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Filosofiska Notiser
Årgång 12, Nr 1, 2025
More papers will (perhaps)
be added to this issue later.
Richmond Campbell
The Evolution of Moral Knowledge
Abstract
That moral knowledge is objective has been relentlessly debunked
by reference to the bio-cultural evolution of human morality by
natural selection. Building on Darwin’s fundamental insight that
morality is grounded in animal sociality, I offer reasons to reject
the traditional human-centered conception of morality and argue
that the evolution of moral knowledge by natural selection predates
humans and the core elements of moral knowledge are in a relevant
sense objective.
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Jon Williamson
Explanationist constraints on rational degrees of belief
Abstract
In this paper I counter Alexander Bird’s claim that Bayesian probabilities
ought to be informed by explanatory considerations. Bird (2022)
invokes an argument of Michael Huemer to conclude that inductive
inference requires explanatory constraints on prior probabilities.
I suggest that this argument is unsuccessful, on account of its
appeal to David Lewis’ Principal Principle. Bird goes on to interpret
the probabilities in Bayes’ theorem other than the prior as a measure
of how well a hypothesis explains the evidence. I show that this
interpretation faces a new version of the old evidence problem.
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Noah Lemos
Giving Common Sense its Due
Abstract
The common sense tradition in philosophy holds that we have a great
deal of common sense knowledge, that there are many ordinary truisms
that almost everyone knows, and that this knowledge should have
a great deal of weight in philosophy. Such knowledge provides a
check on philosophical speculation. In this paper, I have two main
aims. First, I contrast the common sense tradition in philosophy
with two other philosophical approaches, a Wittgensteinian approach
and the Method of Wide Reflective Equilibrium. Second, I respond
to criticisms of the common sense tradition which claim that the
appeal to common sense belief and knowledge is unphilosophical,
useless in philosophical debate, or unable to positively support
philosophical theses. These critics of the common sense tradition
are not radical skeptics, but I will argue their views do not give
common sense knowledge sufficient weight and do not adequately recognize
its importance in philosophical inquiry.
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Monika Ardelt
Is AI Wise?
Abstract
The answer to the question whether generative artificial intelligence
(AI) is wise depends on the definition of wisdom. An analysis of
‘interviews’ with three generative AI programs about their general
and personal wisdom demonstrated that AI might be considered wise
if wisdom is defined as general wisdom-related knowledge and insight
about life or wise reasoning and advice-giving. However, if wisdom
is conceptualized as a developmental process toward a wiser personality
and self-transcendence, then AI is not wise, because it is neither
a person nor has a self. Yet, AI might help people to grow wiser
by offering wisdom-related knowledge and wise advice that enable
individuals to manage their emotions, view a situation or problem
from different perspectives, and reduce their self-centeredness
to develop sympathy and compassion for others.
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Scott Aikin
Deep Disagreement, the Owl of Minerva Problem, and Pathologies
of Meta-Argumentation
Abstract
This essay is an overview of the Owl of Minerva Problem – that our
conceptions of argumentation and the practice of reason-giving,
when looped into our practices and reason-giving as new arguments
about our arguments (meta-arguments), can not only improve our performances
but also warp them. Call these negative loops of reflection on argument
pathologies of meta-argumentation. Exemplary of this phenomenon
is the fallacy fallacy. Proposed solutions to the Owl of Minerva
Problem from David Godden (2022) and Andrew Aberdein (2022) are
addressed, and the problem is then shown to have application in
how we conceptualize deep disagreement. Pathological meta-arguments
about deep disagreements are termed deep disagreement fallacies.
These meta-argumentative pathologies obtain only for particular
conceptions of deep disagreement, but they are not seen to problematize
the dialectical depth conception of deep disagreement, which accounts
for depth in terms of the variety of inferences and the embeddedness
of the commitments constituting the controversy. This is a pragmatic
reason to prefer the dialectical depth conception of deep disagreement.
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Catherine Z. Elgin
Understanding: The One in the Many
Abstract
Building on my True Enough (2017), I argue that understanding
is both one and many. It is one in that, regardless of field or
subject matter, genuine understanding satisfies the same generic
requirements. It is many in that choices are integral to the satisfaction
of those requirements, and within limits multiple divergent choices
may be acceptable. It may seem obvious that understanding black
body radiation is different from understanding voting patterns in
a democracy. My point is that there are multiple ways of understanding
topics like black body radiation and voting patterns. To make my
case, I discuss scientific, ethical, and aesthetic understanding.
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Michał Klincewicz, Mark
Alfano, Amir Ebrahimi Fard
Slopaganda: The interaction between propaganda and generative
AI
Abstract
At least since Francis Bacon, the slogan “knowledge is power” has
been used to capture the relationship between decision-making at
a group level and information. We know that being able to shape
the informational environment for a group is a way to shape their
decisions; it is essentially a way to make decisions for them. This
paper focuses on strategies that are intentionally, by design,
impactful on the decision-making capacities of groups, effectively
shaping their ability to take advantage of information in their
environment. Among these, the best known are political rhetoric,
propaganda, and misinformation. The phenomenon this paper brings
out from these is a relatively new strategy, which we call slopaganda.
According to The Guardian, News Corp Australia is currently
churning out 3000 “local” generative AI (GAI) stories each week.
In the coming years, such “generative AI slop” will present multiple
knowledge-related (epistemic) challenges. We draw on contemporary
research in cognitive science and artificial intelligence to diagnose
the problem of slopaganda, describe some recent troubling cases,
then suggest several interventions that may help to counter slopaganda.
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Alla Choifer
Understanding Introspection
Abstract
Introspection is a crucial tool for understanding consciousness
and the workings of the human mind, but despite its central role,
a consensus on the nature of introspection remains elusive. This
paper aims to offer a coherent understanding of introspection. It
argues for the existence of two distinct levels of introspection
rooted in different ways of being self-related. At the primary,
non-reflective level of introspection, I am acquainted with my mental
states, such as maintaining my balance. Conversely, the reflective
level of introspection permits me to contemplate holding my balance
and say, for example, ‘I feel dizzy’. The disparity in the ways
by which we access our mental states at each level speaks for a
form of introspective pluralism. This paper also argues for the
idea of introspective pluralism by drawing on insights from developmental
psychology and neuropsychology. In conclusion, it speculates that
the lowest level of introspection may be underpinned by the phenomenon
of ‘priming’.
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Torbjörn Tännsjö
A very strong form of epistemic conservatism
Abstract
Whenever a person believes that p, then this individual is ‘justified’
— in a straightforward means/ends sense — in her belief that p.
It is then possible to rationalize (and explain) the person’s belief
that p with reference to her epistemic goal: to have a realistic
view of the world, together with the fact that she believes that
p is true.
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Kye Palider
Teleological Epistemology: Knowledge-how and Goal-directedness
Abstract
Epistemology characteristically operates at an intellectual level,
being primarily restricted to the cognitive states of human individuals
and the factors that influence these states. This restriction may
be undesirable for a more generalized epistemology that discusses
non-individual or non-human systems that may be said to be intelligent,
such as communities, animals, and complex systems whose parts may
not be independently intelligent. Here, I show how such a generalized
epistemology may be possible under a teleological, non-intellectual,
and not conventionally mechanical view of knowledge. I establish
a teleological schema of knowledge-how, where a system is understood
to know how to X if it is capable of being goal-directed
towards X. This schema is analogous to how philosophers of
biology are increasingly describing organismal agency. After developing
this view, I show how it handles many controversial cases of know-how
in the literature. I then show how knowledge-that may be constructed
out of this teleological know-how, showing that all knowledge may
be understood teleologically, without the need to reference to individual
human cognitive states. Thereby, I show a generalized approach to
epistemology through teleology that can extend naturally to topics
in social epistemology and non-human intelligence.
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Wolfgang Lenzen
Did St Augustine anticipate “Moore’s Principle”?
Abstract
This paper deals with the question whether in his De mendacio
the church father Augustine anticipated what in modern times came
to be referred to as “Moore’s Principle”. This law of epistemic
logic says that a person is convinced that p, (if
and) only if she believes that she knows that p. The present
investigation makes use of the formal apparatus of modern epistemic
logic as sketched in section 2. The main results of epistemic logic
in the later Middle Ages will be summarized in section 3. In particular,
it will turn out that a variant of “Moore’s principle” was endorsed
by the 14th century logician William Heytesbury in his treatise
De Scire et Dubitare. Augustine’s theory of lying and his
views concerning the various forms of believing, knowing, and doubting
are scrutinized in section 4. If one assumes that the manuscript
of De mendacio contains two scribal errors, Augustine recognized
that a person believes to know (“putat se scire”) that p
just in case that she firmly believes (“firmissime credit”) that
p and hence has no doubts at all (“omnino non dubitet”) that
p.
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Filosofiska Notiser
Årgång 11, Nr 1, 2024
More papers will (perhaps)
be added to this issue later.
Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup
Interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies needs Philosophers of
Science
Abstract
Significant progress has been made over the last couple of decades
with respect to empirical investigations of consciousness. The field
of interdisciplinary consciousness studies is sprawling and growing
at a rapid pace. There is, however, still much to figure out, and
the philosophy of science has an important role to play in untangling
the complex relationships between theory and empirical data. I start
by providing a rough overview of the historical developments over
the last couple of decades with an eye to how the research focus
has shifted in that time. Next, I describe the current state of
the field and highlight some of the core problems in interdisciplinary
consciousness studies that would benefit from the involvement of
philosophers of science. Finally, I summarize three contemporary
endeavors in the attempt to assess and compare theories of consciousness.
The goal is to convey that interdisciplinary consciousness studies
is a field ripe for the application of philosophy of science, and
hopefully inspire philosophers of science to come help us out.
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Tero Tulenheimo & Giuseppina
Ronzitti
Democracy and Knowledge: Remarks on Brennan and Wikforss
Abstract
We take up Jason Brennan’s critique of democracy as formulated in
his monograph Against Democracy (2016) and discuss the arguments
that Åsa Wikforss presents against Brennan’s views in her book Därför
demokrati (2021). Both authors grant the importance of knowledge
for political decision-making, but they differ in their respective
understandings of what counts as knowledge and they draw very different
conclusions from the relevant knowledge requirement. Our general
aim is to detect problems in democracy as well as in attempts to
criticize democracy. We also briefly consider Brennan’s positive
proposal to replace democracy by “epistocracy”, a form of government
according to which only those citizens are entitled to vote who
are “competent” in a sense to be discussed. Our aim is not to propagate
any particular form of government. We merely wish to help the reader
to recognize that democracy in particular involves a whole lot of
assumptions that are in need of a better justification than what
is normally provided.
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John Shand
Utilitarianism is Not a Moral Theory
Abstract
Utilitarianism in order to count as a moral theory would within
the theory itself have to identify the moral and distinguish it
from the amoral. It fails to do this without calling upon theoretical
ethical considerations that are outside the ethical theory available
to utilitarianism and such considerations are unexplained by utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism fails to circumscribe the moral domain by not identifying
what is essential for something to be a moral matter as opposed
to an amoral matter. Therefore, utilitarianism taken in itself is
not a moral theory.
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David Makinson
Attitudes to Limiting Cases in Ancient Logic
Abstract
We draw attention to a tendency of ancient Peripatetic logic echoing
into the middle ages and beyond, to disregard limiting cases. Specific
instances of this attitude have often been noticed, but they do
not seem to have been taken together as illustrating a general pattern.
We review the variety of ways in which the tendency manifested itself,
discuss its apparent absence or at least reduced presence in Stoic
logic, note some exceptions, and speculate on the reasons for its
existence. The note raises as many questions as it answers, and
should be seen as an invitation to further discussion.
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Filosofiska Notiser
Årgång 10, Nr 1, 2023
This is a special issue
of Filosofiska Notiser. Most of the papers are on metaethics,
but the issue also includes some papers on other topics. More
articles will (perhaps) be added later.
Kevin DeLapp
Metaethics and the Limits of Philosophy
Abstract
This paper is an investigation of the forces and commitments which
drive disagreement between different metaethical affiliations; an
investigation we might characterize as meta-metaethics. Various
prominent theorists are sorted into one or another of three meta-metaethical
camps. This sorting reveals that many instances of metaethical dispute
involve theorists talking past one another, and that many theorists
who might share a metaethical affiliation actually have more in
common methodologically with their opponents than with their compatriots.
The diversity of meta-metaethical conceptions is juxtaposed with
the ongoing debate concerning Archimedean points in moral
theory, and is also shown to be a new version of the general problem
of the criterion. Resources from both those debates are then
requisitioned to argue for a particular way of adjudicating between
competing metaethical theories.
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Jussi Suikkanen
Normative Judgments, Motivation, and Evolution
Abstract
This paper first outlines a new taxonomy of different views concerning
the relationship between normative judgments and motivation. In
this taxonomy, according to the Type A views, a positive normative
judgment concerning an action consists at least in part of motivation
to do that action. According to the Type B views, motivation is
never a constituent of a positive normative judgment even if such
judgments have, due to the kind of states they are, a causal power
to produce motivation in an agent. Finally, according to the Type
C views, a normative judgment can produce motivation only with the
help of a third mental state or a distinct substantial local disposition.
This paper then outlines a novel evolutionary argument for the Type
B views. If we assume that normative judgments’ ability to shape
our motivations enabled efficient planning and co-operation, the
psychological mechanism responsible for this adaptation should be
understood as a proximal mechanism. This paper argues that it is
then more likely that we evolved to make normative judgments that
have direct causal powers to influence our motivations because such
Type B mechanisms are more reliable than the Type C mechanisms.
It also suggests that the Type A views are either empirically false
or collapse into the Type B views.
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Charles Taliaferro
Meta-Ethics and Phenomenology
Does moral experience support Axiological Realism?
Abstract
I argue that axiological realism (there are objective values in
ethics, aesthetics, and epistemology) receives prima facie evidential
support from experience. This is routinely overlooked by advocates
of the desire-preference account of value. I propose that in the
absence of defeaters, phenomenology makes axiological realism more
reasonable than its denial. Moreover, I contend that moral disagreements
do not count as evidence against axiological realism.
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Hugh LaFollette
The Self-Made Person: Myth, Reality, and Promise
Abstract
Many of us think we are self-made. Some of us may be, but only qualifiedly.
We do not make ourselves directly or from whole cloth. Each of us
is shaped by myriad genetic, familial, cultural, and governmental
forces. These forces do not eliminate self-control. They do, though,
limit some options, expand others, and make achieving still others
more or less difficult. Understanding these forces’ scope identifies
constraints on our self-making, shows why we are indebted to people
who enrich(ed) our lives, and informs and elevates control we do
have. This knowledge empowers us to be morally more re-sponsible
agents—ones who improve others’ lives, frequently by employing,
supporting, and enhancing vital governmental institutions.
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Ingmar Persson
Double Troubles for Sidgwick’s Dualism of Practical Reason
Abstract
In The Point of View of the Universe, Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek
and Peter Singer attempt to resolve Henry Sidgwick’s ‘Dualism of
Practical Reason’ between the rationality of egoism and the rationality
of universal benevolence by undermining the former. I argue that,
according to their interpretation at least, this dualism involves
two troublesome steps: from egoism to impartial-ity and from impartiality
to universal benevolence. I try to show that their attempt to undermine
the rationality of egoism fails but go on to sketch another way
of undermining it and establish an impartiality or universaliz-ability
that is arguably enshrined in the concept of morality. In contrast,
the obstacles to the step from impartiality or universalizability
to universal benevolence – to which de Lazari-Radek and Singer pay
too scant attention – seem insurmountable. Questions about their
hedonist conception of well-being are also raised.
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Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen
Detaching Betterness From Value
Abstract
This paper discusses whether, as a matter of logic, better-than
relations require value-bearing relata. Must an x that is better
than y be in any sense good (or, where x is less disvaluable than
y, bad?) Examples I provide suggest the contrary—that it is possible
for something to be better than something else without having any
sort of value (other than betterness). Several reasons for being
suspicious of this notion of better-than are considered and questioned.
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Alexander Miller and Seth
Whittington
A Note on Error Theory and the Refined Moral Problem
Abstract
In this paper, we argue that “The Moral Problem” identified by Michael
Smith in his book of that name as “the central organizing problem”
of metaethics needs to be refined in order to accommodate moral
error theories (in the style of J.L. Mackie), and we suggest a refinement
that allows it to do this. We conclude by drawing out some consequences
for the formulation of internalism about moral motivation.
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Thomas L. Carson
Axiological Realism, Axiological Objectivism, and Moral Experience:
A Reply to Taliaferro
Abstract
I argue that 1. moral experience is not evidence for the truth of
axiological realism as I define it, 2. because Taliaferro and I
give different definitions of axiological realism, he criticizes
me for views that I don’t hold, and 3. Taliaferro’s discussion of
moral disagreement can’t account for disagreements in which people
wield radically different moral concepts.
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Charles Pigden
What Thrasymachus Should Have Said
Abstract
In the Republic Thrasymachus argues that ‘justice is the
advantage of the stronger’, that is, that the laws and conventions
governing a society support the interests of the rulers or the ruling
class. Hence acting justly – obeying those laws and customs of one's
society in one's dealings with other people – is not necessarily,
not usually or maybe not even ever in an agent’s best interests.
This is a problem for Plato who wants to prove that it necessarily
pays to be just (though as the Republic unfolds, he turns out to
have a rather rarefied conception of self-interest as well as a
rather rarefied conception of justice). So his spokesman, Socrates,
leads Thrasymachus into a trap. Suppose (as surely happens from
time to time) the rulers make a mistake and enact laws (or foster
customs) that are not in their best interests. In that case justice
won’t be to ‘the advantage of the stronger’ and their subjects’
acting justly won’t be in the rulers’ best interests. Clitophon
offers Thrasymachus a lifeline. Perhaps justice is what the stronger
think is in their interests. But Thrasymachus won’t have
a bar of it. If a ruler makes a law or issues an order that is not
in his interests, he thereby ceases to be a real ruler. So justice
is always to the advantage of the stronger, since if it isn’t, the
stronger cease to be strong. This is both decidedly silly and gets
him into a lot of dialectical trouble. I suggest on Thrasymachus’
behalf a Darwinian response which entails that justice is usually
or at least often to ‘the advantage of the stronger’. This
in turn entails that it does not necessarily pay to be just, which
negates Plato’s desired conclusion. Indeed, for many people it pays
better to be relativisitically unjust, that is not
to have a settled commitment to obeying the norms of one’s society.
My reconstructed Thrasymachus will be less of a proto-fascist and
more of a radical democrat than Plato’s Thrasymachus appears to
have been.
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Mark van Roojen
Explaining Supervenience
Abstract
It is widely agreed that nonnaturalists incur a burden to explain
how it is that the normative or moral must supervene on the nonnormative
or nonmoral. This paper argues that every metaethical theory, including
naturalist theories, must carry that burden in one way or another.
Along the way it notes some troubles for making the naturalism/nonnaturalism
distinction precise and relatedly for formulating the supervenience
thesis to be explained. It then explores naturalistic options for
explaining supervenience, suggests that some of these are better
than others, and argues that parallel nonnaturalist theories can
generate parallel explanations to those offered by naturalists.
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Christian B. Miller
Three Models of Practical Wisdom
Abstract
There are two leading models of practical wisdom in the contemporary
analytic philosophy literature, the Standard Model and the Socratic
Model. Recently, a neglected third option is starting to get some
attention. On the Eliminativist Model, there is no virtue of practical
wisdom at all. There are a variety of distinct sets of capacities
which carry out the various functions associated with practical
wisdom. But there is no trait that they jointly constitute. The
goal of this paper is to set out what separates the three models,
and what I take some of the main costs to be with the Standard and
Socratic Models. While the Eliminativist Model might not be the
clearly superior choice of the three models, it deserves to be taken
far more seriously in future discussions of practical wisdom.
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Michael Smith
The Refined Moral Problem
Abstract
This paper is a response to "A Note on Error Theory and the
Refined Moral Problem" by
Alexander Miller and Seth Whittington (see above).
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