Philosophy Theses and Dissertations

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Action, Perception, and the Living Body: Aristotle on the Physiological Foundations of Moral Psychology
(2009) Russo, Michael P.; Singpurwalla, Rachel G. K.; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In this dissertation I show that Aristotle's moral psychology is grounded in his natural philosophy of the living body. Moral psychology studies the ways in which agency and moral responsibility are rooted in the functional structure of the psyche. For Aristotle, the psyche - that is, the soul (psychê) - is unified with the living body, and its functional structure is integrated with the dispositional propensities of the body's material constituents. On account of this, "the soul neither does anything nor has anything done to it without the body..." (DA I.1, 403a 5) Accordingly, Aristotle considers it an "absurdity" of the accounts of his predecessors that "they attach the soul to the body and set it into it, determining no further what the cause of this is or what the condition of the body is..." (DA I.3, 407b 14) However, most contemporary interpretations of Aristotle's moral psychology suffer from essentially this same problem: they interpret Aristotle's explanation of, say, voluntary action or lack of self-restraint (akrasia) in entirely psychological terms, and say nothing about the physiological processes that Aristotle takes to partially constitute, and to critically influence, these phenomena. Here I address this imbalance by exploring Aristotle's view of the somatic dimension of moral psychology. More specifically, I examine Aristotle's so-called "hylomorphism" - the view that a living thing's body and soul are its material and its form (respectively) - and his account of the physiological functions underlying "incidental perception" (roughly, "seeing as" or perceiving particulars under a description), voluntary action, practical reasoning and its role in moving us to act, lack of self-restraint, and moral development.
THE ARCHITECTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF MINDREADING: BELIEFS, PERSPECTIVES, AND CHARACTER
(2017) Westra, Evan; Carruthers, Peter M; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation puts forward a series of arguments and theoretical proposals about the architecture and development of the human capacity to reason about the internal, psychological causes of behavior, known as “theory of mind” or “mindreading.” Chapter 1, “Foundations and motivations,” begins by articulating the philosophical underpinnings of contemporary theory-of-mind debates, especially the dispute between empiricists and nativists. I then argue for a nativist approach to theory-of-mind development, and then go on to outline how the subsequent chapters each address specific challenges for this nativist perspective. Chapter 2, “Pragmatic development and the false-belief task,” addresses the central puzzle of the theory-of-mind development literature: why is it that children below the age of five fail standard false-belief tasks, and yet are able to pass implicit versions of the false-belief task at a far younger age? According to my novel, nativist account, while they possess the concept of BELIEF very early in development, children’s early experiences with the pragmatics of belief discourse initially distort the way they interpret standard false-belief tasks; as children gain the relevant experience from their social and linguistic environment, this distortion eventually dissipates. In the Appendix (co-authored with Peter Carruthers), I expand upon this proposal to show how it can also account for another set of phenomena typically cited as evidence against nativism: the Theory-of-Mind Scale. Chapter 3, “Spontaneous mindreading: A problem for the two-systems account,” challenges the “two-systems” account of mindreading, which provides a different explanation for the implicit/explicit false-belief task gap, and has implications for the architecture of mature, adult mindreading. Using evidence from adults’ perspective-taking abilities I argue that this account is theoretically and empirically unsound. Chapter 4, “Character and theory of mind: An integrative approach,” begins by noting that contemporary accounts of mindreading neglect to account for the role of character or personality-trait representations in action-prediction and interpretation. Employing a hierarchical, predictive coding approach, I propose that character-trait representations are rapidly inferred in order to inform and constrain our mental-state attributions. Because this is a “covering concept” dissertation, each of these chapters (including the Appendix) is written so that it is independent of all of the others; they can be read in any order, and do not presuppose one another.
Are Videogames Art?
(2016) Rough, Brock; Levinson, Jerrold; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
My dissertation defends a positive answer to the question: “Can a videogame be a work of art? ” To achieve this goal I develop definitions of several concepts, primarily ‘art’, ‘games’, and ‘videogames’, and offer arguments about the compatibility of these notions. In Part One, I defend a definition of art from amongst several contemporary and historical accounts. This definition, the Intentional-Historical account, requires, among other things, that an artwork have the right kind of creative intentions behind it, in short that the work be intended to be regarded in a particular manner. This is a leading account that has faced several recent objections that I address, particular the buck-passing theory, the objection against non-failure theories of art, and the simultaneous creation response to the ur-art problem, while arguing that it is superior to other theories in its ability to answer the question of videogames’ art status. Part Two examines whether games can exhibit the art-making kind of creative intention. Recent literature has suggested that they can. To verify this a definition of games is needed. I review and develop the most promising account of games in the literature, the over-looked account from Bernard Suits. I propose and defend a modified version of this definition against other accounts. Interestingly, this account entails that games cannot be successfully intended to be works of art because games are goal-directed activities that require a voluntary selection of inefficient means and that is incompatible with the proper manner of regarding that is necessary for something to be an artwork. While the conclusions of Part One and Part Two may appear to suggest that videogames cannot be works of art, Part Three proposes and defends a new account of videogames that, contrary to first appearances, implies that not all videogames are games. This Intentional-Historical Formalist account allows for non-game videogames to be created with an art-making intention, though not every non-ludic videogame will have an art-making intention behind it. I then discuss examples of videogames that are good candidates for being works of art. I conclude that a videogame can be a work of art, but that not all videogames are works of art. The thesis is significant in several respects. It is a continuation of academic work that has focused on the definition and art status of videogames. It clarifies the current debate and provides a positive account of the central issues that has so far been lacking. It also defines videogames in a way that corresponds better with the actual practice of videogame making and playing than other definitions in the literature. It offers further evidence in defense of certain theories of art over others, providing a close examination of videogames as a new case study for potential art objects and for aesthetic and artistic theory in general. Finally, it provides a compelling answer to the question of whether videogames can be art. This project also provides the groundwork for new evaluative, critical, and appreciative tools for engagement with videogames as they develop as a medium. As videogames mature, more people, both inside and outside academia, have increasing interest in what they are and how to understand them. One place many have looked is to the practice of art appreciation. My project helps make sense of which appreciative and art-critical tools and methods are applicable to videogames.
Art, Fiction, and Explanation
(2019) Song, Moonyoung; Levinson, Jerrold; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation consists of four stand-alone chapters that address topics at the intersection of art, fiction, and explanation. Chapter 1, “the nature of the interaction between moral and artistic value,” aims to elucidate what it means to say that a work’s moral virtue or defect is an artistic virtue or defect. I address this question by showing that the following two strategies commonly used to establish such a claim are not successful: (1) appealing to the counterfactual dependence of the work’s artistic value on its moral virtue or defect; and (2) arguing that the work is artistically valuable (or defective) and morally valuable (or defective) for the same reasons. Chapter 2, “aesthetic explanation,” argues for the psychological account of aesthetic explanation (i.e., the explanation of the aesthetic by the non-aesthetic), according to which the presence of certain non-aesthetic properties explains the presence of a certain aesthetic property just when the observer’s experiences of the non-aesthetic properties cause their experience of the aesthetic property. I demonstrate how this account illuminates the selectivity of aesthetic explanation—the phenomenon of aesthetic explanation citing only some of the non-aesthetic properties on which an aesthetic property supervenes—, drawing an analogy between the selectivity of aesthetic explanation and causal explanation. Chapter 3, “the fictionality puzzle, fictional truth, and explanation,” proposes that what is true in fiction is determined by inference to the best explanation. I show that this account of fictional truth provides a novel solution to the fictionality puzzle, which concerns why certain kinds of deviant claims, such as deviant moral claims (e.g., female infanticide is permissible), are difficult to make true in fiction, whereas other kinds of deviant claims, such as deviant scientific claims (e.g., time travel is possible), are regularly true in fiction. Chapter 4, “aptness of fiction-directed emotions,” argues that the criteria governing the epistemic appropriateness of emotions directed towards fictional entities are analogous to the criteria governing the epistemic appropriateness of emotions directed towards real entities. In both cases, an emotion is epistemically appropriate if and only if it is fitting, justified, and salience-tracking, and these notions are understood in analogous ways.
Artistic and Ethical Values in the Experience of Narratives
(2004-05-10) Giovannelli, Alessandro; Levinson, Jerrold; Philosophy
The ethical criticism of art has received increasing attention in contemporary aesthetics, especially with respect to the evaluation of narratives. The most prominent philosophical defenses of this art-critical practice concentrate on the notion of response, specifically on the emotional responses a narrative requires for it to be correctly apprehended and appreciated. I first investigate the mechanisms of emotional participation in narratives (Chapters 1-2); then, I address the question of the legitimacy of the ethical criticism of narratives and advance an argument in support of such a practice (Chapters 3-7). Chapter 1 analyzes different modes of emotional participation in narratives, distinguishing between: emotional inference, affective mimicry, empathy, sympathy, and concern. Chapter 2 first critically discusses Noël Carroll's objections to identificationism and to an empathy-based account of character participation, and then analyzes the sorts of imaginative activities involved in narrative engagement, by investigating the distinctions introduced by Richard Wollheim between central and acentral imagining, and iconic and non-iconic imagination. Chapter 3 offers a taxonomy of the possible views on the relationship between the ethical and the artistic values of a narrative, distinguishing between reductionist and non-reductionist views, and sorting the latter ones into autonomism and moralism, radical and moderate. Chapter 4 analyzes the ethical assessment of narratives for (i) their consequences on their perceivers and (ii) the means of their production, and indicates the evaluation in terms of (iii) the ethical perspective a narrative embodies as the kind of ethical evaluation on which an argument for the ethical criticism of narratives ought to concentrate. Chapter 5 critically assesses the accounts of "imaginative resistance" to fiction offered by Kendall Walton, Richard Moran, and Tamar Gendler, and concludes that none of them is adequate to ground an argument for the ethical criticism of narratives. Chapter 6 looks at Carroll's argument for moderate moralism and Berys Gaut's "merited-response" argument for "ethicism," and finds both arguments wanting. Chapter 7 proposes a version of moralism grounded in the notion of a narrative's ethical perspective, and defended on the grounds of narratives' commitments to provide a realistic (or "fitting") representation of reality.
B-coming: Time's Passage in the B-theory Blockworld
(2013) Leininger, Lisa; Frisch, Mathias; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
I defend what is routinely held to be an incompatible combination of views: the idea that time passes and the idea that the universe is a four-dimensional manifold without an objective present. Almost all philosophers of time think that A-theory, in which there is a privileged universe-wide plane of simultaneous events identified as the common "NOW," is the only theory able to preserve our fundamental experience of time's passage. B-theorists hold that the Special Theory of Relativity implies that the universe is a four-dimensional manifold without a NOW, and as a result, passage must be merely an illusion. It seems we have a choice: reject the relativistic universe or accept passage as an illusion. I hold that we do not need to make this choice, and show instead how time can pass in this B-theory blockworld. I first argue that the passage of time cannot be understood as the change or shift of the NOW, and then develop and defend an alternative account of the passage of time based on the notion of B-coming, which is a relation between spacetime points defined in terms of the light cone structure of relativistic spacetime. In this way, I make room for passage in the B-theory blockworld.
Bee-ing There: The Systematicity of Honeybee Navigation Supports a Classical Theory of Honeybee Cognition
(2006-04-27) Tetzlaff, Michael James; Rey, Georges; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The Classical theory of cognition proposes that there are cognitive processes that are computations defined over syntactically specified representations, "sentences" in a language of thought, for which the representational-constituency relation is concatenative. The main rival to Classicism is(Nonimplementational, or Radical, Distributed) Connectionism. It proposes that cognitive processes are computations defined over syntactically simple, distributed representions, for which the constituency relation is nonconcatenative. I argue that Connectionism, unlike Classicism, fails to provide an adequate theoretical framework for explaining systematically related cognitive capacities and that this is due to its necessary reliance on nonconcatenative constituency. There appears to be an interesting divergence of attitude among philosophers of psychology and cognitive scientists regarding Classicism's language of thought hypothesis. On one extreme, there are those who argue that only humans are likely to possess a language of thought (or that we at least have no evi- dence to the contrary). On the other extreme, there are those who argue that distinctively human thinking is not likely to be explicable in terms of a language of thought. They point to features of human cognition which they claim strongly support the hypothesis that human cognitive-state transition functions are computationally intractable. This implicitly suggests that the cognitive processes of simpler, nonhuman minds might be computationally tractable and thus amenable to Classical computational explanation. I review much of the recent literature on honeybee navigation. I argue that many capacities of honeybees to acquire various sorts of navigational information do in fact exhibit systematicity. That conclusion, together with the correctness of the view that Classicism provides a better theoretical framework than does Connectionism for explaining the systematicity of the relevant cognitive capacities, gives one reason in support of the claim that sophisticated navigators like honeybees have a kind of language of thought. At the very least, it provides one reason in support of the claim that the constituency relation for the mental representations of such navigators is concatenative, not nonconcatenative.
Beyond Political Neutrality: Towards A Complex Theory of Rights in the Modern Democratic State
(2006-10-23) Mason, Chataquoa Nicole; McIntosh, Wayne; Williams, Linda F; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
As of late, women, racial and ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, and other similarly situated groups have begun to make right-claims that once again test liberal notions of neutrality and raise significant questions concerning whether or not full equality and autonomy is possible in modern democracies. This study focuses on the impact of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other markers of difference on the realization of rights in the modern democratic state. This dissertation uses three case studies, which separately and together demonstrate attempts to realize full freedom and autonomy through practices of direct democracy, the California Referendum Initiative; appeal to the courts, the issue of Gay Marriage; and the creation of public policies and landmark legislation, the Violence Against Women Act. The findings of my research suggest that at all levels of government, race, class, gender, sexual orientation and other markers of difference shape the realization of rights in the modern democratic state. In this study, I extend the insights offered by critical race scholars by proffering a complex theory of rights that is able to account for the impact of identity and culture to the realization of rights and rights-claims made by individuals and groups in the public sphere. Employing a complex theory of rights, the findings of this study confirm that there are a variety of factors that influence the realization of rights in the modern democratic state. Chief among them are: (1) A notion of the good operating in society that is connected to deeply entrenched societal values and norms and that privileges the dominant culture; (2) the structures and institutions that govern society are enmeshed in race, class, sexuality, and ethnic hierarchies; (3) the accumulated advantages gained through historic practices of exclusion, conquest, and enslavement; (4) the representation of the dominant group and subjugated groups in the public sphere through texts, the media, and discourse; and (5) whether or not individuals or groups are recognized as bearers of rights under the law.
Clifford Algebra: A Case for Geometric and Ontological Unification
(2008-04-17) Kallfelz, William Michael; Bub, Jeffrey; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Robert Batterman's ontological insights (2002, 2004, 2005) are apt: Nature abhors singularities. "So should we," responds the physicist. However, the epistemic assessments of Batterman concerning the matter prove to be less clear, for in the same vein he write that singularities play an essential role in certain classes of physical theories referring to certain types of critical phenomena. I devise a procedure ("methodological fundamentalism") which exhibits how singularities, at least in principle, may be avoided within the same classes of formalisms discussed by Batterman. I show that we need not accept some divergence between explanation and reduction (Batterman 2002), or between epistemological and ontological fundamentalism (Batterman 2004, 2005). Though I remain sympathetic to the 'principle of charity' (Frisch (2005)), which appears to favor a pluralist outlook, I nevertheless call into question some of the forms such pluralist implications take in Robert Batterman's conclusions. It is difficult to reconcile some of the pluralist assessments that he and some of his contemporaries advocate with what appears to be a countervailing trend in a burgeoning research tradition known as Clifford (or geometric) algebra. In my critical chapters (2 and 3) I use some of the demonstrated formal unity of Clifford algebra to argue that Batterman (2002) equivocates a physical theory's ontology with its purely mathematical content. Carefully distinguishing the two, and employing Clifford algebraic methods reveals a symmetry between reduction and explanation that Batterman overlooks. I refine this point by indicating that geometric algebraic methods are an active area of research in computational fluid dynamics, and applied in modeling the behavior of droplet-formation appear to instantiate a "methodologically fundamental" approach. I argue in my introductory and concluding chapters that the model of inter-theoretic reduction and explanation offered by Fritz Rohrlich (1988, 1994) provides the best framework for accommodating the burgeoning pluralism in philosophical studies of physics, with the presumed claims of formal unification demonstrated by physicists choices of mathematical formalisms such as Clifford algebra. I show how Batterman's insights can be reconstructed in Rohrlich's framework, preserving Batterman's important philosophical work, minus what I consider are his incorrect conclusions.
Concepts: Taking Psychological Explanation Seriously
(2005-07-26) Rives, Bradley; Rey, Georges; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
What do we need a theory of concepts for? Two answers to this 'meta-level' question about concepts figure prominently in the recent philosophical literature, namely, that concepts are needed primarily for the purposes of psychological explanation, and that concepts are needed primarily for the purposes of normative epistemology. I argue that the psychological perspective leads to what I call 'Judgment Pragmatism', which is a version of conceptual/inferential role semantics according to which concepts are not constitutively tied to rationality and knowledge. I begin in Chapter 1 by distinguishing two uses of the term 'concept' found in the literature, and laying out some constraints on any adequate theory of concepts. In Chapter 2, I articulate the two meta-level approaches under consideration, and explain how the work of Jerry Fodor and Christopher Peacocke is representative of the psychological and epistemological perspectives, respectively. I also show that the meta-level question is distinct from the object-level question of whether Fodor's Informational Atomism or Peacocke's 'Concept Pragmatism' is correct. In Chapter 3, I distinguish two versions of Concept Pragmatism: Judgment Pragmatism, which individuates concepts in terms of mere judgment, and Knowledge Pragmatism, which individuates some concepts in terms of knowledge. I argue against Peacocke's claim that the former leads to the latter, and show that the perspective of psychological explanation provides us with reasons to resist Knowledge Pragmatism. I then consider, in Chapter 4, one of Peacocke's arguments for Judgment Pragmatism, and articulate the Quinean Challenge it faces. In Chapter 5, I argue that Quine's arguments against the analytic/synthetic distinction are inadequate, and that Concept Pragmatism is not vulnerable to Fodor's empirical case against the analytic. I then make the empirical case for Judgment Pragmatism, in Chapter 6, by defending the view that positing the analytic/synthetic distinction is a piece of explanatory psychology. In Chapter 7, I consider the dialectical role of Frege cases, and argue that adopting the psychological perspective allows us to stake out a middle ground between Fodor's 'syntactic' treatment and Peacocke's claim that concepts are constitutively tied to reasons and rationality. Chapter 8 offers some concluding thoughts.
Consciousness and Mental Quotation: An intrinsic higher-order approach
(2013) Picciuto, Vincent; Carruthers, Peter; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The guiding thought of this dissertation is that phenomenally conscious mental states consist in an appropriate pair of first-order and higher-order representations that are uniquely bound together by mental quotation. In slogan form: to be conscious is to be mentally quoted. Others before me have entertained the idea of mental quotation, but they have done so with the aim of putting mental quotation to work as part of the "phenomenal concept strategy" (Papineau, 2000; Balog, Block, 2006; Balog 2012). Their purpose was importantly different from mine. According to those theorists, mental quotation is entirely introspective. On their views, a mental quotation is supposed to be a unique concept that we sometimes use to think about our own conscious states. Conscious states are assumed to be already conscious in virtue of some independent factor, or factors. Mental quotations are not supposed to be that in virtue of which conscious states are conscious. In contrast, this dissertation proposes that mentally quoting an appropriate first-order state is what makes a conscious state conscious in the first-place. Treating consciousness as existing in a higher-order thought that mentally quotes first-order sensory contents has immediate explanatory dividends. It explains several of the classic puzzles of consciousness as well as solving a set of puzzles to which existing higher-order theorists fail to respond. This includes what many see as an insurmountable problem for existing views: the problem of higher-order misrepresentation. If the higher-order component of a conscious state is quotation-like, the gap is filled between the state represented and the higher-order state that makes the state conscious. Rather than targeting a numerically distinct state from afar, as an extrinsic higher-order representation does, a mental quotation latches onto the very target state itself. The target state is enveloped and thereby becomes a component of the higher-order state, and it is the complex, the quotational state as a whole, that is the conscious state. What emerges from the guiding thought is a novel self-representational (or intrinsic higher-order) model of consciousness, described at the intentional level, which is immune to challenges facing existing views.
Consciousness, concepts and content
(2008-08-04) Veillet, Benedicte; Carruthers, Peter; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Concepts figure prominently in the defense and elaboration of representational accounts of phenomenal consciousness. Indeed, any adequate defense of (reductive) representationalism will require an appeal to so-called phenomenal concepts to deflect a group of related anti-physicalist (and hence anti-representationalist) arguments. What's more, an elaboration of representationalism requires a detailed account of the representational content of phenomenally conscious experience. The goal of this dissertation is to contribute to the defense and elaboration of representationalism as it relates to concepts, first with a defense of demonstrative/recognitional accounts of phenomenal concepts (and a defense of the more general physicalist strategy in which they figure); and second, with the development of a partially conceptual account of perceptual experience.
CONSTRUCTING OUR MORAL WORLD: AGENCY, TELEOLOGY, AND KORSGAARD
(2023) Fyfe, Andrew Thomas; Kerstein, Samuel; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Kantian ethicists maintain that morality applies to all agents irrespective of an agent’s particular circumstances, interests, or concerns. That is, morality applies to an agent categorically rather than hypothetically. Kantian ethics attempts to prove this categoricity by deriving morality from the constitutive conditions of action. If such an argument could be made to work, then morality would follow from the constitutive preconditions or “logic” of agency and thereby apply categorically to all agents regardless of unique eccentricities concerning an agent’s particular circumstances or interests. As a result, an argument for Kantian ethics typically adheres to the following formula: (1) providing a theory of agency that (2) entails that all agents are committed to a Kantian ethical outlook. My focus in this dissertation is one of these arguments for Kantian ethics. Specifically, the argument of Christine Korsgaard. I cannot fully defend her argument here in its entirety, but with this dissertation I hope to provide the background work developing the necessary theory of agency in order for Korsgaard’s argument for Kantian ethics to succeed. Specifically, I aim to put forward, develop, and defend the sort of non-standard, teleological theory of agency upon which Korsgaard’s argument for Kantian ethics crucially depends. Moreover, with this dissertation I aim to attack the more widely accepted Davidsonian, causalist theory of agency which Korsgaard’s Aristotelian-Wittegenstienian-Anscombian teleological theory of agency opposes and I argue we should adopt instead.
Defeasibility in Epistemology
(2020) Knoks, Aleks; Horty, John F; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation explores some ways in which logics for defeasible reasoning can be applied to questions in epistemology. It's naturally thought of as developing four applications: The first is concerned with simple epistemic rules, such as ``If you perceives that X, then you ought to believe that X'' and ``If you have outstanding testimony that X, then you ought to believe that X.'' Anyone who thinks that such rules have a place in our accounts of epistemic normativity must explain what happens in cases where they come into conflict —such as one where you perceive a red object and are told that it is blue. The literature has gone in two directions: The first suggests that rules have built-in unless-clauses specifying the circumstances under which they fail to apply; the second that rules do not specify what attitudes you ought to have, but only what counts in favor or against having those attitudes. I express these two different ideas in a defeasible logic framework and demonstrate that there's a clear sense in which they are equivalent. The second application uses a defeasible logic to solve an important puzzle about epistemic rationality, involving higher-order evidence, or, roughly, evidence about our capacities for evaluating evidence. My solution has some affinities with a certain popular view on epistemic dilemmas. The third application, then, is a characterization of this conflicting-ideals view in logical terms: I suggest that it should be thought of as an unconventional metaepistemological view, according to which epistemic requirements are not exceptionless, but defeasible and governed by a comparatively weak logic. Finally, the fourth application is in the burgeoning debate about the epistemic significance of disagreement. The intuitive conciliatory views say, roughly, that you ought to become less confident in your take on some question X, if you learn that an epistemic equal disagrees with you about X. I propose to think of conciliationism as a defeasible reasoning policy, develop a mathematically precise model of it, and use it to solve one of the most pressing problems for conciliatory views: Given that there are disagreements about these views themselves, they can self-defeat and issue inconsistent recommendations.
The Defeasibility of Rights
(2024) Gomez, Cody; Horty, John; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Consider the following puzzle. Presumably, you and I both have an equal right to life. But what happens if I try to kill you, and you kill me in self-defense? By most accounts, you did something morally permissible by killing me in this scenario. But, if killing me is permissible, then what happened to the initially granted right to life we both started out with? There is currently significant debate over how to explain this situation. Some have argued that my violent transgressions altogether forfeit my initial right. Due to my actions, I no longer have the right to life at all. Others have claimed that while I still generally have the right to life, this scenario satisfies criteria for a built-in exception to that standing right: I have the right in other cases, but not this one. Finally, others have suggested that I maintain my right to life in this scenario, but that it takes a lower priority in comparison to the right of the defendant, i.e., it is overridden. While the differences between these understandings of rights may appear subtle, they have drastically different implications. How we solve this puzzle affects how we adjudicate apparent conflicts of rights, how we make sense of what is owed when rights are intruded upon, and how rights function within our broader ethical and legal theories.In this dissertation, I develop a model of the last of these positions. To substantiate my view, I offer a precise model of the defeasibility of rights—situated in non-monotonic/default logic, a kind of non-classical logic—and highlight its strengths against competing views. Specifically, I show that this new schema not only salvages intuitions about infringement, but also prevents the unwieldy proliferation of rights. This is an especially desirable outcome, as it avoids blurring the line between rights and other important normative considerations. The first paper, Hohfeldian Conceptions of Rights and Rights Proliferation, argues that competing theories allow for wild proliferation of rights by adopting some form of the “correlativity doctrine,” wherein myriad duties and permissions are equivalent to rights, e.g., an act of charity no longer seems charitable if the recipient has “a right” to aid. The second paper, Rights as Defaults remedies this by rejecting the correlativity doctrine in favor of my Rights-as-Defaults Model. Using US free speech case law and work in default logic, I argue that fundamental rights are best understood as modifiable collections of defeasible generalizations. This model allows the right to free speech and its protections to accommodate new cases without building long lists of exceptions into the rights themselves while avoiding proliferation. Finally, the third paper, Revising the Right to do Wrong, applies this model to the question: do we have a moral right to do wrong? Do I have a moral right to offend a stranger even if I am required not to? I claim that there is no need for a standalone “right to do wrong” because understanding rights as defeasible means that any right can be overridden (or override competing considerations). I show how it is not paradoxical to say I have the right to offend you even though I, all-things-considered, should not, and even if we think interference would be justified.
Deutsch's CTC Model and its Implications for the Foundations of Quantum Theory
(2015) Dunlap, Lucas; Bub, Jeffrey; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation is an exploration of several issues surrounding David Deutsch’s CTC model first introduced in his 1991 paper “Quantum Mechanics Near Closed Timelike Lines”. Deutsch developed his model to account for the effects of quantum theory, which had been left out of classical discussions of time travel paradoxes. Deutsch’s formulation of his model in terms of quantum computational circuits lends itself to being adopted in the quantum information community. The dissertation argues that the adoption of the D-CTC model entails the existence of Nonlocal Signaling, which is in conflict with a fundamental principle of the quantum information approach. In order to motivate this argument, in Chapter 2 I introduce a distinction between Nonlocal Signaling, and Superluminal Information Transfer. In the latter case, a carrier of information physically traverses the space between the distant communicating parties faster than the speed of light. Exploiting quantum entanglement to signal, however, need not have this feature. I term this Nonlocal Signaling. Chapter 3 is where I present the argument that D-CTCs entail Nonlocal Signaling, and examine the controversy surrounding this and related results. I argue that the resistance to these kinds of predictions in the literature is motivated by a commitment to the principles of quantum information theory, which are inappropriately applied here. Chapters 4 and 5 examine details of Deutsch’s model. Chapter 4 argues that it presupposes a significant metaphysical picture that, when explicitly stated, makes a much less comfortable fit between D-CTCs and quantum information theory. Chapter 5 argues that, because of Deutsch’s commitment to this metaphysical picture, he is committed to the existence of physical situations that are in every way indistinguishable from the paradoxes he attempts to rule out by adopting the model in the first place. In Chapter 6, I make some observations about the relationship between the quantum information-theoretic approach to the interpretation of quantum theory, and the approaches focused primarily on arguing for one or another underlying ontology. Deutsch’s model is situated squarely in the latter camp. It serves as a useful example in pulling apart the implications of the two approaches. In conclusion, I argue that the quantum information-theoretic interpretation of quantum theory, in denying the fundamentality of any particular ontology, in favor of kinematical principles, is in tension with the metaphysical commitments of the Deutsch model. Deutsch’s interpretational stance is among the metaphysically-motivated positions. I argue that this element of the Deutsch model is essential to the solutions it offers to the paradoxes of time travel, and therefore the D-CTC model cannot be adopted without implicitly endorsing Deutsch’s metaphysical commitments. This feature makes the D-CTC model an uncomfortable fit with QIT.
Disadvantage in Context: From Microaggressions to Healthcare Policy
(2019) Perez Gomez, Javiera Maximiliana; Kerstein, Samuel J; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Many dimensions of applied ethics appeal to consequentialist moral theories to evaluate the moral permissibility of an action, practice, or policy. But such an approach risks obscuring other, non-consequentialist concerns. In line with this worry, this dissertation seeks to clarify and morally examine three phenomena that may compound the disadvantages that members of historically and currently disadvantaged groups face: microaggressions, the promotion of prenatal testing for selective abortion, and the allocation of scarce medical resources. Chapter 1, “Disadvantage in Context,” describes the notion of disadvantage that is relevant to this dissertation and explains the relation between Chapters 2-4. Chapter 2, “Microaggressions: What’s the Big Deal?” argues that the standard view of microaggressions, which holds that microaggressions are harmful because they express devaluing messages about members of disadvantaged groups, is too underdeveloped both for identifying microaggressions and for explaining why they are morally objectionable. I then offer an improved account of microaggressions according to which it is the content of what is expressed that determines when microaggressions are morally objectionable. Chapter 3, “When Is the Promotion of Prenatal Testing for Selective Abortion Wrong?” addresses the imprecisions of the expressivist objection to prenatal testing, which maintains that when medical professionals promote the use of prenatal testing for abortion on grounds of disability, they express a harmful, devaluing message to and about extant disabled people. I then offer an improved formulation of this objection according to which the promotion of prenatal testing for selective abortion is sometimes wrong. Chapter 4, “Indirect Benefits and Double Jeopardy in the Allocation of Scarce, Lifesaving Resources,” examines the question of whether or not benefits to third parties, e.g., saving their lives or improving socioeconomic conditions, should count when resources are scarce and not all can be saved. By recruiting the notion of ‘double jeopardy,’ which, as I argue, can be understood in two distinct ways, I aim to give a stronger foundation for the idea that counting indirect benefits such as social contribution would be wrong—at least given certain social conditions.
The Distinction in the Tractatus Between Saying and Showing
(1970) Harward, Donald W.; Perkins, Moreland; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
The distinction between saying and showing is fundamental to Wittgenstein's attempt in the Tractatus to explain the communication of significant propositions, the function of non-significant assertions, and the general relationships between thought, language and reality. In fact, the saying and showing distinctions provide the key to an interpretation of the philosophies of logic and language in the Tractatus. The distinction has not been thoroughly investigated in the Wittgensteinian literature. When it has been discussed, it has not been analyzed rigorously; nor, I think, has it been analyzed correctly. It is quite remarkable that a distinction so important to the Tractatus has been given such brief treatment. I critically construct the positions of the six leading commentators on the Tractatus doctrines of saying and showing early in the dissertation. The commentators are: Pitcher, Black, Stenius, Favrholdt, Schwyzer and Shwayder. Arguments are presented to demonstrate the inadequacies of each of their intepretations. By paying attention to just how Wittgenstein uses various "show" and "say" terms or expressions in the Tractatus, and by exploring what follows from those uses, an appropriate interpretation is found. In Chapters Three and Four, I structure this interpretation and I indicate how it avoids the criticisms and errors attributed to the other commentaries. The last chapter buttresses my interpretation of what Wittgenstein is doing in, and with, the doctrines of showing and saying in the Tractatus by presenting supporting evidence from the pre-Tractatus manuscripts.
The Disunity of Moral Judgment: An Essay in Moral Psychology
(2011) Saunders, Leland; Dwyer, Susan J; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Recently there has been great deal of interest in uncovering the psychological processes of moral judgment. Over the past 10 years, psychologists and neuroscientists have studied the psychology and neurology of moral judgment, and there are now several empirical models of the psychology of moral judgment that attempt to explain these empirical findings. I argue that current empirical models of moral judgment, however, are inadequate, because the psychological processes that they posit cannot explain some important characteristics of other features of our moral psychology. On the other hand, contemporary philosophical accounts of moral judgment do not fare any better, because they are not consistent with recent empirical findings. My diagnosis for these inadequacies is that contemporary philosophical and empirical models of moral judgment are implicitly committed to what I call the Unity of Process Thesis, which is the claim that all moral judgments are the products of a single psychological process. I argue that the Unity of Process Thesis must be abandoned, because it makes it impossible to account for some important features of our moral psychology. What is needed is a dual-process model of moral judgment, and by drawing on an empirically well-supported dual-process architecture of human judgment, I develop a framework for moral judgment that posits two distinct kinds of moral judgments, intuitive and deliberative, that have very different underlying psychologies that operate in different ways, using different cognitive resources, that are tied to motivation in different ways, and play different roles in our moral psychology. I call this framework the Two Kinds Hypothesis. The distinction between intuitive and deliberative moral judging and judgments is quite valuable in developing an overall psychological picture of moral judgment that captures important features of our moral psychology and that is consistent with current accounts of the general architecture of human judgment. This analysis also has upshots in illuminating some debates in metaethics as well, specifically the debate between moral particularists and generalists, and the debate between moral judgment internalists and externalists.
Diversity, Modesty, Liberty: An Essay on State Neutrality
(2008) Baltzly, Vaughn Bryan; Galston, William A; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Human beings have long disagreed about the best way to live. Of what significance is this fact for politics? In this dissertation, I argue that it is of the utmost significance, and that substantial theoretical conclusions follow from our decision to take it seriously. Arguing that few accounts of politics have given due consideration to the fact of persistent disagreement, among reasonable and well-intentioned individuals, as to what gives life meaning and value, I articulate what I hope to be the most defensible account of a politics that accommodates this fact. Citing a variety of possible inferences we might make in response to this `fact of diversity', I defend a humble assessment of our cognitive abilities in this regard as the most charitable inference on offer. Formulated from the perspective of those who would claim the right to exercise political power and authority, this epistemically-humble response to the fact of diversity issues in a principled refusal to endorse any particular account of the Good Life as authoritative for public purposes. The state manifests this principled refusal by adopting an attitude of `maximum feasible accommodation' with respect to its citizens' pursuits of their diverse conceptions of life's meaning and value. Such an attitude needs to be fleshed out in terms of policy, however, so in the final chapters I articulate and defend, as the best practical expression of a stance of maximum accommodation, a principle that restricts the use of the state's coercive power to only those measures needed to protect citizens' `expressive liberty' - that is, their right to live lives that express their cherished notions of life's meaning and value, free from coercive interference.

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