Archive for February, 2008

Which more plausible: two accounts of blameworthiness or two accounts of impermissibility

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

We usually hold somebody blameworthy in two situations: 

1) X acts with a belief that his action is impermissible. For example, you told me that pushing the button will blow up the whole building and kill many people, and I intentionally push the button, yet nothing happens. The intuition is that I am still blameworthy, even though my act does not violate anyone’s rights. 

2) X infringes others’ rights and he acts with the belief that his action is impermissible. For example, X proceeds to have sex with Y, believing that Y does not consent. X is blameworthy in this case,and his act violates Y’s rights. 

Now, suppose (more…)

Phistophocles: A Lesser Known Greek Philosopher

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/oWLG9feziRU" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Responses to Thomson

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

Hey, anybody know of any article out there which summarizes the responses to Thomson’s violinist argument?

Responsibility for Choices

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

The Probability Increase Thesis* (PIT):  If it is indeterminate whether S will make a choice C, and C occurs, then S is morally responsible for C only if the probability of C given S’s choice is greater than the probability of C given the antecedent conditions.

Does this sound plausible?

Consider the following cases:

S1:  Smith pops into existence, and begins deliberating whether to kill Jones or not kill him.  At t1, just prior to choosing, Smith is 80% disposed (for whatever reasons) to choose to kill Jones, and there are no other mitigating factors so that the total probability is .8 that Smith will choose to kill.  Smith chooses (at t2) to kill.  So Smith raises the probability of his choosing to kill from .8 to 1.0.  Thus, he bears at least some moral responsibility according to PIT.

S2: Smith pops into existence, and begins deliberating whether or not to kill Jones.  At t0, in the course of Smith’s deliberation, Black introduces a neural process P into Smith’s brain that will deterministically result in his choosing (at t2) to kill Jones. Thus, at t1, the probability is 1.0 that Smith will choose to kill Jones.  At t2, Smith chooses to kill Jones (whether on his own or as a result of P), but he does not raise the probability that he will choose, since it was already 1.0.  Thus, Smith is not responsible for choosing to kill Jones according to PIT.

S3:  A scenario just like S2, except that Smith makes choices prior to t0 that raise the probability of his choosing to kill from the initial .8 to .9.  Black then initiates P, and the probability goes to 1.0.  Is Smith morally responsible for his choice accoring to PIT?

* This idea is adapted from Peter Vallentyne’s paper “Brute Luck and Responsibility,” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 7 (2008): 57-80.  I have modified it a bit, but if PIT is any good at all, Vallentyne gets the credit.

The History of Philosophy…

Monday, February 18th, 2008

…in verse. (scroll down a little)

Epistemic Disagreement

Friday, February 15th, 2008

At t, I believe that p.  At t+1, I come to believe that my friend S, whom I believe to be just as likely to be right w/r/t p as I am, believes that ~p.  There are no other relevant variables (e.g., I didn’t get any other new evidence for or against p in between t and t+1, etc.).  It is intuitive to me that, at t+1 (or right after t+1), I ought to withhold my belief that p.  Not only that, but I don’t think there are any good arguments for thinking that, in this situation, it’s not the case that I ought to withhold.  That’s my position.

The question isn’t “what should I do in the moments after?”  The answer to that is obvious: I should dialogue with S about his belief or take another look over my argument for p or whatever.  Doing either of these would change the variables.  The question is “given the situation at t+1, what is the proper doxastic attitude I should take?”  And I think that that is withholding.

Advice on Ethics Teaching?

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

I’m teaching my own Ethics course, and I need some advice.  I see the value of teaching divine command theory and relativism/subjectivism because those are views that many students hold, and it’s good for them to think about and question their own views.  I also see the value of teaching Utilitarianism and Kant’s respect-for-persons stuff because people actually appeal to these theories (or at least the principles behind these theories) in ethics discussions all the time (even nonphilosophers, though they won’t explicitly appeal to those theories).

I can’t, however, see the value so much of teaching Ethical Egoism, Social Contract Theory, and Kant’s Categorial Imperative (Universal Law formula).  I have never found anybody appealing to Ethical Egoism or the Universal Law formula of the categorical imperative in a discussion.  I could almost say the same about Social Contract Theory, but I’m not sure, and I have a suspicion that I’m wrong.

Many ethics teachers do teach those subjects.  While I was originally planning not to teach them, I’m rethinking it.  Any reason why I should teach those three subjects?

Teaching necessary and sufficient conditions, invalidity, and others

Friday, February 8th, 2008

While teaching philosophy, it is often difficult to convey necessary conditions, sufficient conditions, why denying the antecedent or affirming the consequent is a big mistake, and so on. I prefer to use examples to illustrate differences and emphasize the importance of avoiding fallacies. Several people have commented on not having persuasive, handy, or otherwise good examples. I have had some pretty good success with these, so I thought I would share. Please add more to the list. (more…)

Evolution and Proper Function

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

When my heart pumps blood, it is properly functioning.  If it were to suddenly stop, it would not be properly functioning.  Our immune system is properly functioning when it fights off diseases, but HIV can cause it to dysfunction.  For something to properly function is for it to function as it is supposed to.  My heart is supposed to pump blood.  It’s not supposed to explode.

An evolutionary analysis of biological proper functions might proceed as follows:

E) x’s functioning in way W is proper iff x’s ancestors functioning in way W contributed to its survival.

This is a crude analysis, but it gets most of the results right.  My heart’s functioning so that it pumps blood contributed to the survival of my ancestors.

Plantinga provides the following counterexample (in Warrant and Proper Function, c.11).  (He doesn’t specifically aim it at E, but at other accounts like it.)  Suppose Hitler won the war so that he had full power.  Furthermore, there were certain nonAryans who had a mutation such that everything they saw was tinted green and caused an incessant pain.  Hitler enjoyed this suffering, so he allowed these nonAryans to survive.  After a few generations, nonAryans with eyes like ours died out, and the nonAryans with these mutated eyes continued to survive.

According to E, the nonAryans’ eyes are properly functioning, i.e., functioning as they are supposed to.  But intuitively, no, eyes aren’t supposed to function that way.  This is dysfunctional, even if it helped the ancestors survive.

Is this case convincing?

An interesting argument

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

I came across an interesting argument when teaching intro to logic. I don’t mean it to be a good one, but just share it here.

1. If the truth of its premises does not guarantee the truth of its conclusion, then an argument is not valid.

2. The truth of the premises does not guarantee the truth of this conclusion.

3. Therefore, this argument is not valid.

Question: Is this argument valid or not?

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