Showing papers in "Canadian Journal of Philosophy in 2020"

A Taxonomy of Transparency in Science

Abstract: Both scientists and philosophers of science have recently emphasized the importance of promoting transparency in science For scientists, transparency is a way to promote reproducibility, progress, and trust in research For philosophers of science, transparency can help address the value-ladenness of scientific research in a responsible way Nevertheless, the concept of transparency is a complex one Scientists can be transparent about many different things, for many different reasons, on behalf of many different stakeholders This paper proposes a taxonomy that clarifies the major dimensions along which approaches to transparency can vary By doing so, it provides several insights that philosophers and other science-studies scholars can pursue In particular, it helps address common objections to pursuing transparency in science, it clarifies major forms of transparency, and it suggests avenues for further research on this topic

On Social Defeat

Abstract: Influential cases have been provided that seem to suggest that one can fail to have knowledge because of the social environment. If not a distinct kind of social defeater, is there a uniquely social phenomenon that defeats knowledge? My aim in this paper is to explore these questions. I shall argue that despite initial appearances to the contrary, we have no reason to accept a special class of social defeater, nor any essentially social defeat phenomenon. We can explain putative cases of social defeat with our existing epistemological apparatus.

Credence: A Belief-First Approach

Abstract: This paper explains and defends a belief-first view of the relationship between belief and credence. On this view, credences are a species of beliefs, and the degree of credence is determined by the content of what is believed. We begin by developing what we take to be the most plausible belief-first view. Then, we offer several arguments for it. Finally, we show how it can resist objections that have been raised to belief-first views. We conclude that the belief-first view is more plausible than many have previously supposed.

On Predicting Recidivism: Epistemic Risk, Tradeoffs, and Values in Machine Learning

Abstract: Recent scholarship in philosophy of science and technology has shown that scientific and technological decision making are laden with values, including values of a social, political, and/or ethical character. This paper examines the role of value judgments in the design of machine-learning (ML) systems generally and in recidivism-prediction algorithms specifically. Drawing on work on inductive and epistemic risk, the paper argues that ML systems are value laden in ways similar to human decision making, because the development and design of ML systems requires human decisions that involve tradeoffs that reflect values. In many cases, these decisions have significant—and, in some cases, disparate—downstream impacts on human lives. After examining an influential court decision regarding the use of proprietary recidivism-prediction algorithms in criminal sentencing,Wisconsin v. Loomis, the paper provides three recommendations for the use of ML in penal systems.

The Role of Concepts in Fixing Language

Abstract: This is a contribution to the symposium on Herman Cappelen’s book Fixing Language. Cappelen proposes a metasemantic framework—the “Austerity Framework”—within which to understand the general phenomenon of conceptual engineering. The proposed framework is austere in the sense that it makes no reference to concepts. Conceptual engineering is then given a “worldly” construal according to which conceptual engineering is a process that operates on the world. I argue, contra Cappelen, that an adequate theory of conceptual engineering must make reference to concepts. This is because concepts are required to account for topic continuity, a phenomenon which lies at the heart of projects in conceptual engineering. I argue that Cappelen’s own account of topic continuity is inadequate as a result of the austerity of his metasemantic framework, and that his worldly construal of conceptual engineering is untenable.

Understanding the Problem of “Hype”: Exaggeration, Values, and Trust in Science

Abstract: Several science studies scholars report instances of scientific “hype,” or sensationalized exaggeration, in journal articles, institutional press releases, and science journalism in a variety of fields (e.g., Caulfield and Condit 2012). Yet, how “hype” is being conceived varies. I will argue that hype is best understood as a particular kind of exaggeration, one that explicitly or implicitly exaggerates various positive aspects of science inways that undermine the goals of science communication in a particular context. This account also makes clear the ways that value judgments play a role in judgments of “hype,” which has implications for detecting and addressing this problem.

Platonic Laws of Nature

Abstract: David Armstrong accepted the following three theses: universals are immanent, laws are relations between universals, and laws govern. Taken together, they form an attractive position, for they promise to explain regularities in nature—one of the most important desiderata for a theory of laws and properties—while remaining compatible with naturalism. However, I argue that the three theses are incompatible. The basic idea is that each thesis makes an explanatory claim, but the three claims can be shown to run in a problematic circle. I then consider which thesis we ought to reject (hint: see the title) and suggest some general lessons for the metaphysics of laws.

Confirmation based on analogical inference: Bayes meets Jeffrey

Abstract: Certain hypotheses cannot be directly confirmed for theoretical, practical, or moral reasons. For some of these hypotheses, however, there might be a workaround: confirmation based on analogical reasoning. In this paper we take up Dardashti, Hartmann, Thebault, and Winsberg’s (2019) idea of analyzing confirmation based on analogical inference Bayesian style. We identify three types of confirmation by analogy and show that Dardashti et al.’s approach can cover two of them. We then highlight possible problems with their model as a general approach to analogical inference and argue that these problems can be avoided by supplementing Bayesian update with Jeffrey conditionalization.

Thinking about Values in Science: Ethical versus Political Approaches

Abstract: Philosophers of science now broadly agree that doing good science involves making non-epistemic value judgments. I call attention to two very different normative standards which can be used to evaluate such judgments: standards grounded in ethics and standards grounded in political philosophy. Though this distinction has not previously been highlighted, I show that the values in science literature contain arguments of each type. I conclude by explaining why this distinction is important. Seeking to determine whether some value-laden determination meets substantive ethical standards is a very different endeavor from seeking to determine if it is politically legitimate.

Skepticism motivated: on the skeptical import of motivated reasoning

Abstract: Empirical work on motivated reasoning suggests that our judgments are influenced to a surprising extent by our wants, desires, and preferences (Kahan 2016; Lord, Ross, and Lepper 1979; Molden and Higgins 2012; Taber and Lodge 2006). How should we evaluate the epistemic status of beliefs formed through motivated reasoning? For example, are such beliefs epistemically justified? Are they candidates for knowledge? In liberal democracies, these questions are increasingly controversial as well as politically timely (Beebe et al. 2018; Lynch Forthcoming, 2018; Slothuus and de Vreese 2010). And yet, the epistemological significance of motivated reasoning has been almost entirely ignored by those working in mainstream epistemology. We aim to rectify this oversight. Using politically motivated reasoning as a case study, we show how motivated reasoning gives rise to three distinct kinds of skeptical challenges. We conclude by showing how the skeptical import of motivated reasoning has some important ramifications for how we should think about the demands of intellectual humility.

Kantian Self-Conceit and the Two Guises of Authority

Abstract: There is a debate in the literature as to whether Kantian self-conceit is intrapsychic or interpersonal. I argue that self-conceit is both. I argue that, for Kant, self-conceit is fundamentally an illusion about authority, one’s own and any authority one stands in relation to. Self-conceit refuses to recognize the authority of the law. But the law “shows up” for us in two guises: one’s own reason and other persons. Thus, self-conceit refuses to recognize both guises of the law. Hence self-conceit is essentially double-sided, at once intrapsychic and interpersonal.

Wittgenstein on Going On

Abstract: In a famous passage from the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein describes a pupil who has been learning to write out various sequences of numbers in response to orders such as “+1” (for the natural numbers) and “+2” (for the series 0, 2, 4, 6, 8…). He has shown himself competent for numbers up to 1000, but when we have him continue the “+2” sequence beyond 1000, he writes the numerals 1004, 1008, 1012. As Wittgenstein describes the case: We say to him, “Look what you’re doing!” — He doesn’t understand us. We say “You should have added two; look how you began the series!” — He answers: “Yes! Isn’t it right? I thought that’s how I should [sollen] do it. — Or suppose he were to say, pointing to the series, “But I went on in the same way!”(PI §185)1The passage continues:— It would now be no use to us to say “But don’t you see…?” — and repeat for him the old explanations and examples. — In such a case, we might perhaps say: this person naturally understands our order, once given our explanations, as we would understand the order “Add 2 up to 1000, 4 up to 2000, 6 up to 3000, and so on.”(ibid.)

Coincidence Avoidance and Formulating the Access Problem

Abstract: In this article, I discuss a trivialization worry for Hartry Field’s official formulation of the access problem for mathematical realists, which was pointed out by Oystein Linnebo (and has recently been made much of by Justin Clarke-Doane). I argue that various attempted reformulations of the Benacerraf problem fail to block trivialization, but that access worriers can better defend themselves by sticking closer to Hartry Field’s initial informal characterization of the access problem in terms of (something like) general epistemic norms of coincidence avoidance.

Changing the Subject

Abstract: Abstract In Fixing Language, Herman Cappelen defends the project of conceptual engineering from a family of objections that he calls “the Strawsonian challenges.” Those objections are all versions of this: “If I ask you a question about the F’s, and you give me an answer that’s not about the F’s but rather about the G’s, then you haven’t answered my question. You have changed the subject.” I argue that Cappelen’s response succeeds in reply to one understanding of the Strawsonian challenge—on which it is motivated by ordinary judgments of samesaying and continuity of topic—but that it fails as a response to another version—on which a parallel objection is motivated by philosophical considerations and is stated in a theoretical register.

Failures of Intention and Failed-Art

Abstract: This paper explores what happens when artists fail to execute their goals. I argue that taxonomies of failure in general, and of failed-art in particular, should focus on the attempts which generate the failed-entity, and that to do this they must be sensitive to an attempt’s orientation. This account of failed-attempts delivers three important new insights into artistic practice: (1) there can be no accidental art, only deliberate and incidental art; (2) art’s intention-dependence entails the possibility of performative failure, but not of failed-art; and (3) art’s intention-dependence is perfectly compatible with the role that luck plays in artistic creation.

Inscrutability and Its Discontents

Abstract: Our main focus in this paper is Herman Cappelen’s claim, defended in Fixing Language, that reference is radically inscrutable. We argue that Cappelen’s inscrutability thesis should be rejected. We also highlight how rejecting inscrutability undermines Cappelen’s most radical conclusions about conceptual engineering. In addition, we raise a worry about his positive account of topic continuity through inquiry and debate.

How to Philosophically Tackle Kinds without Talking about “Natural Kinds”

Abstract: Recent rival attempts in the philosophy of science to put forward a general theory of the properties that all (and only) natural kinds across the sciences possess may have proven to be futile. Instead, I develop a general methodological framework for how to philosophically study kinds. Any kind has to be investigated and articulated together with the human aims that motivate referring to this kind, where different kinds in the same scientific domain can answer to different concrete aims. My core contention is that non-epistemic aims, including environmental, ethical, and political aims, matter as well. This is defended and illustrated based on several examples of kinds, with particular attention to the role of social-political aims: species, race, gender, as well as personality disorders and oppositional defiant disorder as psychiatric kinds. Such non-epistemic aims and values need not always be those personally favoured by scientists, but may have to reflect values that matter to relevant societal stakeholders. Despite the general agenda to study ‘kinds,’ I argue that philosophers should stop using the term ‘natural kinds,’ as this label obscures the relevance of humans interests and the way in which many kinds are based on contingent social processes subject to human responsibility.

Democratic Public Justification

Abstract: Democratic institutions are appealing means of making publicly justified social choices. By allowing participation by all citizens, democracy can accommodate diversity among citizens, and by considering the perspectives of all, via ballots or debate, democratic results can approximate what the balance of reasons favors. I consider whether, and under what conditions, democratic institutions might reliably make publicly justified social decisions. I argue that conventional accounts of democracy, constituted by voting or deliberation, are unlikely to be effective public justification mechanisms. I conclude that the limitations of conventional mechanisms can be ameliorated through the use of lotteries instead of elections.

The Error Condition

Abstract: The possibility of error conditions the possibility of normative principles. I argue that extant interpretations of this condition undermine the possibility of normative principles for our action because they implicitly treat error as a perfection of an action. I then explain how a constitutivist metaphysics of capacities explains why error is an imperfection of an action. Finally, I describe and defend the interpretation of the error condition which follows.

The Young Spinoza on Scepticism, Truth, and Method

Abstract: This paper offers a new interpretation of the young Spinoza’s method of distinguishing the true ideas from the false, which shows that his answer to the sceptic is not a failure. This method combines analysis and synthesis as follows: if we can say of the object of an idea (a) which simple things underlie it, (b) how it can be constructed out of simple elements, and (c) what properties it has after it has been produced, doubt concerning the object simply makes no sense. The paper also suggests a way in which this methodology connects to the ontology of the Ethics.

Kant on Cognizing Oneself as a Spontaneous Cognizer

Abstract: I examine a range of issues concerning Kant's conception of cognitive spontaneity. I consider whether we can cognize or know ourselves as spontaneous cognizers, and why Kant seems to regard the notion of cognitive spontaneity as less problematic than the idea of moral spontaneity. As an organizing theme of my discussion, I use an apparent tension between the A-edition and the B-edition of the first Critique. Against common interpretations, I argue that in the B-edition Kant does not revoke his claim that we can cognize, and (perhaps) even know, that our noumenal selves are absolutely spontaneous cognitive agents.

Two Dogmas of the Artistic-Ethical Interaction Debate

Abstract: Can artworks be morally good or bad? Many philosophers have thought so. Does this moral goodness or badness bear on how good or bad a work is as art? This is very much a live debate. Autonomists argue that moral value is not relevant to artistic value; interactionists argue that it is. In this paper, I argue that the debate between interactionists and autonomists has been conducted unfairly: all parties to the debate have tacitly accepted a set of constraints which prejudices the issue against the interactionist. I identify two demands which are routinely placed on arguments seeking to establish interaction and argue that they are, in fact, mutually conflicting. There are two upshots. First, in light of this, it is unsurprising that arguments for interaction have failed to meet with everybody’s satisfaction. The constraints are such that no argument can meet them. Second, recognizing this helps us uncover a new, promising, but hitherto overlooked strategy for establishing artistic-ethical interaction.

Bernard Williams as a Philosopher of Ethical Freedom

Abstract: Interpreting Bernard Williams’s ethical philosophy is not easy. His style is deceptively conversational; apparently direct, yet argumentatively inexplicit and allusive. He is moreover committed to evading ready-made philosophical “-isms.” All this reinforces the already distinct impression that the structure of his philosophy is a web of interrelated commitments where none has unique priority. Against this impression, however, I will venture that the contours of his philosophy become clearest if one considers that there is a single, unchanging root conviction from which his ethical philosophy grows. Despite the perpetual motion of his philosophical thought—its erudition, originality, range, and unceasing forward momentum—still, I contend, there is something unchanging at the heart of it. I will show this by reference to three signature theses: internal reasons, the relativism of distance, and the porous borders of philosophy and history. I will argue that the root conviction of which these are the fruits is the conviction that the constraints of universal rationality seriously underdetermine how one should live. This, I believe, is the vision of the human ethical condition that constitutes the largely inexplicit yet utterly fundamental presupposition beneath Williams’s ethical philosophy taken as a whole. I label the object of this root conviction ethical freedom, and thus portray Williams as a philosopher of ethical freedom.

Why Does Kant Think We Must Believe in the Immortal Soul

Abstract: Making sense of Kant’s claim that it is morally necessary for us to believe in the immortal soul is a historically fraught issue. Commentators typically reject it, or take one of two paths: they either restrict belief in the immortal soul to our subjective psychology, draining it of any substantive rational grounding; or make it out to be a rational necessity that morally interested beings must accept on pain of contradiction. Against these interpreters, I argue that on Kant’s view, belief in our immortality is necessary because it further determines and enriches the cognitive content contained in the concept of the highest good. Through this sharpened conceptual content, we acquire the resources to withstand theoretical skepticism about our moral vocation.

Beyond Normative Control: Against the Will Theory of Rights

Abstract: The Will Theory of Rights says that having control over another’s duties grounds rights. The Will Theory has commonly been objected to on the grounds that it undergenerates right-ascriptions along three fronts. This paper systematically examines a range of positions open to the Will Theory in response to these counterexamples, while being faithful to the Will Theory’s focus on normative control. It argues that of the seemingly plausible ways the defender of the Will Theory can proceed, one cannot both be faithful to the theory’s focus on normative control as the grounds of rights and achieve extensional adequacy.

Understanding Meta-Emotions: Prospects for a Perceptualist Account

Abstract: This article clarifies the nature of meta-emotions, and it surveys the prospects of applying a version of the perceptualist model of emotions to them. It first considers central aspects of their intentionality and phenomenal character. It then applies the perceptualist model to meta-emotions, addressing issues of evaluative content and the normative dimension of meta-emotional experience. Finally, in considering challenges and objections, it assesses the perceptualist model, concluding that its application to meta-emotions is an attractive extension of the theory, insofar as it captures some distinctive features of meta-emotions—specifically their normative dimension—while locating them within the domain of occurrent affective experiences.

Akratic Action under the Guise of the Good

Abstract: Many philosophers have thought that human beings do or pursue only what we see as good. These “guise-of-the-good” views face powerful challenges and counterexamples, such as akratic action, in which we do what we ourselves believe we ought not do. I propose a new way for guise-of-the-good views to address this central counterexample by appealing to conflicting beliefs. I then answer concerns that this appeal is insufficiently explanatory, attributes too much conflict, leaves out an essential asymmetry in action against one’s “better” judgment, attributes systematic error about one’s own beliefs, and is too implausible.

It’s Complicated: What Our Attitudes toward Pregnancy, Abortion, and Miscarriage Tell Us about the Moral Status of Early Fetuses

Abstract: Many accounts of the morality of abortion assume that early fetuses must all have or lack moral status in virtue of developmental features that they share. Our actual attitudes toward early fetuses don’t reflect this all-or-nothing assumption. If we start with the assumption that our attitudes toward fetuses are accurately tracking their value, then we need an account of fetal moral status that can explain why it is appropriate to love some fetuses but not others. I argue that a fetus can come to have moral claims on persons who have taken up the activity of person-creation.

Plato on the Enslavement of Reason

Abstract: In Republic 8–9, Socrates describes four main kinds of vicious people, all of whose souls are “ruled” by an element other than reason, and in some of whom reason is said to be “enslaved.” What role does reason play in such souls? In this paper, I argue, based on Republic 8–9 and related passages, and in contrast to some common alternative views, that for Plato the “enslavement” of reason consists in this: instead of determining for itself what is good, reason is forced to desire and pursue as good a goal determined by the soul’s ruler.

The New Puzzle of Moral Deference

Abstract: Philosophers think that there is something fishy about moral deference. The most common explanation of this fishiness is that moral deference doesn’t yield the epistemic states necessary for certain moral achievements (e.g., acting with moral worth or being virtuous). First, I argue that this explanation overgeneralizes. It entails that using many intuitively kosher belief-formation methods (e.g., abduction, reductio ad absurdum, and intuition) should be off-putting. Second, I argue that moral deference is sometimes superior to these other methods because it puts one in a better position to gain the relevant moral achievements.