Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- Ethics (4)
- Morality (4)
- Book reviews (3)
- Authority (2)
- Autonomy (2)
-
- Conventions (2)
- David Gauthier (2)
- Depression (2)
- Honor (2)
- Mental Disorders (2)
- Moral Aspects (2)
- Nonprofit Organizations (2)
- Personality Disorders (2)
- Plato (2)
- Property (2)
- Signaling (2)
- Social norms (2)
- Virtue (2)
- A priori (1)
- AIDS (1)
- Act-omission (1)
- Acting on One’s Own (1)
- Action (1)
- Activism (1)
- Adam Smith (1)
- Alternative Possibilities (1)
- Ancient ethics (1)
- Applicability of mathematics (1)
- Asymmetry (1)
- Bad Norms (1)
Articles 1 - 30 of 65
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Self-Inflicted Frankfurt-Style Cases And Flickers Of Freedom, Michael Robinson
Self-Inflicted Frankfurt-Style Cases And Flickers Of Freedom, Michael Robinson
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
According to the most popular versions of the flicker defense, Frankfurt-style cases fail to undermine the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) because agents in these cases are (directly) morally responsible not for making the decisions they make but for making these decisions on their own, which is something they could have avoided doing. Frankfurt defenders have primarily focused on trying to show that the alternative possibility of refraining from making the relevant decisions on their own is not a robust alternative, while generally granting that this alternative cannot easily be eliminated from successful cases of this sort. In a …
Flickering The W-Defense, Michael Robinson
Flickering The W-Defense, Michael Robinson
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
One way to defend the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) against Frankfurt-style cases is to challenge the claim that agents in these scenarios are genuinely morally responsible for what they do. Alternatively, one can grant that agents are morally responsible for what they do in these cases but resist the idea that they could not have done otherwise. This latter strategy is known as the flicker defense of PAP. In an argument he calls the W-Defense, David Widerker adopts the former approach. I argue that, while Widerker's argument does a poor job showing that these agents are not morally responsible …
When Do Parts Form Wholes? Integrated Information As The Restriction On Mereological Composition, Kelvin J. Mcqueen, Naotsugu Tsuchiya
When Do Parts Form Wholes? Integrated Information As The Restriction On Mereological Composition, Kelvin J. Mcqueen, Naotsugu Tsuchiya
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Under what conditions are material objects, such as particles, parts of a whole object? This is the composition question and is a longstanding open question in philosophy. Existing attempts to specify a non-trivial restriction on composition tend to be vague and face serious counterexamples. Consequently, two extreme answers have become mainstream: composition (the forming of a whole by its parts) happens under no or all conditions. In this paper, we provide a self-contained introduction to the integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness. We show that IIT specifies a non-trivial restriction on composition: composition happens when integrated information is maximized. We …
Keeping Promises To Supererogate, Michael Robinson
Keeping Promises To Supererogate, Michael Robinson
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Promises to perform supererogatory actions present an interesting puzzle. On the one hand, this seems like a promise that one should be able to keep simply by performing some good deed or other. On the other hand, the only way to keep it is to do something that exceeds one’s duties. But any good deed that one performs, which might otherwise have been supererogatory, will not go above and beyond what one is morally required to do in such a case because one has an obligation that one does not normally have—namely, an obligation to do something supererogatory. Thus, some …
Now It’S Personal: From Me To Mine To Property Rights, David Shoemaker, Bas Van Der Vossen
Now It’S Personal: From Me To Mine To Property Rights, David Shoemaker, Bas Van Der Vossen
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Philosophical theories of property rights struggle to adequately explain the moral significance of ownership. We propose that the moral significance of property rights is due to the intersection of what we call "the extended self” and conventionally protected rights claims. The latter, drawing on conventionalist accounts of property rights, explains the social nature and flexibility of property. The former, drawing on naturalist theories, explains their personal nature. The upshot is that we find at this intersection the full moral significance of property.
A Question Of Fundamental Methodology: Reply To Mikhail Katz And His Coauthors, Tom Archibald, Richard T. W. Arthur, Giovanni Ferraro, Jeremy Gray, Douglas Jesseph, Jesper Lützen, Marco Panza, David Rabouin, Gert Schubring
A Question Of Fundamental Methodology: Reply To Mikhail Katz And His Coauthors, Tom Archibald, Richard T. W. Arthur, Giovanni Ferraro, Jeremy Gray, Douglas Jesseph, Jesper Lützen, Marco Panza, David Rabouin, Gert Schubring
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
This paper is a response by several historians of mathematics to a series of papers published from 2012 onwards by Mikhail Katz and various co-authors, the latest of which was recently published in the Mathematical Intelligencer, “Two-Track Depictions of Leibniz’s Fictions” (Katz, Kuhlemann, Sherry, Ugaglia, and van Atten, 2021). At issue is a question of fundamental methodology. These authors take for granted that non-standard analysis provides the correct framework for historical interpretation of the calculus, and castigate rival interpretations as having had a deleterious effect on the philosophy, practice, and applications of mathematics. Rather than make this case by reasoned …
Plato’S Market Optimism, Brennan Mcdavid
Plato’S Market Optimism, Brennan Mcdavid
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Despite the extensiveness of top-down control in his ideal city, Plato takes seriously the idea that the market does not require total regulation via legislation and that participants in the market may be capable of self-regulation. This paper examines the discussion of market regulation in the Republic and argues that the philosopher rulers play a very limited role in regulating market activities. Indeed, they are concerned only with averting excesses of wealth and poverty. The rules and regulations that are foundational to the daily functioning of the market – enforcement of contracts, resolution of disputes, etc. – are endogenous to …
“Meddling In The Work Of Another”: Πολυπραγμονεῖν In Plato’S Republic, Brennan Mcdavid
“Meddling In The Work Of Another”: Πολυπραγμονεῖν In Plato’S Republic, Brennan Mcdavid
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
The second conjunct of the Republic’s account of justice—that justice is “not meddling in the work of another”—has been neglected in Plato literature. This paper argues that the conjunct does more work than merely reiterating the content of the first conjunct—that justice is “doing one’s own work.” I argue that Socrates develops the concept at work in this conjunct from its introduction with the Principle of Specialization in Book II to its final deployment in the finished conception of justice in Book IV. Crucial to that concept’s development is the way in which the notion of “another” comes to …
Hume’S Politics And Four Dimensions Of Realism, Keith Hankins, John Thrasher
Hume’S Politics And Four Dimensions Of Realism, Keith Hankins, John Thrasher
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Debates between realists and idealists in contemporary political theory have been confused by a tendency to conflate several distinct methodological theses. This article distinguishes between four dimensions of realism and shows how a novel reading of Hume’s politics can help us make sense of the importance of these theses and the relationships between them. More specifically, we argue that a theory we call normative conventionalism can be distilled from two of Hume’s more surprising and controversial essays, “The Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth” and “That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science.” This theory views norms and institutions as conventional …
Consent To Unjust Institutions, Bas Van Der Vossen
Consent To Unjust Institutions, Bas Van Der Vossen
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
John Rawls wrote that people can voluntarily acquire political obligations to institutions only on the condition that those institutions are at least reasonably just. When an institution is seriously unjust, by contrast, attempts to create political obligation are “void ab initio.” However, Rawls's own explanation for this thought was deeply problematic, as are the standard alternatives. In this paper, I offer an argument for why Rawls's intuition was right and trace its implications for theories of authority and political obligation. These, I claim, are more radical than is often thought.
Smithian Sympathy And The Emergence Of Norms, Keith Hankins
Smithian Sympathy And The Emergence Of Norms, Keith Hankins
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Adam Smith's impartial spectator and David Hume's general point of view have much in common, as do their moral theories more generally. However, this paper argues that a distinctive feature of Smith's theory—the pleasure of mutual sympathy—allows Smith to better explain a number of important features of norms. In particular, it provides Smith with a more plausible mechanism for explaining how norms emerge, and offers him a richer set of resources for explaining both why we are attracted to norms and why norms are often characterized by local similarity and global diversity. Rather than merely being a matter of historical …
Asymmetry And Symmetry Of Acts And Omissions In Punishment, Norms, And Judged Causality, Toby Handfield, John Thrasher, Andrew Corcoran, Shaun Nichols
Asymmetry And Symmetry Of Acts And Omissions In Punishment, Norms, And Judged Causality, Toby Handfield, John Thrasher, Andrew Corcoran, Shaun Nichols
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Harmful acts are punished more often and more harshly than harmful omissions. This asymmetry has variously been ascribed to differences in how individuals perceive the causal responsibility of acts versus omissions and to social norms that tend to proscribe acts more frequently than omissions. This paper examines both of these hypotheses, in conjunction with a new hypothesis: that acts are punished more than omissions because it is usually more efficient to do so. In typical settings, harms occur as a result of relatively few harmful actions, but many individuals may have had the opportunity to prevent or rectify the harm. …
Trusting In Order To Inspire Trustworthiness, Michael Pace
Trusting In Order To Inspire Trustworthiness, Michael Pace
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
This paper explores the epistemology and moral psychology of “therapeutic trust,” in which one trusts with the aim of inspiring greater trust-responsiveness in the trusted. Theorists have appealed to alleged cases of rational therapeutic trust to show that trust can be adopted for broadly moral or practical reasons and to motivate accounts of trust that do not involve belief or confidence in someone’s trustworthiness. Some conclude from the cases that trust consists in having normative expectations and adopting vulnerabilities with respect to the trusted; others that trust involves accepting (without necessarily believing) that someone will prove trustworthy. Although there are, …
As Good As 'Enough And As Good', Bas Van Der Vossen
As Good As 'Enough And As Good', Bas Van Der Vossen
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
The Lockean theory of property licenses unilateral appropriation on the condition that there be ‘enough, and as good left in common for others’. However, the meaning of this proviso is all but clear. This article argues that the proviso is centered around the Lockean theory of freedom. To be free, I argue, we must be ‘non-subjected’ in the exercise of our rights, including our rights to appropriate. We enjoy such freedom only when the ability to exercise our rights does not depend on others. That can obtain if literally enough and as good is left in common. But it can …
Agreeing To Disagree: Diversity, Political Contractualism, And The Open Society, John Thrasher
Agreeing To Disagree: Diversity, Political Contractualism, And The Open Society, John Thrasher
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Political contractualism is important in societies characterized by substantial moral and political disagreement and diversity. The very disagreement that makes the social contract necessary, however, also makes agreement difficult. Call this the paradox of diversity, which is the result of a tension between two necessary conditions of political contractualism: existence and stability. The first involves showing the possibility of some agreement, while the second involves showing that the agreement can persist. To solve both of these problems, I develop a multilevel contract theory that I call the “open society” model of political contractualism that incorporates diversity into the contractual model …
Academic Activism Revisited, Bas Van Der Vossen
Academic Activism Revisited, Bas Van Der Vossen
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Academics are, or ought to be, engaged in an impartial search for the truth. Many academics also are, but ought not to be, engaged in political activism. I defend a moral duty for academics to refrain from such activism. Ben Jones’ article in this journal rejects such a duty. This article responds to his objections, thereby more carefully formulating when and why political activism is morally problematic, and what burdens it may imply.
Reformulating Bell's Theorem: The Search For A Truly Local Quantum Theory, Mordecai Waegell, Kelvin J. Mcqueen
Reformulating Bell's Theorem: The Search For A Truly Local Quantum Theory, Mordecai Waegell, Kelvin J. Mcqueen
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
The apparent nonlocality of quantum theory has been a persistent concern. Einstein et al. (1935) and Bell (1964) emphasized the apparent nonlocality arising from entanglement correlations. While some interpretations embrace this nonlocality, modern variations of the Everett-inspired many worlds interpretation try to circumvent it. In this paper, we review Bell's “no-go” theorem and explain how it rests on three axioms, local causality, no superdeterminism, and one world. Although Bell is often taken to have shown that local causality is ruled out by the experimentally confirmed entanglement correlations, we make clear that it is the conjunction of the …
On Minimal Morality, John Thrasher
On Minimal Morality, John Thrasher
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
"For many years, Michael Moehler has been one of the most original and thoughtful political and moral philosophers around. He is perhaps the most straightforward and full‐throated defender of what Gerald Gaus (2011) has called 'orthodox instrumentalism.' From this, Moehler develops two interesting results: a Kantian flavored theory of justice and a novel, multilevel contractarian theory of social morality. In these short comments, I will discuss what I take to be the core of Moehler's theory and then raise some questions and challenges to that theory."
The Problem Of Self-Ownership, Bas Van Der Vossen, David Schmidtz
The Problem Of Self-Ownership, Bas Van Der Vossen, David Schmidtz
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
"It would be strange to hear people saying 'It’s my self.' The self per se isn’t normally a contested possession. By contrast, what is normal, and so familiar that most readers can probably remember asserting such a thing themselves once upon a time, is the assertion 'It’s my life.' How we live our lives can be, and often is, contested."
Political Philosophy As Love Of Wisdom, Bas Van Der Vossen
Political Philosophy As Love Of Wisdom, Bas Van Der Vossen
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
The traditional view holds that political philosophy should aim at the truth. By contrast, Avner de Shalit argues that political philosophers should do something different. According to him, they should work in direct consultation with “the people” in order to think through their theories about political institutions. This article defends the traditional aim of truth-seeking and shows the mistakes in De Shalit’s alternative approach
Two Of A Kind: Are Norms Of Honor A Species Of Morality?, Toby Handfield, John Thrasher
Two Of A Kind: Are Norms Of Honor A Species Of Morality?, Toby Handfield, John Thrasher
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Should the norms of honor cultures be classified as a variety of morality? In this paper, we address this question by considering various empirical bases on which norms can be taxonomically organised. This question is of interest both as an exercise in philosophy of social science, and for its potential implications in meta-ethical debates. Using recent data from anthropology and evolutionary game theory, we argue that the most productive classification emphasizes the strategic role that moral norms play in generating assurance and stabilizing cooperation. Because honor norms have a similar functional role, this account entails honor norms are indeed a …
Self-Ownership As Personal Sovereignty, John Thrasher
Self-Ownership As Personal Sovereignty, John Thrasher
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Self-ownership has fallen out of favor as a core moral and political concept. I argue that this is because the most popular conception of self-ownership, what I call the property conception, is typically linked to a libertarian (of the left or right) political program. Seeing self-ownership and libertarianism as being necessarily linked leads those who are not inclined toward libertarianism to reject the idea of self-ownership altogether. This, I argue, is mistaken. Self-ownership is a crucial moral and political concept that can earn its keep if we understand it not as type of property right in the self, but rather …
Illusionist Integrated Information Theory, Kelvin J. Mcqueen
Illusionist Integrated Information Theory, Kelvin J. Mcqueen
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
The integrated information theory (IIT) is a promising theory of consciousness. However, there are several problems with IIT's axioms and postulates. Moreover, IIT entails that some twodimensional grids of identical logic gates have more consciousness than humans. Many have found this prediction to be implausible, and as will be argued here, this prediction also exacerbates the so-called 'hard problem of consciousness'. Recently, it has been argued that if we treat the phenomenological aspects of consciousness as an illusion (illusionism), we can avoid the hard problem altogether by replacing it with the more tractable illusion problem: the problem of explaining how …
Frege's Constraint And The Nature Of Frege's Foundational Program, Marco Panza, Andrea Sereni
Frege's Constraint And The Nature Of Frege's Foundational Program, Marco Panza, Andrea Sereni
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Recent discussions on Fregean and neo-Fregean foundations for arithmetic and real analysis pay much attention to what is called either ‘Application Constraint’ ( ) or ‘Frege Constraint’ ( ), the requirement that a mathematical theory be so outlined that it immediately allows explaining for its applicability. We distinguish between two constraints, which we, respectively, denote by the latter of these two names, by showing how generalizes Frege’s views while comes closer to his original conceptions. Different authors diverge on the interpretation of and on whether it applies to definitions of both natural and real numbers. Our aim is to trace …
Evaluating Bad Norms, John Thrasher
Evaluating Bad Norms, John Thrasher
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
Some norms are bad. Norms of revenge, female genital mutilation, honor killings, and other norms strike us as destructive, cruel, and wasteful. The puzzle is why so many people see these norms as authoritative and why these norms often resist change. To answer these questions, we need to look at what “bad” norms are and how we can evaluate them. Here I develop an integrative analysis of norms that aims to avoid parochialism in norm evaluation. After examining and rejecting several evaluative standards, I propose what I call a comparative-functional analysis of norms that is both operationalizable/testable and nonparochial, and …
In Defence Of The Self-Location Uncertainty Account Of Probability In The Many-Worlds Interpretation, Kelvin J. Mcqueen, Lev Vaidman
In Defence Of The Self-Location Uncertainty Account Of Probability In The Many-Worlds Interpretation, Kelvin J. Mcqueen, Lev Vaidman
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
We defend the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (MWI) against the objection that it cannot explain why measurement outcomes are predicted by the Born probability rule. We understand quantum probabilities in terms of an observer's self-location probabilities. We formulate a probability postulate for the MWI: the probability of self-location in a world with a given set of outcomes is the absolute square of that world's amplitude. We provide a proof of this postulate, which assumes the quantum formalism and two principles concerning symmetry and locality. We also show how a structurally similar proof of the Born rule is available for …
Honor And Violence: An Account Of Feuds, Duels, And Honor Killings, John Thrasher, Toby Handfield
Honor And Violence: An Account Of Feuds, Duels, And Honor Killings, John Thrasher, Toby Handfield
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
We present a theory of honor violence as a form of costly signaling. Two types of honor violence are identified: revenge and purification. Both types are amenable to a signaling analysis whereby the violent behavior is a signal that can be used by out-groups to draw inferences about the nature of the signaling group, thereby helping to solve perennial problems of social cooperation: deterrence and assurance. The analysis shows that apparently gratuitous acts of violence can be part of a system of norms that are Pareto superior to alternatives without such signals. For societies that lack mechanisms of governance to …
The Price Of Sociality, John Thrasher
The Price Of Sociality, John Thrasher
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
A review of Jonathan Birch's The Philosophy of Social Evolution, published by Oxford University Press.
Greenbeards And Signaling: Why Morality Isn't Indispensable, Toby Handfield, John Thrasher, Julian García
Greenbeards And Signaling: Why Morality Isn't Indispensable, Toby Handfield, John Thrasher, Julian García
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
We argue that although objectivist moral attitudes may facilitate cooperation, they are not necessary for the high levels of cooperation in humans. This is implied by evolutionary models that articulate a mechanism underlying Stanford's account, and is also suggested by the ability of merely conventional social norms to explain extreme human behaviors.
Political Stability In The Open Society, John Thrasher, Kevin Vallier
Political Stability In The Open Society, John Thrasher, Kevin Vallier
Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research
We argue that the Rawlsian description of a just liberal society, the well‐ordered society, fails to accommodate deep disagreement and is insufficiently dynamic. In response, we formulate an alternative model that we call the open society, organized around a new account of dynamic stability. In the open society, constitutional rules must be stable enough to preserve social conditions that foster experimentation, while leaving room in legal and institutional rules for innovation and change. Systemic robustness and dynamic stability become important for the open society in a way that they are not in the well‐ordered society. This model of the open …