Showing papers in "Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement in 1993"

The Definition of Morality

Abstract: We use such terms as good, bad, right, wrong, should, ought, in many ways other than moral: good evidence and bad argument, right answers and wrong notes, novels which should be read and policies which ought not to be adopted. The moral is a sphere of the practical and the practical itself only a sphere or the normative. Norms guide us in all we believe, feel and do. Do these normative words then have a specifically moral sense? If so can it be defined?

The Mind as a Control System

Abstract: Many people who favour the design-based approach to the study of mind, including the author previously, have thought of the mind as a computational system, though they don’t all agree regarding the forms of computation required for mentality. Because of ambiguities in the notion of ‘computation’ and also because it tends to be too closely linked to the concept of an algorithm, it is suggested in this paper that we should rather construe the mind (or an agent with a mind) as a control system involving many interacting control loops of various kinds, most of them implemented in high level virtual machines, and many of them hierarchically organised. (Some of the sub-processes are clearly computational in character, though not necessarily all.) A number of implications are drawn out, including the implication that there are many informational substates, some incorporating factual information, some control information, using diverse forms of representation. The notion of architecture, i.e. functional differentiation into interacting components, is explained, and the conjecture put forward that in order to account for the main characteristics of the human mind it is more important to get the architecture right than to get the mechanisms right (e.g. symbolic vs neural mechanisms). Architecture dominates mechanism

Naturalizing Epistemology: Quine, Simon and the Prospects for Pragmatism

Abstract: In recent years there has been a great deal of discussion about the prospects of developing a ‘naturalized epistemology’, though different authors tend to interpret this label in quite different ways. One goal of this paper is to sketch three projects that might lay claim to the ‘naturalized epistemology’ label, and to argue that they are not all equally attractive. Indeed, I'll maintain that the first of the three—the one I'll attribute to Quine—is simply incoherent. There is no way we could get what we want from an epistemological theory by pursuing the project Quine proposes. The second project on my list is a naturalized version of reliabilism. This project is not fatally flawed in the way that Quine's is. However, it's my contention that the sort of theory this project would yield is much less interesting than might at first be thought.

Systematicity, Conceptual Truth, and Evolution

Abstract: L'A. presente differentes reponses au defi lance par Fodor et Pylyshyn aux partisans du connexionnisme. Il s'agit d'expliquer la systematicite des relations entre les facultes de connaissance sans pour autant faire appel a une architecture classique de la cognition

Who needs ethical knowledge

Abstract: An old question, still much discussed in moral philosophy, is whether there is any ethical knowledge. It is closely related, by simple etymology, to the question of cognitivism in ethics. Despite the fact that the terms ‘cognitivism’ and ‘objectivism’ seem sometimes to be used interchangeably, I take it that the question whether there can be ethical knowledge is not the same as the question whether ethical outlooks can be objective. A sufficient reason for this is that an ethical outlook might be taken to consist of rules or principles, which do not admit of truth or falsehood and so cannot be objects of knowledge, but which can be seen as having an objective basis.

Emmanuel Levinas: responsibility and election

Abstract: Although some people argue Emmanuel Levinas is a Jewish thinker because he introduces in his philosophical work ideas which come from the Jewish tradition, I want to present him as a philosopher. A philosopher who tries to widen the philosophical horizon which is traditionally a Greek one but, at the same time, a philosopher who does not want to abandon it. In one of his main books Totality and Infinity (1969), he describes western civilization as an hypocritical one because it is attached both to the True and to the Good, but he adds:It is perhaps time to see in hypocrisy not only a base contingent defect of man, but the underlying rending of a world attached to both the philosophers and the prophets, (p. 24)When reading Levinas we may realize that such an ‘hypocrisy’ might well be a blessing from a philosophical point of view. One of Levinas's philosophical aims is to refer to the Greek language of philosophy—a language he asserts to be of universal significance—in order to elucidate ideas that come from the Hebrew world view, from the prophets and from the sages. He wants to give a new insight into Greek categories and concepts but he refuses to abnegate the philosophical requirements for accuracy. That is why when he refers to biblical verses or to Talmudic apologues, he does not want to prove anything. His philosophical writings are indeed philosophical because he does not yield to the temptation of substituting the authority of a certain verse or of a certain name to the philosophical requirement of argumentation.

Wittgenstein and Connectionism: a Significant Complementarity? *

Abstract: Between the later views of Wittgenstein and those of connectionism 1 on the subject of the mastery of language there is an impressively large number of similarities. The task of establishing this claim is carried out in the second section of this paper (with arguments in the fourth section lending further support).

Do Your Concepts Develop

Abstract: ‘Psychological structures may be shown to grow and differentiate throughout life. Correspondingly, the brain has a much more lengthy and involved development than any other mechanism of the body. We know little yet of how this uniquely complex process is determined, but it is certain that the principles of embryogenesis apply in all growth, including psychological growth, and not just to the morphogenesis of the body of the embryo.’

Justice without Constitutive Luck

Abstract: What fundamental aim should be seen as animating egalitarian views of distributive justice? I want to challenge a certain answer to this question: namely, that the basic aim of egalitarianism is to neutralize the effects of luck on the distribution of goods in society. I shall also sketch part of a different answer, which I think does a better job of supporting egalitarianism.My arguments here are not presented in a way that is intended to win over those who have no sympathy with egalitarianism to begin with; they move within the compass of egalitarian concern. Moreover, it is difficult, for familiar reasons, to separate the question of what the basic aim of egalitarianism is from the question of what it should be. If one aim does a better job of supporting egalitarian results than another, then, even if few egalitarians recognize this, it may be regarded as a stronger candidate for what the basic aim of egalitarianism is. As with other essentially contested concepts, a new conception does not change the subject.

Blindsight, the Absent Qualia Hypothesis, and the Mystery of Consciousness

Abstract: One standard objection to the view that phenomenal experience is functionally determined is based upon what has come to be called ‘The Absent Qualia Hypothesis’, the idea that there could be a person or a machine that was functionally exactly like us but that felt or consciously experienced nothing at all (see Block, 1980; Block and Fodor, 1980; Campbell, 1980; Nagel, 1980). Advocates of this hypothesis typically maintain that we can easily imagine possible systems that meet the appropriate functional specifications but that intuitively lack any phenomenal consciousness. Ned Block (1980), for example, asks us to suppose that a billion Chinese people are each given a two-way radio with which to communicate with one another and with an artificial (brainless) body. The movements of the body are controlled by the radio signals, and the signals themselves are made in accordance with instructions the Chinese people receive from a vast display in the sky which is visible to all of them. The instructions are such that the participating Chinese people together realize whatever programs the functionalist supposes underlie human phenomenal experience.

Levels of description in nonclassical cognitive science

Abstract: L'A. compare les theories classiques de la science cognitive et ses differents niveaux de description, avec la theorie du connexionnisme dans ses rapports avec le computationnalisme

Integrity and Self-Identity

Abstract: The title of this paper proclaims its central interest—the relationship which holds between the concept of integrity and the concept of the identity of the self, or, for short, self-identity. Unreflective speech often suggests a close relationship between the two, but in the latter half of this century, notwithstanding one or two notable exceptions, they have been discussed with minimum cross-reference as if they belonged to two rather different philosophical menus which tended not to be available at the same restaurant on the same night. My intention is to argue that our account of the one carried implications for the other and that this relationship is reflexive. My argument will proceed by stating and criticizing a common account of the relationship between each of these concepts which tends to offer mutual support for the implied account of each. Thereafter an alternative account will be outlined.

Ethics, Fantasy and Self-transformation

Abstract: In this paper I want to discuss an issue (usually perceived as an ethical one) which has generated a great deal of feminist discussion and some profound disagreement. The issue arises as follows. One of the most important targets of feminist action and critique has been male sexual violence and control of women, as expressed in rape and other forms of violent or aggressive sexual acts, and as represented in much pornography. Pornography itself has been the subject of major and sometimes bitter disagreements among feminists, especially around the issue of censorship. But it is not that with which I am concerned here. The issue which I want to discuss involves the question of sexual desire and fantasy, and their apparent potential incompatibility with political and ethical principles. This is by no means, of course, an issue of exclusively feminist concern; but I shall focus on some recent feminist argument, since it is that with which I am most familiar.

How we do Ethics now

Abstract: By far the most common form of argument in ethics nowadays is what can be called piecemeal appeal to intuition. Any reader of philosophy will know the kind of thing I mean. ‘On your principle, it would be all right to do such-and-such. But that's counter-intuitive. So your principle is wrong.’ The word ‘intuition’ here is not used, as it was in earlier times, to refer to a special way of knowing; instead it is used to mean merely a moral sentiment or belief that persons have independently of the moral theory or philosophy or stance that they might adopt.

The Better Part

Abstract: According to Aristotle, the goal of anyone who is not simply stupid or slavish is to live a worthwhile life. There are, no doubt, people who have no goal at all beyond the moment's pleasure or release from pain. There may be people incapable of reaching any reasoned decision about what to do, and acting on it. But anyone who asks how she should live implicitly agrees that her goal is to live well, to live a life that she can think worth living. That goal, eudaimonia, is something that is sought for its own sake, and for nothing else. Anyone who asks herself how she should live can answer that she should live well. The answer, admittedly, needs further comment. Aristotle went on to suggest that ‘living well’ amounted to living in accordance with virtue, or if there is more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete. Eudaimonia, happiness, is virtuous activity over a whole life. To live a worthwhile life we must acquire and practice habits of doing the right thing, for the right reason. Equivalently, we must do what a virtuous person would, and in the way she would, for the sake of to kalon, or beauty.

Morals and Politics

Abstract: My title, as it stands, is not very informative. The two terms that occur in it are so commonly conjoined, in the philosophical world, at any rate, that it can be no surprise to find them together. My aim, however, is to go some way, at least, towards disconnecting them. My thesis is, to put it briefly, that it is a mistake to see political philosophy as a subordinate part of moral philosophy and thus to suppose that the characteristic problems of the former are of the same kind as those of the latter. More concretely, the problems of politics itself are not generally or primarily, let alone exclusively, moral in nature. We all know that political problems are not, to any great extent, approached by those involved with them, from a moral point of view. I shall argue that it is not reasonable that they should be. But the philosophical habit of running the two things together encourages a kind of moral absolutism in political thinking, and from time to time in political practice, which has bad results, not necessarily morally bad, just bad.

Ethical Absolutism and Education

Abstract: At a conference I attended not so long ago I suggested to someone who had just read a paper that beneath his apparent commitment to a kind of ethical relativism he was in fact an ethical absolutist. The person I was addressing seemed quite upset by my suggestion and proceeded to argue that my understanding of his paper was somewhat awry. This experience was not new to me. Having taught ethics and philosophy of education courses for many years, courses which have been taken by undergraduates and by members of the teaching profession, I know that if I ever say to those I teach that they are adopting or favouring an absolutist position, then, more than likely, they will regard my remark as something to be opposed and they will often suggest that there must be some misunderstanding on my part. Judging by my experiences, ‘absolutist’ is a label most undergraduates and teachers wish to disown, particularly at the outset of ethics and philosophy courses, even though many of these disowners seem to subscribe to absolutist positions on such issues as racism, rape and child abuse. In his book Ethics; Discovering Right and Wrong Louis P. Pojman, talking about his own findings in this area, makes it clear that my teaching experiences are not unique. Over a period of several years and in several universities Pojman found that most of the students who took his ethics or philosophy courses explicitly rejected absolutism and affirmed support for some kind of relativism even though several of these aspiring relativists subscribed to absolutist positions on various ethical matters (Pojman, 1990, 19).

Systematicity in the Vision to Language Chain

Abstract: Dans le cadre de l'epistemologie computationnaliste, l'A. etudie la validite du connexionnisme comme nouveau paradigme. Il discute la these de Fodor selon laquelle les pensees, comme le langage naturel, ont une structure double: syntaxique et semantique