of having to assign a grade to such sloppy and confusing work. I’ve definitely done this myself, but over the years I’ve become increasingly concerned about the practice. By and large, the teaching quality in the philosophy department at CU is really high, but I am concerned nonetheless.

First of all, maybe it’s just bad to entertain ourselves by making fun of our students. An obvious reply to this worry is that students are not harmed because we make fun of them in private and their names are not released. But even if this is a good defense, there are reasons to think that the justifying conditions often are not met. For example, when we’re in the grad lounge, our voices can carry into the hallway more dramatically than we realize, and it is entirely possible for a student wandering through Hellems to hear his own words being read out loud and mocked. Beyond that, any random students in the hallway can hear our conversations and might go away thinking that philosophy grads do not respect their students. Also, a great deal of the mocking occurs on Facebook, and it has become clear that Facebook is not as private as we would like it to be. Depending on the privacy settings of everyone involved, a student could end up seeing his words posted on his TA’s or instructor’s status and then mocked. Perhaps other people will never know the student’s name, but it’s hard to think that the student is not harmed in this scenario because the student-teacher relationship is definitely degraded when a student knows his teacher is holding his work up for ridicule. When the forum is a fully public space like a bar or coffee shop, then the potential for harm obviously is even greater.

Taking things a bit further, I also am concerned that regular mocking of student work can foster an inaccurate and problematic view of our students, perhaps even leading to decreased teaching effectiveness. Based on the comments I see and hear, one could get the impression that our undergrads are dumb, lazy, callous, uneducated, selfish, hypocritical, and perhaps even a little insane. While some students certainly posses one or more of those traits, we also have a whole bunch of students who are smart, interesting, motivated, caring, informed, and thoughtful. Sure, most of them may not be any good at philosophy at this point, but most of them also are just 19 years old and have probably never been challenged to think or write in this way before. Learning how to do this stuff can take a great deal of time and your intro class may be their very first step. It is important for us to take responsibility for making that as good a first step as possible…and I’m worried that assuming they are lazy, dumb, or whatever can get in the way of that effort.

To repeat my caveat at the beginning, the quality of teaching among our grad students, lecturers, and professors at CU tends to be really excellent, but that doesn’t automatically mean that my concerns are trivial. Mainly, I’m just asking that we pay more attention to how we talk about our students, especially in public (or potentially public) spaces.

Obtain and Instantiate

2010-11-07T00:40:00.001-06:00

Fellow Grads,

I have a concern with regard to the logical priority of the instantiation of properties and the obtaining of states of affairs. Here is one option

(1) The obtaining of some state of affairs, S, is logically prior to the instantiating of some property or group of properties, P. That is, P is instantiated whenever it's the case that S obtains.

But it seems like a case could be made for the opposite:

(2) The instantiating of property, P, is logically prior to the obtaining of some state of affairs, S. That is, S obtains whenever it's the case that P instantiates.

Why think (1) is true? Simple answer: the instantiation of properties is a kind/type of state of affairs. What about support for (2)? Simple answer: a state of affairs cannot obtain without some property to be instantiated. Thus, states of affairs are dependent on properties.

Here is an applied case. (Don't get too caught up in my characterization)

A utilitarian says: 'rightness and wrongness are properties of acts' while 'goodness and badness are properties of consequences'. Fair enough. We might imagine the utilitarian being a bit more specific: 'rightness' and 'wrongness' are properties instantiated in the world with respect to acts ; 'goodness' and 'badness' are properties instantiated in the world with respect to consequences. But then the utilitarian is quick to point out that the rightness of acts and the goodness of consequences are those which produce the best possible state of affairs i.e., good consequences are the best possible states of affairs which obtain. In other words, the utilitarian is committed to properties, like goodness and badness, and states of affairs, which either obtain or not-obtain.

Suppose the utilitarian is the same boat as I: neither of us is confident over which is more basic, fundamental, or grounded-- the rightness of acts which are instantiated or the goodness of states of affairs which obtain.

converse relations and coextensive properties

2010-10-20T20:03:00.004-06:00

I'm reading Timothy Williamson's paper "Converse Relations". I won't summarize the argument, but the thesis is something like: converse relations are identical. (Or, more accurately, converse relational expressions represent identical relations.)

Examples: 'is to the left of' and 'is to the right of' are identical relations (with a permutation of arguments-- though this is taken as purely conventional and so irrelevant to the relation itself), as are 'is to the east of' and 'is to the west of', 'stabs' and 'is stabbed by', etc.

Williamson's argument is too complicated to go through here. But it seems to me that it also applies to necessarily coextensive predicates. So, for example, the predicate 'is two-dimensional and has three angles' and the predicate 'is two-dimensional and has three sides' would turn out to represent the same property.

I have the intuition that this thesis is extremely plausible in the case of converse relations, and yet quite implausible in the case of necessarily coextensive properties. That is, it seems obvious to me that having three angles is a distinct property from having three sides. But it also seems obvious that x being to the left of y just is y being to the right of x.

The property case has been much discussed in our department, but the converse relation case not so much.

If you reject the identity of necessarily coextensive properties thesis (INCPT for short) you can do all sorts of fun things. For example, if you think 'is water' and 'is H20' are properties, you might think they are necessarily coextensive properties. But you could deny that 'water is H20' is necessarily true, if the 'is' here is meant to be the is of identity.

Thoughts?

Mistaken Emotions

2010-10-12T18:27:00.002-06:00

Beliefs can be mistaken. They are mistaken when their contents are false. Can emotions be similarly mistaken? Although we don't say "you're emotion is false" might there nonetheless be an analogue of incorrectness that applies to emotions? If so, what is it? If not, why not?

Is a Willingness to Compromise a Political Position?

2010-10-09T10:37:00.001-06:00

This is a short one.

This is a post about political philosophy, or perhaps meta-political philosophy. I'm concerned with an application of the question `What makes for a political position?' Even casual followers of political theatre are inundated with compromise-terms: `reaching across the aisle', `setting aside differences', this sort of thing. It is good, popular wisdom announces, to compromise. The Republicans get a little of what they want, the Democrats get a little of what they want (and the Libertarians can shut up). It is my suspicion, however, that a willingness to compromise is itself a political position.

Some political positions are rights-based: we ought to do what we ought to do, politically, because it respects people's rights, or guards against rights violations, or something like that. Some views of rights take rights violations to be binary sorts of things: rights are violated or they aren't; there's no continuum or scale of rights violations. So it seems that a person who believes that political decisions ought to be connected up with the protection of rights and who believes that rights violations are binary things ought to be unwilling to compromise.

To compromise, for the `binary rights-based' theorist is to change political positions, to accept the claim `rights violations are not that big a deal'. When demanding that binary rights-based theorists compromise, we are doing something akin to demanding that Republicans socialize healthcare, or demanding that Democrats tax everyone at an equal rate.

What do you think?

Epistemic Possibility

2010-09-26T13:00:00.003-06:00

I'm trying to get something clear in my head and it's not becoming any more clear, so I am seeking the help of others. Basically, my question is: What is epistemic possibility and how can we determine if something is metaphysically possible or is only epistemically possible? To me, there's no clear way to tell if something is epistemically possible or if it has metaphysical possibility too. And if there is a definite distinction, what conditions define it? For instance, I think it's metaphysically possible that I could have had a different hair color, or been slightly taller but Kripke doesn't seem to think so.

Ok, so let me know what you think

What My Students Believe

2010-09-25T12:58:00.005-06:00

I gave my students a short survey containing the following ten questions. They could answer Yes, No, or Not Sure to each question. I imagine there were some errors in understanding on my students' part on some of the questions (for example, the high percentage of 'No' votes on Question 6 leads me to believe they didn't understand the question). But these were the exact questions they saw, so interpret things as you will.

42 students from two sections of PHIL-1400 (Philosophy and the Sciences) took the survey. Two of my students are philosophy majors. Most have never had any formal philosophy education before this class. About half of my students are freshmen, a quarter are sophomores, twenty percent are juniors, and five percent are seniors.

Here's the data:

1. Causing animals unnecessary harm is immoral. Yes=90.4%, No=2.4%, Not Sure=7.2%

2. Humans are something over and above their physical parts (i.e. they have a mind or a soul or something similar). Yes=69%, No=11.9%, Not Sure=19.1%

3. If there are no bad consequences when I perform some action, then there’s no reason for me to not perform that action. Yes=21.4%, No=61.9%, Not Sure=16.7%

4. Humans have free will. Yes=82.9%, No=7.3%, Not Sure=9.8%

5. Certain sentences express facts, period. These are truths about the world that we have no power to change. Yes=47.6%, No=35.7%, Not Sure=16.7%

6. In order to know something, that thing must be true. Yes=16.7%, No=66.7%, Not Sure=16.6%

7. There is a fact of the matter about whether a painting is beautiful. It’s not just a matter of opinion. Yes=7.1%, No=90.5%, Not Sure=2.4%

8. God exists. Yes=26.8%, No=31.7%, Not Sure=41.5%

9. If a certain action harms no one but the person performing the action, that action should be legal. Yes=38.1%, No=42.9%, Not Sure=19%

10. There are some adults who should not be permitted to vote. Yes=45.2%, No=47.6%, Not Sure=7.2%

Justification and Truth

2010-09-20T14:38:00.002-06:00

So, this has been bothering me for a while now. I want to see what everyone thinks about the following.

I hope we can agree that knowledge requires four things: (1) truth, (2) belief, (3) some externalistic connection to the fact, and (4) some internalistic justification [rationality]. Condition (4) does not guarantee truth. Thus, when there is a set of beliefs from which I must choose the most rational belief, I can only be concerned with rationality -- not TRUTH.

I would like someone to show me why I shouldn't believe this. There are certainly philosophers among us who think we can try to pick the TRUE belief rather than just the rational/pragmatic one. But how? It seems like picking beliefs is nothing more than applying good judgment and licensed inference.

VALIDITY

2010-09-16T20:43:00.003-06:00

When is an argument valid?

(1) When the premises of an argument guarantee the truth of its conclusion.
(2) When the form of an argument guarantees that, if its premises are true, then its conclusion is true.
(3) When the conclusion of an argument is guaranteed to be true, if its premises are true.

These are different proposals. Consider:

Premise One: I exist.
Conclusion: 2 + 2 = 4.

This argument satisfies (3), but neither (1) nor (2). Is it valid?

Premise One: Christian is taller than Brian.
Premise Two: Brian is taller than Michaela.
Conclusion: Christian is taller than Michaela.

This argument satisfies (1) and (3), but not (2). Is it valid?

Logic is supposed to be divorced from semantics in a certain way. On this view, we hold fixed the meanings of logical terms, but we can vary (uniformly) the meanings of non-logical terms. We then ask: On any way of assigning meanings to the premises of an argument, holding fixed the meanings we actually assign to its logical terms, is the conclusion true on every possible assignment of meanings to the premises where they are also true. If yes, the argument is valid.

If this is right, neither argument above is valid.

This is an odd way to ask the question. But: What does it take, exactly, for an argument to be valid?

If Alastair's right are all things permissible?

2010-09-06T21:53:00.002-06:00

Consider the similarities between maximizing act-consequentialism (MC) and scalar act-consequentialism (SC). Both agree that actions are properly evaluated according the agent-neutral outcomes they produce. Moreover, both theories agree that the more value an action produces the better reason there is to do it, and to exactly the same degree. In other words, given the task of ranking a series of possible worlds according to desirability, both theories would produce the exact same ranking.

With such strong similarities, how can these theories really be distinguished from each other? The difference boils down to this: while the MCist retains the category of obligatory action, the SCist eliminates it.

Some of you who were at the 2009 ROME may recall the question and answer period following debate between Alastair Norcross and the two Texas philosophers over vegetarianism. When faced with the demandingness objection against MC, Alastair replied, “You don’t have to maximize. On scalar consequentialism you don’t have to maximize.” Although there are a number of suitable responses to the demandingness objection Alastair could have used, he chose the one that happens to capture the distinction between the SC and MC views.

Herein lies the rub: according to both MC and SC, maximizing is the thing you have the most reason to do, since they rank worlds exactly the same. If, according to SC, you don’t “have to” maximize than why, according to that theory, would we think you should you “have to” do anything at an arbitrary level short of maximization? (Note: a view that would establish a threshold above which actions are supererogatory, below which they are impermissible, would be threshold consequentialism and TC is distinct from both MC and SC.)

My understanding is that obligatory and permissible are contradictories, not just contraries. I take “You don’t have to do X” and “You are not obligated to do X” to both mean “It’s permissible not to do X.” So, if you don’t “have to” maximize, it’s permissible not to maximize. If you don’t “have to” meet an arbitrary standard of value production short of maximization, then it is permissible to fail to meet any arbitrary level of value production short of maximization. So it appears in distinguishing SC from MC we have arrived at a moral theory according to which we don’t have to do anything.

One might think it can't be permissible to minimize, at least, but once we examine the theoretical entailments of SC, we see that even this is false. For, if permissible and obligatory are contradictories, it follows directly from SC that even minimizing must be permissible. This because there is nothing in SC that generates the conclusion that you are obligated not to minimize. We have done away with obligatory action.

Recall now Alastair's argument for vegetarianism. It is something along the lines of the following:

It is morally wrong to torture animals in order to gain a trivial gain in pleasure (as in the Chocolate Moose Ala Bama case.)
There is no morally relevant difference between the the Chocolate Moose Ala Bama case and ordinary cases of meat eating.
If 1.) and 2.) then I should not eat meat
I should not eat meat.

The entire force of the argument comes from the stealth deontic quantifier in the first premise—that I am obliged not to torture animals for a trivial gain in pleasure. But, as we have seen from above, the SC-ist must reject the category of obligatory action to distinguish his view from MCism. So, Alastair is not able to generate this conclusion.

If Alastair's right all things are permissible and that includes eating meat.

A PUZZLE

2010-08-25T18:26:00.005-06:00

The example is mine, but the case is roughly Kit Fine's. I know of a few others that have made a relevantly similar point. We start with an inconsistent set.

A. All true propositions are true.

B. All truth is partly grounded in fact.

C. All true universal generalizations are partly grounded in their instances.

D. Partial grounding is irreflexive.

E. (A) is an instance of the true universal generalization "All true propositions are true".

In short: That all true propositions are true is partially grounded in the proposition that all true propositions are true. Thus, grounding is not irreflexive. But grounding is irreflexive. So, what to do?

I have a favored solution, but I won't mention it yet. What do you think about the puzzle?

Governing Humeanism

2010-08-15T08:34:00.004-06:00

Consider the following two theses:

Humeanism: For all propositions P, P is necessarily true (false) if and only if P is true (false) in virtue of its meaning or logical form--that is, if and only if P is analytically true (false).

Governing Laws: Laws are states of affairs analytically distinct from regularities that entail regularities.

Some philosophers, most notably David Armstrong (1983) and Michael Tooley (1977, 1987), endorse both Humeanism and Governing Laws. However, I believe this conjunction (call it Governing Humeanism) to be self-contradictory. Here is an argument which identifies the contradiction.

(1) If Governing Humeanism is to explain natural regularities, there must be at least one law. Let GH+ be the version of Governing Humeanism according to which there is at least one law, and GH- the version according to which there isn't.

(2) Since GH- has no explanatory power with respect to regularities, it is most likely false. Hence, we are only interested in GH+. (Note to reader: A chapter of my dissertation is devoted to arguing for this premise, but I am simply going to take it as given here.)

(3) GH+ entails that there is some regularity.

(4) The entailment in (3) is not analytic. So says Governing Laws.

(5) Entailment is a modal concept.

(6) Hence GH+ entails the existence of non-analytic modality.

(7) Hence GH+ is self-contradictory (since Humeanism, which is part of GH+, holds that all modality is analytic).

A quick discussion of the premises: (1) is obviously true; governing laws cannot explain regularities if they don't exist. (2) follows from the definition of GH- given in (1) and the argument from the relevant chapter of my dissertation. (3) follows from the definition of GH+ given in (1). (4) follows from Governing Laws. (5) is obviously true. (6) follows from (4) and (5). (7) follows from (6).

The result is that GH+ (the metaphysically interesting version of Governing Humeanism) entails a contradiction when combined with the simple auxiliary assumptions (1) and (5), both of which are, in my opinion, above reproach.

What are your thoughts?

Normativity and Naturalism

2010-08-02T08:23:00.006-06:00

This post is an argument against Naturalism. It echos arguments made by Plantinga and is pretty much an explicit re-formulation of an argument Bob Hanna gave me. It is my contention that if there exists a robust sort of normativity, then Naturalism cannot be true. While I don't think there's anything new here, I think most philosophers are inclined to reject the argument. I haven't heard a good reason for this rejection yet, so I'm looking for one.

By `Naturalism', I mean the following:

The set of ultimately (ontologically/conceptually/metaphysically basic/fundamental) true propositions about the world contains only descriptive propositions.

Let's call the claim that there exists a robust sort of normativity `Robust Normativism', and define it as follows:

There exist true normative propositions about the world, and regardless of changes in humans' beliefs and desires about the world, these normative propositions will remain true.

The true normative propositions that I have in mind come in three flavors:

Moral Norms: e.g. `It is immoral to cause pain in animals without some good reason.'

Practical Norms: e.g. `If you don't want your iPod stolen, you ought to lock your car in this part of town.'

Epistemic Norms e.g. `If you believe that p, and you believe that if p then q, then you ought to believe that q.'

So my thought is that Naturalism and Robust Normativism are incompatible. I think this because I've yet to hear of a plausible way in which Naturalism and Robust Normativism can be reconciled. Here are the two ways that I've heard proposed, along with quick refutations:

1. Reductive Naturalism: The claim of the Reductive Naturalist is that since the ultimately true propositions about the world are descriptive, we `find out' that our robustly normative propositions are actually descriptive propositions. This claim can take one of two forms. Either there is some claim made that we didn't understand normativity to begin with, and that normatively was always assimilable along descriptive lines, or there is some claim made that normative propositions are only true within the context of certain contingent beliefs and desires of humans. The first claim strikes me as incoherent --- I don't understand how normative propositions could really just be descriptive propositions --- they seem different in kind. The second claim (given to me by Rob Rupert), seems to deny the thesis of Robust Normativism, which is what we were attempting to save.

2. Non-Reductive Naturalism: The Non-Reductive Naturalist, I think, needs to explain how true normative propositions can arise out of, or emerge from, a set of descriptive propositions. Note that given the way I've characterized the Reductive Naturalist above, analogies to token-token identity theories about descriptive-normative propositions would be sorts of Reductive Naturalism in this debate. Given that no account that I'm aware of has been given regarding how normative propositions can arise out of or emerge from a set of descriptive propositions, there is no fruitful Non-Reductive Naturalist response.

If we can't find a way of reconciling Naturalism and Robust Normativism, then at least one of them ought to be abandoned (an example of an epistemically normative claim!). But life is not great for the dyed-in-the-wool Naturalist who gives up Robust Normativism. She would need to claim that ideas of proper function, correct inference, correct action, usefulness, appropriateness, and their cousins are all contingent matters of human-created convention. If we just changed our minds, the Naturalist Non-Robust Normativist could say, then it would be true that sick people's bodies were functioning fine, p and ~p are non-contradictory, murdering is fine, and hammers are the best tools for restarting stopped human hearts. So to a certain extent, the Naturalist Non-Robust Normativist is a subjective idealist; she thinks that just by changing our beliefs and desires, we can change the non-human world.

This seems like an unacceptably high price to pay just to hold onto the claim that the set of ultimately (ontologically/conceptually/metaphysically basic/fundamental) true propositions about the world contains only descriptive propositions.

Flow experience and Mill’s qualitative distinction among pleasures

2010-07-17T00:13:00.007-06:00

J.S. Mill's most famous and controversial contribution to utilitarian moral theory is his claim that there exists a qualitative distinction among pleasures above and beyond any differences in duration and intensity. My task here is to argue that though Mill fails to motivate the postulation of a qualitative distinction among pleasures in Utilitarianism chapter 2, his conclusion is nonetheless correct. After critically discussing Mill's own arguments, I will make the case that quality in pleasure is identical to flow experience as described in the work of positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

The objection that utilitarianism is a doctrine “fit for swine” must have been very common in Mill’s day, since Mill takes it up early in his defense of utilitarianism (Utilitarianism Chapter 2). Mill first registers the stock Epicurean/Benthamite response: as a matter of empirical fact, human beings do get pleasure from different things than pigs. Pigs like rolling in the mud; humans like composing music, playing chess, etc. In short, happiness has different sources for men and for pigs. Eating slop is a source of pleasure for swine, eating pizza is a source of pleasure for human beings. So, an admonition for human beings to promote human happiness does not encourage swinish behavior.

To my mind, this response is sufficient to overcome the “fit for swine” objection. Mill wants to make a stronger claim, however, noting that: “It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others.”

In my reading of Utilitarianism, Mill provides two arguments (or rather, one argument and one intuition pump) to motivate this qualitative distinction. First, Mill implicitly presents what I call the empirical argument for the qualitative distinction. The Empirical argument is as follows:

As a matter of fact, people acquainted with many kinds of pleasures consistently exhibit preference for (i.e. desire) certain kinds of pleasures.
When experienced observers, (people acquainted with both sides of a given option), prefer (i.e. desire) one option above the other, this is inductive evidence in favor of that option’s being desirable.
So, to the degree that experienced observers prefer some kinds of pleasures over others—say, mental over bodily pleasures—we have evidence that mental pleasures are more desirable than bodily ones.

My first and entirely unoriginal complaint with the empirical argument is that first premise seems questionable—it is not clear that certain kinds of pleasures, like mental pleasures, are reliably preferred over other – say bodily – pleasures by reliable observers. Secondly, Mill never rules out the possibility that experienced judges prefer mental to bodily pleasures for the reasons given by the Epicureans and Benthamites that require no qualitative distinction among pleasures. (Such pleasures are safer, more cheaply indulged in, more likely to give rise to future pleasures, etc.)

Next Mill notes that no intelligent human being would consent to be made a fool for any helping of the lower pleasures. This is either a version of the empirical argument, which I have dealt with, or an appeal to intuition. However, the inference from this intuition to the qualitative distinction is by no means straightforward. I submit that Mill’s thought experiment succeeds only in showing us is that we tend to be conservative in thought experiments in which our faculties and identities are radically altered.

I conclude that Mill does not give us sufficient reason to believe his qualitative distinction among pleasures is well motivated.

My view is that quality in pleasurable experiences is identical to flow, known in the Buddhist tradition as mindfulness. For the rest of this discussion I will stick the term flow because that is the term provided by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, with whose work I am most familiar. (See Flow, 2008 and Finding Flow, 1998.)

Flow is the experience of having one’s consciousness highly ordered. When flow is the strongest in us, we are hardly aware of ourselves, but simply experience “being there” in the task at hand. When we say that someone is “in the zone” doing something they like doing, be it rock climbing, or giving a paper at a conference, we are referring to flow experience. An important point about flow is that flow can be, and usually is, mixed with other pleasures. Sex and eating can be flow experiences. Csikszentmihalyi usefully points out that ahedonia—the inability to feel pleasure—is closely related with the inability to impose structure on consciousness. This suggests that, inasmuch as flow is the imposition of structure on experience, some nominal degree of flow is present in all pleasurable experiences. This is precisely what we would expect of a qualitative dimension of pleasure.

Flow seems not to be reducible to intensity or duration. Flow, even when (perhaps especially when) its presence is strongest, is phenomenally low-key. Meditating Buddhist monks may be at the height of flow experience, but they are not experiencing any sort of loud or intense of “jump-up-and-down” sensation. Someone might say “that was an intense chess game” after a particularly flow-inducing game, but I think we should not be misled by this. When we actually stop and introspect about how we feel when we are engaged in flow activities we find the phenomena we experience are not “intense” even if, say, the game is.

It is a common complaint that philosophers who classify certain pleasurable activities as “higher pleasure activities,” are merely exhibiting classist bias toward certain activities. For this, I have a ready response. While flow activities conform to many of our pre-theoretical (and mostly bourgeoisie) intuitions about what “higher” pleasures would have to be, flow can be experienced in humble activities. The wonderful passage in Anna Karenina about Levin’s harvesting wheat with the peasants describes a paradigm case of flow.

Another virtue of my view that flow is quality in pleasure is that it provides us with an error theory that explains why Bentham, Mill and other utilitarians overlooked flow. Flow is such a subtle state of mind that it isn’t likely to be well-grasped outside of a very systematic phenomenology. Some eastern cultures, with their emphasis on meditation, were more advanced than the west in this regard, hence the understanding of flow as mindfulness. The west had to wait for empirical psychology to develop before flow experience was scientifically described. So it’s no surprise that western philosophers in the days when psychology was a nascent science would have missed it.

This concludes my constructive case that quality in pleasure is identical to flow.

knowledge as a natural kind?

2010-06-30T17:40:00.007-06:00

Hi Friends,

I wanted to get your thoughts on a topic I've been thinking about for a couple months now. It goes like this: whatever knowledge amounts to (JTB +_) I've always considered it as a kind of relation i.e., a knower stands in a certain kind of relationship to a proposition. That is, S knows P whenever S stands in relation R to P (where the relation satisfies the criteria for knowledge). Here I'm not too concerned about what those criteria are.

But a friend mentioned that knowledge might actually be a natural kind. I will stick to Kathrin's notion of natural kinds--non-arbitrary/non-gerrymandered categories. My first reaction was that natural kinds and relations are somehow incompatible with each other; that natural kinds are more accessible and mind independent. Whereas relations require two things to satisfy some relationship (pick any one you like).

But last night, Rob R., suggested that such incompatibility might not exist. *I'm in no way speaking for any view Rob holds*. He suggested that IF knowledge is a kind of relation, and IF relations are natural kinds, then, in this case, knowledge will be a natural kind. Relations, on this account, fit neatly into the world by exhibiting features which satisfy Kathrin's account and which hold a knower to a proposition together.

Here's the last part: on such an account, knowledge will not be in the mind of S, so to speak, but will exist only as long as the relation holds (perhaps knowledge supervenes on the relation). This might be a setback for some. But, on this account, we can also substitute any number of potential knowers in the place of the inital knower just so long as the right substitutions are kept in tact e.g., he or she has a mind, is aware of the same information, doesn't suffer from malfunction, etc.

What do you all think?

Grammatically Incorrect Identity Claim?

2010-06-28T18:04:00.004-06:00

Read this sentence:

x and y are to be properly counted as one just in case they are numerically identical.

Now, forget about whether the above expresses a truth or not. All I care about is whether you think it is a grammatically correct sentence of English. It seems to me obviously grammatically incorrect, since it uses the term 'they' to refer to a single object. I'd particularly like to hear from anyone who thinks it is grammatically correct. But if you agree with me, that's cool too.

Of course, you may object that the rules of grammar are changing and it is quickly becoming acceptable to use 'they' to refer to a single object (facebook does it all the time, after all!). But I don't think the reason that this is happening, if it is happening at all, is a reason to accept the construction of the above sentence. This is because the reason plural terms like 'they' and 'their' have become more acceptable when referring to a single person has to do solely with the fact that English does not contain a similar singular term that is gender-neutral. There is no problem with gender-neutrality above. We still almost solely see this kind of usage when there is a single person being talked about and, for some reason or another, his or her gender is not or should not be specified. It seems obvious that the reason the term is used in the above sentence about identity is quite distinct from practical reasons we might have to fudge/change our rules of grammar in English.

What is the postmodern truth relativist talking about?

2010-06-28T07:02:00.004-06:00

This is a continuation of something that was going on on Todd's FBook. Todd said something very interesting, so I wanted to bring the discussion over here. In this post, I just want to get clear on what Todd's interlocutor was talking about, and whether it is a tenable (albeit, perhaps not plausible) position.

Todd's interlocutor said this:

...we live in a postmodern culture and truth is relative.

Todd said:

I guess that it has always seemed to me that truth is about the way things are independent of anyone's appraisal. So, the idea that it is different for different people just doesn't make sense. Now, I think, one can capture the feeling behind relativism by saying something like, 'Look, of course people disagree about things, and they may even each be justified in their conflicting beliefs, but that says nothing more about the way the world is beyond their [independent] appraisals.' I think there can be real disagreements about what is the case without saying each party is right. We may never know who is right about most things anyways.

There are a lot of interesting issues in Todd's response (of specific interest to me is whether mind-dependence entails relativism. I think no, but this discussion should await another post). So what is Todd's interlocutor saying? I think it might be one of the following:

1. Truth is correspondence, but since there is no Way the World Is, there are no truths.

2. What truth is depends on what a culture thinks truth is. Since cultures think (1), then (1).

3. Truth is coherence, and since there can be many non-identical coherent sets of beliefs, there is no correct coherent set of beliefs, and hence, there are no true beliefs simpliciter.

4. Truth is identifiable with pragmatic value (some readings of James et. al.) or power (some readings of Foucault) or something else, and since the pragmatic value or power or whatever of holding a belief differs from person to person, truth is person-specific.

5. Truth is identifiable with some person-specific epistemically-accessible epistemic property, such as personal appeal of the belief. Since these person-specific epistemically-accessible epistemic properties differ from person to person, so does truth.

My bet's on (2).

There is always the problem of people conflating the way the world is with truth, so maybe that's an issue here as well. What do others think? Also, are there other options I've overlooked?

Logic and Metaphysics, Carnap and Heidegger

2010-06-13T09:03:00.003-06:00

This is a post about the relation between metaphysics and logic, about which is conceptually prior to which, and about how we know. I don't have any settled answers, but I do have thoughts and questions.

I was recently rereading Carnap's 1932 essay, ``The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language''. The essay is a nascent attempt to put forward a verifiability criterion of meaning, among other things. It is Carnap's thought that by insisting that all and only meaningful sentences (1) contain terms whose truth conditions/criteria for application are verifiable in a certain way and (2) have a syntax that is in line, in some way, with classical first-order predicate logic with identity, that he will be able to claim that much of what he calls `metaphysics' is merely the practice of interlocutors exchanging pseudo-statements.

Carnap begins Section 5 of the essay with the following:

Let us now take a look at some examples of metaphysical pseudo-statements of a kind where the violation of logical syntax is especially obvious, though they accord with historical-grammatical syntax.

Carnap then goes on to quote Heidegger from his 1929 essay, ``Was Ist Metaphysik?'' in an attempt to show that the syntax Heidegger uses in some way runs afoul of classical first-order predicate logic with identity. And we can grant that Heidegger's syntax does just that (as would Heidegger); he does quantify over `Nothing', as if `Nothing' were an object.

Carnap then quotes Heidegger as recognizing that his syntax is, in some sense, counter-logical:

If thus the power of the understanding in the field of questions concerning Nothing and Being is broken, then the fate of the sovereignty of `logic' within philosophy is thereby decided as well. The very idea of `logic' dissolves in the whirl of a more basic questioning.

and

The alleged sobriety and superiority of science becomes ridiculous if it does not take the Nothing seriously.

To which Carnap replies:

Thus we find here a good confirmation of our thesis; a metaphysician himself here states that his questions and answers are irreconcilable with logic and the scientific way of thinking.

So we might formalize Carnap's argument as follows:

1. If a purported statement's syntax runs afoul of classical first-order predicate logic with identity, then that purported statement is really a pseduo-statement, devoid of meaning.

2. The `metaphysician's' purported statements' syntax runs afoul of classical first-order predicate logic with identity.

Therefore

3. The `metaphysician's' purported statements are really pseduo-statements, devoid of meaning.

And we might formalize Heidegger's argument as follows:

4. If science and logic cannot account for the truth of certain `metaphysical' claims, then science and logic are not tenable disciplines.

5. Science and logic cannot account for the truth of certain `metaphysical' claims.

Therefore

6. Science and logic are not tenable disciplines.

Carnap and Heidegger agree with the truth of (2) and (5) (albeit for different reasons), so their dispute is really over whether (1) or (4) is true. I think we can go further and say that Carnap endorses (1)'s truth because he endorses the claim that logic is conceptually prior to metaphysics, and Heidegger endorses (4)'s truth because he endorses the claim that metaphysics is conceptually prior to logic. This is what the dispute is really over.

To my mind, we need to settle our metaphysics before we settle our logic, and our metaphysics ought to be based on common sense and pragmatic value. Some might think that we can't even start a metaphysical investigation without presupposing a logic. I'm dubious of this claim, but I'm open to a good reason to accept it.

Regarding epistemic factors, how we know which metaphysics to use, which logic to use, and which is conceptually prior to which, I'm not certain. It seems to me, at least, that Heidegger's project has greater (internalistic) justification than does Carnap's. It is unclear what reason Carnap could provide to bolster his claim that we ought to use classical first-order predicate logic with identity. However, Heidegger can at least point to common sense and pragmatic value in order to bolster his claim that we ought to adopt his metaphysics.

What do others think?

Stock Ownership in Marginal Cases

2010-06-12T22:43:00.005-06:00

There is a fair amount of literature on the question of divestment, particularly in cases that involve some countries refusing to financially support (or forbidding domestic companies from working in) countries with human rights abuses. Our own Scott Wisor has worked on advocating divestment in Sudan. But, there seem to be somewhat interesting questions concerning the morality of owning stock in marginal cases where we will almost certainly have no impact on the problem.

I will admit that I started thinking about this when the idea popped into my head that it might be a good time to purchase a share or two in British Petroleum, which is relatively low and almost certain to rebound. My immediate reaction to this thought was embarrassingly deontological: I don’t want to support BP. But is this ultimately a tenable conclusion?

Suppose someone dies and leaves you ten shares of stock in TIC (Totally Immoral Company). This company is, by whatever normative standard you prefer, totally immoral. Should you keep this stock and earn money from it, or sell it?

Some things to consider:
TIC is a very large company (there are 350 million shares of BP stock).
The stock market is such that, if you sell your stock, someone else will buy it.
The small amount of stock you own will not give you a real ability to alter the policies of the company.

So, it looks like the company will continue to do what it does whether you own the stock or not.

The deontologist does have an easy answer to this problem. The fact that the consequences are the same is irrelevant; you keeping the stocks would be immoral (for some reason… maybe it treats the people hurt by TIC as mere means, maybe it cannot be willed universally, and so on). But, isn’t this unsatisfying? In selling the stock you have done nothing to prevent the actions you thought were immoral enough to warrant divestment and have enabled some other person to buy the shares.

The rule consequentialist can reply similarly, saying that the best consequences would occur if everyone were to sell his or her stock (because then the stock would crash? Is that how that works?) and put TIC out of business. So, each individual should follow the rule that advises her to sell. I suppose the virtue ethicist might claim that holding the stock represents a vicious character. But, here we have the same problem as before, which is that TIC is still alive and well post-sale.

The act consequentialist initially seems obliged to claim that either selling or holding the stock is permissible, contra my initial intuition. The consequences are, after all, identical either way. But, this may be based on a simplistic way of viewing the problem. In assuming that our only options are hold or sell simpliciter, we shortchange the full array of possibilities. One could:

1. Hold the stock and pocket the dividends or reinvest in TIC.
2. Hold the stock and use the dividends to fund organizations opposing TIC.
3. Hold the stock and send the dividends to a charitable organization, like Oxfam.
4. Sell the stock and use the money to purchase stock in TMC (Totally Moral Company).
5. Sell the stock and send the money to a charitable organization.
6. Sell the stock and use the money for yourself.

Of these options, 1 and 6 seem the least good. 2 through 5, though, are plausible candidates for best despite 2/3 demanding retention and 4/5 sale.

I am most drawn to 3 and 4, what do you think?

Consequentialism is False?

2010-06-09T00:49:00.003-06:00

This blog has been dead lately. The following thoughts are not even mildly original.

CONS is clearly false. It claims that necessarily, we ought only to perform the act from amongst the relevant alternatives that is at least as good as any of them. In short: do what's best unless there are ties, in that case do one of those tied acts.

Two counterexamples:

1. Possibly, for any act one performs there is some act that would have better consequences were it performed.

2. Possibly, our universe has infinite value and so nothing we can do could make it better or worse, that is, supposing that anything we do would only have finite value or disvalue. Moreover, even were things this way, there would still be things that we ought to do.

We can run a similar counterexample on expected maximization. That is, the expected value of any act is the same as the expected value of any other act supposing that there is some non-zero subjective probability that our universe has infinite value or disvalue. Maybe a similar counterexample can be given for 1.

SO what should a defender of CONS say?

Hope your Summer has been going well.

-Christian

Is it wrong to use Adderall?

2010-05-13T19:54:00.004-06:00

I recently heard a statistic -- which will have to be taken on my word -- that 60% of college students had used Adderall, and the number rose drastically if the sample is constrained to just those in fraternities and sororities. My intuition was that this was wrong, or unfair, but I wasn't immediately sure why.

Here's an idea. Using Adderall is wrong for the same reason using steroids is wrong: it's taking advantage of something, boosting one's performance, in a way that is not open to everyone.

For one immediate objection, someone might say that by that token it's unfair for Olympic nations to develop their own wardrobe for athletes, since richer countries inherently have an advantage in research and development. For example, the United States can afford to spend thousands of dollars on swimsuits or shoes for our Olympic athletes that will shave a tenth of a second off of their time. Not all countries have such resources available to them, and this results in a de facto unfair advantage.

But that advantage is just that: de facto. But what do I mean when I say the opportunity to use Adderall is not open to everyone? I mean to say that it is prohibited by the institutions otherwise governing performance in this area. All countries have an equal opportunity, at least on paper, to develop competitive shoes, swimsuits, etc., even if they do not have the resources in reality. However, no student has the legitimate opportunity to abuse a prescription drug, by definition. Patients are explicitly prohibited by law from procuring controlled substances without a prescription. This is the fundamental wrong that takes place when students illegally procure something like Adderall, to boost their performance in competition.

(Note that I'm playing fast and loose with the idea of school as a competition. Seems perfectly plausible at least to envision it that way, since many elements of school are explicitly competitive or meritocratic.)

If such drugs were legal, would the case be different? I think so. Consider the case of "performance-enhancing drugs" (read: steroids) in professional sports. Would there exist such an outrage, or an actual wrong, if steroids were simply permitted to be used in professional sports? I doubt it. I think that controversy exists there is parallel to the use of Adderall in schools: a violation of the explicit outlines of competition, in order to gain an advantage over one's peers.

Indeterminacy?

2010-05-01T15:09:00.004-06:00

"Suppose, for reductio, that it is indeterminate—that is, metaphysically unsettled—whether Harry is bald. Because it is metaphysically unsettled whether Harry is bald only if it is not metaphysically settled that Harry is bald and not metaphysically settled that Harry is not bald, it is not metaphysically settled that Harry is bald and
not metaphysically settled that Harry is not bald. Because it is true that Harry is bald only if it is metaphysically settled that he is bald, and because it is true that Harry is not bald only if it is metaphysically settled that he is not bald, it is not true that Harry is bald and not true that Harry is not bald. Because Harry is bald only if it is true that he is bald, and because Harry is not bald only if it is true that he is not bald, Harry is not bald and Harry is not not bald. This is a contradiction. Hence, our supposition is false. Moreover, because the issue of whether Harry is bald was chosen arbitrarily, the argument generalizes: indeterminacy is impossible."

That's a long quote from our own David Barnett in his On the Very Possibility of Indeterminacy.

Barnett is at pains to point out that vagueness does not entail indeterminacy. The argument above shows that indeterminacy is impossible, but clearly many things are vague. I'm interested in how you would respond to the argument above. Michael Tooley argues that propositions about the future are indeterminate as of the present. Not if this argument is correct. Some claim that certain "spin states" of electrons are indeterminate. Not if this argument is correct. The same goes for claims about free will, liar sentences, and other areas where philosophers have argued that indeterminacy reveals its ugly head. If Mr. Barnett is correct, these philosophers are all wrong. So, what's wrong with the argument above?

What Are We To Do About Truth?

2010-04-12T13:55:00.002-06:00

A long, long time ago, I was a vocal proponent of non-correspondence truth. Given the epistemically opaque nature of correspondence truth, the pragmatic value of internalistic justification over correspondence truth, the dubious nature of whatever it is true propositions are supposed to correspond to (the Way the World Is?), and the historical-pragmatic force of the concept of truth, I felt that we needed to abandon the Correspondence Theory, and be pragmatists about truth, or at least prosententialists. But recently, I've had a change of heart. My views on correspondence truth haven't changed; in fact, I might be more vocal regarding correspondence truth's pragmatic uselessness and metaphysical curiousness. My change of heart comes from adopting a new methodology regarding the philosophical analysis of prephilosophical concepts such as truth. While this new methodology allows me to escape debates over the nature of truth, appease the Correspondentist, and offer a way out to those who, like me, are suspicious of the notion of correspondence truth, I have some worries.

Here's the old methodology:

1. A dispute arises over how to analyze historically-pragmatically important prephilosophical concept x.
2. People argue, giving reasons why their analysis should be accepted.
3. Things nearly inevitably end in stalemate.

Here's the new methodology:

1* A dispute arises over how to analyze historically-pragmatically important prephilosophical concept x.
2*. The newcomer to the debate, S, concedes that her proposed analysis, z, of x is the wrong analysis.
3*. S argues instead that we ought not be concerned with x, but that we ought to be concerned with y, which is analyzed in way (or close to way) z.

To instantiate:

1** A dispute arises over how to analyze the historically-pragmatically important prephilosophical concept of truth.
2**. The newcomer to the debate, Abigail Adams, concedes that her proposed analysis, an analysis in terms of reflectively-accessible, socially-articulable reasons, of truth is the wrong analysis.
3**. Abigail argues instead that we ought not be concerned with truth, but that we ought to be concerned with personal justification, which is analyzed in terms of reflectively-accessible, socially-articulable reasons.

So we give the Correspondentist his cake, but then tell him that it's not as delicious as he thinks it is. My worry here is threefold:

First, it might not be the case that there is any one newcomer to the debate about concept x. In cases where the prephilosophical concept to be analyzed has no historically privileged analysis, should we just fight over the correct analysis?

Second, are we giving up too much to the Correspondentist (or whoever holds the historically privileged analysis of concept x)? It's not just the analysis we're giving up, it's also the pragmatic force that comes along with the tokening of the concept. Granted, the pragmatic force attached to truth might be lessened if we can convince people that truth is practically useless, but until that time comes, we're at a dialectical disadvantage.

Third, have I just pushed the bump in the carpet to another location? Will battles over the correct analysis of truth now just be moved to whether or not truth is a pragmatically useful concept?

Teaching "Distractions"

2010-04-08T11:32:00.003-06:00

I'm not really teaching this semester, but the other day I was subbing for 2440 (symbolic logic), and I started thinking about the following problem, a problem which I am sure most if not all of us have considered:

How should we strike the balance between getting through the material we want to cover in a given class, and allowing our students to practice being good philosophers? Here's what I mean: I think to be a good philosopher requires the ability to focus very carefully and narrowly on a single, sometimes quite small, problem. (I am not claiming that this is ALL there is to good philosophy, but we have to be careful and thorough and meticulous when we are doing philosophy, and at least one good way to learn how to do this is to focus on a very specific issue--perhaps a single premise in an argument, one small argument in a paper, etc.) I think most of what philosophers these days-- at least so-called 'analytic' philosophers-- do is to focus on narrow issues and spend enormous amounts of time arguing for their positions. Though obviously sometimes we make broader points :)

It's one thing, I suppose, if we are teaching more advanced courses-- then it seems we almost should have complete freedom to determine how much content to get through (should I assign a paper per class? Should we spend a number of classes discussing one short paper, allowing us to get as clear and specific as possible about x's argument?). But in introductory courses, it seems we have more of a responsibility to give students a survey of as much of the general area (e.g. ethics, modern, phil of science) that is the subject of the course as is possible. The worry is that this doesn't give students who take introductory level courses an idea of what actually happens in philosophy, nor does it in any way help make them into philosophers. I know people who teach, and grade, classes like intro to philosophy in such a way that there is no, or very little, actual philosophy that goes on in the classroom or in paper writing ("As long as so-and-so can tell me clearly what X's view is, she'll get an A"). The students might take notes on arguments and counterarguments, but they don't get much of a chance to come up with those arguments on their own.

Logic is a perfect example of this, because there is a certain amount of material that I think most of us think we need to get through. But what if our students start posing serious philosophical questions that arise out of thinking about logic? How much time should we devote to considering these questions? And should we, ourselves, pose such questions to our students, trying to demonstrate that logic is not simply philosophically (and practically) useful, but that it is an area of philosophy in its own right, with its own problems and with direct connections to other areas of philosophy? Wouldn't this help those students taking logic, most of whom are philosophy majors, figure out why logic is important to philosophy?

The other day as I was teaching I paused for two 'philosophical interludes'. The first was simply a question I posed to the students. However, I informed them that we weren't going to discuss it during class. The second, though, I encouraged discussion about. We were talking about introduction and elimination rules for the existential and universal quantifiers, and the fact that, in conceptualizing these rules, it is useful to think about the existential as representing a giant disjunction and the universal as representing a giant conjunction. I asked the students why we can't simply identify universally quantified sentences with extremely (perhaps infinitely) long conjunctions. Yes, we went off on a huge digression that sucked up valuable class time, but at the time, I thought it was obviously worth it. The students were engaged, they were interested, I could tell at least some of them were seeing the connections between, in this case, logic and questions in metaphysics, and I hoped it might help them think more conceptually about what was going on with the rules we were learning (which seems to help them quite a bit). And one of them said something pretty damn smart.

In retrospect, though, it would be quite tough to teach a semester-long course like that, because I can easily see that it would be near impossible to get through the amount of material one needs to cover. I think part of what it is to be a good teacher of philosophy is to be able to strike the right balance between teaching students what certain philosophers believe (or, in the case of logic, how to apply rules, translate, etc.), and teaching students to think in a focused and critical way. I don't think the latter can be achieved purely by forcing the students to read philosophy which does this. They have to practice it themselves.

Anyway, this is not a post about how one should teach. This is a post about, I suppose, how others deal with this issue, suggestions, I don't know, I just wanted to see if anyone wanted to have a discussion about it.

Ice cream and the incompleteness of consequentialism

2010-04-08T10:33:00.007-06:00

While eating a bowl of ice cream in the FOB Salerno dining facility a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon an argument that, if sound, would show that all forms of consequentialism are incomplete and therefore false. A feature of the argument that I am particularly proud of is that it does not rely on moral intuitions and so it is not vulnerable to the usual bullet-biting responses. It is obviously ambitious so I put it forward cautiously with the hopes that it might make good paper-fodder one day. At the very least I hope whatever the argument lacks in cogency it makes up in pizzaz.

Here is how the argument goes:
1. If consequentialism is true, than either rule consequentialism or act consequentialism is true.
2. Rule consequentialism is not true because of the exception problem (i.e., to paraphrase Peter Railton, Why should I obey the ideal rules of utility maximization "though the stars fall?")
3. If act consequentialism is true, than it is always objectively best to perform act A when act A generates the most amount of good relative to other available acts.
4. When considering whether to engage in actions that are incrementally harmful, it is sometimes objectively best not to perform the act that generates the most good in order to obey a good-promoting general rule. So, there is at least one case in which acting according to a rule rather than an act is reasonable for non-epistemic considerations.
6. Act consequentialism is false. (3, 4 MT)
7. Both act and rule consequentialism are false. (3, 6 Conj.)
8. Consequentialism is false. (3, 7 MT)

The argument is valid; if the conclusion is false, one or more of the premises must also be false. Let's examine these premises now.

I give no argument for premise 1, though it seems to me that every kind of consequentialism I have encountered reduces to either act or rule consequentialism. Premise 2 admittedly only gives a presumptive reason against rule utilitarianism. It may be that some defenders of rule utilitarianism have thought of a response to the problem. All I want for my purposes here is to cast some initial doubt on the theory and I think this common objection suffices. I also take the premise 3 to be fairly uncontroversial.

It appears to me that premise 4 is the one that's doing the heavy lifting; if there is any funny stuff going on, it's probably here. Let me expand on it through an example before considering counter arguments.

Suppose I decide to eat a bowl of ice cream. The ice cream gives me ten utils of pleasure and adds, let's say, .1 pounds of undesirable weight (I stipulate that I would have ideal weight composition if I didn't eat any ice cream). Now, the consequentialist and I will agree that either the good outweighs the bad or it does not.
But consider what happens when we have a series of identical acts [I1, I2, I3... IN] Though each act in the series might have a positive gain in utility, the whole set could have a loss. This is admittedly counterintuitive, though I think it is born out by careful examination of our experiences. If, in deciding whether to have ice cream at the dining facility I ask myself, "Will eating this particular dessert lead to a gain or loss in pleasure?" It does appear the answer is always likely to be affirmative. If I state the question in the form of a general, "Will eating ice cream every meal lead to a net gain or loss in pleasure?" I am likely to answer in the negative.

A plausible consequentialist rejoinder:

The argument relies on faulty accounting. Clearly there must be some threshold, at which point the balance of utility (or whatever the currency of consequentialist good) changes from positive to negative. Now, asking the consequentialist to pinpoint the exact location of the pivot point is unreasonable because it is a very, very difficult empirical question. But to deny that there is an act which first crosses the threshold is simply to assert that the harms don't actually outweigh the goods, in which case there is no dilemma for the consequentialist.

Moreover, the act consequentialist is not committed to actually reasoning in an act-by-act manner, especially when there is evidence that reason in this way doesn't promote overall long run good. Peter Railton made this point very well when he noted that an evil demon that punished the world whenever people reasoned according to act utilitarian would pose no threat to the theory.

My rejoinder to the rejoinder:

First, the insistence that there must be a threshold begs the question in favor of consequentialism by simply denying the sorites-like nature of the examples I’m putting forward. Notice, if the consequentialist insists there is a threshold than he is making an existential claim, so the burden of proof lies with him.

Moreover, the question of where the threshold lies need not be an impossible empirical question, since all the empirical facts can be stipulated in the example. Surely, we can get some general description of what the threshold would look like when all the facts have been stipulated.

For example, suppose I have two blocks of uranium between two springs. I can press a button that will give me a dollar and also increase the tension on the springs. At some point, pressing the button will result in a nuclear explosion. How many button-presses it will take will be a very difficult empirical question for me to find out, but I can tell you what will happen when it does--there will be a very large explosion!

Also, even if it is the case that there is a threshold this does not mean the fourth premise of my argument is false. Consider sorites paradoxes, such as the one in which removing one hair from a person's head does not make a non-bald person bald. It seems clear that there is a threshold between baldness and non-baldness, but this is compatible with saying that the removal of one hair cannot make the difference between baldness and non-baldness. Couldn't it be the same in the example I give? That is, couldn't it be the case that there is a threshold but that no one act can change put the whole set over the threshold? If so, than it seems we must overlook the consequences of particular acts in order to abide by a general good-promoting policy.

As for Railton's "Kantian demon" example, it poses no threat to my argument because the account because he is still committed to what I spell out in premise 3. An agent may be forced not to reason act-consequentially for prudential reasons, but the theoretical reasons for action are compatible with my description in premise 3.

I conclude that neither kind of consequentialist theory can be complete--we must sometimes act considering a particular consequence and sometimes act according to a general rule. If rule and act consequentialism are jointly exhaustive for consequentialism, than consequentialism is false.

My constructive being complete, I now open myself up to cross-examination by my peers.

The Paradox of Indiscriminate Warfare: The Battle of Fallujah and the Charge of Genocide

2010-04-07T09:30:00.001-06:00

The following is a summary of a paper I am presenting at the First Annual Conference of the Institute for Genocide Awareness and Applied Research (IGAAR). The conference takes place at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale this weekend, April 9-10.

"Genocide" is one of the most powerful words that can be spoken in contemporary international affairs, one of the most serious allegations that can be lodged against a country. The specter of genocide often rises when we observe large-scale civilian casualties during a time of conflict.

One such conflict took place in late 2004 when the United States undertook a siege of Fallujah, Iraq. In that engagement, the United States was accused of employing white phosphorous (WP) munitions against the enemy. White phosphorous is a waxy substance used in explosive rounds as an illuminator and smoke screen. When exposed to air, white phosphorus forms phosphoric acid. If flakes of white phosphorus should alight on human skin, they cause chemical burns, and continue to burn through the flesh, unimpeded by water, and can melt straight through to the bone. Because of its horrific effects on people, the use of white phosphorous against combatants has been outlawed by the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, and the War Crimes Act. Its use against combatants is unquestionably illegal and immoral.

But the United States did employ white phosphorous in Iraq. After repeated denials, first-hand reports eventually surfaced in military magazines about the effectiveness of WP in anti-personnel missions. This forced the United States military to admit that WP was used "directly against Iraqi insurgents." Such an admission is tantamount to an admission of war crimes, though it was paired with the false assertion that "It’s perfectly legitimate to use [white phosphorus] against enemy combatants."

But, my concern is not with the legality of employing WP in the way that the United States did. What I am concerned with is parrying the allegations of genocide that followed that admission and the revelation that as many as 6,000 civilians were killed during the siege. The moral outrage of spectators was justified, but many of them crossed the Rubicon when they accused the United States of committing genocide in Fallujah.

For a city with an original population near 300,000, perhaps even a death toll of 6,000 does not raise the specter of mass murder as prominently as the accusers had thought. Because of this, many argued that the United States’ use of WP in Fallujah was one piece of evidence among many that combined to form a picture of genocidal ambitions in Iraq.

My contention is that these critics are ill-informed, and seem to be spurred on simply by the reports of casualties and the admittedly alarming revelations regarding the use of white phosphorus. Yet the use of chemical weapons is not sufficient for genocide, of course, and we will see why.

Article 2 of the UN’s Genocide Convention defines genocide as: "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:  (a) Killing members of the group;  (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group [etc.]..." It is important to note that genocide is an intentional action.

Meanwhile, white phosphorus, as was established earlier in this paper, is a fundamentally indiscriminate weapon. Its design is to produce a large cloud of smoke as an illuminant. Such a cloud can have a size of nearly 500 feet. It should be apparent, then, that insurgents are not discretely targeted with WP in any sense; for it cannot be reasonably believed that one can individuate targets from a distance, and guarantee that specific individuals will be affected by firing WP rounds.

It is this reasoning that leads me to the paradoxical conclusion that it is precisely white phosphorus' indiscriminate character that both raises concerns over genocide and precludes its use as constituting genocide. The fact that many people are indiscriminately killed leads to mass casualties, which in turn, combined with the taboo chemical nature of white phosphorous, leads many to cry out with the most powerful moral declaration at their disposal: genocide. But it is because no one can be effectively targeted with WP on the basis of ethnicity, religion, etc., that negates any such declaration. Only intentional, deliberate actions are vulnerable to the charge of genocide. Because the United States' use of white phosphorus in Fallujah could not have been employed to intentionally destroy a specific group, it was not genocidal.

On the other hand, we find many positive reasons to believe the United States was not committing genocide. Even the largest estimates of the casualties of the battle fall toward the lowest end of the range considered to be genocidal. Though there were some 50,000 citizens left in the city when the fighting began, the United States allowed the overwhelming majority of citizens – over 80% – to leave the city before they commenced hostilities, as well allowing humanitarian supplies to enter. These facts help dispel beliefs that the United States was conducting a bloodthirsty rampage through the city.

I believe it is unreasonable to allege that the United States committed genocide through its use of white phosphorus in the November, 2004 siege of Fallujah. But are we powerless as critics? Surely we are not unable to critique the use of this weapon in other ways, short of alleging genocide. In fact, the use of white phosphorus, which I reiterate was admitted by the United States military, violates a number of international treaties.

Obviously, the use of indiscriminate weaponry is immoral and objectionable for a number of reasons, and its unquestionable immorality has been codified by the treaties and conventions named above. Though, paradoxically, the waging of indiscriminate warfare excuses a country from the most severe allegation, i.e. genocide.

Perhaps this will be seen as a problem. Perhaps we ought to amend the definition of genocide to include unintentional actions under the jurisdiction of the Convention. But such a move would be rash. It is important, instead, to preserve the especially atrocious understanding of genocide as essentially the worst activity that a nation can engage in. Its intentionality is tied to its malicious and abominable character. And that character, which is thankfully rare in international affairs, should be attended by a definition that is applied accordingly sparsely.

We should also take time to chide bloggers, journalists, and critics who throw around the label of genocide as if it were synonymous with war crimes, or violations of the Geneva Conventions. Such behavior is irresponsible and intellectually dishonest. Even false allegations greatly undermine the moral standing of the United States military at home and abroad.

But, finally, we should reprimand nations that engage in indiscriminate warfare. If war can be justified, then the belligerents have a solemn duty to conduct war responsibly and constrainedly. Subscribing to the belief that all war is Hell, and therefore atrocious activities are unavoidable, threatens to turn life for every other person on earth into Hell as well.

Is metaphysics possible without synthetic a priori reasoning? (Part 1 of n)

2010-04-02T10:18:00.004-06:00

Consider the following inference: P is logically/semantically impossible (necessary); therefore, P is metaphysically impossible (necessary). Since neither the study of logic nor the study of semantics requires the synthetic a priori, it would seem that, if valid, this inference could be put to good use in the defense of a genuine empirical metaphysics. Though initially it looks promising, I do not believe that it is of any help.

I shall start with a quick explanation of the relevant modal concepts. Logic gives us a notion of formal consistency. A formal system implies that contradictory sets of propositions are impossible, but, since it lacks content, it doesn’t do much else for the pursuit of metaphysics. This problem is remedied by adding meanings to terms in a formal language. This is the role of a semantics, which gives rise to a new concept—semantical consistency. For example, in natural English the proposition is semantically consistent, but the proposition is semantically inconsistent. Logical/semantical possibility is just the intersection (the overlap) of formal and semantical consistency.

How is the concept of logical/semantical possibility related to metaphysical possibility—that is, genuine possibility, or possibility simpliciter? Metaphysical possibility might, for all we know, just be logical/semantical possibility. But it won’t do to stipulate that they are one and the same. For one, this would simply be to stipulate a reductive solution to a substantive metaphysical issue. More importantly, however, there are different logics and different semantics, and it won’t do to have multiple types of metaphysical possibility.

Though the question of which system of logic is correct is interesting and relevant, I shall focus on semantical issues. For our purposes, there are two relevant semantics: internalism and externalism. They are distinguished with respect to their position on the matter of epistemic access to meanings. One has direct epistemic access to a meaning iff one can, in principle, know everything there is to know about that meaning merely by examining the content of one’s mind. Internalism holds that language users have direct epistemic access to all the meanings of their language.[1] The basic reason is that meanings are internal to one’s mind; in some sense, meanings are mind-dependent. Externalism holds that language users do not have direct epistemic access to all the meanings of their language. The basic reason is that some meanings are, in a strong sense, mind-independent. Though language users possess the power to fix the reference or meaning of a term, they are not responsible for determining the nature of the referent (which just is the meaning).

According to internalism, semantics is “prior” to metaphysics. Frege famously thought that sense determines reference. Language users create the content of their language; reference occurs in virtue of the content. On the other hand, according to externalism, objects in the world—including metaphysical objects—are “prior” to semantics. External objects are the content of language. Thus the nature of meanings depends on the nature of external objects.

With the background in place, we may now return to the question of whether one can make inferences from logical/semantical modality to metaphysical modality. The inference in question has two requirements. First, we must stand in a privileged epistemic relation to logical/semantical modality; this is required in order to deduce that a given proposition is impossible (necessary). Second, logical/semantical possibility and metaphysical possibility must stand in a particular logical relation—namely, the latter must correspond to a set of worlds that is a subset of the former; otherwise, the inference would be invalid.

I’ll start by considering externalism. The benefit of externalism is that it can explain how logical/semantical and metaphysical modality stand in the right sort of logical relation. It achieves this because logical/semantical possibility depends on metaphysical possibility. There cannot be a meaningful term (in the relevant sense) that refers to an impossible object. Thus the scope of logical/semantical possibility is restricted by that which is metaphysically possible. Unfortunately, the feature of externalism that allows it to explain the logical relation between the two classes is precisely that which precludes it from explaining how language users can stand in the required privileged epistemic relation to their semantics. Given an externalist semantics, understanding a(n external) concept amounts to understanding its referent. For example, understanding the concept of causation amounts to understanding causation itself. If we could do this, we wouldn’t need the semantics to arrive at an understanding of metaphysics. Externalism does not, on its own, preclude the possibility of understanding metaphysical concepts, but it does preclude the possibility of understanding these concepts through an examination of the concepts themselves. The reason, as stated earlier, is that the objects are prior to the concepts. Therefore, if externalism is correct, although the inference from logical/semantical possibility may be valid, it cannot be put to any use in coming to new metaphysical knowledge.

The benefit of internalism is that, unlike externalism, it holds that language users have direct epistemic access to their concepts; thus, these concepts can be properly analyzed for analytical connections. Thus internalism solves the problem of explaining the epistemic relation between language users and their semantics. However, internalism cannot explain the logical relation that holds between logical/semantical and metaphysical modality. How could it? Language users hold final responsibility for the nature of their concepts; the world doesn’t. So why should we think that the world properly satisfies our concepts? There seems to be nothing in the internalist semantics that allows for one to determine which logical connection holds between logical/semantical and metaphysical modality. (If you are aware of a feature that does allow for this, let me know!) There is more to be said here, but for our purposes I shall assume that the problem for internalism is more or less clear.

In sum, it appears that both externalism and internalism fail to satisfy both criteria. Since internalism and externalism are jointly exhaustive, it would appear that a genuine empirical metaphysics must do without this form of inference.

[1] There are, of course, different uses of ‘internalism’ and ‘externalism’, but this particular usage makes the distinction mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive, and is, I believe, amenable to my later arguments.

Welcome

2010-04-01T15:35:00.010-06:00

Welcome to Rocky Mountain Phi, the CU-Boulder philosophy blog. The purpose of this blog is to provide a place where philosophical ideas that are not (yet) suitable for a paper/conference/journal can be kicked around. If you have any philosophy to discuss, feel free to create a new post, and tell us about your ideas.

Permissions work as follows: Only CU philosophy graduate students can create new posts. Anyone can comment on the posts. Anyone can read the blog. To reiterate, this blog is publicly accessible.

We're lucky to have Tyler Hildebrand as our inaugural poster.

Let's get to it.

Rocky Mountain Phi

intrinsic magnitudes and value

Risking Lives to Save Lives

Is it Irrational to be Immoral? I think so.

Philosophical Currency

There Ought to Be More Women

A Test for the Semantic Contents of Some Aesthetic Judgments

What Dan's Students Believe

"Begging the Question"

Willard van Orman Quine, Evil Genius

Guest Post: David Barnett

How not to argue against relativism and subjectivism

How We Should Grade

How Are Religion and Science Supposed to Conflict?

How is philosophy an a priori discipline?

Atheism, Theism, and Choice

what I wish I had posted on what it's like to be a woman in philosophy:

A Perfectly Biblical Argument Against DADT

Should we take candy from babies?

How would you define Analytic Metaphysics?

Does the categorical imperative generate a contradiction of the will?

A Teaching Frustration

Check Out What This Student Wrote...

Obtain and Instantiate

converse relations and coextensive properties

Mistaken Emotions

Is a Willingness to Compromise a Political Position?

Epistemic Possibility

What My Students Believe

Justification and Truth

*VALIDITY*

If Alastair's right are all things permissible?

A PUZZLE

Governing Humeanism

Normativity and Naturalism

Flow experience and Mill’s qualitative distinction among pleasures

knowledge as a natural kind?

Grammatically Incorrect Identity Claim?

What is the postmodern truth relativist talking about?

Logic and Metaphysics, Carnap and Heidegger

Stock Ownership in Marginal Cases

Consequentialism is False?

Is it wrong to use Adderall?

Indeterminacy?

What Are We To Do About Truth?

Teaching "Distractions"

Ice cream and the incompleteness of consequentialism

The Paradox of Indiscriminate Warfare: The Battle of Fallujah and the Charge of Genocide

Is metaphysics possible without synthetic a priori reasoning? (Part 1 of n)

Welcome

VALIDITY