Browsing Philosophic Exchange by Title
Now showing items 66-85 of 273
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Dreams and SkepticsThis paper compares the relative merits of perceptual beliefs and introspective beliefs in the context of dream arguments for skepticism. It is argued that introspective beliefs are not epistemically privileged over perceptual beliefs.
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Empiricism and MulticulturalismThis paper relates the work of the great British empiricists – Locke, Berkeley, and Hume – to issues of multiculturalism. It is argued that these philosophers can help to provide us with some of the tools we need to craft an appropriate response to the diversity of cultures.
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Ethical and Epistemic Dilemmas of Behaviorism and the Identity ThesisJerome Shaffer’s argument against behaviorism and the identity theory assume that the wrongness of causing pain is constituted entirely by that effect. However, the intrinsic wrongness of such actions lies in the intentions of the agent, not in the physical responses of the victim.
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Evolution and Optimality: Feathers, Bowling Balls, and the Thesis of AdaptationismThis paper discusses the thesis of adaptationism in evolutionary biology. It is argued that there is a serious scientific question here whose answer is not yet in hand. The truth or falsity of adaptationism is a substantive question about the history of life that must be decided on a trait by trait basis.
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Evolutionary Theory and Morality: Why the Science Doesn't Settle the Philosophical QuestionsFour decades ago, E.O. Wilson famously declared that “the time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and biologicized." One still finds Wilson’s idea echoed frequently in popular science writing today. While I’m not going to deny that evolutionary biology and other sciences have important things to tell us about morality, I think there is a lot of confusion about what exactly they can tell us, and how much they can tell us. My aim here is first to make some distinctions and sort out some issues, and then to examine one overreaching claim in particular, about the explanation of our moral beliefs by appeal to evolutionary causal influences. That is a claim used by some philosophers to argue that evolutionary biology somehow forces on us either a skeptical or a purely subjectivist understanding of morality. I will explain why I think this is misguided and is a poor use of science in philosophy.
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Existential InertiaTo all appearances, the basic building blocks of reality tend to keep existing unless something intervenes to destroy them. In other words, basic things seem to have existential inertia. But why might this be? This paper considers a number of arguments for and against existential inertia. It discusses arguments inspired by Aquinas, Descartes, and Spinoza, as well as considerations deriving from Occam’s Razor, entropy, and certain views about the nature of time and change.
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Foot-NotesThe major disagreement here is that Foot, contra Kant, denies that moral ends are ends that the agent has a duty to adopt. Though I, in part, agree with Foot, it is difficult to see what is paradoxical about the view that she denies. Foot’s position is the one that appears paradoxical. Her position is that I may have duties within morality, but I cannot have a duty to adopt the ends of morality. On the contrary, morality is inescapable.
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Free Will and NeuroscienceHas modern neuroscience shown that free will is an illusion? Those who give an affirmative answer often argue as follows. The overt actions that have been studied in some recent experiments do not have corresponding consciously made decisions or conscious intentions among their causes. Therefore no overt actions have corresponding consciously made decisions or conscious intentions among their causes. This paper challenges this inference, arguing that it is unwarranted.
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From the Platitudinous to the AbsurdHenry Aiken has misrepresented the history of the university, and the historical context of this debate. The university should be depoliticized in order to protect academic freedom.
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Future Genders? Future Races?Gender is the social meaning of a person’s sex, and race is the social meaning of a person’s color. This paper reviews some accounts of these social meanings. It is argued that there are important differences between race and gender that count against treating them as parallel.
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Gandhi, Newton and the EnlightenmentGandhi expressed opposition to the Enlightenment and even to science. His view is best understood in the context of a radical critique of a certain orthodoxy that emerged after the Enlightenment. That orthodoxy insists that we take a detached, impersonal standpoint in relation to nature. By contrast, Gandhi and his forebears in the radical enlightenment see nature as suffused with value, and allow us to approach nature from the first-person point of view.
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God and EvilIf God is all-powerful, all-knowing and perfectly good, then why is there so much horrendous evil in the world? This paper discusses this perennial problem.
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God and Science in the Public SchoolsOn March 11, 2000, the New York Times reported that an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that creationism should be taught alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution in the public schools. This controversy raises important questions in the philosophy of science, as well as questions about public education in a democracy. This paper considers some of the arguments on both sides of this debate.
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God, Evil, and the Contemplation of Infinitely Many OptionsThis essay examines the problem of evil, and then develops a free will theodicy. Then the paper considers some themes in distinctively Christian theodicy building, in more detail.
