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Will (Zhanxuan) Yu

University of Pennsylvania
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My Survey Responses

Survey Prompt Response
A priori knowledge Accept: yes
Abortion Accept: permissible
Abstract objects Accept: Platonism
Aesthetic experience Accept: sui generis
Aesthetic value Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept Aesthetic value: objective
  • Accept Aesthetic value: subjective
Aim of philosophy Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept wisdom
  • Neutral towards happiness
  • Accept goodness/justice
  • Accept truth/knowledge
  • Accept understanding
Analysis of knowledge Lean towards: justified true belief
Analytic-synthetic distinction Accept: yes
Arguments for theism Accept: ontological
Belief or credence Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Capital punishment Lean towards: permissible
Causation Lean towards: counterfactual/difference-making
Chinese room Accept: doesn't understand
Consciousness Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Cosmological fine-tuning Lean towards: multiverse
Eating animals and animal products Accept: omnivorism (yes and yes)
Environmental ethics Accept: anthropocentric
Epistemic justification Lean towards: externalism
Experience machine Lean towards: yes
Extended mind Insufficiently familiar with the issue
External world Lean towards: non-skeptical realism
Footbridge Lean towards: push
Foundations of mathematics Accept: logicism
Free will Lean towards: compatibilism
Gender Accept a combination of answers:
  • Lean towards psychological
  • Lean towards biological
  • Lean towards unreal
  • Lean towards social
Gender categories Accept: eliminate
God Accept: atheism
Hard problem of consciousness Lean towards: yes
Human genetic engineering Accept: permissible
Hume Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Immortality Accept: yes
Justification Accept: nonreliabilist foundationalism
Kant Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Knowledge Accept a combination of answers:
  • Lean towards empiricism
  • Lean towards rationalism
Knowledge claims Lean towards: contextualism
Law Lean towards: legal positivism
Laws of nature Accept: non-Humean
Logic Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Material composition Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Meaning of life Accept a combination of answers:
  • Reject nonexistent
  • Lean towards objective
  • Accept subjective
Mental content Lean towards: internalism
Meta-ethics Accept: moral realism
Metaontology Accept: heavyweight realism
Metaphilosophy Lean towards: non-naturalism
Method in history of philosophy Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept Method in history of philosophy: analytic/rational reconstruction
  • Accept Method in history of philosophy: contextual/historicist
Method in political philosophy Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept Method in political philosophy: ideal theory
  • Accept Method in political philosophy: non-ideal theory
Mind Lean towards: physicalism
Mind uploading Accept: survival
Moral judgment Accept: cognitivism
Moral motivation Accept: externalism
Moral principles Lean towards: moral particularism
Morality Lean towards: non-naturalism
Newcomb's problem Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Normative concepts Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Normative ethics Lean towards: consequentialism
Other minds Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept Other minds: adult humans
  • Accept Other minds: cats
  • Neutral towards Other minds: fish
  • Lean against Other minds: flies
  • Lean against Other minds: worms
  • Neutral towards Other minds: plants
  • Reject Other minds: particles
  • Lean towards Other minds: newborn babies
  • Lean against Other minds: current AI systems
  • Accept Other minds: future AI systems
Ought implies can Accept: no
Perceptual experience Lean towards: qualia theory
Personal identity Accept: psychological view
Philosophical knowledge Lean towards: a lot
Philosophical methods Accept a combination of answers:
  • Accept conceptual engineering
  • Neutral towards formal philosophy
  • Lean towards experimental philosophy
  • Lean towards linguistic philosophy
  • Lean towards intuition-based philosophy
  • Accept conceptual analysis
  • Lean towards empirical philosophy
Philosophical progress Accept: a lot
Plato Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Political philosophy Lean towards: egalitarianism
Politics Accept: socialism
Possible worlds Lean towards: concrete
Practical reason Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Principle of sufficient reason Lean towards: true
Proper names Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Properties Lean towards: classes
Propositional attitudes Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Propositions Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Quantum mechanics Accept: many-worlds
Race Accept: social
Race categories Accept: eliminate
Rational disagreement Accept: permissivism
Response to external-world skepticism Lean towards: dogmatist
Science Lean towards: scientific realism
Semantic content Accept: moderate contextualism (intermediate)
Sleeping beauty Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Spacetime Lean towards: relationism
Statue and lump Lean towards: two things
Teletransporter Lean towards: survival
Temporal ontology Accept: eternalism
Theory of reference Lean towards: descriptive
Time Accept: B-theory
Time travel Lean towards: metaphysically impossible
Trolley problem Accept: switch
True contradictions Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Truth Accept: correspondence
Units of selection Lean towards: organisms
Vagueness Lean towards: epistemic
Values in science Lean towards: necessarily value-laden
Well-being Lean towards: hedonism/experientialism
Wittgenstein Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Zombies Lean towards: metaphysically possible