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4Authentic Practical Identities and the Need for Targeted AutomationOpen Journal of Philosophy 14 (2): 340-351. 2024.In an age were artificial intelligence can do everything for us why should we do things for ourselves? What is at stake is the intrinsic value of doing things for ourselves, our relationship to the world, and the sense of personal identity that springs forth from our actions. An age were automated machines do everything for us, threatens to de-skill our perceptions and to turn the individual into a passive observer rather than an active participant in the world. Therefore, this paper draws upon …Read more
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53Determinism, Death, and MeaningStephen Maitzen, Determinism, Death, and Meaning, New York: Routledge, 2022, pp. 208, $170USD (hardback) (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 102 (1): 245-245. 2024.Determinism is usually presented as the empirical and contingent thesis that every event has a causally necessitating condition. However, Stephen Maitzen holds it as an a priori and necessary truth...
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1Hume's moral sentimentalismIn Angela Michelle Coventry & Alex Sager (eds.), _The Humean Mind_, Routledge. 2019.
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110The recognition of nothingnessPhilosophical Studies 177 (9): 2585-2603. 2020.I describe a distinctive kind of fear that is generated by a vivid recognition of one’s mortal nature. I name it ‘existential shock’. This special fear does not take our future annihilation as any kind of harm, whether intrinsic or extrinsic. One puzzling feature of existential shock is that it is experienced as disclosing an important truth, yet attempts to specify this revelatory content bring us back to familiar facts about one’s inevitable death. But how can I discover something that I alrea…Read more
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19Split Brains and Single MindsJournal of Philosophical Research 16 11-18. 1991.This paper challenges the widely held theory that split-brain patients have ‘two-minds’ and can thus be described as being two distinct persons. A distinction is made between the singularity of mind and the coherence of mind. It is stressed that ‘a single mind’ is not something posited to explain coherence among mental contents, but is merely a mark that such coherence holds to a certain degree. However, there is no sharp dividing line regarding what counts as a single mind. It is argued that me…Read more
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156The expectation of nothingnessPhilosophical Studies 166 (S1): 185-203. 2013.While all psychologically competent persons know that they will one day die, this knowledge is typically held at a distance, not fully assimilated. That is, while we do not doubt that we will die, there is another sense in which we cannot fully believe it either. However, on some rare occasions, we can grasp the reality of our mortal nature in a way that is seemingly revelatory, as if the fact is appreciated in a new way. Thomas Nagel calls this experience ‘the expectation of nothingness’. But h…Read more
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53Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hume on MoralityRoutledge. 2000.David Hume is widely recognised as the greatest philosopher to have written in the English language. His Treatise on Human Nature is one of the most important works of moral philosophy ever written. Hume on Morality introduces and assesses * Hume's life and the background of the Treatise * The ideas and text in the Treatise * Hume's continuing importance to philosophy
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23Identity, relation r, and what matters: A challenge to Derek ParfitPacific Philosophical Quarterly 77 (4): 263-267. 1996.This paper offers a challenge to Derek Parfit's thesis that one ought to have no preference between these two otherwise identical situations: 1. I continue to go on living as before, and 2. I do not survive, but am replaced by a duplicate, psychologically continuous to my present self (i.e. an R‐related duplicate). I point out that virtually all psychologically normal persons regard some inanimate objects as being ‘irreplaceable’ (such that no copy could adequately substitute). I then propose th…Read more
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248Personal identity and mental contentPhilosophical Psychology 10 (3): 323-33. 1997.In this paper, I attempt to map out the 'logical geography' of the territory in which issues of mental content and of personal identity meet. In particular, I investigate the possibility of combining a psychological criterion of personal identity with an externalist theory of content. I argue that this can be done, but only by accepting an assumption that has been widely accepted but barely argued for, namely that when someone switches linguistic communities, the contents of their thoughts do no…Read more
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122There cannot be two omnipotent beingsInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 64 (1). 2008.We argue that there is no metaphysically possible world with two or more omnipotent beings, due to the potential for conflicts of will between them. We reject the objection that omnipotent beings could exist in the same world when their wills could not conflict. We then turn to Alfred Mele and M.P. Smith’s argument that two coexisting beings could remain omnipotent even if, on some occasions, their wills cancel each other out so that neither can bring about what they intend. We argue that this a…Read more
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124What matters in survival?Southern Journal of Philosophy 31 (3): 255-61. 1993.I examine Derek Parfit’s claim that it doesn’t matter whether he survives in the future, if someone survives who is psychologically connected to him by “Relation R.” Thus, were his body to perish and be replaced by an exact duplicate, both physically and psychologically identical to him, this would be just as good as “ordinary” survival. Parfit takes the corollary view that replacement of loved ones by exact duplicates is no loss. In contrast, Peter Unger argues that we place nontransferable val…Read more
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111Split brains and single mindsJournal of Philosophical Research 16 11-18. 1991.This paper challenges the widely held theory that split-brain patients have ‘two-minds’ and can thus be described as being two distinct persons. A distinction is made between the singularity of mind and the coherence of mind. It is stressed that ‘a single mind’ is not something posited to explain coherence among mental contents, but is merely a mark that such coherence holds to a certain degree. However, there is no sharp dividing line regarding what counts as a single mind. It is argued that me…Read more
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20Hume on moralityRoutledge. 2000.David Hume (1711-76) is one of the greatest figures in the history of British philosophy. Of all of Hume's writings, the philosophically most profound is undoubtedly his first, A Treatise on Human Nature. Hume on Morality introduces and assesses: Hume's life and the background of the Treatise ; the ideas and text in the Treatise ; and Hume's continuing importance to philosophy. James Baillie provides us with a map to Books 2 and 3 of the Treatise, focusing on Hume's theory of the passions and mo…Read more
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27Rethinking Commonsense Psychology: A Critique of Folk Psychology, Theory of Mind and Simulation‐ by Matthew Ratcliffe (review)Philosophical Books 49 (2): 172-175. 2008.
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