Richard Andrew Healey

Are domestication and justice compatible? This chapter utilises reflections from the authors’ relationship with two magpies as a springboard for thinking about the wrongs of domestication. The chapter argues that reflection on liminal animals’ agential capacities and powers shines a light on the structural injustice inherent to relationships between humans and domesticated animals. In short, the practices and processes of domestication inevitably expose animals to unnecessary risk of harm and unjustifiably curtail their abilities for self-determination. The chapter ends by considering and rejecting the claim that domesticated animals are better off than liminal animals since we can cater for their every need.

Are domestication and justice compatible? This chapter utilises reflections from the authors’ relationship with two magpies as a springboard for thinking about the wrongs of domestication. The chapter argues that reflection on liminal animals’ agential capacities and powers shines a light on the structural injustice inherent to relationships between humans and domesticated animals. In short, the practices and processes of domestication inevitably expose animals to unnecessary risk of harm and unjustifiably curtail their abilities for self-determination. The chapter ends by considering and rejecting the claim that domesticated animals are better off than liminal animals since we can cater for their every need.

The power of consent enables one person to give another person a moral permission by releasing them from a duty. The examples of consent to sex, surgery, and the sharing of property are familiar. This article considers whether consent requires uptake from the consent-receiver if they are to acquire this moral permission. Most philosophers writing about the ethics of consent suggest that uptake is not necessary. This article argues, by contrast, that we should endorse an uptake condition for consent-based permissions. It does so by locating an uptake condition within a general account of wronging and its interpersonal significance. On the view defended, consent-sensitive duties should be interpreted as requiring a consent-receiver to treat consent as a deliberative constraint on action. On this view, if a consent-receiver acts without recognizing that consent has been given, they violate the consent-sensitive duty they owe to the consent-giver.

These essays in natural philosophy were all written from a pragmatist point of view developed over the past 15 years. They show what work pragmatism can do in science as well as philosophy. Many essays express a view of quantum theory developed using ideas of contemporary pragmatist philosophers: other essays apply these more widely to science and metaphysics. Quantum models are used not to represent physical systems but to offer good advice on how to represent them. The role of a quantum state is not to describe a system but to yield objective probabilities for alternative outcomes of events involving it. A situated agent could use these probabilities to decide what to do, and one can use them to explain phenomena. They are probabilities for physical events including measurements: pragmatist inferentialism helps one to say what these are, and when they have outcomes, thereby resolving the quantum measurement problem. One can use quantum theory locally to explain non-localized correlations, and why quantum field theory poses no ontological problem. Despite its unrivaled success, quantum theory offers no scientific image of the physical world on which a naturalist could construct a metaphysics. There are structural reasons why the rest of physical theory cannot be reduced to quantum theory. This pragmatist view of quantum theory is not instrumentalist. One essay explains why it should count as realist. Other essays defend pragmatist views of scientific laws and explanations as well as causation, truth, and objectivity.

While love and personal relationships are the subjects of rich and sophisticated literatures, philosophical writing about the end of special relationships is much harder to come by. However, the end of special relationships is a significant part of our lives and gives rise to a number of philosophical questions. In this article, I explore the normative significance of the end of special relationships, with a particular focus on the case of breaking up in the context of committed romantic relationships. Specifically, I address three questions. First, what does A do when A breaks up with B? Second, what normative effect will A’s breaking up with B have on the relationship-based duties, reasons, and permissions that are partly constitutive of A and B’s relationship? Third, how is the ability to break up consistent with the commitment that many longer-term romantic relationships involve? In response to the first and second questions, I argue that breaking up is a neglected example of a normative power and develop a tripartite account of the normative effects of exercising this power. In response to the third question, I develop an account of the nature and value of commitment within romantic relationships and show how the power to exit a relationship by breaking up is consistent with this form of commitment.

This article argues that the relations of social and political power that obtain between humans and pets are illegitimate. We begin by showing that pets, a largely neglected population in political philosophy, are subject to socially and politically organised power, which stands in need of justification. We then argue that pets have three moral complaints against the relations of power to which they are subject. First, our power over pets disrespects their moral independence: the fact that they are not simply available to be used to serve the interests or projects of others. Second, our power over pets systematically sets back their interests in exercising control over their own body, actions, and environment. Third, in subjecting pets to asymmetric relations of power in which they are heavily dependent on humans for the satisfaction of their interests, we subject them to objectionable risks of harm. Together, these complaints support our thesis that the power relations central to the insitution of pet keeping are illegitimate. The practical upshot is that we have a strong moral reason to abolish this institution.

Physics might show that space-time is an emergent structure without describing its ontological basis. Space and time are fundamental to metaphysics and physics. Their union remained fundamental after special relativity doomed each separately to fade away as a mere shadow of the space-time that Einstein later took to exist only as a structural quality of the gravitational field of general relativity. But problems meshing general relativity with quantum theory appear to show that space-time structure is not fundamental but emerges within a quantum theory of gravity. In a pragmatist view, quantum theory is typically applied not to represent target systems but to guide rational credence about events involving other systems. Applied to a gravitational field, quantum theory may guide credence about events in an emergent space-time without itself representing that field. If so, a fundamental physical theory would not describe any ultimate ground of space-time and its contents.

Any quantum theory of gravity faces the measurement problem. Carlo Rovelli sees his relational interpretation as offering a solution to this problem when applied to his favored loop quantum gravity (LQG). I examine the prospects of Rovelli’s relationalism in LQG. In LQG it is not clear what physical systems there are at a fundamental level with no spacetime. But implementing Rovelli’s relational interpretation in the context of LQG requires an account of interaction and a model of observer systems whose relational states represent determinate outcomes. Even if no such account is forthcoming at a fundamental level in LQG, it might still be available in a limit at which spacetime has emerged. But to use this account effectively to address the measurement problem, it would be necessary to reconcile the observer-relativity of measurement outcomes with a basic norm of scientific objectivity.

Gauge theories have provided our best representations of the fundamental forces of nature. But a representation may be successfully employed even without a clear understanding of how it works. This book seeks such understanding, so that we are able to say what kind of world our gauge theories reveal to us. A gauge theory's representations are mathematical structures that may be transformed while certain features remain the same. Do representations related by such a gauge transformation merely offer alternative perspectives on the same situation? If so, then gauge symmetry is a purely formal property since it reflects no corresponding symmetry in nature. This book describes the representations provided by gauge theories in both classical and quantum physics. It argues that gauge symmetry is a purely formal property of almost all classes of representations these provide. Evidence for classical gauge theories of forces (other than gravity) gives us reason to believe that loops rather than points are the locations of fundamental properties. Besides exploring whether this holds also for the quantum gauge field theories of the Standard Model of elementary particle physics, the book assesses the difficulties involved in basing such ontological conclusions on the success of these theories.

Pragmatism is not a doctrine but an approach to conceptual problems. It regards concepts as intellectual tools we create and use for particular purposes, improving them in the light of experience. Neopragmatism is an approach to conceptual problems wherever these arise as humans manifest their naturally explicable capacity to deploy concepts, in thought as well as in language, and in science as well as in philosophy. It rejects any attempt to solve these problems by appeal to something in unconceptualised reality for a concept to represent or a linguistic item to refer to or be made true by. Focussing on concepts’ symbolic expression, the neopragmatist asks what function is served by talk of various kinds―of morals, mathematics, causes, modality, probabilities, truth, reference and representation. Starting with what we have learnt from science about our situation in the world, a neopragmatist asks how talking that way helps us to solve general problems we face as situated agents. She sees good answers as dissolving conceptual problems that stem from the assumption that the function of this talk is simply to represent reality. There are many ways in which neopragmatism helps one to dissolve problems we face in understanding quantum theory. It shows how we apply models of a theory non-representationally. It reveals the significance of talk of probability and laws of nature without indulging in metaphysics. It explains the non-representational roles of quantum states, and how inference, not reference, makes claims about the results of measurements meaningful. It makes sense of relative truth as an extension of a deflationary approach to truth and uses this to dissolve some novel quantum paradoxes. Finally, it show that quantum theory is objective although it offers no “view from nowhere”.

This is one of the most important books on quantum mechanics to have appeared in recent years. It offers a dramatically new interpretation that resolves puzzles and paradoxes associated with the measurement problem and the behavior of coupled systems. A crucial feature of this interpretation is that a quantum mechanical measurement can be certain to have a particular outcome even when the observed system fails to have the property corresponding to that outcome just prior to the measurement interaction.

I take a pragmatist perspective on quantum theory. This is not a view of the world described by quantum theory. In this view quantum theory itself does not describe the physical world (nor our observations, experiences or opinions of it). Instead, the theory offers reliable advice—on when to expect an event of one kind or another, and on how strongly to expect each possible outcome of that event. The event’s actual outcome is a perspectival fact—a fact relative to a physical context of assessment. Measurement outcomes and quantum states are both perspectival. By noticing that each must be relativized to an appropriate physical context one can resolve the measurement problem and the problem of nonlocal action. But if the outcome of a quantum measurement is not an absolute fact, then why should the statistics of such outcomes give us any objective reason to accept quantum theory? One can describe extensions of the scenario of Wigner’s friend in which a statement expressing the outcome of a quantum measurement would be true relative to one such context but not relative to another. However, physical conditions in our world prevent us from realizing such scenarios. Since the outcome of every actual quantum measurement is certified at what is essentially a single context of assessment, the outcome relative to that context is an objective fact in the only sense that matters for science. We should accept quantum theory because the statistics these outcomes display are just those it leads us to expect.

The early twentieth century saw the development of two revolutionary physical theories: relativity (see space, time and relativity) and quantum mechanics. Relativity theory had an immediate impact on the rise of logical positivism, as philosophers like Carnap, Reichenbach, and Schlick struggled to come to terms with its content and implications (see logical positivism). By contrast, discussion of philosophical issues raised by quantum mechanics began among physicists who created the theory before being taken up by technically inclined philosophers of science.

I offer a pragmatist understanding of causation, laws and explanation that traces the features of these notions to their functions in our practical as well as theoretical projects. Laws derive their importance from their epistemic and methodological functions, while the primary role of causal concepts is in guiding action. Contemporary interventionist accounts of causation and causal modeling appeal to and clarify this practical role while downplaying the causal significance of laws. They also explain how causation in one science or at one level of complexity may be either related to or independent of causation in other sciences or at other levels. In this way they can demystify the notion of top-down causation by showing how, and when, it is possible.

This paper compares and contrasts relational quantum mechanics with a pragmatist view of quantum theory. I first explain important points of agreement. Then I point to two problems faced by RQM and sketch DP?s solutions to analogous problems. Since both RQM and DP have taken the Born rule to require relative facts I next say what these might be. My main objection to RQM as originally conceived is that its ontology of relative facts is incompatible with scientific objectivity and undercuts the evidential base of quantum theory. In contrast DP?s relative facts have all the objectivity we need to accept quantum theory as scientific knowledge. But a very recent modification to RQM has successfully addressed my main objection,bringing the two views into even closer alignment.

The status of laws of nature has been the locus of a lively debate in recent philosophy. Most participants have assumed laws play an important role in science and metaphysics while seeking their objective ground in the natural world, though some skeptics have questioned this assumption. So-called Humeans look to base laws on actual, particular facts such as those specified in David Lewis’s Humean mosaic. Their opponents argue that such a basis is neither necessary nor sufficient to support the independent existence of scientific laws. This essentially metaphysical debate has paid scant attention to the details of scientific practice. It has mostly focused on so-called fundamental laws, assumed to take a particular form. I propose a pragmatist alternative—not as another position in the debate but as an alternative to the debate itself. This pragmatist alternative offers a view that questions the representational conception of truth presupposed by participants to the debate as well as the metaphysical import of fundamental laws. Statements of law serve many different purposes in science: I’ll look at some. But their central role is in inference, primarily to improve the epistemic state of a scientist with limited access to information. To play this role, a scientific law statement need be neither necessary, unconditionally universal nor even true. It must merely be sufficiently reliable within its domain of application. The use of laws in astrophysics and metrology will help to illustrate these points.

Quantum theory is a fundamental part of contemporary science. But some recent arguments have been taken to show that if this theory is universally applicable then the outcome of a quantum measurement is not an objective fact. They motivate the more general reappraisal of the notions of fact and objectivity that I offer here. I argue that if quantum theory is universally applicable the facts about the physical world include a fact about each quantum measurement outcome. The physical facts may lack an ideal kind of objectivity, but their more modest objectivity is all that science needs.

The contributors to this 1981 volume are all concerned with scientific realism, but each author questions or rejects aspects of the way it has traditionally been discussed. There are three main foci of attention - reduction, time and modality - and the analyses bring out complexities and difficulties obscured in the standard accounts of scientific realism. The papers are powerful and original, representing some of the best in modern philosophy of science, and each were specifically commissioned for the volume. It is an excellent source book for courses on realism or the philosophy of science. The book therefore takes its place in the informal series of volumes arising from meetings sponsored by the Thyssen Foundation, which already includes C. Hookway and P. Pettit Action and Interpretation and R. Harrison Rational Action.

Quantum entanglement is widely believed to be a feature of physical reality with undoubted (though debated) metaphysical implications. But Schrödinger introduced entanglement as a theoretical relation between representatives of the quantum states of two systems. Entanglement represents a physical relation only if quantum states are elements of physical reality. So arguments for metaphysical holism or nonseparability from entanglement rest on a questionable view of quantum theory. Assignment of entangled quantum states predicts experimentally confirmed violation of Bell inequalities. Can one use these experimental results to argue directly for metaphysical conclusions? No. Quantum theory itself gives us our best explanation of violations of Bell inequalities, with no superluminal causal influences and no metaphysical holism or nonseparability—but only if quantum states are understood as objective and relational, though prescriptive rather than ontic. Correct quantum state assignments are backed by true physical magnitude claims: but backing is not grounding. Quantum theory supports no general metaphysical holism or nonseparability; though a claim about a compound physical system may be significant and true while similar claims about its components are neither. Entanglement may well have have few, if any, first-order metaphysical implications. But the quantum theory of entanglement has much to teach the metaphysician about the roles of chance, causation, modality and explanation in the epistemic and practical concerns of a physically situated agent.

Three recent arguments seek to show that the universal applicability of unitary quantum theory is inconsistent with the assumption that a well-conducted measurement always has a definite physical outcome. In this paper I restate and analyze these arguments. The import of the first two is diminished by their dependence on assumptions about the outcomes of counterfactual measurements. But the third argument establishes its intended conclusion. Even if every well-conducted quantum measurement we ever make will have a definite physical outcome, this argument should make us reconsider the objectivity of that outcome.

Realism comes in many varieties, in science and elsewhere. Van Fraassen's influential formulation took scientific realism to include the view that science aims to give us, in its theories, a literally true story of what the world is like. So understood, a quantum realist takes quantum theory to aim at correctly representing the world: many would add that its success justifies believing this representation is more or less correct. But quantum realism has been understood both more narrowly and more broadly. A pragmatist considers use prior to representation and this has prompted some to dub pragmatist views anti-realist, including the view of quantum theory I have been developing recently. But whether a pragmatist view of quantum theory should be labeled anti-realist depends not only on its ingredients but also on how that label should be applied. Pragmatism offers a healthy diet of quantum realism.