schedule for madison metaethics workshop

The schedule for the 5th Annual Madison Metaethics Workshop has been posted. You can find it here (pdf). It’s going to be very, very interesting. USC did exceptionally well with papers by both Mark Schroeder and Stephen Finlay (Jake Ross, who is USC’s other full-time metaethicist, isn’t eligible since he presented last year). David Enoch and Jamie Dreier are other highlights. Along with, of course, the keynotes by Raz and Blackburn.

the deontological/non-deontological distinction as the internalism/externalism distinction

I have always found it curious that such a small area of logical space is explored in the internalism/externalism debate in epistemology. I think that this is really brought out in the various ways that people mark the distinction between internalism and externalism. One way is the deontological/non-deontological distinction. Supposedly, internalism is deontological–meaning, I think, that there are true ‘ought’ propositions involving belief–and externalism is non-deontological. Out of all of the various attempts to mark the distinction, I think that this is the worst. Mostly because this ignores so many possible externalist views (those who mark the difference in this way tend to fixate on process reliabilism; come to think of it, lots of people tend to fixate on process reliabilism as the externalist view. Certainly there are sociological reasons for this, but it is still annoying).

To see this, all we have to do is look at the metaethics literature. A fairly orthodox view about practical reasons in the metaethics literature is that reasons are at least sometimes constituted by mind-independent entities. A less common view, but one that I still find enormously plausible, is that (at least part of) practical rationality has to do with correctly responding to these reasons. Traditionally, internalist views have been deontological because they too hold that being justified has to do with correctly responding to reasons. However, these internalist views hold that reasons are constituted by internal states. But obviously that is a substantive position about the nature of epistemic reasons. Moreover, one could follow the metaethicists and hold the view that epistemic reasons are constituted by mind-independent entities. And one could also hold that being epistemically justified has to do with correctly responding to these mind-independent reasons in the same way as being practically rational has to do with correctly responding to practical reasons. Thus, there are true ‘ought’ propositions having to do with beliefs. Voila, we have a deontological externalist view.

Maybe I’m missing something?

summer reading

After a bit of a break from a full on philosophy schedule, I have once again started to be philosophically productive. Since it is the summer, that means first and foremost reading. I have a massive queue of material that I would like to get through. If anyone is interested in reading any of these things concurrently, then send me an email or leave a comment. The Williamson reading group was very helpful and fun last summer. I would be happy to do more groups this summer, but I am going to leave it to someone else to take the initiative to get it going. Ok, on to the books I want to read or reread:

• Jonathan Dancy’s Practical Reality
• Mark Schroeder’s Being For
• Timothy Williamson’s The Philosophy of Philosophy (kind of a reread)
• Frank Jackson’s From Metaphysics to Ethics (reread)
• Saul Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language
• Steven Mumford’s Dispositions
• Bob Stalnaker’s Inquiry

In addition to those, we are doing a real in person reading group on Bonjour’s In Defense of Pure Reason and Al Calsullo’s A Priori Justification. I’m not too wild about the prospects of that as I read Al’s book last summer and I’ve never been taken with Bonjour’s books. But I should obviously take both books seriously.

I also have a lot of papers to read. To begin with, I have a lot of papers to read about the coherence requirements of rationality. I would say at least 20-30 papers need to be read for that project. I also would like to track down some in depth discussions of dispositional accounts of propositional attitudes. I haven’t really found much by way of this, though. Suggestions are appreciated. Lastly, I need to catch up a bit on the contextualism/relatavism literature.

the end has come

Aidan has declared victory over year three, Shawn over year two. It is now my turn to declare victory over year one. This year has been incredibly busy, but at the same time incredibly rewarding. I spent the entire today grading in order to finish before the weekend. It sucked. Here is a recap of some of the not so sucky parts of year one:

First, John Gibbon’s ethics of belief class was very rewarding. I have gotten or will have gotten at least 5 papers out of things that I thought about in connection with that class. Plus, watching John lecture is a great experience. Mark van Roojen’s distributive justice seminar was also very rewarding–especially in class discussion. I also enjoyed Jan Dowell’s language class. I particularly enjoyed my paper topic–contextualism v. relativism in the gradable adjectives literature.

This semester I took my favorite class of all time, which was Dave Sobel’s seminar on subjectivism about welfare and reasons for action. We had some really nice discussions of some of the classic pieces in the literature. We also read all of Mark Schroeder’s new book The Slaves of the Passions. This was by far my favorite reading this year. It is very, very good. Well worth lots of energy. The paper I wrote for the class is also something I am proud of. A version of it will make up the first part of my MA thesis. I’ve put up the draft that I turned into Dave on my website. It’s called ‘Correctly Responding to Reasons and Internalism about Rationality.’ You can find it here.

My other classes were unfortunately more of a strain. Specifically, my metalogic class. There were problems throughout on many different levels. Let’s just say it was a very stressful, unpredictable mess. My other class was on the Critique of Pure Reason. Coming into the semester I thought I would like this class the least. But, in the end, I really enjoyed reading through the book. It’s a very strange book indeed. What I am most proud of–at least class-wise–is that I don’t have any incompletes. All of my class work for the first year has been completed and turned in.

I was also quite busy travelling to conferences. I ended up going to three (although, in the end, my papers were accepted to seven). I went to Los Angeles in February to present my paper ‘On Maximal Rationality’ at the UCLA/USC Graduate Conference. It was a great experience, and the California weather was amazing. A few weeks later I travelled to Pittsburgh to present (again) ‘On Maximal Rationality’ at the Pitt/CMU Graduate Conference. This was also a lot of fun. Finally, the first weekend of April I went to Austin for the UT Graduate conference. This time I presented ‘A Defense of The Factoring Account of the Having Reasons Relation.’ This was quite the event. I had a blast. I wrote up a recap of the first two here. I wrote up a recap of the UT conference here. ‘On Maximal Rationality’ was also accepted for the Society for Exact Philosophy meeting next week in Laramie, WY. Unfortunately, I had already made plans to go to AZ, and I thus have to miss it. Quite disappointing.

I also wrote a few papers on the side. I will be polishing them up a bit in the coming weeks before starting some new projects. Stay tuned for that.

I am also trying to cut some things from my ever growing reading list. There are several books in the queue for this summer. I would love to have one or two online reading groups again this summer. Stay tuned for a post about that in the next few days.

a very late recap of the 2008 ut grad conference

I am somewhat surprised that it has been over a month since my last post. Such is life I suppose.

Anyway, I want to write a quick note about the UT Grad Conference that I participated in a few weeks ago (April 5-6th). Although I enjoyed the other two conferences I went to this semester immensely, the UT conference was by far the most rewarding. Both Dave Chalmers and Tamar Szabo-Gendler sat in on each talk. Moreover, they commented significantly on nearly every paper. On top of that, the papers were of exceptional quality. There were three people from Oxford, one from SLU, one from Michigan, one from Princeton, and me. Excellent line up.

My talk went well from my perspective. I used powerpoint for the first time, and I think that it greatly enhanced the presentation. I will definitely continue to use powerpoint in the future.

Besides the stellar philosophy, the socializing was exceptional. David Chalmers is a party god, and he didn’t disappoint. I think that the highlight of the whole weekend was when he immediately mentioned the reference to my website on the philosophy job market blog upon hearing what my name was. He instantly knew who I was. Given the context, I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Luckily, he immediately said that my website is perfectly fine by his lights. I expect this is the majority opinion.

I should thank the organizers, Enrico Grube and John Bengson. It was a stellar event. I also must thank my hosts, Aidan McGlynn and Lauren Waterman. Thanks for the warm hospitality.

Compatibilism about practical reasons and the propositional account

Let’s call a theory of practical reasons a compatibilist view just in case it holds that there are two different types of practical reasons: motivating and normative reasons. Eric Wiland (here) argues that compatibilism cannot account for all of the following constraints:

(C1) The theory [of practical reasons] should display how reasons
explain the actions they are reasons for.

(C2) The theory should display how reasons justify the actions that they are reasons for.

(C3) The theory should display how reasons that justify action are also the sort of thing to explain action, and vice versa.

To be clear, Wiland thinks that explanatory reasons are the same as motivating reasons. Below we’ll see that this is wrong, but that isn’t that important.

I think that a version of compatibilism–the propositional account–can easily account for (C1)-(C3). The propositional account holds that both motivating reasons and normative reasons are constituted by propositions. Motivating reasons and normative reasons play different functional roles, however. Motivating reasons motivate and normative reasons justify. There are at least two important factors that determine whether something is a motivating reason. First, in order for a proposition to be a motivating reason R for agent A to Φ, R must be able to sensibly explain A’s Φing if A Φs. So, in order for the proposition that the drink is a cosmopolitan to be a motivating reason for Eve to drink from the glass, that the drink is a cosmopolitan must be a sensible explanation of Eve’s drinking if she drinks. But this isn’t enough. For suppose Eve’s twin sister Yvette unintentionally drinks from glasses with red liquids in them every time they are placed in front of her. In Yvette’s case, one could give a sensible explanation of her drinking by citing the proposition that the drink is a cosmopolitan, but that proposition wouldn’t be her motivating reason because she didn’t act for any reason. Thus, the second important factor is the proposition must be the thing (or one of the things) that moves the agent to act; it must be the reason the agent acts for. Yvette doesn’t act because of the proposition that the drink is a cosmopolitan, but Eve does. Thus, in order for proposition to be a motivating reason R for A to Φ, it must be (1) that citing R will be a sensible explanation of A’s Φing and (2) that R moved A to Φ.

On the propositional account, normative reasons are also propositions. However, they play a different functional role than motivating reasons. They justify intentions (or actions). Thus, there are different identity conditions for normative reasons than motivating reasons. First, in order for a proposition P to be a normative reason to Φ, P must ‘count in favor’ of Φing. Second, P must be true.

It’s important to notice that normative reasons can at the same time be motivating reasons. Take Eve’s case as an example. Given certain background conditions, she is sufficiently justified in drinking the cosmopolitan. Thus, that the drink is a cosmopolitan is a sufficiently weighty normative reason. Moreover, it is also her motivating reason to drink. It’s also important to note that it’s plausible that one can have motivating reasons that aren’t normative reasons, and vice versa. Joe’s motivating reason for intending to kill his wife might be that he ought to kill his wife. Plausibly, though, that proposition is false, and thus cannot be a normative reason. Moreover, Yvette might have the same normative reason as her sister to drink from the glass. That is, she might be in an identical situation with respect to normative reasons as her sister and thus have a normative reason to drink the cosmopolitan. Nonetheless, she doesn’t have a motivating reason to drink because she unintentionally drinks.

Now back to Wiland. He argues that compatibilist theories have two fatal flaws. First, he argues that the bifurcation of reasons into normative and motivating is ad hoc. Second, he argues that on compatibilist theories no one can ever act for the right reason. This is because the reasons that move people to act are motivating reasons, and the reasons that make an act the right one are normative reasons. But since they aren’t the same thing, it follows that no one can ever do the right thing for the right reason.

In pushing both objections Wiland assumes that the compatibilist must claim that motivating and normative reasons are ontologically different–i.e. constituted by different things. But this is just false. The propositional account holds that both types of reasons are constituted by propositions. Nonetheless, they are distinct kinds of reasons because they both play a different functional role. This confusion leads Wiland down the wrong path.

First, (C1)-(C3) implicitly assume that something plays both functional roles. Indeed, (C1)-(C3) force theories of practical reasons to account for the different functional roles. Moreover, there doesn’t seem to be a single concept that can play both roles. This is because of Joe’s case and Yvette’s case. In Joe’s case, Joe has a motivating reason but not a normative one. In Yvette’s case, Yvette has a normative reason but not a motivating one. Thus, it seems we must posit two concepts to get the extension right. This is precisely what the propositional account does. Thus, I fail to see why the bifurcation is ad hoc.

Second, agents can do the right thing for the right reason on the propositional account. This is because both motivating reasons and normative reasons are constituted by propositions. Moreover, nothing about the nature of normative reasons prevents them from simultaneously being motivating reasons. In other words, it’s easily possible–indeed it happens daily–that proposition P can (1) be true, (2) count in favor of Φing, (3) be a sensible explanation of A’s Φing and (4) be the thing that gets A to Φ.

Wedgwood’s explanation of internalism about rationality

In ‘Internalism Explained,’ Ralph Wedgwood attempts to explain–apparently not argue for–internalism about rationality. Internalism is expressed by Internalism:

internalism: Necessarily, if A and B are internal twins, then A is rational iff B is rational.

Wedgwood focuses solely on belief revision–i.e. on the requirements governing coming to have new beliefs and the requirements governing standing beliefs. He starts out by noting that different situations call for different belief revisions. Since this is true, we can imagine a set of rules that delineate which belief revisions are called for in various circumstances. One follows some of those rules as a means to following other rules. However, one also follows some of those rules directly–i.e. one follows some other rules by not following simpler rules intermediately. Wedgwood calls the rules that one follows directly the basic rules. He holds that the basic rules are the rules governing rational belief. Wedgwood argues that whenever one revises her beliefs by following a (direct?) rule, a ‘fully-articulated folk psychological explanation of that belief revision will always identify the proximate explanation of that belief revision with’ a non-factive mental state. Thus, since he holds that the basic rules govern rational belief revision and he holds that necessarily each folk psychological explanation of a belief revision that is caused by following a basic rule is spelled out in terms of internal facts, it follows that internalism is true.

I could spell out in more detail Wedgwood’s argument (and trust me, there are lots more details), but I don’t think it is necessary to show that Wedgwood’s conclusion is actually compatible with externalism. This is because in order to explain internalism, it is not enough to show that whenever someone is rational, she is rational in virtue of internal facts. One also has to show that that whenever someone is irrational, she is irrational because she fails to respond to internal facts in the appropriate way. But I think that it’s clear that Wedgwood has only done the former. To see this, consider the following two cases:

banal: Suppose Eve is driving home from work. She is approaching a traffic light that is green. She believes that since the light is green, no pedestrians will cross the street. She thus believes that it’s safe to drive through the light. As she approaches the light, her gaze focuses on a billboard on the side of the road. No pedestrians cross her path and she safely makes it home.

danger: Suppose Eve is driving home from work. She is approaching a traffic light that is green. She believes that since the light is green, no pedestrians will cross the street. She thus believes that it’s safe to drive through the light. As she approaches the light, her gaze focuses on a billboard on the side of the road. Just as her gaze moves from the road to the billboard, a pedestrian streaks onto the road. She hits and kills the pedestrian.

Call the world where Banal takes place W1 and the world where Danger takes place W2. Obviously Eve is rational in Banal. But I have the strong intuition that she is irrational in Danger. More specifically, I think that her belief that it’s safe to drive through the intersection and her intention to drive through the intersection are irrational in Danger. Ignore for the moment that there is a more straightforward argument against internalism based on these cases (viz. that Eve in W1 and Eve in W2 are internal twins yet in W1 Eve is rational and in W2 Eve is irrational). Let’s focus on ways in which Eve can be irrational in this situation. Remember that Wedgwood has only claimed that every time Eve is rational, the fully articulated folk psychological explanation only mentions non-factive mental states. So, one way Eve could be irrational is if she saw the pedestrian but failed to (e.g.) form the intention to safely avoid hitting the pedestrian. In that case, there would be a fully articulated folk psychological explanation that only mentions non-factive mental states explaining her irrationality. But consider Danger. In that case, she is intuitively irrational, but there cannot be a fully articulated folk psychological explanation that only mentions non-factive mental states because she had no experience with the content of the pedestrian. But notice that this contradicts nothing Wedgwood actually says. He only makes a claim about explanations of someone’s rationality, not their irrationality. Thus, his official claim is compatible with externalism. That is, it might be that necessarily when one is rational there is a fully articulated folk psychological explanation explaining one’s rationality by only referring to one’s non-factive mental states while at the same time it being the case that there are instances of irrationality where there is no such explanation. But if the latter is true, then internalism if false. So, Wedgwood’s explanation is no explanation at all.

a recap of two stellar conferences

The weekend of February 8th I went to Los Angeles to give my paper ‘On Maximal Rationality’ at the UCLA/USC Graduate Conference.  February was a crazy month; so, I wasn’t able to ever find the time to post about it. Well, today I got back from Pittsburgh and the Pitt/CMU Graduate Conference (where I also gave ‘On Maximal Rationality’). I think it’s time to post some thoughts about both conferences.

First, UCLA/USC:

The weather was amazing–especially since two days earlier it was below zero in Lincoln. The talks were top-notch as well. My favorite was Malte Willer’s talk about Thony Gillies’ update semantic work on Moore’s paradox. Not only was the paper impressive, but the LaTex pdf show was beautiful. Sara Bernstein’s talk was also quite good. I won’t comment on my talk other than to say that I think that it went fairly well.

Judy Thomson was the keynote. She was talking about the paradigm Phil 106 problem: The Trolley Case. She argued that perhaps the literature made a mistake in the beginning by assuming that it was permissible to divert the trolley in order to save the five. It was interesting, but I think that most consequentialists would balk at such a suggestion. It was very foot-stomping of her. She is a feisty lady, though, and no one wants to get in a sparing match with her. She was perfectly lovely after the talk and at dinner.

I also should say  that the conference was very well run. Eileen Nutting, Lewis Powell, and Julia Staffel did particularly good jobs. Overall, an excellent experience.

Second, Pitt/CMU:

The weather wasn’t amazing. But the rest of it made up for the bad-ish weather. Bas van Fraassen was the keynote, and he was cool enough to come to the welcome party on Friday night. He is a very interesting guy who is very candid. At the welcome party I met for the first time fellow bloggers Shawn Standefer and Ole Hjortland. They were talking most of the night about logic; since I’m a dummy about such things I stayed out of it (sounded interesting though).

The talks were very good as well. My favorite student talk was Ole’s (again, although I’m a dummy about such things). I also really enjoyed Gordon Belot’s talk about geometrical possibilities. Van Fraassen was also very interesting. He was also remarkably clear. I wish I had that talent. Hopefully I will some day. I guess that’s a big part of why one should present at these things. Again, I will refrain from extensively commenting on my presentation. I actually think I did worse in Pitt than I did in LA. I also think I disappointed a few people (apparently the referees really liked the paper). If that is the case, then I am sorry! I tried. Again, working on presentation skills is a big virtue of  going to grad conferences. I think I need to use powerpoint. Especially after seeing another beautiful LaTex presentation courtesy of Ole. Hopefully that will happen in Austin next month.

Pitt/CMU was also very well run. I especially thank Ben Jantzen and Kathryn Lindemann. Without those two I would not have gotten anywhere. Thanks!

Immunity from Blame: Excused v. Justified

In the comments thread on my last post, Clayton mentioned the distinction between being immune from blame because one was justified and being immune from blame because one is excused for some reason. This distinction comes up in Wedgwood’s ‘Explaining Internalism’ as well, and I think Wedgwood uses it in a bad way. He is attacking the ’standard’ internalist view of rationality. On the standard view, it is the case that one is rational only if one is ‘cognitively blameless’. I don’t really know what the ‘cognitively’ is supposed to be doing, but I am in broad agreement that being rational has some link with being blameless. But Wedgewood attacks this feature by pointing out that there are two ways of being blameless–viz. being excused and being justified. Thus, he concludes that being blameless doesn’t have a tight connection with being rational.

I don’t feel the pull of this argument. Certainly when one is excused from blame one is immune from blame. But this is obviously different from being justified and thus being immune from blame. When one is justified, there isn’t some overriding consideration counting against one’s action/belief. But when one is excused there is some overriding consideration counting against one’s action/belief. It’s just that they have some type of excuse for failing to conform with what there was overriding reason to do.

Consider an analogy with having an equal amount of evidence to believe some proposition p. You could have an equal amount of evidence to believe p than to not believe p if you had no evidence either way. This is analogous to being justified. You can be immune from blame if there is no reason to blame you. You could also have an equal amount of evidence if you have two pieces of evidence that balance each other out. This is analogous to being excused. There are reasons to blame you, they are just neutralized by other considerations. Clearly these two are different. There are reasons to treat you as irrational when you are excused for blame. You are irrational, but you aren’t deserving of blame because of some countervailing consideration. This is not so when you are justified. And this is precisely what one is looking for when one looks at the connection between being blameless and being rational. Namely, that when you are fully rational, there is no reason to rationally blame you. This is simply not the case in the case of being excused from blame.

Bernie, The Petrol, and The Negative Reason Existential Fallacy

Consider the unfortunate case of Bernie (this case is originally given in Williams’s “Internal and External Reasons”). Bernie is at a cocktail party. He is thirsty and his favorite drink is gin and tonic. He thus orders a gin and tonic. The bartender gives him a glass with a clear liquid in it. Bernie forms the belief that his glass contains gin and tonic. Bernie forms an intention to drink from the glass. Unfortunately for Bernie, the glass doesn’t contain gin and tonic, it contains petrol. There are at least five interesting questions to ask about Bernie: (1) Does he have a reason to believe that his glass contains gin and tonic? (2) Does he have a reason to intend to drink from the glass? (3) Is he rational in believing that the glass contains gin and tonic? (4) Is he rational in intending to drink from the glass? (5) What’s the relationship between (1) and (3) and (2) and (4)?