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: yesWe can absolutely ascertain certain truths without experience.
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Accept: Platonism
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Accept: subjective
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Accept: yes
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: internalism
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Lean toward: skepticism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Lean toward: compatibilism
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheismThere can be no proof of god. I agnostically accept that there may be a god, but reject that we can ever know the truth of this matter.
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Accept: empiricismTo know, we must see, unless the knowledge is a priori (known by definition).
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Accept: Humean
Logic: classical or non-classical?Accept: classical
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Accept bothWe are both subjective and objective animals.
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Lean toward: moral realismI accept error theory, but believe there is truth in social facts.
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Lean toward: naturalism
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Lean toward: physicalismThere is something inherent to the subjective self, but it is likely explainable using mental processes.
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Accept an intermediate viewThere is truth to social facts, but they are dependent on there being a "society"
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Accept: internalismMotivations and intentions are internal.
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Accept: virtue ethicsGood character will lead to good actions, good motivations, and good intentions.
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: psychological viewWe are who we decide we are.
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Lean toward: egalitarianismStrongly Platonic. The simple life is the most desirable, but if we must have our luxuries, then let us be equal to our functions.
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Accept: Fregean
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Accept: scientific realismScience is directly related to empirical reality. Everything else is metaphysical.
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Accept: deathYou are a new entity, and there is no way that the "you" that was destroyed is the "you" that is created. The teletransporter cannot perfectly reconstruct the perfect copy.
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Accept: switchDr. Foot's problem requires a solution that saves lives. The more the merrier.
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Accept: epistemic
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Accept: conceivable but not metaphysically possible