15 found
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  1. ChatGPT is bullshit.Michael Townsen Hicks, James Humphries & Joe Slater - 2024 - Ethics and Information Technology 26 (2):1-10.
    Recently, there has been considerable interest in large language models: machine learning systems which produce human-like text and dialogue. Applications of these systems have been plagued by persistent inaccuracies in their output; these are often called “AI hallucinations”. We argue that these falsehoods, and the overall activity of large language models, is better understood as bullshit in the sense explored by Frankfurt (On Bullshit, Princeton, 2005): the models are in an important way indifferent to the truth of their outputs. We (...)
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  2.  73
    Just Judge: The Jury on Trial.Joe Slater - 2023 - American Philosophical Quarterly 60 (2):169-186.
    Content note: This paper discusses rape throughout.Abstract. In this paper, I consider arguments in favor of jury trials. While I find these generally persuasive, I argue that there can be cases where juries are not fit for purpose. In those cases, I argue that they should be replaced by judge-only trials. In doing so, I propose a framework for determining whether a type of case is unsuitable for jury trials. Partly in response to low conviction rates, there have been recent (...)
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  3. Correction: ChatGPT is bullshit.Michael Townsen Hicks, James Humphries & Joe Slater - 2024 - Ethics and Information Technology 26 (3):1-2.
  4. Satisficing Consequentialism Still Doesn't Satisfy.Joe Slater - 2020 - Utilitas 32 (1):108-117.
    Satisficing consequentialism is an unpopular theory. Because it permits gratuitous sub-optimal behaviour, it strikes many as wildly implausible. It has been widely rejected as a tenable moral theory for more than twenty years. In this article, I rehearse the arguments behind this unpopularity, before examining an attempt to redeem satisficing. Richard Yetter Chappell has recently defended a form of ‘effort satisficing consequentialism’. By incorporating an ‘effort ceiling’ – a limit on the amount of willpower a situation requires – and requiring (...)
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  5.  28
    Kant and Overdemandingness I: The Demandingness of Imperfect Duties.Joe Saunders, Joe Slater & Martin Sticker - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (6):e12998.
    The Overdemandingness Objection maintains that an ethical theory or principle that demands too much should be rejected, or at least moderated. Traditionally, overdemandingness is considered primarily a problem for consequentialist ethical theories. Recently, Kant and Kantian ethics have also become part of the debate. This development helps us better understand both overdemandingness and problems with Kant's ethics. In this, the first of a pair of papers, we introduce the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties as well as a framework for (...)
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  6.  9
    (1 other version)Book Symposium: Alfred Archer and Jake Wojtowicz’s Why it’s OK to be a Sports Fan.Alfred Archer, Jake Wojtowicz, Adam Kadlac, Joe Slater, Nathaniel Baron-Schmitt & Nina Windgätter - 2024 - Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 18:1-35.
    This is a book symposium on Why It’s OK to Be a Sports Fan, by Alfred Archer and Jake Wojtowicz, with contributions from Adam Kadlac, Joe Slater, Nathaniel Baron-Schmitt, and Nina Windgätter. The discussion covers a range of topics, including the form of love involved in fandom, the epistemic status of fans, fictionalism, and the role of communities in fandom.
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  7.  34
    Satisficers Still Get Away with Murder!Joe Slater - 2023 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 10.
    Recently, a few attempts have been made to rehabilitate satisficing consequentialism. One strategy, initially shunned by Tim Mulgan, is to suggest that agents must produce an outcome at least as good as they could at a particular level of effort. The effort-satisficer is able to avoid some of the problem cases usually deemed fatal to the view. Richard Yetter Chappell has proposed a version of effort-satisficing that not only avoids those problem cases, but has some independent plausibility. In this paper, (...)
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  8.  31
    History of Utilitarianism.Joe Slater - 2023 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    History of Utilitarianism The term “utilitarianism” is most-commonly used to refer to an ethical theory or a family of related ethical theories. It is taken to be a form of consequentialism, which is the view that the moral status of an action depends on the kinds of consequences the action produces. Stated this way, consequentialism … Continue reading History of Utilitarianism →.
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  9.  32
    The SIA Can’t Just Go with the FLO.Joe Slater - 2024 - HEC Forum 36 (3):423-439.
    Hendricks (2018) has defended an argument that abortion is (usually) immoral, which he calls the impairment argument. This argument purports to apply regardless of the moral status of the fetus. It has recently been bolstered by several amendments from Blackshaw and Hendricks (2021a; 2021b). In this paper, three problems are presented for their Strengthened Impairment Argument (SIA). In the first, it is observed that even with the new modifications the argument, contrary to their insistence, does seem to depend on Marquis’ (...)
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  10.  18
    Androids.Joe Slater - 2017 - In Jeffrey A. Ewing & Kevin S. Decker (eds.), Alien and Philosophy. Wiley. pp. 17–24.
    This chapter explores if androids like Ash in Alien have rights. Philosophers have tried to answer this type of question in several ways. The chapter looks at a few of these different ways, thinking about some cases that might be surprisingly difficult to explain, like why babies matter, whether animals have moral status, and what we should think about synthetics in this regard. Australian philosopher, Peter Singer argues that it is speciesist to treat human beings as the only things worthy (...)
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  11.  57
    How is the culpability we assign to recklessness best accounted for in criminal law?Joe Slater - 2014 - Dissertation,
    In order to be properly applied, criminal law must determine what conduct warrants punitive action. Figuring out exactly how one must act to be criminally liable is a difficulty that faces any legal system. In many jurisdictions criminal recklessness is regarded as an important notion for liability. However, recklessness is difficult to define, and attempts at this exercise have been a problem in legal philosophy since the mid-twentieth century, and persist today. This thesis discusses accounts of recklessness with the aim (...)
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  12.  32
    (1 other version)Miller’s Tale: Why the Sympathy Principle is Inadequate.Joe Slater - 2021 - Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 35 (1):97-111.
    In the aftermath of Peter Singer’s ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’, the argument he put forward received significant criticism, largely on the grounds that it demanded too much of moral agents. Several attempts have been made since to formulate moral principles that adequately express the stringency of our duties of beneficence. Richard Miller proposed one such option, which has several advantages over Singer’s principle. In particular, because it concerns our dispositions rather than operating over every possible occasion for beneficence, it avoids (...)
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  13. "You want me to do what?!" : a reasonable response to overly demanding moral theories.Joe Slater - 2018 - Dissertation, University of St. Andrews
    This thesis is about demandingness objections. It is claimed that various moral theories ask too much of moral agents, and for that reason should be rejected or modified accordingly. In the first chapter, I consider what this objection entails, particularly distinguishing it from Bernard Williams's integrity objection. The second chapter investigates several attempts to undermine the objection. I contend that their arguments for a more burdensome conception of morality fail, and that accepting their `extreme' view would leave us unable to (...)
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  14.  21
    The Ethics of Giving: Philosophers’ Perspectives on Philanthropy, edited by Paul Woodruff. [REVIEW]Joe Slater - 2020 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 17 (4):464-467.
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  15.  39
    Jamie Carlin Watson’s Winning Votes by Abusing Reason: Responsible Belief and Political Rhetoric. [REVIEW]Joe Slater - 2019 - Res Publica 25 (1):127-132.
    In Winning Votes by Abusing Reason, Jamie Carlin Watson combines research from epistemology, political philosophy, psychology, and economics in constructing a sophisticated argument that challenges unspoken commitments held by those engaged in politics. Watson’s main focus is what he calls the ‘problem of political rhetoric’. He asks whether we can ever really learn anything from the testimony of politicians. He is not optimistic. Watson argues that political rhetoric is damaging to our reasoning faculties. He sees no solution to this problem, (...)
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