Matthew Altman

Anthropocentric biases manifest themselves in two different ways in research on animal cognition. Some researchers claim that only humans have the capacity for reasoning, beliefs, and interests; and others attribute mental concepts to nonhuman animals on the basis of behavioral evidence, and they conceive of animal cognition in more or less human terms. Both approaches overlook the fact that language-use deeply informs mental states, such that comparing human mental states to the mental states of nonlinguistic animals is misguided. In order to avoid both pitfalls -- assuming that animals have mental lives just like we do, or assuming that they have no mental lives at all -- I argue for a functional methodological approach. Researchers should study animal cognition by identifying environmental inputs, the functional role of internal states, and behavioral outputs. Doing so will allow for cross-species comparisons in a way that the use of folk psychological terms does not.

Requiring that a woman who is seeking an abortion be given the opportunity to view an ultrasound of her fetus has spread from anti-abortion “pregnancy resource centers” to state laws. Proponents of these laws claim that having access to the ultrasound image is necessary for a woman to make a medically informed decision. In this paper, we argue that ultrasound examinations frame fetuses visually and linguistically as persons and interpellate pregnant women as mothers, with all of the cultural meaning invested in those two normative concepts. Presenting these judgments as medical information is misleading. Because women are being subjected to these cultural expectations unknowingly, mandatory ultrasound laws in fact undermine women’s autonomy. Fully informed consent would include a critical engagement with social norms around femininity and a recognition that such laws are meant to advance the state’s interest in preserving potential life.

Fichte develops his idealism through a higher-level critique: only through the Fichtean fact of reason can one justify a systematic transcendental idealism, thereby making possible the self-sufficiency of theoretical reason. By examining the metaphilosophical implications of our immediate consciousness of the moral law, Fichte is able to assert the necessary metaphilosophical primacy of practical reason for any possible wissenschaftlich philosophy as well as the philosophical unity of theory and practice within such a system.

The ticking bomb case is meant to challenge absolute prohibitions on the use of torture. In “Imaginary Cases,” Michael Davis attempts to show that such cases can only be legitimately employed within certain limited parameters. In this paper, I explain how the ticking bomb case, suitably revised, does not run afoul of Davis’s prohibition on impossible content. The fact that torture could elicit the necessary information is enough; we need not stipulate a guaranteed result. I also defend philosophers’ use of the case to identify our moral intuitions and to evaluate our theoretical assumptions. Although our responses to actual events are better at mapping our actual commitments, imaginary events can also reveal our pre-theoretic intuitions. Ultimately, however, I reject the use of the ticking bomb case on practical grounds, because the imaginary case distorts our moral reasoning in actual cases and leads to our acceptance of torture more generally.

In addition to preparing students for graduate school or emphasizing transferable skills that are useful in any career, philosophy departments ought to give majors the education and work experience that will train them to become ethics officers outside of academia. This is a growing field that allows students to engage non-philosophers in setting corporate policies and addressing morally significant social issues. Using a course in medical ethics as an example, I show how incorporating service-learning into philosophy classes benefits students both academically and professionally, and also demonstrates the value of philosophy to the community and to academic administrators.