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The subset realization view proposes to solve the causal exclusion problem of non‐reductive mental instances by taking the mental instance as a part of its physical realizer. Many philosophers have argued that such a part‐whole relation will undermine physicalist realization because parts are ontologically prior to their wholes and the subset view is thus flawed. I argue that the relation that the...
This paper develops a form of realism about aesthetics that is stronger than typical versions of aesthetic realism. As I conceive of it, aesthetic realism is the view that there are some response‐independent aesthetic facts. This kind of realism is unpopular in aesthetics and is often viewed as a non‐starter. Against this pessimism, I argue that the prospects for this realist approach are more favorable...
The standard argument to the conclusion that artificial intelligence (AI) constitutes an existential risk for the human species uses two premises: (1) AI may reach superintelligent levels, at which point we humans lose control (the ‘singularity claim’); (2) Any level of intelligence can go along with any goal (the ‘orthogonality thesis’). We find that the singularity claim requires a notion of ‘general...
Some moral propositions are so obviously true that we refuse to doubt them, even where we believe that many people disagree. Following Fritz and McPherson, I call our behaviour in such cases ‘moral steadfastness’. In this paper, I argue for two metaethical implications of moral steadfastness. I first argue that morally steadfast behaviour is sufficiently prevalent to present an important challenge...
One of the few points of unquestioned agreement in virtue theory is that the virtues are supposed to be excellences. One way to understand this is to claim that the virtues always yield correct moral action and that we cannot be “too virtuous”: the virtues cannot be had in excess or “to a fault”. If we take this seriously, however, it yields the surprising conclusion that many traits which have been...
Many philosophers identify knowledge of subjective experience as our sole epistemic bedrock of absolute certainty. Illusionism is the view that subjective experience does not exist, and that our belief in the existence of subjective experience is due to a persistent cognitive or meta‐cognitive illusion of some sort. I argue that illusionism entails an absurd epistemic consequence: that our current...
Does trust play a significant role in the appreciation of art? If so, how does it operate? We argue that it does, and that the mechanics of trust operate both at a general and a particular level. After outlining the general notion of ‘art‐trust’—the notion sketched is consistent with most notions of trust on the market—and considering certain objections to the model proposed, we consider specific...
A considerable literature has emerged around the idea of using ‘personal responsibility’ as an allocation criterion in healthcare distribution, where a person's being suitably responsible for their health needs may justify additional conditions on receiving healthcare, and perhaps even limiting access entirely, sometimes known as ‘responsibilisation’. This discussion focuses most prominently, but...
Farbod Akhlaghi has argued that noncognitivists and naturalists cannot explain the epistemic possibility of wholesale moral error. He thinks this shows that noncognitivism and naturalism are false. I argue that noncognitivists and naturalists have no trouble explaining the epistemic possibility of wholesale moral error and that the requirement to explain this possibility is plausible only on one particular...
Some authors have suggested that, contrary to what is usually thought, ‘actually’ and similar expressions (‘in fact’, ‘in reality’, etc.) cannot effect a return to the actual world when used in a context generated by a different modal operator, and so are quite unlike the actuality operator of modal logic. I argue that they can induce such a return. The argument involves comparing them with other...
Eternalism is the view that the past, the present and the future exist simpliciter. A typical argument in favor of this view leans on the relativity of simultaneity. The ‘equally real with’ relation is assumed to be transitive between spacelike separated events connected by hyperplanes of simultaneity. This reasoning is in tension with the conventionality of simultaneity. Conventionality indicates...
This article raises a puzzle about luck and meaning in life. The puzzle shows that, in certain cases involving luck, standard intuitions about the meaningfulness of various lives conflict with basic theoretical assumptions about the nature of meaning. After setting out the puzzle, several options for resolving it are developed and evaluated.
Branching time is a popular theory of time that is intended to account for the openness of the future. Generally, branching time models the openness of the future by positing a multiplicity of concrete alternative futures mirroring all the possible ways the future could unfold. In the literature, a distinction is drawn among branching‐time theories: those that make use of moment‐based structures and...
In 1987, Roy Sorensen coined the term “parahistory” to denote the hypothetical study of evidence retrieved via time travel. Parahistory would thus stand to history rather as parapsychology does to psychology; studying data (in this case artefacts) that are obtained in ways unrecognised by orthodox science. This paper considers future‐derived parahistorical artefacts. Past/future asymmetries threaten...
This paper is concerned with situations in which a speaker issues many speech acts at the same time. A common example is the publication of a large text such as a book containing many distinct assertions. It is argued that these cases present a challenge for speech act theory related to how we are to understand sincerity. With reference to the well known paradox of the preface, it is argued that sincerity...
According to the Ignorance Factivity Thesis, for every proposition p, one is ignorant of p only if p is a truth. By contrast, according to the Ignorance Non‐Factivity Thesis, it is false that, for every proposition p, one is ignorant of p only if p is a truth. I argue that, on balance, the case for the latter thesis is stronger than the case for the former.
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