I spoke recently with someone who believes that “modal realism” is true. Prior to this discussion (and currently), I knew/know very little about the view, except that David Lewis proposed it shortly before he died, and that he will be forever remembered for advancing that “wacky” position. The position, I take it, is essentially the claim that possible worlds exist. Previously, when trying to make sense of how someone could think this, I assumed that by “exist”, modal realists mean only that these worlds “exist” and are real, in thought. And so they are “real” thought entities, or something. Although this sounds nutty, this I found, was too charitable an interpretation. I’ve been told now that what modal realists think is that possible worlds exist in such a way that they contain objects, extended in space. And even more, the objects of these worlds cannot causally interact with objects in the actual world. (more…)
Archive for April, 2006
Interests and Moral considerability
Thursday, April 27th, 2006I was talking with Shaun and Roark today, and we were beating around the old question of where to draw the line for moral considerability. In this short post I trace the dialectic a little and then offer a new (and radical) proposal: the line for moral considerability should be drawn at interests. (more…)
“Blind” Prisoner’s Dilemma
Friday, April 21st, 2006Toward the end of epistemic logic today, I got thinking about how rational agents would behave in a “blind” prisoner’s dilemma. I sketched out the following puzzle, and then to my embarassment, I can’t figure out how to answer it.
Suppose Dan and Dave are competing against each other, with the goal of maximizing utility, in a series of 100 consecutive prisoners dilemma games. Dan and Dave, though, are forced to play the “blind†prisoner’s dilemma. Each is held in separate rooms, and given a card with lines numbered 1 through 100. Each is instructed to write “cooperate†or “defect†on each of the hundred lines. Once both have finished filling out the cards, the cards are given to a judge, who scores each round, adds the round scores for each player, and declares as the winner whomever has gained the most utility value.
(Note: suppose the same schema used in class: 2,2; 3,0; 0,3; 1,1]
Dan and Dave have common knowledge that each other are “either†always going to cooperate, or always going to defect. Put another way, Dan knows that Dave will either cooperate all 100 times, or defect all 100 times. Dave knows that Dan will either cooperate 100 times or defect all 100 times. Each knows that the other knows this.
Dan has a 70% confidence in his belief that Dave will be a cooperator (and hence, cooperate on all 100 turns). Similarly, Dave has a 70% belief that Dan will defect all 100 times. They have common knowledge with regard to the degree of confidence each other has toward what the other will do.
This said, what is the most rational way for Dan to fill out his card?
A nice article on substance dualism
Monday, April 17th, 2006Here’s a nice, short, and comprehensible article by a very able philosopher on substance dualism that weighs many of the arguments for and against it. It’s called “Dualism and the Philosophy of Mind.”
Openmindedness as a moral virtue
Friday, April 14th, 2006An interesting question in virtue epistemology and virtue ethics pertains to the alleged virtue of “openmindedness.†Wayne Riggs has done recent work on openmindedness as conceived of as an intellectual virtue. A question I’ve been thinking about is the extent to which openmindedness is a desirable characteristic for an agent to have with regard to moral beliefs.
Openmindedness relative to a particular belief is closely related to the understanding of scientific truth as held by the logical positivists (more…)
Worst Writer Ever
Sunday, April 9th, 2006I’ve just started to read Peacocke’s “A Study of Concepts”. I think it’s one of the worst-written books I’ve ever read - sentences more complicated (it seems) than anything I’ve ever read in German, which I thought was not possible.
So to start another ‘philosophers and lists’ post: Who are the worst writers in philosophy? Who writes the least clearly?
(I would also put Kant, McDowell, and Davidson on the list.)
Singer’s Non Sequitur in “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”
Tuesday, April 4th, 2006In our Intro to Ethics course, we assigned Peter Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.” I had never read the article, though I had heard it praised even by those who disagree with Singer on other issues. What follows is my critique of the article. My thesis is that Singer is guilty of a non sequitur, that is, he doesn’t establish what he takes himself to have established. Indeed, there is only an inchoate argument in the text, and although we can reconstruct it, it doesn’t support the main conclusion that Singer draws.