Paul Gomberg

Are skeptical arguments invalid because they trade on an ambiguity of the word "possible," asserting that it is possible that our experiences are not of anything outside our own minds and concluding that it is not certain that there is an external world outside our own minds? It is sometimes asserted that such arguments invalidly trade on an ambiguity of "possible" where the premise is true only in the sense "logically possible" while the inference is valid only in the sense "empirically possible." However, once we distinguish different grammatical complements of the phrase "it is possible" we recognize that, when used with the same complement, "possible" is not ambiguous. So the claim that skeptical arguments trade on an ambiguity of "possible" fails.

John Stuart Mill wrote in the opening chapter of Utilitarianism, ‘A test of right and wrong must be the means, one would think, of ascertaining what is right or wrong,’ thus explaining why he thought the work to follow was practically important. In Chapter 3, ‘On the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility,’ he answers the question, ‘What are the motives to obey the principle of utility?’ This principle is presented as a morality to be adopted. Yet before the nineteenth century was over Henry Sidgwick was proposing that it may well be best, from a utilitarian view, that the utilitarian doctrine is not too widely adopted. Perhaps it should be an esoteric morality.Moreover, Sidgwick argues, it seems contrary to self interest to adhere to an impartially benevolent morality. Devotion to utilitarian duty seems to require that the agent sacrifice his or her own happiness in a devotion to the relief of others that can only ‘partially mitigate’ their distress. Such a morality seems impossibly demanding. Sidgwick’s argument challenges Mill's claim that there is an adequate sanction for adoption of utilitarian morality.