http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/7602 Mon, 10 Jul 2017 01:27:21 GMT 2017-07-10T01:27:21Z http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107329 Issues in objectivity and mind-dependence Botchkina, Ekaterin Reality and objectivity are often characterized in terms of independence from the mind: the first-pass idea is that what it takes for any particular subject matter to be real and objective is for facts about it to obtain independently of beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on. But if we take seriously the possibility that significant realms of reality, including social kinds, judgment-dependent properties, and mental phenomena themselves, stand in various dependence relations to the mental, then this first-pass characterization needs to be significantly revised. In this set of papers, I consider the special questions that metaphysically mind-dependent entities raise for issues of objectivity and realism. In Part 1, 1 substantiate the notion of metaphysical mind-dependence with a taxonomy of the various ways in which entities can stand in metaphysical relations of dependence to mental phenomena. In Part II, I address the question of realism and mind-dependence: I argue that while certain entities stand in relations of significant, direct, and essential dependence on mental activity, they are nevertheless fully real. In making the argument, I elaborate a distinction between enactive and essential dependence on mental phenomena, arguing that both kinds of dependence may obtain without impinging on an entity's reality. In Part III, I address the question of objectivity and mind-dependence: I argue that certain kinds of mind-dependence, in particular, dependence on judgments, have the effect of undermining the objectivity of the relevant domain. One consequence of the view I develop is that the objectivity of a subject matter can come apart from the reality of its associated entities; another is that objectivity is a feature that is relative, rather than absolute, and depends crucially on which perspectives are brought to bear for the purposes of evaluation. Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2016.; Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.; Includes bibliographical references (pages 90-93). Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107329 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107097 Acting from character : how virtue and vice explain praise and blame Ali, Arden This dissertation offers a theory of praise and blame: praiseworthy acts manifest virtue and blameworthy acts are incompatible with virtue. Despite its simplicity, proposals like mine have been largely ignored. After all, don't good people sometimes deserve blame, and bad people sometimes deserve praise? I believe the significance of this thought has been exaggerated. The chapters of this dissertation argue that we should understand praiseworthiness and blameworthiness by appeal to the concept of virtue, even granting the possibility of uncharacteristic behaviour. Chapter One argues against the popular view of praiseworthiness, according to which acting well requires only that the agent is moved by the right reasons and acts rightly. At its most plausible, I claim, this view employs a concept of 'acting for the right reasons' that can only be understood in relation to virtue, e.g. someone acts for the right reasons just in case she is momentarily disposed as virtue requires, or has a disposition that approximates virtue. Praiseworthy acts are manifestations of virtue, perhaps qualified in some way, but nonetheless only intelligible in virtue-theoretic terms. Chapter Two builds an account of blameworthiness. In response to puzzling cases of excuse, I distinguishfull and infallible virtue. Roughly put: full virtue requires the disposition to act well; infallible virtue involves perfect compliance with the requirements of morality. This distinction allows us to articulate the relationship between character and culpability: blameworthy acts are those incompatible with full virtue in my sense. Chapter Three addresses a conflict between my view and one dogma in the philosophy of responsibility. Philosophers usually distinguish mere badness and blameworthiness thusly: bad actions reflect deficiencies in one's ethical character but do not warrant resentment or indignation; blameworthy actions call for these attitudes. But I argue there is no privileged part of our psychology that can serve the role of 'ethical character' as it appears in the proposal. A better view falls out of the second chapter. On my view, there are two kinds of wrongdoing: those incompatible with full virtue, and those merely incompatible with infallible virtue. The former are blameworthy, but the latter are merely bad. Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2016.; Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.; Includes bibliographical references (pages 87-95). Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107097 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107096 Epistemic stability Das, Nilanjan, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology I argue that knowledge and rational belief are subject to stability conditions. A belief that amounts to knowledge couldn't easily have been lost due to the impact of misleading evidence. A belief that is rational couldn't easily have been withdrawn upon reflection on its epistemic credentials. In Chapter 1, I support a picture of epistemic rationality on which a belief, in order to be rational, must be stable under reflection, i.e., it must be capable of surviving reflective scrutiny. To make room for this condition, I defend the possibility of higher-order defeat, where a belief's rationally undermined by misleading higher order evidence, i.e., by evidence about what one's evidence supports. I sketch an account of-higher-order defeat on which higher-order evidence makes an agent's total body of evidence fragmented: even though a piece of evidence is available within the agent's cognitive system, the agent is unable to rationally bring it to bear upon certain questions. In Chapter 2, I explore an analogy between knowledge and moral worth. Just as knowledge requires the agent to non-accidentally believe the truth, so too does morally worthy action require the agent to non-accidentally perform the right action. I argue that the analogy lends support to an explanation-based account of knowledge: a belief amounts to knowledge only if the manner in which the agent forms the belief explains both why the agent holds the belief (rather than losing it) and why she forms a true belief (rather than a false one). I call this view explanationism. In Chapter 3, 1 discuss a consequence of explanationism: a belief that amounts to knowledge couldn't easily be rationally defeated by misleading evidence. This condition-safety from from defeat explains a range of different epistemic phenomena. It accounts for the explanatory role of knowledge in relation to certain kinds of behaviour, like rational perseverance. It obviates certain demanding "internalist" conditions on knowledge. It also illuminates the connection between knowledge and practical interests. Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2016.; "September 2016." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.; Includes bibliographical references (pages 119-134). Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107096 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107095 Doing your best (while making do with less) : the actual value conception of instrumental rationality Doody, Ryan (Ryan Dennis) In this thesis, I sketch a decision-theoretic picture of instrumental rationality, which I call the Actual Value Conception: roughly, that you should align your preferences over your options to your best estimates of how the actual values of those options compare. Less roughly: for any options, q and 0, you are instrumentally rational if and only if you prefer q to / when, and only when, your best estimate of the extent to which O's actual value exceeds 's is greater than your best estimate of the extent to which O's actual value exceeds O's, where an option's actual value equals the value you assign to the outcome that would actually result from performing it. In the first chapter, I argue that this picture underlies causal decision theory by showing that, given some assumptions, the two are equivalent, and that the picture unifies and underlies the intuitive arguments offered for Two- Boxing over One-Boxing in the Newcomb Problem. I also show that the picture is incompatible with evidential decision theory. Evidential decision theory sometimes recommends preferring one option to another even though you are certain that the actual value of the latter exceeds the actual value of the former. In the second chapter, I develop a decision theory for agents with incomplete preferences - called Actual Value Decision Theory - that, unlike its more popular competitors, is consistent with, and motivated by, the picture of instrumental rationality sketched in the first chapter. I argue that, in addition to being a generalization of causal decision theory, Actual Value Decision Theory is supported by many of the same considerations. In the final chapter, I consider two powerful arguments against Actual Value Decision Theory - the Most Reason Argument and the Agglomeration Argument - and I argue that, while neither proves to be fatal, they each bring to light some interesting consequences of taking the Actual Value Conception seriously. In particular: that, first, we should reject the idea that instrumental rationality consists in doing what you have the most reason to do; and, second, that sometimes it is rationally permissible to have non-transitive (but not cyclic) instrumental preferences. Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2016.; Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.; Includes bibliographical references (pages 137-141). Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107095 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z