We propose an original response to Derk Pereboom’s four-case manipulation argument. This response combines a hard-line and a soft-line. Like hard-liners, we insist that the manipulated agent is blameworthy for his wrongdoing. However, like soft-liners, we maintain that there is a difference in blameworthiness between the manipulated agent and the non-manipulated one. The former is less blameworthy than the latter. This difference is due to the fact that it is more difficult for the manipulated agent to do the right (...) thing. We explain how we can make sense of this notion of difficulty in terms of Fischer and Ravizza’s notion of reasons-responsiveness. (shrink)

In everyday life, we assume that there are degrees of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. Yet the debate about the nature of moral responsibility often focuses on the “yes or no” question of whether indeterminism is required for moral responsibility, while questions about what accounts for more or less blameworthiness or praiseworthiness are underexplored. In this paper, I defend the idea that degrees of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness can depend in part on degrees of difficulty and (...) class='Hi'>degrees of sacrifice required for performing the action in question. Then I turn to the question of how existing accounts of the nature of moral responsibility might be seen to accommodate these facts. In each case of prominent compatibilist and incompatibilist accounts that I consider, I argue that supplementation with added dimensions is required in order to account for facts about degrees of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. For example, I argue that the reasons-responsiveness view of Fischer and Ravizza requires supplementation that takes us beyond even fine-grained measures of degrees of reasons-responsiveness in order to capture facts about degrees of difficulty to extend the reasons-responsiveness view by appealing to such measures). I conclude by showing that once we recognize the need for these additional parameters, we will be in a position to explain away at least some of the appeal of incompatibilist accounts of moral responsibility. (shrink)

We regularly make graded normative judgements in the epistemic domain. Recent work in the literature examines degrees of justification, degrees of rationality, and degrees of assertability. This paper addresses a different dimension of the gradeability of epistemic normativity, one that has been given little attention. How should we understand degrees of epistemic criticizability? In virtue of what sorts of factors can one epistemic failing be worse than another? The paper develops a dual-factor view of degrees (...) of epistemic criticizability. According to the view, degrees of epistemic criticizability are (i) an inverse function of degrees of doxastic justification and (ii) a function of degrees of agent culpability. The paper develops an account of each factor, and explains how they should be weighted. The paper also addresses the importance of modelling degrees of epistemic criticizability in a broader context. I focus on the role that such a model can play in the ethics of epistemic criticism. (shrink)

It has been argued that Kants actions. However, it would be uncompromising to allow for only two possibilities: either full responsibility or none. Moreover, in the Metaphysics of Morals Kant himself claims that there can be degrees of responsibility, depending on the magnitude of the obstacles that have to be overcome when acting. I will show that this claim is consistent with Kant’s theory as a whole and thereby make transparent how degrees of responsibility are possible for Kant. (...) The solution is based on the distinction between two senses of responsibility: taking oneself to be an accountable person is an all-or-nothing affair, whereas praise- or blameworthiness for a particular action can still be a matter of degree. (shrink)

One question that has sometimes cropped up in the debate on triage and the management of scarce healthcare resources concerns patients’ merits, demerits, and responsibility with regard to their own medical condition. During the current pandemic, some have wondered, when it comes to accessing healthcare, whether patients who have refused vaccination—despite the availability of vaccines and pressure to get vaccinated from the health authorities—should be given the same priority as patients who have diligently undergone vaccination in accordance with the authorities’ (...) recommendations. The issue of patients’ merits and demerits is not new, and it did not emerge with the pandemic for the first time. In the past, the question was often posed whether terrorists have the right to receive the same treatment as their victims, with the same degree of priority, all clinical conditions being equal. Another issue that has been raised concerns patients suffering from diseases caused by unhealthy lifestyles that they have freely adopted: drinking, smoking, eating fatty foods, practising extreme sports, etc. The conclusion reached in the present article is that it is indeed possible to identify certain general rules for cases of this sort, as is shown by the literature on the topic. However, slavishly following these rules, even in exceptional cases for which it is impossible to make detailed provisions, can lead to disastrous consequences. Therefore, following Aristotle, the article seeks to take account both of the rule of justice and of equity, which is a form of “situational justice” capable of filling the gaps of general norms in the light of concrete cases. (shrink)

Like many of his medieval successors, Peter Abelard offers principles for ranking sins. Moral self-knowledge, after all, requires that we recognize not justour sinfulness, but also the extent of our offense. The most important distinction among sins is that between venial and mortal sins: venial sinners show less contempt and may also be victims of bad moral luck, and so they are far less blameworthy. However, the subjective principle which Abelard uses to protect the venial sinner from blame appears to (...) have absurd consequences: some agents whom we intuitively find saintly turn out to be mortal sinners, while other agents whom we intuitively judge wicked turn out to be mere venial sinners. I argue that Abelard suggests promising replies to these objections, but these replies themselves depend on controversial views about moral psychology. (shrink)

This work shows that two problems—the reference class and the mental state of the agent—undermine the plausibility of the ‘blameworthiness tracks risk thesis’ (BTRT), which states, prima facie, an agent is more blameworthy for imposing a greater rather than smaller risk. The article first outlines core concepts. It then shows how the two problems undermine BTRT; namely, (1) no blame attribution based on risk imposition is unequivocal; (2) when the materialization of risk is subject to chance, an agent’s decision (...) can ground an equal degree of blameworthiness regardless of whether the risk is greater or lesser. (shrink)

It is intuitive that circumstantial ignorance, even when culpable, can mitigate blameworthiness for morally wrong behavior. In this paper I suggest an explanation of why this is so. The explanation offered is that an agent’s degree of blameworthiness for some action depends at least in part upon the quality of will expressed in that action, and that an agent’s level of awareness when performing a morally wrong action can make a difference to the quality of will that is (...) expressed in it. This explanation makes use of Holly Smith’s distinction between benighting and benighted actions as well as a notion developed here called “capture.”. (shrink)

This paper takes up the question of whether the consequences of a person’s volitional actions can contribute to their blameworthiness. On the one hand it is intuitively plausible to hold that if D1 volitionally shoots V with the intention of killing V then D1 is blameworthy for V’s death. On the other hand, if the only difference between D1 and D2 is resultant luck, many find it counter-intuitive to hold that D1 is more blameworthy than D2. There are three (...) broad (non-skeptical) strategies for resolving this tension: accept resultant moral luck, deny that one can be morally responsible for outcomes, or accept that outcomes can be within the scope of things one is morally responsible for while denying that they can affect the degree of blameworthiness. This paper aims to defend resultant moral luck against both the scoping and the internalist strategies by drawing on an “inclusive conception” of blameworthiness, according to which how much blame one deserves is a function of two independent variables: the wrongfulness of the offense and the offender’s degree of moral responsibility. The view defended here holds that consequences affect degree of blameworthiness by affecting the wrongfulness of that for which one is being blamed. (shrink)

This paper investigates agents’ blameworthiness when they are part of a group that does harm. We analyse three factors that affect the scope of an agent’s blameworthiness in these cases: shared intentionality, interpersonal influence, and common knowledge. Each factor involves circumstantial luck. The more each factor is present, the greater is the scope of each agent’s vicarious blameworthiness for the other agents’ contributions to the harm. We then consider an agent’s degree of blameworthiness, as distinct from (...) her scope of blameworthiness. We suggest that an agent mostly controls her degree of blameworthiness—but even here, luck constrains what possible degrees of blameworthiness are open to her. (shrink)

I argue that a capacity‐based account of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness is superior to an account based on quality of will. I focus on four types of cases about which the two accounts disagree and show that the capacity‐based view offers a better treatment. As part of my argument, I motivate the distinction between an assessment of a person's moral character, as reflected by her action, and an assessment of her blameworthiness or praiseworthiness for that action.

In this paper I explore graded attributions of blameworthiness—that is, judgments of the general sort, "A is more blameworthy for x-ing than B is," or "A is less blameworthy for her character than B is." In so doing, I aim to provide a philosophical basis for the widespread, if not completely articulate, practice of altering the degree to which we hold others responsible on the basis of facts about them or facts about their environments. To vindicate this practice, I (...) disambiguate several related properties and identify the properties of being more blameworthy for an action with a complex set of relations between what an agent deserves for her action and how good it is from the point of view of desert that she receives that response. (shrink)

A common intuition is that the more difficult it is for someone to do the right thing, the more praiseworthy she is for succeeding and the less blameworthy she is for failing. Here, I call this the ‘Difficulty Thesis’ and argue that the Difficulty Thesis is false. In Section 2, I briefly describe what I mean by ‘difficulty’ and the Difficulty Thesis. The Difficulty Thesis has strong prima facie appeal, however, why exactly difficulty is morally relevant remains an open and (...) interesting philosophical question. I discuss this briefly in Section 3. Then, in Section 4, I argue that the Difficulty Thesis is in fact false. That is, difficulty is not relevant to degrees of praise- and blameworthiness. In Section 5, I offer several explanations for why many are fooled by the illusion of relevance of Difficulty. I argue that difficulty is, at best, an imperfect heuristic with regard to evaluations of praise- and blameworthiness. I also argue that while difficulty is not relevant to praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, difficulty is relevant to practices of praise and blame. I conclude, then, that the Difficulty Thesis ought to be rejected. (shrink)

Difficulty is often treated as blame-mitigating, and even exculpating. But on some occasions difficulty seems to have little or no bearing on our assessments of moral responsibility, and can even exacerbate it. In this paper, I argue that the relevance (and irrelevance) of difficulty with regard to assessments of moral responsibility is best understood via Quality of Will accounts. I look at various ways of characterising difficulty – including via sacrifice, effort, skill and ‘trying’ – and set out to demonstrate (...) that these factors are only blame-mitigating where, and to the extent that, they complicate ascriptions of insufficient concern. Matters become more complex, however, when we turn to difficult circumstances that seem to generate such objectionable attitudes. This is arguably the case with epistemic difficulty and certain instances of moral ignorance. Here I argue that certain difficult circumstances diminish the sense in which false moral beliefs are genuinely revelatory of the agents who hold them. In particular, I draw on the distinction between difficulty that generates objectionable attitudes, and objectionable attitudes that generate difficulty. I argue that the former, but not the latter, can plausibly be viewed as blame mitigating, and that this would apply to (limited) cases of moral ignorance. (shrink)

Written by a noted expert in criminal law, this book explores the philosophical underpinnings of the law's major doctrines concerning actus reus, mens rea, and defences, showing that they are not always driven by culpability. They are grounded also in principles of moral responsibility, ascriptive responsibility, and wrongdoing. As such, they engage wider debates about wrongdoing, and about the boundaries between liability and freedom. This multi-textured analysis allows this book to take more nuanced positions about many important controversies in criminal (...) law. It argues, for example, that liability for omissions and for negligence-and even some strict liability elements-can sometimes be legitimate yet, at the same time, should be relatively rare. It also explains why principles of causation can differ in the criminal law from other contexts; what is wrong with the 'voluntary act' requirement; and why luck can affect the wrongs we commit without changing our degree of blameworthiness for committing them. The book concludes with an account of the major types of defences, and of how they interact with an agent's wrong and her underlying motivations.This volume presents a coherent and rich vision of the criminal law that, by its sheer breadth, makes a distinctive contribution to the literature, of interest to lawyers and philosophers alike. (shrink)

Can addiction be credibly invoked as an excuse for moral harms secondary to particular decisions to use drugs? This question raises two distinct sets of issues. First, there is the question of whether addiction is the sort of consideration that could, given suitable assumptions about the details of the case, excuse or mitigate moral blameworthiness. Most discussions of addiction and moral responsibility have focused on this question, and many have argued that addiction excuses. Here I articulate what I take (...) to be the best argument for this view, based on the substantial difficulty that people with severe addiction experience in controlling drug-related behavior. This, I argue, may in some cases be sufficient to ground a mitigating excuse, given the way in which addiction undermines agents’ responsiveness to relevant moral reasons to do otherwise. Much less attention has been devoted to a second set of issues that critically affect the possibility of applying this mitigating excuse in particular cases, derived from the ambivalent nature of agential control in addiction. In order to find a fitting response to moral harm, the person with the right standing to blame must make a judgment about the extent to which the agent possessed certain morally relevant capacities at the time of the act. In practice, this will often prove tremendously difficult to assess. The ethical challenge for the person with the right standing to blame is fundamentally one of making a judgment about matters that seem underdetermined by the available evidence. (shrink)

In this article I provide and defend a solution to the problem of moral luck. The problem of moral luck is that there is a set of three theses about luck and moral blameworthiness each of which is at least prima facie plausible, but that, it seems, cannot all be true. The theses are that (1) one cannot be blamed for what happens beyond one’s control, (2) that which is due to luck is beyond one’s control, and (3) we (...) rightly blame each other for events that are due to luck. I suggest that the response which distinguishes between degree and scope of blameworthiness is promising. The main objection that one might level against this approach is that it seems to lead to the absurd conclusion that we, in the actual world, are as blameworthy as the person we could have been and who performs all sorts of heinous acts in a far away possible world. For, we in the actual world and our counterpart in a far away possible world are both such that we would perform certain heinous acts in particular circumstances. I argue that this objection can be met, namely by paying attention to the nature of luck. By using the insights into the nature of luck that have been gained by epistemologists, we can solve the problem of luck as it has been formulated by ethicists. For, epistemologists have argued that some event is due to luck only if it fails to occur in a substantial number of nearby possible worlds. I defend this account of luck and argue that the problem of moral luck can be solved if we pay attention to the nature of luck. I, therefore, call my solution to the problem of moral luck a modal solution. (shrink)

When probability discounting (or probability weighting), one multiplies the value of an outcome by one's subjective probability that the outcome will obtain in decision-making. The broader import of defending probability discounting is to help justify cost-benefit analyses in contexts such as climate change. This chapter defends probability discounting under risk both negatively, from arguments by Simon Caney (2008, 2009), and with a new positive argument. First, in responding to Caney, I argue that small costs and benefits need to be evaluated, (...) and that viewing practices at the social level is too coarse-grained. Second, I argue for probability discounting using a distinction between causal responsibility and moral responsibility. Moral responsibility can be cashed out in terms of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness, while causal responsibility obtains in full for any effect which is part of a causal chain linked to one's act. With this distinction in hand, unlike causal responsibility, moral responsibility can be seen as coming in degrees. My argument is, given that we can limit our deliberation and consideration to that which we are morally responsible for and that our moral responsibility for outcomes is limited by our subjective probabilities, our subjective probabilities can ground probability discounting. (shrink)

Many of us believe that if some acts wrongly out of culpably ignorance, they are morally blameworthy to some degree. I offer a defense of this view against the powerful "Liberal Challenge" to the position. My defense proceeds by arguing that facts about a given agent's quality of will can play a different explanatory role in the larger theory of blameworthiness and the structure of exculpation than is often assumed.

I offer in this paper an argument in support of the orthodox view that resultant luck should not affect judgments of blameworthiness—and so, for example, that we should not blame the successful assassin more than the attempted assassin who equally tries but fails. This view, though widely held among moral philosophers and legal scholars, has been severely challenged as implying either the implausible rejection of moral luck or an equally implausible theory of wrongness according to which actual consequences may (...) play no wrong-making role. The argument I offer, however, assumes both challenges to be true and shows that the orthodox view is consistent with holding them. Indeed, I argue that all other things being equal, successful offenders are no more to blame than their unsuccessful counterparts, even though agents are responsible for what they actually do , and successful offenders do more wrong than their unsuccessful counterparts do . The reason is that the difference in the amount of wrong done by one and the other offender, I show, is counterbalanced by a difference in the degree to which the successful offense and the unsuccessful one are attributable to their respective agents—blameworthiness being a function of both amount of wrong done and degree of attributability. (shrink)

Is a human more conscious than an octopus? In the science of consciousness, it’s oftentimes assumed that some creatures (or mental states) are more conscious than others. But in recent years, a number of philosophers have argued that the notion of degrees of consciousness is conceptually confused. This paper (1) argues that the most prominent objections to degrees of consciousness are unsustainable, (2) examines the semantics of ‘more conscious than’ expressions, (3) develops an analysis of what it is (...) for a degreed property to count as degrees of consciousness, and (4) applies the analysis to various theories of consciousness. I argue that whether consciousness comes in degrees ultimately depends on which theory of consciousness turns out to be correct. But I also argue that most theories of consciousness entail that consciousness comes in degrees. (shrink)

Let us agree that everything that there is exists, and that to be, to be real, and to exist are one and the same. Does everything that there is exist to the same degree? Or do some things exist more than others? Are there gradations of being? I argue that some entities exist more than others. Moreover, many of the notions in play in contemporary metaphysical discourse, such as fundamentality, perfect naturalness, and grounding ought to be cashed out in terms (...) of degree of existence. (shrink)

Doctoral programs at U.S. universities play a critical role in the development of human resources both in the United States and abroad. This volume reports the results of an extensive study of U.S. research-doctorate programs in five broad fields: physical sciences and mathematics, engineering, social and behavioral sciences, biological sciences, and the humanities. Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States documents changes that have taken place in the size, structure, and quality of doctoral education since the widely used 1982 editions. This (...) update provides selected information on nearly 4,000 doctoral programs in 41 subdisciplines at 274 doctorate-granting institutions. This volume also reports the results of the National Survey of Graduate Faculty, which polled a sample of faculty for their views on the scholarly quality of program faculty and the effectiveness of doctoral programs in preparing research scholars/scientists. This much-anticipated update of such an essential reference will be useful to education administrators, university faculty, and students seeking authoritative information on doctoral programs. (shrink)

What propositions are rational for one to believe? With what confidence is it rational for one to believe these propositions? Answering the first of these questions requires an epistemology of beliefs, answering the second an epistemology of degrees of belief.

Abstract— This study aimed to identify the degree of use of the capabilities of decision-support systems in Palestinian institutions higher education, Aqsa University in Gaza - a case study. The study used a analytical descriptive approach, and the researchers used the of questionnaire tool to collect the data, the researchers using stratified random sample distributed (150) questioners to the study population and (126) was obtained back with rate of 84%. The study showed that the most important results are: that senior (...) management supports the existence of decision support systems and that there is approval by the respondents on the paragraphs of the use of the capabilities of decision support systems in general. And that there are no significant differences between the averages of the answers of respondents differences about the degree of use of decision support systems capabilities attributed to personal data. The study also concluded a series of recommendations including: increasing the adoption of the senior management decision support in their decision-making systems. And increased regulatory attention to the potential available to decision support systems directly to the senior management in the Palestinian universities in the Gaza Strip. There is an increased interest in the physical and technical possibilities available for the use of decision support systems. There is an increased interest in human potential available for the use of decision support systems. Investment of information available to universities in building the capacities of integration techniques and other information technology capabilities. The empowerment of human resources in universities and participating in making decisions concerning the construction of the capabilities of information technology. (shrink)

The quality of doctoral-level biochemistry (N=139), botany (N=83), cellular/molecular biology (N=89), microbiology (N=134), physiology (N=101), and zoology (N=70) programs at United States universities was assessed, using 16 measures. These measures focused on variables related to: (1) program size; (2) characteristics of graduates; (3) reputational factors (scholarly quality of faculty, effectiveness of programs in educating research scholars/scientists, improvement in program quality during the last 5 years); (4) university library size; (5) research support; and (6) publication records. Chapter I discusses prior attempts (...) to assess quality in graduate education, development of the study plans, and the selection of disciplines and programs to be evaluated. Chapter II discusses the methodology used, focusing on each of the assessment measures. Chapters III to VIII present, respectively, findings from the analyses of the biochemistry, botany, cellular/molecular biology, microbiology, physiology, and zoology programs. Chapter IX includes a summary of results, correlations among measures, several additional analyses, and suggestions for future studies. Among the findings reported are those indicating that cellular/molecular biology programs had, on the average, the largest number of faculty and that students in cellular/molecular biology, biology, biochemistry, microbiology, and physiology received a relatively high fraction of financial support. (Survey instruments and supporting documentation are included in appendices.) (JN). (shrink)

A number of authors have noted that vagueness engenders degrees of belief, but that these degrees of belief do not behave like subjective probabilities. So should we countenance two different kinds of degree of belief: the kind arising from vagueness, and the familiar kind arising from uncertainty, which obey the laws of probability? I argue that we cannot coherently countenance two different kinds of degree of belief. Instead, I present a framework in which there is a single notion (...) of degree of belief, which in certain circumstances behaves like a subjective probability assignment and in other circumstances does not. The core idea is that one’s degree of belief in a proposition P is one’s expectation of P’s degree of truth. (shrink)

The quality of doctoral-level chemistry (N=145), computer science (N=58), geoscience (N=91), mathematics (N=115), physics (N=123), and statistics/biostatistics (N=64) programs at United States universities was assessed, using 16 measures. These measures focused on variables related to: program size; characteristics of graduates; reputational factors (scholarly quality of faculty, effectiveness of programs in educating research scholars/scientists, improvement in program quality during the last 5 years); university library size; research support; and publication records. Chapter I discusses prior attempts to assess quality in graduate education, (...) development of the study plans, and the selection of disciplines and programs to be evaluated. Chapter II discusses the methodology used, focusing on each of the assessment measures. Chapters III to VIII present, respectively, findings from the analyses of the chemistry, computer science, geoscience, mathematics, physics, and statistics/biostatistics programs. Chapter IX includes a summary of results, correlations among measures, several additional analyses, and suggestions for future studies. Among the findings reported are those indicating that mathematics programs had, on the average, the largest number of faculty (N=33) in December 1980 followed closely by physics (N=28) and chemistry (N=23), and that 80 percent of computer science students had job commitments by graduation. (Survey instruments and supporting documentation are included in appendices.) (JN). (shrink)

This paper studies degrees of doxastic justification. Dependency relations among different beliefs are represented in terms of causal models. Doxastic justification, on this picture, is taken to run causally downstream along appropriate causal chains. A theory is offered which accounts for the strength of a derivative belief in terms of (i) the strength of the beliefs on which it is based, and (ii) the epistemic quality of the belief-forming mechanisms involved. It is shown that the structure of degrees (...) of justification converges to ranking theory under ideal conditions. (shrink)

Starting from John MacFarlane's recent survey of answers to the question ‘What is assertion?’, I defend an account of assertion that draws on elements of MacFarlane's and Robert Brandom's commitment accounts, Timothy Williamson's knowledge norm account, and my own previous work on the normative status of logic. I defend the knowledge norm from recent attacks. Indicative conditionals, however, pose a problem when read along the lines of Ernest Adams' account, an account supported by much work in the psychology of reasoning. (...) Furthermore, there seems to be no place for degrees of belief in the accounts of belief and assertion given here. Degrees of belief do have a role in decision‐making, but, again, there is much evidence that the orthodox theory of subjective utility maximization is not a good description of what we do in decision‐making and, arguably, neither is it a good normative guide to how we ought to make decisions. (shrink)

Partial explanations are everywhere. That is, explanations citing causes that explain some but not all of an effect are ubiquitous across science, and these in turn rely on the notion of degree of explanation. I argue that current accounts are seriously deficient. In particular, they do not incorporate adequately the way in which a cause’s explanatory importance varies with choice of explanandum. Using influential recent contrastive theories, I develop quantitative definitions that remedy this lacuna, and relate it to existing measures (...) of degree of causation. Among other things, this reveals the precise role here of chance, as well as bearing on the relation between causal explanation and causation itself. (shrink)

The philosophical work of Jean-Luc Marion has opened new ways of speaking about religious convictions and experiences. In this exploration of Marion’s philosophy and theology, Christina M. Gschwandtner presents a comprehensive and critical analysis of the ideas of saturated phenomena and the phenomenology of givenness. She claims that these phenomena do not always appear in the excessive mode that Marion describes and suggests instead that we consider degrees of saturation. Gschwandtner covers major themes in Marion’s work—the historical event, art, (...) nature, love, gift and sacrifice, prayer, and the Eucharist. She works within the phenomenology of givenness, but suggests that Marion himself has not considered important aspects of his philosophy. (shrink)

This paper describes a formal measure of epistemic justification motivated by the dual goal of cognition, which is to increase true beliefs and reduce false beliefs. From this perspective the degree of epistemic justification should not be the conditional probability of the proposition given the evidence, as it is commonly thought. It should be determined instead by the combination of the conditional probability and the prior probability. This is also true of the degree of incremental confirmation, and I argue that (...) any measure of epistemic justification is also a measure of incremental confirmation. However, the degree of epistemic justification must meet an additional condition, and all known measures of incremental confirmation fail to meet it. I describe this additional condition as well as a measure that meets it. The paper then applies the measure to the conjunction fallacy and proposes an explanation of the fallacy. (shrink)

A Turing degreedis the degree of categoricity of a computable structure${\cal S}$ifdis the least degree capable of computing isomorphisms among arbitrary computable copies of${\cal S}$. A degreedis the strong degree of categoricity of${\cal S}$ifdis the degree of categoricity of${\cal S}$, and there are computable copies${\cal A}$and${\cal B}$of${\cal S}$such that every isomorphism from${\cal A}$onto${\cal B}$computesd. In this paper, we build a c.e. degreedand a computable rigid structure${\cal M}$such thatdis the degree of categoricity of${\cal M}$, butdis not the strong degree of categoricity (...) of${\cal M}$. This solves the open problem of Fokina, Kalimullin, and Miller [13].For a computable structure${\cal S}$, we introduce the notion of the spectral dimension of${\cal S}$, which gives a quantitative characteristic of the degree of categoricity of${\cal S}$. We prove that for a nonzero natural numberN, there is a computable rigid structure${\cal M}$such that$0\prime$is the degree of categoricity of${\cal M}$, and the spectral dimension of${\cal M}$is equal toN. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept derivative blameworthiness for ignorant conduct – the idea that the blameworthiness for one’s ignorance can ‘transfer’ to blameworthiness for one’s subsequent ignorant conduct. In this chapter we ask the question what it actually means that blameworthiness would transfer, and explore four distinct views and their merits. On views (I) and (II), one’s overall degree of blameworthiness is determined by factors relevant to one’s ignorance and/or one’s subsequent conduct, and transfer only involves an (...) increase in scope. On views (III) and (IV), one’s overall degree of blameworthiness is determined by factors relevant to one’s ignorance as well as one’s subsequent conduct, and transfer might not only entail an increase in scope, but also in degree. (shrink)

Agents are often assumed to have degrees of belief (“credences”) and also binary beliefs (“beliefs simpliciter”). How are these related to each other? A much-discussed answer asserts that it is rational to believe a proposition if and only if one has a high enough degree of belief in it. But this answer runs into the “lottery paradox”: the set of believed propositions may violate the key rationality conditions of consistency and deductive closure. In earlier work, we showed that this (...) problem generalizes: there exists no local function from degrees of belief to binary beliefs that satisfies some minimal conditions of rationality and non-triviality. “Locality” means that the binary belief in each proposition depends only on the degree of belief in that proposition, not on the degrees of belief in others. One might think that the impossibility can be avoided by dropping the assumption that binary beliefs are a function of degrees of belief. We prove that, even if we drop the “functionality” restriction, there still exists no local relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs that satisfies some minimal conditions. Thus functionality is not the source of the impossibility; its source is the condition of locality. If there is any non-trivial relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs at all, it must be a “holistic” one. We explore several concrete forms this “holistic” relation could take. (shrink)

Why are conditional degrees of belief in an observation E, given a statistical hypothesis H, aligned with the objective probabilities expressed by H? After showing that standard replies are not satisfactory, I develop a suppositional analysis of conditional degree of belief, transferring Ramsey’s classical proposal to statistical inference. The analysis saves the alignment, explains the role of chance-credence coordination, and rebuts the charge of arbitrary assessment of evidence in Bayesian inference. Finally, I explore the implications of this analysis for (...) Bayesian reasoning with idealized models in science. (shrink)

A down-to-earth admission of abstract objects can be based on detailed explanation of where the objectivity of mathematics comes from, and how a ‘thin’ notion of object emerges from objective mathematical discourse or practices. We offer a sketch of arguments concerning both points, as a basis for critical scrutiny of the idea that mathematical and social objects are essentially of the same kind—which is criticized. Some authors have proposed that mathematical entities are indeed institutional objects, a product of our collective (...) imposition of function onto reality (the phrase comes from Searle) and of surrogation or hypostasis. Yet there are significant disanalogies between the typical social objects and mathemata, on which basis I argue that one should make a clear distinction between both. The comparison of mathematical with social objects helps understanding how non-physical objects can figure prominently in our explanations of reality. Yet mathematical objects have a different kind of cognitive grounding, and the more elementary of them emerge under relatively very simple sociocultural conditions. The differences are also reflected in the wide scope of use of mathematical concepts, and the much higher degree of variation found among social objects. On the basis of all of these features, I defend the thesis that one can significantly distinguish degrees of objectivity, and I use the distinction to articulate a graded ontology where one can locate the different kinds of mathematical and social objects. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Moral Responsibility is a collection of 33 articles by leading international scholars on the topic of moral responsibility and its main forms, praiseworthiness and blameworthiness. The articles in the volume provide a comprehensive survey on scholarship on this topic since 1960, with a focus on the past three decades. Articles address the nature of moral responsibility - whether it is fundamentally a matter of deserved blame and praise, or whether it is grounded anticipated good consequences, (...) such as moral education and formation, or whether there are different kinds of moral responsibility. They examine responsibility for both actions and omissions, whether responsibility comes in degrees, and whether groups such as corporations can be responsible. The traditional debates about moral responsibility focus on the threats posed from causal determinism, and from the absence of the ability to do otherwise that may result. The articles in this volume build on these arguments and appraise the most recent developments in these debates. Philosophical reflection on the personal relationships and moral responsibility has been especially intense over the past two decades, and several articles reflect this development. Other chapters take up the link between blameworthiness and attitudes such as moral resentment and indignation, while others explore the role that forgiveness and reconciliation play in personal relationships and responsibility. The range of articles in this volume look at moral responsibility from a range of perspectives and disciplines, explaining how physics, neuroscience, and psychological research on topics such as addiction and implicit bias illuminate the ways and degrees to which we might be responsible. (shrink)

This paper gives an explication of our intuitive notion of strength of justification in a controversial debate. It defines a thesis' degree of justification within the bipolar argumentation framework of the theory of dialectical structures as the ratio of coherently adoptable positions according to which that thesis is true over all coherently adoptable positions. Broadening this definition, the notion of conditional degree of justification, i.e.\ degree of partial entailment, is introduced. Thus defined degrees of justification correspond to our pre-theoretic (...) intuitions in the sense that supporting and defending a thesis t increases, whereas attacking it decreases, t's degree of justification. Moreover, it is shown that (conditional) degrees of justification are (conditional) probabilities. Eventually, the paper explains that it is rational to believe theses with a high degree of justification insofar as this strengthens the robustness of one's position. (shrink)

We often evaluate belief-forming processes, agents, or entire belief states for reliability. This is normally done with the assumption that beliefs are all-or-nothing. How does such evaluation go when we’re considering beliefs that come in degrees? I consider a natural answer to this question that focuses on the degree of truth-possession had by a set of beliefs. I argue that this natural proposal is inadequate, but for an interesting reason. When we are dealing with all-or-nothing belief, high reliability leads (...) to high levels of truth-possession. However, when it comes to degrees of belief, reliability and truth-possession part ways. The natural answer thus fails to be a good way to evaluate degrees of belief for reliability. I propose and develop an alternative method based on the notion of calibration, suggested by Frank Ramsey, which does not have this problem and consider why we should care about such assessments of reliability even if they are not tied directly to truth-possession. (shrink)

We investigate some logics with Henkin quantifiers. For a given logic L, we consider questions of the form: what is the degree of the set of L–tautologies in a poor vocabulary (monadic or empty)? We prove that the set of tautologies of the logic with all Henkin quantifiers in empty vocabulary L*∅ is of degree 0’. We show that the same holds also for some weaker logics like L ∅(Hω) and L ∅(Eω). We show that each logic of the form (...) L ∅ (k)(Q), with the number of variables restricted to k, is decidable. Nevertheless – following the argument of M. Mostowski from [Mos89] – for each reasonable set theory no concrete algorithm can provably decide L (k) (Q), for some (Q). We improve also some results related to undecidability and expressibility for logics L(H4) and L(F2) of Krynicki and M. Mostowski from [KM92]. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Guibert of Tournai's Letter to Lady Isabelle:An Introduction and English TranslationLarry F. Field, Jacques Dalarun, Sean L. Field, and Guibert of TournaiIntroductionGuibert, from the noble family of As-Piès, was born near Tournai around 1200. From his hometown he traveled to Paris for his art degree, and completed the curriculum in theology there before entering the Franciscan Order around 1240. He may have participated in Louis IX's crusade of 1248, (...) but, if so, was surely back in Paris by 1254 at the latest, since he preached a cycle of sermons de dominicis et de sanctis to the university community before summer 1255.1 His regency as Franciscan master of theology at Paris was probably around 1259–1261,2 about the time he [End Page 31] completed his Eruditio regum et principum for Louis IX,3 and began his most substantial work, the Erudimentum doctrinae.4 Other significant treatises include his De pace et animi tranquillitate (ca. 1275)5 written for Marie de Dampierre, and the Collectio de scandalis ecclesiae, prepared for the Second Council of Lyon.6 Guibert died in Tournai on 7 October 1284.7Sometime around 1254, Guibert wrote a long letter of spiritual advice to Isabelle (1225–70), the sister of King Louis IX.8 Isabelle was herself a remarkable figure. She had rejected several proposals of marriage, including that with Conrad, the heir to Emperor Frederick II, in 1243, in spite of pressure from her family and Pope Innocent IV. But following a bout of serious illness at about that time,9 her family accepted her [End Page 32] decision to remain unwed. There is no evidence, however, that Isabelle ever pronounced a formal vow of virginity. Through the 1250s she simply remained at the Capetian court as a virgin princess with an increasing reputation for piety and indeed holiness, praised in lavish terms by Innocent IV in 1253 and Alexander IV in 1256.10 This piety took a distinctly Franciscan turn by 1254, when Pope Innocent IV granted her request for Franciscan confessors,11 which would ultimately result in her foundation of Longchamp, a house of Sorores minores just west of Paris, by 1260.12 Guibert's letter shows no awareness of such a project, indicating that it must have been written before spring 1255, by which time the land for Longchamp was being purchased on Isabelle's behalf.13 Guibert thus wrote at the moment when Isabelle was forming her first ties to the Franciscans, but well before her move to Longchamp, where she lived out the 1260s as resident lay patron (but never a nun).Guibert's Letter is really a short treatise of spiritual and moral advice, tailored to a celibate princess. It is organized around Psalm 44:14–15, All the glory of the king's daughter is within in golden fringes, clothed around with varieties. In a five-part structure, the king's daughter stands for a heavenly inheritance; glory within represents internal purity; gold indicates virginity; the fringes are a sign of humility; and clothed around with varieties points to honest comportment. The resulting "royal garment," however, is rather unequally woven together, with section one on the "heavenly inheritance" and the intertwined sections three and four on virginity and humility receiving by far the most space. In fact, section one forms a sort of treatise-within-a-treatise, organized as a ten-step ascent to the heavenly inheritance awaiting the daughter of the king. [End Page 33]The Letter to Lady Isabelle was first edited by Alphonse de Poorter in 1931, from a manuscript which contained only part of the text.14 The full text was brought into print by Sean Field in 2003,15 and translated into French by Jacques Dalarun in 2014.16 Yet in spite of these advances, the Letter has remained little noticed by scholars. Anne-Hélène Allirot offered several perceptive pages in 2010, stressing the way Guibert's treatment of hereditas implies that female members of the royal family might be particularly able to embody Capetian claims to holiness.17 That same year, in the only recent article dedicated specifically to this Letter, Rina Lahav... (shrink)

There has been much discussion about whether traditional epistemology's doxastic attitudes are reducible to degrees of belief. In this paper I argue that what I call the Straightforward Reduction - the reduction of all three of believing p, disbelieving p, and suspending judgment about p, not-p to precise degrees of belief for p and not-p that ought to obey the standard axioms of the probability calculus - cannot succeed. By focusing on suspension of judgment (agnosticism) rather than belief, (...) we can see why the Straightforward Reduction is bound to fail. I argue that, in general, suspending about p is not just a matter of having some specified standard credence for p, and in the end I suggest some ways to extend the arguments that will put pressure on other credence-theoretic accounts of belief and suspension of judgment as well. (shrink)

We wish to give a precise formulation of the intuitive concept: The degree to which the known facts support a given hypothesis.

Based on the theory of dialectical structures, I review the concept of degree of justification of a partial position a proponent may hold in a controversial debate. The formal concept of degree of justification dovetails with our pre-theoretic intuitions about a thesis' strength of justification. The central claim I'm going to defend in this paper maintains that degrees of justification, as defined within the theory of dialectical structures, correlate with a proponent position's verisimilitude. I vindicate this thesis with the (...) results of simulations of controversial argumentation. (shrink)

The lecture starts by considering analytic philosophy as a tradition, and its global spread over recent years, of which Disputatio’s success is itself evidence. The costs and benefits of the role of English as the international language of analytic philosophy are briefly assessed. The spread of analytic philosophy is welcomed as the best hope for scientific philosophy, in a sense of ‘science’ on which mathematics, history, and philosophy can all count as sciences, though not as natural sciences. Arguably, experimental philosophy (...) provides no plausible alternative methodology for philosophy, only a way of psychologizing it. However, it serves a useful purpose by highlighting the inadequacy of current methods for detecting errors in judgments on possible cases, which may result from reliance on possibly universal but imperfectly reliable cognitive heuristics. The problem is exacerbated by analytic philosophers’ tendency to regard increased flexibility in a theoretical framework as progress, where natural scientists would treat it as methodologically vicious profligacy with degrees of freedom. The result is a familiar type of bad science, overfitting theory to uncritically accepted data. The recent ‘hyperintensional revolution’ may be an example of such overfitting, it is suggested. The lecture ends with a call for a more miserly attitude to degrees of freedom. (shrink)