Let A1-A6 stand for six distinct agents. Let V1-V6 stand for six distinct potential victims. Let T1-T6 stand for six distinct and successive times. And let C1 stand for some set of agent-centered constraints. Those who endorse agent-centered constraints accept the following: (1) It would […] Read More
Smith has exactly two doses of anesthetic, and Jones has zero doses of anesthetic. Tom is having an operation on Saturday, and unless Smith gives Tom a double-dose of anesthetic right before his operation, Tom will suffer terribly during his operation. Rick and Harry are […] Read More
Smith has exactly two doses of anesthetic. Tom is having an operation on Saturday, and unless Smith gives Tom a double-dose of anesthetic right before his operation, Tom will suffer terribly during his operation. Rick and Harry are each having an operation on Sunday, and […] Read More
I’ve been reading Krister Bykvist’s and Jonas Olson’s wonderful paper entitled ‘Expressivism and Moral Certitude’ (HERE). Krister and Jonas argue that ecumenical forms of expressivism are unable to give a reply to Michael Smith’s objection to non-ecumenical forms of expressivism according to which expressivists cannot […] Read More
PhilPapers has launched and is now public. PhilPapers is a comprehensive directory of online philosophy articles and books by academic philosophers. They monitor journals in many areas of philosophy, as well as archives and personal pages. They also accept articles directly from users, who can […] Read More
Russ Shafer-Landau is pleased to announce a call for abstracts for the Sixth Annual Metaethics Workshop, to be held at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, on September 11-13, 2009. Allan Gibbard (Michigan) will be this year's keynote speaker. Abstracts (of 2-3 double-spaced pages) of papers […] Read More
In "Stalking the Perfect Journal" (Essay 8 in The Great Eskimo Snow Vocabulary Hoax), Geoff Pullum lists some suggestions for improving academic journals; his focus is on linguistics journals, but as you might imagine the suggestions generally apply equally well to philosophy journals. His last […] Read More
We act for reasons all the time. Here's an interesting question: (Q1) what kind of thing are those reasons our actions are based on? We believe things for reasons all the time too. Here's another interesting question: (Q2) what kind of thing are those reasons […] Read More
CALL FOR PAPERS FROM FACULTY AND GRADUATE STUDENTS NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY SOCIETY FOR ETHICAL THEORY AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY THIRD ANNUAL CONFERENCE APRIL 23–25, 2009 KEYNOTE ADDRESSES: Samuel Scheffler, “The Normativity of Tradition” Seana Shiffrin, “Inducing Deliberation”