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Articles 61 - 90 of 159
Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
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In this unpublished manuscript, the author aims to provide "a concept of the language of the semantic expression of mental acts" based on the insights both of ordinary language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 …
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 …
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 …
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
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 …
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 …
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, …
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 …
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. …
State Of The Field: Why Novel Prediction Matters, P.D. Magnus, Heather Douglas
State Of The Field: Why Novel Prediction Matters, P.D. Magnus, Heather Douglas
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
It has become commonplace to say that novel predictive success is not epistemically special. Its value over accommodation, if it has any, is taken to be superficial or derivative. We argue that the value of predictive success is indeed instrumental. Nevertheless, it is a powerful instrument that provides significant epistemic assurances at many different levels. Even though these assurances are in principle dispensable, real science is rarely (if ever) in the position to confidently obtain them in other ways. So we argue for a pluralist instrumental predictivism: novel predictive success is important for inferences from data to phenomena, from phenomena …
What Scientists Know Is Not A Function Of What Scientists Know, P.D. Magnus
What Scientists Know Is Not A Function Of What Scientists Know, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
There are two senses of ‘what scientists know’: An individual sense (the separate opinions of individual scientists) and a collective sense (the state of the discipline). The latter is what matters for policy and planning, but it is not something that can be directly observed or reported. A function can be defined to map individual judgments onto an aggregate judgment. I argue that such a function cannot effectively capture community opinion, especially in cases that matter to us.
Judging Covers, P.D. Magnus, Cristyn Magnus, Christy Mag Uidhir
Judging Covers, P.D. Magnus, Cristyn Magnus, Christy Mag Uidhir
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Cover versions form a loose but identifiable category of tracks and performances. We distinguish four kinds of covers and argue that they mark important differences in the modes of evaluation which are possible or appropriate for each: mimic covers, which aim merely to echo the canonical track; rendition covers, which change the sound of the canonical track; transformative covers, which diverge so much as to instantiate a distinct, albeit derivative song; and referential covers, which not only instantiate a distinct song, but for which the new song is in part about the original song. In order to allow for the …
From Up In The Air To The Roots Of Pandora’S Tree Of Souls: Hossein Nasr’S Islamic Traditionalism And The Hope For Western Futures Grounded In The Sacredness Of The Earth, Daniel O'Dea Bradley
From Up In The Air To The Roots Of Pandora’S Tree Of Souls: Hossein Nasr’S Islamic Traditionalism And The Hope For Western Futures Grounded In The Sacredness Of The Earth, Daniel O'Dea Bradley
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Of Termites And Men: On The Ontology Of Collective Individuals, Brian G. Henning
Of Termites And Men: On The Ontology Of Collective Individuals, Brian G. Henning
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Problem Of Debt-For-Nature Swaps From A Human Rights Perspective, Nicole Hassoun
The Problem Of Debt-For-Nature Swaps From A Human Rights Perspective, Nicole Hassoun
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
At first blush, debt-for-nature swaps seem to provide win-win solutions to the looming problems of environmental degradation and extreme poverty. So, one might naturally assume that they are morally permissible, if not obligatory. This article will argue, however, that debt-for-nature swaps are sometimes morally questionable, if not morally impermissible. It suggests that some criticisms of traditional (economic) conditions placed on loans to poor countries also apply to the (environmental) conditionality implicit in such swaps. The article's main theoretical contribution is to suggest a general argumentative strategy for posing a challenge to the moral acceptability of many seemingly innocuous, or even …
Global Health Impact: A Basis For Labeling And Licensing Campaigns?, Nicole Hassoun
Global Health Impact: A Basis For Labeling And Licensing Campaigns?, Nicole Hassoun
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Most of the world's health problems afflict poor countries and their poorest inhabitants. There are many reasons why so many people die of poverty-related causes. One reason is that the poor cannot access many of the existing drugs and technologies they need. Another, is that little of the research and development (R&D) done on new drugs and technologies benefits the poor. There are several proposals on the table that might incentivize pharmaceutical companies to extend access to essential drugs and technologies to the global poor.1 Still, the problem remains – the poor are suffering and dying from lack of …
Review Of Betting The Earth: How We Can Still Win The Biggest Gamble Of All Time, Brian G. Henning
Review Of Betting The Earth: How We Can Still Win The Biggest Gamble Of All Time, Brian G. Henning
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Modularity, Theory Of Mind, And Autism Spectrum Disorder, Marcus P. Adams
Modularity, Theory Of Mind, And Autism Spectrum Disorder, Marcus P. Adams
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
The theory of mind (ToM) deficit associated with autism spectrum disorder has been a central topic in the debate about the modularity of the mind. In a series of papers, Philip Gerrans and Valerie Stone argue that positing a ToM module does not best explain the deficits exhibited by individuals with autism. In this article, I first criticize Gerrans and Stone’s account. Second, I discuss various studies of individuals with autism and argue that they are best explained by positing a higher-level, domain-specific ToM module.
Drakes, Seadevils, And Similarity Fetishism, P.D. Magnus
Drakes, Seadevils, And Similarity Fetishism, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Homeostatic property clusters (HPCs) are offered as a way of understanding natural kinds, especially biological species. I review the HPC approach and then discuss an objection by Ereshefsky and Matthen, to the effect that an HPC qua cluster seems ill-fitted as a description of a polymorphic species. The standard response by champions of the HPC approach is to say that all members of a polymorphic species have things in common, namely dispositions or conditional properties. I argue that this response fails. Instances of an HPC kind need not all be similar in their exhibited properties. Instead, HPCs should instead be …
Standing In Livestock's 'Long Shadow': The Ethics Of Eating Meat On A Small Planet, Brian G. Henning
Standing In Livestock's 'Long Shadow': The Ethics Of Eating Meat On A Small Planet, Brian G. Henning
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
A primary contribution of this essay is to provide a survey of the human and environmental impacts of livestock production. We will find that the mass consumption of animals is a primary reason why humans are hungry, fat, or sick and is a leading cause of the depletion and pollution of waterways, the degradation and deforestation of the land, the extinction of species, and the warming of the planet. Recognizing these harms, this essay will consider various solutions being proposed to ““shrink”” livestock's long shadow, including proposed ““technical”” or ““market”” solutions, a transition to ““new agrarian”” methods, and a vegetarian …
Art Concept Pluralism, P.D. Magnus, Christy Mag Uidhir
Art Concept Pluralism, P.D. Magnus, Christy Mag Uidhir
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
There is a long tradition of trying to analyze art either by providing a definition (essentialism) or by tracing its contours as an indefinable, open concept (antiessentialism). Both art essentialists and art anti-essentialists share an implicit assumption of art concept monism. We argue that this is a mistake. Species concept pluralism, a well-explored position in philosophy of biology, provides a model for art concept pluralism. We explore the conditions under which concept pluralism is appropriate, and we argue that they obtain for art. Art concept pluralism allows us to recognize that different art concepts are useful for different purposes, and …
Free Trade, Poverty, And Inequality, Nicole Hassoun
Free Trade, Poverty, And Inequality, Nicole Hassoun
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Anyone familiar with The Economist knows the mantra: Free trade will ameliorate poverty by increasing growth and reducing inequality. This paper suggests that problems underlying measurement of poverty, inequality, and free trade provide reason to worry about this argument. Furthermore, the paper suggests that better evidence is necessary to establish that free trade is causing inequality and poverty to fall. Experimental studies usually provide the best evidence of causation. So, the paper concludes with a call for further research into the prospects for ethically acceptable experimental testing of free trade's impact on poverty and inequality. Although the paper is unabashedly …
The Anthropocentric Advantage? Environmental Ethics And Climate Change Policy, Nicole Hassoun
The Anthropocentric Advantage? Environmental Ethics And Climate Change Policy, Nicole Hassoun
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Environmental ethicists often criticize liberalism. For, many liberals embrace anthropocentric theories on which only humans have non-instrumental value. Environmental ethicists argue that such liberals fail to account for many things that matter or provide an ethic sufficient for addressing climate change. These critics suggest that many parts of nature -- non-human individuals, other species, ecosystems and the biosphere have a kind of value beyond what they contribute to human freedom (or other things of value). This article suggests, however, that if environmental ethics are inclusive and also entail that concern for some parts of nature does not always trump concern …
Paternalist Deception In The Lotus Sūtra: A Normative Assessment, Charles Goodman
Paternalist Deception In The Lotus Sūtra: A Normative Assessment, Charles Goodman
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
The Lotus Sūtra repeatedly asserts the moral permissibility, in certain circumstances, of deceiving others for their own benefit. The examples it uses to illustrate this view have the features of weak paternalism, but the real-world applications it endorses would today be considered strong paternalism. We can explain this puzzling feature of the text by noting that according to Mahayana Buddhists, normal, ordinary people are so irrational that they are relevantly similar to the insane. Kant's determined anti-paternalism, by contrast, relies on an obligation to see others as rational, which can be read in several ways. Recent work in psychology provides …
Introduction To The Transaction Edition, The Genesis Of Winspear5s Thought, Anthony Preus
Introduction To The Transaction Edition, The Genesis Of Winspear5s Thought, Anthony Preus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Making Free Trade Fair, Nicole Hassoun
Making Free Trade Fair, Nicole Hassoun
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Philosophers have done very little work on what makes trade fair. Perhaps the most extensive discussion is Malgorzata Kurjanska and Mathias Risse’s article, “Fairness in Trade II: export subsidies and the fair trade movement.”2 In their article, Kurjanska and Risse consider the case for trade subsidies and the Fair Trade movement. They suggest that it is not permissible for developed countries to give their producers subsidies because doing so does not strike an appropriate balance between meeting the needs of the global poor and protecting domestic workers (Kurjanska and Risse, 2008: 34). Kurjanska and Risse also argue that the case …
Externalizing Communicative Intentions, Charles Lassiter
Externalizing Communicative Intentions, Charles Lassiter
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
In this paper, I argue that an embodied cognition theorist has resources available to her to fulfill the explanatory role of communicative intention without postulating inner, private intentions, as is typically done by cognitivists. I argue for this conclusion by identifying a publicity requirement and a sensitivity requirement that must be satisfied by realizers of communicative intentions a theoretical posit that explains the difference between linguistic meaning, as in John means cats are mammals by his utterance cats are mammals, and other sorts of meaning, as in that bell means the train doors are closing. I then show that a …