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- Refugee; political obligation; gratitude; fairness; Simmons; Nozick; Rawls; Hart; Card (1)
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Articles 1 - 18 of 18
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Epistemic Categories And Causal Kinds, P.D. Magnus
Epistemic Categories And Causal Kinds, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Within philosophy of science, debates about realism often turn on whether posited entities exist or whether scientific claims are true. Natural kinds tend to be investigated by philosophers of language or metaphysicians, for whom semantic or ontological considerations can overshadow scientific ones. Since science crucially involves dividing the world up into categories of things, however, issues concerning classification ought to be central for philosophy of science. Muhammad Ali Khalidi's book fills that gap, and I commend it to readers with an interest in scientific taxonomy and natural kinds. He works through general issues to craft a useful philosophical conception and …
Science And Rationality For One And All, P.D. Magnus
Science And Rationality For One And All, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
A successful scientific community might require different scientists to form different beliefs even when faced with the same evidence. The standard line is that this would create a conflict between the demands of collective rationality which scientists face as members of the community and the demands of individual rationality which they face as epistemic agents. This is expressed both by philosophers of science (working on the distribution of cognitive labor) and by epistemologists (working on the epistemology of disagreement). The standard line fails to take into account the relation between rational belief and various epistemic risks, values of which are …
Are Digital Pictures Allographic?, Jason R. D'Cruz, P.D. Magnus
Are Digital Pictures Allographic?, Jason R. D'Cruz, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Nelson Goodman's distinction between autographic and allographic arts is appealing, we suggest, because it promises to resolve several prima facie puzzles. We consider and rebut a recent argument that alleges that digital images explode the autographic/allographic distinction. Regardless, there is another familiar problem with the distinction, especially as Goodman formulates it: it seems to entirely ignore an important sense in which all artworks are historical. We note in reply that some artworks can be considered both as historical products and as formal structures. Talk about such works is ambiguous between the two conceptions. This allows us to recover Goodman's distinction: …
Nk≠Hpc, P.D. Magnus
Nk≠Hpc, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
The Homeostatic Property Cluster (HPC) account of natural kinds has become popular since it was proposed by Richard Boyd in the late 1980s. Although it is often taken to define natural kinds as such, it is easy enough to see that something's being a natural kind is neither necessary nor sufficient for its being an HPC. This paper argues that it is better not to understand HPCs as defining what it is to be a natural kind but instead as providing the ontological realization of (some) natural kinds.
The Wax And The Mechanical Mind: Reexamining Hobbes’S Objections To Descartes’S Meditations, Marcus P. Adams
The Wax And The Mechanical Mind: Reexamining Hobbes’S Objections To Descartes’S Meditations, Marcus P. Adams
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Many critics, Descartes himself included, have seen Hobbes as uncharitable or even incoherent in his Objections to the Meditations on First Philosophy. I argue that when understood within the wider context of his views of the late 1630s and early 1640s, Hobbes's Objections are coherent and reflect his goal of providing an epistemology consistent with a mechanical philosophy. I demonstrate the importance of this epistemology for understanding his Fourth Objection concerning the nature of the wax and contend that Hobbes's brief claims in that Objection are best understood as a summary of the mechanism for scientific knowledge found in his …
Gratitude And Displacement: The Political Obligations Of Refugees, Jason R. D'Cruz
Gratitude And Displacement: The Political Obligations Of Refugees, Jason R. D'Cruz
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
On what basis, and to what extent, are refugees obligated to obey the laws of their host countries? Consideration of the specific case of asylum-seekers generates, I think, two competing intuitions: (1) the refugee has a prima facie obligation to obey the laws of her host country and (2) none of the popularly canvassed substrates of political obligation—consent, tacit consent, fairness, or social role—is at all apt to explain the presence of this obligation. I contend that the unfashionable gratitude account of political obligation does the best job of accounting for the intuitions. As has been noticed by other commentators, …
Displacement And Gratitude: Accounting For The Political Obligation Of Refugees, Jason R. D'Cruz
Displacement And Gratitude: Accounting For The Political Obligation Of Refugees, Jason R. D'Cruz
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
On what basis, and to what extent, are refugees obligated to obey the laws of their host countries? Consideration of the specific case of asylum-seekers generates, I think, two competing intuitions: (1) the refugee has a prima facie obligation to obey the laws of her host country and (2) none of the popularly canvassed substrates of political obligation*consent, tacit consent, fairness, or social role*is at all apt to explain the presence of this obligation. I contend that the unfashionable gratitude account of political obligation does the best job of accounting for the intuitions. As has been noticed by other commentators, …
Hobbes, Definitions, And Simplest Conceptions, Marcus P. Adams
Hobbes, Definitions, And Simplest Conceptions, Marcus P. Adams
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Several recent commentators argue that Thomas Hobbes’s account of the nature of science is conventionalist. Engaging in scientific practice on a conventionalist account is more a matter of making sure one connects one term to another properly rather than checking one’s claims, e.g., by experiment. In this paper, I argue that the conventionalist interpretation of Hobbesian science accords neither with Hobbes’s theoretical account in De corpore and Leviathan nor with Hobbes’s scientific practice in De homine and elsewhere. Closely tied to the conventionalist interpretation is the deductivist interpretation, on which it is claimed that Hobbes believed sciences such as optics …
On The Semantic Expression Of Mental Acts, William Grimes
On The Semantic Expression Of Mental Acts, William Grimes
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
In this unpublished manuscript, the author aims to provide "a concept of the language of the semantic expression of mental acts" based on the insights both of ordinary language philosophy and logical reconstruction.
No Grist For Mill On Natural Kinds, P.D. Magnus
No Grist For Mill On Natural Kinds, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
According to the standard narrative, natural kind is a technical notion that was introduced by John Stuart Mill in the 1840s and the recent craze for natural kinds, launched by Putnam and Kripke, is a continuation of that tradition. I argue that the standard narrative is mistaken. The Millian tradition of kinds was not particularly influential in the 20th century, and the Putnam-Kripke revolution did not clearly engage with even the remnants that were left of it. The presently active tradition of natural kinds is less than half a century old. Recognizing this might help us better appreciate both Mill …
Friends With Benefits! Distributed Cognition Hooks Up Cognitive And Social Conceptions Of Science, P.D. Magnus, Ron Mcclamrock
Friends With Benefits! Distributed Cognition Hooks Up Cognitive And Social Conceptions Of Science, P.D. Magnus, Ron Mcclamrock
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
One approach to science treats science as a cognitive accomplishment of individuals and so defines a scientific community as an aggregate of individual enquirers. Another treats science as a fundamentally collective endeavor and so defines a scientist as a member of a scientific community. Distributed cognition has been offered as a framework that could be used to reconcile these two approaches. Adam Toon has recently asked if the cognitive and the social can be friends at last. He answers that they probably cannot, posing objections to the would-be rapprochement. We clarify both the animosity and the tonic proposed to resolve …
Coercion, Legitimacy, And Individual Freedom, Nicole Hassoun
Coercion, Legitimacy, And Individual Freedom, Nicole Hassoun
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
In “World Poverty and Individual Freedom” (WPIF) I argue that the global order – because it is coercive – is obligated to do what it can to ensure that its subjects are capable of autonomously agreeing to its rule. This requires helping them meet their basic needs. In “World Poverty and Not Respecting Individual Freedom Enough” Jorn Sonderholm asserts that this argument is invalid and unsound, in part, because it is too demanding. This article explains why Sonderholm’s critique is mistaken and misses the main point of WPIF’s argument. It also explains why WPIF is important -- it can address …
Global Justice And Charity: A Brief For A New Approach To Empirical Philosophyi, Nicole Hassoun
Global Justice And Charity: A Brief For A New Approach To Empirical Philosophyi, Nicole Hassoun
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
What does global justice or charity requires us to give to other people? There is a large theoretical literature on this question. There is much less experimental work in political philosophy relevant to answering it. Perhaps for this reason, this literature has yet to have any major impact on theoretical discussions of global justice or charity. There is, however, some experimental research in behavioral economics that has helped to shape the field and a few relevant studies by political philosophers. This paper reviews this research. Moreover, it argues that the little work that has been done can offer some methodological …
An Aspect Of Variable Population Poverty Comparisons: Does Adding A Rich Person To A Population Reduce Poverty?, Nicole Hassoun
An Aspect Of Variable Population Poverty Comparisons: Does Adding A Rich Person To A Population Reduce Poverty?, Nicole Hassoun
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Poverty indexes are essential for monitoring poverty, setting targets for poverty reduction, and tracking progress on these goals. This paper suggests that further justification is necessary for using the main poverty indexes in the literature in any of these ways. It does so by arguing that poverty should not decline with the mere addition of a rich person to a population and showing that the standard indexes do not satisfy this axiom. It, then, suggests a way of modifying these indexes to avoid this problem
A Thoreauvian Account Of Prudential Value, Christopher Morgan-Knapp
A Thoreauvian Account Of Prudential Value, Christopher Morgan-Knapp
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
This article develops and defends an account of prudential value and disvalue that is constructed out of ideas found in Thoreau’s Walden. The core claim is that prudential value consists in responding appropriately to those things that make the world better, and that prudential disvalue consists in encountering those things that make it worse. The core argument is that responding appropriately to objective value and avoiding objective disvalue are our aims in so far as we are evaluative creatures, and that our evaluative nature is fundamental in the context of inquiring into our own good. I conclude by discussing respects …
Institutional Theories And International Development, Nicole Hassoun
Institutional Theories And International Development, Nicole Hassoun
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
A recent trend in international development circles is ‘New Institutionalism’. In a slogan, the idea is just that good institutions matter. The slogan itself is so innocuous as to be hardly worth comment. But the push to improve institutional quality has the potential to have a much less innocuous impact on aid efforts and other aspects of international development. This paper provides a critical introduction to some of the literature on institutional quality. It looks, in particular, at an argument for the conclusion that making aid conditional on good institutional quality will promote development by reducing poverty. This paper suggests …
Raz On The Right To Autonomy, Nicole Hassoun
Raz On The Right To Autonomy, Nicole Hassoun
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
In The Morality of Freedom, Joseph Raz argues against a right to autonomy. This argument helps to distinguish his theory from his competitors'. For, many liberal theories ground such a right. Some even defend entirely autonomy-based accounts of rights. This paper suggests that Raz's argument against a right to autonomy raises an important dilemma for his larger theory. Unless his account of rights is limited in some way, Raz's argument applies against almost all (purported) rights, not just a right to autonomy. But, on the traditional way of limiting accounts like his, Raz's account actually supports the conclusion that …
When Words Do Things: Perlocutions And Affordances For Social Action, Charles Lassiter
When Words Do Things: Perlocutions And Affordances For Social Action, Charles Lassiter
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
When my spouse once asked me ‘Where’s the milk?’ I thought that my answer ‘In the refrigerator’ was fine. Turns out, I was less helpful than I thought I was. The intended effect of my utterance turned out to be different from what it actually brought about. This feature of utterances is especially salient in discussions of perlocutionary acts, which are utterances that cause an effect in others (Austin 1975: 101). On the one hand, an utterance is produced by the speaker and so facts about the speaker’s mental life should play an important role in understanding what perlocutions are. …