Walter Barta

University of Houston
Wharton County Junior College
  • The "Great Unread" and the "Black Box"
    International Review of Information Ethics 34 (34). 2024.
  • The Dream of the Universal Constructor
    International Review of Information Ethics 34 (34). 2024.
  •  18
    This note introduces the word of “webjectivity,” to describe a concept that is well-known, the character of being epistemically dependence upon a situation within a network; and suggests that this word and its corresponding concept could be useful for clarifying discussions of the epistemic condition of the information age.
  •  47
    Children are a group of persons whose political interests are systematically underrepresented. Here we will lay out the basic argument for proportionally representing children in political arenas, including some options for how children can best be politically represented. We will support our assumptions: 1) that people’s interests should be proportionally politically represented and that 2) children are people. Then we will discuss the possibly large impact that the enfranchisement of children …Read more
  •  40
    DRAFT In what follows, we will attempt to point out two technical loopholes in the proof of the “Impossibility Theorem for Welfarist Axiologies” as proposed by Gustaf Arrhenius (Arrhenius, 2000). The two problems arise from different principles, one from an application of the “Addition Principle” and one from an application of the “Dominance Principle” after a counterintuitive combination of the “No Repugnant/Anti-Egalitarian Conclusion” criteria, the former non-fatal and latter fatal. We will s…Read more
  •  57
    DRAFT Several philosophers have suggested that it is impossible to formulate a theory of population ethics that simultaneously satisfies all of the necessary conditions set by our ethical intuitions (Arrhenius, 2000; Blackorby et al., 2004). However, we will attempt to demonstrate that, using the Stone-Weierstrass method, starting from scratch with a completely underspecified polynomial approximation function for commensurable cardinal utility (used here as a synonym for welfare) in a domain of …Read more
  •  107
    Various thinkers have been attempting to align artificial intelligence (AI) with ethics (Christian, 2020; Russell, 2021), the so-called problem of alignment, but some suspect that the problem may be intractable (Yampolskiy, 2023). In the following, we make an argument by analogy to analyze the possibility that the problem of alignment could be intractable. We show how the Tri-Omni properties in theology can direct us towards analogous properties for artificial superintelligence, Tri-Opti propert…Read more
  •  75
    Here we will argue that Henry Sidgwick’s Dualism of Practical Reason, the paired imperative of being egoistic and/or utilitarian, follows from the epistemic barriers that arise when giving credence to skepticism about the external world, and particularly skepticism about other minds, and skepticism about reincarnation. We will argue that this is true whether we begin with the premises of universal utilitarianism or egoism.
  • Diminishing Marginal Utility is widely accepted as a law of human action, and therefor has become one of the primary premises of ethics, economics, and politics. In popular parlance, “diminishing returns” has entered into the cliches of common sense; in philosophical argument, it has achieved the status of an axiomatic assumption; and indeed, in terms of personal experience or folk psychology, it seems to largely hold true for goods in general over a range of consumption. However, a theory of di…Read more
  • The Mystery of Math
    with Graham Lee
    In Joshua Heter & Josef Thomas Simpson (eds.), Asimov's Foundation and Philosophy: Psychohistory and its Discontents, Carus Books. 2023.
  •  151
    Modern philosophy is divided, apparently. The two apparent divisions are commonly referred to as “Analytic” and “Continental” (Prado). The former division is often seen as Kantian, ahistoricist, scientific, and logical; the latter division is often seen as Hegelian, historicist, conversational, and rhetorical (Rorty). In this paper, we attempt to use the principles of experimental philosophy and comparative computational techniques against a corpus of self-identified “analytic” and “continental”…Read more
  • The Witcher as Postmodern Fairytale
    with Emily Vega
    In Kevin S. Decker & Matthew Brake (eds.), The Witcher and Philosophy: Toss a Coin to Your Philosopher, Wiley. 2024.
  • In Praise of Joker
    with Emily Vega
    In Massimiliano L. Cappuccio, George A. Dunn & Jason T. Eberl (eds.), Joker and Philosophy: Why So Serious?, Wiley-blackwell. 2024.
  • Fine Dining with Children Starving
    with Candace Miranda
    In Scott Calef (ed.), Anthony Bourdain and Philosophy, Open Universe. 2023.
  • How Anthony Bourdain United the Local and the Universal
    with Candace Miranda
    In Scott Calef (ed.), Anthony Bourdain and Philosophy, Open Universe. 2023.
  • To Eat or Not to Eat?
    with Candace Miranda
    In Scott Calef (ed.), Anthony Bourdain and Philosophy, Open Universe. 2023.
  • Recipe for a Post-Punk Song
    with Candace Miranda
    In Joshua Heter & Richard Greene (eds.), Post-Punk and Philosophy: Rip it Up and Think Again, Carus Books. 2024.
  • Post-Punk's Melancholy Melody
    with Candace Miranda
    In Joshua Heter & Richard Greene (eds.), Post-Punk and Philosophy: Rip it Up and Think Again, Carus Books. 2024.
  • The Sovereign State of Salamanca
    with Paul Barnes
    In Brett Coppenger, Joshua Heter & Daniel Carr (eds.), Better Call Saul and Philosophy: I Think Therefore I Scam, Carus Books. 2022.
  • Chuckrates v. The Saulphists
    with Paul Barnes
    In Brett Coppenger, Joshua Heter & Daniel Carr (eds.), Better Call Saul and Philosophy: I Think Therefore I Scam, Carus Books. 2022.