scholarly journals How (not) to construct worlds with responsibility

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Lampert ◽  
Pedro Merlussi
Keyword(s):  
Recent Article ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Metaphysics Of Modality

AbstractIn a recent article, P. Roger Turner and Justin Capes argue that no one is, or ever was, even partly morally responsible for certain world-indexed truths. Here we present our reasons for thinking that their argument is unsound: It depends on the premise that possible worlds are maximally consistent states of affairs, which is, under plausible assumptions concerning states of affairs, demonstrably false. Our argument to show this is based on Bertrand Russell’s original ‘paradox of propositions’. We should then opt for a different approach to explain world-indexed truths whose upshot is that we may be (at least partly) morally responsible for some of them. The result to the effect that there are no maximally consistent states of affairs is independently interesting though, since this notion motivates an account of the nature of possible worlds in the metaphysics of modality. We also register in this article, independently of our response to Turner and Capes, and in the spirit of Russell’s aforementioned paradox and many other versions thereof, a proof of the claim that there is no set of all true propositions one can render false.

Transworld Egoism, Empathy, and the Golden Rule

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-31
Author(s):  
Harriet E. Baber
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Golden Rule ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Altruistic Behavior ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Real Possibility ◽  
The Real ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Actual Preference

According to preferentism, the ‘desire theory’ of well-being, one is made better off to the extent that her preferences, or desires, are satisfied. According to narrow preferentism, preferentism as it has traditionally been understood, the preferences that matter in this regard are just actual preferences; preferences we might ‘easily have had’, do not matter. On this account also, only actual preference satisfaction contributes to well-being. Merely possible preference satisfaction, including the ‘real possibility’ of attaining desired states of affairs, does not contribute to well-being. Broad preferentism makes sense of the intuition that feasibility as such contributes to well-being. On this account, we are made better off not only by the actual satisfaction of our actual preferences but also by the mere feasibility of satisfying preferences that we ‘might easily have had’. In addition to making sense of our intuition that feasibility as such, contributes to our well-being, broad preferentism provides a rationale for altruistic behavior. On this account support policies that benefit worldmates whose actual circumstances are different from our own because their circumstances are the our circumstances at nearby possible worlds, and our circumstances at other possible worlds, affect our own actual well-being.

From “Possible Worlds” to “Possible Experience”. Real Possibility in Leibniz and Kant

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Osvaldo Ottaviani
Keyword(s):  
Actual World ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Short Account ◽  
Real Possibility ◽  
The Real ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
Metaphysics Of Modality

AbstractThis paper moves from a disagreement with those interpreters who explain Kant’s doctrine of real possibility in terms of possible worlds. It seems to me that a possible world framework is too much indebted to the Leibnizian metaphysics of modality and, therefore, cannot serve to make sense of Kant’s theses. Leibniz’s theory of possibility, indeed, has been deeply criticized in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (CPR). Interestingly enough, however, Kant’s principal argument for rejecting that the field of what is possible is greater than the field of what is real was already anticipated by Leibniz. However, Leibniz employed it to demonstrate that there cannot be more than one actual world only (the others being purely possible ones). Moving from this fact, I argue that there is a certain tension between what Leibniz says about the actual world and his commitment to a plurality of possible worlds conceived as ideas in God’s mind. The first part of my paper is devoted to show that such a tension can be traced back to Leibniz’s claims about the relation between the possible and the real. In the second part, then, I maintain that Kant’s theory of real possibility grows from a dissatisfaction with (and a rejection of) Leibniz’s attempted solution to the problem of characterizing a kind of possibility narrower than the merely logical one and, nonetheless, not identical with existence. Finally, I present a short account of Kant’s theory of real possibility, based on the notion of transcendental conditions as conditions of possibility of experience, showing how it works in the case of the forms of intuition.

scholarly journals An Introduction to the Calculus of Environments

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
New Age ◽  
Broad Sense ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Aleatory Materialism ◽  
Further Development

The paper deals with the modern appropriation of Lucretius’ atomistic philosophy as presented in Louis Althusser’s late writings. The aleatory materialism that Althusser elaborated in some fragments from the 1980s argues for the total contingency of any world, which is nothing but an accidental clutch of atoms resulting from a Lucretian clinamen. Althusser interprets “world” in a broad sense as referring both to cosmological and ontological global arrangements and also to particular political and practical states of affairs. By claiming that thought and necessity are always determined by a certain connection among atoms, Althusser touches upon the problem of the “principles of cohesion” — the sub-semantic field which determines the semantic but is not itself semantic. However, these principles are described by Althusser only metaphorically and without further elaboration. The paper proposes a further development of these principles derived from aleatory materialism. Althusser’s late writings are placed in the context of Leibniz and Kant’s thought in order to clarify the importance of Althusser’s problematics for time dj-ing, or TJ-ing — the immanent protocols for intercutting between and stitching together possible worlds and time-series. Building upon Kant’s concept of transcendental schematism, the paper proposes a system of quaternary gestural code and twelve basic environmental types which provide an immanent answer to the question of what e principles govern the clutching of atoms. This in turn forms the basis for the operation of a new kind of computer as an alternative to the two basic New Age kinds of machinery based either on carbon-energy or silicon-information.

scholarly journals POLITICAL IDEALS AND THE FEASIBILITY FRONTIER

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wiens
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Production Possibility ◽  
Production Possibility Frontier ◽  
Economic Concept

Abstract:I present an analysis of feasibility that generalizes the economic concept of a production possibility frontier and develop a model of the feasibility frontier using the familiar possible worlds technology. I then use the model to show that we cannot reasonably expect that adopting political ideals as long-term reform objectives will guide us toward the realization of morally optimal feasible states of affairs. I conclude by proposing that political philosophers turn their attention to the analysis of actual social failures rather than political ideals.

scholarly journals Relativized Rankings

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-66
Author(s):  
Matthew Hammerton
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
The State ◽  
States Of Affairs

In traditional consequentialism the good is position-neutral. A single evaluative ranking of states of affairs is correct for everyone, everywhere regardless of their positions. Recently, position-relative forms of consequentialism have been developed. These allow for the correct rankings of states to depend on connections that hold between the state being evaluated and the position of the evaluator. For example, perhaps being an agent who acts in a certain state requires me to rank that state differently from someone else who lacks this connection. In this chapter several different kinds of position-relative rankings related to agents, times, physical locations, and possible worlds are explored. Arguments for and against adopting a position-relative axiology are examined, and it is suggested that position-relative consequentialism is a promising moral theory that has been underestimated.

Ersatz Modal Realism

2019 ◽  
pp. 73-92
Author(s):  
Francesco Berto ◽  
Mark Jago
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Impossible Worlds ◽  
Modal Realism ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Extended Approach

Ersatz possible worlds can be understood as maximal states of affairs; maximal properties; recombinations of actual bits of reality; as maps; or as entities built from propositions or sentences. The question was: can these approaches be extended to include impossible worlds? The states of affairs approach can, with some modification, accommodate impossible worlds. The property approach too can, with some modification, be extended to impossible worlds. It is argued that the extended approach is best viewed as a form of linguistic ersatzism. The combinatorial faces the question: what are recombinations, metaphysically speaking? This approach collapses into one of the others. Map ersatzism does not seem general enough to accommodate all the impossibilities. The most promising approach is linguistic ersatzism. The chapter discusses an issue all ersatz accounts face: the problem of aliens.

Computational Principles

1990 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Pollock
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Theory ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Mathematical Structure ◽  
Possible World ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Classical Probability ◽  
Probability Calculus ◽  
Logical Operators ◽  
Necessary Truth ◽  
State Of Affairs

Much of the usefulness of probability derives from its rich logical and mathematical structure. That structure comprises the probability calculus. The classical probability calculus is familiar and well understood, but it will turn out that the calculus of nomic probabilities differs from the classical probability calculus in some interesting and important respects. The purpose of this chapter is to develop the calculus of nomic probabilities, and at the same time to investigate the logical and mathematical structure of nomic generalizations. The mathematical theory of nomic probability is formulated in terms of possible worlds. Possible worlds can be regarded as maximally specific possible ways things could have been. This notion can be filled out in various ways, but the details are not important for present purposes. I assume that a proposition is necessarily true iff it is true at all possible worlds, and I assume that the modal logic of necessary truth and necessary exemplification is a quantified version of S5. States of affairs are things like Mary’s baking pies, 2 being the square root of 4, Martha’s being smarter than John, and the like. For present purposes, a state of affairs can be identified with the set of all possible worlds at which it obtains. Thus if P is a state of affairs and w is a possible world, P obtains at w iff w∊P. Similarly, we can regard monadic properties as sets of ordered pairs ⧼w,x⧽ of possible worlds and possible objects. For example, the property of being red is the set of all pairs ⧼w,x⧽ such that w is a possible world and x is red at w. More generally, an n-place property will be taken to be a set of (n+l)-tuples ⧼w,x1...,xn⧽. Given any n-place concept α, the corresponding property of exemplifying a is the set of (n + l)-tuples ⧼w,x1,...,xn⧽ such that x1,...,xn exemplify α at the possible world w. States of affairs and properties can be constructed out of one another using logical operators like conjunction, negation, quantification, and so on.

scholarly journals ‘What can be described can happen too…’: describing text semantics as a model structure of transworld relationships

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-84
Author(s):  
S. T. Zolyan
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Model Structure ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Semantic Organization ◽  
Text Coherence ◽  
Linear Sequence ◽  
Modal Semantics ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Identification Mechanism

In this article, I explore the content-related and formal aspects of describing the multidi­mensional semantic organization of a text, particularly, I focus on the possibility of using the apparatus of modal semantics to identify the relationship between sentential complexes. To those ends, I employ the concepts of model, model structure, and centred world. The latter is a system of functions that correlate language expressions, the language expressions of a text, states of affairs (possible worlds) described by language expressions, and the contexts in which a text occurs. Existence in the worlds of the text correlates with the possibility of description. Presumably, the text is a twofold notion: it refers to a linear sequence of segments and a mul­tidimensional semantic structure. In this work, I demonstrate the possibilities of integrating both approaches. I consider the correlation between the mechanisms of text coherence, on the one hand, and the relationships of transworld accessibility and of the identification of de­scribed individuals across possible worlds, on the other. Probably, the variety of cohesion mechanisms does not make it possible to use a single identification mechanism and requires taking into account various competing approaches. I illustrate the above conclusions, using Pushkin’s draft ‘If I were Tsar…’

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