bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Respect and Loving Attention
Authors: Bagnoli Carla
Published: June 2016

On Kant's view, the feeling of respect is the mark of moral agency, and is peculiar to us, animals endowed with reason. Unlike any other feeling, respect originates in the contemplation of the moral law, that is, the idea of lawful activity. This idea works as a constraint on our deliberation by discounting the pretenses of our natural desires and demoting our selfish maxims. We experience its workings in the guise of respect. Respect shows that from the agent's subjective perspective, morality is the experience of being bound and necessitated, but also of being free and emancipated from inclinations.

Respect is a feeling that is generated by the agent's reflection on the nature of her own agency. It is not directed to anybody in particular, but to the very idea of rational agency, which is characterized by self-mastery and self-legislation. Contrary to animals, we do not derive our ends from nature, but we are capable of setting ends of our own, by exercising practical reason, that is, by engaging in the activity of law making.
Modest Infinitism
Authors: Fantl Jeremy
Published: June 2016

Infinitism, a theory of the structure of justification most recently developed and defended by Peter Klein, is the view that justification is a matter of having an infinite series of non-repeating reasons for a proposition. I argue that infinitism is preferable to foundationalism in that only infinitism can plausibly account for two important features of the structure of justification: 1) justification admits of degrees and 2) complete justification makes sense.
Redrawing the Map and Resetting the Time: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
Authors: Gallagher Shaun , Varela Francisco J.
Published: June 2016

In recent years there has been some hard-won but still limited agreement that phenomenology can be of central and positive importance to the cognitive sciences. This realization comes in the wake of dismissive gestures made by philosophers of mind who mistakenly associate phenomenological method with untrained psychological introspection (e.g., Dennett 1991). For very different reasons, resistance is also found on the phenomenological side of this issue. There are many thinkers well versed in the Husserlian tradition who are not willing to consider the validity of a naturalistic science of mind. For them cognitive science is too computational or too reductionistic to be seriously considered as capable of explaining experience or consciousness. In some cases, when phenomenologists have seriously engaged the project of the cognitive sciences, rather than pursing a positive rapprochement with this project, they have been satisfied in drawing critical lines that identify its limitations.

On the one hand, such negative attitudes are understandable from the perspective of the Husserlian rejection of naturalism, or from strong emphasis on the transcendental current in phenomenology.
Disquotationalism, Minimalism, and the Finite Minimal Theory
Authors: Newhard Jay
Published: June 2016

Recently, Paul Horwich has developed the minimalist theory of truth, according to which the truth predicate does not express a Substantive property, though it may be used as a grammatical expedient. Minimalism shares these Claims with Quine's disquotationalism; it differs from disquotationalism primarily in holding that truth-bearers are propositions, rather than sentences. Despite potential ontological worries, allowing that propositions bear truth gives Horwich aprima facieresponse to several important objections to disquotationalism. In section I of this paper, disquotationalism is given a careful exegesis, in which seven known objections are traced to the disquotational Schema, and two new objections are raised. A version of disquotationalism which avoids two of the seven known objections is recommended. In section II, an examination of minimalism shows that it faces eight of the nine objections facing disquotationalism, plus a new objection.
Finding Value in Davidson
Authors: Myers Robert H.
Published: June 2016

Can an effective argument against scepticism about objective values be modelled on Donald Davidson's familiar argument against scepticism about external things?

Davidson evidently thinks so. He has long been on record as maintaining that a theory of interpretation must be ‘unified’ in the sense that it cannot merely solve f or beliefs and meanings but must simultaneously solve for desires as well. And he has made it quite clear that he thinks a theory of interpretation can do this only by subjecting attributions of desires to a ‘principle of charity’ analogous to the principle that he claims must govern attributions of beliefs. Since his argument against external world scepticism is in large part powered by his claim that charity must govern attributions of beliefs, his feeling that charity must likewise govern attributions of desires might appear to commit him to a similar argument against value scepticism.
Reductive Explanation and the 'Explanatory Gap'
Authors: Carruthers Peter
Published: June 2016

Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Exponents of an ‘explanatory gap’ between physical, functional and intentional facts, on the one hand, and the facts of phenomenal consciousness, on the other, argue that there are reasons of principle why phenomenal consciousness cannot be reductively explained: Jackson (1982), (1986); Levine (1983), (1993), (2001); McGinn (1991); Sturgeon (1994), (2000); Chalmers (1996), (1999). Some of these writers claim that the existence of such a gap would warrant a belief in some form of ontological dualism (Jackson, 1982; Chalmers, 1996), whereas others argue that no such entailment holds (Levine, 1983; McGinn, 1991; Sturgeon, 1994). In the other main camp, there are people who argue that a reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness is possible in principle (Block and Stalnaker, 1999), and yet others who claim, moreover, to have provided such an explanation in practice (Dennett, 1991; Dretske, 1995; Tye, 1995,2000; Lycan, 1996; Carruthers, 2000).
Paradox Lost
Authors: Cogburn Jon
Published: June 2016

Frederic Fitch's celebrated reasoning to the conclusion that all truths are known can be interpreted as a reductioof the claim that all truths are knowable. Given this, nearly all of the proof's reception has involved canvassing the prospects for some form of verificationism. Unfortunately, debates of this sort discount much of the philosophical import of the proof. In addition to its relevance for verificationism, Fitch's proof is also an argument for the existence of God, one at least as strong as the traditional demonstrations. Perhaps unlike other such proofs, Fitch's also operates as a key lemma in a proof that (if sound) establishes that God can't exist.

While the implications of Fitch's proof are thus very important for our understanding of key concepts in the philosophy of religion, they are also relevant to the proof's traditional reception. With these results, I am able to provide a principled motivation for Neil Tennant's recent defense of a restricted form of verificationism.
Cartesian Bodies
Authors: Sowaal Alice
Published: June 2016

How we understand Descartes's physics rests on how we interpret his ontological commitment to individual bodies, and in particular on how we account for their individuation. However, Descartes's contemporaries (notably, Cordemoy and Leibniz) as well as contemporary philosophers (notably, Kenny and Garber) have seen Descartes's account of the individuation of bodies as deeply flawed. In the first part of this paper, I discuss how the various problems and puzzles involved in Descartes's account of the individuation of bodies arise, and the relevance of these problems for his physics. With an eye toward resolving these puzzles, I argue for an interpretation of the Cartesian ontology in which bodies are not individuated by motion but, instead, are mind-dependent. As part of this reading, I demonstrate the sense in which we can clearly and distinctly perceive bodies, and also the senses in which the real, conceptual, and modal distinctions apply to them.
Semantic Eliminativism and the Theory-Theory of Linguistic Understanding
Authors: Bar-on Dorit
Published: June 2016

Suppose, familiarly, that you and a friend have landed in an alien territory, amidst people who speak a language you do not know. Upon seeing you, one of them starts yelling, seemingly alarmed. You say to your friend, “She thinks we want to hurt her. She's scared. We must seem very strange to her.” Your friend, who is facing you, says, “No, I think she's actually trying to warn you: there's a snake right above your head, on that tree. You see the sling in her hand? I think she's going to try to shoot it down.“

On a prevalent view, much discussed in recent years, you and your friend have engaged in a mini-theoretical enterprise. Using certain observations of the alien's behaviour as your data, and deploying certain generalizations and principles concerning human behaviour, you advance hypotheses regarding the internal psychological states which issued in her observed behaviour.
Mental Concepts as Natural Kind Concepts
Authors: Pérez Diana I.
Published: June 2016

The aim of this paper is to explore the hypothesis that mental concepts are natural kind concepts. By ‘mental concepts’ I mean the ordinary words belonging to our everyday languages (English, Spanish, and so on) that we use in order to describe our mental life. The plan of the paper is as follows. In the first part, I shall present the hypothesis: firstly, I shall present a theory about the meaning of natural kind concepts following Putnam's 1975 proposal, with some modifications; secondly, I shall present a taxonomy of mental concepts and, thirdly, I shall explain what the meaning of each kind of mental concept would be on the hypothesis defended in this paper. In the second part of the paper, I shall present two interesting consequences of the hypothesis proposed: first, that it is preferable to avoid a certain way of conceiving phenomenal concepts which does not fit with the hypothesis proposed; second, that folk psychology could fruitfully be considered a theory, and why, ultimately, it will not be eliminated.
The Argument from Diaphanousness
Authors: Stoljar Daniel
Published: June 2016

In “The Refutation of Idealism,” G.E. Moore observed that, “when we try to introspect the sensation of blue, all we can see is the blue: the other element is as if it were diaphanous” (1922, 25). Many philosophers, but Gilbert Harman (1990, 1996) in particular, have suggested that this observation forms the basis of an argument against qualia, usually called “the argument from diaphanousness or transparency” . But even its friends concede that it is none too clear what the argument from diaphanousness—as I will call it—is. The purpose of this paper is to formulate the argument, and to assess its merits. My conclusion will be that qualia realists have little to fear from the argument—provided both qualia and diaphanousness are properly understood.

I begin by making a number of preliminary points about the contemporary background of the argument, its different versions, and the proper understanding of its target.
Political Reasonability
Authors: Archard David
Published: June 2016

According to Stephen Macedo, ‘[liberal], democratic politics is not only about individual rights and limited government, it is also about justification… political justification… understood politically.’ ‘Political justification,’ he asserts, ‘is a core liberal goal.’ Gerald Gaus, similarly, writes that the ‘idea of public justification is at the heart of a contractual liberalism.’ Very many other contemporary political philosophers believe that the politics of a liberal polity must be justifiable to its Citizens. In what follows I shall seek to understand the basis for such a belief and, in particular, to expose two possible sources in the views of Locke and Kant. Neither source, I shall argue, provides any warrant for the demand in question. First the bald claim — that the politics of a polity needs justifying — must be unpacked. By way of initial clarification I shall say something about, respectively, ‘justification’ and ‘politics.’
Recognizing States and Governments
Authors: Naticchia Chris
Published: June 2016

When the international Community recognizes political entities as states, it confers upon them the rights and powers of statehood. These include the right to territorial integrity, the right to noninterference in their internal affairs, the power to make treaties, and the right (subject to certain restrictions) to enforce legal rules on those within their territory. According to the justice-based account of recognition, political entities ought to be recognized as states if and only if they satisfy minimal requirements of internal and external justice. According to the pragmatic account, they ought to be recognized as states if and only if cooperating with them and giving them international support would be the best means of achieving peace and justice among and within them — that is, global peace and justice — whether or not they themselves currently satisfy minimal requirements of internal and external justice.
The Many Moral Particularisms
Authors: McKeever Sean , Ridge Michael
Published: June 2016

What place, if any, moral principles should or do have in moral life has been a longstanding question f or moral philosophy. For some, the proposition that moral philosophy should strive to articulate moral principles has been an article of faith. At least since Aristotle, however, there has been a rieh counter-tradition that questions the possibility or value of trying to capture morality in principled terms. In recent years, philosophers who question principled approaches to morality have argued under the banner of moral particularism. Particularists can be found in diverse areas of philosophical inquiry, and their positions and arguments are of broad interest. Despite its importance, a proper evaluation of particularism has been hindered both by the diversity of arguments employed to defend it, and, perhaps more significantly, by the diversity of positions that can fairly claim to be particularist.
Inferentialism and Singular Reference
Authors: McCullagh Mark
Published: June 2016

In Making It Explicit (1994) Robert Brandom claims that we may distinguish those linguistic expressions with object-representational purport — the singular terms — from others merely by the structure of their inferential relations. A good part of his inferentialist program rests on this claim. At first blush it can seem implausible: linguistic expressions stand in inferential relations to each other, so how could we appeal to those relations to decide on the obtaining of what seems to be relation between linguistic expressions and objects in general (viz., x purports to represent y)? It is perhaps not surprising then that Brandom's proposal fails. But it definitely is surprising how it fails. The problem is that in order to specify the sort of generality there is to an expression's inferential role, one must appeal to some version of the traditional distinction between extensional and nonextensional occurrences of expressions, and there appears to be no way to draw anything like that distinction in inferentialist terms. For the inferential proprieties governing the different occurrences an expression can have are so varied that they do not determine a binary partition of those occurrences.
Memory and Personal Identity in Spinoza
Authors: Lin Martin
Published: June 2016

Locke is often thought to have introduced the topic of personal identity into philosophy when, in the second edition of theEssay,he distinguished the person from both the human being and the soul. Each of these entities differs from the others with respect to their identity conditions, and so they must be ontologically distinct. In particular, Locke claimed, a person cannot survive total memory loss, although a human being or a soul can.
Instrumentalism and Desiring at Will
Authors: Shemmer Yonatan
Published: June 2016

In his book Practical Induction,Elijah Millgram mounts a powerful attack on instrumentalism. In particular, Millgram targets the instrumentalist claim that desires are by themselves reason-giving, that their reason-giving power is not grounded in any other independent fact. According to Millgram, desires, like beliefs, cannot license inferences (desires license inferences to conclusions about what we have reason to do; beliefs license inferences to other belief s and to conclusions about what we have reason to do) if they do not depend for their own justification on some prior mental states. Beliefs depend on prior beliefs and desires on feelings of pleasure and these in turn are grounded respectively in facts about the world and about desirability. If our desires would not depend in this way on other facts it would be possible for us to rationally desire what we want when we want; we could, as he puts it, ‘desire at will.'
The Ethical Significance of National Settlement
Authors: Meisels Tamar
Published: June 2016

As an Israeli writing at the turn of the twenty-first Century, I have become accustomed to hearing the word ‘settlement’ used by liberals almost invariably as a derogatory term. The Jewish settlements to the west of the Jordan river, now populated by close to a quarter of a million Jews, are often said to be a central obstacle to peace in the Middle East, as well as being immoral in and of themselves. Consistent liberals realize that this attitude poses a problem for the endorsement of the Zionist effort altogether, since settlement has been a central tenet of this doctrine from the start and the main practical tool for achieving its goals within contested territories. It was also the primary apparatus for achieving Western control over North America, Australia, and New Zealand, wholly at the expense of the aboriginal inhabitants of those places. This, too, is the source of a great deal of contemporary liberal breast-beating.
Culpable Bystanders, Innocent Threats and the Ethics of Self-Defense
Authors: Benbaji Yitzhak
Published: June 2016

The moral right to act in self-defense seems to be unproblematic: you are allowed to kill an aggressor if doing so is necessary for saving your own life. Indeed, it seems that from the moral Standpoint, acting in self-defense is doing the right thing. Thanks, however, to works by George Fletcher and Judith Thomson, it is now well known how unstable the moral basis of the right to self-defense is. We are in the dark with regard to one of the most basic problems raised by this right, namely: the problem of the innocent aggressor. The disturbing question is simple enough: Is a potential victim allowed to kill, in self-defense, a morally innocent aggressor?
Institutions with Global Scope: Moral Cosmopolitanism and Political Practice
Authors: Jones Charles
Published: June 2016

This paper attempts to evaluate two arguments dealing with the nature and form of global political institutions. In each case I assume the general plausibility of moral cosmopolitanism, the view that every person in the world is entitled to equal moral consideration regardless of their various memberships in states, classes, nations, religious groups, and the like. The first argument is designed to show that moral cosmopolitans should be committed to the idea that core justice-promoting social, political, and economic institutions must have global scope. It purports to show this by appealing to both the universality constitutive of moral cosmopolitanism and theprima facieplausibility of uniform protections for the basic rights of persons everywhere. These premises are subjected to critical scrutiny, and a qualified version of institutional cosmopolitanism is defended. The second argument considers the case for requiring institutions with global scope to be democratic.
Institutions for Global Justice
Authors: Kokaz Nancy
Published: June 2016

In December 2003, the members of the European Union (EU) met in Brussels for a summit that had the potential to become a turning point in history. The agenda for the meeting was to adopt a constitution for Europe in the wake of the European enlargement scheduled for May 2004. However, European nations were not able to resolve their differences over undecided issues such as voting, foreign policy decision- making, budget deficit rules, and whether to mention God in the constitution. The most severe disagreements occurred over the voting system proposed by the draft constitution, which envisioned a move towards population-adjusted voting rights. In the old arrangements agreed upon in Nice in 2000, members had roughly the same amount of votes independent of population.
Cosmopolitan Impartiality and Patriotic Partiality
Authors: Tan Kok-Chor
Published: June 2016

Cosmopolitanism, as a moral idea, holds that individuals are the ultimate units of moral worth and are entitled to equal consideration, regardless of contingencies such as citizenship or nationality. In one common interpretation, cosmopolitan justice not only regards individuals as the basic subjects of moral concern, but it also requires distributive principles to transcend national affiliations and to apply equally to all persons of the world. As Simon Caney puts it, “persons’ entitlements should not be determined by factors such as their nationality or citizenship.“
Domination and Destitution in an Unjust World
Authors: Chung Ryoa
Published: June 2016

Some are born to sweet delight,

Some are born to endless night.

William Blake - Auguries of Innocence

It goes without saying that severe poverty is a human tragedy. The problem of poverty stemming from inequality has however only recently become one of the most fundamental questions in international ethics. The publication in 1972 of Peter Singer's important article, “Famine, Affluence and Morality” certainly marks an important date in the literature. Even those who don't agree with Singer's utilitarian approach will recognize that he was among the first to articulate the problem of poverty on an international scale in philosophical terms. Since then, a greater number of philosophers have examined the problem of world poverty. Some of their work has been extremely influential (in particular, 0. O'Neill, H. Shue, and T. W. Pogge).
Integrity and Moral Danger
Authors: Scherkoske Greg
Published: June 2016

While it isn't clear that we are right to value integrity — or so I shall argue — most of usdo. Persons of integrity merit respect. Compromising one's integrity — or failing completely to exhibit it — seems a serious flaw. Two influential accounts suggest why. For Bernard Williams, integrity is ‘a person's sticking by what [she] regards as ethically necessary or worthwhile.’ To this Cheshire Calhoun adds a helpful negative gloss:

To lack integrity is to underrate both formulating and exemplifying one's own views. People without integrity trade action on their own views too cheaply for gain, status, reward, approval or for escape from penalties, loss of status, disapproval. Or they trade their own views too readily for the views of others who are more authoritative, more in step with public opinion, less demanding of themselves, and so on.
Agnosticism about Moral Responsibility
Authors: Byrd Jeremy
Published: June 2016

Traditionally, incompatibilism has rested on two theses. First, the familiar Principle of Alternative Possibilities says that we cannot be morally responsible for what we do unless we could have done otherwise. Accepting this principle, incompatibilists have then argued that there is no room for such alternative possibilities in a deterministic world. Recently, however, a number of philosophers have argued that incompatibilism about moral responsibility can be defended independently of these traditional theses (Ginet 2005: 604-8; McKenna 2001; Stump 1999: 322-4, 2000 and 2002; van Inwagen 1983: 182-8; and Zagzebski 2000). Incompatibilists of this stripe are generally motivated by the concern that, if determinism is true, we are not genuine or ultimate sources of our actions and, hence, we are not responsible for what we do. Following Michael McKenna (2001), I shall call this view source incompatibilism. While the source incompatibilist's concern is rather vague as stated, it has given rise to a powerful argument against any attempt to reconcile moral responsibility and determinism. John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza (1998) have labeled this the Direct Argument, as it avoids the detour of alternative possibilities.
A Representational Account of Olfactory Experience
Authors: Batty Clare
Published: June 2016

Seattle rain smelled different from New Orleans rain…. New Orleans rain smelled of sulfur and hibiscus, trumpet metal, thunder, and sweat. Seattle rain, the widespread rain of the Great Northwest, smelled of green ice and sumi ink, of geology and silence and minnow breath.

— Tom Robbins,Jitterbug Perfume

Much of the philosophical literature on perception has focused on vision. This is not surprising, given that vision holds for us a certain prestige. Our visual experience is incredibly rich, offering up a mosaic of apparent three-dimensional objects. For this reason, it is commonplace to suppose that visual experience isworld-directed, with the view taking its most popular form in therepresentational, orcontent,view. World-directed views contrast with what we might callsubjectivist views— views according to which experiences are raw feels or mere sensations.
Rehabilitating Objectivity: Rorty, Brandom, and the New Pragmatism
Authors: Levine Steven
Published: June 2016

In recent years, a renascent form of pragmatism has developed which argues that a satisfactory pragmatic position must integrate into itself the concepts of truth and objectivity. This New Pragmatism, as Cheryl Misak calls it, is directed primarily against Rorty's neo-pragmatic dismissal of these concepts. For Rorty, the goal of our epistemic practices should not be to achieve an objective view, one that tries to represent things as they are ‘in themselves,’ but rather to attain a view of things that can gain as much inter-subjective agreement as possible. In Rorty's language, we need to replace the aim of objectivity with that of solidarity. While the New Pragmatists agree with Rorty's ‘humanist’ and ‘anti-authoritarian’ notion that the world by itself cannot dictate to us what we should think about it, they demur from his suggestion that this requires us to give up the notions of truth and objectivity.
Ideals of Egalitarianism and Sufficiency in Global Justice
Authors: Satz Debra
Published: June 2016

It is well known that there are large differences in the per capita income levels of the world's states. While a few poor countries are catching up with the rich world, for some countries, the gaps are growing wider. Most of this global inequality isbetweencountries, notwithinthem. In other words, even if income were equalized within countries, a large part of the gap in average income levels between countries would remain.

At the same time, the majority of movements in the wealthier countries for greater distributive equality have tended to focus on inequalities within their own borders: on issues such as raising minimum wages, changing the domestic tax rate, and ending national health disparities. This state-centric focus is frequently justified in moral terms. It is a familiar claim, for example, that we have special obligations to our own citizens and that these obligations are both weightier and more extensive than our obligations to strangers outside our borders.
Equality and Special Concern
Authors: Tan Kok-Chor
Published: June 2016

Introduction

The various special concerns and commitments that individuals ordinarily have, for example towards family members, friends, and possibly compatriots, present an interesting challenge for justice. Justice, after all, is said to be blind and imposes demands on persons that ought to be impartial, at least in some respects, to personal ties and relationships. Yet individual special concerns are obviously of moral importance and are deeply valued by participants in these relationships. Thus any conception of justice to be plausible has to be able to accommodate to some extent the various types of valuable and valued special concern characteristic of ordinary social life. In particular, it is important to see how the impartial demands of justice can be maintained while accommodating special concern.
Discrimination as Negligence
Authors: Moreau Sophia
Published: June 2016

There is a rich philosophical literature on the value of equality: on whether and why it matters, what its “currency” ought to be, and whether it should be balanced against other important values, such as freedom, or conceptualized in terms of equal access to them. Most of this literature is a contribution to debates about distributive justice: it is concerned with how we should understand equality when our aim is to arrive at general principles of justice that could guide social or political authorities in distributing goods under their control. But there is also a different context in which we can, and do, ask about equality. Sometimes, when we ask whether someone has been treated equally, our aim is to assess whether they have faced discrimination. This is, of course, what courts and human rights tribunals do when interpreting constitutional or statutory equality rights – for these rights are usually understood not as general rights to equal treatment in the distribution of social goods, but rather as rights not to be discriminated against on the basis of a select number of prohibited grounds.
Bolzano on conceptual and intuitive truth: the point and purpose of the distinction
Authors: Textor Mark
Published: June 2016

Bolzano incorporated Kant's distinction between intuitions and concepts into the doctrine of propositions by distinguishing between conceptual (Begriffssätze an sich) and intuitive propositions (Anschauungssätze an sich). An intuitive proposition contains at least one objective intuition, that is, a simple idea that represents exactly one object; a conceptual proposition contains no objective intuition. After Bolzano, philosophers dispensed with the distinction between conceptual and intuitive propositions. So why did Bolzano attach philosophical importance to it? I will argue that, ultimately, the value of the distinction lies in the fact that conceptual and intuitive truths have different objective grounds: if a conceptual truth is grounded at all, its ground is a conceptual truth. The difference in grounds between conceptual and intuitive truths motivates Bolzano's criticism of Kant's view that intuition plays the fundamental role in mathematics, aconceptualscience by Bolzano's lights.
Moral coherence and value pluralism
Authors: Marino Patricia
Published: June 2016

This paper addresses the question of what value pluralism tells us about the pursuit of moral coherence as a method of moral reasoning. I focus on the status of the norm of ‘systematicity, ’ or the demand that our principles be as few and as simple as possible. I argue that, given certain descriptive facts about the pluralistic ways we value, epistemic ways of supporting a systematicity norm do not succeed. Because it is sometimes suggested that coherence functions in moral reasoning as it does in scientific reasoning, my argument considers analogies and disanalogies between moral reasoning and scientific reasoning.
Free will and probability
Authors: Frederick Danny
Published: June 2016

The chance objection to incompatibilist accounts of free action maintains that undetermined actions are not under the agent's control. Some attempts to circumvent this objection locate chance in eventsposteriorto the action. Indeterministic-causation theories locate chance in eventspriorto the action. However, neither type of response gives an account of free action which avoids the chance objection. Chance must be located at theact of willif actions are to be both undetermined and under the agent's control. This dissolves the apparent paradox of Frankfurt-type cases as well as the chance objection to incompatibilist free will.
Critical notice for Michail Peramatzis'sPriority in Aristotle's Metaphysics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2011
Authors: Corkum Phil
Published: June 2016

I discuss Peramatzis's (2011) argument that the form of a natural substance is essentially enmattered and so contains a material component.
Dubious by nature
Authors: Tallant Jonathan
Published: June 2016

There is a charge sometimes made in metaphysics that particular commitments are ‘hypothetical’, ‘dubious’ or ‘suspicious’. There have been two analyses given of what this consists in—due to Crisp (2007) and Cameron (2011). The aim of this paper is to reject both analyses and thereby show that there is no obvious way to press the objection against said commitments that they are ‘dubious’ and objectionable. Later in the paper I consider another account of what it might be to be ‘dubious’, and argue that this too fails. I use Bigelow's (1996) Lucretian properties as a vehicle for the discussions of dubiousness that follow. As a consequence, the paper ends up offering a partial defense of Lucretianism.
On preferring God's non-existence
Authors: Kraay Klaas J. , Dragos Chris
Published: June 2016

For many centuries, philosophers have debated this question: ‘Does God exist?’ Surprisingly, they have paid rather less attention to this distinct – but also very important – question: ‘Would God's existence be a good thing?’ The latter is an axiological question about the difference in value that God's existence would make (or does make) in the actual world. Perhaps the most natural position to take, whether or not one believes in God, is to hold that it would be a very good thing if such a being were to exist. After all, God is traditionally thought to be perfectly powerful and good, and it might seem obvious that such a being's existence would make things better than they would otherwise be. But this judgment has been contested: some philosophers have held that God's existence would make things worse, and that, on this basis, one can reasonably prefer God's non-existence. We first distinguish a wide array of axiological positions concerning the value of God's existence which might be held by theists, atheists, and agnostics alike. We next construe these positions as comparative judgments about the axiological status of various possible worlds. We then criticize an important recent attempt to show that God's existence would make things worse, in various ways, than they would otherwise be.
Completing Rawls's arguments for equal political liberty and its fair value: the argument from self-respect
Authors: Krishnamurthy Meena
Published: June 2016

Despite the vast literature on Rawls's work, few have discussed his arguments for the value of democracy. When his arguments have been discussed, they have received staunch criticism. Some critics have charged that Rawls's arguments are not deeply democratic. Others have gone further, claiming that Rawls's arguments denigrate democracy. These criticisms are unsurprising, since Rawls's arguments, as arguments that the principle of equal basic liberty needs to include democratic liberties, are incomplete. In contrast to his trenchant remarks about core civil liberties, Rawls does not say much about the inclusion of political liberties of a democratic sort – such as the right to vote – among the basic liberties.

In this paper, I complete some of Rawls's arguments and show that he has grounds for including political liberties, particularly those of a democratic nature, in the principle of equal basic liberty. In doing so, I make some beginning steps toward illustrating the genuinely democratic nature of Rawls's arguments. Rawls believes that a few different arguments can be given for democratic institutions and that these arguments work together to support the value of democracy. In this paper, I focus on Rawls's arguments relating to self-respect. I focus on this set of arguments because they are among the strongest of Rawls's arguments for equal political liberty and its fair value.
Will it be me? Identity, concern and perspective
Authors: Stokes Patrick
Published: June 2016

Self-reflexive or egocentric concern has been taken to present a serious problem for reductionist and eliminativist metaphysical accounts of personal identity. Philosophers have tended to respond in one of three ways: by continuing the search for a metaphysical account of identity that (prudentially if not morally) justifies egocentric concern; by accepting that egocentric concern can hold between persons who are not numerically identical; or by advocating the abandonment of egocentric concern altogether. All these approaches, however, distinguish between metaphysical ‘facts’ and affective responses to them. Exploring a well-known example from Bernard Williams, I argue that egocentric concern presents itself as irreducibly first-personal and as making its own set of numerical personal identity claims on the phenomenal level. Williams' example also points to the need to complicate the first/third person schema by factoring in a further distinction between present-tense and implicitly atemporal perspectives on the self. Once this move is made, we can see that the identity claims figured in first-person present-tense experience and those arrived at through metaphysical deliberation need to be distinguished. We should resist the temptation to privilege one perspective over the other in all instances, or to collapse them into a unitary account of selfhood.
Are emotions perceptions of value?
Authors: Dokic Jérôme , Lemaire Stéphane
Published: June 2016

A popular idea at present is that emotions are perceptions of values. Most defenders of this idea have interpreted it as the perceptual thesis that emotions present (rather than merely represent) evaluative states of affairs in the way sensory experiences present us with sensible aspects of the world. We argue against the perceptual thesis. We show that the phenomenology of emotions is compatible with the fact that the evaluative aspect of apparent emotional contents has been incorporated from outside. We then deal with the only two views that can make sense of the perceptual thesis. On the response–dependence view, emotional experiences present evaluative response-dependent properties (being fearsome, being disgusting, etc.) in the way visual experiences present response-dependent properties such as colors. On the response–independence view, emotional experiences present evaluative response-independent properties (being dangerous, being indigestible, etc.), conceived as ‘Gestalten’ independent of emotional feelings themselves. We show that neither view can make plausible the idea that emotions present values as such, i.e., in an open and transparent way. If emotions have apparent evaluative contents, this is in fact due to evaluative enrichments of the non-evaluative presentational contents of emotions.
The absolutism problem inOn Liberty
Authors: Turner Piers Norris
Published: June 2016

Mill argues that, apart from the principle of utility, his utilitarianism is incompatible with absolutes. Yet in On Liberty he introduces an exceptionless anti-paternalism principle—his liberty principle. In this paper I address ‘the absolutism problem, ’ that is, whether Mill's utilitarianism can accommodate an exceptionless principle. Mill's absolute claim is not a mere bit of rhetoric. But the four main solutions to the absolutism problem are also not supported by the relevant texts. I defend a fifth solution—the competence view—that turns on his attention to decision-making structures and, in particular, on the role of expertise considerations in his account.
Descartes' Causal Principle and the Case of Body-to-Mind Causation
Authors: De Rosa Raffaella
Published: June 2016

It is a common view that Descartes' causal principle is to be understood in light of a similarity condition that accounts for how finite causes (as opposed, or in addition, to God) contribute to an explanation of their effects. This paper challenges this common view and offers a sui generis reading of Descartes' views on causation that has also the advantage of solving the two exegetical issues of whether Descartes thought of the body-to-mind relation in occasionalist or causal terms and of whether Descartes regarded sensory ideas innate or caused by bodies.
Critical notice of On the people's terms: a Republican theory and model of democracy, by Philip Pettit, Cambridge University Press, 2012, xii+333pp.
Authors: Dyzenhaus David
Published: June 2016

This paper is a critical notice of Philip Pettit's On the People's Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. Pettit argues that only Republicanism can respond appropriately to the ‘evil of subjection to another's will – particularly in important areas of personal choice’ because its ideal of liberty – freedom as non-domination – both captures better than liberalism our commitment to individual liberty and explains better our commitment to the legitimacy of democratic decision-making than standard democrat accounts. If this argument succeeds, it demonstrates that there is no real tension between the liberal thought that justice provides a standard for evaluating public decisions independent of the fact that they are taken democratically and the democratic thought that the fact that a decision is democratic suffices to make it legitimate. I argue, however, that Pettit finds himself caught between two contradictory positions: a version of Isaiah Berlin's negative concept of liberty and a positive liberty account of democracy. And I show that his attempt to resolve the tension fails because it requires him to embrace the positive liberty account he is committed to rejecting.
Critical notice of Aaron James,Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy
Authors: Risse Mathias , Wollner Gabriel
Published: June 2016

Nobody has offered such a comprehensive philosophical approach to trade. Nonetheless, James's approach does not succeed. First, we explore James's constructivist method, which does less work than he suggests. The second topic is James's take on the different ‘grounds’ of justice. We explore the shortcomings of approaches that focus exclusively on trade. Our third topic is why James thinks trade is such a ground. The fourth topic is how James argues for his proposed ‘structural equity.’ This proposal remains under-argued. Our fifth topic is to explore why structural equity would generate several specific principles. Finally, we discuss James's notion of autarky. Autarky sets the benchmark for James's ideas about how to divide gains of trade. We doubt that it can do so.
Love: self-propagation, self-preservation, orekstasis?
Authors: Whiting Jennifer
Published: June 2016

My title refers to three accounts of interpersonal love: the rationalist (and ultimately rational egoist) account that Terence Irwin ascribes to Plato; the anti-rationalist but strikingly similar account that Harry Frankfurt endorses in his own voice; and the ‘ekstatic’ account that I – following the lead of Martha Nussbaum – find in Plato'sPhaedrus.My claim is that the ekstatic account points to important features of interpersonal love to which the other accounts fail to do justice, especiallyreciprocityanda regulative ideal of equality.
A Humean theory of moral intuition
Authors: Kauppinen Antti
Published: June 2016

According to the quasi-perceptualist account of philosophical intuitions, they are intellectual appearances that are psychologically and epistemically analogous to perceptual appearances. Moral intuitions share the key characteristics of other intuitions, but can also have a distinctive phenomenology and motivational role. This paper develops the Humean claim that the shared and distinctive features of substantive moral intuitions are best explained by their being constituted by moral emotions. This is supported by an independently plausible non-Humean, quasi-perceptualist theory of emotion, according to which the phenomenal feel of emotions is crucial for their intentional content.
What are the primary bearers of truth?
Authors: Hanks Peter
Published: June 2016

According to the traditional account of propositional content, propositions are the primary bearers of truth. Here I argue that acts of predication are the primary bearers of truth. Propositions are types of these actions, and they inherit their truth-conditions from their tokens. Against this, many philosophers think that it is a category mistake to say that actions are true or false. Furthermore, even if we grant that token acts of predication have truth-conditions, there are reasons for doubting that types of these actions also have truth-conditions. I respond to these objections in this paper. I also clarify what it means for propositions to inherit truth-conditions from token acts of predication.
Not the optimistic type
Authors: Caplan Ben , Tillman Chris , McLean Brian , Murray Adam
Published: June 2016

In recent work, Peter Hanks and Scott Soames argue for the type view, according to which propositions are types whose tokens are acts, states, or events. Hanks and Soames think that one of the virtues of the type view is that it allows them to explain why propositions have semantic properties. But, in this paper, we argue that their explanations aren't satisfactory.
Unnecessary existents
Authors: Spencer Joshua
Published: June 2016

Timothy Williamson has argued for the radical conclusion that everything necessarily exists. In this paper, I assume that the conclusion of Williamson's argument is more incredible than the denial of his premises. Under the assumption that Williamson is mistaken, I argue for the claim that there are some structured propositions which have constituents that might not have existed. If those constituents had not existed, then the propositions would have had an unfilled role; they would have been gappy. This gappy propositions view allows for a plausible response to Williamson's argument. Additionally, a slight variant of the gappy propositions view allows for plausible defense of Linguistic Ersatzism from the problem of contingent non-existents (also known as the problem of aliens).
Conversational implicature, communicative intentions, and content
Authors: Buchanan Ray
Published: June 2016

At the core of the Gricean account of conversational implicature is a certain assumption concerning the phenomenon that its proponents hope to explain and predict – namely, that conversational implicatures are, essentially, cases of speaker meaning. Heck (2006), however, has argued that once we appreciate a distinctive kind of indeterminacy characteristic of particularized implicatures, we must reject this assumption. Heck’s observation is that there are cases where it is clear a speaker has conversationally implicated something by her utterance, but where there is no particular proposition – other than what the speaker said – that we can plausibly take the speaker to have meant, or intended to communicate. I argue that although Heck’s observation is ultimately not in conflict with the core Gricean assumption, it is in tension with the widely held thesis that the things we mean and implicate are propositions. I sketch an alternative account of the things we mean and implicate – one that that accommodates the fact that in many cases of successful communicative exchanges, there is no particular proposition that the speaker intends to communicate.