bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
DISAGREEMENTS ABOUT TASTE VS. DISAGREEMENTS ABOUT MORAL ISSUES
Authors: Stojanovic Isidora 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
The aim of this paper is to argue against a growing tendency to assimilate moral disagreements to disagreements about matters of personal taste. The argumentative strategy adopted in the paper appeals to a battery of linguistic criteria that reveal interesting and important differences between predicates of personal taste and moral predicates. The paper further argues that these semantically tractable differences have an impact on the nature of the corresponding disagreements.
EVIDENCE AND SELF-FULFILLING BELIEF
Authors: Antill Gregory 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
This paper considers the relationship between evidence and self-fulfilling beliefs—beliefs whose propositional contents will be true just in case—and because—an agent believes them. Following Grice (1971), many philosophers hold that believing such propositions would involve an impermissible form of bootstrapping. This paper argues that such objections get their force from a popular but problematic function-model of theoretical deliberation, and that attending to the case of self-fulfilling belief can help us see why such a model is mistaken. The paper shows that on a revised model of theoretical deliberation our evidence will problematically underdetermine any appropriate doxastic attitude: when belief in a proposition is self-fulfilling, our evidence is insufficient to support belief, disbelief, or even suspended judgment toward that proposition.
CONCEPT DESIGNATION
Authors: Båve Arvid 
Published: February 2022

AbstractThe paper proposes a way for adherents of Fregean, structured propositions to designate propositions and other complex senses/concepts using a special kind of functor. I consider some formulations from Peacocke’s works and highlight certain problems that arise as we try to quantify over propositional constituents while referring to propositions using “that”-clauses. With the functor notation, by contrast, we can quantify over senses/concepts with objectual, first-order quantifiers and speak without further ado about their involvement in propositions. The functor notation also turns out to come with an important kind of expressive strengthening, and is shown to be neutral on several controversial issues.
ON CHRISTIAN THEISM AND UNRESTRICTED COMPOSITION
Authors: Inman Ross , Pruss Alexander 
Published: February 2022

AbstractOur aim in this paper is to bring to light two sources of tension for Christian theists who endorse the principle of unrestricted composition (UC), that necessarily, for any objects, the xs, there exists an object, y, such that the xs compose y. In Value, we argue that a (concrete) composite object made of wholly valuable parts is at least as valuable as its most valuable part, and so the mereological sum of God and a wholly valuable part would be at least as valuable as God; but Christian theism arguably demands that no concrete object other than God can be as valuable as God. And in Creation, we argue that the conjunction of theism and unrestricted composition, together with the claim that every concrete entity that is numerically distinct from God is created by God, implies that God is created by God. We conclude by examining the prospects of restricting the thesis of unrestricted composition to the domain of material or spatiotemporal objects as a way to sidestep the above arguments against the conjunction of Christian theism and unrestricted composition.
ABILITY AND THE PAST
Authors: Yao Bokai 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
Two principles regarding agents’ specific ability are proposed. The first claims that ordinary agents (i.e., agents who are not backward time traveler) always lack the ability to do otherwise in the past, while the second principle observes that it is at least possible for some agent to have the ability to perform some action in the past. These two principles further give rise to three desiderata for a true account of ability. Two accounts of ability in the literature—the conditional analysis and the dispositional account—are then examined but they both fail to meet the desiderata simultaneously. A modal principle of ability is motivated at the end.
PERFECTION IN THE BALANCE OF DESCARTES’S EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROJECT
Authors: Thompson Jemimah 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
This article redresses the function of the theodicy in Descartes’s epistemological project. In the Fourth Meditation, Descartes establishes the meditator’s knowledge as attainable through the proper use of the freedom of the will in the act of judgment. This freedom implies a will that is at once perfect in its likeness to God’s own will and only perfectible in its propensity to err in its judgments. The theodicy is thus necessary to sustain the balance between the (unlimited) perfection of God and the (limited) perfection of the meditator.
REASON, SENTIMENT, AND AUTONOMY IN THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF RALPH CUDWORTH
Authors: Kaldas Samuel M. 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
Ralph Cudworth’s moral philosophy seems to switch between two contradictory positions about morality. In his early Sermons, he seems to ground morality in the passionate love that arises in any heart inflamed by the Holy Spirit. But in his later Treatise, he seems to insist that moral truths can only be accessed through dry, a priori abstraction. I argue that closer attention to Cudworth’s wider project resolves the apparent contradiction: Cudworth’s consistent view is that moral truths are apprehended through a special kind of cognition that combines the universality and objectivity of reason with the benevolent passion of moral sentiments.
PROMISSORY OBLIGATION
Authors: Shaver Robert 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
Henry Sidgwick grounds promissory obligation in an obligation not to disappoint expectations. After explaining the view, I note the two standard current objections to expectation views—creating expectations is neither necessary nor sufficient for promissory obligation. I then suggest how Sidgwick (or any expectation theorist) could respond: one should agree that raising expectations is not sufficient for promissory obligation, and one can find harms, other than disappointed expectations, to explain why there is promissory obligation in cases in which expectations are not raised.
AUTHORITY AND COERCION IN LOCKE
Authors: Venezia Luciano 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
An externalist reading of Locke’s account of political authority and obligation closes a gap between his political theory and his moral theory. In this view, the magistrate’s authoritative directives create binding duties. Contrary to the internalist interpretation, however, my externalist reading holds that the reasons motivating subjects to obey the law are not linked to the magistrate’s authority. Instead, the relevant motivations are sanctions for noncompliance introduced by the law. Accordingly, I argue that legal coercion plays a central role in Locke’s political theory, while the internalist view holds that it mainly addresses the recalcitrant.
THE LIMITS OF SYMPATHETIC CONCERN AND MORAL CONSIDERATION IN ADAM SMITH
Authors: Pollock Ryan 
Published: February 2022

AbstractAdam Smith thinks it possible to sympathize with certain nonsentient beings, such as the human dead. Consequently, some commentators argue that Smith’s theory supports ecocentrism. I reject that Smith’s theory has this implication. Sympathizers in Smith’s theory can imagine themselves as nonsentient beings, but they will lack the relevant evaluative concerns. The situation of a nonsentient being, as that being confronts the situation, remains inaccessible to the sympathizer. I will also address the limits of sympathetic concern within Smith’s theory, highlight a related problem about how our efforts to sympathize with others should be constrained, and suggest a solution.
BEING MORE (OR LESS) BLAMEWORTHY
Authors: Coates D. Justin 
Published: February 2022

AbstractIn this paper I explore graded attributions of blameworthiness—that is, judgments of the general sort, “A is more blameworthy for x-ing than B is,” or “A is less blameworthy for her character than B is.” In so doing, I aim to provide a philosophical basis for the widespread, if not completely articulate, practice of altering the degree to which we hold others responsible on the basis of facts about them or facts about their environments. To vindicate this practice, I disambiguate several related properties and identify the properties of being more (and less) blameworthy for an action (or for one’s character) with a complex set of relations between (i) what an agent deserves for her action and (ii) how good it is from the point of view of desert that she receives that response.
DOES AFFECTIVE EMPATHY REQUIRE PERSPECTIVE-TAKING OR AFFECTIVE MATCHING?
Authors: Schwan David 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
Affective empathy has been variously characterized. First, I argue that we have reasons to prefer a narrower account of affective empathy, which requires the cognitive mechanisms of perspective-taking. Second, I mount a challenge to the standard account of affective matching thought to be required for affective empathy. On one widely held view, affective empathy requires an actual affective match between the subject and the target of empathy. I reject this view. While empathy often involves an actual match, we also count as empathizing with the target if we share the fitting state in their situation. This wider account better captures a number of plausible cases of empathy, and it also better explains why we care about affective empathy.
MODESTY AS AN EXECUTIVE VIRTUE
Authors: Um Sungwoo 
Published: February 2022

AbstractThis paper aims to offer new insights into the virtue of modesty. It argues that modesty is best understood as an executive virtue with the moderate evaluative attitude at its center. The main goals include to describe the main features of this evaluative attitude and to distinguish it from other features that are only contingently associated with modesty. Then some distinctive features of modesty as an executive virtue are suggested and defended. Next, some of existing accounts are critically examined. Finally, this paper ends with the claim that modesty as a virtue does not depend on whether the agent has excellent qualities.
WHY CONSTITUTIVE MECHANISTIC EXPLANATION CANNOT BE CAUSAL
Authors: Gillett Carl 
Published: February 2022

AbstractIn his “New Consensus” on explanation, Wesley Salmon (1989) famously argued that there are two kinds of scientific explanation: global, derivational, and unifying explanations, and then local, ontic explanations backed by causal relations. Following Salmon’s New Consensus, the dominant view in philosophy of science is what I term “neo-Causalism” which assumes that all ontic explanations of singular fact/event are causal explanations backed by causal relations, and that scientists only search for causal patterns or relations and only offer causal explanations of singular facts/events. I argue that there are foundational, and fatal, flaws in the neo-Causal picture. The relations backing constitutive mechanistic explanations of activities of wholes using activities of parts, as well as other species of compositional explanation, cannot be causal relations. Treating them as causal or causation-like is therefore plausibly a category mistake. Compositional explanations in the sciences represent instead a sui generis kind of ontic explanation of singular fact/event backed by sui generis compositional relations. We thus need a pluralistic revision of Salmon’s New Consensus on explanation to reflect these findings.
SEMANTIC DIRECT REALISM
Authors: Robinson Howard 
Published: February 2022

AbstractThe most common form of direct realism is Phenomenological Direct Realism (PDR). PDR is the theory that direct realism consists in unmediated awareness of the external object in the form of unmediated awareness of its relevant properties. I contrast this with Semantic Direct Realism (SDR), the theory that perceptual experience puts you in direct cognitive contact with external objects but does so without the unmediated awareness of the objects’ intrinsic properties invoked by PDR. PDR is what most understand by direct realism. My argument is that, under pressure from the arguments from illusion and hallucination, defenders of intentionalist theories, and even of relational theories, in fact retreat to SDR. I also argue briefly that the sense-datum theory is compatible with SDR and so nothing is gained by adopting either of the more fashionable theories.
THE POWER OF COLOR
Authors: Marmodoro Anna , Grasso Matteo 
Published: February 2022

AbstractAre colors features of objects “out there in the world” or are they features of our inner experience and only “in our head?” Color perception has been the focus of extensive philosophical and scientific debate. In this paper we discuss the limitations of the view that Chalmers’ (2006) has characterized as Primitivism, and we develop Marmodoro’s (2006) Constitutionalism further, to provide a metaphysical account of color perception in terms of causal powers. The result is Power-based Constitutionalism, the view that colors are (multi-track and multi-stage) powers of objects, whose (full) manifestations depend on the mutual manifestation of relevant powers of perceivers and the perceived objects being co-realized in mutual interaction. After a presentation of the tenets of Power-based Constitutionalism, we evaluate its strengths in contrast to two other recent power-based accounts: John Heil’s (2003, 2012) powerful qualities view and Max Kistler’s (2017) multi-track view.
EPISTEMIC TEMPERANCE
Authors: Bloomfield Paul 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
The idea of epistemic temperance is introduced and explicated through a discussion of Plato’s understanding of it. A variety of psychological and epistemic phenomena (including confirmation bias, self-serving bias, etc.) are presented which arise due to epistemic intemperance, or the inappropriate influence of conations on cognition. Two cases familiar to philosophers, self-deception and racial prejudice, are discussed as the result of epistemic intemperance though they are not typically seen as having a common cause. Finally, epistemic temperance is distinguished from epistemic justice, as these have been conflated.
NONHUMAN ANIMALS ARE MORALLY RESPONSIBLE
Authors: Ferrin Asia 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
Animals are often presumed to lack moral agency insofar as they lack the capacities for reflection or the ability to understand their motivating reasons for acting. In this paper, I argue that animals are in some cases morally responsible. First, I outline conditions of moral action, drawing from a quality of will account of moral responsibility. Second, I review recent empirical research on the capacities needed for moral action in humans and show that animals also have such capacities. I conclude that though it may be difficult to engage in the practice of holding animals morally responsible, given the communication barrier and lack of mutual understanding, some animals nevertheless act in ways for which they are morally responsible.
HOW SUPEREROGATION CAN SAVE INTRAPERSONAL PERMISSIVISM
Authors: Li Han 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
Rationality is intrapersonally permissive just in case there are multiple doxastic states that one agent may be rational in holding at a given time, given some body of evidence. One way for intrapersonal permissivism to be true is if there are epistemic supererogatory beliefs—beliefs that go beyond the call of epistemic duty. Despite this, there has been almost no discussion of epistemic supererogation in the permissivism literature. This paper shows that this is a mistake. It does this by arguing that the most popular ways of responding to one of the major obstacles to any intrapersonally permissive all fall prey to the same problem. This problem is most naturally solved by positing a category of epistemically supererogatory belief. So intrapersonal epistemic permissivists should embrace epistemic supererogation.
TRUTH(MAKING) BY CONVENTION
Authors: Asay Jamin 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
A common account of the distinction between analytic and synthetic truths is that while the former are true solely in virtue of meaning, the latter are true also in virtue of the way of the world. Quine famously disputed this characterization, and his skepticism over the analytic/synthetic distinction has cast a long shadow. Against this skepticism, this paper argues that the common account comes close to the truth, and that truthmaker theory in particular offers the resources for providing a compelling account of the distinction that preserves the basic ideas behind it, and avoids the standard criticisms facing the distinction. In particular, it is argued that analytic truths are truths that ontologically depend in no way whatsoever upon what exists.
FREEDOM, FOREKNOWLEDGE, AND DEPENDENCE
Authors: Cyr Taylor W. , Law Andrew 
Published: February 2022

AbstractRecently, several authors have utilized the notion of dependence to respond to the traditional argument for the incompatibility of freedom and divine foreknowledge. However, proponents of this response have not always been so clear in specifying where the incompatibility argument goes wrong, which has led to some unfounded objections to the response. We remedy this dialectical confusion by clarifying both the dependence response itself and its interaction with the standard incompatibility argument. Once these clarifications are made, it becomes clear both (1.) that the dependence response does not beg the question against the proponent of the incompatibility argument and (2.) that the dependence response advances the dialectic whether it is developed as a version of Ockhamism or as a version of multiple-pasts compatibilism.
PICTURES, PROPOSITIONS, AND PREDICATES
Authors: Gregory Dominic 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
Do representational pictures have propositional contents? The current paper argues that the characteristic contents of pictures are predicative rather than propositional: pictures characterize things as looking certain ways, and they thereby express properties of visual perspectives. The paper argues that the characteristic predicative contents of pictures are nonetheless able to feature in fully-fledged propositional contents once they are combined with contents of other suitable sorts. Various facts about communicative uses of pictures are then explained. The paper concludes by considering the bearing of its conclusions upon questions about the relationships between linguistic representation and pictorial representation.
THE NYĀYA ARGUMENT FOR DISJUNCTIVISM
Authors: Schiller Henry Ian 
Published: February 2022

AbstractThe Nyāya school of classical Indian epistemology defended (by today’s standards) a radical version of epistemic externalism. The school’s adherents also argued from their epistemological positions to an early version of disjunctivism about perceptual experience. In this paper, I assess the value of such an argument, concluding that a modified version of the Nyaya argument may be defensible.
LOCKE’S LIFE-WORLD
Authors: Lenz Martin 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
This paper argues for a new understanding of Locke’s view on secondary qualities. While they are commonly discussed with regard to their mind-dependence and contrasted with primary qualities, I will consider Locke’s teleological arguments for their indispensability. Secondary qualities, I submit, should be seen in the teleological framework according to which they are designed with regard to our needs and purposes. Having to account for cross-purposes and relativity to different kinds of beings, secondary qualities will be shown to provide the crucial ingredients of our life-world that make for a suitable and shared environment.
HEGEL’S CRITIQUE OF RATIONALIST METAPHYSICS IN THE “VORBEGRIFF” CHAPTER OF THE ENCYCLOPEDIA LOGIC
Authors: Lebanidze Giorgi 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
The paper demonstrates that a detailed analysis of Hegel’s criticism of rationalist metaphysics in the “Vorbegriff” (Preliminary Conception) chapter of the Encyclopedia Logic can shed light on the following critical features of Hegel’s metaphysics: (1) advancing semantic holism as an alternative to semantic atomism; (2) renouncing the projection of a substance-attribute formal structure onto actuality; (3) dismissing sense perception as the source of conceptual content; and (4) rejecting dualist ontology.
EARLY SARTRE ON SELF-UNDERSTANDING, AFFECTIVITY, AND VALUE
Authors: Vanello Daniel 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
The aim of this paper is to reconstruct Sartre’s claim to the effect that self-understanding is constitutively dependent on affectivity. Affectivity is Sartre’s Schelerian-inspired term to refer to affective experience that, if appropriate, purports to disclose value-qualities as genuine properties of objects. The main argument of the paper is that self-understanding involves a process by which we conceptualize the projects we seek to realize and of which we are at first only nonconceptually aware. The process by which we conceptualize our projects relies on the ability to disclose value affectively.
FLOW AND WONDER IN THE ZHUANGIST IDEAL OF WANDERING
Authors: Songyao Ren 
Published: February 2022

AbstractThe Zhuangist ideal of wandering is characterized by the navigation of the plurality of daos in response to changing circumstances. In practice, this is achieved through a series of flows in skilled activities that have goals built into them, which are prescribed by objective constraints of the circumstances in relation to the agent’s own desires. Since flow cannot go on without interruption, detached reflection is called for when challenges interrupt an episode of flow. The emotion essential to moments of detachment is wonder—a cognitive emotion that prompts creative engagement with the novel, peculiar, and strange.
COWARDICE AND INJUSTICE
Authors: Zavaliy Andrei G. 
Published: February 2022

AbstractContrary to Greek tradition, Aristotle condemns suicide without qualification, citing two reasons for moral disapproval. First, suicide is an act of cowardice. Second, suicide involves an act of injustice toward the state. It is argued that the charge of cowardice is too strong even by Aristotle’s own standards. There is evidence that the philosopher recognized a distinction between the cases of self-murder that testify to a cowardly character and the cases when one may be pardoned. It is shown that a suicide acts unjustly toward the polis in a way analogous to desertion from an army.
A FEARFUL ASYMMETRY
Authors: McArthur Neil 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
Is John Locke a legal moralist? In his Letter concerning Toleration, Locke argues that, while the state should not punish people for their private religious beliefs, it is still permissible, indeed desirable, for magistrates to enforce prohibitions against people’s private sexual behavior. This suggests that he countenances moralist legislation. However, I argue that, in spite of his position on sexual liberty, Locke in fact holds a distinctive liberal conception of state power and of its scope in regulating people’s private behavior. I offer an interpretation of his views on sexual liberty that shows them to be compatible with this conception.
PERCEIVING LIFE AS GOOD AND OUR OWN
Authors: Murphy Allison 
Published: February 2022

Abstract
In EN IX.9, Aristotle explains the value human beings place on their lives in terms of a special self-directed perception that attends their actualization in perceiving and thinking. I argue that Aristotle understands this perception as one that synoptically grasps life as good and one’s own. I further show that Aristotle’s understanding of the nature of this perception is key to his central argument in IX.9: the perception accounts for the good person’s experience both of his individual life and of the life of his friend as choiceworthy.