Friday 5 August 2011

Dissertation Summary

The following is my most recent attempt to summarise my dissertation in a couple pages. I am only just approaching the half-way mark, so expect several revised versions of this summary in the near future.

My dissertation attempts to make sense of the idea that desires may be correct or incorrect by articulating and defending a version of the claim that desires aim at the good.

There is a widely held intuition that some desires are infelicitous, bad, or perverse. For example: there is something infelicitous about the desire to drink a can of oil in order to quench one’s thirst; there is something bad about the desire to take the life a known innocent; and there is something perverse about the desire to stick a sharpened pencil in one’s eye even though one believes no good could come from doing so and one recognizes that it would be extremely unpleasant. The first desire seems infelicitous on instrumental grounds; drinking oil is a poor way to quench one’s thirst. The second desire seems bad on ethical grounds; taking the life of a known innocent is morally wrong. The third desire seems perverse on hedonistic grounds; all things being equal, we would expect an agent to avoid unpleasant experiences. One way to capture the idea that a desire may be infelicitous, bad, or perverse—a theoretical proposal that is tied to a longstanding philosophical tradition—is to say that desires aim at the good, and that a desire is inappropriate, bad, or perverse just in case it fails to realise its aim. On this view, the good is the most abstract characterisation of aim of desire. Let us call this proposal the guise of the good theory of desires (henceforth, GG theory).

I wish to articulate and defend a plausible version of GG theory. There are three influential strategies for making sense of GG theory currently found in the literature: the Desire-as-Belief Thesis, the claim that the desire to φ is equivalent to the belief that φ is good; the Desire-plus-Belief Thesis; the claim that the desire to φ is always accompanied by the belief that φ is good; and the Desire-as-Perception Thesis, the claim that the desire to φ is equivalent to perceiving that φ is good. I argue that all three proposals are unacceptable as ways of making sense of GG theory. Instead, I argue that a desire plays the same role in our deliberation as being the recipient of a (self-issued) command, order or request. Let us refer to this proposal as the Desire-as-Imperative Thesis.

Significantly, the notion of an imperative implicated in the Desire-as-Imperative Thesis should not be confused with the Kantian notion of an imperative (i.e., a dictate of pure reason). Rather, the word ‘imperative’ is meant to pick out the category of non-assertoric speech-acts that is typically expressed using the imperative mood of English grammar; a category that includes orders, requests, commands, and entreaties. I hold that desires are like the class of speech-acts that are typically expressed by the imperative mood in at least three respects. First, like speech-acts in the imperative mood, desires are not truth-evaluable. For example, both the desire to close the front door and the request to close the front door is neither true nor false. Second, like speech-acts in the imperative mood, an agent assents to a desire, not by forming a belief, but by forming an intention. For example, one assents to the desire to close the front door or the request to close the front door by forming the intention to close the front door. Third, like speech-acts in the imperative mood, desires are governed by norms that determine if it would be correct or incorrect to assent to them. For example, both the desire to close the front door and request to close the front door are correct just in case it is good to close the front door. On this view, when we say desire aims at the good, we mean that the desire to φ is correct just in case it would be good to φ.

Monday 9 May 2011

Velleman on the Aim of Desire

In his paper, “The Guise of the Good”, David Velleman argues that desires aim, not at the good, but at the attainable. Velleman begins by drawing two important distinctions. Firstly, he distinguishes between cognative attitudes (i.e., attitudes in which a proposition is grasped as patterned after the world), and conative attitudes (i.e, attitudes in which a proposition is grasped as a pattern for the world to follow). Examples of cognative attitudes include beliefs, assumptions, and imaginings. Examples of conative attitudes include desires, hopes, and wishes. Secondly, he distinguishes between the direction of fit of an attitude (i.e., that in virtue of which it is a cognative or conative attitude) and the constitutive aim of an attitude (i.e., that in virtue of which it is correct or incorrect).

With the preceding pair of distinctions in place, Velleman then advances the following three-stage argument: First, he argues that the constitutive aim of belief is what distinguishes it from all other states with a cognitive direction of fit; namely, the fact that beliefs are correct just in case they are true. Second, he argues that what distinguishes desire from all other states with a conative direction of fit is not the fact that it aims after the good, since this is something it shares with all other conative states. Third, he argues that what distinguishes desire from all other conative states is the fact that desire aims at the attainable. He therefore concludes that desires aim at the attainable.

Stage 1: Velleman on Constitutive Aims
Velleman takes as his starting point the stipulation that the constitutive aim of a psychological state-type is whatever sets it apart from all other psychological state-types; to wit, what makes a psychological state-type the state-type that it is. Hence, to say that belief aims at the true, according to Velleman, is to say that the truth-aim is what distinguishes belief from all other states with a cognitive direction of fit. Velleman motivates this claim by exploiting a comparison of believing that p, on the one hand, and fantasising that p and assuming that p, on the other. Velleman notes that all three psychological states have a cognitive direction of fit; all three, according to Velleman, involve a proposition being grasped as patterned after the world. However, while believing that p is deemed correct if and only if p is true, fantasising that p and assuming that p are not deemed correct if and only if p is true. Thus, by Velleman's lights, it is the fact that a psychological state-type has the correctness conditions that it does that makes it the psychological state-type that it is.

Stage 2: Velleman's Negative Thesis
Next, Velleman argues that the good cannot be the constitutive aim of desire since desires are not the only psychological states that aim at the good. Velleman takes as his point of departure the assumption, widely held by proponents of GG theory, that desires aim at the good in virtue of their direction fit. On this view, to say that desires aim at the good just is to say that desires have a conative direction of fit. However, Velleman points out that having a conative direction of fit is something that desires have in common with all other conative attitudes, including wishes and hopes. The upshot is that all conative attitudes may be said to aim at the good. Given that the constitutitive aim of desire is what makes it the psychological state-type that it is, it follows that the good cannot be the constitutive aim of desire. We may call this Velleman’s negative thesis.

Stage 3: Velleman's Positive Thesis
Finally, Velleman argues that the constitutive aim of desire is the attainable. By this, Velleman does not mean that one can desire that p only if p is attainable. Rather, he means that one can desire that p only if one believes that p is attainable. Thus, Velleman allows that I may desire something that is in fact unattainable, if I mistakenly believe it to be attainable. For example, I can desire that I arrive in the airport at 3pm, even though it is not physically possible for me to arrive in the airport at 3pm, so long as I believe (albeit mistakenly) that it is physically possible for me to do so. Velleman observes that one can wish for something that one believes to be unattainable. For example, I can wish I were never born even though I believe that undoing my own birth is not something that is attainable. However, according to Velleman, one cannot desire something that one believes to be unattainable. Hence, I could not desire that I were never born if I believed that undoing my own birth was not attainable. According to Velleman, this distinction between desires and wishes generalises to all other conative states; only desires aim at the attainable. Thus, Velleman concludes that desires stand to the attainable as belief stands to the true. We may call this Velleman's positive thesis.

Friday 15 April 2011

The Normative Aim of Intention/Desire

The main contemporary motivation for the Guise of the Good Theory of Desires--namely, the claim that desires aim at the good (henceforth, GG theory)--comes from Anscombe, who claims that wanting aims at the good in the same sense that judgement aims at truth. Anscombe's claim has lead many GG theorists to draw an analogy between desire and belief. However, I believe that this is mistake. When Anscombe says that wanting aims at the good, she actually has something quite different from our ordinary conception of desires in mind:
'Wanting' may of course be applied to the prick of desire at the thought or sight of an object, even though a man then does nothing towards getting the object. . . . The wanting that interests us, however, is neither wishing nor hoping nor feeling nor desire, and cannot be said to exist in a man who does nothing towards getting what he wants. (Anscombe [2000], Intention. p. 67-68.)
The above passage suggests that Anscombe's notion of wanting is more like an intention than a desire; it entails taking steps towards getting the object wanted. If this is right, then the Anscombean thesis is most aptly interpreted as the claim that intentions aim at the good in the same way that beliefs aim at truth. On this reading, the appropriate analogy is not one between belief and desire, but between belief and intention.

The claim that intentions aim at the good in the same sense that belief aims at the true gives rise to the following question. In what sense does belief aim at the true? We may distinguish between psychological, metaphysical and normative readings of the claim that belief aims at the true. According to psychological reading, beliefs may be said to aim at the true because agents are motivated to form beliefs by a desire for truth. The psychological reading was famously denied by Charles Pierce, who insisted that our motivation for forming beliefs is a desire to alleviate the discomfort caused by doubt. Even if one does not buy into Pierce's positive claim, it seems undeniable that we are often motivated to form beliefs by considerations other than truth. Pride, fear, comfort, and consistency are just a few of the many possible motivations an agent may have for adopting a particular belief. Consequently, the claim that truth is the psychological aim of belief seems implausible.

According to the metaphysical reading, truth is what makes belief the kind of psychological state it is. On this view, if the proposition that constitutes the intentional object of a putative belief turns out to be false, then the attitude in question is not a belief. It should be immediately clear that when we say belief aims at the true, we do not mean that truth is the metaphysical aim of belief; to wit, that a belief only counts as such if the proposition believed is true. Such a view would have the implausible consequence that there are no false beliefs. Moreover, it threatens to collapse the distinction between belief and knowledge, since the latter does seem to have truth as its metaphysical aim; to wit, knowing that p counts as such only if p is true. Consequently, the claim that truth is metaphysical aim of belief also seems implausible.

I believe that the claim that belief aims after truth is best understood in normative terms. According to the normative reading, the belief that p is in some sense incorrect if p is false. Unlike the metaphysical reading, the normative reading does not entail that a belief only counts as such if the believed proposition is true. Thus, the normative reading makes room for the possibility of false beliefs. Moreover, unlike the psychological reading, the normative reading does not entail that we are always motivated to form beliefs by a desire for truth. Consequently, the claim that truth is normative aim of belief is more plausible, and does a better job of capturing what we mean when we say that belief aims after truth, than the psychological and metaphysical readings. Given the normative reading of the claim that belief aims at the true, the claim that intentions aim at the good in the same sense that belief aims at the true entails that the intention to φ is incorrect if φ is not good.

Having said what it means to say that intentions aim at the good, we may now ask why intentions may be said to aim at the good in aforementioned sense. One proposal is to say that the good is the normative aim of intention because an intention to φ is justified if and only if φ is good. However, this is not plausible. First, the intention of φ may be justified if the agent has a justified, but false, belief that φ is good. For example, suppose Mary has the justified belief that it would be good to give to a charity X, when in fact the charity X is a scam and it would in fact not be good to give to X. Quite plausibly, it may still be justified for Mary to adopt the intention to give to charity X, given her justified belief that it would be good to do so. Second, the intention to φ is not justified if the agent has the justified, but false, belief that φ is not good. For example, suppose Bob has the justified belief that allowing his company to dump industrial waste in a river would harm the environment, when in fact the waste in question may actually be beneficial to the environment. Quite plausibly, it may be unjustified for Bob to adopt the intention to allow his company to dump the industrial waste, given his justified belief that doing so would be harmful.

An alternative proposal, the one I wish to endorse, is to say that intentions have the normative aim of the good because intending to φ entails being committed to the goodness of φ. On this view, the claim that a psychological state or speech-act has a particular normative aim is not a claim about when an agent is justified in adopting that psychological state or engaging in that speech-act. Rather, it is a claim about the types of normative commitments an agent takes upon herself by adopting a particular attitude, and the type of rational criticism said commitment entails. Thus, if an agent adopts an intention to φ, and subsequently learns that φ is not good, then that agent is normatively committed to giving up the intention to φ and is rationally criticisable if she fails to do so. In this regard, the normative aim of intention is perfectly analogous to normative aim of belief. Truth is the normative aim of belief because believing that p entails being committed to truth of p. If an agent adopts the belief that p, and subsequently learns that p is not true, then that agent is normatively committed to giving up her belief that p and is rationally criticisable if she fails to do so.

The preceding discussion offers us an analysis of what it means for intentions to aim at the good. But what can we say about the relationship between desires and the good? In answering this question, I exploit an analogy between desire and perceptual experience. To this end, we may say that desires aim at the good in the same sense that perceptual experience aims at the true. However, it is not plausible that perceptual experiences aim at the true in the same way that belief aims at the true. Recall, we unpacked the claim that belief aims at the true in terms of the claim that believing that p entails that one is committed to the truth of p. However, perceiving that p does not entail that one is committed to the truth of p. Moreover, if one perceives that p, one is not in a position to alter one’s perceptual experience if it turns out that p is false. Thus, it would not do to say that perceptual experiences aim at the true in the same sense that belief does.

Instead, I propose that we see perceptual experiences as aiming at the true in a derivative sense. To wit, we may say that a perceptual experience is correct just in case it would yield a correct belief if it were assented to. Given that the belief that p is correct only if p is true, it follows that a perceptual experience that p is correct (in a derivative sense) only if p is true. Analogously, desires may be said to aim at the good in a derivative sense. To wit, we may say that a desire is correct (in a derivative sense) just in case it would yield a correct intention if it were assented to. Since the intention to φ is correct just in case φ is good, it follows that the desire to φ is correct (in a derivative sense) just in case φ is good.

Friday 8 April 2011

11th Annual NYU-Columbia Graduate Student Philosophy Conference

Schedule:

9:30 AM Breakfast and Coffee

10:15 AM Shifts of Attention and the Content of Perception
Adrienne Prettyman (University of Toronto)

11:30 AM Against Epistemic Akrasia
Sophie Horowitz (MIT)

12:45 PM Lunch

2:00 PM A Two-Pronged Strategy for Solving the Platonistʼs Access Problem
Sharon Elizabeth Berry (Harvard)

3:15 PM Itʼs All too Hard! (The Demandingness of Rationality & Morality)
Aness Webster (University of Southern
California)

4:30 PM Coffee Break

5:00 PM Knowing about Things
Stephen Yablo (MIT)

9:30 PM Party (at 510 E 20th St, Apt 1H)
Saturday, April 9th 2011

5 Washington Place, New York
Important: to access the building, non-NYU students should register ahead of time by sending an email to gradconf@philcolumbia.com.

For further information, visit our website at www.philcolumbia.com/gradconf or email us at
gradconf@philcolumbia.com.

Wednesday 30 March 2011

A (Selective) Outline of Velleman's "The Guise of the Good"

Disclaimer: The following is a (selective) outline of what I take to be the central argument of David Velleman's paper, “The Guise of the Good”. A number of Velleman's specific arguments have been omitted, not because I believe they are unimportant or uninteresting, but for the sake of brevity.


SYNOPSIS OF PAPER: Velleman argues that the Guise of the Good theory (henceforth, “GG theory”) errs by either making an evaluative term (henceforth, “the good”) part of the propositional content of the attitude motivating an intentional action (henceforth, “a desire”) or by equating the good with the direction of fit of a desire. The first strategy fails because it entails that an agent can have a desire only if she possesses the concept of the good, and the second strategy fails because it conflates the constitutive aim of an attitude with its direction of fit. Velleman concludes by advancing the positive proposal that desire aims at the attainable.


BRIEF OUTLINE OF PAPER:
I Motivating cognitivism: The Primacy of Rational Guidance (pp. 3-7)
II Sophisticated Cognitivism: The Direction-of-Fit Approach (pp. 7-9)
III The Aim of Desire: Objections to Sophisticated Cognitivism (pp. 10-19)


DETAILED OUTLINE OF PAPER:
I Motivating cognitivism: The Primacy of Rational Guidance
Summary: Velleman defines GG theory as the claim that intentional action aims at the good. GG Theory is motivated by an attempt to reconcile two seemingly incompatible stories of the origin of human action; namely, the story of motivation and the story of rational guidance. Non-cognitivism emphasizes the story of motivation at the expense of the story of rational guidance, and cognitivism emphasizes the story of rational guidance at the expense of the story of motivation. The main motivation for rejecting non-cognitivism and adopting cognitivism, according to Velleman, is a desire to preserve the commonsense story of the origin of human action.

Discussion:
(i) Story of motivation = an agent acts intentionally when her action is caused by a desire for some outcome and a belief that the action will promote it. (p. 3)

(ii) Story of rational guidance = an agent acts intentionally when the action justifying character of a proposition prompts her action via her grasp of that proposition. (p. 4)

Noncognitivism = emphasises story of motivation at the expense of the story of rational guidance.

Weakness of non-cognitivism = it is at odds with the commonsense story. “In the commonsense story, the agent is moved toward action because his reasons justify it; whereas in the noncognitivist story, his reasons justify his action in virtue of moving him toward it.” (p. 5)

Cognitivism = emphasises story of rational guidance at the expense of the story or motivation.

Weakness of cognitivism = entails that an agent can have a desire only if she has evaluative concept. “If the cognitivist seriously means to characterise desire as an attitude toward an evaluative proposition, then he implies that the capacity to desire requires the possession of evaluative concepts. Yet a young child can want things long before it has acquired the concept of their being worth wanting or desirable.” (p. 7)

Upshot: Noncognitivism is unattractive because it fails to preserve the commonsense story of motivation and cognitivism is implausible because it entails that an agent can act intentionally only if it possesses certain evaluative concepts.


II Sophisticated Cognitivism: The Direction-of-Fit Approach
Summary: Sophisticated cognitivism unpacks the claim that the attitude motivating an intentional action (henceforth, I will simply speak of a desire) aims at the good in terms of the attitude's direction-of-fit. On this view, a cognitive attitude (like belief) may be said to aim after truth because its propositional object is regarded as a factum (something that is the case); while a conative attitude (like desire) may be said to aim after the good because its propositional object is regarded as a faciendum (something that is to be made the case). The upshot is that a propositional attitude is characterised, not only by the proposition that embodies its content, but also by the attitude's direction of fit (i.e., whether it represents its propositional object as a factum or faciendum).

Discussion:
cognitive attitude = a proposition is grasped as patterned after the world (or factum).
conative attitude = a proposition is grasped as a pattern for the world to follow (or faciendum).

(i) Simple cognitivism = involves action-justifying propositions.
According to simple cognitivism, desires aim at the good in virtue of their propositional content, which include the predicate “good”. (p. 6)

(ii) Sophisticated cognitivism = involves action-justifying attitudes.
According to sophisticated cognitivism, desires aim at the good in virtue of type of attitude it is—namely, that it is a conative attitude—rather than in terms of its propositional content. (pp. 8ff)

Upshot: According to sophisticated cognitivism, desires justify or provide reasons for action, not because of their propositional content, but because of the way the propositional content of a desire is grasped; namely, as something to be brought about. (p. 9)


III The Aim of Desire: Objections to Sophisticated Cognitivism
Summary: According to Velleman, desire aims, not at the good, but at the attainable. This follows from the following three theses. First, the constitutive aim of belief is whatever distinguishes it from all other states with a cognitive direction of fit; namely, the fact that beliefs are only correct when they are true. Second, what distinguishes desire from all other states with a conative direction of fit is not the fact that it aims after the good, since this is something it shares with all other conative states. Third, what distinguishes desire from all other conative states is the fact that desire aims at the attainable. The upshot is that the central thesis of sophisticated cognitivism—namely, that desire aims at the good—is mistaken.

Discussion:
Velleman exploits an analogy from belief to argue that desires do not aim at the good. He draws a distinction between the direction of fit of belief and the aim of belief (p. 12 ff):

(i) direction of fit of belief = that in virtue of which it is a cognitive state.
(ii) aim of belief = that in virtue of which it is correct just in case it is true

The following is a rough reconstruction of Velleman's argument. (Note: "given" indicates a theoretically motivated claim, and "observed" indicates an empirically motivated claim.)

(1) Belief is a cognitive state in virtue of its direction of fit. (given)

(2) Belief does not share the same aim as other cognitive states. (observed)

(3) Aim of belief = what sets belief apart from other cognitive states. (loosely from (1) and (2))

(4) Aim of desire = what sets desire apart from other conative states. (by analogy from (3))

(5) Sophisticated cognitivism entails that desire aims at the good in virtue of its direction of fit. (given)

(6) Sophisticated cognitivism entails that all conative states have the same direction of fit. (given)

(7) Sophisticated cognitivism entails that all conative states aim at the good. (loosely from (5) and (6))

(8) Sophisticated cognitivism entails that the good is not the aim of desire. (loosely from (4) and (7))

(8) What sets desire apart from all other conative states = being directed at the attainable. (observed)

(9) Aim of desire = being directed at the attainable. (loosely from (4) and (8))

Upshot: Velleman's negative thesis is that, contra sophisticated cognitivism, the constitutive aim of desire is not the good. Velleman's positive thesis is that the constitutive aim of desire is the attainable (p. 17). Given that the constitutive aim of belief is the truth, it follows from Velleman's positive thesis that desire stands to the attainable as belief stands to the truth.

Tuesday 22 March 2011

2011 Intermountain West Graduate Philosophy Conference

Thursday, April 7 – Saturday, April 9
University of Utah

Conference Schedule


Thurs, April 7: All Sessions in the Philosophy Department (CTIHB)

2:00-6:00 Registration (CTIHB-Philosophy Department)

2:00-2:50 “Representationalism and the Phenomenology of Attention” (LNCO 2100)
Speaker: Brian Cutter (University of Texas, Austin)
Commentator: Manuel Cabrera (UCLA)

3:00-3:50 “Naturalism without Physicalism” (LNCO 2100)
Speaker: Manuel Cabrera (UCLA)
Commentator: Matt Mosdell (U. of Utah)

4:00-4:50 “Unpacking the Guise of the Good Theory” (LNCO 2100)
Speaker: Avery Archer (Columbia University)
Commentator: Matt Berk (U. of Utah)

5:15-7:00 Plenary Address: “Divine Hiddenness and Theistic Responses” (Tanner Philosophy Library)
Justin McBrayer (Fort Lewis College)


Friday, April 8: All Sessions in the Philosophy Department (CTIHB)

9:30-10:20
A. “A Dilemma for Quine’s Epistemology” (459)
Speaker: Matthew Baddorf (Rochester)
Commentator: Blake Vernon (U. of Utah)

B. “Morality without Demands: A Critique of Scalar Consequentialism” (406)
Speaker: Spencer Case (University of Colorado)
Commentator: Steve Tensmeyer (BYU)

10:30-11:20
A. “Interpreting Probability in Statistical Mechanics” (459)
Speaker: Joshua Hershey (Princeton University)
Commentator: Christopher Lean (U. of Utah)

B. “Defending Universalism from Relativistic Outlaws” (406)
Speaker: Matthew Gorski (University of Notre Dame)
Commentator: TBD

11:30-12:20
A. “On the Value of Uncertainty” (459)
Speaker: Lucas Matthews (University of Utah)
Commentator: Stephanie Shiver (U. of Utah)

B. “The Prototype Structure of Moral Concepts” (406)
Speaker: John J. Park (Duke University)
Commentator: Spencer Case (University of Colorado)

12:30-1:30 Lunch (on your own)

1.30-2.20
A. “Introducing Substantive Metaphysics Epistemically” (MBH 112)
Speaker: Lucas Halpin (UC-Davis)
Commentator: TBD

B. “Moral Skepticism: An Innocent Companion” (MBH 302)
Speaker: Matthew Lutz (University of Southern California)
Commentator: Matthew Lee (University of Notre Dame)

2:30-3:00: reception with tea and hors d’oeuvres (philosophy dept. lounge)

3:00-5:00: Keynote address – “You and I” (CTIHB 406 - Tanner Philosophy Library)
Michael Thompson (University of Pittsburgh)

6:00-8:00: Faculty-hosted dinner (Leslie Francis): catered by Sugar House BBQ

Saturday, April 9: All Sessions in the Philosophy Department

9:30-10:20
A. “Charitable Neo-Logicism” (459)
Speaker: Sebastian Petzolt (Oxford University)
Commentator: Matthew Barney (U. of Utah)

B. “Wrongs without Rights” (406)
Speaker: Nicolas Cornell (Harvard University)
Commentator: Matt Berk (U. of Utah)

10:30-11:20
A. “Against Old Facts Under New Modes” (459)
Speaker: Gabriel Rabin (UCLA)
Commentator: Landon McBrayer (U. of Utah)

B. “On Answerability in the Realm of Criminal Responsibility” (406)
Speaker: Nicholas Sars (Bowling Green University)
Commentator: Steve Capone (U. of Utah)

11:30-12:20 “Saving ‘Stability for the Right Reasons’ from Rawls: Why We Should Drop the Idea of Overlapping Consensus” (406)
Speaker: Gregg Strauss (University of Illinois-Urbana)
Commentator: Kai Kaululaau (Cal. State, LA)


12:30 Lunch, closing.

Tuesday 15 March 2011

2011 Waterloo PGSA Conference

The University of Waterloo Philosophy Graduate Student Conference - 2011

Conference Schedule:

Friday, April 1

Session 1
Hagey Hall 373

10:00 AM Ivan Kasa Stockholm/MIT
“Neo-Fregean Abstractionism and Mathematical Truth”
This paper aims to restore a more balanced view on how Bob Hale and Crispin Wright’s Neo-Fregean theory of abstractionism relates to questions raised in Benacerraf’s classic Mathematical Truth. I claim that, contrary to received opinion, the prevalent strands of thought in Mathematical Truth cannot be taken to support abstractionism as a response to epistemological worries surrounding a homogenous Tarskian semantics.

11:00 AM Yuna Won Yonsei University, South Korea
“Modified Acceptability Condition of Indicative Conditionals”
This paper will deal with conditionals having a true antecedent and consequent – I will call them idle conditionals. Most of theories of conditionals have regarded them as true but uninteresting conditionals. However, most idle conditionals are rarely used in our daily lives and even seem to be unacceptable. Most theories of conditionals have ignored this issue and thought that philosophical theories do not need to reflect all mundane intuitions. It means those theories cannot explain why we are not willing to assert and accept idle conditionals. I will suggest Modified Acceptability Condition (MAC) to explain the phenomenon and show that MAC can be generally accepted by existing theories. Furthermore, MAC will solve some puzzling cases neglected in most of theories of conditionals. Finally, I will show that it will bring some benefits to the existing theories.

12:00 PM Avery Archer Columbia University
“Unpacking the Guise of the Good Theory of Desires”
According to the Guise of the Good Theory of Desires, desires are associated with the good in a sense roughly analogous to how beliefs are associated with the true. In this paper, I consider the three most common strategies for unpacking Guise of the Good Theory of Desires — namely, The Desire-as-Belief Thesis, The Desire-plus-Belief Thesis, and The Desire-as-Perception Thesis. I argue that all three approaches are unacceptable. I conclude by laying the foundation for a fourth way of unpacking the Guise of the Good Theory; namely, The Desire-as-Imperative Thesis. According to the Desire-as-Imperative Thesis, desiring to φ is equivalent to being the recipient of an imperative to φ. I argue that the Desire-as-Imperative Thesis offers us a way to unpack the Guise of the Good Theory of Desires that avoids the difficulties confronting the other three approaches.



Friday, April 1

Session 2
Hagey Hall 373

2:30 PM Matt LaVine University at Buffalo
“Truth and Fictional Discourse”
One of the most intuitive positions with respect to giving an account of truth-in- fiction is that determining what is true in a particular story begins and ends with determining what the storyteller says. Unfortunately, when this is understood as identifying truths in fiction with those things directly stated or implied (in a strictly logical sense) by the storyteller, problems seem to arise. Lewis famously demonstrated some of these. He then replaced the intuitive picture with one in which the storyteller’s claims are supplemented by collective belief worlds of the intended audience as truth-in-fiction truth-makers. Interestingly enough, in doing so, Lewis focused on coming up with truth-conditions for sentences of the form, ‘in fiction, p’, much more so than answering the question, ‘in virtue of what do these truth-conditions hold?’ In this paper we investigate problems that arise from Lewis neglecting this latter question and try to give our own tentative answer. This answer will come from a tweaking of Searle’s horizontal conventions posited in his paper, “The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse.” Finally, this answer, which brings us back rather closely to the intuitive position, will be used to meet the difficulties that Lewis’s picture ran into.

3:30 PM Rhys McKinnon University of Waterloo
“Responding to Prompts and Challenges”
In this paper I propose a principle of interpretation for the content of challenges and prompts to assertions based on the criterion of what constitutes wholly adequate responses. I suggest that this is a unifying principle for the linguistic data, inasmuch as wholly adequate responses generally consist in giving one’s reasons for an assertion. I argue that the linguistic data is best explained by a reason-based norm such as Jennifer Lackey’s Reasonable to Believe Norm of Assertion (RTBNA). Consequently, I argue against John Turri’s claim that the data is best explained by the Knowledge Norm of Assertion (KNA).

4:30 PM Andrew Parker Wilfrid Laurier University
“Hacker’s Davidson: On Incommensurability”
In my paper I examine P.M.S Hacker’s arguments for relativism, conceptual schemes and un-translatability between languages. Hacker’s strategy to save “incommensurable conceptual schemes” is to argue- contra Davidson- that there can be “untranslatable languages”. I will argue that Hacker’s road to “different conceptual schemes” is paved with “different languages” not “different concepts”. Although Hacker rejects Davidson’s “salient point”- that nothing can force us to decide if a disagreement between interlocutors lies in their beliefs rather than their concepts- I argue Hacker begs the question by postulating a non-empirical “conceptual scheme” in his account of “incommensurability”. I argue- contra Hacker- that rather than postulating “incommensurable conceptual schemes” we are left with the fact that humans have many different ways of talking about one and the same world.


Saturday, April 2

Session 1
Hagey Hall 373

10:00 AM Steven James University of Texas at Austin
“De Re Hallucination: A Distinctive Kind of Object Dependence”
Veridical perceptions and their subsequent perceptual beliefs give rise to object-dependent mental states. Hallucinatory phenomena force us to account for merely putatively object-dependent mental states and one familiar attempt to do so appeals to subjects’ related object-independent mental states. This fails to properly account for a particular class of hallucination; namely, de re hallucination. I identify what is needed in light of this result and make a suggestion for how theoretical progress can be made.

11:00 AM Yang Liu Columbia University
“The Sorites Paradox and Fuzzy Logic”
This paper studies degree theoretic approach to vagueness. The aim is to provide an explanation for the Sorites paradox from degree theorists' perspective. The paper includes a discussion of degrees and tolerance, both of which are taken to be fundamental features of language governing the use of vague predicates. A de- fense of degree theory is inserted in its due place. The analysis will then lead to the introduction of a basic propositional fuzzy logic which will serve as a conceptual framework within which the Sorites are treated. The paper shows that there is way of treating tolerance within degree theory by introducing a fuzzy notion of validity.

12:00 PM Justin Donhauser University at Buffalo
“Whales Are(n’t) Fish”
Contra the possibility of complete reduction of all domain-specific taxonomies to that of a unitary “final science,” several philosophers defend the view John Dupré dubs “promiscuous realism” and others variously call “pluralistic realism,” “semirealism,” and “perspectival realism.”1 In Dupré’s words ‘promiscuous realism’ [henceforth, PR] is the view that, “there are countless legitimate, objectively grounded ways of classifying objects in the world. And these may often cross-classify one another in indefinitely complex ways” (1993, 18). This essay is a critical discussion and defense of PR, which clarifies what the view should and should not entail. It is shown that PR is not a species of realism if it is compatible with a remark Dupré (1999; 2002) makes implying that a subset of the members of a biological kind can cease to be members of that kind without a change in the properties of those members. Toward that end, I provide an explicatory gloss of PR [§1], endorse Dupré’s original defense of the claim that whales are fish [§2], and show that PR is incompatible with Dupré’s follow-up claim that they are not and identify his error [§3]. Subsequently, inspired by some remarks of Diana Raffman and adopting positions advanced by Anjan Chakravartty, I offer a theory of how terminological vagueness and processes of abstraction in theory construction generate the legitimately crosscutting taxonomies espoused by PR [§4]. In closing, I briefly recapitulate the beneficial features of PR that bar errors like Dupré’s and evaluate the benefits of having equally unprivileged crosscutting taxonomies [§5].


3:30 PM Keynote Address
Dr. Diana Raffman University of Toronto
“Psychological Hysteresis and the Dynamic Sorites Paradox”
Abstract TBA

7:00 PM Conference Dinner

Ennio’s Restaurant
384 King Street n., Waterloo

Friday 11 February 2011

The Desire-plus-Belief Thesis

In my post, Impugning the Desire-as-Belief Thesis, I argued that the Desire-as-Belief Thesis--namely, the claim that desires are a type of belief--is unacceptable as a way of unpacking the Broadly Anscombean View--namely, the claim that desires aim at the good. But even if one rejects the claim that desires are beliefs, one may still think that desiring to φ is always accompanied by the belief that φ is good. Let us refer to this proposal as the Desire-plus-Belief Thesis; the claim that the desire to φ is always paired with the belief that φ is good. The Desire-plus-Belief Thesis is offered as an alternative way of unpacking the Broadly Anscombean View, and should be distinguished from the weaker claim that an agent could only desire to φ if she has certain beliefs about φ. For example, one may think that one could only desire to φ if one also believed that it was possible for one to φ. However, such a proposal would not be a candidate for unpacking the claim that the good is the object of desire, for believing that one could φ may have little or no bearing on whether or not one believes that φ is good. Hence, the thesis that the desire to φ is always accompanied by some belief about φ is not the same as the Desire-plus-Belief Thesis; the latter is specifically concerned with the belief that φ is good.

An unqualified version of the Desire-plus-Belief Thesis seems highly implausible. For example, one may desire to have a cigarette even though one does not believe that it is good to do so. However, even if we find the preceding unqualified version of the Desire-plus-Belief Thesis implausible, we may still be tempted to buy into a qualified version of the thesis, according to which the desire to φ is always accompanied by the belief that φ is good from a certain perspective. For example, even though one does not believe that sleeping with someone who is not one's spouse is good simpliciter, one may still believe that it is good from the perspective of having one's sexual needs satisfied. Hence, according to the qualified version of the Desire-plus-Belief Thesis, an agent can only desire to φ if she believes that it would be good to φ from a certain perspective (even if she does not believe that φing would be good, simpliciter).

One objection to the Desire-plus-Belief Thesis (in both its qualified and unqualified forms) is that there seems to be putative cases of an agent desiring to φ, where the desire does not seem to be accompanied by the belief that φ is good from any perspective at all. Davidson's description of a man who has a “yen to drink a can of paint” even though he does not believe that it would be “worth doing so”, seems to be one such example. One very natural way of unpacking Davidson's claim that the paint drinker sees no “worth” in drinking the paint would be to say that the paint drinker does not believe that drinking the paint is good from any perspective whatsoever.

However, the preceding objection is certainly not the final word on the matter. There are some theorists, such as Warren Quinn and Thomas Scanlon, who would deny that the yen to drink a can of paint qualifies as a desire, in the relevant sense. To this end, Scanlon [1998] distinguishes between a desire and a mere urge. According to Scanlon, the desire to φ is always accompanied by a tendency to see φing as good or desirable. Absent such a tendency, we have, not a desire, but an urge. Moreover, Quinn [1993] notes that in cases like the paint-drinker example, the motivating state fails to rationalise the action or make it intelligible. That is to say, the yen of the paint drinker provides no justification for his actions, nor does it bring us any closer to understanding why the paint drinker did what he did. The upshot, according to Quinn, is that the yen of the paint drinker should not be considered a desire.

Although it is true that the yen of Davidson's paint drinker fails to rationalise or justify his actions, it is not clear (pace Quinn) that playing this rationalising or justificatory role is a necessary condition for a psychological state to be considered a desire.4 There is an alternative conception of desires, according to which, the presence of a desire serves the theoretical function of marking the difference between actions that are intentional—i.e., ones for which an agent is rationally or morally responsible—and actions that are not. Moreover, there is reason to think that the actions of Davidson's paint drinker are intentional by the lights of this alternative conception. For one thing, we may wish to hold that the paint drinker is rationally or morally responsible for his actions. For example, let us suppose that drinking the paint would result in his death, and that the paint drinker is aware of this fact. Let us suppose further that it is morally wrong to knowingly take one's life. Given that the paint drinker is aware that drinking the paint is fatal, we may very well wish to hold that he is morally responsible for taking his own life; to wit, there is nothing about Davidson's description of the painter drinker that would lead us to think that he should be excluded from such responsibility. Assuming that one is morally responsible for φing only if one φs intentionally, and given the view that desiring to φ is what distinguishes between cases in which one φs intentionally, and cases in which one does not φ intentionally, then it follows from the claim that the the paint drinker is morally responsible for drinking the can of paint that his yen to drink the can of paint is a desire. Consequently, if we see desire as playing the theoretical role of distinguishing between those actions that are intentional (understood as action for which an agent is rationally or morally responsible) and those actions that are not, then we may wish to hold that the yen of Davidson's paint drinker may be a desire.

I do not wish to settle the question of which of the two competing accounts just adumbrated is preferrable. The preceding discussion is simply meant to highlight that whether or not one regards the yen of Davidson's paint-drinker as a desire will depend on what one takes the theoretical role of desire to be. Since I do not wish to rule out the alternative account, according to which the yen of Davidson's paint-drinker may count as a desire, I believe we should leave room in our theorising for the possibility of such desires; namely, ones in which the desiring agent does not believe that the desired action is good from any perspective whatsoever. In short, the Desire-plus-Belief Thesis introduces a prejudice against certain accounts of the theoretical role of desire; a prejudice that I believe we do well to avoid at the present stage in our inquiry.

A more serious difficulty with the Desire-plus-Belief Thesis (in both its qualified and unqualified forms) is that it seems too weak to serve as a viable candidate for unpacking the Broadly Anscombean View; namely, the claim that the good is the object of desire. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that desiring to φ is always accompanied by the belief that φ is good. Given this view, it seems more accurate to say that the good is the object of the accompanying belief than that it is the object of the desire itself. However, we have identified the Broadly Anscombean View with the claim that the good is the object of desire, not the claim that the good is the object of a particular kind of belief—namely, one that typically accompanies a desire. The problem is that (unlike the Desire-as-Belief Thesis) the Desire-plus-Belief Thesis preserves the desire's identity as a separate psychological state from that of the belief that accompanies it. Moreover, as far as the Broadly Anscombean View is concerned, it makes the good the object of the wrong psychological state; namely, the belief rather than the desire. Presumably, the defender of the Desire-plus-Belief Thesis would say that being accompanied by a belief that aims at the good is just what we mean when we say that a desire aims at the good. However, it seems odd to say that the desire to φ has the goodness of φ as its object simply because the belief that φ is good has the goodness of φ as its object. Why should the fact that the latter has the good as its object have any bearing on the former, given that they are distinct psychological states? In short, it remains unclear that the Desire-plus-Belief Thesis represents a genuine unpacking of the claim that the good is the object of desire.

Monday 24 January 2011

Impugning the Desire-as-Belief Thesis

I believe that the Desire-as-Belief Thesis is unacceptable as a way of unpacking the Broadly Anscombean View - namely, the claim that the good is the aim of desire in a sense analogous to how truth is the aim of belief - because of the following pair of asymmetries between desires and beliefs.

Truth-Value Asymmetry
Beliefs are truth-assessable while desires are not. This asymmetry between desires and beliefs is reflected in our ordinary linguistic practice. For example, if I believe that George Washington was the first president of the United States, we ordinarily think of my belief as the sort of thing that could be true or false. By contrast, we do not ordinarily conceive of desires as truth-assessable. For example, if I desire to purchase a flat screen television, we do not ordinarily think of my desire as the sort of thing that could be true or false. Moreover, I believe the following theoretical account may be offered in defence of Truth-Value Asymmetry. First, I hold that a psychological state may be conceived of as truth-assessable just in case it represents the state of affairs that constitutes its intentional object to be the case or it represents a particular proposition to be true. Second, I take the preceding necessary and sufficient conditions to be met by the psychological state of belief. For example, if I believe that George Washington was the first president of the United States, I hold that the state of affairs of George Washington being the first president of the United States is the intentional object of my belief. Moreover, I hold that my belief represents this state of affairs as being the case. (Or, if one prefers, we may say that the belief that George Washington is the first president of the United States represents the proposition, “George Washington is the first president of the United States” to be true.) Third, I take the preceding necessary and sufficient conditions not to be met by the psychological state of desire. For example, if I desire to purchase a flat screen television, I take the state of affairs of purchasing a flat screen television to be the intentional object of my desire. Moreover, I hold that my desire does not represent my purchasing a flat screen television to be the case. The upshot of the three preceding theoretical commitments is that the psychological state of belief is truth-assessable, while the psychological state of desire is not.

Rational-Commitment Asymmetry
One is guilty of irrationality if one knowingly has inconsistent beliefs, but one is not guilty of irrationality if one knowingly has inconsistent desires. This asymmetry is also reflected in how we ordinarily talk and think about desires. According to the present objection, one may have conflicting desires—for example, the desire to have a cigarette, and the desire to stick to one's New Year's resolution to quit smoking (where one recognises that these represent mutually exclusive desires)—without being guilty of irrationality. However, the same is not true of belief. If one believes that it is good to stick to one's New Year's resolution to quit smoking, and one also believes that is good to have a cigarette (where one recognises that these represent mutually exclusive beliefs), then one is guilty of irrationality. Moreover, I believe the following theoretical motivation may be offered in support of Rational-Commitment Asymmetry. First, I hold that beliefs are commitment-involving psychological states. For example, to believe that smoking is good is to be committed to holding that smoking is good. Second, I hold that desires are not commitment-involving psychological states. For example, to desire to have a cigarette is not to be committed to having a cigarette, since one may have such a desire and yet decide not to act on it. Moreover, one may desire to have a cigarette without being committed to the goodness of having a cigarette. Third, I hold that one is only rationally assessable for having a psychological state if it is commitment-involving. The upshot is that one is rationally assessable for having beliefs one recognises to be inconsistent, but one is not rationally assessable for having desires that one recognises to be inconsistent.

In summary, I reject the Desire-as-Belief Thesis because it overlooks two important asymmetries between desire and belief; Truth-Value Asymmetry and Rational-Commitment Asymmetry.