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?Accept: yes
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Accept an intermediate view
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Lean toward: subjective
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Lean toward: yes
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Accept: internalism
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Accept an intermediate view
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Lean toward: compatibilism
God: theism or atheism?Agnostic/undecided
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Accept an intermediate view
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Lean toward: contextualism
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Lean toward: Humean
Logic: classical or non-classical?Lean toward: non-classical
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Agnostic/undecided
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Lean toward: moral anti-realism
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Lean toward: naturalism
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Accept another alternativeSince our notions of "the physical" are in such a state of flux, and the concept of emergent entities further blurs distinctions, perhaps this entire area of difference is evolving into something else. The traditional discussions, interesting as they are, perhaps are becoming moot.
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Accept: non-cognitivism
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Accept: internalism
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Accept bothEither strategy can be shown to be optimal, depending on one's decision theory, or it's a paradox.
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Lean toward: virtue ethics
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Accept more than one
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Lean toward: psychological view
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Lean toward: communitarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Lean toward: Fregean
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Agnostic/undecided
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Accept: survival
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Lean toward: B-theory
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Lean toward: switchThe trolley problem, while a useful thought experiment, fails to account for the often unvoiced thought people have about the possible differential value of individuals (suppose David Chalmers is the one, and the five are subnormal criminal inmates) when it is used in surveys and the like.
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Lean toward: deflationary
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Lean toward: metaphysically possibleWhat a concept! If only Wittgenstein and Russell could have seen Night of the Living Dead.