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: yesI'm inclined to believe that a naturalistic kind of a priori knowledge, resulting from evolution, exists (e.g., the - fallible, of course, but arguably still weakly externalistically justified - disposition to believe that the first female of one's species that one sees is one's mother). That kind of knowledge does need experience to trigger it, but it goes beyond it in important ways that, in my inclination, may justifiably be called a priori.
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Lean toward: nominalismI'm inclined to believe that we have no good reason for believing that there are non-physical objects residing outside of space and time. Also, I'm inclined to believe that particulars or tokens are all we need, meaning that universals or types should be eliminated from our ontologies. Admittedly, though, these inclinations are grounded mostly in an abhorrence of the mysterious.
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Accept: subjectiveI believe that aesthetic value solely inheres in experiences, not in the objects that are experienced. That is, objects are not aesthetically valuable in themselves, but can be experienced as such.
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Agnostic/undecidedI certainly find the distinction to be intuitive; and I don't think that the attacks mounted on it have conclusively refuted it. Beyond that, though, I know too little about it to be entitled to judgment.
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Accept bothI believe that internalism and externalism simply describe different kinds of epistemic justification, both of which are useful.
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Lean toward: non-skeptical realismI'm fine with saying that we can't know for sure that there is an independent external reality, but I still think we can be very confident that there is. Foundationalism may result in skepticism; but coherentism probably does not. Also, the belief that reality "is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial" (wikipedia) strikes me as bordering on insanity.
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Accept: compatibilismI believe that, of all kinds of freedom and responsibility that have been proposed as accounts of free will and moral responsibility, respectively, all valuable kinds both are compatible with determinism and indeterminism and exist, although not in the degree that would be ideal. That is, I believe, in Dennett's phrase, that all freedoms and responsibilities "worth wanting" exist. I do not, though, believe that basic desert-entailing moral responsibility exists, as my moral intuitions state that it has certain requirements that almost certainly - nothing short of a miracle would suffice - cannot be satisfied. So, in that sense, I'm an incompatilist. But I don't think it's an incompatibilism that matters, as that kind of moral responsibility is, in my view, worthless (indeed, barbarous!).
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheismIf theism is defined as the thesis that "at least one deity exists" (wikipedia), and if a deity is defined as "a being (...) with superhuman powers or qualities", then I'm agnostic about the truth of theism (there may be extraterrestrial life with superhuman powers, for instance). But if theism is defined as the thesis that there is at least one being who is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, who has created our universe and who is "present and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe" (wiktionary), including our lives, as it is more ordinarily understood, then I'm an atheist. I don't believe that such a being exists.
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Accept an intermediate viewI'm inclined to believe that some (maybe even quite much) knowledge is innate, "built" into the minds of animals through natural selection. Far more knowledge, though, certainly in the case of cognitively flexible animals like humans, derives from experience; and this is probably true for all philosophically significant knowledge.
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Lean toward: relativismI'm intuitively inclined to believe that "the truth values of knowledge sentences depend upon the standards in play in the contexts in which they are assessed" (SEP), because, in my view, meaning (including knowledge standards) is solely "in the head" (thus potentially differing per head, though they often coincide), and the truth of a sentence is evidently dependent on its meaning. If a sentence is uttered in one context, and assessed in another, knowledge standards could differ.
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Agnostic/undecidedInsofar as this is a conceptual question, there is no fact of the matter; but insofar as this is an empirical question, no one knows the answer.
Logic: classical or non-classical?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: internalismAlthough external features may be causally necessary both for its occurrence and character, I believe that mental content is merely "in the head". In terms of the "Twin Earth" thought experiment, I believe that people on Earth who do not know that water is H2O mean the same thing by "water" as people on Twin Earth who do not know that what they call "water" is XYZ. If they do know, then their meanings will differ in certain contexts (though not in many, I'm guessing), but in a way that is perfectly consistent with content internalism.
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Accept: moral anti-realismI accept moral subjectivism: morality (in the descriptive sense) exists, but it has normative force only relative to individuals. Hypothetical imperatives exist, but not categorical ones. It is true that morality (in the normative sense) can also take intersubjective forms, but they can be reduced to subjective ones.
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Accept: naturalismI believe that philosophy is continuous with the sciences: they can - and, indeed, should! - mutually inform one another.
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Accept: physicalismI believe that the mental can be ontologically reduced to the physical. In my view, mental states are identical to (embodied and embedded) neural states (which, in turn, are identical to less well understood physical states). Types do not exist, so multiple realizability is not a problem, although type concepts evidently can be useful to describe many similar tokens at once.
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Accept bothI guess it depends on the context. In some (maybe many) contexts, moral judgments no doubt "are not in the business of predicating properties or making statements which could be true or false in any substantial sense" but simply serve to express non-cognitive attitudes, to persuade others, and the like. Still, in other contexts, I believe, "moral statements do express beliefs and (...) are apt for truth and falsity" (SEP once again). Also, moral statements can be interpreted as cognitive statements, and the consequences of doing so may be very interesting.
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: internalismIt seems quite intuitive to me that, if an individual believes that she ought to do something, then she has reason to/is motivated to do that thing. That, in my view, is simply part of the meaning of "ought": it is intrinsically reason-giving. However, that does not mean that moral reasons/moral motivation cannot be trumped by other sorts of reasons: they often are. So although there is, in my view, an intuitive connection here, it is not necessarily a strong one. Given that fact, I'm not sure what hangs on this issue. Indeed, it somewhat reeks like a verbal dispute over the meaning of "ought".
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Accept: consequentialismMore precisely, I tentatively accept hedonistic expectable scalar direct global personal impartial evaluative consequentialism.
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?Accept more than oneI believe that there are several personal identity concepts, not just one. In the strongest sense (that every person has an unchangeable essence), there is no personal identity. But in weaker senses (psychological connections, biological continuity, and the like), personal identity can certainly exist - and, fortunately, these are also the most valuable ones.
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Lean toward: egalitarianismBased on consequentialist grounds (an increase in income generally adds a lot more to the happiness of the poor than to that of the rich), I believe that income should be distributed far more equally than it is now, not only within, but also between countries. I do not believe, though, that income should be distributed perfectly equally, as different people have different needs and the prospect of more income may incite people to work harder. Also, I do not endorse the "idea that all human persons are equal in fundamental worth or moral status" (SEP). Peter Singer, say, isn't equal in worth or moral status to Adolf Hitler: Singer is far more valuable, although their interests do deserve equal consideration. Rather than saying that I'm an egalitarian, then, it's probably better to say that I'm a utilitarian; but, in practice, egalitarianism is close enough.
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Reject bothI believe that there is no relation between proper names and individuals they refer to. Such a relation would be very mysterious indeed. As with truth, I believe that reference must be severely deflated before it will fit into a naturalistic world-view. Moreover, I believe that (the philosophy of) psychology or linguistics is better suited to resolve the issue of whether proper names are associated with individuals or with descriptions of individuals (or with something else entirely) than is philosophy of language.
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Lean toward: scientific realismTo be sure, scientific realism is not always reasonable. No one should be a realist about string theory, for instance, as there is far too little evidence to determine whether it is true or false. But in many cases (atomic theory, much of chemistry, genetics, etc.), at least, I believe that our evidence is strong enough to entitle us to believe in certain unobservable entities.
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?There is no fact of the matterThere is no essence of 'death' and 'survival' to be discovered, so it simply is a matter of choice whether we count teletransportation as death or not. Moral arguments, but not metaphysical ones, can be given for that choice.
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Lean toward: B-theoryIt is often argued that relativity theory implies that the past, the present and the future must be equally real, and although that argument has been disputed and relativity theory could be relevantly false, for now, it's the best we have.
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Accept: switchI'm a hedonistic consequentialist, and it is a trivial consequence of that theory that one ought to switch; so I believe that one ought to switch.
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Accept more than oneI'm inclined to believe that there is more than one concept of truth, and that these different concepts are used in different contexts and for different purposes. For instance, "that's true" can be used in one context to affirm that genes play an important role in the regulation of love, and in another to express one's feeling that a certain musical piece is beautiful. So, in that sense, I'm a pluralist about truth. I'm fine with saying that the correspondence concept of truth is the most epistemologically interesting one, though, although I believe that it must be severely deflated before it will fit within a physicalistic world-view.
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possibleIt may depend on how one conceives of conceiving (that is, on how demanding it is supposed to be), but I can conceive of them in some sense, at least. (I'm doing that right now!). Still, I don't see reason to believe one of two physically indistinguishable entities, but not the other, could have a mind. Then again, what I am trying to say here is, I guess, not so much that zombies are "metaphysically" impossible (I'm leaning towards fictionalism about that!), but that they are "physically" impossible (that is, impossible in our universe). That's not really an answer to the question, though, is it? Still, this will do for now.