TCD Metaphysical Society Event

This upcoming Monday, the Metaphysical Society at Trinity College Dublin is hosting an event. Here is the official announcement:

The TCD Metaphysical Society welcomes you to its annual symposium, which will take place on Monday the 26th of March, in the chamber of the Graduates' Memorial Building. This year's theme is Realism and Anti-Realism. The papers will address topics including the nature of meaning, the relation between mathematical and scientific methods, or the role of reason in ethics. If you are interested in this kind of thing, then do come along for a day of fascinating philosophy. Please see the schedule below for the details of speakers and timings:

10:30 - 11:00 David Boylan (TCD) - Introduction and explanation of theme.

11:00 - 12:00 Paal Antonsen (TCD) - Warrant Conditional Semantics

12:15 - 13:15 Clare Moriarty (UCD) - Mathematical Anti-Realism and Naturalism

14:00 - 15:00 Ole Hjortland (Munich) - Assertion and Denial in Classical and Intuitionistic Logic

15:15 - 16:15 Simon Blackburn (Cambridge) - Some Ways to Misunderstand Hume

Contact: metafizz 'at' csc 'dot' tcd 'dot' ie

The Open Question Argument

(For those regular readers, I apologize that this post is a day late. Unfortunately, a cold waylaid me this past couple of days.)

In this post, I want to discuss G. E. Moore's famous open question argument. As I understand it, the open question argument allegedly creates a problem for certain reductive theories of genuinely normative properties (such as the goodness or ought-to-be-doneness of an action) to certain descriptive or non-normative properties (such as caused pain-minimization). The idea is that we have principled reasons for ruling these theories out because it is always an "open question" whether, say, the goodness of an action can be identified with the pain-minimization that the action caused.

(I should say that I think that the open question argument can be formulated in such a way as to not only theories that identify genuinely normative properties with some descriptive or non-normative properties, but also theories that say that, on a particular possible occasion, the having of these genuinely normative properties will be nothing more than the having of some or other descriptive or non-normative properties, in the sense that the latter will explain, without remainder, why the former is instanced. To formulate the "open question" argument in this way, one suggests that it is always an an "open question" whether, say, the goodness of particular action on some occasion can be constitutively explained by the pain-minimization that the action caused even in light of what other descriptive or non-normative properties the action had on that occasion.)

The open question argument seems related to Hume's suggestion that one cannot "derive" an 'is' (that is a descriptive fact) from an 'ought' (that is a normative fact) or vice-versa. Critics of the open question argument might accuse proponents of begging the question on this front. Perhaps some of these questions are not open, but only seem so because we are not fully rational enough to grasp how the question is closed (because our grasp on genuinely normative properties is a bit tenuous). The idea is that there is no further information (gained, for instance, via ethical intuition) that we need to see that the question is closed; we simply need to do better at processing the information that we have. Call this "the first response." (A second response would be to claim that although the question is open, still some sort of reduction is possible.)

I think that the first response fails, and I want to give some reasons why before opening up the discussion to others. The reason that I think that the first response fails is that it simply ignores the motivational aspect of the genuinely normative concepts that pick out these genuinely normative properties. Note: The word 'genuinely' here is supposed to make it clear that we are talking about just those concepts (or just those properties that these concepts pick out) that have this motivational aspect, and not any others that don't.

The motivational aspect that I have in mind is just this: The use of a genuinely normative concept incurs certain rational commitments when it comes to action. For instance, if I use this genuinely normative concept to judge that I ought (all-things-considered) to be nice to my elders, then if there is something rationally defective about me if I intentionally go on to act in a not-nice-way to my elders. (Basically, I am not functioning properly in this kind of scenario.) To avoid this rational defectiveness I need to either relinquish my judgment or stop failing to be nice to my elders.

The motivational aspect of genuinely normative concepts seems to suggest that these concepts already incorporate one way of picking out genuinely normative properties. Genuinely normative properties just are those properties that make it irrational to judge one way or act contrarily (as described with me and my elders).

My reasoning, then, is that given that we already have one way of picking out genuinely normative properties (as the properties that account for why it is rational to act in certain ways), then it must be an open question whether we can also pick them out in some other way by certain descriptions that have nothing to do with motivation and proper functioning.

Questions: Is this reasoning right? If so, what is the upshot for naturalism about genuinely normative properties?

Friday Question: Modal Rationalism

(Note: The past couple weeks, the Friday Questions have come from students in the first-year QUB Human Nature module. There are a couple more questions queued up for posting from these students, but I will save them for next week.)

For this Friday Question, I want to address a question in modal epistemology.

In philosophy, we are very often interested in what could have been or what has to be rather than what merely happens to be the case. For instance, philosophers interested in the mind-body problem are interested in knowing not just whether there are correlations between instances of mentality and certain patterns in the distribution of physical properties, but whether these correlations are indicative of some sort of metaphysically necessary connection between mind and body rather than a correlation that happens to be due to, say, natural laws that could have been otherwise. Knowing whether there is a metaphysically necessary connection or not seems crucial to addressing whether mind is distinct from body in the way that Descartes suggested.

One might reasonably wonder about the source of our grasp on what is metaphysically necessary or metaphysically possible (assuming, of course, that we have any such grasp). Modal epistemology is the study of what this grasp consists in.

One particular prominent school in modal epistemology is modal rationalism. According to modal rationalism, knowledge of the metaphysical necessity or possibility is always attained via purely rational abilities. For instance, it might be grounded in knowledge of what sorts of scenarios are "conceivable," where the conceivability of a scenario is something that we can test out by deploying our rational abilities. A better word for conceivability might be "intelligibility." The idea is that we can rule out the metaphysical possibility of a scenario by appreciating that the scenario doesn't make any sense or fails to be coherent; at the same time, we can confirm the metaphysical possibility of a scenario by appreciating that it does make sense or is coherent.

Certain examples (made prominent by Saul Kripke) force us to revise this last thought. For instance, from a position of ignorance it appears it would be coherent for Kim to think that Jack O'Hearts, a cheesy secret admirer, is distinct from her best friend John even if, actually, John just is Jack O'Hearts. Presumably, it isn't metaphysically possible for one and the same person not to be himself, so it isn't metaphysically possible for Jack O'Hearts to be anybody but John, or vice-versa.

The modal rationalist can respond to this situation by suggesting that although intelligibility isn't sufficient for metaphysical possibility, that is only because the intelligibility of a scenario may presuppose certain things about the actual world that are false. For instance, the intelligibility of the scenario in which Jack O'Hearts is not John may require the presupposition that the actual world is such that Jack O'Hearts is not John. If we were to suppose instead that in actual fact this is one and the same person, the scenario in which this identity doesn't hold no longer makes sense. The suggestion would then be that intelligibility is sufficient for metaphysical possibility so long as the intelligibility does not presuppose anything false about the actual world.

Is this form of modal rationalism viable?

QUB Philosophy Speaker Series event today: Paddy McQueen

Dear all,

Paddy McQueen, Political Theory PhD Student at Queen’s University Belfast, will be giving a talk today entitled “The Philosophy and Politics of Recognition” at 3:30 p.m. in the seminar room. All are invited to attend.

For further spring philosophy events, see the speaker series document below. Note: Jeremy Watkins's talk has been re-scheduled to 29 March.


http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofPoliticsInternationalStudiesandPhilosophy/FileStore/Research/Philosophy/Filetoupload,275892,en.pdf

Kings College London: Undergraduate Philosophy Conference

Undergraduates in philosophy might be interested in this international undergraduate conference in philosophy at KCL in early April.

Keynote Speakers: Professor A C Grayling (Birkbeck) and Dr Eleanor Knox (KCL)

Places are limited, so for registration and venue information, please email kclphilsoc@gmail.com

 Details here:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/events/archive/ugconf2011.aspx

Programme

Saturday, April 2nd

09:30 Conference Opening: Check-in and Welcome

10:00-11:30 Keynote by A.C. Grayling

11:30-12:30 “Moral Disagreement and the 'Impartial Spectator’” James Matharu , London School of Economics

12:30- 13:30 “Discussion of Social Components of Pathology” Lily Bristow, Bristol

13:30 -15:00 Lunch

15:00-16:00 "Describing the Indescribable Heidegger and Husserl" Harry Lewendon, Liverpool

16:00-17:00 "Do some theories of truth help explain Verisimilitude better than others?" Ben Weisz, Cambridge (Trinity College)

*Social events will be held in the evening for all conference participants*

Sunday, April 3rd

9:30 Day Two Opening


10:00-11:00 "Can Machines be Murdered" Alex Miller Tate & Rory Scott, Birmingham

11:00-12:00 "The Impossible Heap: The Representation of Apocolypse in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame” Diana Martin, University of Bucharest and European College of Liberal Arts Berlin

12:00- 13:30 Keynote by Eleanor Knox

13:30-15:00 Lunch

15:00-16:00 "Does Modality Supervene on Actuality?" Emily Adlam, Oxford (Queen's College)

16:00-17:00 "Rawlsian Objections Against Utilitarianism as a Theory of Distributive Justice and Equal Consideration" Dimitar Milanov, Nottingham
Registration

Book Launch at QUB

Thomas Aquinas: Teacher and Scholar
Order this book online via: www.fourcourtspress.ie

The School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast have pleasure in inviting you to the launch of Thomas Aquinas: Teacher and Scholar edited by James McEvoy, Michael Dunne, and Julia Hynes on Friday 30 March at 6.00 p.m. in the Canada Room, Lanyon Building, Queen’s University Belfast.
RSVP to Julia Hynes: j.m.hynes@qub.ac.uk

This book will be launched by Dr Michael Dunne.

This is a book launch and a memorial event to mark Professor James McEvoy’s academic contribution to Queen’s University Belfast.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require any additional information on the book or the launch.

With best wishes,

Anthony Tierney

Buy our books online via www.fourcourtspress.ie

Personhood and After Birth Abortion

In the Journal of Medical Ethics (February, 2012), Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva argue that given the same moral status or lack thereof between a foetus and a new born baby, the same conditions that would justify the killing of the foetus also justify the killing of the new born ('After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?'). They structure their argument around what they take to be the fact that neither the new born nor the foetus is a person, in which case it is not subject to a moral right to life in which case the rights and interests of actual persons, such as the mother, society etc, ought to take priority. They consider the potentiality objection to the effect that both the foetus and the new born are potential persons and reject it arguing that no harm is done to a potential person by not allowing such an entity to develop into a person. They also reject the adoption objection to the effect that adoption would be a better option than abortion or after birth abortion since they do not believe that it is straightforwardly true that the mental health of the mother would be better in the adoption case than in the abortion/after birth abortion case; and if in this case the interests of an actual person (the mother) should prevail, then after birth abortion should be a valid alternative to adoption.

I do not wish to engage in-depth with the details and presuppositions of their article. What I would like to do is take the occasion of their paper to explore a position on what it is to be a person. On one account of personhood (an account broad enough to include that of Giubilini and Minerva), to be a person is to have some property or set of properties such that one can potentially but not actually possess them and then, if allowed to develop, actually possess them; in which case one was only potentially a person and then actually so. I want to present an alternative view.

On the alternative view, to be a person is not essentially to have a certain property or set of properties, but it is a distinct state of being, that is to say, a person is a type of thing and thus personhood goes along with being that type of thing. The motivation for the view that being a person is being a type of thing and not having certain person constituting properties is as follows. Properties whilst serving to identify a thing are not identifiable with a thing. Rather, properties are multiply realisable such that different individuals can possess the same properties. But if several different individuals can possess the same properties, then a problem arises with regard to the property based conception of personhood. A person is a unique and non-repeatable individual; there might be many people named Gaven Kerr in the world, but there is only one of me. So whilst there are a lot of people, a person is essentially an individual. But if a person is essentially an individual, then it cannot be constituted by some property or set of properties, since properties are such that they are multiply realisable whereas a person is not. It follows then that the status a thing has as a person is not granted to it on the basis of properties that it has, but on the basis of the thing itself that instantiates those properties. Thus, it is the very individual that is a person, and not the properties that make the individual a person.

Given the latter, to be a person is to be an individual type of thing and not to come to possess a certain property or properties. Now, if being a person grants one a moral status, as Giubilini and Minerva grant, then a thing that is a person has such a status. But contrary to Giubilini and Minerva, a person is not something that becomes over time through the accumulation of certain properties, but is what the thing in question is. This then entails that one is not potentially a person and then actually so, but that one just is a person period, from beginning to end.

On this account of personhood, if one is prepared to recognise that the entity which is 28 years old is the same entity that was 18 years old and is the same entity that was 8 years old and is the same entity that was newborn, and the same entity that was in utero, i.e. in my own case, a self-developing and independent human substance, then given that to be a person is to be a type of thing and given the continuity of identity over all of the aforementioned time spans, a human substance did not first come into being and then a human person, rather a particular self-developing independent substance that is a person came into being, and, qua person, such an entity is subject to a moral right to life.