In this paper, we present a new semantic challenge to the moral error theory. Its first component calls upon moral error theorists to deliver a deontic semantics that is consistent with the error-theoretic denial of moral truths by returning the truth-value false to all moral deontic sentences. We call this the ‘consistency challenge’ to the moral error theory. Its second component demands that error theorists explain in which way moral deontic assertions can be seen to differ in meaning despite necessarily sharing the same intension. We call this the ‘triviality challenge’ to the moral error theory. Error theorists can either meet the consistency challenge or the triviality challenge, we argue, but are hard pressed to meet both.
{"title":"Error, consistency and triviality","authors":"Christine Tiefensee, G. Wheeler","doi":"10.1111/NOUS.12375","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/NOUS.12375","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we present a new semantic challenge to the moral error theory. Its first component calls upon moral error theorists to deliver a deontic semantics that is consistent with the error-theoretic denial of moral truths by returning the truth-value false to all moral deontic sentences. We call this the ‘consistency challenge’ to the moral error theory. Its second component demands that error theorists explain in which way moral deontic assertions can be seen to differ in meaning despite necessarily sharing the same intension. We call this the ‘triviality challenge’ to the moral error theory. Error theorists can either meet the consistency challenge or the triviality challenge, we argue, but are hard pressed to meet both.","PeriodicalId":48158,"journal":{"name":"NOUS","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/NOUS.12375","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48148323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Under which conditions are social relationships hierarchical, and under which conditions are they not? This article has three main aims. First, I will explain what this question amounts to by providing a more detailed description of the general phenomenon of social hierarchy. Second, I will provide an account of what social hierarchy is. Third, I will provide some considerations in favour of this account by discussing how it improves upon three alternative ways of thinking about social hierarchy that are sometimes explicitly endorsed and sometimes suggested or presupposed in writings in philosophy and elsewhere.
{"title":"What is social hierarchy?","authors":"H. Wietmarschen","doi":"10.1111/nous.12387","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12387","url":null,"abstract":"Under which conditions are social relationships hierarchical, and under which conditions are they not? This article has three main aims. First, I will explain what this question amounts to by providing a more detailed description of the general phenomenon of social hierarchy. Second, I will provide an account of what social hierarchy is. Third, I will provide some considerations in favour of this account by discussing how it improves upon three alternative ways of thinking about social hierarchy that are sometimes explicitly endorsed and sometimes suggested or presupposed in writings in philosophy and elsewhere.","PeriodicalId":48158,"journal":{"name":"NOUS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/nous.12387","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63498018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The puzzle of cross‐modal shape experience","authors":"E. J. Green","doi":"10.1111/NOUS.12384","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/NOUS.12384","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48158,"journal":{"name":"NOUS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/NOUS.12384","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63497485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why are you talking to yourself? The epistemic role of inner speech in reasoning","authors":"Wade Munroe","doi":"10.1111/NOUS.12385","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/NOUS.12385","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48158,"journal":{"name":"NOUS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/NOUS.12385","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63497537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
It would be good to have a Bayesian decision theory that assesses our decisions and thinking according to everyday standards of rationality— standards that do not require logical omniscience (Garber 1983, Hacking 1967). To that end we develop a “fragmented” decision theory in which a single state of mind is represented by a family of credence functions, each associated with a distinct choice condition (Lewis 1982, Stalnaker 1984). The theory imposes a local coherence assumption guaranteeing that as an agent’s attention shifts, successive batches of “obvious” logical information become available to her. A rule of expected utility maximization can then be applied to the decision of what to attend to next during a train of thought. On the resulting theory, rationality requires ordinary agents to be logically competent and to often engage in trains of thought that increase the unification of their states of mind. But rationality does not require ordinary agents to be logically omniscient. ∗Forthcoming in Noûs. Both authors contributed equally to this work. Thanks to Diego Arana Segura, Sara Aronowitz, Alejandro Pérez Carballo, Ross Cameron, David Chalmers, Jonathan Cohen, Keith DeRose, Sinan Dogramaci, Cian Dorr, Kenny Easwaran, Hartry Field, Branden Fitelson, Peter Fritz, Jeremy Goodman, Daniel Hoek, Frank Jackson, Shivaram Lingamneni, Christopher Meacham, Patrick Miller, Molly O’Rourke-Friel, Michael Rescorla, Ted Sider, Mattias Skipper, Robert Stalnaker, Jason Stanley, Bruno Whittle, Robbie Williams, an anonymous Noûs referee; participants in the Corridor reading group (on three occasions), a graduate seminar session at Rutgers University, a Fall 2011 joint MIT/Princeton graduate seminar, and a Spring 2016 MIT/Princeton/Rutgers graduate seminar taught jointly with Andy Egan; audiences at several APA division meetings (2017 Eastern and Pacific, 2021 Eastern) the 2008 Arizona Ontology Conference, Brown University, Catholic University of Peru, CUNY, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Ohio State University, Syracuse, University, University of Bologna, UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz, University of Connecticut at Storrs, University of Graz, University of Leeds, University of Paris (IHPST), University of Oslo (on two occasions), University of Texas at Austin, Yale University, MIT, and Rutgers University. The initial direction of this paper was enormously influenced by conversations with Andy Egan. Elga gratefully acknowledges support from a 2014-15 Deutsche Bank Membership at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. 1 Standard decision theory is incomplete Professor Moriarty has given John Watson a difficult logic problem and credibly threatened to explode a bomb unless Watson gives the correct answer by noon. Watson has never thought about that problem before, and even experienced logicians take hours to solve it. It is seconds before noon. Watson is then informed that Moriarity has accidentally left the answer to the problem on an e
{"title":"Fragmentation and logical omniscience","authors":"A. Elga, A. Rayo","doi":"10.1111/NOUS.12381","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/NOUS.12381","url":null,"abstract":"It would be good to have a Bayesian decision theory that assesses our decisions and thinking according to everyday standards of rationality— standards that do not require logical omniscience (Garber 1983, Hacking 1967). To that end we develop a “fragmented” decision theory in which a single state of mind is represented by a family of credence functions, each associated with a distinct choice condition (Lewis 1982, Stalnaker 1984). The theory imposes a local coherence assumption guaranteeing that as an agent’s attention shifts, successive batches of “obvious” logical information become available to her. A rule of expected utility maximization can then be applied to the decision of what to attend to next during a train of thought. On the resulting theory, rationality requires ordinary agents to be logically competent and to often engage in trains of thought that increase the unification of their states of mind. But rationality does not require ordinary agents to be logically omniscient. ∗Forthcoming in Noûs. Both authors contributed equally to this work. Thanks to Diego Arana Segura, Sara Aronowitz, Alejandro Pérez Carballo, Ross Cameron, David Chalmers, Jonathan Cohen, Keith DeRose, Sinan Dogramaci, Cian Dorr, Kenny Easwaran, Hartry Field, Branden Fitelson, Peter Fritz, Jeremy Goodman, Daniel Hoek, Frank Jackson, Shivaram Lingamneni, Christopher Meacham, Patrick Miller, Molly O’Rourke-Friel, Michael Rescorla, Ted Sider, Mattias Skipper, Robert Stalnaker, Jason Stanley, Bruno Whittle, Robbie Williams, an anonymous Noûs referee; participants in the Corridor reading group (on three occasions), a graduate seminar session at Rutgers University, a Fall 2011 joint MIT/Princeton graduate seminar, and a Spring 2016 MIT/Princeton/Rutgers graduate seminar taught jointly with Andy Egan; audiences at several APA division meetings (2017 Eastern and Pacific, 2021 Eastern) the 2008 Arizona Ontology Conference, Brown University, Catholic University of Peru, CUNY, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Ohio State University, Syracuse, University, University of Bologna, UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz, University of Connecticut at Storrs, University of Graz, University of Leeds, University of Paris (IHPST), University of Oslo (on two occasions), University of Texas at Austin, Yale University, MIT, and Rutgers University. The initial direction of this paper was enormously influenced by conversations with Andy Egan. Elga gratefully acknowledges support from a 2014-15 Deutsche Bank Membership at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. 1 Standard decision theory is incomplete Professor Moriarty has given John Watson a difficult logic problem and credibly threatened to explode a bomb unless Watson gives the correct answer by noon. Watson has never thought about that problem before, and even experienced logicians take hours to solve it. It is seconds before noon. Watson is then informed that Moriarity has accidentally left the answer to the problem on an e","PeriodicalId":48158,"journal":{"name":"NOUS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/NOUS.12381","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63497863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
According to a widely held view, epistemic reasons are normative reasons for belief – much like prudential or moral reasons are normative reasons for action. In recent years, however, an increasing number of authors have questioned the normativity of epistemic reasons. In this article, I discuss an important challenge for anti-normativism about epistemic reasons and present a series of arguments in support of normativism. The challenge for anti-normativism is to say what kind of reasons epistemic reasons are if they are not normative reasons. I discuss various answers to this challenge and find them all wanting. The arguments for normativism each stress a certain analogy between epistemic reasons and normative reasons for action. Just like normative reasons for action, epistemic reasons provide partial justification; they provide premises for correct reasoning; they constitute good bases for the responses they are reasons for; and they are reasons for which agents can show these responses without committing a mistake. In each case, I argue that the relevant condition is plausibly sufficient for the normativity of a reason, and that normativism is in any case in a much better position to explain the analogy than anti-normativism.
{"title":"Are epistemic reasons normative?","authors":"Benjamin Kiesewetter","doi":"10.1111/NOUS.12379","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/NOUS.12379","url":null,"abstract":"According to a widely held view, epistemic reasons are normative reasons for belief – much like prudential or moral reasons are normative reasons for action. In recent years, however, an increasing number of authors have questioned the normativity of epistemic reasons. In this article, I discuss an important challenge for anti-normativism about epistemic reasons and present a series of arguments in support of normativism. The challenge for anti-normativism is to say what kind of reasons epistemic reasons are if they are not normative reasons. I discuss various answers to this challenge and find them all wanting. The arguments for normativism each stress a certain analogy between epistemic reasons and normative reasons for action. Just like normative reasons for action, epistemic reasons provide partial justification; they provide premises for correct reasoning; they constitute good bases for the responses they are reasons for; and they are reasons for which agents can show these responses without committing a mistake. In each case, I argue that the relevant condition is plausibly sufficient for the normativity of a reason, and that normativism is in any case in a much better position to explain the analogy than anti-normativism.","PeriodicalId":48158,"journal":{"name":"NOUS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/NOUS.12379","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63497774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper resolves a paradox concerning colour constancy. On the one hand, our intuitive, pre-theoretical concept holds that colour constancy involves invariance in the perceived colours of surfaces under changes in illumination. On the other, there is a robust scientific consensus that colour constancy can persist in cerebral achromatopsia, a profound impairment in the ability to perceive colours. The first stage of the solution advo-cates pluralism about our colour constancy capacities. The second details the close relationship between colour constancy and contrast. The third argues that achromatopsics retain a basic type of colour constancy associated with invariants in contrast processing. The fourth suggests that one person-level, conscious upshot of such processing is the visual awareness of chromatic contrasts ‘at’ the edges of surfaces, implicating the ‘colour for form’ perceptual function. This primitive type of constancy sheds new light on our most basic perceptual capacities, which mark the lower borders of representational mind.
{"title":"The paradox of colour constancy: Plotting the lower borders of perception","authors":"W. Davies","doi":"10.1111/NOUS.12386","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/NOUS.12386","url":null,"abstract":"This paper resolves a paradox concerning colour constancy. On the one hand, our intuitive, pre-theoretical concept holds that colour constancy involves invariance in the perceived colours of surfaces under changes in illumination. On the other, there is a robust scientific consensus that colour constancy can persist in cerebral achromatopsia, a profound impairment in the ability to perceive colours. The first stage of the solution advo-cates pluralism about our colour constancy capacities. The second details the close relationship between colour constancy and contrast. The third argues that achromatopsics retain a basic type of colour constancy associated with invariants in contrast processing. The fourth suggests that one person-level, conscious upshot of such processing is the visual awareness of chromatic contrasts ‘at’ the edges of surfaces, implicating the ‘colour for form’ perceptual function. This primitive type of constancy sheds new light on our most basic perceptual capacities, which mark the lower borders of representational mind.","PeriodicalId":48158,"journal":{"name":"NOUS","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2021-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/NOUS.12386","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"63497602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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