Showing papers in "The Journal of Philosophy in 2008"

Alief and Belief

Abstract: I introduce and argue for the importance of a cognitive state that I call alief. Paradigmatic alief can be characterized as a mental state with associatively-linked content that is representational, affective and behavioral, and that is activated – consciously or unconsciously – by features of the subject’s internal or ambient environment. Alief is a more primitive state than either belief or imagination: it directly activates behavioral response patterns (as opposed to motivating in conjunction with desire or pretended desire.) I argue that alief explains a large number of otherwise perplexing phenomena and plays a far larger role in causing behavior than has typically been recognized by philosophers. I argue further that the notion can be invoked to explain both the effectiveness and the limitations of certain sorts of example-based reasoning, and that it lies at the core of habit-based views of ethics. O. Four Opening Examples In March 2007, 4000 feet above the floor of the Grand Canyon, a horseshoeshaped cantilevered glass walkway was opened to the public. Extending 70 feet from the Canyon’s rim, the Grand Canyon Skywalk soon drew hundreds of visitors each day, among them New York Times reporter Edward Rothstein, who filed the following dispatch: A visitor to these stark and imposing lands of the Hualapai Indians on the western rim of the Grand Canyon knows what sensation is being promised at the journey’s climax. After driving for a half-hour over bone-jolting dirt roads...you take a shuttle bus from the parking lot...You deposit all cameras at a security desk, slip on yellow surgical booties and stride out onto a horseshoe-shaped walkway with 1 I am grateful to the Yale faculty lunch group for comments on a very early draft of this paper, and to audiences at Princeton University (March 2007), the Central APA Chicago (April 2007), and the Mind & Language Pretense Conference at University College London (June 2007) for excellent questions, comments, objections and suggestions regarding the talk which served as its immediate predecessor. For more recent discussion and comments, I thank John Bargh, Paul Bloom, Carolyn Caine, Greg Currie, Andy Egan, Roald Nashi, Ted Sider, Jason Stanley, Zoltán Gendler Szabó and Jonathan Weinberg.

Disagreement, Dogmatism, and Belief Polarization

Abstract: Consider the phenomenon of belief polarization. Suppose that two individuals—let’s call them ‘You’ and ‘I’--disagree about some non-straightforward matter of fact: say, about whether capital punishment tends to have a deterrent effect on the commission of murder. Although neither of us is certain of his or her view, I believe that capital punishment is a deterrent while You believe that it is not. Perhaps one or both of us has evidence for his or her view. Or perhaps we hold our views on the basis of ideological dogma, or on the basis of some admixture of dogma and evidence. In any case, regardless of why we believe as we do, You and I disagree, in a perfectly familiar way. Suppose next that the two of us are subsequently exposed to a relatively substantial body of evidence that bears on the disputed question: for example, statistical studies comparing the murder rates for adjacent states with and without the death penalty. The evidence is of a mixed character: some studies seem to suggest that capital punishment is a deterrent while other studies seem to suggest that it is not. Regardless, the entire body

The Situation-Dependency of Perception

Abstract: I argue that perception is necessarily situation-dependent. The way an object is must not just be distinguished from the way it appears and the way it is represented, but also from the way it is presented given the situational features. First, I argue that the way an object is presented is best understood in terms of external, mind-independent, but situation-dependent properties of objects. Situation-dependent properties are exclusively sensitive to and ontologically dependent on the intrinsic properties of objects, such as their shape, size, and color, and the situational features, such as the lighting conditions and the perceiver’s location in relation to the perceived object. Second, I argue that perceiving intrinsic properties is epistemically dependent on representing situation-dependent properties. Recognizing situation-dependent properties yields four advantages. It makes it possible to embrace the motivations that lead to phenomenalism and indirect realism by recognizing that objects are presented a certain way, while holding on to the intuition that subjects directly perceive objects. Second, it acknowledges that perceptions are not just individuated by the objects they are of, but by the ways those objects are presented given the situational features. Third, it allows for a way to accommodate the fact that there is a wide range of viewing conditions or situational features that can count as normal. Finally, it makes it possible to distinguish perception and thought about the same object with regard to what is represented.

The unity of consciousness and the split-brain syndrome

Abstract: According to conventional wisdom, the split-brain syndrome puts paid to the thesis that consciousness is necessarily unified. The aim of this paper is to challenge that view. I argue both that disunity models of the split-brain are highly problematic, and that there is much to recommend a model of the split-brain—the switch model—according to which split-brain patients retain a fully unified consciousness at all times. Although the task of examining the unity of consciousness through the lens of the split-brain syndrome is not a new one—such projects date back to Nagel's seminal paper on the topic—the time is ripe for a re-evaluation of the issues. First performed on humans in the late 1930s, the split-brain procedure involves severing the corpus callosum in order to prevent epileptic seizures spreading from one hemisphere to another. The original version of the procedure, known as a commissurotomy, involved severing a number of interhemispheric tracts (such as the anterior commissure, the hippocampal commissure and the massa intermedia of the thalamus) in addition to the corpus callosum. In later versions of the procedure, known as a callosotomy, only the corpus callosum is sectioned. The differences between these two patient groups are not pronounced, and I will refer to both commissurotomy and callosotomy patients as 'split-brain patients'. 3 The split-brain procedure has surprisingly little impact on cognitive function in everyday life. 4 Split-brain patients can drive, hold down jobs, and carry out routine day to day tasks. Early researchers remarked on their 'social ordinariness', and were baffled by their 3 The main division appears to be between patients who have had the anterior portion of their corpus callosum sectioned and those in whom only the posterior portion of the corpus callosum has been cut. The former tend to exhibit the classic split-brain syndrome, while the latter show only minimal dissociations. 3 inability to detect any cognitive impairments arising from the operation. 5 However, subsequent research has revealed a complex array of deficits—and the occasional benefit—in the split-brain. 6 It is this research that gives rise to the view that split-brain patients have a disunified consciousness. In a typical split-brain experiment, two stimuli are presented to the patient in such a way that one will be processed by the left hemisphere and the other by the right hemisphere. For example, the word 'key-ring' might be projected such that 'key' is restricted to the patient's left visual field (LVF) …

Promising without Intending

Abstract: It is widely held that one who sincerely promises to do something must at least intend to do that thing: a promise communicates the intention to perform. In this paper, I argue that a promise need only communicate the intention to undertake an obligation to perform. I consider examples of sincere promisors who have no intention of performing. I argue that this fits well with what we want to say about other performatives - giving, commanding etc. Furthermore, it supports a theory of promissory obligation which I have advocated elsewhere - the authority interest theory - against the orthodox information interest theory.

Deontology, individualism, and uncertainty : a reply to jackson and smith

Abstract: How should deontological theories that prohibit actions of type K — such as intentionally killing an innocent person — deal with cases of uncertainty as to whether a particular action is of type K? Frank Jackson and Michael Smith, who raise this problem in their paper “Absolutist Moral Theories and Uncertainty” (2006), focus on a case where a skier is about to cause the death of ten innocent people — we don’t know for sure whether on purpose or not — by causing an avalanche; and we can only save the people by shooting the skier. One possible deontological attitude towards such uncertainty is what Jackson and Smith call the threshold view, according to which whether or not the deontological constraint applies depends on our degree of (justified) certainty meets a given threshold. Jackson and Smith argue against the threshold view that it leads to implausible paradoxical moral dilemmas in a special kind of case. In this response, we show that the threshold view can avoid these implausible moral dilemmas, as long as the relevant deontological constraint is grounded in individualistic patient-based considerations, such as what an individual person is entitled to object to.

Internal-external : doxastic norms and the defusing of skeptical paradox

Abstract: This brief discussion touches on several interrelated major issues, each of which would require a much more extended treatment if one wanted to command a settled view. My aim, accordingly, is no more than to make a number of points plausible whose importance, if correct, is considerable. They are primarily the following four. First, we should recognise a plurality of norms of belief, broadly divided in particular between those that pertain to the teleology of believing, and those that have to do constitutively with management of a system of belief. Second we should expect the opposition between so-called internalist and externalist conceptions of knowledge and justification to be extensible in principle to all doxastic norms, and should be receptive to the possibility that externalist conceptions may promise best for some norms, and internalist conceptions for others. Third, and correspondingly, it is to be expected that the paradoxes of scepticism, classically centred on knowledge and justified belief, will be adaptable to doxastic norms in general. (Here it is crucial to separate those ‘first-order' paradoxes that argue that compliance with a given norm is impossible and those ‘second-order' paradoxes that argue e.g. that, even if compliance is possible, we are actually in no position to claim that we ever succeed in so complying.) This potential generality in the scope of the paradoxes counsels caution about the widely accepted notion—which will be a central focus in the latter part of the paper—that externalism offers resources sufficient to defuse the threat of scepticism. Finally, I will argue that thinking through how externalism is supposed to help with even the simplest form of (Cartesian) knowledge-sceptical paradox discloses a commitment to a doxastic norm of warrant that cannot itself be construed externalistically, if fit for purpose, but is vulnerable to the very same form of paradox.