MAKING COMMITMENTS, CREATING LIVES

This study examined the midlife personality implications of different long-term patterns of commitment to work¹ and family in a sample of educated women. Women with different work commitment patterns differed on both observer and self-report of instrumentality, and on observer report of interpersonal orientation and valuation of social norms. Women with different family-role commitment patterns differed only on self-report of valuation of social norms. Multivariate analyses also indicated that interpersonal orientation and instrumentality may not represent bipolar ends of the same personality continuum, and that interpersonal orientation as a broad personality domain may be comprised of distinct qualities (i.e., warmth vs. dependence). Taken together, these findings imply that when variations in the nature of women's work and family commitments are taken into account, a more comprehensive understanding of the similarities and differences in their personalities can result.     

Why Basic Knowledge is Easy Knowledge

The problem of easy knowledge arises for theories that have what I call a "basic knowledge structure". S has basic knowledge of P just in case S knows P prior to knowing that the cognitive source of S's knowing P is reliable.¹ Our knowledge has a basic knowledge structure (BKS) just in case we have basic knowledge and we come to know our faculties are reliable on the basis of our basic knowledge. The problem I raised in "Basic Knowledge and the Problem of Easy Knowledge"² (BKEK) is that once we allow for basic knowledge, we can come to know our faculties are reliable in ways that intuitively are too easy. This raises a serious doubt about whether we had the basic knowledge in the first place.
In "Easy Knowledge", Peter Markie argues that BKS theories do not face any problem concerning easy knowledge.³ I argued that the problem arises in two forms, and Markie takes issue with both. I will argue that Markie's defense of BKS theories fails.     

Concepts and Epistemic Individuation

Christopher Peacocke has presented an original version of the perennial philosophical thesis that we can gain substantive metaphysical and epistemological insight from an analysis of our concepts. Peacocke's innovation is to look at how concepts are individuated by their possession conditions, which he believes can be specified in terms of conditions in which certain propositions containing those concepts are accepted. The ability to provide such insight is one of Peacocke's major arguments for his theory of concepts. I will critically examine this "fruitfulness" argument by looking at one philosophical problem Peacocke uses his theory to solve and treats in depth.
Peacocke (1999, 2001) defines what he calls the "Integration Challenge." The challenge is to integrate our metaphysics with our epistemology by showing that they are mutually acceptable. Peacocke's key conclusion is that the Integration Challenge can be met for "epistemically individuated concepts."A good theory of content, he believes, will close the apparent gap between an account of truth for any given subject matter and an overall account of knowledge. I shall argue that there are no epistemically individuated concepts, and shall critically analyze Peacocke's arguments for their existence. I will suggest more generally that the possession conditions of concepts and their principles of individuation shed little light on the epistemology or metaphysics of things other than concepts. My broader goal is to shed light on what concepts are by showing that they are more fundamental than the sorts of cognitive and epistemic factors a leading theory uses to define them.¹     

TERRORISM, SELF-DEFENSE, AND WHISTLEBLOWING

In a recent paper given at a Symposium on terrorism, Thomas Hill, Jr., discussed "Making Exceptions Without Abandoning the Principle: Or How a Kantian Might Think about Terrorism." His argument, however, after acknowledging that "terrorists of course often claim to have morally worthy ends and also means that are morally justified in the context," and further stating that "some such claims deserve a serious hearing,"¹ goes on to deal with the related question of
…what one may justifiably do in response to morally indefensible terrorism.²     

Assertion and its Constitutive Norms

Alston, Searle, and Williamson advocate the restrictive model of assertion , according to which certain constitutive assertoric norms restrict which propositions one may assert. Sellars and Brandom advocate the dialectical model of assertion , which treats assertion as constituted by its role in the game of giving and asking for reasons. Sellars and Brandom develop a restrictive version of the dialectical model. I explore a non-restrictive version of the dialectical model. On such a view, constitutive assertoric norms constrain how one must react if an interlocutor challenges one's assertion, but they do not constrain what one should assert in the first place. I argue that the non-restrictive dialectical perspective can accommodate various linguistic phenomena commonly taken to support the restrictive model. ¹     

EMPIRICAL REALISM AND OTHER MINDS

In apparent vogue, perhaps as a reaction against excesses on the part of certain Wittgensteinians, is the idea that the existence and nature of other people's mental lives are things known to us on broadly empirical grounds. A particularly unabashed version of this idea is to be found in Hilary Putnam's "Other Minds"¹. Therein Putnam defines empirical realism as the "position that the existence of the external world is supported by experience in much the way that any scientific theory is supported by observational data,"² His concern in this article is to defend, after entering some criticism of detail, Paul Ziff's attempt to show that the same general sort of position is the proper one to adopt with regard to the traditional problem of other minds. I wish to argue here that the empirical realist's solution to the problem of other minds offered by Ziff and defended by Putnam is wrong.     

GAUTHIER'S ETHICS AND EXTRA-RATIONAL VALUES: A COMMENT ON DEMARCO

While the preponderance of recent literature on David Gauthier's Morals by Agreement has focused on his theory of bargaining,¹ Joseph DeMarco calls into question the foundation of Gauthier's project.² DeMarco argues that Gauthier's project depends on the incorporation of extra-rational values, thereby undermining his attempt to derive morality from the non-moral premises of rational choice. On DeMarco's account, there are at least three points where Gauthier depends on extra-rational values. DeMarco finds the first two of these points problematic because he misunderstands Gauthier's theory of rational choice. The third point is more serious; Gauthier does not offer an apparatus sufficient to respond to DeMarco's charge. To disarm DeMarco's third objection, I shall offer a justification of the rationality of autonomous preference formation.     

THE HUAI-NAN TZU ALTERATION

The most important philosophical influence on the creation of the Huai-nan Tzu was the Chuang Tzu. Charles Le Blanc's study of the Huai-nan Tzu ¹ identifies two hundred sixty nine cases of direct borrowing, i.e. "incomplete or full quotations," from it. He also isolates several theoretical themes developed in the Huai-nan Tzu that are supported by skillful editing of borrowed passages from the Chuang Tzu.     

SEARCHING FOR HOUSING AS A BATTERED WOMAN: DOES DISCRIMINATION AFFECT REPORTED AVAILABILITY OF A RENTAL UNIT?

Individual battered women have reported experiencing housing discrimination, but the extent of this problem has not been examined. This research used two experiments and a survey to determine if landlord discrimination could keep women from accessing rental units. In Study 1, a confederate asked 181 landlords about the availability of a rental unit in one of three living conditions (shelter, friends, no mention of current living conditions) and across two scenarios (does or does not have a child). Rental units were almost 10 times more likely to be available in the control condition compared to the shelter condition, χ²(1,  N  = 181) = 8.624,  p  = .003, and these results were not affected by whether or not the caller had a child, χ²(1,  N  = 181) = 0.214,  p  = .644. In Study 2, the confederate was employed and left a message on 92 landlords' answering machines in the same three living conditions. The hypothesized comparison between the shelter and the other two conditions combined was significant, χ²(1,  N  = 92) = 4.602,  p  = .032. Finally, in a telephone survey of 31 landlords, a substantial minority (23%) said they would not rent to a hypothetical battered woman. The results of our studies suggest that discrimination against battered women by landlords is a real problem that is likely contributing to the difficulties that women experience in finding safe and affordable long-term housing.     

JOINING THE DISPUTATION: Taking Graham Seriously on Taking Chinese Thought Seriously

"…the understanding of Chinese philosophy depends …on philosophizing for oneself. Taking Chinese thought seriously is not simply a matter of acknowledging the rationality of some of it (and perhaps denying the name 'philosophy' to the rest), nor of discovering something valuable to oneself in the poetry of Lao-tzu ^a or the diagrams of the Yi. ^b Its study constantly involves one in important contemporary issues in moral philosophy, the philosophy and history of science, the deconstruction of established conceptual schemes, the problem of relating thought to linguistic structure, and correlative thinking to logic."¹
"To approach Chinese philosophy trusting to the dictionary and one's instinct for the language is to fail to take it altogether seriously, and the practice has been a perpetual drag on progress in discovering how much or how little that we call philosophyizing is actually there."²     

Content Externalism and the Internalism/Externalism Debate in Justification Theory

While recent debates over content externalism have been mainly concerned with whether it undermines the traditional thesis of privileged self-knowledge, little attention has been paid to what bearing content externalism has on such important controversies as the internalism/externalism debate in epistemology. With a few exceptions, the question has either been treated as a side issue in discussions concerning the implications of content externalism, or has been dealt with in a cursory way in debates over the internalism/externalism distinction in justification theory. In this paper, I begin by considering some of the arguments that have sought to address the question, focusing mainly on Boghossian's pioneering attempt in bringing the issue to the fore.¹ It will be argued that Boghossian's attempt to exploit the alleged non-inferentiality of self-knowledge to show that content externalism and justification internalism are incompatible fails.
In the course of this examination, I consider and reject as inadequate some recent responses to Boghossian's argument (due to James Chase²). I then turn to evaluating Chase's own proposed argument to show how content externalism can be brought to bear on the internalism/externalism debate in epistemology, and find it wanting. Finally, having discussed BonJour's terse remarks in this connection,³ I set out to present, what I take to be, the strongest argument for the incompatibility of content externalism and justification internalism while highlighting the controversial character of one of its main premises. Let us, however, begin by drawing the contours of the debate.     

Contact with the Nomic: A Challenge for Deniers of Humean Supervenience about Laws of Nature Part I: Humean Supervenience

This the first part of a two-part article in which we defend the thesis of Humean Supervenience about Laws of Nature (HS). According to this thesis, two possible worlds cannot differ on what is a law of nature unless they also differ on the Humean base. the Humean base is easy to characterize intuitively, but there is no consensus on how, precisely, it should be defined. Here in Part I, we present and motivate a characterization of the Humean base that, we argue, enables HS to capture what is really stake in the debate, without taking on extraneous commitments.
"I tend to picture the [facts of the form "it is a law that s" and "is is not a lw that s"] as having been sprinkled been sprinkled like powdered sugar over the doughy surface of the non-nomic facts."—Marc Lange²
"Avoid empty carbohydrates."— Runner's World ³     

IMMORTALITY WITHOUT BOREDOM

In this paper we address Bernard Williams' argument for the undesirability of immortality. Williams argues that unavoidable and pervasive boredom would characterise the immortal life of an individual with unchanging categorical desires. We resist this conclusion on the basis of the distinction between habitual and situational boredom and a psychologically realistic account of significant factors in the formation of boredom. We conclude that Williams has offered no persuasive argument for the necessity of boredom in the immortal life. ¹     

DOES THE THREAT OF AIDS CREATE DIFFICULTIES FOR LORD DEVLIN'S CRITICS?

Although over twenty years have passed since the Hart-Devlin exchange, the controversy over society's right to punish homosexuals remains alive, as is shown by recent concern over the spread of AIDS and the recent announcement of the Supreme Court that "majority sentiments about the morality of homosexuality" constitute an adequate justification for sodomy statutes under the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment.¹ Lord Devlin's moral justification for punishing homosexual conduct seems to follow a similar line of reasoning. The one argument to which his critics have paid the most attention begins with the assertion that society consists of a seamless web of ideas and values, the content of which is determined by whether the ordinary, reasonable person is disgusted by a particular type of conduct.² Among the types of conduct that disgust the ordinary person, he continues, is homosexual conduct.³ Therefore, Devlin concludes, society may punish homosexual conduct, even if it is consensual.     

Particularism, Generalism and the Counting Argument

In a recent collection of papers – Moral Particularism (hereafter MP )¹– some writers argue against a particularist explanation of thick ethical features, particularist in the sense developed by Jonathan Dancy. In this piece I argue that particularists can tackle what I regard as the most interesting argument put forward by these writers, an argument I call the Counting Argument. My aim is twofold. First, I wish to make clear exactly what the debate between particularists and their opponents about the thick rests on. Secondly, I do not wish to provide a 'knock-down' argument to show particularism as true, but merely to push the onus back onto particularism's opponents and show that far more needs to be said.
One last introductory comment. After some necessary scene-setting in the first section, where I explain how the philosophical ground is carved up and introduce some terminology, I indicate why this debate is fundamental in ethical theory although I don't pursue the idea here.     

WHAT IS PHYSICALISM?

Although 'most contemporary analytic philosophers [endorse] a physicalist picture of the world' (A. Newen; V. Hoffmann; M. Esfeld, 'Preface to Mental Causation, Externalism and Self-Knowledge', Erkenntnis , 67 (2007), p. 147), it is unclear what exactly the physicalist thesis states. The response that physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical does not solve the problem but is a precise statement of the problem because 'the claim is hopelessly vague' (G. Hellman; F. Thompson, 'Physicalism: Ontology, Determination, and Reduction', Journal of Philosophy , 72 (1975), p. 552). I argue that physicalism in fact should be the thesis that every existing particular essentially exemplifies properties the exemplification of which does not conceptually entail the existence of conscious beings. Physicalism thus is a purely philosophical thesis with no intrinsic relation to physics. ¹     

THE MIND AND THE 'SHEN-MING'a IN XUNZI

In Plan 21 of the Xunzi , the essay Dubs titles "The Removal of Prejudices"¹ and Watson calls "Dispelling Obsession"², there is a sentence one's eyes slide over rather easily until one tries to fit it into its context and that of the Xunzi generally. Dubs translates it "The mind is the ruler of the body and the master of the spirit" (p. 269); Watson shows a slight discomfort with the second clause when he gives "The mind is the ruler of the body and the master of its god-like intelligence" [whatever that is] (p. 129) Koester³ raises a few more doubts with his "Das Herz nimmt im Koerper die Stelle des Herrschers ein, es ist der Gebieter ueber die shen-ming (Geister, die im Koerper wohnen)" (p. 277). Interestingly enough, the commentatorial tradition seems to have felt no difficulties: Yang Liang's comment is merely a paraphrase of the sentence following, and Wang Xian-jian and Liang Qi-xiong simply quote him⁴.