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Wide functionalismIn Stephen Schiffer & Susan Steele (eds.), Cognition and Representation, Westview Press. pp. 11--20. 1988.
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74The Nonexistence of Character TraitsProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 100 (2): 223-226. 2000.
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339Metaphysical realism and moral relativism: Reflections on Hilary Putnam's reason, truth and historyJournal of Philosophy 79 (10): 568-575. 1982.Putnam rejects "metaphysical realism," which takes "the world" to be a single complex thing, a connected causal or explanatory order into which all facts fit. he argues that such metaphysical realism is responsible for views he finds implausible; in particular, it can lead to moral relativism when one tries to locate the place of value in the world of fact. i agree that metaphysical realism will lead a thoughtful philosopher to moral relativism, but find neither of these views implausible. in pa…Read more
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62Rationality in AgreementSocial Philosophy and Policy 5 (2): 1. 1988.Gauthier's title is potentially misleading. The phrase “morals by agreement” suggests a social contract theory of morality according to which basic moral principles arise out of an actual or hypothetical agreement. John Rawls defends a hypothetical agreement version, arguing that the basic principles of justice are those that would be agreed to in an initial position of fair equality. I myself defend an actual agreement version, arguing that the moral principles that apply to a person derive fro…Read more
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95What is distinctive about my views in epistemology? One thing is that my concern with epistemology is a concern with methodology. Furthermore, I reject psychologism about logic and reject the idea that deductive rules like modus ponens are in any way rules of inference. I accept a kind of methodological conservatism and reject methodological theories that appeal to special foundations, analytic truth, or a priori justification. Although I believe that there are significant practical aspects of t…Read more
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481ThoughtPrinceton University Press. 1973.Thoughts and other mental states are defined by their role in a functional system. Since it is easier to determine when we have knowledge than when reasoning has occurred, Gilbert Harman attempts to answer the latter question by seeing what assumptions about reasoning would best account for when we have knowledge and when not. He describes induction as inference to the best explanation, or more precisely as a modification of beliefs that seeks to minimize change and maximize explanatory coherenc…Read more
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356Moral explanations of natural facts – can moral claims be tested against moral reality?Southern Journal of Philosophy 24 (S1): 57-68. 1986.
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33Skepticism and foundationsIn Luper Steven (ed.), The Skeptics: Contemporary Essays, Ashgate Press. pp. 1--11. 2003.
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161Knowledge, assumptions, lotteriesPhilosophical Issues 14 (1). 2004.John Hawthorne’s marvelous book contains a wealth of arguments and insights based on an impressive knowledge and understanding of contemporary discussion. We can address only a small aspect of the topic. In particular, we will offer our own answers to two questions about knowledge that he discusses.
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7Philosophy of languageIn Gerhard Preyer (ed.), Donald Davidson on truth, meaning, and the mental, Oxford University Press. pp. 39. 2012.
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89Can science understand the mind?In Conceptions of the Human Mind: Essays in Honor of George A. Miller, Lawrence Erlbaum. pp. 111--121. 1993.
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240Guilt-free moralityOxford Studies in Metaethics 4 203-14. 2009.Here are some of the ways in which some philosophers and psychologists have taken the emotion of guilt to be essential to morality. One relatively central idea is that guilt feelings are warranted if an agent knows that he or she has acted morally wrongly. It might be said that in such a case the agent has a strong reason to feel guilt, that the agent ought to have guilt feelings, that the agent is justified in having guilt feelings and unjustified in not having guilt feelings. It might be said …Read more
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7647What is moral relativism?In A. I. Goldman & I. Kim (eds.), Values and Morals, D. Reidel. pp. 143--161. 1978.
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384Moral relativism is moral realismPhilosophical Studies 172 (4): 855-863. 2015.I begin by describing my relation with Nicholas Sturgeon and his objections to things I have said about moral explanations. Then I turn to issues about moral relativism. One of these is whether a plausible version of moral relativism can be formulated as a claim about the logical form of certain moral judgments. I agree that is not a good way to think of moral relativism. Instead, I think of moral relativism as a version of moral realism. I compare moral relativism with the relativity of motion …Read more
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1927. Reflections on Language, by Noam Chomsky; On Noam Chomsky: Critical EssaysIn Bernard Williams (ed.), Essays and Reviews: 1959-2002, Princeton University Press. pp. 133-140. 2014.
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130Moral particularism and transductionPhilosophical Issues 15 (1). 2005.Can someone be reasonable or justified in accepting a specific moral judgment not based on the prior acceptance of a general exceptioness moral principle, where acceptance of a general principle might be tacit or implicit and might not be expressible in language? This issue is an instance of a wider issue about direct or transductive inference. Developments in statistical learning theory show that such an inference can be more effective than alternative methods using inductive generalization and…Read more
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21Adaptationist theorizing and intentional system theoryBehavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (3): 365-365. 1983.
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