George Fletcher, a foremost scholar in the fields of comparative and international criminal law, was a friend and colleague of Herbert Morris, a renowned scholar and teacher of law and philosophy at the UCLA School of Law. To commemorate and honor the late Herbert Morris, who died in 2022, Fletcher has assembled and edited the selection of essays in this book. Many of the contributors knew Morris on a personal and an academic level. Others only knew of (...) Morris by reputation. The essays fall into four categories: Criminal Law and Theory, Personal Reflections, Art and Literary Criticism, and Law and Religion. This commemorative volume reflects Fletcher's respect and admiration for his friend's accomplishments and lifetime achievements. "In two essays, the late Professor Herbert Morris addresses the fundamental issue in criminal law, whether thoughts alone could constitute a basis of criminal liability. The first essay was "Punishment for Thoughts" and the second, "Persons and Punishment". I consider these two of the most important articles ever published on the theory of criminal law." George Fletche. (shrink)

Burt's critique of using polygenic scores in social science conflates the “scientific costs” of sociogenomics with “sociopolitical and ethical” concerns. Furthermore, she paradoxically enlists recent advances in controlling for environmental confounding to argue such confounding is scientifically “intractable.” Disinterested social scientists should support ongoing efforts to improve this technology rather than obstructing progress and excusing genetically confounded research.

Students and philosophers alike often find Dooyeweerd’s writings unclear and inaccessible, and the ideas expressed in them obscure and difficult to grasp. In this paper I will first explore the issue of unclarity in Dooyeweerd’s work—for example, what makes Dooyeweerdian writings difficult to understand? Why is it that his meaning is often unclear? And does this imply that something is wrong with his writings? Second, and as a case in point regarding unclarity in Dooyeweerd’s work, I will examine an important (...) distinction drawn in Reformational philosophy, namely, between naive experience and theoretical thinking. In his paper “The Amsterdam Philosophy: A Preliminary Critique,” philosopher and theologian John Frame criticizes Dooyeweerd for his unclear writings and for drawing an implausibly sharp distinction between naive experience and theoretical thinking. Assessing Frame’s critique will serve as a framework for the discussion of these two related issues. (shrink)

In this book, Alan Berger further develops the new theory of reference -- as formulated by Kripke and Putnam -- applying it in novel ways to many philosophical problems concerning reference and existence. Berger argues that his notion of anaphoric background condition and anaphoric links within a linguistic community are crucial not only to a theory of reference, but to the analysis of these problems as well. The book is organized in three parts. In part I, Berger (...) distinguishes between two styles of rigid designation. Based on this distinction, he develops a theory of reference change for rigid designator terms and shows how this distinction sheds light on identity statements. In part II, he offers an account of belief attribution containing vacuous names within the belief context, of intentional identity statements, and of true negative existential statements. In part III, he analyzes anaphoric expressions and presents a formalization of anaphora and plural quantification. (shrink)

L. M. de Rijk supposed in 1982 that two anonymous logical tracts in the Viennese Codex 4698, fol. 18r–27v, may be the work of Martinus Anglicus to whom a tract on consequences and one on obligations are ascribed in that codex. The tract on supposition of which the Viennese codex hands down only a fragment of the beginning is contained completely in Hs I 613 of the Stadtbibliothek Mainz, fol. 20vb–21vb. This finding ensures the authorship of Martinus Anglicus and allows (...) to ascribe an Introduction into Logic in some seven parts to him. Martin’s tract on supposition and the more detailed one by Thomas Manlevelt show some resemblances in structure and content, the first being presumably the later one. This paper presents an edition of Martin’s Tractatus de suppositione from the Mainz manuscript and an introduction regarding the author and his work. (shrink)

This paper is an empirical critique of causal accounts of scientific explanation. Drawing on explanations which rely on nonlinear dynamical modeling, I argue that the requirement of causal relevance is both too strong and too weak to be constitutive of scientific explanation. In addition, causal accounts obscure how the process of mathematical modeling produces explanatory information. I advance three arguments for the inadequacy of causal accounts. First, I argue that explanatorily relevant information is not always information about causes, even in (...) cases where the explanandum has an identifiable causal history. Second, I argue that treating theoretical explanations as reductions from general causal laws does not accurately describe the types of "top-down" explanations typical of dynamical modeling. Finally, I argue that causal/mechanical accounts of explanation are intrinsically vulnerable to the irrelevance problem. (shrink)

This work examines the concept of the "philosophical life" by looking at Socrates and his relationships to his interlocutors.

According to Rosenthal's higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness, one is in a conscious mental state if and only if one is aware of oneself as being in that state via a suitable HOT. Several critics have argued that the possibility of so-called targetless HOTs—that is, HOTs that represent one as being in a state that does not exist—undermines the theory. Recently, Wilberg (2010) has argued that HOT theory can offer a straightforward account of such cases: since consciousness is a (...) property of mental state tokens, and since there are no states to exhibit consciousness, one is not in conscious states in virtue of targetless HOTs. In this paper, I argue that Wilberg's account is problematic and that Rosenthal's version of HOT theory, according to which a suitable HOT is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness, is to be preferred to Wilberg's account. I then argue that Rosenthal's account can comfortably accommodate targetless HOTs because consciousness is best understood as a property of individuals, not a property of states. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that games and sports that harm nonhuman animals are unethical because they exceed the permissible limits of optional harm and the more harm the game imposes on the nonhuman animal(s) it objectifies the worse the ethical transgression. Factors in the analysis include the nature of games and sports, the ontology of beings (i.e., human and nonhuman animals) in games, the mitigating power of informed consent among human game-players and its absence among nonhuman game players, (...) harm, and intent. (shrink)

While increasing numbers of philosophers have argued for eliminating the retributivist elements of criminal justice systems, their arguments often fall short due to internal inconsistency. Some of the best known of these arguments — such as those provided by Derk Pereboom and Gregg Caruso — rely on the claim that there are moral grounds for rejecting retributivism. In defending this claim, these philosophers typically provide arguments seeking to undermine the type of agent responsibility that they believe is needed to justify (...) retributivism. This is usually followed by an assertion that since the excessive suffering caused by retributivist punishment cannot be justified, it is therefore immoral to preserve remnants of it in our criminal justice systems. This paper — which opposes the moral case against retributivism provided by Pereboom and Caruso, and favors non-moral reasons that recommend rejecting a retributivist approach — is divided into three parts. In part one, I discuss why Pereboom and Caruso are correct in thinking that free will skepticism undercuts the moral justification for retributivism. Part two sets out to explain why their moral case against retributivism fails insofar as it runs afoul of the folk intuitions that are called upon to defend Pereboom’s account of free will skepticism. In part three, I provide a non-moral case against the retributivism that is founded on considerations of self-interest and empathy. (shrink)

I submit that the intimations of "inner meanings" as presented in this novel should be reread as a transpositions from the language of sexual intercourse to the language of idealized consciousness, that is, from physical sensation to felt thought. Consider the imagery employed when Mrs. Dalloway reminds herself of her experiences of love: It was a sudden revelation, a tinge like a blush which one tried to check and then, as it spread, one yielded to its expansion, and rushed to (...) the farthest verge and there quivered and felt the world come closer, swollen with some astonishing significance, some pressure of rapture, which split its thin skin and gushed and poured with an extraordinary alleviation over the cracks and sores! Then, for that moment, she had seen an illumination; a match burning in a crocus; an inner meaning almost expressed. But the close withdrew; the hard softened. It was over - the moment. [p. 47]What is implied by the phrase "inner meaning" - secret, hidden, private - discoverable only by letting go of the protecting, preserving defenses of the self merged in the most fulfilling involvement with another, through rhythmic participation and withdrawal, is expressed in the superb image of "a match burning in a crocus." The ecstatic, climatic moment bursts into the vision of a flower, even a common flower, a crocus, seen, first as an object of beauty only: for flowers are felt to be useless, as having no use for us other than as objects for aesthetic contemplation, and then, as a match - straight, hard in the center - burning. Thus, the vividness of the visual perception is combined with the thrill of a danger involved, the inherent destructive potential of fire. Thereby, the flower image is experienced as an event, a performance, not a useful means to an end other than itself but of use only as expressive of consummatory pleasure, an end in itself. Expressions of such moments of insight characterize culminating experiences in answer to the question: "What will ever be enough?" to make life worth living.Morris Philipson is the author of Outline of a Jungian Aesthetics, a satirical novel, Bourgeois Anonymous, and a biography of Tolstoy, The Count Who Wished He Were a Peasant, winner of the Clara Ingram Judson award. He has also edited a number of books including Aesthetics Today and Aldous Huxley on Art and Artists. (shrink)

This book consists thematically of three broad sections: a lengthy introduction in which Grünbaum critically assesses the hermeneutic construal of psychoanalysis, as represented in the work of Habermas, G. S. Klein, and Ricoeur; a critical examination of Popper's assessment of both psychoanalysis and inductivism; and a logical analysis of core psychoanalytic ideas that constitute the foundation for much of psychoanalytic theory. This last section is, in my view, the heart of the book and therefore, it is that section on which (...) I will focus in this review. (shrink)

I offer here a new hypothesis about the nature of implicit attitudes. Psy- chologists and philosophers alike often distinguish implicit from explicit attitudes by maintaining that we are aware of the latter, but not aware of the former. Recent experimental evidence, however, seems to challenge this account. It would seem, for example, that participants are frequently quite adept at predicting their own perfor- mances on measures of implicit attitudes. I propose here that most theorists in this area have nonetheless overlooked (...) a commonsense distinction regarding how we can be aware of attitudes, a difference that fundamentally distinguishes implicit and explicit attitudes. Along the way, I discuss the implications that this distinction may hold for future debates about and experimental investigations into the nature of implicit attitudes. (shrink)

Scientific explanations are widely recognized to have instrumental value by helping scientists make predictions and control their environment. In this paper I raise, and provide a first analysis of, the question whether explanatory proofs in mathematics have analogous instrumental value. I first identify an important goal in mathematical practice: reusing resources from existing proofs to solve new problems. I then consider the more specific question: do explanatory proofs have instrumental value by promoting reuse of the resources they contain? In general, (...) I argue that the answer to this question is “no” and demonstrate this in detail for the theory of mathematical explanation developed by Marc Lange. (shrink)

Many have claimed that epistemic rationality sometimes requires us to have imprecise credal states (i.e. credal states representable only by sets of credence functions) rather than precise ones (i.e. credal states representable by single credence functions). Some writers have recently argued that this claim conflicts with accuracy-centered epistemology, i.e., the project of justifying epistemic norms by appealing solely to the overall accuracy of the doxastic states they recommend. But these arguments are far from decisive. In this essay, we prove some (...) new results, which show that there is little hope for reconciling the rationality of credal imprecision with accuracy-centered epistemology. (shrink)

In Morris I presented in outline a new interpretation of the famous ‘substance argument’ in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. The account I presented there gave a distinctive view of Wittgenstein’s main concerns in the argument, but did not explain in detail how the argument works: how its steps are to be found in the text, and how it concludes. I remain convinced that the interpretation I proposed correctly identifies the main concerns which lie behind the argument. I return to the argument (...) here in order to elaborate in fuller detail the relation between those concerns and the actual course of the text. (shrink)

The acceptance of causal closure has had a profoundly limiting effect on the philosophical treatment of sui generis mental causation in recent decades. Philosophical treatments of special divine action have been likewise hampered by a widespread commitment to closure. If fundamental reality is as closure tells us it is, then nonphysical minds—human and divine— are either causally impotent or redundant. In this paper, I reject this limitation as baseless. Specifically, I will show how Hempel’s dilemma poses a far greater challenge (...) when applied to a causal closure principle than it did to the task of defining physicalism. Reponses to the dilemma can be used to disambiguate closure, but not without significant cost. In light of Hempel’s dilemma, there is no conception of closure that can do all of the following: rule out sui generis mental causation, have a reasonable chance of being true, and avoid problematic circularity. At the end of the day, I maintain that closure, properly understood, is, or ought to be, just one methodological stance among many. If this is correct, it is a stance that a theist can freely reject. (shrink)

I motivate and defend a previously underdeveloped functionalist account of the metaphysics of color, a view that I call ‘quality-space functionalism’ about color. Although other theorists have proposed varieties of color functionalism, this view differs from such accounts insofar as it identifies and individuates colors by their relative locations within a particular kind of so-called ‘quality space’ that reflects creatures’ capacities to discriminate visually among stimuli. My arguments for this view of color are abductive: I propose that quality-space functionalism best (...) captures our commonsense conception of color, fits with many experimental findings, coheres with the phenomenology of color experience, and avoids many issues for standard theories of color such as color physicalism and color relationalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Against Their Wishes: The Gift of a GoodbyeAustin MorrisThink back, if you can, to when you were once a 25-year-old young adult. Think back to your hopes, your dreams, your overall plan and expectations for life and where you think you would end up one day. Now imagine facing your own mortality; life as you have known rapidly approaching an end that you were not able to prepare for (...) prior to its arrival. Imagine the fear, the uncertainty; imagine how your family and friends would feel surrounding you on your deathbed.The above was the reality for one of my patients. He was a 25-year-old gentleman rapidly approaching the end of his life. As a physician, it is our duty to do no harm and provide the best standard of care to each patient we see on a day-to-day basis. In some cases, what truly constitutes the best standard of care is uncertain, and oftentimes, we find ourselves stepping out of medicine and into the world of medical ethics. Upon arrival to the hospital, this patient’s initial decision was to be made full “Do Not Resuscitate” and “Do Not Intubate.” This decision was made while the patient was suffering mild symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. He was evaluated by psychiatry, we reviewed every medical note we had to assess for signs of depression, and ultimately he was deemed competent, demonstrating a mental capacity to understand his current healthcare status and the ramifications of the decision he was making.As a 28-year-old resident physician, my experience with medicine may be limited relative to those surrounding me in the profession. My intuition, though, has been sharpened with numerous experiences over the last two years dealing with patients driven into depression following the COVID pandemic, finding solace in the use of hard liquor, and subsequently suffering the side-effects of its toxicity. This 25-year-old patient, upon initial assessment, appeared closer to the age of 40; his eyes were icteric, his skin was profoundly jaundiced, and his abdomen distended visibly underneath his hospital gown and blanket. His mother sat at his bedside, fully unaware of the severity of his condition. The patient was angry, questioning why he was admitted and shouting at his mom for forcing him to be evaluated. My initial review of his chart was as in-depth as it could be for having such a limited health history available. Despite that, I could see the path that this would head down over the next 48 hours. Withdrawal was inevitable. The likelihood of needing intubation within the next 24 hours was extremely high. The only bit of uncertainty I was left with was whether or not this patient would survive following these anticipated life-saving interventions. I had anticipated that this would be a long, tenuous, and challenging admission requiring the highest level of care both for myself as a physician and through the healthcare system within our hospital as a whole. But what I did not anticipate was discussing whether or not a 25-year-old should be a DNR/DNI patient.By day 2 of the patient’s admission, evaluation by hepatology confirmed my suspicions; this patient was suffering from fulminant liver failure, and without a transplant, he would surely die. However, we were not able to have this discussion with the patient, as his withdrawal had progressed to the point of disorientation and agitation. The brief episodes of consciousness were spaced through long [End Page 5] periods of unresponsiveness. Prior to this, as mentioned above, the patient was alert and oriented x3 and had expressed, in no uncertain terms, a DNR/DNI status; the confounding factor, though, was during his time awake, he had not been evaluated by hepatology and had not been diagnosed with fulminant liver failure. As such, the prospect of a liver transplant, which would provide life-saving treatment and potentially a path back to life as this patient knew it, had not existed then. Knowing that my time was limited before the patient would fail to protect his airway and would inevitably die, I reached back out to the patient’s mother... (shrink)

Noonan's arguments against methodological solipsism ("methodological solipsism," "philosophical studies" 4, 1981) assumes that mental states are individuated by (russellian) content; this assumption entails that narrowness and wideness are intrinsic to mental states. I propose an alternative "extrinsic" reading of methodological solipsism, According to which narrowness and wideness are modes of attribution of mental states, And thus reject the doctrine of individuation by russellian content. Noonan's arguments fail against this version of methodological solipsism.

It is often assumed that perceptual experience provides evidence about the external world. But much perception can occur unconsciously, as in cases of masked priming or blindsight. Does unconscious perception provide evidence as well? Many theorists maintain that it cannot, holding that perceptual experience provides evidence in virtue of its conscious character. Against such views, I challenge here both the necessity and, perhaps more controversially, the sufficiency of consciousness for perception to provide evidence about the external world. In addition to (...) motivating and defending the idea that unconscious perception can and does often provide evidence, I observe that whether or not perceptual phenomenology is relevant to the evidentiary status of perception depends on the nature of consciousness. And I argue that a well-supported theory of consciousness—higher-order thought theory—invites a striking conclusion: that perceptual phenomenology is not on its own sufficient to provide for evidence of the external world. (shrink)

In his “Wissenschaftslogik: The Role of Logic in the Philosophy of Science,” Michael Friedman argues that Carnap’s philosophy of science “is fundamentally anti-metaphysical—he aims to use the tools of mathematical logic to dissolve rather [than] solve traditional philosophical problems—and it is precisely this point that is missed by his logically-minded contemporaries such as Hempel and Quine”. In this paper, I take issue with this claim, arguing that Quine, too, is a part of this anti-metaphysical tradition. I begin in section I (...) with Russell’s account of scientific philosophy, focusing on its critique of metaphysics and its reliance on logical constructions. I then argue that each of Carnap and Quine take up this call to scientific philosophizing but that they both find Russell’s account of logic wanting. In section II, I first provide an account of Carnap’s critique of metaphysics and its reliance on developments in logic. This is followed by a discussion of his appeal to the analytic/synthetic distinction so as to improve upon Russell’s account of logic. Section III follows this same structure but focuses on Quine. In the end, though, Quine turns not to the analytic/synthetic distinction but to holism to provide an account of logic suitable to scientific philosophy. Carnap had claimed to be “more Russellian than Russell,” and in this final move by Quine I argue that he is “being more Carnapian than Carnap.” I conclude by showing how, contrary to Friedman’s view, Quine’s rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction does not yield a return to the kind metaphysics that he, Carnap, and Russell all objected to. (shrink)

Mathematicians judge proofs to possess, or lack, a variety of different qualities, including, for example, explanatory power, depth, purity, beauty and fit. Philosophers of mathematical practice have begun to investigate the nature of such qualities. However, mathematicians frequently draw attention to another desirable proof quality: being motivated. Intuitively, motivated proofs contain no "puzzling" steps, but they have received little further analysis. In this paper, I begin a philosophical investigation into motivated proofs. I suggest that a proof is motivated if and (...) only if mathematicians can identify (i) the tasks each step is intended to perform; and (ii) where each step could have reasonably come from. I argue that motivated proofs promote understanding, convey new mathematical resources and stimulate new discoveries. They thus have significant epistemic benefits and directly contribute to the efficient dissemination and advancement of mathematical knowledge. Given their benefits, I also discuss the more practical matter of how we can produce motivated proofs. Finally I consider the relationship between motivated proofs and proofs which are explanatory, beautiful and fitting. (shrink)

In his recent _The Parmenidean Ascent_, Michael Della Rocca develops a regress-theoretic case, reminiscent of F. H. Bradley’s famous argument in _Appearance and Reality_, against the intelligibility of relations and in favor of a monistic conception of reality. I argue that Della Rocca illicitly supposes that “internal” relations — in one sense of that word — lead to a “chain” regress, a regress of relations relating relations and relata. In contrast, I contend that if “internal” or grounded relations lead to (...) a regress at all, it is a kind of “fission” regress within the relata themselves, and that a chain regress for relations only arises, if at all, for so-called “external” relations, relations not grounded in their relata. In this way, I contend that Della Rocca pursues a regress for so-called “internal” or grounded relations that only arise, if at all, for so-called “external” relations, relations not grounded in their relata. I compare Della Rocca’s case against relations with Bradley’s reasoning in _Appearance and Reality_ and suggest in this context that Bradley may, perhaps, have the upper hand. (shrink)

Representationalism holds that a perceptual experience's qualitative character is identical with certain of its representational properties. To date, most representationalists endorse atomistic theories of perceptual content, according to which an experience's content, and thus character, does not depend on its relations to other experiences. David Rosenthal, by contrast, proposes a view that is naturally construed as a version of representationalism on which experiences’ relations to one another determine their contents and characters. I offer here a new defense of this holistic (...) representationalism, arguing that some objections to atomistic views are best interpreted as supporting it. (shrink)

Scholars such as Renaud Barbara and Bernhard Waldenfels and Regula Giuliani have emphasized time’s central role in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, and Michael Kelly has shown how the Phenomenology’s “Temporality” chapter already broaches his later ontological concerns. I deepen our understanding of this temporal–ontological nexus by showing how Merleau-Ponty’s temporal ontology in fact erupts even earlier in the Phenomenology, as an underlying theme that unifies part two, on “The Perceived World,” as leading into the “Temporality” chapter. I do this via a close (...) study of the chapter, “The Thing and the Natural World,” first explicating some profound but easily overlooked points about time implied in Merleau-Ponty’s initial remarks on the constancy of form and size. I then closely analyze his study of color constancy in relation to his central source, David Katz’s The World of Colour, to show how color leads him to conceptualize things as what I call “time-things”—and more generally to conceptualize things, the world, and nature, as being in such a way that temporality is ingredient in their being. This leads to some implications for his temporal ontology. (shrink)

I discuss here the nature of nonconscious mental states and the ways in which they may differ from their conscious counterparts. I first survey reasons to think that mental states can and often do occur without being conscious. Then, insofar as the nature of nonconscious mentality depends on how we understand the nature of consciousness, I review some of the major theories of consciousness and explore what restrictions they may place on the kinds of states that can occur nonconsciously. I (...) close with a discussion of what makes a state mental, if consciousness is not the mark of the mental. (shrink)

In contemporary bioethics, the autonomy of the patient has assumed considerable importance. Progressing from a more limited notion of informed consent, shared decision making calls upon patients to voice the desires and preferences of their authentic self, engaging in choice among alternatives as a way to exercise deeply held values. One influential opinion in Jewish bioethics holds that Jewish law, in contradistinction to secular bioethics, limits the patient's exercise of autonomy only in those instances in which treatment choices are sensitive (...) to preferences. Here, we analyze a discussion in the Mishna, a foundational text of rabbinic Judaism, regarding patient autonomy in the setting of religiously mandated fasting, and commentaries in the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, finding both a more expansive notion of such autonomy and a potential metaphysical grounding for it in the importance of patient self-knowledge. (shrink)