Archive for May, 2008

Believing and Withholding

Friday, May 30th, 2008

Epistemologists (influenced by Chisholm) tend to split our doxastic attitudes into beliefs and withholdings.  For any proposition p that I’ve considered, I either believe that p, withhold belief that p, or believe the denial of p.

I wonder if withholding belief that p can be reduced to having other beliefs about p.  Here’s one shot at an equivalence:

1) S withholds belief that p iff S believes that there’s some likelihood that p and that there’s some likelihood that ~p, and it’s not the case that (either S believes that p or S believes that ~p)

In other words, to withhold belief in a proposition is really just to have two beliefs about its likelihood (and not believe it or its denial).  Is this plausible?  Suppose I withhold belief that it’s raining in Beijing right now.  Is all this really saying is that I believe that there’s some likelihood that it is raining there, I believe that there’s some likelihood that it isn’t raining there, and I don’t believe either way?  It seems plausible at least in this case.

Aren’t there cases where I withhold belief, but I don’t form those corresponding beliefs?  I’m not sure.  Any help?

Posted in Epistemology | 8,191 Comments »

Utilitarianism and Moral Skepticism

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

So the act utilitarianism I’m concerned with is the one that says that we are obligated to do what maximizes utility.  And the consequences we’re concerned with are ALL the consequences of our actions.  This will be an ENORMOUS number of consequences since we have to calculate the amount of utility and disutility for THE REST OF TIME.

It seems to me that act utilitarianism leads to moral skepticism.  We can’t know what the right action is.  But not only that, but we don’t even know that one action is more likely to be the right action than the wrong one.

Someone might argue that

(more…)

Posted in Ethical Theory | 4,054 Comments »

Making it Illegal to sell crap from China

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

I think that it is morally permissible to use force against others to prohibit them from using child labor or from polluting the environment.  This is because each of these action types violate the rights of others, and I think it’s morally permissible to use force to prevent a rights violation.  The gist is that I support US laws that prohibit companies from doing these sorts of things in the US.
But what can we do when this sort of thing happens outside of our borders?  Well, I think that if you agree with me about the former, then you should agree with me that it is permissible to use force against others to prohibit them from selling products that were made by child labor or that were made by polluting the environment even if these rights violations occurred outside of our borders.  Why?  Because it is morally permissible to use force against others to prevent an unjust transfer of goods, and goods produced using child labor or produced by polluting the environment are unjustly possessed.  The clincher: it is within our rights to prohibit the sale of goods from China, Indonesia, Guatemala, and other places if we so desire.  This would not only have nice practical results (e.g. employers would have far fewer incentives to move manufacturing jobs overseas), but it would also have nice moral results in the far reaches of the world (e.g. an improvement of working conditions for non-US workers since employers will want to be able to market their goods in the US).

Posted in Applied Ethics, Social/Political | 67 Comments »

Moral responsibility for coerced actions

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

I think that there are some cases where people are morally responsible for coerced actions they perform. Consider the following:

Smith owns an expensive car which he is very proud of and very much wants to keep. Smith has a friend (Jones) who is not very well off and relies on his old pickup truck to support his family. A robber threatens Smith and tells him that unless he surrenders his car to the robber, the robber will destroy Jones’s truck. Smith (out of concern for his friend) allows the robber to take his prized automobile.

In this case it seems like Smith is praiseworthy (and thus responsible) for his coerced action. What do you guys think? Is Smith responsible? Is this a case of coercion?

Posted in Action Theory, Ethical Theory, Metaphysics | 4,194 Comments »