My philosophical views

The answers shown here are not necessarily the same provided as part of the 2009 PhilPapers Survey. These answers can be updated at any time.

See also:

QuestionAnswerComments
A priori knowledge: yes or no?Lean toward: yes
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Accept: nominalism
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Accept both
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Lean toward: yes
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: internalism
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Lean toward: non-skeptical realism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Lean toward: compatibilism
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Lean toward: rationalism
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Lean toward: non-Humean
Logic: classical or non-classical?There is no fact of the matter
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Accept: internalism
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Lean toward: moral realism
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Lean toward: non-naturalism
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Accept bothI'm about 80% sure it's Russellian monism.
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Lean toward: cognitivism
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Accept: externalism
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Accept: one box
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Lean toward: consequentialism"Lean toward" only in the sense that I have some background doubts about moral realism. If any normative ethical theory is true, it's almost certainly utilitarianism.
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Lean toward: further-fact view
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Lean toward: libertarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?There is no fact of the matter
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Lean toward: scientific realism
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Accept: deathDon't do it.
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Agnostic/undecidedI think that accepting the B-theory comes at a huge cost in terms of ordinary intuitions about the nature of persistence and personal identity, and hence one's connection to and stake in the well-being of one's past and future selves. But there's also no very good reason to think that theose intuitions are veridical, and the evidence from physics strikes me as indecisive as well, although STR undeniably makes it awkward to be an A-theorist.
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Accept: switchWith the standard utilitarian caveats; but if it's stipulated that switching will maximize utility...
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Lean toward: deflationary
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Accept: metaphysically possible