University of California, Los Angeles
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1986
Tempe, Arizona, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language
Philosophy of Mind

My Survey Responses

Survey Prompt Response
A priori knowledge Accept: yes
Abortion Accept: impermissible
Abstract objects Lean towards: Platonism
Aesthetic experience Lean towards: sui generis
Aesthetic value Lean towards: objective
Aim of philosophy Accept a combination of answers:
  • Lean towards truth/knowledge
  • Accept understanding
Analysis of knowledge Accept: no analysis
Analytic-synthetic distinction Accept: yes
Arguments for theism Lean towards: pragmatic
Belief or credence Lean towards: neither
Capital punishment Lean towards: impermissible
Causation Accept: counterfactual/difference-making
Chinese room Lean towards: doesn't understand
Concepts Lean towards: nativism
Consciousness Lean towards: dualism
Continuum hypothesis Lean towards: determinate
Cosmological fine-tuning Lean towards: design
Eating animals and animal products Lean towards: vegetarianism (no and yes)
Environmental ethics Accept: non-anthropocentric
Epistemic justification Lean towards: externalism
Experience machine Lean towards: no
Extended mind Accept: yes
External world Accept: non-skeptical realism
Footbridge Lean towards: don't push
Foundations of mathematics Lean towards: set-theoretic
Free will Lean towards: compatibilism
Gender Accept a combination of answers:
  • Lean towards psychological
  • Lean towards biological
Gender categories Lean towards: preserve
God Agnostic/undecided
Grounds of intentionality Accept: causal/teleological
Hard problem of consciousness Lean towards: no
Human genetic engineering Lean towards: permissible
Hume Accept: naturalist
Immortality Accept: yes
Interlevel metaphysics Accept: supervenience
Justification Lean towards: reliabilism
Kant Lean towards: two worlds
Knowledge Accept: rationalism
Knowledge claims Lean towards: contextualism
Law Lean towards: legal positivism
Laws of nature Lean towards: non-Humean
Logic Lean towards: classical
Material composition Lean towards: universalism
Meaning of life Lean towards: objective
Mental content Accept: externalism
Meta-ethics Lean towards: moral realism
Metaontology Accept a combination of answers:
  • Lean towards heavyweight realism
  • Lean towards deflationary realism
Metaphilosophy Lean towards: non-naturalism
Method in history of philosophy Accept: analytic/rational reconstruction
Method in political philosophy Lean towards: ideal theory
Mind Lean towards: non-physicalism
Mind uploading Lean towards: death
Moral judgment Lean towards: cognitivism
Moral motivation Lean towards: externalism
Moral principles Lean towards: moral generalism
Morality Lean towards: naturalist realism
Newcomb's problem Accept: one box
Normative concepts Lean towards: reasons
Normative ethics Accept a combination of answers:
  • Lean towards virtue ethics
  • Lean towards deontology
  • Lean towards consequentialism
Other minds Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept adult humans
  • Accept cats
  • Accept fish
  • Accept flies
  • Accept worms
  • Lean against plants
  • Reject particles
  • Accept newborn babies
  • Reject current AI systems
  • Accept future AI systems
Ought implies can Lean towards: yes
Perceptual experience Accept a combination of answers:
  • Lean towards representationalism
  • Lean towards qualia theory
Personal identity Lean towards: psychological view
Philosophical knowledge Accept: a little
Philosophical methods Accept a combination of answers:
  • Lean against experimental philosophy
  • Accept formal philosophy
  • Lean towards empirical philosophy
  • Lean towards linguistic philosophy
  • Lean towards conceptual analysis
  • Lean towards conceptual engineering
  • Lean towards intuition-based philosophy
Philosophical progress Accept: a little
Plato Lean towards: knowledge also of concrete things
Political philosophy Accept a combination of answers:
  • Neutral towards egalitarianism
  • Lean towards communitarianism
  • Lean towards libertarianism
Politics Accept a combination of answers:
  • Lean towards capitalism
  • Lean towards socialism
Possible worlds Accept: abstract
Practical reason Lean towards: Kantian
Principle of sufficient reason Lean towards: false
Proper names Accept: Millian
Properties Lean towards: tropes
Propositional attitudes Lean towards: representational
Propositions Accept: structured entities
Quantum mechanics Agnostic/undecided
Race Accept an alternative view: A socially evolving mix of biological and social elements.
Race categories Accept: revise
Rational disagreement Lean towards: non-permissivism
Response to external-world skepticism Accept: abductive
Science Accept: scientific realism
Semantic content Accept: minimalism (no more than a few)
Sleeping beauty Lean towards: one-third
Spacetime Lean towards: relationism
Statue and lump Accept: two things
Teletransporter Accept: survival
Temporal ontology Lean towards: growing block
Theory of reference Accept: causal
Time Lean towards: A-theory
Time travel Lean towards: metaphysically impossible
Trolley problem Lean towards: switch
True contradictions Accept: impossible
Truth Lean towards: correspondence
Units of selection Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept genes
  • Accept organisms
Vagueness Lean towards: metaphysical
Values in science Accept: can be either
Well-being Lean towards: objective list
Wittgenstein Lean towards: early
Zombies Accept: conceivable but not metaphysically possible