Archive for June, 2005

A Distinction Wrongness and Blameworthiness

Thursday, June 30th, 2005

I wanted to know what folks though about an ethical distinction that I often employ. I had thought that this distinction was pretty clearly right, but I have been having my doubts lately. The distinction is between X’s action being morally wrong and X’s action being morally blameworthy. The idea is that X may do an action that is morally wrong, but not morally blameworthy. (I doubt one may do an action that is morally blameworthy without such an action also being morally wrong.) (more…)

Posted in Ethical Theory, Social/Political | 138 Comments »

Animal Rights to life

Monday, June 27th, 2005

Do non-human animals (animals from here on) have negative rights to life? In other words, do animals have the right not to be killed? The answer is no. Here’s why: we don’t think that it is morally wrong for us to kill animals for food in sustenance situations (I’m avoiding the more controversial claim that we don’t think it’s wrong to kill animals for food in contemporary society where an all-vegetable diet is possible). We don’t think the American Indians or the contemporary Inuit communities are doing something morally wrong when they kill animals for food, clothing, etc. Since it would be wrong to kill a being with a negative right to life for these reasons, this shows that animals don’t have negative rights to life. (more…)

Posted in Applied Ethics | 69 Comments »

Sense Data – The Argument from the Possibility of Hallucination

Sunday, June 12th, 2005

The possibility of hallucination seems to provide the strongest evidence for a sense-data view (that in perception we are directly aware of private mental objects). Here’s the argument:

1. Possibly, for any veridical experience E one may have a non-veridical experience E* that is qualitatively identical to E.
2. Necessarily, experiences that are qualitatively identical have the same objects.
3. Necessarily, the object of non-veridical experience is not a physical object.

Thus,
4.Necessarily, the object of veridical experience is not a physical object.

(3) provides strong evidence for sense-data—the object one is directly aware of in veridical experience is a mental entity of some sort.

I’m not sure what to say about this argument, but I do want to explore the following curious implication. If we accept the S5 principle then this argument can be extended to an argument that it’s metaphysically impossible to be directly aware of physical objects. This seems too strong. One would think that it is possible to be directly aware of physical objects, but if the premises of this argument hold we reach the conclusion that in no world can a person be directly aware of a physical object. Thoughts?

Posted in Epistemology, Metaphysics | 63 Comments »

Group Rights

Wednesday, June 8th, 2005

I want an argument for the claim that there are group rights above and beyond the rights of individuals. Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia is an argument for a minimal, libertarian state. One of his basic presuppositions is that a group of people has no rights above and beyond the rights of the members of the group (see pages 6 and 89). In other words, all rights are reducible to individual rights. Since a state is nothing more than a group of people, the state has no rights above and beyond the rights of the citizens of the state.

Since we as individuals have no rights to force other people to do things that are good for them and no rights to force other people to help those who are less fortunate, the state has no right to be paternalistic or force a redistribution of wealth. (more…)

Posted in Social/Political | 123 Comments »

What do we see?

Sunday, June 5th, 2005

What are the objects of perception (assuming for the moment an act/object analysis of perception)? There are two main views: private mental objects (sense data) or parts/aspects of physical objects (direct realism). Bertrand Russell presents an argument for sense-data based on perspectival variation: as we change location the things we are directly aware of change; the physical object doesn’t change; ergo, we are not directly aware of physical objects. Michael Huemer offers a formulation of Russell’s argument here http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sense-data/

1. In the phenomenon of perspectival variation, the thing we are directly aware of changes (for instance, its size or shape changes).
2. The real, external object is not changing at this time.
3. Therefore, the thing we are directly aware of is not the real, external object.

It’d be nice to resist this conclusion. I have some thoughts, but I’ll leave off the commentary.

Posted in Epistemology, Metaphysics | 87 Comments »