A semantics for moral error theoryBehrens, Singa
2024 Analysis
doi: 10.1093/analys/anad047
Moral error theory has been criticized on formal grounds for lacking a coherent semantics of moral sentences. In this paper, I provide a truthmaker-based semantics of moral sentences that is compatible with moral error theory. The hyperintensional account draws attention to the exact truth- and falsemakers of moral propositions. Error theorists must assume that propositions that have only moral truthmakers have at least one non-moral falsemaker. A central consequence of the discussion is that moral error theory is compatible with a classical logic of moral notions.
How to ground powersBuiles, David
2024 Analysis
doi: 10.1093/analys/anad058
According to the grounding theory of powers, fundamental physical properties should be thought of as qualities that ground dispositions. Although this view has recently been defended by many different philosophers, there is no consensus for how the view should be developed within a broader metaphysics of properties. Recently, Tugby has argued that the view should be developed in the context of a Platonic theory of properties, where properties are abstract universals. I will argue that the view should not be developed within such a framework. Either the view should be developed with an ontology of Aristotelian properties, or it should be developed in a Nominalist framework that contains no properties at all.
The problem of taste to the experimental testContesi, Filippo; Terrone, Enrico; Campdelacreu, Marta; García-Moya, Ramón; Martí, Genoveva
2024 Analysis
doi: 10.1093/analys/anad046
A series of recent experimental studies have cast doubt on the existence of a traditional tension that aestheticians have noted in our aesthetic judgements and practices, namely the problem of taste. The existence of the problem has been acknowledged since Hume and Kant, though not enough has been done to analyse it in depth. In this paper, we remedy this by proposing six possible conceptualizations of it. Drawing on our analysis of the problem of taste, we argue that the experimental results in question are not a real challenge to its existence. By contrast, they provide empirical evidence in its support.
The desire machineForrester, Paul
2024 Analysis
doi: 10.1093/analys/anad061
The experience machine poses the most important problem for hedonist theories of well-being. I argue that desire satisfactionism faces a similar problem: the desire machine. Upon entering this machine, your desires are altered through some minor neurosurgery. In particular, the machine causes you to desire everything that actually happens. The experience machine constructs a simulated world that matches your preexisting desires. The desire machine reconstructs your conative state to match the preexisting world. Desire satisfactionism recommends entering the desire machine because you will then have more satisfied desires, but this is unintuitive. In this paper, I consider how desire satisfactionists might avoid the result that entering the desire machine increases one’s well-being. First, I further motivate why this problem arises. Second, I consider coherence-based norms of rational desire change. Finally, I argue that introducing a substantive account of fitting desire is the only plausible solution, but that this response requires abandoning pure subjectivism about well-being.
Manipulation, deception, the victim’s reasoning and her evidenceKrstić, Vladimir
2024 Analysis
doi: 10.1093/analys/anad064
This paper rejects an argument defending the view that the boundary between deception and manipulation is such that some manipulations intended to cause false beliefs count as non-deceptive. On the strongest version of this argument, if a specific behaviour involves compromising the victim’s reasoning, then the behaviour is manipulative but not deceptive, and if it involves exposing the victim to misleading evidence that justifies her false belief, then it is deceptive but not manipulative. This argument has been consistently used as a reason to reject the traditional analysis of human deception, according to which intentionally causing someone to acquire a false belief is sufficient for deception. And because the traditional analysis is also consistent with our most basic intuitions about deception, it does matter whether this argument succeeds.
A liar-like paradox for rational reflection principlesSchechter, Joshua
2024 Analysis
doi: 10.1093/analys/anad070
This article shows that there is a liar-like paradox that arises for rational credence that relies only on very weak logical and credal principles. The paradox depends on a weak rational reflection principle, logical principles governing conjunction and principles governing the relationship between rational credence and proof. To respond to this paradox, we must either reject even very weak rational reflection principles or reject some highly plausible logical or credal principle.
Gradualism, bifurcation and fading qualiaSebastián, Miguel Ángel; Martínez, Manolo
2024 Analysis
doi: 10.1093/analys/anad050
When reasoning about dependence relations, philosophers often rely on gradualist assumptions, according to which abrupt changes in a phenomenon of interest can result only from abrupt changes in the low-level phenomena on which it depends. These assumptions, while strictly correct if the dependence relation in question can be expressed by continuous dynamical equations, should be handled with care: very often the descriptively relevant property of a dynamical system connecting high- and low-level phenomena is not its instantaneous behaviour but its stable fixed points (those in the vicinity of which it spends most of the time, after comparatively short transitory periods), and stable fixed points can change abruptly as a result of infinitesimal changes of the low-level phenomenon. We illustrate this potential gradualist trap by showing that Chalmers’ fading qualia argument falls into it.
Rights against the worldSreenivasan, Gopal
2024 Analysis
doi: 10.1093/analys/anad067
For philosophers, rights against the world are equivalent to rights in rem. Contrary to what Hart thought, however, this does not make them equivalent to general rights. Rights in rem contrast with rights in personam, whereas general rights contrast with special rights. As I explain, rights against the world can be either general rights or special rights. My explanation follows Waldron’s strategy of exhibiting property rights as justified by Locke’s theory of property as a case of rights in rem that are also special rights. Moreover, despite what ‘in rem’ means in Latin, rights against the world include more than property rights. For example, they also include moral human rights. With moral human rights and property rights alike, the correlative duties are borne by ‘everyone’, understood in a dynamic sense I undertake to specify.