Alex Murphy

The objects we interact with in virtual reality—virtual objects—raise metaphysical questions. The most central of these questions is whether virtual objects really exist, that is, whether we ought to be realists about such objects. The most prominent realist metaphysics of virtual objects is David Chalmers’ virtual digitalism—the view that virtual objects are digital objects. I propose an alternative realist account—virtual perceptibilism. On this view virtual objects are pure perceptibilia. They are public objects, like rainbows, whose existence and intrinsic nature is dependent on us as perceivers. I contrast perceptibilism with digitalism, showing the superiority of the former. As such, I demonstrate that virtual perceptibilism is the best virtual realism on offer, leaving aside the question of whether perceptibilism is superior to irrealist accounts.

Sometimes our scientific advances demonstrate that our ordinary way of speaking about the world is wrong. Sometimes, however, they show exactly how our ordinary descriptions get things right.In this paper, I give a framework for working out which of the two cases we are in. I suggest we think about how science can reveal indeterminacy in our ordinary language. When this occurs, we should respond by thinking about what we want our ordinary talk to do for us. As a case study, I’ll examine the exchange between Arthur Eddington and Susan Stebbing regarding the significance of the Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom for our ordinary solidity judgements.The major consequence of this proposal is that it requires us to reflect on ourselves and our lives as well as the world. To determine whether our ordinary talk is proven wrong by science we must think about what we want to do with our everyday speech. This requires taking a leaf out of Bernard Williams’ book. Namely, it requires doing philosophy as a humanistic discipline.

The objects we interact with in virtual reality – virtual objects – raise metaphysical questions. The most central of these questions is whether virtual objects really exist, that is, whether we ought to be realists about such objects. The most prominent realist metaphysics of virtual objects is David Chalmers’ virtual digitalism – the view that virtual objects are digital objects. I propose an alternative realist account – virtual perceptibilism. On this view virtual objects are pure perceptibilia. They are public objects, like rainbows, whose existence and intrinsic nature is dependent on us as perceivers. I contrast perceptibilism with digitalism, showing the superiority of the former. As such, I demonstrate that virtual perceptibilism is the best virtual realism on offer, leaving aside the question of whether perceptibilism is superior to irrealist accounts.

Moral error theorists often respond to the epistemic companions in guilt strategy by adopting the Disparity Response: reject the putative parity between moral and epistemic reasons and claim that though the former are irreducibly normative, the latter aren’t. I argue such a response fails. Expanding on Das’ Australas J Philos 95:58–69, work I present a master argument against Disparity Responses: the arguments moral error theorists use to advance their conceptual claim apply in the epistemic domain also. This prohibits the error theorist from adopting epistemic reductionism. I use Jonas Olson’s work as exemplary of moral error theory. I demonstrate that Olson’s argument that the rhetorical authority of moral claims is best explained by the error theorist’s conceptual claim applies equally in the epistemic case. Olson attempts to avoid this by claiming that epistemic claims are reducible to claims about whether our doxastic attitudes live up to their functions. There are two problems with Olson’s argument. Firstly, functional reasons are a species of a common genus – standards reasons – and since Olson’s authority argument against moral reductionism applies to standards reasons, it applies to functional reasons. Secondly, Olson’s claim that we cannot also cast moral reasons as functional is under-supported. I suggest that there is plausible evidence that we can and undermine his arguments against this claim. I do not argue that the epistemic companions in guilt strategy demonstrates the falsity of moral error theory. Rather, I argue that the Disparity Response to the epistemic companions in guilt strategy fails.