In this paper, I give a new type of theistic answer to the "Why be moral?" question. After briefly clarifying the version of the question I'm concerned with, as well as extant theistic answers to the question, I argue for a new kind of answer. Roughly, while on standard answers, future (post death) benefits directly generate present reason to be moral, on my view, they only do so indirectly. On my view, we only have present reason to be moral because we will have reason to be moral in the afterlife. I propose a principle of reason inheritance that would justify this proposal. I also argue for my view, over the standard view: it alone can account for Prichard's Dilemma. Finally, I show how my proposal entails two interesting theses: a bodily eschaton and a loose type of purgatory.
Susan Wolf holds that while blameworthiness requires the ability to do otherwise, praiseworthiness does not. We first tackle the question of what the ability to do otherwise involves, highlighting its relationship with the control condition on moral responsibility. We propose a counterfactual test that would be acceptable to proponents of the rational abilities view such as Wolf. Using this counterfactual test, we argue that Wolf's asymmetry thesis is false: praiseworthy agents, just like blameworthy agents, must be able to do otherwise, in the sense prescribed by the counterfactual test. We conclude the essay by showing that considerations put forward by Wolf and her allies about the normative character of moral responsibility do not imply any asymmetry between blameworthiness and praiseworthiness.
The aim of this paper is two-fold. We argue against the received conception of epistemic malevolence and give a broader characterisation that, we argue, captures its real scope. We tackle the current notion of epistemic malevolence (EM) on three fronts. We claim that this notion fails to capture cases of EM that are (i) not knowledge directed (but that affect the agent's epistemic character), (ii) not robustly volitional (that do not involve an active opposition to the epistemic good by the malevolent agent) and that (iii) are not merely transactional (as opposed to structural). As a result, we claim that the received notion of EM fails to recognise (arguably) clear instances of EM because it is too narrow. Ultimately, we argue that such narrowness gives the false impression that, unlike its moral counterpart, EM is uncommon. After arguing for this, we offer a wider characterisation of EM and show the role this can play in generating solutions to the problem the phenomena poses.
Advanced modalizing, namely, possibilities and necessities concerning modal space itself, is problematic for a Lewis-style analysis of modality. A popular solution, proposed by Divers, postulates explicit semantic clauses for a collapse of advanced modalizing, to the conclusion that all such matters are, if true in the first place, both possible and necessary. But this is problematic: Divers' solution not only leaves no room for "advanced" contingency, but also renders alternative approaches to Lewisian metaphysics not merely false or metaphysically impossible but analytically false. In this paper, we propose a new framework for advanced modalizing that introduces two novel modal operators, which evaluate sentences not at worlds but at galaxies. This move avoids the collapse of modality and potentially restores a measure of contingency to advanced modal discourse. A key strength of our approach is that it enables the expression of alternative metaphysical positions within a unified modal framework.
Michael Titelbaum introduced a variant of the Sleeping Beauty problem in which a coin is tossed on both Monday and Tuesday, with the Tuesday toss not affecting Beauty's condition. Titelbaum argues that double halfers are committed to the embarrassing position that Beauty's credence that today's coin toss lands heads is greater than 1/2. In a response, Joel Pust agrees with the result, but argues that it is not a distinctive embarrassment for halfers. I argue that thirders need not be embarrassed. Double halfers, on the other hand, must hold that Beauty's evidence is admissible for direct inference with respect to Monday's coin toss, but not with respect to today's coin toss. This is embarrassing because (1) a plausible argument exists for the opposite position, and (2) the position conflicts with the central motivation guiding double halfism.
Out of all the candidates for a norm of justified belief, knowledge is not commonly viewed as favorably as others. Recently, however, those sympathetic to the knowledge norm have lodged various indirect defenses thereof by appropriating the concept of excuse, as part of a broader account of justification, to explain away intuitions that beliefs falling short of knowledge can be justified. I analyze how Williamson's externalist Derivative Norms Framework (DNF) can be modified to resist a common criticism often lodged at this way of viewing the normative significance of excuse, that excuse, once viewed through a DNF-friendly lens, is too coarse a category to employ to properly discriminate between different normative dimensions of belief. A significant benefit of my analysis is that it can also avoid the worry that, in aiming to remove the charge of normative indiscrimination, the DNF defender inadvertently undermines their very capacity to employ the category of excuse in explaining away intuitions anathema to the knowledge norm. I show how the DNF defender can avoid this by preventing falsification of a principle that ought to be part of their account of excuse if it is to do the explanatory work they desire for it to do.
Ted Sider defends mereological nihilism against the possibility of gunk. He argues that if we accept modal Humeanism, then the possibility of gunk poses no threat to nihilism. This paper argues that Sider's argument fails because nihilism remains vulnerable to the possibility of gunk, even under modal Humeanism. Section 2 explains modal Humeanism in detail. Section 3 presents Sider's argument that nihilism is unaffected by the possibility of gunk. Section 4 provides a counterargument. Section 5 anticipates potential objections and responds to them.
The goal of this essay is to promote a non-traditional physicalism for consciousness much as metaethical constructivisms are meant as naturalistic alternatives to traditional moral realism. The account on offer is based on a perspectival version of David Lewis's Humean "best-system" account for scientific representation. On this version, suspect concepts are vindicated (from the perspective of a given science) when their use is required for ideal systematization. Lewis's important case, his hard problem, was to provide an Humean vindication of chance insofar as it is a required aspect of ideal physics, the best way (from the perspective of fundamental physics) to give a summary description of regularities. The present essay utilizes Michael Graziano's account of consciousness as proof-of-concept. Personal-level psychology, if Graziano is correct, is best based on a brain schema evolved to systematize attention. This schema would seem to be precisely right for the perspectival best system: a "summary description" (Graziano's term also) requiring an awareness concept. I argue that the required concept is indeed both subjective and phenomenal so properly termed "awareness." Moreover, even if Graziano's account is not correct, the constructivist approach described illustrates a new explanatory option for physicalism about the mind.
The first aim of this paper is to argue that Bernard Williams's argument against external reasons is best understood as a rejection of Thomas Nagel's (apparently tangential) notion of a universal agent-neutral reason for anyone and everyone to promote/desire the occurrence of the event to which the reason applies. To the extent that the reconstruction of this dialectic highlights an inconsistency in Nagel's position-Nagel cannot maintain the truth of his neo-Kantian cognitive internalism while defending the idea that agent-neutral reasons are necessarily part of the subjective motivational set of all rational agents-the second, conciliatory aim is to offer a theoretically neutral way of understanding the distinction between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons that is compatible with Williams's internal reasons constraint. Drawing the distinction in this way enables us to resituate the conflict between Kantians and their anti-rationalist internalist opponents (traditionally your archetype Humean, desire-based reason theorists) as one concerning the (alleged) categorical force of all moral reasons, not merely agent-neutral reasons.
So the Fine-tuning Argument goes, because it is so unlikely for the physical constants of the laws of nature to have taken the values that they in fact take, we should significantly raise our credence that God exists. Simulation Arguments argue that our world might be (or, in stronger versions, that it probably is) a mere computer simulation. This paper argues that, in light of a Simulation Argument with a particularly weak conclusion, fine-tuning reasoning instead motivates atheists to believe that we live in a computer simulation.
We examine several new and underexplored arguments for the finitude of the past and the impossibility of Hilbert's Hotel. The first argument concludes that Hilbert's Hotel is impossible due to an alleged contradiction arising from the causal powers of infinitely many guests. A second argument contends that if the past is infinite, then it would be possible to construct Hilbert's Hotel. Since that's not possible, the past is finite. A third argument is based on a thought experiment involving Methuselah's diary and likewise concludes that the past is finite. Each argument fails, but their flaws are quite instructive. We also develop novel future-oriented parodies for each argument with the implausible conclusion that the future will (and perhaps must) come to an end.
It is natural to think that phenomenology must play a central role in any epistemic account of perceptual warrant. I contend that this claim is mistaken. The thesis that I will advance is that the phenomenology of perceptual experiences is irrelevant to their ability to warrant perceptual beliefs. I present various problems for this approach, then consider various fallback positions available to the defender of the epistemic significance of phenomenology and conclude that whatever its place in our metaphysical understanding of the world, perceptual phenomenology is epistemically insignificant with regard to the project of explaining perceptual warrant.
I develop and defend a sense-datum theory of perception. My theory follows the spirit of classic sense-datum theories: I argue that what it is to have a perceptual experience is to be acquainted with some sense-data, where sense-data are private particulars that have all the properties they appear to have, that are common to both perception and hallucination, that constitute the phenomenal characters of perceptual experiences, and that are analogous to pictures inside one's head. But my theory also diverges from conventional sense-datum theories in some key respects: on my view, (1) sense-data are neural states presented first-personally, (2) the sensational qualities of sense-data differ in kind from the sensible qualities of external objects, and (3) sense-data are the vehicles in virtue of which we perceive, rather than the objects that we perceive. I argue that this package of claims is appropriately labeled "sense-datum theory", and that the resultant view ought to be a live contender in contemporary philosophy of perception.
Platonism is the view according to which entities such as numbers and properties, characterized as abstract objects, exist. Agust & iacute;n Rayo argues that the truth conditions for statements about mathematical objects and properties make no demands on the world and are, in this way, trivial. The result is trivialist platonism. In this paper, we question the stability of the two central features of the view: it cannot be both trivialist and platonist.
What is the temporal structure of conscious experience? While it is popular to think that our most basic conscious experiences are temporally extended, we will be arguing against this view, on the grounds that it makes our conscious experiences depend on the future in an implausible way. We then defend an alternative view of the temporal structure of experience from a variety of different objections. Along the way, we hope to illustrate the wider philosophical ramifications of the relationship between experience and time. What one thinks about the temporal structure of experience is, we believe, deeply interconnected with issues concerning whether consciousness is vague or precise, whether conscious states can be reduced to physical states, whether phenomenal properties are intrinsic properties, and whether phenomenal consciousness can “overflow” access consciousness. As we will see, even seemingly unrelated metaphysical questions, such as the debate between Humean and Non-Humean accounts of natural necessity, bear on questions about the relationship between experience and time.
It is widely held that physicalism is incompatible with the metaphysical possibility of zombies, i.e., beings physically just like us yet lacking in phenomenal consciousness. The present paper argues that this orthodoxy is mistaken. As against the received wisdom, physicalism is perfectly compatible with the possibility of zombies and zombie-worlds. Arguments from the possibility of zombies to the falsity of physicalism do not, therefore, succeed. To establish this, the paper develops a form of physicalism on which the phenomenal facts are metaphysically grounded in the basic physical facts in accordance with metaphysically contingent grounding laws. It also draws out some important morals for the contemporary mind-body debate.
I explore how endurantists are to handle cases of synchronic bi-location, in which a thing bi-locates at a time (such as by time-travel). I argue that endurantists face significant pressure to posit distinct but structurally identical facts (DSIFs), and critique the fragmentalist approach to bi-location in Simon (2018). Both the positive argument and critique are animated by the observation that handling bi-location cases requires perspicuously describing their spatiotemporal and causal structure. Accordingly, the argument proceeds by considering how endurantists are to think about the metaphysics of place and causation, two issues that are important independent of the thesis about DSIFs.
Laws play some role in explanations: at the very least, they somehow connect what is explained, or the explanandum, to what explains, or the explanans. Thus, thermodynamical laws connect the match's being struck and its lightning, so that the former causes the latter; and laws about set formation connect Socrates' existence with {Socrates}'s existence, so that the former grounds the latter. But is there more to the explanatory role of laws? A natural proposal, which finds considerable support in the literature, is that laws simply are reasons why. That is, besides connecting the explanandum with a suitable ground or cause, they take part, together with these, in explaining why the explanandum obtains. In this paper, I present two arguments that show that this proposal cannot hold in general. They each point to one unacceptable consequence: a suspicious infinite extendibility of explanantia; and a failure of the irreflexivity of "because."
While it is generally believed that the rationality of belief depends on the adequacy of (individual) evidence on which it is based, it seems that there are certain types of evidence, that is, statistical evidence, which, despite being sufficiently probabilifying, fail to confer justification on the relevant beliefs. In this paper, I will defend a particular solution to this puzzle, namely, the 'normic support' view, against some of the objections raised against it. I also appeal to the thesis of phenomenal intentionality to rectify a weakness in the view in question by introducing a necessary condition on when individual evidence can be said to normically support a content. Finally, I offer further reasons for the normic-support view. It is contended that, unlike cases of individual evidence, which are justification-conferring, statistical evidence at best provides us with a capacity to reliably guess whether a particular proposition is true, very much like what a blindsight subject can say about the objects in her blind field when contrasted with someone who is perceptually aware of that visual field.
Sider's vagueness argument for perdurantism (2001: 126ff.) has long been seen as one of the most powerful, or perhaps the most powerful, in the perdurantist's arsenal. In its absence, the case against endurantism is significantly weakened. Despite its age, there is still no generally agreed view on its worth. I shall show that this argument fails. It is an extension of a modification Sider gives of David Lewis's argument for unrestricted mereological composition. I shall first set out Lewis's argument for unrestricted mereological composition, Sider's modification, and the problem with it. I will then turn to Sider's extension of the argument into an argument for perdurantism and show that it suffers from the same problem. As I shall explain, though Sider's modification of Lewis's argument for unrestricted mereological composition fails, this is not a crushing blow for proponents of that thesis, since Lewis's original argument is still available, which is valid and plausibly sound. But there is no available retreat for the perdurantist to a Lewisian form of Sider's argument for perdurantism.
