Research
Publications |
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Can We See What's Wrong With Non-naturalism
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The strongest version of the genealogical debunking challenge argues (i) that if our normative beliefs are true and justified, then we are in a Gettier position, and (ii) that this conditional is a defeater for that “Gettier-justification.” To reject (i) non-naturalism must offer a connection between the normative facts and our beliefs where either a) the facts explain our beliefs, b) our beliefs explain the facts, or c) both are explained by a common factor. I believe a promising avenue involves cognitive penetration, a view in philosophy of perception where our concepts affect our perceptions, letting us literally perceive properties and kinds even though they don’t causally affect our sense organs. Interestingly, this should occur even if we acquire our concepts in Gettier positions. Suppose you were taught to recognize sheep in a series of cases where someone says "out in the field there is a sheep" but when you look, the thing you see is a decoy sheep. If your belief ‘there is a sheep in the field’ is true, it’s Gettiered. But you should still acquire an accurate concept for sheep, and that concept should be able to penetrate your perception. So, if we acquire normative concepts that pick out genuine normative properties, these would allow us to directly perceive normative properties--without violating non-naturalist ontological constraints. This would let non-naturalists explain our belief-fact correlation in a way that bootstraps from an insufficient third factor genealogy to a successful “facts-explain-beliefs” genealogy.
This research is supported by a post-doctoral fellowship at the Centre for Moral and Political Philosophy, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. |
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“Reasons, Dispositions, and Value,” Philosophers’ Imprint, Vol.17, No. 23, 2017, pp. 1-18.
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3521354.0017.023 |
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In this paper, I will discuss an objection to Buck-Passing (BP) accounts of value, such as Reasons Fundamentalism. Buck-Passing views take value to be derivative of or reducible to reasons. The objection is that since there can be value in possible worlds in which there are no reasons, value must not be ontologically derivative of reasons. Thus, BP is false. In this paper, I show that by accepting a dispositionalist revision, BP can allow such worlds while maintaining that reasons are interestingly prior to value, and without having to adopt any controversial metaphysics. I show this by exploring the debate over the nature of dispositions, identifying the diverse resources BP can appeal to. The paper proceeds as follows. I first explain BP. Next, I discuss a few versions of the challenge, settling on what seems to be the strongest form. Following this, I show that on many accounts of dispositions, while we should accept that particular instances of dispositions are prior to their particular manifestations, we should also accept that there is a sense in which dispositions are dependent on their manifestations. This provides BP with resources to respond to the challenge: BP can accept a dispositional revision, without committing to a theory of dispositions. Finally, I will respond to two objections. The first is about whether there are dispositions with impossible manifestations, contrary to my thesis that dispositions depend on their manifestations. The second is about whether there could be value where it would be impossible for that value to give reasons.
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“Can Moral Principles Explain Supervenience?” Res Philosophica, Special Issue: Moral Nonnaturalism,
Vol. 91, No. 4, 2014, pp. 629–659. http://dx.doi.org/10.11612/resphil.2014.91.4.6 |
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The distribution of moral properties supervenes on the distribution of natural properties, and this provides a puzzle for nonnaturalism: what could explain supervenience if moral properties are not natural properties? Enoch claims moral principles explain supervenience. But this solution is incomplete without an account of what moral principles and properties are, and what relation holds between them. This paper begins to develop such an account by exploring analogous issues for Realism about Laws of nature in philosophy of science. Appealing to Mumford’s Central Dilemma for Realism about Laws, I argue that for moral principles to explain supervenience, moral properties must be ontologically dependent on the principles. I suggest that moral properties are relations between moral principles and natural properties. I also explore what it would take to adapt this explanation to a pluralistic theory of morality. Contributory reasons avoid the Cartwright Problem for Laws in a way component forces cannot.
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The major metaphysical challenge for Non-Naturalism is to explain why there can’t be a normative difference without a natural difference. I discuss which supervenience phenomena are in question, how to best understand the Supervenience Challenge, and what is dialectially required to respond to it. Next, I assess the three basic frameworks for explaining supervenience that are compatible with non-naturalism, and show why principle-less models should be dispreferred. Finally, I propose a principle-based account that treats principles as entities rather than facts, and show why this model should be preferred to models that treat principles as facts.
Committee: Mark van Roojen (chair), Aaron Bronfman, John Brunero, Joe Mendola |
Please email me for drafts.
How to Make Progress Against the Supervenience Challenge
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I establish what it takes to explain the right supervenience relations. Constraint 1: any non-naturalist explanation must metaphysically explain why this natural property is a necessary and sufficient condition for that normative property. The second constraint is that explanations must maintain compatibility with plausible normative theories. The third constraint is that “little picture explanations” for specific supervenience must not be “big picture self-defeating” by making it more difficult or impossible to explain general supervenience. All proposals face a universal objection to non-naturalist explanations: to explain a given necessary connection, non-naturalists must posit an additional necessary connection. Using a model explanation, I show that we need to distinguish between two types of bruteness (brute connections and brute lacks), and thus we can reduce commitment to bruteness both in degree (committing to fewer brute connections and brute lacks) and in kind (committing to only one kind or the other). By reducing the number of brute commitments, and being committed to e.g. only brute lacks (eliminating all brute connections), the non-naturalist makes explanatory progress.
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Why Non-naturalists Need “Something Else” to Explain Supervenience
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I identify what metaphysical resources a theory must draw upon to both qualify as non-naturalist and explain supervenience. Since the supervenience relations are between distributions of properties, explanations of supervenience require an explanation for the distribution of normative properties given the distribution of natural properties. Since the supervenience relation in question is between natural properties and normative properties, each of these is an intuitive element to use in an explanation. Proposals that use only natural properties to explain supervenience will clearly be naturalist: the distribution of normative properties would be fully explained by facts about natural properties. Proposals that use only normative properties will fail to be sufficiently explanatory: facts about the distribution of natural properties would be irrelevant to the distribution of normative properties, leaving supervenience a metaphysical coincidence. I further argue that even proposals that use both normative and natural properties, and nothing further, will either be naturalist or fail to be explanatory. Proposals will either fall to the bruteness regress by failing to reduce commitment to bruteness as discussed above, or invoke relations that make the theory naturalist. This leaves non- naturalists a final option of including some third kind of element, for example normative principles.
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Explaining Supervenience
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I offer my preferred “third-element” explanation, and show why it meets the constraints established in the other chapters. “Principlist” explanations of supervenience must make clear (i) what normative properties are like such that principles partially explain their distributions, and (ii) what principles are like, such that they explain the distributions of normative properties. On my account, normative properties are relational properties holding between normative principles and the primary focus of normative evaluation. For example, if wrongness is a basic normative property, it’s the relation between the relevant normative principle and the natural action-types it prohibits. Normative principles must be content-bearing entities that bear their contents essentially. This rejects the view that principles are fundamental normative facts. Principles are still fundamental normative entities, and there are facts about which principles bear which content, but normative principles are not themselves facts. My proposal meets all the criteria and constraints surveyed above. It accounts for the necessary co-extension of natural and normative properties as this normative property by its nature is a relation between instances of that natural property and the relevant normative principle. It reduces commitment to bruteness in both degree and kind because it’s only committed to the brute absence of competing normative principles. Finally, it maintains non-naturalist credentials because normative principles are a distinctly normative kind of fundamental entity.
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Non-Naturalism and the “Third-Factor” Gambit
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Co-Author: David Faraci, Durham University
Normative realists face a fundamental epistemological challenge to show how we can have epistemic access to realistically construed normative truth. Different forms of realism have different responses to this challenge. But the general consensus seems to be that for non-naturalists, there is only one option: so-called third-factor explanations. Indeed, the current dialectic over the non-naturalist’s (in)ability to meet this challenge has more or less reduced to the question of whether or when third-factor explanations can answer it. In this paper, we argue that once the natures of the relevant challenge and of third-factor explanations are better understood, it becomes clear that the latter offers the non-naturalist no hope in meeting the former. If non-naturalists really are limited to third-factor explanations, their view is inconsistent with the existence of normative knowledge. |
Liberty and a Rawlsian Ethos of Justice
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This paper advances the discussion of how a Rawlsian ethos is to be conceived and justified. From Cohen’s original thought that it is just a commitment towards promoting equality and an unjustified prerogative to selfishly defect from those responsibilities, I move with Estlund to a more robust conception of the prerogative, such that it includes not just mere self-interest, but our other concerns as well. Then, I explain Titelbaum’s Rawlsian framework for vindicating an element for inclusion in the ethos. This demonstrates how to understand why there would be such a prerogative: it is part and parcel of valuing the development of the moral powers of persons. I further employ Titelbaum’s framework, applying it to the distinction between formal liberty and the worth of liberty, and show that a truly complete ethos also includes the inclination to promote the development of the moral powers of others. Because individuals can make choices that affect the worth of liberty of others, we need some element in the ethos to motivate them to make positive effects and refrain from negative ones, in order to establish the best fit with the values of developing the moral powers of persons, and mutual respect and fraternity.
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Nozick and the Robust State
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Nozick’s justification for moving from anarchy to the Minimal State would also allow moving to a Robust State. The libertarian position must allow Robust States when agents unanimously agree to cooperate in that way, even if they cannot impose this on the unwilling. This generates a political association version of the Lockean Proviso—groups may form Robust States, so long as they leave space for others to decide whether to form political associations. The original Proviso risks disallowing any private property, because no amount of acquisition is repeatable by everyone, since one more person could always come along after all has been acquired. Similarly, no amount of association is repeatable by everyone, since one more person who doesn’t want to associate could come along, and not be left space to live an un-associated life. Nozick’s solution for acquisition is to respect the spirit of the Proviso by requiring unequal acquisitions to leave the rest better off than they would have been with an equal share. The same move can be made regarding political association. Furthermore, since Nozick allows the Minimal State to violate (cross) individuals’ rights to not associate so long as they are compensated, this can an ameliorate the violation of "conscription” into the association of a Robust State. If the Robust state can increase worth of the formally diminished liberty of the conscripted, this should compensate for the violation of forced association.
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Grounding the Duty of Non-Maleficence:
Why doctors should do-no-harm, and what this tells us about public policy
Why doctors should do-no-harm, and what this tells us about public policy
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The folk conception of physicians’ duty to do no harm considers the Hippocratic Oath as its basis. Standard medical ethics textbooks do not address the grounds for the duty of non-maleficence (henceforth “the Duty”). Both are mistakes. I’ll, argue first that the because Hippocratic Oath is at best a promise, it's an inadequate basis for the Duty. Second, I'll support an alternative two-part account of the basis--the badness of harm, and the special role in society ground the Duty. Third, I'll show how this alternative account has wider implications on the morality of individual care choices, and on the morality of certain public policy positions. Even if my proposed basis for the Duty is wrong, this shows that alternative proposals can have concrete normative implications, and so medical ethics education needs to include discussion of the bases for standard duties of medical ethics.
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How Autonomy is Valuable in Medical Ethics
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This paper is for helping students get clearer on the difference between a how autonomy is valuable on a Kantian model and on a Millian model, and how this relates to the use of “nudges” on both views. I argue that nudging is acceptable on both views. This serves as an object lesson in understanding the different frameworks of autonomy, since the justifications for nudging cannot be the same. On the Millian model this is a clear case of when the patient won't be the best steward of their own best interest, because nudging is applicable when cog biases interfere with our reasoning. It is harder to justify nudging on a Kantian model since people are allowed to choose against their own interest. But because nudges are applicable when people make systematic errors in reasoning, these are cases where people are systematically incompetent. If framing affects allow the patient to be a better reasoner, this supports the Kantian value of autonomy. But, unlike the Millian model, this view requires nudges to be transparent: in order to respect autonomy while nudging, you have to explain that and why you're nudging.
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What the Viability Standard Can Tell Us About the Permissibility of Abortion
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This paper considers how the development of “ectogenisis” technologies (for gestation outside of the uterus) gives us insights to the best understanding of (good faith) viability standard laws about abortion. The whole premise of viability standards (if not offered disingenuously) is that the woman has the right to evict a fetus from her body, but that something is different when the fetus could potentially live—since it would be impermissible to kill a premature delivery at a given stage it is impermissible to kill an undelivered fetus at the same stage by performing an abortion. But viability is a bad criterion for moral considerability, because it’s not an intrinsic feature of the thing. The important difference between a viable and a pre-viable fetus is that while the viable and pre-viable fetuses share the general right to not be killed, only the viable fetus has the specific right to not be killed as a means of eviction. But this doesn’t support the kinds of abortion restrictions employing a viability standard actually on offer, since they don’t limit women to non-lethal abortions, but instead prohibit abortions all together. Further, since the viable fetus’s right to not be lethally evicted is still just a prima facie right, and so other considerations can still weigh against it. This raises an interesting question of what other considerations can outweigh the fetus’s prima facie right. I put forth some suggestions as deserving deeper consideration. Another important question raised at this point is how the viability standard affects the legal and moral relationships between the woman and fetus. If the woman still retains moral authority over the fetus, and the life-prospects for a premature baby headed for the foster care system are poor, then it seems that lethal eviction is a genuine option. If seeking an abortion is the equivalent of turning the fetus over to the care of the State, then she cannot be held responsible for its medical bills post-delivery. But if she turns the fetus over to the State before eviction the State should be on the hook for any expenses related to the procedure, as well as compensation for damages to the woman’s body.
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Grounding and (Super)Internal Relations
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There is a debate over whether grounding facts are fundamental or themselves grounded, with significant difficulties either way. If we reject grounding facts all together we’re left with what Karen Bennett calls the “crazypants” view that there are no levels in ontology, and so either there are no such things as tables or tables are equally fundamental as quarks. If that grounding facts are fundamental, standard metaphysical assumptions imply grounding facts could be recombined with what are intuitively incompatible facts, since everything that is fundamental could have existed with or without anything else that is fundamental. If we say that grounding facts are grounded, we get an infinite regress. Bennett appeals to David Armstrong’s concept of “internal relations,” relations that hold between things in virtue of the things. Bennett suggests that grounding could be a “super-internal” relation, where both the relation and one of the relata obtain in virtue of the other relata. The relation is internal to A, but so is B. This avoids the regress, because everything stops in the features of A. But, Armstrong’s machinery of “internal relations” was used to avoid ontological commitment to these relations, so if Bennett says that the grounding relation and the grounded entity are both internal to the grounding entity, then she has to make the same move. The grounding sentence is true, and various sentences about B are true, but neither are included in our ontology. Instead of being made true by a grounding relation or B, the sentences are made true by A. This leaves us with the crazypants view that Bennett was trying to avoid: there are no levels in ontology, the world is “flat.” While the sentence “the table is solid” is true, there is no table in our ontology, only the quarks that make the sentence true.
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