Naomi Scheman (University of Minnesota)
"Vulnerability, Sustainability, & Trustworthiness: Reorienting Epistemology"
ABSTRACT: Starting with Wittgenstein’s injunction: “One might say: the axis of reference of our examination must be rotated, but about the fixed point of our real need”, I want to ask what our “real need(s)” might be when it comes to epistemology. My answer will rest on the unavoidability of pervasive epistemic dependency and the consequent need for trust on the part of those who are dependent on others for much of what we need to know (all of us, most of the time) and for trustworthiness on the part of those on whom we depend (with a specific focus on individuals and groups exercising institutionalized expertise). I will develop this perspective in relation to two notions: sustainable inquiry and the epistemic relevance of (in)vulnerability.
Program
Here's a link to the current program.
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Marilea Bramer (MSUM)
“Were Arthur and Lancelot Really Friends? A Kantian Analysis”
An integral part of the King Arthur legend as told by Sir Thomas Malory is the love triangle between King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and the knight Lancelot. Indeed, part of the tragedy of the King Arthur legend is that Arthur loses his wife Guinevere, and his best knight and friend Lancelot, which is the beginning of the end of his reign and the Golden Age of his kingdom, Camelot. But were Arthur and Lancelot really friends? Using Kant’s description of friendship, I conclude that Arthur and Lancelot were not friends. Additionally, the reasons why their relationship fails to be a friendship has consequences for all relationships between individuals of unequal power. Thus, Arthur tragically loses his best knight, his wife, and his kingdom, we can console ourselves with the thought that he does not also lose his best friend at the same time.
Sean Drysdale Walsh (UMD)
“Cambridge Change, Vagueness, and Moral Right”
There are many statements about right and wrong that are vague. What is the right analysis of this vagueness? If vague statements about what is right is foundationally semantic vagueness, then what is right is vague simpliciter. If vague statements about what is right is about metaphysical vagueness, then what is right is also vague simpliciter. If vague statements about what is right is merely a form of epistemic vagueness, then what is right is merely unknown but precise and determinate simpliciter. Many would prefer the epistemic solution to vagueness in ethics, since it appears pervasively in Kantian, Utilitarian, and Aristotelian ethics. However, I will argue that, according to the most worked out theory of epistemic vagueness (the theory of Timothy Williamson), what is right and wrong is subject to pervasive Cambridge change –i.e., what is right or wrong often changes valence due to morally irrelevant external factors. On my view, we have a dilemma: either what is right is often vague simpliciter, or what is right is subject to silly Cambridge changes. I choose the first horn of this dilemma, as did Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics.
Heidi Giebel (UST)
“Practically Virtuous”
In this essay I consider the features an ethical theory must have if it is to be readily applicable to everyday human life. I suggest that applicability of an ethical theory depends, at least in large part, on the degree to which it has four main features: (1) helpfulness in connecting ethical judgments with motivation to act, (2) accessibility to everyone of normal intelligence, (3) indirect or habitual applicability, and (4) incorporation of a realistic view of human nature. Finally, I argue that a broadly Aristotelian theory of virtue ethics has these four features to a significantly greater degree than do its main competitors, and thus that it (among the major theories of Western philosophical ethics) is the most applicable to the lives of ordinary people like us.
Scott Forschler (SCTC)
“The ‘Necessity’ Fallacy in Ethical Theory”
A common strategy in ethical argumentation tries to derive ethical obligations from the rational necessity of not acting against certain “necessary” conditions for satisfying some good end. This strategy is very often fallacious, and works by equivocating over what counts as a “necessary” condition. Very often, what is counted as a necessary condition is not logically necessary for the end in question, but is at most related to it by affecting the probability of the end’s satisfaction. If other conditions affecting the probability of satisfying this (or similar) ends are then discounted as merely “instrumental” or “probabilistic” (in contrast to others imagined as being “necessary”), this strategy has the function of hypocritically privileging some of the arguer’s preferred values over others. We should instead recognize that nearly all conditions affecting the probability of satisfying some good end borrow some value from the value of the end, in proportion to how much they tend to affect its probability of satisfaction. The fallacy tends to support rigid deontological norms; once we abandon it, many arguments against consequentialism are revealed merely as special pleading.
Shane Courtland (UMD)
“Hobbesian Right to Healthcare”
Over the last few years we have had a debate regarding the role of government in providing healthcare. There has been a question as to whether or not the state's proper role requires protection of its subjects from the calamities associated with a lack of healthcare. In this essay, I will argue that straightforward Hobbesian principles require the state to provide healthcare. It might be odd (or, at the very least, anachronistic) that such a positive right can be justified by a philosopher whose most famous quote is, "the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Nonetheless, Hobbes's political theory provides the framework for such a right.
Dennis Cooley (NDSU)
“Can care-relationship ethics justify a suicide duty?”
Justifications for a duty to take one’s own life usually incorporate some form of consequentialism, such as the Principle of Beneficence, or social justice, such as Rawls’ theory of justice. Basically, these arguments show that the world would be a better place if the suicide is committed than it could be with the person alive or dead in any other way. Or that perfectly rational, self-interested people would not allocate resources to certain groups of individuals who would be better served by killing themselves rather than suffering through an ultimately futile, expensive fight.
Care-relationship ethics might seem the least likely theory to be able to justify a duty to take one’s own life. However, if care-relationship ethics is properly understood as a moral principle with actual rules and duties dependent on the relationship type, then a plausible case can be made for a suicide duty if John Hardwig’s nine criteria are fulfilled.
Nobel Ang (MSUM)
“Making the Case for a Moral Obligation to Donate Embryos to Stem Cell Research in the Face of Feminist Concerns about Inalienability, Autonomy and Personhood”
In this paper, I argue that there is a prima facie moral obligation for patients in In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) programs to donate embryos for which they have no further use to stem cell research. Such an obligation is a prima facie and not absolute obligation, because it is quite possible that many women may continue to see their in vitro embryos as being constitutive of their bodily integrity and sense of self. This being the case, requiring these women to fulfill such an obligation would infringe on their autonomy. However, I argue that there is nevertheless a moral obligation on women as a class to donate embryos to stem cell research. Drawing upon the recent work of feminists in the areas of alienability and personhood, I shall show that the feminist position would be better served by holding that embryos are not in principle essential to personhood, and that embryos are thus not inalienable to women as a class. As such, the abovementioned obligation would apply to women as a class.
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Tim Shiell (UWS)
“University Student Speech Rights: The Case of the Racist Facebook PM”
This paper addresses a free speech case modeled on a real incident involving a university student’s racist Face Book message. Through a review of constitutional doctrines regarding overbreadth, harassment, true threats, disorderly conduct, captive audience, and more in the context of a dialogue with the administrators modeled on the incident, the paper argues that although the student’s speech was ignorant, crass and offensive, it is protected by the First Amendment. The paper concludes with a recommendation that administrators should be denied qualified immunity because they should have known their actions violated the student’s legal rights.
Jeanine Weekes Schroer (UMD) and Melissa Kozma (UWBC)
“Dangerous Discourse, Stereotype Threat, and Social Oppression”
Using a recent antiabortion billboard campaign targeting the black community as an example, we aim to show a flaw in the way certain kinds of inflammatory political rhetoric are criticized. Our contention is that while criticisms tend to focus on the feelings hurt by such campaigns, they ignore a pernicious contribution to social oppression. Using stereotype threat to bridge the gap between the internal — hurt feelings — and the external — material consequences, we argue that proper criticism of rhetoric like that in the recent antiabortion billboard campaign will focus on how it functions as and sustains social oppression.
Joshua Preiss (MSU)
“Political Liberalism and the Priority of Freedom”
Focusing on the work of Amartya Sen, this paper considers whether a freedom-centered approach to economic development violates the ideal of political liberalism, as presented by John Rawls, Charles Larmore, and others. Distinguishing a pluralism of values from a pluralism of comprehensive doctrines, I argue that the fact that many prominent religious doctrines may not take the value of liberty to be of primary moral importance does not disqualify philosophers, economists, and policy makers from using it as a standard with which to assess public policy. In addition, and contrary to Joseph Raz’s perfectionist liberalism, Sen’s capabilities approach does not affirm a metaphysical claim about the plurality of different ways of life. A policy maker can utilize his notion of freedom without privileging a particular comprehensive doctrine or denigrating reasonable religious beliefs. Such use need not, as Martha Nussbaum fears, treat some members of society as second-class citizens.
Jason Steffen (UMTC)
“A Tale of Two Judges: Retribution and Mercy in Kant’s Moral and Political Theories”
Scholars often appeal to Kant in defending a view of criminal punishment known as retributivism. More recently, some have argued that Kant is not a pure retributivist, but instead holds a “mixed” view of punishment, which takes the practice to be justified in part on utilitarian and retributive grounds. In this paper, which is an excerpt from a larger project, I sidestep that debate altogether. I argue that Kant’s own views about conscience and self-knowledge in his moral philosophy should cause us to rethink the importance of lex talionis—an apparently integral element of both retributivist and mixed-theory interpretations—in the criminal justice system.
Kathryn Swanson (UMTC)
“The Moral Legislation of Tribal Sovereignty: The Marshall Trilogy and Kant’s Doctrine of Right”
This article examines Chief Justice John Marshall’s legal reasoning in a series of Supreme Court cases that shaped the foundation of Federal Indian Law in the United States under a Kantian moral and political analysis. These cases are better known as The Marshall Trilogy. As Marshall’s contemporary, Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy provides insight for better understanding the biased and often illegitimate reasoning in the Court’s rulings on tribal sovereignty. Justice Thompson’s dissenting opinion in the second case in the series, Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia (1831), echoes Kantian moral values and supports an argument for a reevaluation of the legitimacy of Marshall’s majority opinions regarding the scope of tribal self-government.
Yi Deng (MCTC)
“Friedrich Schlegel’s Criticism of Kant’s Republicanism”
As for domestic justice, Kant sets republicanism as the requirement of governments. Defined as the division of legislative, administrative, and juridical branches, Kant’s republicanism aims to guarantee citizens’ independence, freedom, and equality and prevent despotism. Friedrich Schlegel criticizes that merely legal division of the three powers is not sufficient to guarantee citizens’ independence, freedom, and equality or prevent despotism, and therefore he challenges Kant’s republicanism as an appropriate means for preventing injustice. Schlegel’s criticism rightly points out the gap between the legal division of three branches and ideal republicanism. To respond to Schlegel’s doubts, I present two arguments that elaborate on Kant’s republicanism. The first one negatively argues that Kant’s republicanism, as merely the legal division of three branches would bring internal inconsistency to the conception of republicanism. The second positively argues that the gap between the legal division of the three branches and the ideal republicanism does not originate from the “gulf” between a particular will and the general will described by Schlegel, but from the vague overlap between a particular will and the general will. This argument also calls for the expansion of Kant’s republicanism as focusing on three divisions of branches.
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Robert Schroer (UMD)
“Explaining the Introspective Allure of the Phenomenal Principle”
The Phenomenal Principle says that if it phenomenally appears that something is F, then there must be something that actually is F. As a Representationalist about phenomenal experience, I think that this principle is false. That said, I also think that there is something about what perceptual experiences are like—there is something about their phenomenal character—that explains the popularity of the principle. In this paper, I identify this feature of experience and give a Representationalist-friendly account of it.
I begin by examining the process that an everyday subject would undertake to assure herself that she is not hallucinating when she takes herself to be perceiving something. I show that we undertake a similar process when merely looking at the facing surfaces of objects and then argue that the character of this process is what explains the introspective allure of the Phenomenal Principle. This analysis of the introspective allure of the Phenomenal Principle reveals that the thing that draws people towards the principle does not actually establish the truth of it.
David Cole (UMD)
“Color for Robots: representation, subjectivity and analogs of inverted spectrum”
Can we understand minds as computational systems operating on internal symbols that have wide content? Such an approach has power and simplicity. But many argue it has a general failing: it misses the inner phenomenology, the subjective. And furthermore, it gives wrong results in important thought experiments, such as inverted spectrum, that separate the subjective from the world states that are represented. Here I argue that a robot with a suitably layered perceptual system will exhibit a form of subjectivity, and will behave as we would in Inverted Earth situations. Thus computationalism coupled with content externalism can accommodate the putative counterexamples.
Jason Ford (UMD)
“Noë’s Enactive Approach Cannot Handle Phantom Limbs”
Some people who are born without a limb will have a phantom of their missing limb. This causes intractable problems for Alva Noë’s Enactive Account of the content of perceptual states and experiences. I argue that this theory, in its current form, should be rejected. I also argue that there is a more moderate position, which would preserve some of the virtues of these the Enactive Account, while accommodating the existence of aplasic phantoms.
Joseph Vukov (Fordham)
“Speaking Precisely: Kripke and the Problem of Sharp Cutoffs”
Sharpism – as I take it in this paper – affirms that there are sharp cutoffs to the truth values of our everyday claims about the world. The inevitable gut reaction to sharpism is a hostile one. For it seems miraculous – if not absurd – that our ordinary claims about the world should have sharp cutoffs. In this paper, I flesh out these intuitions, showing why sharpism is indeed a problematic position to maintain. But while I do not therefore deny that sharpism has its problems, I nevertheless argue that one can accept it. I am not the first to defend sharpism. Other defenses of the position, however, have treated it as a distinctly metaphysical problem that demands a distinctly metaphysical solution. In this paper, I suggest that a productive response to sharpism might be found by adopting a certain perspective on language, namely, the perspective proposed by Kripke in Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language.
Brett Coppenger (UMD)
“Achieving Epistemic Descent”
Ernest Sosa has famously distinguished between kinds of knowledge. On Sosa’s view, one can start with an account of animal knowledge, and then, by adding further epistemic elements, work her way up to reflective knowledge. In this paper I will defend two theses. First, Sosa’s particular view fails to adequately answer the new evil demon problem. Second, Sosa’s distinction between kinds of knowledge can be used to develop an alternative account that does adequately answer the new evil demon problem.
Anastasia Panagopoulos (UMTC)
“The Independence Approach to Mindreading”
I begin by linking my notion of shared experiential-knowledge to Alvin Goldman’s low-level simulational mindreading. We will see that sharing experiential-knowledge is necessary for the ability to low-level simulate. An important consequence follows: when experiential-knowledge is not present (hence, not shared nor sharable), low-level simulation is not possible, yet successful low-level mindreading still occurs. Why? I propose that low-level mindreading in the absence of low-level simulation is the result of theorizing. My defense of independence in low-level simulational mindreading rests on empirical evidence in Goldman (2006) with respect to selective impairment patterns for several emotions which show that since “there is a deficit both in experiencing a given emotion and a selective deficit in recognizing that very emotion” (p. 115), there is a consequent deficit in mindreading for the impaired emotion using low-level simulation, but not for mindreading for it using theorizing.
Brian Woodcock (UWEC)
“'The Scientific Method' on Trial”
In this essay, I aim to lay out problems with popular and introductory accounts of “The Scientific Method”. I conclude that such presentations do convey some important information about science. They emphasize the importance of the empirical for deciding questions about the world and the importance to science of the hypothetico-deductive pattern of reasoning. But both of these points could be conveyed while abandoning the myth of “The Scientific Method”.
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Rachel Lu (UST)
“Would St. Thomas Want us to Eat Fresh and Local”
This paper examines passages from Thomas Aquinas, and particularly from the Summa Contra Gentiles, in an effort to discern how Aquinas might respond to the arguments of present-day environmental groups concerning sustainable food production. In particular, the paper will consider the metaphysical and moral value of biodiversity.
George Connell (Concordia)
“Truth, Subjectivity, and Kierkegaard's Parable of the Fervent Pagan”
One of the most controversial passages in Kierkegaard's writings is Johannes Climacus's parable of the fervent pagan from Concluding Unscientific Postscript. In this passage, Climacus compares a fervent pagan worshiper favorably to a lukewarm Christian worshiper, suggesting that there is "more truth" to be found in the former. Interpreters of this passage have construed it in highly disparate ways, aligning the passage with each of the major theoretical stances toward religious diversity: pluralism, exclusivism, and inclusivism. This paper argues that while an inclusivist reading is to be preferred to the alternatives, Climacus's parable actually subverts the dominant paradigm for posing the question of conflicting truth claims on the part of diverse religions.
Eric Kraemer (UWLAX)
“Theism and the Challenges of Science and Evil”
Theists face a number of major challenges, including those raised by science and evil. I examine recent attempts by two admirable theists to offer serious replies to these challenges. In Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion and Naturalism (2011), Alvin Plantinga defends a “deep concord” between theism and modern science. In Rationality and Religious Commitment (2011) Robert Audi defends the rationality of theism while fully granting the existence of significant evil in the world. I argue that Audi’s defense of theistic rationality in the face of evil undermines Plantinga’s claim to deep concord between theism and science and that Plantinga’s deep concord undermines Audi’s case for the rationality of theism in the face of evil.
Richard Gilmore (Concordia)
“The Existential Hitchcock”
In this paper I argue that Hitchcock is a deeply existential filmmaker, and that, furthermore, there are indications in his films that he actually read some existential philosophy. I will do a reading of two Hitchcock films, "Psycho" and "Vertigo" to draw out the existentialist themes in those movies.
Gary Gabor (Hamline)
“Genus and Species in Late Antique Neoplatonism”
In Ennead I.3, Plotinus makes the surprising claim that Platonists possess a logical method distinct from their rivals. This is surprising because, unlike Aristotelian term logic or Stoic propositional logic, it is generally acknowledged that late Platonism did not make any fundamental contribution to logical theory. What could Plotinus have in mind? In this paper, I will examine one of the most significant and novel re-workings of the method of division, the account given by Iamblichus in the early chapters of the De Mysteriis. In particular, Iamblichus puts forward a significant critique of the method of division in On the Mysteries. While On the Mysteries is often read as a religious tract, indeed a manifesto of ‘irrationalism’ or the ‘miraculous’, its opening sections contain a surprisingly sophisticated philosophical critique of genus-species division in the case of the gods. In this section I will describe that critique, as well as the alternate quasi-logical method which Iamblichus proposes in its place.
John Thorp (Western)
“Aristotelian Fundamentalism”
The metaphysical system of Aristotle's Categories ran into trouble quite early on because it seemed unable to accommodate necessary predicates like differentiae: on the one hand they seem to be (usually) qualities, and so they are accidents; on the other they are part and parcel of the species, so they seem to belong to the first category, substance. This problem led to a dumbing-down and fatal weakening of the nominalist metaphysics. The present paper argues that the ideas in Aristotle's Categories were in fact much more subtle than the tradition came to understand; in their full subtlety they constitute a viable metaphysical system. The dumbing-down came about in part because early readers treated the text with too much reverence, reading it too literally; they forgot that this is clearly an early, groping, exploratory work.
Richard Berg (LU)
“Myths of Science and Matter in Descartes' Meditations”
Mythical thinking pervades the historical enterprise of philosophy. Not even Rene Descartes, the founding father of modern philosophy in the Western tradition, I argue is exceptional in this regard. I demonstrate that Descartes is a myth maker in his philosophy of science in three respects: first with regard to his claim that until science rests on a foundation of certainty, all other truths can be doubted; secondly with regard to the concept of clarity and distinctness as the foundation on which science and all other truths rest; and thirdly as regards his concept of matter including only its mathematical qualities while excluding those that are sensible.