Johns Hopkins University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1971
Durham, North Carolina, United States of America

My Survey Responses

Survey Prompt Response
A priori knowledge Accept: no
Abortion Accept: permissible
Abstract objects Lean towards: nominalism
Aesthetic experience Accept: perception
Aesthetic value Accept: subjective
Aim of philosophy Accept: understanding
Analysis of knowledge Lean towards: justified true belief
Analytic-synthetic distinction Accept: no
Arguments for theism Accept a combination of answers:
  • Reject pragmatic
  • Reject ontological
  • Reject moral
  • Reject cosmological
  • Reject design
Belief or credence Lean towards: credence
Capital punishment Accept: impermissible
Causation Accept: nonexistent
Chinese room Accept: understands
Concepts Accept: empiricism
Consciousness Accept: identity theory
Continuum hypothesis Accept: determinate
Cosmological fine-tuning Accept: multiverse
Eating animals and animal products Accept: omnivorism (yes and yes)
Environmental ethics Accept: anthropocentric
Epistemic justification Accept: externalism
Experience machine Accept: yes
Extended mind Accept: no
External world Accept: non-skeptical realism
Footbridge Accept: push
Foundations of mathematics Lean towards: logicism
Free will Accept: no free will
Gender Accept: biological
Gender categories Accept: preserve
God Accept: atheism
Grounds of intentionality Accept: interpretational
Hard problem of consciousness Accept: no
Human genetic engineering Accept: permissible
Hume Accept: naturalist
Immortality Accept: no
Interlevel metaphysics Accept: grounding
Justification Accept: nonreliabilist foundationalism
Kant Accept: two worlds
Knowledge Accept: empiricism
Knowledge claims Accept: invariantism
Law Accept: legal positivism
Laws of nature Accept: Humean
Logic Accept: classical
Material composition Accept: nihilism
Meaning of life Accept: nonexistent
Mental content Accept: internalism
Meta-ethics Accept: moral anti-realism
Metaontology Accept: deflationary realism
Metaphilosophy Accept: naturalism
Method in history of philosophy Accept: analytic/rational reconstruction
Method in political philosophy Accept: non-ideal theory
Mind Accept: physicalism
Mind uploading Accept: survival
Moral judgment Accept: non-cognitivism
Moral motivation Accept: internalism
Moral principles Accept: moral generalism
Morality Accept: error theory
Newcomb's problem Accept: two boxes
Normative concepts Accept: value
Normative ethics Accept: consequentialism
Other minds Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept adult humans
  • Accept cats
  • Neutral towards fish
  • Lean against flies
  • Lean against worms
  • Reject plants
  • Reject particles
  • Lean towards newborn babies
  • Lean against current AI systems
  • Accept future AI systems
Ought implies can Lean towards: yes
Perceptual experience Accept: qualia theory
Personal identity Accept: biological view
Philosophical knowledge Accept: a lot
Philosophical methods Accept a combination of answers:
  • Reject intuition-based philosophy
  • Accept empirical philosophy
  • Neutral towards linguistic philosophy
  • Neutral towards conceptual engineering
  • Accept formal philosophy
  • Lean against experimental philosophy
  • Neutral towards conceptual analysis
Philosophical progress Accept: a lot
Plato Accept: knowledge only of forms
Political philosophy Accept: egalitarianism
Politics Lean towards: socialism
Possible worlds Accept: concrete
Practical reason Accept: Humean
Principle of sufficient reason Accept: false
Proper names Accept: Millian
Properties Accept: nonexistent
Propositional attitudes Accept: nonexistent
Propositions Accept: sets
Quantum mechanics Accept: many-worlds
Race Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept unreal
  • Accept social
  • Reject biological
Race categories Accept: eliminate
Rational disagreement Accept: permissivism
Response to external-world skepticism Accept: abductive
Science Accept: scientific realism
Semantic content Accept: minimalism (no more than a few)
Sleeping beauty Accept: one-half
Spacetime Accept: relationism
Statue and lump Accept: one thing
Teletransporter Accept: survival
Temporal ontology Accept: eternalism
Theory of reference Accept: deflationary
Time Accept: A-theory
Time travel Accept: metaphysically impossible
Trolley problem Accept: switch
True contradictions Accept: impossible
Truth Accept: deflationary
Units of selection Accept: genes
Vagueness Accept: semantic
Values in science Accept: necessarily value-free
Well-being Accept: objective list
Wittgenstein Accept: early
Zombies Accept: metaphysically possible