Department seminars and reading groups

What if the error theory about practically normative thought and discourse is correct?  Given the kinds of creatures we are, some form of normative thought and discourse seems inevitable for us, so "abolitionism" seems unlikely to be a promising response in this case, whatever its merits if the error theory were true only of specifically moral thought and discourse.  In this paper we explore some of the thorny methodological difficulties surrounding a so-called "reforming definition" approach in the event that a more global error theory is true.  An obvious worry here is that the reforming definition is presumably put forward as something that we *ought* to accept, but then a dilemma looms.  Either the 'ought' deployed in the reforming definition is understood qua defective discourse or in terms of the proposed reform.  If the former then the claim itself is equally defective, but if the latter then the argument is circular.  So far as we know, this methodological problem for reforming definitions about the normative more generally has gotten very little discussion.  With a tentative solution to this problem in place, we then argue for a form of "revolutionary expressivism," itself an option not much discussed in the literature on the error theory - typically mentioned en passant or relegated to a footnote but never given a systematic defense.  We argue that this solution is better than abolitionism, fictionalism, reforming naturalism and conservationism, the main options discussed in the current literature

J. L. Mackie’s arguments from queerness against moral realism have been at the centre stage of the metaethical debate for more than three decades. Although well-known the arguments from queerness are not always adequately understood and are sometimes discarded on insufficient grounds. No doubt, this is in part due to Mackie’s own opaque presentation, ranging over no more than four compressed pages.  My aim in this paper is to sort out how the arguments from queerness are best understood and to assess even-handedly their strengths and weaknesses. I discern four distinct arguments from queerness. I shall argue that the first three are ultimately unsuccessful, whereas the fourth has considerable force.

In this paper I defend the claim that substances can be causes. My hope is to show that this view is not as implausible as is often thought.

Rationality is of central concern in most sub-fields of philosophy, and indeed, in all humanistic or social-scientific disciplines. In philosophy, substantive debate about rationality is as nuanced as ever, and the literature is filled with an ever-expanding bevy of conceptual distinctions -- theoretical vs. practical, of course, but also communicative vs. purposive, state vs. process, narrow-scope vs. wide-scope, diachronic vs. synchronic, local vs. global, and many more. In light of this activity, two questions are pressing: 1) How can we possibly resolve these disputes and assign relevance to these concepts?, and 2) Why is rationality important -- that is, what its role in theory and practice? In this talk, I'll tackle these questions in reverse order. First I'll outline what I believe to be rationality's role; then I'll suggest that we answer questions about the structure of rationality by adverting to this role.

There are no blue swans, but there might have been. John McCain did not win the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, but he could have. It is commonplace within the metaphysics of modality to accommodate intuitions such as these by drawing a distinction between actuality, on the one hand, and mere possibility, on the other. I consider two realist ways of drawing this distinction and argue that neither one succeeds in doing justice to the original modal intuitions. I then suggest an alternative way of understanding the distinction within the realist framework and argue that it has clear advantages over the two realist views considered

On one common view (the ‘mixed’ view), punishment is justified if it is constrained by desert, and if it serves to deter. This view has played a central role in libertarian justifications of the state, according to which the state’s role is to protect and enforce negative rights, whilst no substantial redistributive obligations can be justified. I argue for two conclusions: first, that the mixed view of just punishment in fact presupposes that the state has certain redistributive obligations. Second, that if the first conclusion is right, the libertarian project of justifying a state which does not violate any negative rights cannot be sustained. This provides (another) reason to reject the libertarian framework premised on self-ownership and negative rights. Whilst the main target of this argument is standard Nozickian libertarianism, I show that these conclusions pose problems for recent proponents of libertarian values, such as Otsuka’s (2003) attempt to reconcile libertarian values with a form of welfare egalitarianism.

This talk takes as its starting point the psychological literature on implicit biases. Its goal is to begin exploring their epistemological implications, via the question of whether they can be seen as motivating a new form of scepticism.

Authenticity, as I understand it, is a property possessed by all and only those preferences whose satisfaction contributes to our lives going well. The property in question is this: our preferences are authentic just in case they do not have covert explanations, which is to say when the true third-personal explanation of our preferences is necessarily hidden from our first-person perspective. My argument is as follows. I start (in the spirit of Edward Craig and Bernard Williams) by offering a constructive genealogy for a theory of authenticity. Asking why we need such a theory in the first place allows us to identify a general concept of authenticity, functionally defined by the role that it plays in our moral thinking. That the concept is functionally defined allows us moreover to derive a set of desiderata against which particular conceptions of authenticity can be judged. Having established this, I go on to discuss various attempts to formulate such conceptions, and show why they fail. Drawing on the lessons of those failures, in I set out my own conception - the one advertised above - and show it meets the desiderata that its rivals don't. Finally, I explain why my conception of authenticity seems uniquely well-placed to meet those desiderata, and hence why this seems to me the best chance for a defensible theory of authenticity in preferences.

According to the relational analysis of ‘Floyd believes that snow is white’, the sentence should be interpreted as claiming that Floyd stands in the belief relation to the proposition that snow is white. The most familiar argument for the relational analysis is that it provides the best explanation of the validity of arguments such as ‘Floyd says that snow is white; Royd believes everything Floyd says; therefore Royd believes that snow is white’. In this talk I re-evaluate this case for the relational analysis.

In my paper I will compare and investigate the semantics of truth-ascriptions of the following three forms: (F1) It is true that p, (F2) That p is true, (F3) The proposition that p is true. Firstly, I will search for an answer to the question whether there is any semantic difference between (F2) and (F2). My answer will be: No, only a syntactic. I will compare three accounts on this issue and defend a version of what might be called the syntactic variant view. Secondly, I will discuss the question what the best way is to response to Davidson's challenge that questions whether a plausible truth-theoretic treatment of 'that p' can be provided. I will defend a specific version of what might be called the abstraction operator view in opposition to two rival views. Thirdly, my paper will be concerned with the question whether there is any semantic difference between (F2) and (F3). My answer will be: No, only a pragmatic. I will defend the view that expressions of the form 'that p' are in a certain sense ambiguous and justify on this basis my negative answer to the last mentioned question.