Philosophy

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Open Access
An Algorithmic Interpretation of Quantum Probability
(2014-07-09) Randall, Allan Frederick; Hattiangadi, Jagdish
The Everett (or relative-state, or many-worlds) interpretation of quantum mechanics has come under fire for inadequately dealing with the Born rule (the formula for calculating quantum probabilities). Numerous attempts have been made to derive this rule from the perspective of observers within the quantum wavefunction. These are not really analytic proofs, but are rather attempts to derive the Born rule as a synthetic a priori necessity, given the nature of human observers (a fact not fully appreciated even by all of those who have attempted such proofs). I show why existing attempts are unsuccessful or only partly successful, and postulate that Solomonoff's algorithmic approach to the interpretation of probability theory could clarify the problems with these approaches. The Sleeping Beauty probability puzzle is used as a springboard from which to deduce an objectivist, yet synthetic a priori framework for quantum probabilities, that properly frames the role of self-location and self-selection (anthropic) principles in probability theory. I call this framework "algorithmic synthetic unity" (or ASU). I offer no new formal proof of the Born rule, largely because I feel that existing proofs (particularly that of Gleason) are already adequate, and as close to being a formal proof as one should expect or want. Gleason's one unjustified assumption--known as noncontextuality--is, I will argue, completely benign when considered within the algorithmic framework that I propose. I will also argue that, to the extent the Born rule can be derived within ASU, there is no reason to suppose that we could not also derive all the other fundamental postulates of quantum theory, as well. There is nothing special here about the Born rule, and I suggest that a completely successful Born rule proof might only be possible once all the other postulates become part of the derivation. As a start towards this end, I show how we can already derive the essential content of the fundamental postulates of quantum mechanics, at least in outline, and especially if we allow some educated and well-motivated guesswork along the way. The result is some steps towards a coherent and consistent algorithmic interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Open Access
Commensense Psychology: Fodor, Dennett, Baker
(2014-07-28) Gall, Diane Rebecca; Baker, Judith
The predominant conception of our everyday understanding of other people's actions is as a commonsense psychology that is a (proto-)scientific theory. A central version of this conception is that this theory takes propositional attitudes as mental states which are causally effective in the production of human purposive action. In this essay, I argue that this central version of our commonsense psychology is mistaken. I take Jerry Fodor's Psychosemantics as a locus classicus of this view. I examine arguments from Daniel Dennett and Lynne Rudder Baker that Fodor (and others who argue along the same lines as Fodor) make serious errors in being committed to a hyper-realist (i.e., physicalist) conception of mental states and causality. I argue that Fodor does not provide an adequate exposition of how his candidate for a scientific theory that vindicates his version of commonsense psychology accounts for the meaning of a propositional attitude. I further argue that our everyday practices that deploy commonsense psychological concepts are inconsistent with characterising commonsense psychology as a (proto-)theory or as part of a (proto-)science. From this investigation, I conclude that Fodor's conception of commonsense psychology psychology is untenable. Finally, I discuss briefly an alternative that is suggested by the rebuttals of Dennett and Baker that commonsense psychology is better conceived as an non-theoretical explanatory practice that deploys an alternative conception of psychological causality distinct from physical causality.
Open Access
Situationism and Moral Responsibility: An Externalist Account
(2015-01-26) Ciurria, Michelle Theresa; Myers, Robert
Situationism is the position that there is no such thing as broad, situation-invariant character. This view emerged from situationist psychology experiments, such as the famous Milgram Obedience Experiments. It is supposed to impugn character-based theories that posit motivationally self-sufficient virtues, such as (one natural reading of) Aristotelian virtue ethics. While situationists agree on this point, a survey of the literature reveals that they defend inconsistent accounts of moral responsibility, ranging from radically revisionary to staunchly conservative. In my dissertation, I begin by focusing on three of the most preeminent situationists—John Doris, Gilbert Harman, and Philip Zimbardo—and show that their accounts of moral responsibility are inchoate, mutually incompatible, and sometimes incongruous with the central logic of situationist psychology. I also argue that the epistemological problem, i.e., the problem that we have very weak and unreliable access to our mental states, undermines traditional psychological accounts of moral responsibility, which depend on strong introspective access. This position is corroborated by cognitive science research into cognitive distortions such as confabulation, rationalization, and cognitive bias. In the constructive part of my dissertation, I propose a new, externalistic account of moral responsibility, based on Holmes' standard of the reasonable person (SRP), which measures responsibility by what a reasonable person would do in the defendant's circumstances. This account was developed as an alternative to traditional choice and character-based theories of legal responsibility, and is particularly apt for assessing cases of negligence and coercion, which traditional theories were incapable of explaining. If we see situational constraints as a form of coercion, this account is also adept at capturing these types of excuses. I argue that an equivalent to SRP is long overdue in moral philosophy, for the purposes of capturing non-psychological excusing factors and accommodating empirical research that undermines the traditional assumption of epistemic transparency.
Open Access
Plato's Conception of Divination
(2015-01-26) Landry, Aaron James; Naddaf, Gerard
I take one of the goals of Plato’s dialogues is to stake out a territory for philosophy. In order to do this, Plato evaluates and critiques other, more established, disciplines like rhetoric, the sophistic movement, poetry, and finally, divination. The last, in particular, has been neglected even though it arises in nearly all stages of Plato’s writing. Accordingly, in my dissertation, I interrogate the ways in which Plato embodies Greek norms about divination, but I also investigate how he transforms it, once he subject it to philosophical evaluation. Plato never denies the authenticity of divination, but he does curtail its scope. He considers it a craft, but he also claims that the best seers are those who are divinely inspired. I analyze this puzzle, together with connection between divination and madness. Finally, I examine whether Plato's distinction between technical and possession divination is too polarizing. My principal evidence is Diotima in Plato's Symposium; she is a superlative seer who discursively engages with Socrates about the nature of Eros, even though she should not be able to do so according to Plato's own distinction. In the end, I hope that this dissertation underscores the increasingly accepted contention of Plato's pervasive religiosity.
Open Access
Merging the Natural with the Artificial: The Nature of a Machine and the Collapse of Cybernetics
(2015-08-28) Malapi-Nelson, Alcibiades Julio; Hattiangadi, Jagdish
This thesis is concerned with the rise and fall of cybernetics, understood as an inquiry regarding the nature of a machine. The collapse of this scientific movement, usually explained by external factors such as lack of funding, will be addressed from a philosophical standpoint. Delving deeper into the theoretical core of cybernetics, one could find that the contributions of William Ross Ashby and John von Neumann shed light onto the particular ways in which cybernetics understood the nature and behavior of a machine. Ross Ashby offered an account of the nature of a machine and then extended the scope of “the mechanical”. This extension would encompass areas that will later be shown to be problematic for mechanization, such as learning and adaptation. The way in which a machine-ontology was applied would trigger effects seemingly contrary to cybernetics’ own distinctive features. Von Neumann, on the other hand, tinkered with a mechanical model of the brain, realizing grave limitations that prompted him to look for an alternative for cybernetics to work on. The proposal that came out of this resulted in a serious blow against the theoretical core of cybernetics. Why did cybernetics collapse? The contributions coming from both thinkers, in their own ways, spelled out the main tenets of the cybernetic proposal. But these very contributions led to cybernetics’ own demise. The whole story can be framed under the rubric of a serious inquiry into the metaphysical underpinnings of a machine. The rise and fall of cybernetics could thus help us better understand what a machine is from a philosophical standpoint. Although a historical component is present, my emphasis relies on a philosophical consideration of the cybernetic phenomenon. This metaphysical dissection will attempt to clarify how a machine-based ontology remained at the core of cybernetics. An emerging link will hopefully lead towards establishing a tri-partite correlation between cybernetics’ own evolution, its theoretical core, and its collapse. It will hopefully show how cybernetic inquiries into the nature of a machine might have proved fatal to the very enterprise at large, due to unsolvable theoretical tensions.
Open Access
Autonomy, Automaticity, and Attention: Why Empirical Research on Consciousness Matters to Autonomous Agency
(2015-08-28) Fenton, Brandon Daniel; Dimock, Susan
This dissertation addresses the question: what is personal autonomy? It begins by examining the main theoretical accounts of autonomous agency currently on offer. Although each of the available approaches faces significant criticism, I defend a revised internalist (and functionalist) account of autonomous agency which draws primarily upon the work of Frankfurt, Dworkin, and Bratman. Next, I show that recent work in scientific psychology (viz. research on automaticity) reveals new dangers for any account of autonomous agency (including my own newly revised internalist account). My response to the identified threat of automaticity draws upon research in the psychology of attention and, more extensively, on theorizing upon the unity of consciousness. I use a number of insights gleaned from these areas of research to then construct a more robust theoretical understanding of autonomous agency—one that addresses the worries generated by automaticity by proposing new and additional necessary and sufficient conditions for autonomy. What these new conditions entail is that individuals must possess a particular form of unified consciousness across time in order to have acted autonomously.
Open Access
A Pyrrhonist Examination of Scientific Knowledge
(2015-08-28) Wilson, Alex; Hattiangadi, Jagdish
In the recent literature in the philosophy of science there is much discussion of scientific knowledge, but rarely an explicit account of such knowledge. Employing the Pyrrhonist skeptics modes, I examine the implicit ‘justified true belief’ analysis of scientific knowledge presented by Stathis Psillos, the primitivist account offered by Alexander Bird, and Bas van Fraassen’s voluntarist epistemology. I conclude that all of these positions appear to fail. Psillos’ account relies on a theory of reference that cannot block skeptical challenges to scientific realism, nor can it identify natural kinds in a non-ad hoc manner. Bird’s account also cannot refute skeptical challenges to it, nor can it adequately show how the full truth necessary for knowledge is acquired. Van Fraassen’s voluntarist epistemology attempts to avoid skepticism at the cost of inconsistency. From this representative sample of accounts I argue that there is seemingly no account of scientific knowledge that can as yet withstand Pyrrhonist skeptical scrutiny. In the first chapter of my dissertation, I give an overview of Pyrrhonist skepticism and the neo-Pyrrhonism of Robert Fogelin and Otavio Bueno, respectively. In the second chapter, I exposit Psillos’ semantic realist position, and argue that he gives an implicit justified true belief analysis of scientific knowledge. Moreover, I examine Bird’s primitivist account of knowledge. In chapter three, I discuss van Fraassen’s philosophy of science as stated in constructive empiricism and empiricist structuralism, and his voluntarist epistemology. In chapter four, I argue that all of these different views fail to provide a compelling theory of scientific knowledge. In the fifth chapter, I consider how the traditional Pyrrhonist take on the relation of theory to practice, and the positive epistemic additions of Fogelin and Bueno’s neo-Pyrrhonisms. I conclude that the traditional Pyrrhonists were acting inconsistently when they sought out new theories to influence their practice, and that the positive epistemic additions to the skeptical modes of Pyrrhonism fall prey to the modes themselves.
Open Access
The Moral Agency of Animals: Responsible in Practice
(2015-08-28) Ring, Rebecca Lynn; Andrews, Kristin A.
Mark Rowlands argues some non-human animals can be moral subjects that can act for moral reasons, but cannot be moral agents because they lack sufficient understanding for responsibility. I argue Rowlands’ mere moral subjects are responding to, not acting for, moral reasons. Action for moral reasons is necessarily normative and the actor must be able to track the moral reason. I argue Rowlands’ conflation of moral agency and moral autonomy results in falsely denying responsibility to animals. Moral autonomy is an ideal to which some humans can aim. Responsibility is not contingent on this ability, but on the cognitive and volitional capacities of the individual and her normative social practices. Some animals can be moral agents in virtue of their normative social practices that involve harm to others and sharing resources. Moral agency and responsibility can be ascribed to some animals in terms of their intentional agency within such practices.
Open Access
The Ethically Required Level of Mental Capacity Needed for Consent to Participate in Clinical Research on the Terminally Ill
(2015-12-16) Manduca-Barone, Alessandro Angelo; Waring, Duff R.
While medical informed consent documents have received much attention in literature and throughout varying North American legal jurisdictions, the competence needed to be able to provide informed consent is often overlooked. This is especially apparent in the medical research field where clinical trials are done with terminally ill human subjects. However, analyzing competence is crucial for the protection of subjects’ autonomy. If informed consent is to be truly considered an expression of autonomous action, then it is necessary that the decision-maker be sufficiently competent to provide that informed consent. Given the vital role that competence plays in proper autonomous decision-making, the following will first engage in an examination of the concept of competence and second the requisite competence needed for terminally ill subjects to be able to provide informed consent to research participation. Since there is still some disagreement regarding the components of competence, first a proper description of competence will be provided. This will involve depicting competence as being comprised of four sub-abilities, specifically understanding, appreciation, reasoning, and voluntariness. With the proper depiction of competence, the remainder of this work will contend that current approaches to determine competency requirements are flawed, that the medical research context ought to require more stringent competency requirements than the medical practice context for the terminally ill, and that a Subject Rights Advocate (SRA), unaffiliated with the research study, should be employed to bolster/enhance and evaluate the competence of terminally ill potential subjects, as well as solicit the final informed consent. It will additionally be argued that the method the SRA ought to use in achieving such aims should be based on a conversational approach.
Open Access
'Disorder' and Its Evaluative Implications for Psychiatry
(2015-12-16) Ashouri, Sarvin; Waring, Duff R.
The proper definition of the concept of ‘disorder’ could resolve the existing issues in psychiatry today. Christopher Boorse and R.E. Kendell, as proponents of the medical model, aim at defining the concept in scientific and value-free terms. K.W.M. Fulford develops the fact-plus-value model which integrates the factual and evaluative elements. John Z. Sadler applies the Fulfordian account to diagnostic manuals to resolve their inconsistencies. I find Fulford’s initial and later arguments incongruent. His account is also too evaluative given the absence of any restrictions on the place and role of values. Furthermore, it is relatively easy to conclude that given the prominent position of values, facts need not exist as they are essentially evaluative terms with merely an overt factual connotation. Moreover, values provide the benchmark against which facts are assessed (for their degree of value-ladenness) and identified; and this makes facts dependent on and a subclass of values.
Open Access
Concepts, Cases, and Compellingness: Exploring the Role of Intuitive Analysis in Philosophical Inquiry
(2015-12-16) Cumby, Jill Nicole; Jackman, Henry
This dissertation provides a better understanding of the method of cases, a method widely used in philosophical theorizing. Using this method involves relying on one’s intuitive judgments about cases to guide theorizing. Recently, such judgments have been experimentally examined, and it has been argued that the results of these studies encourage skepticism about the trustworthiness of this method. Responding to this skepticism involves developing a better understanding of the method of cases and the reliance on intuitive judgments in theory construction. I contribute to this project by arguing for a constraint on the kinds of hypothetical cases that can function as compelling counterexamples in conceptual analysis.
Open Access
How Many Minds Do We Need? Toward A One-System Account of Human Reasoning
(2015-12-16) Mugg, Joshua Samuel Copley; Khalidi, Muhammad Ali
To explain data from the reasoning and decision-making literature, dual-process theorists claim that human reasoning is divided: Type-1 processes are fast, automatic, associative, and evolutionarily old, while Type-2 processes are slow, effortful, rule-based, and evolutionarily new. Philosophers have used this distinction to their own philosophic ends in moral reasoning, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. I criticize dual-process theory on conceptual and empirical grounds and propose an alternative cognitive architecture for human reasoning. In chapter 1, I identify and clarify the key elements of dual-process and dual-system theory. Then, in chapter 2, I undercut an inference to the best explanation for dual-process theory by offering a one-system alternative. I argue that a single reasoning system can accomplish the explanatory work done by positing two distinct processes or systems. In chapter 3, I argue that a one-system account of human reasoning is empirically testable—it is incompatible with there being contradictory beliefs that are produced by simultaneously occurring reasoning processes. I further argue, contra Sloman (1996), that we do not have evidence for such beliefs. Next, in chapter 4, I argue that the properties used to distinguish Type-1 from Type-2 processes cross-cut each other (e.g. there are evolutionarily new processes that are effortless). The upshot is that even if human reasoning were divided, it would not parse neatly into two tidy categories: ‘Type-1’ and ‘Type-2.’ Finally, in chapter 5, I fill in the details of my own one-system alternative. I argue that there is one reasoning system that can operate in many modes: consciously or unconsciously, automatically or controlled, and inductively or deductively. In contrast to the dual-process theorists, these properties do not cluster. For each property pair (e.g. automatic/controlled), and for a single instance of a task, the reasoning system will operate in a definitive mode. The reasoning system is like a mixing board: it has several switches and slides, one for each property pair. As subjects work through problems, they can alter the switches and slides—they can, perhaps unconsciously, change the process they use to complete the problem.
Open Access
Situating Objectivity: A Feminist Conceptualization
(2015-12-16) Erciyes, Burcu; Code, Lorraine B.
This dissertation focuses on the ideal of objectivity in science. My aim is to understand and situate how objectivity has been conceptualized in the philosophy of science, and to question whether these conceptualizations are consistent with the actual ways in which objectivity has been sought in scientific practice. I examine the dominant views of objectivity in mainstream philosophy of science and feminist reactions to them. Ultimately, I argue that Helen Longino’s understanding of objectivity, complemented by some aspects of Sandra Harding’s “strong objectivity”, provides a more comprehensive and practical ideal to guide scientific practice than the received view’s conception where objectivity is sought by adopting an impersonal methodology. One of the main criticisms against feminist epistemologies, which argue for the gender specificity of knowledge, is that they lead to epistemic relativism. And hence it is argued that feminist epistemologies undermine “scientific objectivity”. In arguing for the fruitfulness and consistency of a feminist account of objectivity, I examine in what ways claims about the gender specificity of knowledge could be understood without rendering the notion of objectivity redundant.
Open Access
Putting the Folk Back in Folk Psychology: The Social, Cultural, and Moral Character of Folk Psychology
(2016-09-20) Roxborough, Craig Lambert; Andrews, Kristin A.
This project provides a critical analysis of how philosophers have traditionally characterized and understood folk psychology, what I call the traditional construal of folk psychology. On the basis of a growing and diverse body of empirical evidence regarding how folk psychology is deployed in situ by the folk, I argue that we must reject this traditional construal and embrace a new understanding of folk psychology. Two crucial and related assumptions regarding the function of folk psychology have been taken for granted in the contemporary debate regarding the mechanisms that underlie our folk psychological competence. More specifically, philosophers have assumed that the primary function of folk psychology is to explain and predict behaviour and that folk psychology is a quasi-scientific enterprise, whereby these goals are shared with science. However, an empirical investigation into how the folk use folk psychology reveals a different story. Instead, we find that we often fail to accurately explain and predict behaviour and that our folk psychological discourse functions so as to satisfy a number of social, cultural, moral goals or purposes. In this way, there are a number of normative functions to our folk psychological practices. These observations, I argue, are inconsistent with the traditional construal of folk psychology and therefore warrant that we take a skeptical position with respect to the traditional construal and re-examine the assumptions that underlie it. However, I argue that attempts to reconcile the traditional construal with the empirical evidence are unlikely to be successful and that the right way forward is to reject the tradition and embrace a new understanding of folk psychology. The traditional construal, I argue, is too narrow in scope to adequately address this empirical evidence and we must embrace a more comprehensive and empirically informed understanding of folk psychology that can embrace the normative interests that shape and drive this practice. While much work will remain, this new landscape will be a significant departure from the traditional construal and we will leave this project having put the folk back into folk psychology.
Open Access
Thomistic Personalism: Clarifying and Advancing the Project
(2016-09-20) Schaeffer, Matthew David; Giudice, Michael G
Personalism is a reaction against two equally serious errors in the moral and political realms: placing ultimate importance on autonomy and self-interest (individualism), and placing ultimate importance on the glory of the collective (collectivism). Seeking a third way between these errors, personalists argue that a philosophical anthropology must be the guiding light. And they also argue that three claims are central to an accurate philosophical anthropology: (i) persons possess an inalienable dignity; (ii) the telos of persons is communion or love; and (iii) some dimensions of persons are inexhaustibly mysterious. At its core, personalism demands that all intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional activity must respect these three truths. Following philosophers such as Jacques Maritain, St. Wojtyla/John Paul II, and Fr. W. Norris Clarke, S.J., I believe that personalism must be grounded in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. Thus, my dissertation is an attempt to clarify and advance the project of Thomistic personalism. In order to clarify the project, I identify three species of Thomistic personalism. The first grounds the main commitments of personalism in the metaphysics and other relevant work of St. Thomas; the second adds to the first by arguing that phenomenology must be integrated into the project; and the third adds to the second by arguing that St. Thomass understanding of esse (i.e., the act of existing) must be completed creatively and placed at the heart of the project. With these species made clear, I advance the project in two main ways. First, I identify two norms which are internal to the project and show that both norms require the integration of phenomenology. Second, I acknowledge that Clarkes work on Thomistic personalism makes a compelling case for the primacy of esse, but I also note that his work has received some serious criticism. Thus, I modify and defend two fronts of Clarkes work: his claim that esse is thick and essence is thin, and his claim that receptivity is an ontological perfection. I conclude that Clarkes understanding of esse, with some alteration, remains highly plausible. Accordingly, the primacy of esse in Thomistic personalism is still a viable path.
Open Access
A Kantian Program for Contemporary Issues in Business Ethics
(2016-09-20) Woof, William Thomas; Cragg, Wesley
Theoretical approaches to business ethics have been dominated by empirically oriented ethical theories that largely follow in the Enlightenment tradition whereby ethical theories play only a supportive role. However, recent problems have emerged in business that are largely systemic in nature and may have significant and longstanding impacts that are social, political and economic in nature. Climate change and resource depletion are included in these problems, as are recurrent financial crises. These problems would indicate that ethical theory could be playing a more significant role. Kantian ethical theory has been revived over the past thirty years, thanks to the work of John Rawls. However, Rawls has given Kantian theory a largely empirical orientation to make it more acceptable to mainstream currents of thought. Recently, there has been a movement in Kant studies away from this Rawlsian approach towards more metaphysically oriented patterns in Kant's philosophy, particularly in his ethical, political and social contract theory. This dissertation explores the possibility that these new streams of Kantian research could be applied to business ethics with respect to these structural problems and issues. More specifically it investigates the use of the precautionary principle as a viable approach to business problems in concert with the use of preventative strategies. It is further suggested that the precautionary principle could be used in conjunction with the doctrine of double effect as applied to principles rather than actual events. The dissertation then provides a detailed examination of the emergence of structural problems that relate to issues in the natural world (climate change, resource depletion) and in finance. For the latter, a case study is built around Long Term Capital Management, a hedge fund that failed in 1998 and which generated significant potential instability in financial markets. It is argued that these structural problems can build up over long periods of time and create disruptions between short and long term considerations. They also generate considerable uncertainty and make risk calculation more difficult. The dissertation concludes by building a Kantian model as the basis for analyzing problems of this nature.
Open Access
The Social and the Real: The Idea of Objectivity in Peirce, Brandom, and Mcdowell
(2016-11-25) Kiryushchenko, Vitaly; Jackman, Henry
This dissertation focuses on Robert Brandoms and John McDowells philosophies of mind and language. Its particular emphasis is on the idea of objectivity as it is presented within the framework of Brandoms and McDowells normative theories. Theres a general agreement in the literature that the two accounts of the objectivity of norms face a set of unresolved problems. According to Brandom, on the one hand, discursive norms are rooted in our reflective capacity and are instituted by our own practical attitudes; on the other hand, the objectivity of these norms is something irreducible to social consensus. Given this, Brandom faces the challenge of explaining how what all the members of a linguistic community take to be correct differs from what is correct objectively. In McDowells case, the problem of the objectivity of norms forms a part of his wider ontological project. This project aims to answer the question of how experience can be conceptually framed through and through, and yet constitute an independent empirical reality, thus accommodating the idea of objective external constraint on our thought and judgments. I claim that both accounts are incomplete and that the issues raised by Brandoms and McDowells ideas of normativity may be resolved by using some of the conceptual tools offered by Charles Peirces semiotics and his scientific realism. According to Peirce, norms are objective neither because their authority is located in the world that stands up against our social conventions, nor because we are creatures capable of reflection, but because our inquiry is always headed forward. Taking account of our ideas about the world in terms of future consequences of our actions leads to a non-problematic identification of objective reality with the extended notion of future community which consists of beliefs about this reality attainable in the long run.
Open Access
Social Construction and the Possibility of Emancipation
(2016-11-25) Klassen, Abigail Ray; Khalidi, Muhammad Ali
In this dissertation, I attempt to accomplish two main objectives. First, I attempt to clarify what social construction amounts to in contemporary analytic philosophy. Research on the social construction of social categories has done some work to delineate and clarify varieties of social constructionist projects, as well as varieties of social phenomena. However, little research has been done to examine the meanings and tractability of the notions that social constructionists employ. As a second objective, I therefore take on the task of making clearer the meanings and implications of non-inevitability and amelioration. Both objectives involve attending to the programs of various social constructionists and attempting to merge their programs into a single coherent account. In so doing, I put forth my own construal of what social construction amounts to, as well as what it means to say that something is a social construction in both the institutional and non-institutional contexts. I provide tractable and plausible, if coarse-grained, accounts of what social constructionists might have in mind when they cite the notion of non-inevitability in their projects. I also explore the plausibility of social constructionisms ameliorative or emancipatory potential, asking whether or how modifying our social categories and concepts can have ethical and political implications and asking what those implications might be. I defend social constructionist programs, especially those of the ameliorative variety, from the possibly vitiating forces of the status quo, as well as from relativism concerning what or who counts or should count as some social kind X and the issue of what determines or what should determine Xs extension. Related to these issues, I explore the nature of the difficulties involved in changing aspects of the social world. Difficulties related to the possibility of change and amelioration include the complexity of multiple coexisting ideologies, the problem of how to isolate ideologies and their source(s), and the non-volitional character of beliefs.
Open Access
Becoming to Belong: An Essay on Agency and Democratic Rights
(2017-07-27) Mcmanus, Matthew Allan; Jacobs, Lesley Alan
My project develops what I call a dignity oriented model of human agency, and a related approach to human rights; especially democratic rights. I also juxtapose my model of agency against those offered by the liberal and post-modern approaches, and the political positions which flow from these approaches. In the first Chapter, I characterize our dignity as flowing from an individuals agency to engage in self-authorship by defining themselves through redefining the socio-historical boundaries within which they exist. The socio-historical boundaries are those which can be changed through the applications of what I refer to as individuals expressive capabilities. These expressive capabilities can be amplified or constrained depending on the innate capacity of the individuals in question and the particular socio-historical boundaries which constrain them. My argument is that the more ones expressive capabilities are amplified the more individuals can be said to have lived a dignified life. In the next Chapter, I argue that amplifying human dignity would involve realizing two human rights. The first is a right to participate in the democratic authorship of political and legal institutions, and the laws which flow from these. The second is a right for all individuals to enjoy an equality of expressive capabilities, except where inequalities flow from their morally significant choices. These rights would enable us to lead lives of dignified self-authorship. In Chapter Three, I deepen my philosophical account of agency by trying to illustrate how the innate human capacity to develop novel statements in semantic communities is one of the most prominent expressive capabilities which enable us to redefine the boundaries which constrain us. In Chapter Four and Chapter Five, I develop criticisms of the liberal and post-modern approaches to agency. I suggest that both of them offer unique and important insights that can help us understand what is required to amplify human dignity. None the less, I claim neither approach can satisfy our contemporary need for a model of agency and politics which is both philosophically generalizable, and yet sensitive to the actual constraints facing individuals. Finally, in Chapters Six through Eight, I critically analyze several major theoretical traditions and decisions in the Canadian, American, and European legal systems. I suggest that we should adopt my dignity oriented approach to agency as a normative guide for how to best reach a just outcome in cases involving democratic rights: including the Sauv, Williams, and Hirst decisions. In particular, I suggest we should adopt a two step test when determining how to decide a case involving democratic rights. The first is to ask how best to amplify the dignity of the individuals involved. The second is to ask how to ascribe equal value to the democratic rights of the individuals involved. Finally, I conclude by summarizing my argument and offering some suggestions for the future. In particular, I account for why I devote so little attention to realizing the second of the rights I argue for: the right to equality of expressive capabilities.
Open Access
A Defense for Scientific Realism: Skepticisms, Unobservables & Interference to the Best Explanation
(2017-07-27) Domanico, Vincenzo; McArthur, Daniel J.
The epistemological status of scientific knowledge claims has been undermined by skepticism, in particular by universal skepticism. This thesis asserts that Bas C. van Fraassens empirical stance is akin to universal skepticism. This work also maintains that van Fraassens empirical stance does not lead to the conclusion that scientific knowledge claims are empirically adequateespecially those claims that resulted from the scientific method of inference to the best explanation (IBE). To illustrate why van Fraassens stance does not devalue scientific knowledge claims will be suggested via Peter Liptons understanding of IBE combined with Ernan McMullins epistemic values. By bridging McMullins values with Liptons version of IBE, we get a more robust version of IBE; as a result, scientific claims may display a cluster of epistemic virtues and values. Where scientific knowledge claims display a cluster of epistemic virtues and values, they are simply beyond being empirically adequate.