Great! I had a perfectly good example involving amoral judgements that almost ALL of my students could relate to - downloading music without paying for it.

When we get to ethics in my intro classes, I like to briefly discuss the following version of non-cognitivism.

NG1 - All moral judgements are merely expressions of a preference or a taste.

Enter my downloading music example. I ask my students if they think that downloading music without paying for it is wrong. Most say that it is wrong. I then ask one of the students (who said it was wrong) if they care one way or the other whether people in the class download music. They almost always say "No." I ask them if it is one of their preferences that people download music, etc... They always say "No."

This is a case of amoral judgement (Amoral judgment = A judgement that some X is wrong, but not having a preference one way or the other whether X happens).

The possibility of amoral judgments is a serious puzzle for non-cognitivist theories, and the widespread practice of downloading music for free gives us an excellent actual amoral judgment that almost all of my students seem to make.

Tonight at midnight Qtrax is going to mess that all up.

(I'm actually pretty happy about this. I'm more than willing to come up with a new example of amoral judgments that students can relate to, if the price is free music downloads)


UPDATE: Perhaps I spoke too soon!

Don't forget the deadline for submissions for the Young Philosophers Podcast Lecture series is just 3 DAYS AWAY!

Check the website for details - www.youngphilosophers.org

One possible skeptical scenario is Russell's 5 minute hypothesis. This is from The Analysis of Mind...

In investigating memory-beliefs, there are certain points which must be borne in mind. In the first place, everything constituting a memory-belief is happening now, not in that past time to which the belief is said to refer. It is not logically necessary to the existence of a memory-belief that the event remembered should have occurred, or even that the past should have existed at all. There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago. Hence the occurrences which are CALLED knowledge of the past are logically independent of the past; they are wholly analysable into present contents, which might, theoretically, be just what they are even if no past had existed.

I am not suggesting that the non-existence of the past should be entertained as a serious hypothesis. Like all sceptical hypotheses, it is logically tenable, but uninteresting. All that I am doing is to use its logical tenability as a help in the analysis of what occurs when we remember.

Today's New York Times has a story claiming that there are certain hypotheses that cosmologists take seriously that other cosmologists say predict that the Russell scenario is highly probable.

(They don't call it the Russell hypothesis, but that's what they're talking about).

UPDATE: I should be more careful. It's not that what some cosmologists say predict Russell's skeptical scenario...The scenario that Russell imagines is that the universe was created 5 minutes ago. The cosmologists in question endorse the multiple universe hypothesis - this is incompatible with Russell's scenario...so it can't confirm it.

What some cosmologists think it does confirm, however, is the hypothesis that it is highly probably that you are just a momentary flash of organized matter created just moments ago that is complex enough to have thoughts and apparent memories of having been around for a long time.

My semester is going to be awesome!

1. We started a faculty paper workshop last semester. We met every other week at the White Inn. I got great feedback on two works in progress. It was awesome, and we're doing it again this semester. I'm up this Friday.
   
   
2. I'm commenting on papers at the Central and the Pacific APA. I love APAs.
   
   
3. James Beebe was kind enough to let me sit in on his epistemology seminar at SUNY-Buffalo. It's on contemporary epistemology - and the topics are all right up my alley. I just got back from the first meeting today. This is going to be a great seminar.
   
   (Mental note: I think Buffalo is a program for people to keep a eye on. It looks like they've made quite a few good junior hires in analytic M&E over the past few years, and they had good people prior to those hires that are still there.)
   
   
4. I'm going to the Wisconsin Epistemology Conference in May.
   
   
5. I'm teaching an upper-level philosophy of science course. There are some issues in philosophy of science that I've wanted to explore for awhile. Now is the perfect time.
   

Every now and then there's a study that is alleged to confirm the hypothesis that we are irrational. This should be of interest to philosophers who work in decision theory or epistemology. Here's another one that as discussed in the LA Times.

However, I don't see how this shows that people are generally irrational. Here's a quote from the article.

Would you rather earn $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000, or would you rather earn $100,000 a year while other people get $250,000? Assume for the moment that prices of goods and services will stay the same.

Surprisingly -- stunningly, in fact -- research shows that the majority of people select the first option; they would rather make twice as much as others even if that meant earning half as much as they could otherwise have. How irrational is that?

The problem is that I don't see this as irrational. If we're asked to think in a purely self-interested way, my first thought was to take the first option. (Because I was thinking about the shift in prices).

Then I read the qualification - 'Assume for the moment that prices of goods and services will stay the same.'

OK - now that I have this qualification in mind the reporter from the LA Times assumes that the obvious rational choice is to take the second option. Why? Because I'd be able to buy more stuff.

But wait a minute. Even if I can buy more stuff isn't it in my interests for everyone else to not have 2.5 times the purchasing power that I do. There are a number of ways in which that could affect someone negatively - even if the prices stay fixed. Come on. In the second situation, that is a lot of power that everyone else has that I wouldn't have. Am I missing something here?

Here's an article with the sensational title "Time May Not Exist" - I only had a chance to quickly scanned the article, but it looks like a classic conflation of metaphysics and epistemology.

Basically, they seem to be drawing a metaphysical conclusion about the nature of reality based on our inability to measure something. I'm not sure, though.

Jeremy Pierce has a good post on that here.

Seriously? Guantanamo detainees are not human beings or persons? What!?

This is pretty half-baked, but consider the following proposition:

(1) January 9, 2008 is present.

I think it is a vague matter whether or not this is true. Imagine the minutes are slowly ticking away on January 8. It's 11:59. As the time passes, January 9 will be determinately present, but exactly when that happens seems to be a vague matter.

This, however, will lend some support to A-Theory (and either presentism or some version of the moving spotlight view in the ontology of time). For imagine if B-Theory is true. If B-Theory is true, then 'present' functions like an indexical, and (1) really expresses something like the following proposition.

(1*) October 4, 2006 is October 4, 2006.

(1*) is not vague. At least many philosophers are inclined to accept that identity statements are not vague, and whatever motivates us to accept that should motivate us to accept that (1*) is not vague.

I've heard quite a few journal horror stories from professional philosophers over the past few years. Also, in a recent post, I noted that there have been quite a few discussion threads that highlight major issues concerning peer reviewed philosophy journals. I'm going to start tracking these discussion threads.

Whenever I find a new discussion (or horror story), I'll update this post and move it to the front of the blog. If anyone finds anything out there worthy of note, let me know.

The List
1. There is an interesting discussion over at PEA Soup about when (if at all) to request a re-read. The discussion thread leads to an interesting discussion of a more general problem concerning the blind referee process.

2. Certain Doubts has a discussion thread regarding the tension between blind review and posting draft versions of papers on the internet.

3. Leiter's blog has an old thread discussing which journals are responsible and which ones are not. The discussion thread, however, has recently picked up.

4. Clayton Littlejohn has a rejection woe story here.

5. Here's another good discussion post at PEA Soup. It's about ethics journals generally, but the discussion thread is mixed with some journal woe stories and advice for pre-tenure professors.

6. Jonathan Ichikawa has an interesting post here concerning the length of the journal review process.

7. Jon Cogburn has an interesting little post on the blind review process for philosophy journals here. He also gives us a promissory note to post more on this issue.

8. This is Jon Cogburn's promissory note. This is an interesting diagnosis of three basic types of blind referees.

9. And this is a third post from Cogburn in praise of one of the three basic types of blind referees - the Good Samaritan.

Bonus Track: Conditional Material has a great satire on the referee process here.

UC-Boulder is hosting the first annual Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, and they have a Young Ethicist Prize. This is exciting.

There are now five prizes/programs I am aware of geared toward encouraging young philosophers. Let me know if there are more. Here's the list I have so far.

1. A Young Epistemologist Prize (Rutgers)
2. A Younger Scholar Prize in Metaphysics (Oxford Studies in Metaphysics)
3. A Young Ethicist Prize (UC-Boulder)
4. The Philosophical Review had a Young Philosopher Prize a couple years ago (but I don't think they do this annually)
5. A Young Philosophers Lecture Series and Podcast (SUNY-Fredonia)

Let me know if there is anything more for Young Philosophers to be aware of.

(p.s. Don't forget that Young Philosophers Lecture Series submissions are due January 20th)

Check this out!

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too Cna yuo raed tihs?
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a
pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.

This started circulating the internet in 2003. But it's worth posting for those of you who haven't seen it. Here is a link to the Cambridge University research.

I think this may have interesting philosophical applications epistemology and philosophy of language. I'm going to think about it more before I post anything.

First: New Year's Resolution

I just found out about Mark Lieberman's excellent New Year's Resolution via Brian Weatherson's blog. This is a good one for academics with blogs.

I've been warned that blogs hurt your productivity. So far it's helped me, and the Lieberman resolution seems like a good way to make sure that things stay this way. Here's his resolution.

Once a week, I’ll post about some interesting and relevant piece of linguistic research, with links to a preprint, a published paper, a book chapter, or something similar. This has almost been true in past years, and with a little bit of effort…

I like this resolution, so I'm stealing it. Once a week, I'll post about some interesting piece of philosophy research.

Second: More on Journals

My friend Sam Wilkinson asked me to suggest some options concerning the issues regarding philosophy journals I mentioned in my previous post. I'll post some thoughts on that soon.