This panel discussion took place on June 26, 2021, as part of the programming for an exhibition by critical art collaborative Cesar & Lois at experimental art and research project space Yes We Cannibal (Baton Rouge, LA). The exhibition was entitled Eat the Anthropocene with Cesar & Lois, mycelia and friend entities and ran for six weeks. The panel discussion collected scholars from art, anthropology, literature, landscape architecture, and amateur Mycology to elucidate themes relevant to the artwork, which features a (...) variety of experimental collaborations between codices and fungal life. (shrink)

This paper argues for reorienting our investigation of the psychedelic zeitgeist towards the longitudinal history of psychedelia with a committed attention to its relationship to colonialism. It demonstrates that clinical psychedelic medicine appears to sustain the reproduction of modern colonial whiteness in line with Elizabeth Povinelli’s theorization of late liberalism. It also challenges the notion of a restricted or segregated academic area for psychedelic studies. Instead, it is imperative to place discussions of contemporary plant medicine in line with broader contemporary (...) discussions in cultural anthropology around political ontology and decoloniality. This paper attempts to demonstrate that doing so may challenge our understanding of whiteness—reinterpreting it—by recourse to the history of the psychedelic counterculture, as a form of complex trauma, and thus potentially demonstrating new implications for decoloniality and its praxis. (shrink)

This paper argues against the view that trolley cases are of little or no relevance to the ethics of automated vehicles. Four arguments for this view are outlined and rejected: the Not Going to Happen Argument, the Moral Difference Argument, the Impossible Deliberation Argument and the Wrong Question Argument. In making clear where these arguments go wrong, a positive account is developed of how trolley cases can inform the ethics of automated vehicles.

Philosophical discussion on control has largely centred around control over our actions and beliefs. Yet this overlooks the question of whether we also have control over the reasons for which we act and believe. To date, the overriding assumption appears to be that we do not, and with seemingly good reason. We cannot choose to act for a reason and acting-for-a-reason is not itself something we do. While some have challenged this in the case of reasons for action, these claims (...) seem especially untenable regarding believing for a reason. And extending the scope of control in this way also faces the threat of regress. In the face of this orthodoxy, the present paper argues that we do in fact have control over both believing and acting for a particular reason. It also starts to develop an account of the way in which this would be possible. Given the broad importance of understanding control and agency, this paper bears on a number of topics in epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and ethics. (shrink)

Should citizens have equal say regarding the running of society? Following the principles of democracy, and most of political philosophy: yes (at least at a fundamental level, thus allowing for representatives and the like). Indeed, comparing the main alternative seemingly supports this intuition. Epistocracy would instead give power just to the most epistemically competent. Yet testing citizens’ political and economic knowledge looks apt to disproportionately disempower marginalised groups, making the position seem like a nonstarter and democracy the clear winner. Nevertheless, (...) this paper argues against giving citizens equal say, or at least, it offers the strongest possible motivation for this position. In particular, I introduce the progressive case for epistocracy, and what I term standpoint epistocracy. This account refigures the relevant notion of political competence such that it is not the most privileged classes who would most likely constitute our epistocracy, but rather, the least. The resulting picture considerably improves on traditional versions of epistocracy and also democracy. (shrink)

Credences are mental states corresponding to degrees of confidence in propositions. Attribution of credences to Large Language Models (LLMs) is commonplace in the empirical literature on LLM evaluation. Yet the theoretical basis for LLM credence attribution is unclear. We defend three claims. First, our semantic claim is that LLM credence attributions are (at least in general) correctly interpreted literally, as expressing truth-apt beliefs on the part of scientists that purport to describe facts about LLM credences. Second, our metaphysical claim is (...) that the existence of LLM credences is at least plausible, although current evidence is inconclusive. Third, our epistemic claim is that LLM credence attributions made in the empirical literature on LLM evaluation are subject to non-trivial sceptical concerns. It is a distinct possibility that even if LLMs have credences, LLM credence attributions are generally false because the experimental techniques used to assess LLM credences are not truth-tracking. Our analysis has implications for the assessment of LLMs for properties like factuality and trustworthiness, and the broader scientific debate over the use of human cognition as a blueprint for understanding LLM behaviour. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that confabulation is motivated by the desire to have fulfilled a rational obligation to knowledgeably explain our attitudes by reference to motivating reasons. This account better explains confabulation than alternatives. My conclusion impacts two discussions. Primarily, it tells us something about confabulation – how it is brought about, which engenders lively debate in and of itself. A further upshot concerns self-knowledge. Contrary to popular assumption, confabulation cases give us reason to think we have distinctive access to why (...) we have our attitudes. (shrink)

In his excellent essay, ‘Nudges in a post-truth world’, Neil Levy argues that ‘nudges to reason’, or nudges which aim to make us more receptive to evidence, are morally permissible. A strong argument against the moral permissibility of nudging is that nudges fail to respect the autonomy of the individuals affected by them. Levy argues that nudges to reason do respect individual autonomy, such that the standard autonomy objection fails against nudges to reason. In this paper, I argue that Levy (...) fails to show that nudges to reason respect individual autonomy. (shrink)

Suppose a driverless car encounters a scenario where harm to at least one person is unavoidable and a choice about how to distribute harms between different persons is required. How should the driverless car be programmed to behave in this situation? I call this the moral design problem. Santoni de Sio defends a legal-philosophical approach to this problem, which aims to bring us to a consensus on the moral design problem despite our disagreements about which moral principles provide the correct (...) account of justified harm. He then articulates an answer to the moral design problem based on the legal doctrine of necessity. In this paper, I argue that Santoni de Sio’s answer to the moral design problem does not achieve the aim of the legal-philosophical approach. This is because his answer relies on moral principles which, at least, utilitarians have reason to reject. I then articulate an alternative reading of the doctrine of necessity, and construct a partial answer to the moral design problem based on this. I argue that utilitarians, contractualists and deontologists can agree on this partial answer, even if they disagree about which moral principles offer the correct account of justified harm. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.

This paper introduces and motivates the claim that we possess doxastic agent’s awareness. I argue that this is a form of agentive awareness concerning our belief states that we enjoy in virtue of deliberating and judging. Namely, we experience these activities as those of making up our mind and keeping it made up regarding our beliefs. Following related work in the philosophy of action, I understand this awareness as a form of conscious experience which can then ground our self-ascriptions. As (...) such, this enables me to also propose a new account of self-knowledge of belief and the way in which deliberating and concluding that p can warrant us in self-ascribing the belief that p (i.e., employing the so-called ‘transparency method’). Philosophers often appeal to our arguably agentive relation to our beliefs in explaining this. I, though, I extend work in the philosophy of action in a way that is surprisingly flatfooted way given that belief is a state and not an action. (shrink)

Suppose that an autonomous vehicle encounters a situation where imposing a risk of harm on at least one person is unavoidable; and a choice about how to allocate risks of harm between different persons is required. What does morality require in these cases? Derek Leben defends a Rawlsian answer to this question. I argue that we have reason to reject Leben’s answer.

The use of machine learning systems for decision-support in healthcare may exacerbate health inequalities. However, recent work suggests that algorithms trained on sufficiently diverse datasets could in principle combat health inequalities. One concern about these algorithms is that their performance for patients in traditionally disadvantaged groups exceeds their performance for patients in traditionally advantaged groups. This renders the algorithmic decisions unfair relative to the standard fairness metrics in machine learning. In this paper, we defend the permissible use of affirmative algorithms; (...) that is, algorithms trained on diverse datasets that perform better for traditionally disadvantaged groups. Whilst such algorithmic decisions may be unfair, the fairness of algorithmic decisions is not the appropriate locus of moral evaluation. What matters is the fairness of final decisions, such as diagnoses, resulting from collaboration between clinicians and algorithms. We argue that affirmative algorithms can permissibly be deployed provided the resultant final decisions are fair. (shrink)

Rondo Keele makes a foray into what he calls 'applied logic', investigating a complex argument strategy employed against Ockham by his greatest contemporary opponent, Walter Chatton. Chatton conceives a two-part strategy which attempts to force a kind of iteration of conceptual analysis, together with an infinite explanatory regress, in order to establish that one particular philosophical analysis is ultimately dependent on another. Chatton uses this strategy against Ockham in order to show that the latter's reductionist metaphysics depends ultimately upon a (...) deeper level of realist assumptions that he can neither evade nor explain away. Keele then shows how, earlier in his career, Chatton found himself on the receiving end of this same strategy, defending his own highly original solution to the problem of future contingents from the very iteration-regress attack he would subsequently use on Ockham. Keele concludes with an examination of Chatton's attempts to avoid the consequences of his own strategy, and draws some connections between this argument strategy and modal collapse in modern logics. (shrink)

“Moral imagination” is the capacity to register that one’s perspective on a decision-making situation is limited, and to imagine alternative perspectives that reveal new considerations or approaches. We have developed a Moral Imagination approach that aims to drive a culture of responsible innovation, ethical awareness, deliberation, decision-making, and commitment in organizations developing new technologies. We here present a case study that illustrates one key aspect of our approach – the technomoral scenario – as we have applied it in our work (...) with product and engineering teams. Technomoral scenarios are fictional narratives that raise ethical issues surrounding the interaction between emerging technologies and society. Through facilitated role-playing and discussion, participants are prompted to examine their own intentions, articulate justifications for actions, and consider the impact of decisions on various stakeholders. This process helps developers to re-envision their choices and responsibilities, ultimately contributing to a culture of responsible innovation. (shrink)

This paper concerns a specific epistemic feature of believing for a reason (e.g., believing that it will rain on the basis of the grey clouds outside). It has commonly been assumed that our access to such facts about ourselves is akin in all relevant respects to our access to why other people hold their beliefs. Further, discussion of self-intimation - that we are necessarily in a position to know when we are in certain conditions - has centred largely around mental (...) states. In contrast to both assumptions, this paper argues that believing for a reason is (at least) very nearly self-intimating: necessarily, if a subject believes that q for the reason that p, then, provided relevant conceptual and rational capacities, she is in a position to form a justified true belief that she believes that q for the reason that p. We should think this on the basis of the role that believing for a reason plays from the subjects’ perspective, and in particular, the way in which it intellegises one’s belief. (shrink)

This article focuses on one aspect of the late mediaeval debate over divine power, as it was discussed by Oxford philosophers Walter Chatton (d. 1343) and William Ockham (d. 1347). Chatton and Ockham would have agreed, for example, that God is ultimately responsible for the existence of the works of Pablo Picasso, but they would not agree over wheher it violates God's omnipotence to say that he cannot make something that Picasso made, for example, the painting Guernica, without using Picasso (...) himself as an intermediate cause. The context of their dispute was a larger debate regarding the ontological status of relations. This article (1) explains how these two issues, omnipotence and relations, became so interestingly tangled together, (2) tries to see which of the two men mentioned above got the better of their exchange, and finally (3) draws out some important consequences for fourteenth-century discussions of causality, occasionalism, and omnipotence. (shrink)

The received wilderness idea of nature as untrammelled by human beings has been accused of assuming an untenable human/nature dualism which denies the Darwinian fact that humans are a part of nature. But the meaning of terms like 'nature' and 'natural' depends on the context of use and the contrast class implied in that context. When philosophers such as J. Baird Callicott and Steven Vogel insist that the only correct view is that humans are a part of nature, they ignore (...) the perfectly ordinary context in which 'nature' is used to mean 'other than human'. What is at issue here are a priori grammatical rules which stand in no need of empirical justification. There is no incompatibility between the view that humans are a part of nature and the idea that nature is valuable because of its non-human origin. The essentialism about the word 'nature' endemic to this debate distracts from the real issue, which is the value of nature's wildness. (shrink)

This paper is a test case for the claim, made famous by Myles Burnyeat, that the ancient Greeks did not recognize subjective truth or knowledge. After a brief discussion of the issue in Sextus Empiricus, I then turn to Plato's discussion of Protagorean views in the Theaetetus. In at least two passages, it seems that Plato attributes to Protagoras the view that our subjective experiences constitute truth and knowledge, without reference to any outside world of objects. I argue that these (...) passages have been misunderstood and that on the correct reading, they do not say anything about subjective knowledge. I then try out what I take to be the correct reading of the passages. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the importance of causes in Greek epistemology. (shrink)

Suppose that an autonomous vehicle encounters a situation where (i) imposing a risk of harm on at least one person is unavoidable; and (ii) a choice about how to allocate risks of harm between different persons is required. What does morality require in these cases? Derek Leben defends a Rawlsian answer to this question. I argue that we have reason to reject Leben’s answer.

American polygenism was a provocative scientific movement whose controversial claim that humankind did not share a common ancestor caused a firestorm among naturalists and the lay public beginning in the 1830s. This article gives specific attention to the largely overlooked religious ideas marshaled by American polygenists in their effort to construct race as a unit of analysis. I focus specifically on the thought of the American polygenist and renowned surgeon Dr Josiah Clark Nott (1804–73) of Mobile, Alabama. Scholars have claimed (...) that in his effort to establish a properly modern scientific view of race Nott was one of the first American naturalists to publicly denounce the notion of common human descent (monogenesis) as proclaimed in the Bible. I argue that despite his rejection of monogenesis, Nott’s racial theory remained squarely within the tradition of Christian ideas about the natural world. American polygenism provides an example of how scientific and religious ideas worked together in the minds of American antebellum thinkers in the development of novel theories about race and human origins. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that the central problem of Aristotle’s Metaphysics H (VIII) 6 is the unity of forms and that he solves this problem in just the way he solves the problem of the unity of composites – by hylomorphism. I also discuss the matter– form relationship in H 6, arguing that they have a correlative nature as the matter of the form and the form of the matter.

Plato's Theaetetus discusses and ultimately rejects Protagoras's famous claim that "man is the measure of all things." The most famous of Plato's arguments is the Self-Refutation Argument. But he offers a number of other arguments as well, including one that I call the 'Future Argument.' This argument, which appears at Theaetetus 178a−179b, is quite different from the earlier Self-Refutation Argument. I argue that it is directed mainly at a part of the Protagorean view not addressed before , namely, that all (...) beliefs concerning one's own future sensible qualities are true. This part of the view is found to be inconsistent with Protagoras's own conception of wisdom as expertise and with his own pretenses at expertise in teaching. (shrink)

Aristotle's theory of perception is complicated by the fact that he recognizes three kinds of perceptible object: special, common, and incidental, all of which have different levels of reliability. Focusing on De Anima 3.3, 428b17–25, this paper discusses why these three sorts of perception are true and false. It argues that perceptions of special objects can be false because of the blind-spot phenomenon and that common objects are typically perceived as predicated of an incidental object. This helps explain why perceptions (...) of common objects are the most error prone. The paper ends with a suggestion about the importance of predicational perception for Aristotle's epistemology. (shrink)

Subjects can know what their attitudes are and also their motivating reasons for those attitudes – for example, S can know that she believes that q and also that she believes that q for the reason that p. One attractive account of self-knowledge of attitudes appeals to the ‘transparency method’. According to TM, subjects answer the question of whether they believe that q by answering the world-directed question of whether q is true. Something similar also looks intuitive in the case (...) of self-knowledge of motivating reasons, but cashing out such a view requires determining what the relevant world-directed question would be. This paper argues that subjects learn why they believe that q by answering the world-directed question ‘what are good reasons for believing that q?’ I argue for this against an alternative that I develop from Boyle 2011a. (shrink)

In both Metaphysics Γ 4 and 5 Aristotle argues that Protagoras is committed to the view that all contradictions are true. Yet Aristotle’s arguments are not transparent, and later, in Γ 6, he provides Protagoras with a way to escape contradictions. In this paper I try to understand Aristotle’s arguments. After examining a number of possible solutions, I conclude that the best way of explaining them is to (a) recognize that Aristotle is discussing a number of Protagorean opponents, and (b) (...) import another of Protagoras’ views, namely the claim that there are always two logoi opposed to one another. (shrink)

A rich literature has discussed what it is to respond to a reason, e.g., to believe or act on the basis of some consideration or another. In comparison, what it would be to respond to a second‐order reason has been underexplored. Yet formulating an account of this is vital for maintaining the existence of second‐order reasons in both the practical and epistemic domains. And indeed, there are reasons to doubt this is possible. For example, responding to second‐order reasons is meant (...) to be different from simply coming to believe or act for a more richly described first‐order reason but it's not clear what this would look like. This paper introduces an account of the second‐order basing relation which meets these concerns. It therefore both develops our picture of second‐order reasons and helps to defend their existence. (shrink)

It is now common to explain some of incidental perception’s features by means of a different capacity, called phantasia. Phantasia, usually translated as ‘imagination,’ is thought to explain how incidental perception can be false and representational by being a constitutive part of perception. Through a close reading of De Anima 3.3, 428b10–29a9, I argue against this and for perception first: phantasia is always a product of perception, from which it initially inherits all its characteristics. No feature of perception is explained (...) directly by phantasia, and phantasia is never a part of perception. Phantasia is not imagination or representation, as many have thought, but perception-like appearance. Aristotle thus recognizes alongside three different types of perception three different types of perception-like appearance. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to re-establish the concept of 'law' in Christian ethics without at the same time sacrificing any of the gains in moral freedom that have come from the concept of situation ethics. Michael Keeling argues that there is a common human search for morality in which the specific contribution of Christians is the idea of freedom as the primary gift of God to human beings. However, within this freedom it should be possible to define certain (...) guidelines or 'mandates' which correspond both to the divine life revealed in Jesus Christ and to the human realities described by the natural and the social sciences. (shrink)

According to the alternative semantics for focus, the semantic reflec of intonational focus is a second semantic value, which in the case of a sentence is a set of propositions. We examine a range of semantic and pragmatic applications of the theory, and extract a unitary principle specifying how the focus semantic value interacts with semantic and pragmatic processes. A strong version of the theory has the effect of making lexical or construction-specific stipulation of a focus-related effect in association-with-focus constructions (...) impossible. Furthermore, while focus has a uniform import, the sources of meaning differences in association with focus are various. (shrink)

This paper presents a dilemma for the additive model of reasons. Either the model accommodates disjunctive cases in which one ought to perform some act $$\phi $$ just in case at least one of two factors obtains, or it accommodates conjunctive cases in which one ought to $$\phi $$ just in case both of two factors obtains. The dilemma also arises in a revised additive model that accommodates imprecisely weighted reasons. There exist disjunctive and conjunctive cases. Hence the additive model (...) is extensionally inadequate. The upshot of the dilemma is that one of the most influential accounts of how reasons accrue to determine what we ought to do is flawed. (shrink)

A rich literature has discussed what it is to respond to a reason, e.g., to believe or act on the basis of some consideration or another. In comparison, what it would be to respond to a second-order reason has been underexplored. Yet formulating an account of this is vital for maintaining the existence of second-order reasons in both the practical and epistemic domains. And indeed, there are reasons to doubt this is possible. For example, responding to second-order reasons is meant (...) to be different from simply coming to believe or act for a more richly described first-order reason but it's not clear what this would look like. This paper introduces an account of the second-order basing relation which meets these concerns. It therefore both develops our picture of second-order reasons and helps to defend their existence. (shrink)

The important impact of the French Franciscan Peter Auriol (ca. 1280-1322) upon contemporary philosophical theology at Oxford is well known and has been well documented and analyzed, at least for a narrow range of issues, particularly in epistemology. This article attempts a more systematic treatment of his effects upon Oxford debates across a broader range of subjects and over a more expansive duration of time than has been done previously. Topics discussed include grace and merit, future contingents and divine foreknowledge, (...) and the logic of the Trinity. (shrink)

Is there a moral difference between euthanasia for terminally ill adults and euthanasia for terminally ill children? Luc Bovens considers five arguments to this effect, and argues that each is unsuccessful. In this paper, I argue that Bovens' dismissal of the sensitivity argument is unconvincing.

Ockham Explained is an important and much-needed resource on William of Ockham, one of the most important philosophers of the Middle Ages. His eventful and controversial life was marked by sharp career moves and academic and ecclesiastical battles. At 28, Ockham was a conservative English theologian focused obsessively on the nature of language, but by 40, he had transformed into a fugitive friar, accused of heresy, and finally protected by the German emperor as he composed incendiary treatises calling for strong (...) limits on papal authority. This book provides a thorough grounding in Ockham’s life and his many contributions to philosophy. It begins with an overview of the philosopher's youth and the Aristotelian philosophy he studied as a boy. Subsequent chapters cover his ideas on language and logic; his metaphysics and vaunted "razor," as well as his opponents’ "anti-razor" theories; his invention of the church-state separation; and much more. The concluding chapter sums up Ockham's compelling philosophical personality and explains his modern appeal. (shrink)