Showing papers in "Philosophy and Phenomenological Research in 2000"

Persons and bodies : a constitution view

Abstract: What is a human person, and what is the relation between a person and his or her body? In her third book on the philosophy of mind, Lynne Rudder Baker investigates what she terms the person/body problem and offers a detailed account of the relation between human persons and their bodies. Baker's argument is based on the 'Constitution View' of persons and bodies, which aims to show what distinguishes persons from all other beings and to show how we can be fully material beings without being identical to our bodies. The Constitution View yields answers to the questions 'What am I most fundamentally?', 'What is a person?', and 'What is the relation between human persons and their bodies'? Baker argues that the complex mental property of first-person perspective enables one to conceive of one's body and mental states as one's own.

The Moralistic Fallacy: On the 'Appropriateness' of Emotions

Abstract: Philosophers often call emotions appropriate or inappropriate. What is meant by such talk? In one sense, explicated in this paper, to call an emotion appropriate is to say that the emotion is fitting: it accurately presents its object as having certain evaluative features. For instance, envy might be thought appropriate when one's rival has something good which one lacks. But someone might grant that a circumstance has these features, yet deny that envy is appropriate, on the grounds that it is wrong to be envious. These two senses of 'appropriate' have much less in common than philosophers have supposed. Indeed, the distinction between propriety and correctness is crucial to understanding the distinctive role of the emotions in ethics. We argue here that an emotion can be fitting despite being wrong to feel, and that various philosophical arguments are guilty of a systematic error which we term the moralistic fallacy.

The ethics of belief

Abstract: In this paper I will address a few of the many questions that fall under the general heading of "the ethics of belief." In section I I will discuss the adequacy of what has come to be known as the "deontological conception of epistemic justification" in the light of our apparent lack of voluntary control over what we believe. In section II I'll defend an evidentialist view about what we ought to believe. And in section III I will briefly discuss apparent conflicts between epistemic considerations and moral or other considerations.

The human animal : personal identity without psychology

Abstract: Most philosophers writing about personal identity in recent years claim that what it takes for humans to persist through time is a matter of psychology. This work argues that such approaches face daunting problems, and defends in their place a radically non-psychological account of personal identity. It defines human beings as biological organisms and claims that no psychological relation is either sufficient or necessary for an organism to persist. The author rejects several famous thought-experiments dealing with personal identity. He argues that one could survive the destruction of all of one's psychological contents and capabilities as long as the human organism remains alive - as long as its vital functions, such as breathing, circulation and metabolism, continue.

Fiat and Bona Fide Boundaries

Abstract: There is a basic distinction, in the realm of spatial boundaries, between bona fide boundaries on the one hand, and fiat boundaries on the other. The former are just the physical boundaries of old. The latter are exemplified especially by boundaries induced through human demarcation, for example, in the geographic domain. The classical metaphysical problems connected with the notions of adjacency, contact, separation, and division can be resolved in an intuitive way by recognizing this two-sorted ontology of boundaries. Bona fide boundaries yield a notion of contact that is effectively modeled by classical topology; the analogue of contact involving fiat boundaries calls, however, for a different account, based on the intuition that fiat boundaries do not support the open/closed distinction on which classical topology is based. In the presence of this twosorted ontology it then transpires that mereotopology-typology erected on a mereological basis-is more than a trivial formal variant of classical point-set topology.

Fischer and Ravizza on Moral Responsibility and History

Abstract: There is much of significance in John Fischer and Mark Ravizza's thoughtful book. I will, however, focus primarily on their interesting and suggestive claim that "moral responsibility is an essentially historical notion: someone's being morally responsible requires that the past be a certain way." (207) But first some preliminaries. Fischer and Ravizza argue that the "freedom-relevant condition" of moral responsibility (13) consists in "guidance control." An agent has guidance control of an action when "the action flows from the agent's own, moderately reasons-responsive mechanism." (207) There can be guidance control, they argue, even in a deterministic world in which alternative possibilities of a robust sort are precluded. So this account of the freedom-relevant condition of moral responsibility supports a form of compatibilism. There are three central concepts at play in this story about guidance control: (i) mechanism, (ii) moderate reasons responsiveness, and (iii) ownership. (i) The idea of a mechanism from which an action "flows" is left fairly underdeveloped. It is intended to include both a mechanism of practical reasoning, and "nonreflective mechanisms of various kinds." (86) Examples of such nonreflective mechanisms include irresistible urges, (48) "direct manipulation of the brain" by someone else, (48) and habits that unreflectively issue in action. (86) (ii) Such mechanisms can be or fail to be responsive in various ways to reasons-including moral reasons-for action. Fischer and Ravizza aim at an account of exactly what kind of reasons-responsiveness is necessary for guidance control. They do not, however, try to say what a reason for action is, for they want an account that is neutral between competing theories of the nature of practical reasons. (68n) (I suggest below that this is problematic.) One

The Non-Governing Conception of Laws of Nature

Abstract: Reprinted in J.W. Carroll (ed.), Readings in Laws of Nature (Pittsburgh University Press 2004)

Entitlement: Epistemic Rights Without Epistemic Duties?

Abstract: The debate between externalists and internalists in epistemology can be viewed as a disagreement about whether there are epistemic rights (to believe) without corresponding duties or obligations (to justify what is believed). Taking an epistemic right to believe P as an authorization to not only accept P as true but to use P as a positive reason for accepting other propositions, the debate is about whether there are unjustified justifiers. It is about whether there are propositions that provide for others what nothing need provide for them-viz., reasons for thinking them true. I take externalists to be people who believe there are such unjustified justifiers and internalists to be those who deny it. Externalists hold that we are entitled to believe some things for which we have no justification. Some externalists-I happen to be one of them-go farther and say we are not only entitled to believe things we have no reasons to believe, we often, in fact, know things we have no reason to believe. Knowledge, the supreme form of entitlement, requires no justification. This is not to say that it doesn't sometimes have it. Talk of "justification" and "reasons" may not be the right way to characterize this disagreement since parties to the dispute tend to use these words in

An Argument Against the Causal Theory of Action Explanation

Abstract: It is widely held that belief explanations of action are a species of causal explanation. This paper argues against the causal construal of action explanation. It first defends the claim that unless beliefs are brain states, beliefs cannot causally explain behavior. Second, the paper argues against the view that beliefs are brain states. It follows from these claims that beliefs do not causally explain behavior. An alternative account is then proposed, according to which action explanation is teleological rather than causal, and the paper closes by suggesting that teleological account makes sense of and supports the autonomy of common sense psychology.

What are physical objects

Abstract: The concept of a physical object has figured prominently in the history of philosophy, and is probably more important now than it has ever been before. Yet the question What are physical objects?, i.e., What is the correct analysis of the concept of a physical object?, has received surprisingly little attention. The purpose of this paper is to address this question. I consider several attempts at answering the question, and give my reasons for preferring one of them over its rivals. The account of physical objects that I recommend-the Spatial Location Account-defines physical objects as objects with spatial locations. The intuitive idea behind the Spatial Location Account is this. Objects from all of the different ontological categories-physical objects; non-physical objects like souls, if there are any; propositions; universals; etc.-have this much in common: they all exist in time. But not all of them exist in space. The ones that exist in time and space, i.e., the ones that have spatial locations, are the ones that count as physical objects.

The False Hopes of Traditional Epistemology

Abstract: After Hume, attempts to forge an empiricist epistemology have taken three forms, which I shall call the First, Middle, and Third Way. The First still attempts an a priori demonstration that our cognitive methods satisfy some (weak) criterion of adequacy. The Middle Way is pursued under the banners of naturalism and scientific realism, and aims at the same conclusion on non-apriori grounds. After arguing that both fail, I shall describe the general characteristics of the Third Way, an alternative epistemology suitable for empiricism.

Virtue Epistemology and the Epistemology of Virtue

Abstract: The ancient Greeks almost universally accepted the thesis that virtues are skills. Skills have an underlying intellectual structure (logos), and having a particular skill entails understanding the relevant logos, possessing a general ability to diagnose and solve problems (phronesis), as well as having appropriate experience. Two implications of accepting this thesis for moral epistemology and epistemology in general are considered. Thinking of virtues as skills yields a viable virtue epistemology in which moral knowledge is a species of a general kind of knowledge that is not philosophically suspect. Also, the debate between internalists and externalists in epistemology is subversively resolved as moot by adopting this strategy: the locus of justification for a belief is in the nature of skill. Thus, the contingent fact that some skills allow Homo Sapiens an 'internal access', while others do not, is theoretically neutral when considering the nature of justification per se. There was once a philosophical consensus that virtues are skills.' Now, it is uncommon for philosophers to agree, and this was as true in the past as it is in the present. So, it is noteworthy that in ancient Greece there was an overwhelming consensus that the virtues are skills; so overwhelming, in fact, that there was only a lone dissenter (to be named next paragraph). The thesis that virtues are skills is powerful, with ramifications for both moral epistemology and epistemology in general. This essay demonstrates how identifying the virtues as a subset of skills solves two important problems. The first concerns the perennially tendentious status of moral knowledge. Thinking of virtues as skills yields a viable epistemology in which moral knowledge is shown to be a species of a general kind of knowledge that is not philosophically suspect. The second concerns the long-standing debate between internal

Dispositions and Fetishes: Externalist Models of Moral Motivation*

Abstract: Internalism says that if an agent judges that it is right for her to 0, then she is motivated to 0. The disagreement between Internalists and Externalists runs deep, and it lingers even in the face of clever intuition pumps. An argument in Michael Smith's The Moral Problem seeks some leverage against Externalism from a point within normative theory. Smith argues by dilemma: Externalists either fail to explain why motivation tracks moral judgment in a good moral agent or they attribute a kind of fetishism to good moral agents. I argue that there are alternative models of moral motivation available to Externalists, in particular a model according to which a good moral agent is one who is effectively regulated by a second order desire to desire to do what is right.

An analysis of pleasure vis-a-vis pain

Abstract: I take up the issue of whether pleasure is a kind of sensation (in particular, a feeling episode) or not. This issue was much discussed by philosophers of the 1950's and 1960's, and apparently no resolution was reached. There were mainly two camps in the discussion: those who argued for a dispositional account, and those who favored an episodic feeling (sensational) view of pleasure. Here, relying on some recent scientific research I offer an account of pleasure which neither dispositionalizes nor sensationalizes pleasure. As is usual in the tradition, I compare pleasure with pain, and try to see its similarities and differences. I argue that pain and pleasure experiences have typically a complex phenomenology normally not so obvious in introspection. After distinguishing between affective and sensory (informational) components of these experiences, I argue that although pain experiences normally consist of both components proper to them, pleasure, in contradistinction to pain, is only the affective component of a total experience that may involve many sensations proper and cognitions. Moreover, I hold that although the so-called "physical" pleasure is itself not a sensation proper, it is nevertheless an episodic affective reaction (in a primitive sense) to sensations proper.

Phenomenal Character Revisited

Abstract: I am grateful to Michael Tye for his discussion of my book, and to the editor for offering me the opportunity to respond to Tye's criticisms of my account of the phenomenal character of perceptual experience-especially since this prompted reflections that led me to see a way of removing one unattractive feature of the account. The view Tye criticizes in his review is the view I think one must hold if one thinks that the following is a possible case: (1) under the same circumstances, object X looks different to persons A and B with respect to color, and (2) neither A or B is misperceiving X. I take (1) and (2) to imply that X has two different properties, one perceived by A and one perceived by B, and that it is X's (veridically) appearing to them to have these properties that constitutes its looking to them, with respect to color, the ways it does. It is these properties I have called "phenomenal properties," and hold to be different from colors (the object having only one color). The phenomenal character of experiences, I claim, consists in its representing such properties. The case of (1) and (2) I have focused on in previous discussions of this is the hypothetical (and controversial) case of spectrum inversion. But we needn't assume the possibility of spectrum inversion in order to see the need of an account that invokes such phenomenal properties. We need it, I think, in order to account for actual differences between color perceivers. It is a fact that different people often differ slightly in what lights, and what reflectances, they perceive as unique hues.' What one person perceives as unique blue another may perceive as a slightly greenish blue. This is due to slight differences in the ways their visual systems process visual input. Where there is this sort of difference between two people, there is no basis on which one can say that one of them sees the color of an object correctly and the other is misperceiving it-nothing in the reflectances, or in the light, corresponds to the difference between unique and nonunique hues.2 But the object does look

Responses to Bernard Berofsky, John Martin Fischer and Galen Strawson@@@The Significance of Free Will

Abstract: Berofsky's book Determinism (1971) had a considerable influence on me when I first began thinking about free will. It defended a sophisticated compatibilist position that I could neither accept nor easily dismiss (a position developed further in Freedom from Necessity (1987) and sketched near the end of his present paper). Though Berofsky is a compatibilist, he has always been critical of many standard compatibilist arguments and positions, including conditional analyses of "could have done otherwise," "hierarchical" versions of compatibilism and other views mentioned at the beginning of his paper. Thus, he is sympathetic to many criticisms I make of compatibilist views in chapters 3-5, without being ready to abandon his compatibilist commitments altogether. Berofsky correctly notes that "much of importance to human freedom can be nailed down before we raise the issue of power or ultimate origination" that concerns incompatibilists like myself. "A compatibilist," he says, "need not designate an exercise of will as free until a great deal is in place. For he may demand conditions such as the absence of coercion or unusual duress, relevant information, a capacity for rational deliberation, higher-order reflectiveness, [absence] of pervasive.. .control [by others]," etc. I agree that such conditions are also needed for incompatibilist freedom and that they are compatible with determinism. But I think these compatibilist conditions are only necessary for free will, not sufficient. I also concede to compatibilists like Berofsky that "freedom" is a term of many meanings, some of which may designate kinds of freedom that are compatible with determinism. For this reason I argue (p. 14) that the usual textbook formulation of the Compatibility Question-"Is freedom compatible with determinism?"-is too simple. The question should be "Is freedom in every significant sense worth wanting compatible with determinism?" I think incompatibilists should simply concede to compatibilists, like Berofsky, that there are significant everyday freedoms-e.g., from coercion or

Two Kinds of Intellectual Virtue

Abstract: Linda Zagzebski argues that knowledge should be understood in terms of intellectual virtue. The kind of virtue she has in mind is on the model of Aristotle's account of moral virtue: "A virtue, then, can be defined as a deep and enduring acquired excellence of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and reliable success in bringing about that end." (137) Examples of such virtues are open-mindedness, fair-mindedness, intellectual thoroughness and intellectual courage. Zagzebski calls her theory of knowledge a "true" virtue theory, distinguishing it from reliabilist theories of Sosa and Goldman.' These latter authors use the terminology of intellectual virtue and virtue epistemology, but in a way that, according to Zagzebski, misuses the language of virtue. In what follows below I will argue for two theses. First, there is an important way of dividing up the landscape so that the theories of Sosa and Goldman are indeed virtue theories. On this understanding, all three of our authors are in the same broad camp; one which can appropriately be labeled "virtue epistemology," and which can be distinguished from other broad alternatives concerning the nature of knowledge. The real disagreement between Zagzebski on the one hand, and Sosa and Goldman on the other, is over the nature of intellectual virtue, or that kind of virtue which is required for knowledge. Once the question is put this way, it is possible to argue for my second thesis. Namely, virtue reliabilists such as Sosa and Goldman are correct in rejecting Aristotle's account of the moral virtues as the model for understanding intellectual virtue. Contra Zagzebski, the cognitive character that grounds knowledge need not be acquired, need not include the strong motivational component of an Aristotlean moral virtue, and need not be an "excellence" in Aristotle's sense. Rather, the essential aspect of an intellectual virtue is its success component, or in Sosa's and Goldman's terms, its reliability.

Ought we to follow our evidence

Abstract: My focus will be on Richard Feldman's claim that what we epistemically ought to believe is what fits our evidence.' I will propose some potential counter-examples to test this evidentialist thesis. My main intention in presenting the "counter-examples" is to better understand Feldman's evidentialism, and evidentialism in general. How are we to understand what our evidence is, how it works, and how are we to understand the phrase "epistemically ought to believe" such that evidentialism might make sense as a plausible thesis in light of the examples? Of course, we may decide that there's no such way to understand evidentialism-that it just isn't a plausible thesis. I must admit that my suspicions lean in that direction. But the potential counter-examples are put forward, not in a refutational spirit (though I have nothing against good refutations in philosophy), but as an invitation to evidentialists and potential evidentialists to refine and/or explain their thesis in light of the at least apparent problems that the examples highlight.

What Is It Like to See with Your Ears?: The Representational Theory of Mind

Abstract: Representational theories of mind cannot individuate the sense modalities in a principled manner. According to representationalism, the phenomenal character of experiences is determined by their contents. The usual objection is that inverted qualia are possible, so the phenomenal character of experiences may vary independently of their contents. But the objection is inconclusive. It raises difficult questions about the metaphysics of secondary qualities and it is difficult to see whether or not inverted qualia are possible. This paper proposes an alternative test of representationalism. Do experiences in different sense modalities have the same phenomenal character when they share content? Psychological work on the perception of shape through vision and spatial hearing is discussed. This work shows that visual and auditory experiences differ in phenomenal character even in so far as they represent similar properties. This objection to representationalism does not invite questions about secondary qualities or depend on establishing metaphysical possibilities.

Direct realism and the brain-in-a-vat argument

Abstract: The brain-in-a-vat argument for skepticism is best formulated, not using the closure principle, but using the "Preference Principle," which states that in order to be justified in believing H on the basis of E, one must have grounds for preferring H over each alternative explanation of E. When the argument is formulated this way, Dretske's and Klein's responses to it fail. However, the strengthened argument can be refuted using a direct realist account of perception. For the direct realist, refuting the BIV scenario is not a precondition on knowledge of the external world, and only the direct realist can give a non-circular account of how we know we're not brains in vats.

What Was Hume's Problem with Personal Identity?*

Abstract: An appreciation of Hume's psychology of object identity allows us to recognize certain tensions in his discussion of the origin of our belief in personal identity-tensions which have gone largely unnoticed in the secondary literature. This will serve to provide a new solution to the problem of explaining why Hume finds that discussion of personal identity so problematic when he famously disavows it in the Appendix to the Treatise. It turns out that the two psychological mechanisms which respectively generate the ideas of object and of personal identity are mutually incompatible. It is this sort of conflict within Hume's introspective or subjectivist psychology which is the source of his worry. Hume's views about identity tend to be interpreted without much attention being paid to the psychological concerns of the Treatise. It is important, however, to have a good grasp of Hume's psychology of identity ascriptions in order to interpret properly his metaphysical views about identity. By keeping his psychology in view, we are less likely to make the mistake of attributing to Hume a temporal parts view of identity through time.' The focus of this paper will be a further dividend of this interpretive strategy. I contend that an appreciation of Hume's psychology of object identity allows us to recognize certain tensions in his discussion of ascriptions of personal identity. This will serve to provide a new solution to the perennial problem of explaining why Hume finds that discussion of personal identity so problematic when he famously disavows it in the Appendix to the Treatise. It turns out that the two psychological mechanisms which respectively generate the ideas of object and of personal identity are mutually incompatible. It is

Scepticism and Evidence

Abstract: Rational thinkers respect their evidence. Properly understood, that is a platitude. But how can one respect one's evidence unless one knows what it is? So must not rational thinkers know what their evidence is?

Reactive attitudes, reactivity, and omissions

Abstract: Regarding a recent book of mine, John Fischer wrote (1999, p. 139): "I am faced with the difficult task of doing a critical notice of a book, with almost all of which I agree!" I face a similar task here. Fischer and Ravizza's Responsibility and Control is an excellent book. It develops, in admirable detail, an attractive compatibilist position on moral responsibility in a trio of related spheres-actions, consequences, and omissions-and it presents powerful objections to leading arguments for incompatibilism. Incompatibilists undoubtedly will find much more to worry about in the book than I do (I am officially agnostic about the truth of incompatibilism [Mele 1995]), but I will try to stir up a little trouble in this essay. I will sketch three apparent problems.

On the Obvious

Abstract: Infallibilism about a priori justification is the thesis that for an agent A to be a priori justified in believing p, that which justifies A's belief that p must guarantee the truth of p. No analogous thesis is thought to obtain for empirically justified beliefs. The aim of this article is to argue that infallibilism about the a priori is an untenable philosophical position and to provide theoretical understanding why we not only can be, but rather must be, a priori justified in believing some false propositions. The argument develops notions of obviousness and conceptual understanding as a means of affording insight into the conditions for having a priori justification and, consequently, into why infallibilism cannot stand.

Scepticism and the foundation of epistemology : a study in the metalogical fallacies

Abstract: Can knowledge provide its own justification? This sceptical challenge - known as the problem of the criterion - is one of the major issues in the history of epistemology, and this volume provides its first comprehensive study, in a span of time that goes from Sextus Empiricus to Quine. After an essential introduction to the notions of knowledge and of philosophy of knowledge, the book provides a detailed reconstruction of the history of the problem. There follows a conceptual analysis of its logical features, and a comparative examination of a phenomenology of solutions that have been suggested in the course of the history of philosophy in order to overcome it, from Descartes to Popper. In this context, an indirect approach to the problem of the criterion is defended as the most successful strategy against the sceptical challenge.

The Unhelpfulness of Indeterminism

Abstract: "Man himself' according to Immanuel Kant, "must make or have made himself into whatever, in a moral sense, whether good or evil, he is to become. Either condition must be an effect of his free choice; for otherwise he could not be held responsible for it and could therefore be morally neither good nor evil." Robert Kane agrees-he agrees that there is an inescapable sense in which true or "ultimate" moral responsibility requires a kind of self-creation. So do I: if you think about what the ordinary, strong notion of moral responsibility involves, you are forced to this conclusion. There are many ingenious compatibilist accounts of freedom and responsibility, but they cannot touch this fact.

Causal laws and singular causation

Abstract: In this paper it will be argued that causal laws describe the actions of causal powers. The process which results from such an action is one which belongs to a natural kind, the essence of which is that it is a display of this causal power. Therefore, if anything has a given causal power necessarily, it must be naturally disposed to act in the manner prescribed by the causal law describing the action of this causal power. In the formal expressions of causal laws, the necessity operators occur within the scopes of the universal quantifiers. Hence the necessities must hold of each instance. The causal laws may thus be shown to be concerned with necessary connections between events or circumstances of precisely the sort required for a decent account of singular causation.

Naturalized Sense Data

Abstract: This paper examines and defends the view that the immediate objects of visual perception, or what are often called sense data, are parts of the facing surfaces of physical objects-the naturalized sense data (NSD) theory. Occasionally defended in the literature on the philosophy of perception, most famously by G. E. Moore (1918-1919), it has not proved popular and indeed was abandoned by Moore himself. The contemporary situation in the philosophy of perception seems ripe for a revaluation of the NSD theory, however. The NSD theory allows us to accommodate the very real shortcomings in uncritical direct realism without postulating the existence of non-physical sense data in a way that has seemed to many incompatible with any robust form of philosophical naturalism. The argument to establish the NSD theory proceeds in two stages. In ?II I argue against the direct realist that we perceive three-dimensional material objects in virtue of perceiving parts of their surfaces. The argument for this conclusion involves clearly distinguishing (in ?I) between two notions that have tended to be run together in discussions of perception-namely, immediate perception and direct perception. In ?III I argue against the sense-datum theorist that those parts of the surfaces of those objects are not themselves perceived in virtue of the perception of anything else.

Expressivism and Embedding

Abstract: Expressivism faces four distinct problems when evaluative sentences are embedded in unassertive contexts like: (1) If lying is wrong, getting someone to lie is wrong, (2) Lying is wrong, so (3) Getting someone to lie is wrong. The initial problem is to show that expressivism is compatible with (1)-(3) being valid. The basic problem is for expressivists to explain why evaluative instances of modus ponens are valid. The deeper problem is to explain why a particular argument like (1)-(3) is valid. The deepest problem is to explain the meanings of evaluative conditionals like (1). Expressivists can solve the initial and basic problems simply by acknowledging that evaluative sentences have minimal truth aptness, but the deeper and deepest problems require more. The deepest problem cannot be solved even with the semantics of Gibbard and Blackburn, as is shown by an extension of Dreier's hiyo argument.