Naturalistic Moral Realism and Evolutionary Biology

Perhaps the most familiar understanding of “naturalism” derives from Quine, understanding it as a continuity of empirical theories of the world as described through the scientific method. So, it might be surprising that one of the most important naturalistic moral realists, Philippa Foot, rejects standard evolutionary biology in her justly lauded Natural Goodness. One of her main reasons for this is the true claim that humans can flourish (eudaimonia) without reproducing, which she claims cannot be squared with evolutionary theory and biology more generally. The present argument concludes that Foot was wrong to reject evolutionary theory as the empirical foundation of naturalized eudaimonist moral realism. This is based on contemporary discussion of biological functions and evolutionary fitness, from which a definition of “eudaimonia” is constructed. This gives eudaimonist moral realism an empirically respectable foundation.

Preschoolers in Belarus and Turkey accept an adult’s counterintuitive claim and do not spontaneously seek evidence to test that claim

When presented with a claim that contradicts their intuitions, do children seize opportunities to empirically verify such claims or do they simply acquiesce to what they have been told? To answer this question, we conducted a replication of Ronfard et al. (conducted in the People’s Republic of China) in two countries with distinct religious and political histories (Study 1: Belarus, N = 74; Study 2: Turkey, N = 79). Preschool children were presented with five different-sized Russian dolls and asked to indicate the heaviest doll. All children selected the biggest doll. Half of the children then heard a (false) claim (i.e., that the smallest doll was the heaviest), contradicting their initial intuition. The remaining children heard a (true) claim (i.e., that the biggest doll was the heaviest), confirming their initial intuition. Belarusian and Turkish preschoolers typically endorsed the experimenter’s claim no matter whether it had contradicted or confirmed their initial intuition. Next, the experimenter left the room, giving children an opportunity to check the experimenter’s claim by picking up the relevant dolls. Belarusian and Turkish preschoolers rarely explored the dolls, regardless of the type of testimony they received and continued to endorse the counterintuitive testimony they received. Furthermore, in Study 2, Turkish preschoolers continued to endorse smallest = heaviest even when doing so could have cost them a large reward. In sum, across two different cultural contexts, preschool children endorsed a counterintuitive claim and did not spontaneously seek evidence to test it. These results confirm and extend those of Ronfard et al.

Knowledge Lies and Group Lies

This chapter is about two kinds of lies, knowledge lies and group lies, which are considered to be interestingly different from typical lies. Typically, lies are told by an individual, and they are intended to convince their addressee of a false claim. By contrast, in telling a knowledge lie, the liar does not intend to deceive the addressee into believing a false claim. Instead, the liar intends to prevent the addressees from knowing, but not necessarily from believing, some true claim. Group lies are lies that are told by a group, such as a company, a government, or your knitting circle. Group lies are unlike typical lies, because they are not straightforwardly related to lies told by individuals who are members of the lying group. For each type of lie, I give a more rigorous characterization, then discuss why this kind of lie deserves special philosophical attention, and lastly provide some critical discussion of the accounts of each type of lie that have been proposed in the philosophical literature.

Deducing false propositions from true ideas: Nieuwentijt on mathematical reasoning

This paper argues that, for Bernard Nieuwentijt (1654–1718), mathematical reasoning on the basis of ideas is not the same as logical reasoning on the basis of propositions. Noting that the two types of reasoning differ helps make sense of a peculiar-sounding claim Nieuwentijt makes, namely that it is possible to mathematically deduce false propositions from true abstracted ideas. I propose to interpret Nieuwentijt’s abstracted ideas as incomplete mental copies of existing objects. I argue that, according to Nieuwentijt, a proposition is mathematically deducible from an abstracted idea if it can be demonstrated that that proposition makes a true claim about the object that idea forms. This allows me to explain why Nieuwentijt deems it possible to deduce false propositions from true ideas. It also implies that logic and mathematics are not as closely related for Nieuwentijt as has been suggested in the existing secondary literature.

Observation and Objectivity

The paradox of Wigner’s friend presents a challenge to the objectivity of description in quantum theory. Distinguishing several aspects of objectivity, I address this challenge. Relativization of quantum state assignment to agent situation disposes of the main problem and a residual worry concerning the objective content of magnitude claims about macroscopic records of outcomes. While Quantum Darwinism cannot alone secure the objectivity of outcomes, it can then help to show why claims about them are intersubjectively verifiable as multiple observers examine records of the outcome in different parts of the environment. A recent extension of the paradox shows why even a true claim about the outcome of a measurement is not transcendentally objective in the sense that it corresponds to a reality that transcends all possibility of observational access by the scientific community.

Das Sein erzählt.

Alessandro Iorio examines Heidegger's "History of Being" under the presuppositions of various narrative theories. Bringing into play relevant works by Genette, Ricœur, Bachtin and Propp as a point of departure, the author discusses several of Heidegger´s texts (including the previously published "Schwarze Hefte"), focussing on the logic of narrativity embodied in them. This approach enables Iorio to illustrate elements of Heidegger's conception of history not or insufficiently taken heed of in previous interpretations. He shows a mode of thinking placidly surrendering itself to its narrative dynamics, without being interested in real historical events. It is precisely this "mythological" surpassing of real-historical events, or so Heidegger claims, that constitutes the true claim of philosophy.

Teaching Arabs, writing Self

Teaching Arabs, Writing Self traces Evelyn Shakir’s evolution from a buddingstudent of canon English literature who was desperately trying to “becomewhite” to her epiphany that stories from her own working-class immigrantneighborhood might be of equal worth. There, she found her unique niche bybecoming an author and scholar of Arab-American literature who helped gainrecognition for this literature as a genre, and who helped readers see ArabAmericans as people rather than stereotypes.Shakir divides her memoirs into three sections. In the first, she reflectson her childhood during an era that frowned upon diversity. Like many immigrantchildren, she turns up her nose at the “wrong” foods: “Bread withpockets. Hummus and tabouli. ‘Don’t put that stuff in my lunch box,’ I said”(p. 8). She even goes so far as to join a Methodist church whose quiet, orderlysimplicity seems more “American” than her family’s ritualistic but expressiveOrthodox church. Acculturated to the “Protestant disdain for Eastern churchesand, by extension, for the East itself,” only later does she develop “[a]n inklingthat there might be treasures I had turned my back on. That I might not alwayshave to be ashamed” (p. 13).In this section, we see the historical value of Shakir’s work not only as apersonal memoir, but also as an account of twentieth-century Americana. Bornin 1938, she offers a rare narrative voice of that era – that of a Lebanese-American and a woman; a handful of personal photos literally offer a rareglimpse into the society of Arab-American women. Many of her childhoodmemories center on Boston’s nearby Revere Beach, which boasted “slot machinesspitting out weight, fortune, photos of Rita Hayworth,” “Dodgems (‘nohead-on collisions’ but we did),” and “clams in a Fryolator … corn poppingfrantic in a display case … frozen custard (banana my favorite) spirallingthick-tongued into waffle cones, then dipped headfirst in jimmies” (p. 32).Her true claim to Americanhood is that her uncle ran the beach’s “glitzy” Cycloneroller coaster, which “gave me bragging rights among my friends andhelped situate me closer to the American norm that was always just beyondmy reach” (p. 29). The Cyclone was so important to the beach’s identity thatits closure in 1969 signaled the demise of the beach itself. “It’s those cars thattell the story,” she recollects. “As soon as masses of people could afford them,Revere lost its reason for being” (p. 43) ...

The True Claim Amount and Frequency Distributions within a Bonus-Malus System

We apply Lemaire's algorithm and a non-parametric mixed Poisson fit to a motor insurance portfolio in order to find the true claim frequency and claim amount distributions. The algorithm we develop accounts for the fact that observed distributions are distorted by bonus hunger, when a bonus-malus system is used by the insurer.

Self-Referential Systems

Self-Referential Systems This chapter is largely a review of the essential ideas behind the proofs of Gödel, Rosser and Löb—only presented in a more abstract setting. We believe that it will tie up these ideas in a helpful and instructive manner. We shall first present these ideas in the form of logic puzzles (much in the manner of Smtdlyan [1987]). Then we shall state the results more generally in terms of abstract systems that we call provability systems. These are closely related to certain axiom systems of modal logic, which we briefly discuss at the end of the chapter. In the puzzles to which we now turn, belief will play the rôle of provability. Instead of considering a mathematical system and the sentences provable in it, we consider a logician (sometimes call a reasoner) and the propositions believed by the reasoner. Apart from the heuristic value, these “epistemic” incompleteness theorems appear to be of some interest to those working in artificial intelligence. We shall pay a visit to the Island of Knights and Knaves, in which knights make only true statements and knaves make only false ones. Each inhabitant is either a knight or a knave. No inhabitant can claim that he is not a knight (since a knight would never make such a false claim and a knave would never make such a true claim). A logician visits this island one day and meets a native. All we are told about the logician is that he is completely accurate in his beliefs—he never believes anything false. The native then makes a certain statement X. It then follows that the logician can never believe that the native is a knight nor can he ever believe that the native is a knave.

Capitalism, Justice and Equal Starts

“Does the existence of unequal social and economic starting points in life nullify capitalism's claims to justice?” Notice is hereby given that this essay's answer to this question is an unequivocal “maybe.” For it is a banal but true claim that everything depends upon what is meant by capitalism, justice and life's starting point. And it is a less banal but no less true claim that their meanings are opaque or controversial or both. In what follows I shall devote little attention to the question of what justice is and shall simply presume that it is best characterized by historical entitlement theory. The last part of the essay discusses the notion of life's starting point and vacillates over what it would mean for one such point to be equal to another. Hence, the bulk of my argument is taken up with exploring what capitalism must be like to conform to historical entitlement theory. And my conclusion will be that, insofar as capitalism respects every person's right of self-ownership, its claims to justice require that no one be denied one type of equal payment – a payment which might be rendered at each life's starting point.