51社区黑料

Abstract: What do we need to mobilize people into ameliorative struggles, i.e., the collective socio-political actions aspiring to create a better future by eradicating the conditions that foster injustice, oppression, and suffering? Many philosophers and activists suggest that hope be indispensable: ameliorative struggles request people to strive for arduous goals whose probabilities are usually low enough to engender despair; therefore, people need hope to prevent and defy despair and sustain their resolution. In this paper, with the help of Albert Camus's The Plague, I challenge the idea that hope is indispensable for ameliorative struggle mobilization because people will otherwise be demobilized by despair. Camus's novel presents a group of fighters who are not hopeful but nevertheless devote themselves to a struggle against the plague (as a metaphor for human suffering). The strugglers in The Plague, I shall suggest, manifest a syndrome of mental states which I call attending to the present; I then argue that attending to the present is (i) neither hopeful nor despaired and (ii) itself sufficient to motivate people to commit themselves to an ameliorative struggle. Therefore, insofar as attending to the present is an available option, hope is not as indispensable as many philosophers have deemed for ameliorative struggle mobilization.

Supervised by Nic Bommarito

Abstract: This paper sets out to address the question what counts as good reasons for loving someone. Since we should love people for who they are, reasons for love should be connected to the person themselves in meaningful ways. What I take to be the most promising account is the view that love is grounded by virtues of the beloved (Abramson and Leite 2011). While this account is illuminating, it overlooks the control dimension of virtues. I argue that one can acquire a virtue without control over their virtue acquisition. This happens when a virtue is a result of overwhelming social pressure, such as the virtue of care of a woman under current gender norms. In those cases, the agent becomes causally disconnected from their virtues. This lack of control alienates the agent from the good will they have in expression of their virtues. Virtues without control are disqualified as the proper grounds of love, as those virtues only reflect what social norms want the agent to be rather than reflect who the agent is. Given that we should love people for who they are, the proper grounds for love are virtues that the agent has control over.

Supervised by Evan Tiffany

Abstract: The Burning House Parable holds profound significance in Mahayana Buddhism. It depicts a father (the Buddha) 鈥渄eceiving鈥� his children (all sentient beings) to lead them out of a burning house (sufferings). Traditionally, scholars examine the ethics of this deception. According to them, the Parable teaches that deceiving others to help them can be morally permissible. In this paper, I shift the focus from deception to motivation and explore why the Buddha uses this seemingly deceptive approach. Supported by textual evidence, I argue that this topical shift aligns more closely with the central theme of the Lotus Sutra: enlightenment is achievable for all sentient beings, despite its challenges. To achieve enlightenment, one must strive, practice correctly, and understand deeply. However, many beings face struggles due to the complexity of enlightenment and lack of motivation. This is why Up膩ya, or 鈥榮killful means鈥�, is crucial in Mahayana Buddhism鈥攖eachings must adapt to the needs of sentient beings to guide them toward enlightenment.  Drawing insights from Chinese translations, I highlight the challenges English translations face in conveying classical Indian philosophical concepts about truth and reality. I argue that an instructive kind of external motivation is necessary for sentient beings to initiate and complete their journey toward enlightenment, as they are otherwise blinded by delusions and thus resistant to the wisdom of Buddhahood.

Supervised by Nic Bommarito

Abstract: The notion of grounding has been intensively studied over the last two decades. Optimists about this notion often think that phenomena of grounding are pervasive throughout philosophy, and that grounding can be a valuable theoretical tool for articulating various philosophical issues. In order for grounding to play these grand theoretical roles, the notion itself should be in good standing. However, following Fine (2010), several philosophers have noted that some natural principles of grounding are jointly inconsistent given classical logic. Many of these inconsistencies are based on the attractive principle that generalizations are grounded in their true instances, and that nothing grounds itself. Lovett (2020a, 2020b) proposes a general solution to these puzzles of ground, which promises to solve the puzzles in a natural and simple way while keeping classical logic intact. In this paper, I note that Lovett鈥檚 solution has a shortcoming: it doesn鈥檛 specify strict full grounds for the universal generalizations that initially cause the puzzles, but these universal generalizations seem to cry out for a strict full ground. I then explore two options for dealing with this problem: (1) to say that these universal generalizations are grounded in essential truths; (2) to say that these universal generalizations have no strict full ground but are nevertheless non-fundamental. I argue that the first option can鈥檛 offer a uniform solution to all of the puzzles, and that the second option is viable but has substantial cost.

Supervised by Tom Donaldson

Abstract: Meaningfulness is a concept we use in evaluating our projects and experiences, but what features of those projects and experiences inform our evaluations? First, I argue that with respect to meaningfulness, no project is necessarily worthless, that instead all projects involve a degree of risk. Then I argue that finding meaning in experiences involves a dynamic interpretation of those experiences. Combining these claims with psychology research on paradigmatically meaningful experiences, I defend the following model of meaning in life: a project or experience is meaningful when one interprets it as contributing to personal growth, where personal growth is assessed with respect to one鈥檚 own values, dreams, and aspirations. I use the interpretive element of this account to address a prominent objection that meaningfulness is so similar to well-being as to render it a redundant evaluative notion.

Supervised by Nic Bommarito

Abstract: Much of contemporary epistemology models rational inquiry as a two-stage process: evidence-gathering鈥攁cquiring information about the world鈥攁nd evidence-accommodation鈥攁dopting beliefs which best reflect that information. However, for non-ideal agents, it鈥檚 natural to include a third, in-between stage: evidence-evaluation. My project in this paper is to draw out a novel tension between (i) the familiar idea that evidence-evaluation is a temporally-extended process and (ii) a widely-endorsed constraint on belief revision. Inspired by Weatherson (2019), I call this constraint Change Evidentialism. Despite its prima facie appeal, I show that Change Evidentialism conflicts with a simple yet intuitively plausible story of how rational agents鈥� doxastic states fluctuate as they reflect. I then argue that rejecting this simple story in favor of Change Evidentialism comes with serious theoretical costs.

Supervised by Endre Begby

Abstract: The autonomy crisis in medicine describes the tension in the provider-patient relationship caused by conflicts in the exercise of the right to self-determination by providers and patients. This tension occurs when for instance a patient requests a treatment that goes against a physician鈥檚 deeply held value. To resolve this crisis, scholars have proposed three major approaches. The first seeks to tackle the crisis by prioritizing respect for patient autonomy. The second addresses the crisis by prioritizing respect for provider autonomy. The third proposes the prioritization of conscience, promoting equal respect for the right to autonomy of all parties through non-interference. In my estimation, adopting the first two approaches leads to the prima facie abrogation of the fundamental rights of some autonomous moral agents. Although the third approach is a step in the right direction, it does however neglect the positive rights involved, only offering a solution that addresses negative rights. In other words, it does not specify how and who is to fulfill the positive duties of provision and protection during an ethical/right conflict between providers and patients. Therefore, in this paper, I offer to resolve the autonomy crisis with a new approach: the liberal-welfarist approach. This approach, inspired by the emphases of welfare liberalism on the protection of individual rights and the welfare obligation of the state, resolves the autonomy crisis by redirecting duties during a conflict such that the positive duties of provision and protection fall entirely on the state while all parties comply with the negative duty of non-interference. Hence, unlike the earlier approaches, this approach guarantees the fulfillment of the negative and positive duties arising from the right to autonomy of both providers and patients. The version of the social contract theory advanced by the likes of David Gauthier and John Rawls, James Nickel鈥檚 feasibility argument, and Rawls鈥� neutral liberal view provide bases for three possible justifications for this approach.

Supervised by Chelsea Rosenthal

Abstract: In his mature writings, Kant reconfigured his early speculative theology from the 1760s as an instance of reason鈥檚 transgressive quest for the unconditioned idea terminating a series of conditions. This reconfiguration occurs in the 鈥業deal of Pure Reason鈥� section of the first Critique, and involves the development of an analogy between the relations God bears to the possibility of things and the human understanding does to sensible experience. Appreciating and clarifying this rather neglected analogy, I argue, helps make sense of Kant鈥檚 cryptic remark that God鈥檚 mind is the schema for the concept of a thing in general. But more crucially, I contend, the analogy provides the key to resolving two interpretive debates about Kant鈥檚 interventions in early modern German theology. The first, concerning the way all possibility depends on God, is addressed by the analogy in making it explicit that divine cognition鈥揻or Kant, just as for his rationalist predecessors鈥搃s necessary for the grounding of all possibility; and the second debate, concerning the fate of the 1760s' a priori proof for God鈥檚 existence in the Critical period, is revealed by the analogy to be entangled with the Critical reappraisal of the a posteriori physico-theological proof.

Supervised by Dai Heide

Abstract: I argue that a common interpretation of how hermeneutical injustice is to be resolved entails an optimism regarding our participation in ameliorative conceptual projects that pertain to our own lives. I offer an alternative explanation of how interpretive disadvantages in the social world arise: disadvantage is a product of the presence of tempting but unsatisfactory alternative conceptual resources. If we accept this interpretation, we should be moderately pessimistic about the above-mentioned participation. This is because selection between conceptual resources is challenging in a way analogous to theoretical underdetermination, and because we, as non-ideal reasoners, are subject to biases towards sub-optimal conceptual resources. One implication of this is that our attempts to overcome hermeneutical injustice may leave some misapprehensions intact to a substantial degree. Another is that the socially powerful鈥攖hose who don鈥檛 suffer from hermeneutical injustice鈥攁re likely to labor under misapprehensions of their own.

Supervised by Chelsea Rosenthal

Abstract: In this paper, I offer a novel argument against Primitivism about Phenomenal Intentionality by arguing that it fails to adequately explain 鈥渟patial orientation contents,鈥� or contents representing points along the left-right, down-up, and front-back spatial axes that a subject takes an object鈥攕uch as even her own self鈥攖o occupy. I argue that an experience鈥檚 phenomenal character, in the absence of any structural information about how the phenomenal properties in question are organized, cannot intrinsically explain spatial orientation contents. So, if phenomenal character fails to account for spatial orientation contents, and changes in spatial orientation contents imply changes in intentional contents, then I argue that insofar as it is the view that phenomenal experiences are intentional just in virtue of their phenomenal character, Primitivism is in trouble.

Supervised by Kathleen Akins

Abstract: It is argued that one commits a moral wrong by counting a morally bad person as a friend.

Jessica Isserow thinks having morally bad friends reflects badly on our moral priorities because forming friendships involves having an overall positive character evaluation of our friends which requires overlooking their moral flaws. However, Isserow thinks, we can only overlook serious moral flaws, like the ones that a morally bad person has, if we are inexcusably morally complacent and have wrong moral priorities. Cathy Mason, on the other hand, thinks being friends with morally bad people entails taking certain views seriously that ought not to be taken seriously. In this paper, I argue, contra Isserow and Mason, that in some cases, there is nothing wrong with being friends with morally bad people and that some of those friendships are morally valuable. Specifically, I argue that the moral character of our friend in and of itself does not imply that the friendship itself is morally bad. What鈥檚 wrong with being friends with morally bad people, if anything is wrong at all, depends on the additional characteristics of the friendship. This paper is both a critical and a constructive account. For my critical arguments, I argue that if it is wrong to count a morally bad person as a friend then it leads to the conclusion that either a morally bad person can only have other morally bad people as friends or can have no friends at all. But such a conclusion is undesirable because (i) having no morally decent friends would take away an avenue of moral improvement from the morally bad people; (ii) having only other bad people as friends can reinforce the moral badness of morally bad people; and (iii) having no friends at all is bad because friendships are important for a meaningful life and denying someone a meaningful life is an extremely harsh punishment. I further argue that we can have friendships without having an overall positive character evaluation of our friends. I also argue that friendships need not always mean that we take all the views of our friends seriously. For my constructive arguments, I provide a sketch of two types of cases where it might be morally permissible, and sometimes valuable, to count a morally bad person as a friend. The first kind of case, Moral Improvement cases, are friendships where a morally bad person shows moral improvement as a result of the friendship. For this case, I rely on the case of Daryl Davis, a black man, who befriended over two hundred Ku Klux Klan members and helped them give up racist beliefs. Davis transformed them through his friendship. The second kind of case, Non-complacent Friendships, are friendships where one is not complacent with the moral badness of their friend and actively argues with, discourages, and denounces their friend. I further argue that both of these cases are not rare but abound and are similar to other sorts of relationships that we have in our lives.

Supervised by Chelsea Rosenthal

Abstract: Throughout her work on natural philosophy, Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) defends the belief that all nature is composed of free, self-moving, rational matter. Cavendish advocates for a robust sense of freedom in which all parts of nature determine their own actions. On her account, parts of nature are free to create irregular motions and disorder. Still, Cavendish esteems nature for the general order and harmony present amongst her free parts. Given the great potential for disorder in her system due to the freedom of nature, Cavendish leaves us asking, 鈥淥ught not we to expect nature to be significantly more chaotic?鈥� (Detlefsen 2007, 186). 

In this paper, I argue that, on the infinite scale, Cavendish provides a response. For the whole of nature, balance arises through the infinitude of degrees of qualities, such as softness or thickness, found in the natural world and their ability to prevent what Cavendish refers to as 鈥榓bsolute power.鈥� This account of order in Cavendish also supplements aspects of her anti-atomist beliefs and arguments regarding infinite worlds. I conclude the paper with a discussion on the limitations of Cavendish鈥檚 account to address how it does not translate to balance and order in finite parts of nature.

Supervised by Lisa Shapiro

Abstract: I'm going to talk about why sentences like 'The number two is green', 'Some ideas eat dinner', and 'They sleep furiously' seem odd.  These sentences are called category mistakes.  Ultimately I will argue that category mistakes seem odd because, although they are meaningful, they are neither true nor false; and I will argue that this is so because the meanings of their constituent expressions are underdetermined by our use of those expressions:  namely such that, on some ways of making those expressions precise, they are true while, on others, they are false.  This theory of category mistakes is called supervaluationism.  In short then, I will argue that supervaluationism is the best theory of category mistakes.

Supervised by Tom Donaldson

Abstract: According to the Humean theory of practical rationality, an agent鈥檚 reasons for action are fundamentally grounded in her subjective motivational set. Once a leading proponent Humeanism, Philippa Foot has since distanced herself from the view. Her dissatisfaction lay in the theory鈥檚 inability to generate agent-neutral moral reasons in 鈥渢ight corner鈥� situations, i.e., when the demands of morality are at odds with those of desire or self-interest. My goal in this paper is to argue that Foot鈥檚 objection does not deal a decisive blow to Humeanism. As I shall argue, the Humean has the conceptual resources to address the problem of tight corners. My argument proceeds in two stages: first, I draw on Mark Schroeder鈥檚 (2007) discussion of Hypotheticalism to demonstrate the possibility of general agent-neutral reasons within a Humean framework. Next, I appeal to the Aristotelian notion of the reciprocity of virtues to show that anyone who has reasons to act in accordance with any of the central virtues must inevitably also have reasons to acquire all the other virtues. This conclusion, when stretched to its full extent, paves the way for (quasi-)agent-neutral moral reasons for action. Appealing to these kinds of reasons, I argue, solves the problem of tight corners for the Humean.

Supervised by Bruno Guindon

Abstract: The question of how scientists obtain knowledge from running computer simulations plays an integral role in the epistemology of modern science.  In the literature on computer simulations, it is assumed that knowledge about the results of computer simulations is grounded in the knowledge of the process through which computer simulation results are achieved.  On that basis, two widely recognized accounts are developed:  an internalist account, which holds that computational simulations are just computer-aided arguments, and an externalist account, which holds that computational simulations are a kind of experiment in their own right.  In this paper, I introduce an engineering-inspired account of computational simulation knowledge that transcends the internal-external dichotomy.  I show that if the model entered into the simulation is well-conditioned, and the residual resulting from plugging the computed solution into the defining equation is sufficiently small, we can claim to know that the computer-generated solution is approximately true.  Checking the residual is an internal component because it is calculated by computer users to give justification for the computed solution, whereas well-conditioning is an external component because it is merely a property of the model used in the simulation and is, therefore, beyond the control of computer users.  Based on this account, knowledge can be gained through computer simulation even if the simulation process or the nature of computer simulations remains opaque, since the method of justification can be different from the method of discovery.  In conclusion, I highlight the fact that computational simulations are more akin to argumentation than arguments.

Supervised by Nic Fillion

Abstract: One of the most infamous skeptical arguments in ethics is J. L. Mackie鈥檚 argument from queerness. Over the last fifty years, by and large the most defended, assumed, and taught interpretation of the argument has remained that objective values are so strange that they cannot exist. Here, I argue that this interpretation is false; it contradicts the major corpus of Mackie鈥檚 work, including his Ethics (1977), where he advances the argument. For Mackie, there is a live possibility that objective values exist, a possibility surprisingly actualized only with a divine entity. After arguing against the standard interpretation, I show that the interpretive remedy lies in taking seriously Mackie鈥檚 overlooked target: the eighteenth-century British moralists. I conclude by pointing out that the sort of blunder made by philosophers here plagues moral philosophy even today.

Supervised by Bruno Guindon

Abstract: Two recent empirical studies, Latham et al. (2020) and Shardlow et al. (2021), aim to help resolve the debate between dynamic and static theories of temporal metaphysics by testing whether our temporal phenomenology could form part of an 鈥榓rgument from experience鈥� for the dynamic theory. To determine whether subjects had the phenomenology in question, the authors measured levels of agreement with linguistic descriptions of experience (e.g., 鈥淚 see time passing鈥�, 鈥淚t feels to me like the present moves鈥�). I argue that any study relying on linguistic descriptions of phenomenology to resolve the debate between dynamic and static theories is metamethodologically flawed; any linguistic description of the phenomenology in question is either too vague or too question-begging to have theoretical utility in adjudicating the metaphysical dispute. I begin by arguing for two methodological injunctions that linguistic descriptions of experience must obey to provide evidence that our phenomenology is suggestive of a dynamic theory. First, linguistic descriptions should not conflate experiences of things changing with experiences of things as changed. Second, linguistic descriptions should not conflate direct experiences with beliefs about metaphysics derived from such experiences or beliefs about which metaphysical theories this experience favors. I argue that Latham et al. (2020) and Shardlow et al. (2021) used ambiguous linguistic descriptions that violated both these injunctions and therefore neither study provided evidence as to the existence of passage phenomenology. I then show that no study could generate linguistic descriptions that resolve these ambiguities without presupposing metaphysical views about the precise manner in which the flow of time is realized in our phenomenal experience, thereby begging substantial metaphysical questions. I conclude that the argument from experience can be neither confirmed nor disconfirmed using experimental philosophical methods.

Supervised by Holly Andersen

Abstract: What role, if any, should anger play in political movements? The answer to this question often hinges on a set of other questions, including: Can the feeling of anger be isolated from angry behaviors鈥攔iots, rebellions, and general 鈥渦ncivil disobedience?鈥� Is anger necessarily retributive鈥攊s it always characterized by a vengeful spirit? A plausible route to defending anger, then, is to answer 鈥測es鈥� to the first question and 鈥渘o鈥� to the second, while claiming that the material gains of anger outweigh its less desirable qualities. This paper identifies a kind of anger that is behavioral, retributive, and defensible. I argue that anger can be a function of an incomplete stress response (ISR)鈥攁 bodily phenomenon that was first identified by Pierre Janet (1859-1947) and that has recently become a topic of interest in trauma psychology. In these cases, the desire for revenge can be explained by the body鈥檚 continued readiness to fight (rather than flee), even in the absence of an immediate threat. In the context of political oppression, riotous behaviors can be explained as an attempt to complete said stress response. As I will argue, there are cases where such behavioral anger may be necessary for both restoring a victim鈥檚 agency (such that it is incapacitated by an ISR) and for undermining political domination.

Supervised by Nic Bommarito