Political liberalism offers perhaps the most developed and dominant account of justice and legitimacy in the face of disagreement among citizens. A prominent objection states that the view arbitrarily treats differently disagreement about the good, such as on what makes for a good life, and disagreement about justice. In the presence of reasonable disagreement about the good, political liberals argue that the state must be neutral, but they do not suggest a similar response given reasonable disagreement about what justice requires. (...) A leading political liberal, Jonathan Quong, has recently offered a rebuttal to this asymmetry objection. His reply rests on an innovative distinction between justificatory and foundational disagreement. Quong claims that disagreements about justice in a well ordered society are justificatory while disagreements about the good are foundational, and suggests that this fact blocks the asymmetry objection. We assess Quong's solution and argue that it fails to justify legitimate state action on matters of justice but not the good. We conclude that the asymmetry objection continues to undermine political liberalism. (shrink)

This paper considers the place of children within liberal-democratic society and its related political morality. The genesis of the paper is two considerations which are in tension with one another. First, that there must be some point at which children are divided from adults, with children denied the rights which go along with full membership of the liberal community. The justification for the difference in the statue between these two groups must be rooted in some notion of capacities, since these (...) are the only relevant differences between adults and children. Second, that linking an individual's capacities to her status undermines the central liberal commitment of political equality. This dilemma explains what I term the threshold view, which holds that children become adult citizens upon reaching an age of competence and that above this level differences in abilities cease to matter to an individual's status. While this view has attractions, this paper argues that this view must eventually be rejected because of its inability to deal with the actual process of human development. In its place, the paper proposes a modification to this view which sees the threshold constrained by moral demands and applied indirectly to age groups rather than individuals. These constraints preserve the commitment to equality in a way consistent with a plausible view of children's place in society. (shrink)

This paper considers the effect of political liberal principles on the children in society. Specifically, the paper argues that political liberalism faces a problem where parents or other adults want to pass on bizarre or dangerous beliefs to their offspring. This problem arises because in the political liberal framework the only limit on what doctrines a child may acquire is that the child becomes a reasonable citizen. Since this criterion is designed to be lax, this implies children may justly be (...) inculcated with views that may undermine their welfare in later life. This presents political liberals with a dilemma. Ensuring that children are taught appropriate views requires narrowing the scope of political liberal principles, whilst keeping the broad focus of political liberalism brings with it unpalatable consequences when we consider the next generation. (shrink)

John Tomasi’s Free Market Fairness introduces several powerful arguments in favour of a novel and surprising thesis: the best way to realize Rawls’s principles of justice is a free market society, rather than the arrangements that Rawls himself believed would best promote justice. In this paper, I adduce three arguments against Tomasi. First, I suggest that his view rests on a faulty understanding of what constitutes conventional property rights. Second, I argue that many market solutions generate choices which are not (...) valuable ones for the agent to have to make. Third, I show that many choices created by the market systems Tomasi favours create the illusion that citizens are making their own choices when in fact they are not. I suggest that taken together these three arguments are sufficient to defend Rawlsian institutional arrangements against Tomasi’s challenge. (shrink)

Regardless of how health reform proceeds, we will continue to need public insurance programs to care for the poor, cover health problems not addressed by private insurance, and support the nation's health care infrastructure. This article examines that continuing role.

As we write this paper in spring 2008, many are hopeful that November’s election will open the door to some form of comprehensive health care reform. In all likelihood, we will elect a president who has campaigned to a greater or lesser extent on promises of improving access to health care, improving quality, and reducing costs. Equally important, it seems likely that the 111th Congress is preparing to undertake meaningful health care reform. And perhaps most important, despite recent attention to (...) energy issues and the economy, opinion polls consistently show that the American public continues to rank health care as one of the two or three most important domestic issues in the fall elections and supports comprehensive health care reform. (shrink)

Timothy Michael Fowler has argued that, as a consequence of their commitment to neutrality in regard to comprehensive doctrines, political liberals face a dilemma. In essence, the dilemma for political liberals is that either they have to give up their commitment to neutrality (which is an indispensible part of their view), or they have to allow harm to children. Fowler’s case for this dilemma depends on ascribing to political liberals a view which grants parents a great degree (...) of freedom in deciding on the education of their children. I show that ascribing this view to political liberals rests upon a misinterpretation of political liberalism. Since political liberals have access to reasons based upon the interests of children, they need not yield to parent’s wishes about the education of their children. A correct understanding of political liberalism thus shows that political liberals do not face the dilemma envisaged by Fowler. (shrink)

(Updated 5/23/24) This unpublished paper, which readers should feel free to cite, is posted primarily for the historical record. In recent work that has, deservedly, received some attention, Paul R. Daniels presents and defends a non-standard theory of persistence that he dubs transdurantism, according to which persisting objects are temporally extended simples. This is exactly what I do in work dating back to Spring 2004. (This work includes this version of this paper, as well as later version that was presented (...) to the University of Rochester's Philosophy Department in 2005.) While this might be a total coincidence, I doubt that it is, especially given that 'transdurantism' appears as a name for a theory of persistence associated with me in at least two places in the literature, one of which includes a citation of this paper. The paper begins with a discussion of what I call 'locative relations' (the relations borne by material objects to the regions of space and time they occupy), which draws relevant distinctions that others have failed to draw. The results of this discussion are then used in constructing spatial analogues for the three established theories of persistence--endurantism, perdurantism, and exdurantism--as well as for transdurantism. Next, these four views concerning persistence are explicitly formulated and a defense of their formulation is offered. Finally, transdurantism's advantages and disadvantages relative to the other theories are discussed. The main goal of the paper is to challenge the trichotomy between the established theories by arguing that transdurantism is also a viable view concerning persistence through time. [Note: Befitting its status as a historical document, with the exception of some light editing to fix typos that might impede understanding, no changes have been made to the paper.]. (shrink)

Two opposing tendencies in the philosophy of language go by the names of ‘referentialism’ and ‘inferentialism’ respectively. In the crudest version of the contrast, the referentialist account of meaning gives centre stage to the referential semantics for a language, which is then used to explain the inference rules for the language, perhaps as those which preserve truth on that semantics (since a referential semantics for a language determines the truth-conditions of its sentences). By contrast, the inferentialist account of meaning gives (...) centre stage to the inference rules for the language, which are then used to explain its referential semantics, perhaps as the semantics on which the rules preserve truth. On pain of circularity, we cannot combine both directions of explanation. (shrink)

This chapter is a work in applied metaphysics. Recent discussions of monism and metaphysical dependence are deployed to develop a view—the doctrine of divine priority (DDP)—that is a viable alternative to the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS). DDS and the traditional motivation for it are discussed, then DDP is introduced by way of an analogy involving Jonathan Schaffer’s distinction between two forms of monism. It is argued that DDP is an alternative to DDS by showing that it is consistent with (...) the traditional motivation for the latter view, and argued that DDP is a viable alternative by showing that objections to its peculiar implications rest on assumptions that can reasonably be rejected. In the concluding section, the findings of the main discussion are summarized and DDP’s potential theological import is illustrated with a brief discussion of a possible solution to the Problem of the Trinity it affords. (shrink)

The author argues that all forms of life are interconnected and that no being, construct, or object can exist independently from the ecological entanglement, nor does "nature" exist as an entity separate from the uglier or more synthetic elements of life. Realizing this interconnectedness is what the author calls the ecological thought. He investigates the philosophical, political, and aesthetic implications of this interconnectedness.

No other scientific theory has had as tremendous an impact on our understanding of the world as Darwin's theory as outlined in his Origin of Species, yet from the very beginning the theory has been subject to controversy. The Evolution of Darwinism focuses on three issues of debate - the nature of selection, the nature and scope of adaptation, and the question of evolutionary progress. It traces the varying interpretations to which these issues were subjected from the beginning and the (...) fierce contemporary debates that still rage on and explores their implications for the greatest questions of all: Where we come from, who we are and where we might be heading. Written in a clear and non-technical style, this book will be of use as a textbook for students in the philosophy of science who need to become familiar with the background to the debates about evolution. (shrink)

Broadly speaking, the contemporary scientific realist is concerned to justify belief in what we might call theoretical truth, which includes truth based on ampliative inference and truth about unobservables. Many, if not most, contemporary realists say scientific realism should be treated as ‘an overarching scientific hypothesis’ (Putnam 1978, p. 18). In its most basic form, the realist hypothesis states that theories enjoying general predictive success are true. This hypothesis becomes a hypothesis to be tested. To justify our belief in the (...) realist hypothesis, realists commonly put forward an argument known as the ‘no-miracles argument’. With respect to the basic hypothesis this argument can be stated as follows: it would be a miracle were our theories as successful as they are, were they not true; the only possible explanation for the general predictive success of our scientific theories is that they are true. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson gives an original and provocative treatment of deep metaphysical questions about existence, contingency, and change, using the latest resources of quantified modal logic. Contrary to the widespread assumption that logic and metaphysics are disjoint, he argues that modal logic provides a structural core for metaphysics.

Understandably absorbed in technical details, discussion of the semantic paradoxes risks losing sight of broad methodological principles. This chapter sketches a general approach to the comparison of rival logics, and applies it to argue that revision of classical propositional logic has much higher costs than its proponents typically recognize.

Locke refrained from engaging explicitly with Hobbes in any of his writings. Locke’s policy of non-engagement should be interpreted, we argue, neither as evidence of his lack of interest in (or ignorance of) Hobbes’s arguments, nor as an attempt to conceal from the uninitiated Locke’s covert Hobbesian commitments. Locke’s silence reveals rather than conceals. What it reveals is an absolute determination to “distinguish between the business of civil government and that of religion, and to mark the true bounds between them”. (...) Approached in this way, precisely because Locke’s account of the “business of civil government” says nothing about ecclesiastical government, the second of Two Treatises can be read, in its entirety, as a powerful critical response to Hobbes. To see why, it is necessary to grasp that Part iii of Leviathan (“Of a Christian Common-wealth”) is integral to Hobbes’s positive argumentative purposes in the work. (shrink)

Vagueness provides the first comprehensive examination of a topic of increasing importance in metaphysics and the philosophy of logic and language. Timothy Williamson traces the history of this philosophical problem from discussions of the heap paradox in classical Greece to modern formal approaches such as fuzzy logic. He illustrates the problems with views which have taken the position that standard logic and formal semantics do not apply to vague language, and defends the controversial realistic view that vagueness is a (...) kind of ignorance--that there really is a grain of sand whose removal turns a heap into a non-heap, but we cannot know which one it is. (shrink)

This paper challenges the soundness of the two-dimensional conceivability argument against the derivation of phenomenal truths from physical truths in light of a hyperintensional, ground-theoretic regimentation of the ontology of consciousness. The regimentation demonstrates how ontological dependencies between truths about consciousness and about physics cannot be witnessed by epistemic constraints, when the latter are recorded by the conceivability—i.e., the epistemic possibility—thereof. Generalizations and other aspects of the philosophical significance of the hyperintensional regimentation are further examined.

This book defends morality against the critiques of egoims, subjectivism, and relativism. It argues that we can and should construe some moral standards as objective and that justice and self-development are the cornerstones of healthy morality. Opening with a dialogue meant to tease and provoke the reader, the book's subsequent chapters treat misconceptions about morality, the possibility of unselfish action, the nature of free will and moral responsibility, and the identity of moral right and wrong.

Review of extant research on the corporate environmental performance (CEP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) link generally demonstrates a positive relationship. However, some arguments and empirical results have demonstrated otherwise. As a result, researchers have called for a contingency approach to this research stream, which moves beyond the basic question “does it pay to be green?” and instead asks “when does it pay to be green?” In answering this call, we provide a meta-analytic review of CEP–CFP literature in which we (...) identify potential moderators to the CEP–CFP relationship including environmental performance type (e.g., reactive vs. proactive performance), firm characteristics (e.g., large vs. small firms), and methodological issues (e.g., self-report measures). By analyzing these contingencies, this study attempts to provide a basis on which to draw conclusions regarding some inconsistencies and debates in the CEP–CFP research. Some of the results of the moderator analysis suggest that small firms benefit from environmental performance as much or more than large firms, US firms seem to benefit more than international counterparts, and environmental performance seems to have the strongest influence on market-measures of financial performance. (shrink)

The second volume in the _Blackwell Brown Lectures in Philosophy_, this volume offers an original and provocative take on the nature and methodology of philosophy. Based on public lectures at Brown University, given by the pre-eminent philosopher, Timothy Williamson Rejects the ideology of the 'linguistic turn', the most distinctive trend of 20th century philosophy Explains the method of philosophy as a development from non-philosophical ways of thinking Suggests new ways of understanding what contemporary and past philosophers are doing.

This book presents in translation writings by six medieval philosophers which bear on the subject of conscience. Conscience, which can be considered both as a topic in the philosophy of mind and a topic in ethics, has been unduly neglected in modern philosophy, where a prevailing belief in the autonomy of ethics leaves it no natural place. It was, however, a standard subject for a treatise in medieval philosophy. Three introductory translations here, from Jerome, Augustine and Peter Lombard, present the (...) loci classici on which subsequent discussions drew; there follows the first complete treatise on conscience, by Philip the Chancellor, while the two remaining translations, from Bonaventure and Aquinas, have been chosen as outstanding examples of the two main approaches which crystallised during the thirteenth century. (shrink)

This study explores the relationship between board environmental committees and corporate environmental performance. We propose that board environmental committees will be positively associated with CEP. Moreover, we argue that the composition of the committee as well as the presence of a sustainability manager will influence this relationship. Our results find support for a positive association between board environmental committees and CEP. Further, the presence of a senior-level environmental manager positively moderates this relationship, but is not effective in isolation. Unexpectedly, no (...) support was found for the influences of stakeholder representation. (shrink)

Epistemic Value Monism is the view that there is only one kind of thing of basic, final epistemic value. Perhaps the most plausible version of Epistemic Value Monism is Truth Value Monism, the view that only true beliefs are of basic, final epistemic value. Several authors—notably Jonathan Kvanvig and Michael DePaul—have criticized Truth Value Monism by appealing to the epistemic value of things other than knowledge. Such arguments, if successful, would establish Epistemic Value Pluralism is true and Epistemic Value Monism (...) is false. This paper critically examines those arguments, finding them wanting. However, I develop an argument for Epistemic Value Pluralism that succeeds which turns on general reflection on the nature of value. (shrink)

On method, discursive logics, and epistemology -- Questions of medieval discursive practice -- From the middle ages to the (w)hole of Utopia -- Kepler, his Dream, and the analysis and pattern of thought -- Campanella and Bacon: concerning structures of mind -- The masculine birth of time -- Cyrano and the experimental discourse -- The myth of sun and moon -- The difficulty of writing -- Crusoe rights his story -- Gulliver's critique of Euclid -- Emergence, consolidation, and dominance of (...) a discourse. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss how Causal Decision Theory should be modified to handle a class of problematic cases involving deterministic laws. Causal Decision Theory, as it stands, is problematically biased against your endorsing deterministic propositions (for example it tells you to deny Newtonian physics, regardless of how confident you are of its truth). Our response is that this is not a problem for Causal Decision Theory per se, but arises because of the standard method for assessing the truth of (...) certain counterfactuals. The truth of deterministic laws is `modally fragile' on the standard semantics for counterfactuals: if determinism is true and you were to do otherwise, the laws would be different. We provide two ways of avoiding this problem: 1) supplement the standard semantics for counterfactuals with impossible worlds, or 2) introduce rigid designators into the description of problematic decision situations. We argue that both of these approaches are well-motivated and can be readily incorporated into Lewisian Causal Decision Theory. (shrink)

The paper clarifies and defends the orthodox view that counterfactual conditionals with impossible antecedents are vacuously true against recent criticisms. It argues that apparent counterexamples to orthodoxy result from uncritical reliance on a fallible heuristic used in the processing of conditionals. A comparison is developed between such counterpossibles and vacuously true universal generalizations.

Truthmaker theorists hold that there is a metaphysically explanatory relation that holds between true claims and what exists. While some critics try to provide counterexamples to truthmaker theory, that response quickly leads to a dialectical standoff. The aim of this paper is to move beyond that standoff by attempting to undermine some standard arguments for truthmaker theory. Using realism about truth and a more pragmatic account of explanation, I show how some of those arguments can be undermined.

Process models are valuable conceptual tools to help in understanding the approaches to value creation in social enterprises. This teaching case illustrates the application of a process model about creating, building, and sustaining a social enterprise with a mission to provide clean water to communities in need. The social enterprise generates revenue in support of community water projects and works with community stakeholders in different locations throughout the world to provide sustainable clean water solutions. The case study uses primary data (...) from semi-structured interviews, direct observations of a community project, and archival sources to demonstrate application of the process model. The study shows how the social enterprise developed as a promising idea; was implemented through an operating model with resources to support social impact; and continues to build and evolve while guided by the social mission. The paper concludes with a discussion and teaching note on ways to use the case for educational purposes to enhance learning about the social value creation process. (shrink)

When I take off my glasses, the world looks blurred. When I put them back on, it looks sharpedged. I do not think that the world really was blurred; I know that what changed was my relation to the distant physical objects ahead, not those objects themselves. I am more inclined to believe that the world really is and was sharp-edged. Is that belief any more reasonable than the belief that the world really is and was blurred? I see more (...) accurately with my glasses on than off, so visual appearances when they are on have some cognitive priority over visual appearances when they are off. If I must choose which kind of visual appearance to take at face value, I will choose the sharp-edged look. But what should I think when I see a mist, which looks very blurred however well I am seeing? Indeed, why choose to take any of the looks at face value? Why not regard all the choices as illegitimate projections of ways of seeing the world onto the world itself? (shrink)

The fundamental freedoms of speech, conscience, privacy, and religion are now an essential part of the fabric of contemporary society, set down in our most basic laws and regularly invoked in our political and cultural debates. These freedoms play a vital role in securing the spaces and opportunities within which people are able to pursue their own lives in their own ways. Independence of Mind takes this accepted thought a step further, by exploring the ways in which the fundamental freedoms (...) help us to achieve something even more profound, by enabling us to arrive at beliefs, convictions and voices of our own, so that we truly come to think, believe and speak for ourselves in the rich and various ways that the freedoms then protect. Privacy grants us the distance and refuge from others necessary to develop views of our own; freedom of speech calls on us to imagine ways of expressing ourselves that are both true to the views we have developed and innovative in their own right; freedom of conscience enables each of us to create a distinctive rational personality in which to embed the convictions that we wish to treat as non-negotiable; freedom of religion allows groups of us to endorse certain beliefs as articles of faith, free from the full demands of rational scrutiny. Much has been written about the political and legal implications of the fundamental freedoms and their entrenchment in bills of rights. This is the first book to undertake a comprehensive philosophical examination of their moral bases. It offers a penetrating analysis of what makes these particular freedoms matter to us in the ways that they do, and of the true significance of their entrenchment in law. (shrink)

Thomas Fowler (1 September 1832 - 20 November 1904), was an English academic and academic administrator, acting as President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. From Preface: These pages represent an attempt to exhibit a scientific conception of morality in a popular form, and with a view to practical applications rather than the discussion of theoretical difficulties. For this purpose it has been necessary to study brevity and avoid controversy. Hence, I have made (...) few references to other authors, and I have almost altogether dispensed with foot-notes. But, though I have attempted to state rather than to defend my views, I believe that they are, in the main, those which, making exception for a few back eddies in the stream of modern thought, are winning their way to general acceptance among the more instructed and reflective men of our day. (shrink)

Subjectivity theories of consciousness take self-reference, somehow construed, as essential to having conscious experience. These theories differ with respect to how many levels they posit and to whether self-reference is conscious or not. But all treat self-referencing as a process that transpires at the personal level, rather than at the subpersonal level, the level of mechanism. -/- Working with conceptual resources afforded by pre-existing theories of consciousness that take self-reference to be essential, several attempts have been made to explain seemingly (...) anomalous cases, especially instances of alien experience. These experiences are distinctive precisely because self-referencing is explicitly denied by the only person able to report them: those who experience them deny that certain actions, mental states, or body parts belong to self. The relevant actions, mental states, or body parts are sometimes attributed to someone or something other than self, and sometimes they are just described as not belonging to self. But all are referred away from self. -/- The cases under discussion here include somatoparaphrenia, schizophrenia, depersonalization, anarchic hand syndrome, and utilization behavior; the theories employed, Higher-Order Thought, Wide Intrinsicality, and Self-Representational. Below I argue that each of these attempts at explaining or explaining away the anomalies fails. Along the way, since each of these theories seeks at least compatibility with science, I sketch experimental approaches that could be used to adduce support for my position, or indeed for the positions of theorists with whom I disagree. -/- In a concluding section I first identify two presuppositions shared by all of the theorists considered here, and argue that both are either erroneous or misleading. Second, I call attention to divergent paths adopted when attempting to explain alienation experiences: some theorists choose to add a mental ingredient, while others prefer to subtract one. I argue that alienation from experience, action, or body parts could result from either addition or subtraction, and that the two can be incorporated within a comprehensive explanatory framework. Finally, I suggest that this comprehensive framework would require self-referencing of a sort, but self-referencing that occurs solely on the level of mechanism, or the subpersonal level. In adumbrating some features of this “subpersonal self,” I suggest that there might be one respect in which it is prior to conscious experience. (shrink)

Imperial Plato presents new translations of three introductions to Plato's thought from the second half of the second century CE: the Introduction to Plato by Albinus of Smyrna, Dissertation 11 of Maximus of Tyre, and On Plato and his Teaching by Apuleius of Madaurus. These three presentations of Plato's ideas--one a Greek dialectic introduction with a suggested reading order for Plato's dialogues, another a Greek speech in the sophistic style of the time, and one a lengthy doxological study in Latin--are (...) examples by three distinct authors using divergent methods of the assorted ways in which Plato and Platonism were understood and discussed during the revival of Hellenism and Greek Philosophy, and the period of the Roman Empire often referred to as the Second Sophistic. (shrink)

This article considers the morality of children's activism, in particular via participation in political protests. In Section 3 of the article I consider whether children can be competent to engage in activism. I argue that even if we believe children are not competent to vote it will still be true that many children are indeed competent to engage in activism. In Section 4 I consider the wellbeing effects of activism on children. I argue that political activity stands in tension with (...) achieving the intrinsic goods of childhood, meaning there is an important sense in which activism is bad for children. However, I show that these negative outcomes flow from being made aware of the injustices in society, and that for politicised children activism is often highly beneficial. (shrink)

In recent years scholars have begun to question the usefulness of the category of ''religion'' to describe a distinctive form of human experience and behavior. In his last book, The Ideology of Religious Studies (OUP 2000), Timothy Fitzgerald argued that ''religion'' was not a private area of human existence that could be separated from the public realm and that the study of religion as such was thus impossibility. In this new book he examines a wide range of English-language texts (...) to show how religion became transformed from a very specific category indigenous to Christian culture into a universalist claim about human nature and society. These claims, he shows, are implied by and frequently explicit in theories and methods of comparative religion. But they are also tacitly reproduced throughout the humanities in the relatively indiscriminate use of ''religion'' as an a priori valid cross-cultural analytical concept, for example in historiography, sociology, and social anthropology. Fitzgerald seeks to link the argument about religion to the parallel formation of the ''non-religious'' and such dichotomies as church-state, sacred-profane, ecclesiastical-civil, spiritual-temporal, supernatural-natural, and irrational-rational. Part of his argument is that the category ''religion'' has a different logic compared to the category ''sacred,'' but the two have been consistently confused by major writers, including Durkheim and Eliade. Fitzgerald contends that ''religion'' imagined as a private belief in the supernatural was a necessary conceptual space for the simultaneous imagining of ''secular'' practices and institutions such as politics, economics, and the Nation State. The invention of ''religion'' as a universal type of experience, practice, and institution was partly the result of sacralizing new concepts of exchange, ownership, and labor practices, applying ''scientific'' rationality to human behavior, administering the colonies and classifying native institutions. In contrast, shows Fitzgerald, the sacred-profane dichotomy has a different logic of use. (shrink)

Previous research has suggested that bodily signals from internal organs are associated with diverse cortical and subcortical processes involved in sensory-motor functions, beyond homeostatic reflexes. For instance, a recent study demonstrated that the preparation and execution of voluntary actions, as well as its underlying neural activity, are coupled with the breathing cycle. In the current study, we investigated whether such breathing-action coupling is limited to voluntary motor action or whether it is also present for mental actions not involving any overt (...) bodily movement. To answer this question, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), and respiratory signals while participants were conducting a voluntary action paradigm including self-initiated motor execution (ME), motor imagery (MI), and visual imagery (VI) tasks. We observed that the voluntary initiation of ME, MI, and VI are similarly coupled with the respiration phase. In addition, EEG analysis revealed the existence of readiness potential (RP) waveforms in all three tasks (i.e., ME, MI, VI), as well as a coupling between the RP amplitude and the respiratory phase. Our findings show that the voluntary initiation of both imagined and overt action is coupled with respiration, and further suggest that the breathing system is involved in preparatory processes of voluntary action by contributing to the temporal decision of when to initiate the action plan, regardless of whether this culminates in overt movements. -/- . (shrink)

Skeptical theism is a family of responses to arguments from evil. One important member of that family is Stephen Wykstra’s CORNEA-based criticism of William Rowe’s arguments from evil. A cornerstone of Wykstra’s approach is his CORNEA principle. However, a number of authors have criticized CORNEA on various grounds, including that it has odd results, it cannot do the work it was meant to, and it problematically conflicts with the so-called common sense epistemology. In this paper, I explicate and defend a (...) CORNEA principle. After sketching a brief argument for it, I show how it can be acquitted of these recent charges. (shrink)

Currently popular theories of epistemic responsibility rest on the assumption that justification and excuse exhaust the relevant normative categories. One gets the sense that, once we've laid down the conditions for justified belief, and once we've laid down the conditions of excusably unjustified belief, the work is done; all that's left is to clock out. Against this backdrop, one is naturally led to think that if an agent's doxastic state fails to be justified, it is thereby unjustified, perhaps excusably so. (...) The aim of this paper is to argue that that natural thought is mistaken; some agents are epistemically incompetent, and in virtue of their incompetence, their doxastic states are neither justified nor unjustified. Instead, the doxastic states of such agents are exempt from epistemic evaluation altogether. I argue that what underlies this point about exemptions is that epistemic competences or abilities play an important and typically overlooked role in epistemology, especially in theories of epistemic responsibility. Here, I am interested in uncovering that role and explaining what it is, and also in explaining how one could accommodate it within various epistemological frameworks. (shrink)