The Worse than Nothing Account of Harm and the Preemption Problem

Because harm is an important notion in ethics, it’s worth investigating what it amounts to. The counterfactual comparative account of harm, commonly thought to be the most promising account of harm, analyzes harm by comparing what actually happened with what would have happened in some counterfactual situation. But it faces the preemption problem, a problem so serious that it has driven some to suggest we abandon the counterfactual comparative account and maybe even abandon the notion of harm altogether. This paper defends a version of the counterfactual comparative account that solves the preemption problem, a version called the “worse than nothing account.” It says that you harm someone just in case you leave them worse off than if you’d done nothing at all.

Sustainability of renewable energy investment motivations during a feed-in-tariff scheme transition: evidence from a laboratory experiment

This study analyzes the effects of a feed-in-tariff (FIT) scheme’s transition on renewable energy investments. We model an individual’s investment decisions as a public goods game where the FIT scheme’s purchasing price acts as a subsidy that lowers the individual’s investment cost. Using a laboratory experiment, we study the effects of a decreasing purchasing price by comparing it to a counterfactual situation where the FIT scheme is not introduced. Although a high purchasing price induces higher investments, this external incentive seems to crowd out an individual’s intrinsic motivation: when the purchasing price decreases to zero, an individual’s investments are lower than they are in the counterfactual situation. Considering the possibility that motivation crowding out has occurred during the FIT phase-out process, it is important to introduce a new policy instrument without a break to stimulate renewable energy investments.

Kripke Was Right Even If He Was Wrong: Sherlock Holmes and the Unicorns

In the Addenda to Naming and Necessity (1980), Kripke famously argues that it is false that there could have been unicorns, or more properly, that “no counterfactual situation is properly describable as one in which there would have been unicorns.” He adds that he holds similarly that ‘one cannot say of any possible person that he would have been Sherlock Holmes, had he existed.” He notes the “cryptic brevity” of these remarks and refers to a forthcoming work for elaborations—the work being, of course, the John Locke Lectures (2013). Coming as it does at the end of Naming and Necessity, it is natural to read this discussion as drawing out consequences of Kripke’s non-descriptivist picture of proper names and names of natural kinds. In fact, so much is suggested there by Kripke himself. The question thus arises: can the contentious claims quoted from the Addenda be defended independently of Kripke’s rejection of descriptivism? I shall argue that, as appears from the John Locke Lectures, they can be.

Edgington on Possible Knowledge of Unknown Truth

The chapter responds to Dorothy Edgington’s article ‘Possible Knowledge of Unknown Truth’, which defends her seminal diagnosis of the Church–Fitch refutation of verificationist knowability principles. Using counterfactual conditionals, she reformulates those principles to block that objection. The chapter argues that, to avoid trivialization, Edgington must supply a more general constraint on how the knower specifies a counterfactual situation for purposes of her reformulated principles; it is unclear how to do so. The philosophical motivation for her strategy is also questioned, with special reference to her treatment of Putnam’s epistemic account of truth. In passing, it is questioned how dangerous Church–Fitch arguments are for verificationist principles with non-factive evidential attitudes in place of knowledge. Finally, a doubt is raised about the compatibility of Edgington’s reformulation strategy with her view that counterfactual conditionals lack truth-conditions.

Ontology vs. Ontogeny: A Dilemma for Identity Theorists

In a recent critical notice Myles Brand dismisses my evolutionary argument against the identity theory on grounds that the counterfactual situation I claim it allows for and cannot explain not actually occurring could never, on that theory, arise.