Nozick on Self-esteem

ABSTRACT This paper considers Robert Nozick's account of self-esteem, as presented in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. I criticise three aspects of it. First, the claim that people gain self-esteem only when they believe that they possess greater quantities than others of some valued talent or attribute. Secondly, the view that there will always be a conflict of interests between people over the acquisition of self-esteem. Thirdly, the proposal that the most promising way to improve levels of self-esteem across a society is to educate people so that they value a number of different activities and attributes. I argue against Nozick that there are non-comparative standards of doing something well or successfully that provide a person with a means of self-assessment; there is no necessary conflict of interests over the acquisition of self-esteem; reforming basic social and economic institutions is a promising way for a society to increase levels of self-esteem.     

Sosa on scepticism

 In my remarks, I discuss Sosa's attempt to deal with the sceptical threat posed by dreaming. Sosa explores two replies to the problem of dreaming scepticism. First, he argues that, on the imagination model of dreaming, dreaming does not threaten the safety of our beliefs. Second, he argues that knowledge does not require safety, but a weaker condition which is not threatened by dreaming skepticism. I raise questions about both elements of his reply.

Stove on inductive scepticism

Book Information Warranted Christian Belief. By Alvin Plantinga. Oxford University Press. New York. 2000. Pp. xx + 508.     

Nozick, Prohibition, and No-Fault Motor Insurance

ABSTRACT No‐fault insurance schemes involve prohibiting exercise of the natural rights of individuals to recover damages from those whose negligence causes them harm. Public debate about no‐fault emphasises consequentialist benefits, and takes little account of the putative rights of individuals to recovery. I argue, however, that even on a relatively extreme rights‐based conception of justice, such as Robert Nozick’s, it may be possible to justify a no‐fault scheme. The argument proceeds by: (1) elucidating what compensation the Nozickian must offer in return for prohibiting an activity such as the private recovery of damages; and consequently (2) arguing that there is no prima facie reason to think that the compensation afforded by participation in a no‐fault scheme would be any less adequate than that afforded by participation in a system of tort law     

Ramseyan Humility, scepticism and grasp

In ‘Ramseyan Humility’ David Lewis argues that a particular view about fundamental properties, quidditism, leads to the position that we are irredeemably ignorant of the identities of fundamental properties. We are ignorant of the identities of fundamental properties since we can never know which properties play which causal roles, and we have no other way of identifying fundamental properties other than by the causal roles they play. It has been suggested in the philosophical literature that Lewis’ argument for Humility is merely an instance of traditional scepticism, to which traditional responses to scepticism are applicable. I agree that in ‘Ramseyan Humility’ Lewis does present an argument to which it is appropriate to consider the applicability of responses to traditional scepticism—he argues that we irredeemably lack the evidence to rule out possibilities in which different properties occupy the causal roles described by our best physical theory. And prima facie this is just the kind of argument responses to traditional scepticism are designed to tackle. However, I will argue that Lewis bolsters this argument with a second. This second argument serves to deepen Lewis’ case and cannot be met with a response to traditional scepticism. For Lewis argues that not only do we lack evidence for which properties play which roles, we lack the ability to grasp any such proposition about role-occupancy. And if we cannot grasp any such proposition we cannot know it.     

Locke,Nozick and the state of nature

Philosophical Studies - Recently, philosophers have drawn on tools from game theory to explore behavior in Hobbes’ state of nature (Vanderschraaf in Econ Philos 22:243–279, 2006; Chung...     

Self-knowledge and scepticism

Donald Davidson has argued that most of our beliefs must be true and that global scepticism is therefore false. Davidson's arguments to this conclusion often seem to depend on externalist considerations. Davidson's position has been criticised, however, on the grounds that he does not defeat the sceptic, but rather already assumes the falsity of scepticism through his appeal to externalism. Indeed, it has been claimed that far from defeating the sceptic Davidson introduces an even more extreme version of scepticism according to which we cannot even know the contents of our own minds. This paper argues that these criticisms are mistaken and that Davidson does indeed have grounds to argue that scepticism is false. The externalism that figures in Davidson's antisceptical arguments is shown to be merely an element in Davidson's overall holism according to which the very possibility of having beliefs that could be true or false depends on most of those beliefs being true and their contents known.     

Reliabilism,scepticism, and evidentia in Ockham

The aim of this paper is to challenge the reliabilist interpretation of William Ockham (ca. 1287–1347)'s epistemology. The discussion proceeds as follows. First, I analyse the reliabilist interpretation into two theses: (1) a negative thesis I call the Anti-Internalism Thesis, according to which, for Ockham, epistemic justification does not depend on any internal factors that are accessible by reflection; (2) a positive thesis I call the Reliability Thesis, according to which epistemic justification in Ockham depends on the reliability of a causal process through which a given judgment is produced. Secondly, I argue that the Anti-Internalism Thesis fails since Ockham's notion of evidentness (evidentia), which is at the heart of his theory of justification, strongly suggests that he posits an indispensable, internalist element of justification. Lastly, I argue that the Reliability Thesis also fails since not only can there be a reliable but inevident judgment in Ockham's framework, his emphasis on causality is best read not as talk of reliability, but as his emphasis on the relation between reason (or evidence) and what is based on reason.