Response to Critics

In this “Response to Critics,” Cathleen Kaveny continues the conversation in the JRE symposium centered on her recent book, Prophecy without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square. The book's central argument is that adequate discussion of contention in the contemporary public square requires attending to matters of rhetoric, particularly the rhetoric of prophetic indictment. Kaveny engages the comments of four interlocutors: Alda Balthrop‐Lewis, James Childress, William Hart, and Martin Kavka. The first section, “Overarching Goals,” summarizes the objectives of the book. The second section, “Methodology,” engages critics regarding methodological issues, highlighting Kaveny's commitment to a version of MacIntyre's tradition theory and her indebtedness to her legal training. The third section, “Structure,” responds to particular questions her interlocutors raise about the four parts of the book. The fourth section, “Larger Questions,” ponders the next stages of the academic and political discussion about contention in the public square.     

Response to My Critics

My critics make serious and sensible points, all of which are undoubtedly true but not all of which I feel that I can accept.     

Licensing Parents: A Response to Critics

The objections of three distinguished critics to my 'Causes and Costs of Crime and a Controversial Cure' (this issue) are welcomed but, in some cases, returned for further consideration.     

The Ethics of Technology: Response to Critics

The Ethics of Technology: A Geometric Analysis of Five Moral Principles proposes five moral principles for analyzing ethical issues related to engineering and technology. The objections raised by several authors to the multidimensional scaling technique used in the book reveal a lack of familiarity with this widely used technique.     

Counterfactuals,Probabilities, and Information: Response to Critics

In earlier work we proposed an account of information grounded in counterfactual conditionals rather than probabilities, and argued that it might serve philosophical needs that more familiar probabilistic alternatives do not. Demir [2008] and Scarantino [2008] criticize the counterfactual approach by contending that its alleged advantages are illusory and that it fails to secure attractive desiderata. In this paper we defend the counterfactual account from these criticisms, and suggest that it remains a useful account of information.     

Sentience and Moral Standing

Abstract

This article deals with the concept of sentience, and more specifically with the argument from sentience as it is used by utilitarians in the abortion debate and in the advocacy of animal rights. It is argued that sentience is more than feeling pleasure and pain (with emphasis on pain), and that pain is an inborn protection required to fit into the world rather than the substance of evil.     

In Defense of Anti‐Archimedean Moral Realism: A Response to Recent Critics

Ronald Dworkin famously argued that many putatively nonmoral metaethical theories can only be understood as being internal to the moral domain. If correct, this position, referred to as anti‐archimedeanism, has profound implications for the methodology of metaethics. This is particularly true for skeptical metaethical theories. This article defends a version of anti‐archimedeanism that is true to the spirit rather than the letter of Dworkin's original thesis from several recent objections. First, it addresses Kenneth Ehrenberg's recent attempt to demonstrate how certain metaethical theories can be understood in a morally neutral manner. It then discusses Charles Pigden's claim that Dworkin begs the question against error theorists and nihilists by assuming a conceptual space that error theorists and nihilists would reject. It concludes that the anti‐archimedean methodology originally proposed by Dworkin is defensible, and can be used to support a robust form of moral realism.     

The SameP-Relation as a Response to Critics of Baker's Theory of Constitution

According to the so-called “standard account” regarding the problem of material constitution, a statue and a lump of clay that makes it up are not identical. The usual objection is that this view yields many objects in the same place at the same time. Lynne Rudder Baker's theory of constitution is a recent and sophisticated version of the standard account. She argues that the aforementioned objection can be answered by defining a relation of being the same P as (sameP). In this paper I shall examine consequences of her response and show that sameP has wrong formal properties, as a result of which this solution cannot be accepted.     

对批评的回应

徐竹对于笔者的拙著《唯物论者何以言规范——一项从分析形而上学到信息技术哲学的多视角考察》的主要批评是,一种试图在唯物论框架中解释规范性问题的理论,自身也很容易反过来成为一种更深刻的规范性理论的被解释对象。对此,笔者的回应是:这种带有布兰登气质的"更深刻的规范性理论"其实反而是错过了"如何从无规范的物质出发说明规范"这一更艰难的理论问题。段伟文对于拙著的主要批评是:一种基于小数据主义的信息技术,是否来得及将人类从大数据的肆虐中解救出来?而笔者的回应是:笔者并不认为小数据主义一定会打败大数据主义,而是说,在不放弃信息技术带来的便利的前提下,小数据主义是解救人类既有文明的唯一技术通道。宗宁对于拙著的主要批评是:如果笔者将日本在明治维新之后的逐步军国主义化视为纵向的信息——物质管制结构的强化——的结果的话,那么,笔者又将如何解释丸山真男关于"日本恰恰是因为在近代化的过程中没有肃清横向的封建结构而走向军国"的论断呢?对此,笔者则试图指出:日本军部对于全日本武力资源的纵向上的垄断,以及对于封建结构下的武力分散结构的破坏,才使得日本国内缺乏足够的纠错力量,无力防止国家陷入军国主义泥潭。