profile picture

Victor Kumar

Boston University
 More details
University of Arizona
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2013
CV
Homepage
Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Moral Psychology
Meta-Ethics
Applied Ethics
Philosophy of Cognitive Science
Areas of Interest
Epistemology
Social and Political Philosophy
Normative Ethics
Feminist Philosophy
Philosophy of Race

My Survey Responses

Survey Prompt Response
A priori knowledge Accept: yes
Abortion Accept: permissible
Abstract objects Accept: nominalism
Aesthetic experience The question is too unclear to answer
Aesthetic value Lean towards: objective
Aim of philosophy Lean towards: understanding
Analysis of knowledge Lean towards: no analysis
Analytic-synthetic distinction Lean towards: yes
Arguments for theism Lean towards: pragmatic
Belief or credence Lean towards: belief
Capital punishment Lean towards: impermissible
Causation Lean towards: process/production
Chinese room Accept: doesn't understand
Concepts Accept: empiricism
Consciousness Lean towards: functionalism
Continuum hypothesis Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Cosmological fine-tuning Lean towards: no fine-tuning
Eating animals and animal products Accept: veganism (no and no)
Environmental ethics Accept: non-anthropocentric
Epistemic justification Accept a combination of answers:
  • Lean towards externalism
  • Lean towards internalism
Experience machine Accept: no
Extended mind Lean towards: yes
External world Accept: non-skeptical realism
Footbridge Lean towards: don't push
Foundations of mathematics Agnostic/undecided
Free will Accept: compatibilism
Gender Accept: psychological
Gender categories Lean towards: preserve
God Accept: atheism
Grounds of intentionality Lean towards: causal/teleological
Hard problem of consciousness Lean towards: yes
Human genetic engineering Lean towards: permissible
Hume Lean towards: naturalist
Immortality Accept: yes
Interlevel metaphysics Lean towards: identity
Justification Lean towards: reliabilism
Kant Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Knowledge Accept: empiricism
Knowledge claims Lean towards: invariantism
Law Lean towards: legal non-positivism
Laws of nature Lean towards: non-Humean
Logic Lean towards: non-classical
Material composition Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Meaning of life Accept: subjective
Mental content Lean towards: externalism
Meta-ethics Lean towards: moral anti-realism
Metaontology Accept: heavyweight realism
Metaphilosophy Accept: naturalism
Method in history of philosophy Lean towards: analytic/rational reconstruction
Method in political philosophy Accept: non-ideal theory
Mind Accept: physicalism
Mind uploading Accept: death
Moral judgment Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept non-cognitivism
  • Accept cognitivism
Moral motivation Lean towards: internalism
Moral principles Lean towards: moral particularism
Morality Lean towards: constructivism
Newcomb's problem Accept: two boxes
Normative concepts There is no fact of the matter
Normative ethics Lean towards: consequentialism
Other minds Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept adult humans
  • Accept cats
  • Neutral towards fish
  • Neutral towards flies
  • Neutral towards worms
  • Lean against plants
  • Reject particles
  • Accept newborn babies
  • Lean against current AI systems
  • Lean towards future AI systems
Ought implies can Lean towards: yes
Perceptual experience Lean towards: qualia theory
Personal identity Accept: psychological view
Philosophical knowledge Lean towards: a little
Philosophical methods Accept a combination of answers:
  • Reject conceptual analysis
  • Accept empirical philosophy
  • Lean against intuition-based philosophy
  • Lean towards conceptual engineering
  • Lean against experimental philosophy
  • Neutral towards formal philosophy
  • Lean against linguistic philosophy
Philosophical progress Accept: a lot
Plato Lean towards: knowledge only of forms
Political philosophy Lean towards: egalitarianism
Politics Lean towards: socialism
Possible worlds Accept: nonexistent
Practical reason Accept: Humean
Principle of sufficient reason Accept: false
Proper names Accept a combination of answers:
  • Lean towards Millian
  • Lean towards Fregean
Properties Lean towards: tropes
Propositional attitudes Lean towards: representational
Propositions Lean towards: nonexistent
Quantum mechanics Lean towards: epistemic
Race Lean towards: social
Race categories Lean towards: revise
Rational disagreement Lean towards: permissivism
Response to external-world skepticism Lean towards: abductive
Science Accept: scientific realism
Semantic content Lean towards: moderate contextualism (intermediate)
Sleeping beauty Agnostic/undecided
Spacetime Lean towards: relationism
Statue and lump There is no fact of the matter
Teletransporter Accept: death
Temporal ontology Lean towards: presentism
Theory of reference There is no fact of the matter
Time Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Time travel Lean towards: metaphysically impossible
Trolley problem Lean towards: switch
True contradictions Lean towards: impossible
Truth Accept: correspondence
Units of selection Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept organisms
  • Accept genes
Vagueness Accept: metaphysical
Values in science Accept: necessarily value-laden
Well-being Lean towards: desire satisfaction
Wittgenstein Lean towards: late
Zombies Lean towards: metaphysically possible