Abstracts of papers

Aristotle on the Relationship between Friendship, Happiness, and the Human Being: A Reading of NE IX, 9
Matt Bower (Univ. Memphis)

In this paper I examine Aristotle's view that a happy person needs friends in Book IX, Chapter 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics. I am motivated by the failure of Aristotle scholars like Anthony Kenny, Julia Annas, and Michael Pakaluk to appreciate Aristotles coherence in the passage and the connection between 1169b29-1170a4 and the remainder of the chapter. This is a preliminary effort to bring to light the order of the passage and clarify Aristotles explanation of the happy individuals relation to other happy people in an original way through the concept of sunaisthanesthai, ultimately deepening his understanding of human being.

 The Autonomous Maintenance of Pro-Attitudes
Steve Weimer (Arkansas State Univ.)

Historical accounts of autonomy hold that the autonomy of pro-attitudes depends, at least in part, on the way in which they came about.  Understandably, such accounts tend to focus the bulk of their attention on identifying the historical conditions necessary for the development of autonomous pro-attitudes.  That focus has, however, left an important present-directed requirement of autonomy inadequately addressed: autonomy with respect to the maintenance of one's pro-attitudes.  In this paper, I first argue that in order for a pro-attitude to be autonomously possessed, it is not enough that that it developed in an autonomous manner; it must also be maintained in an autonomous manner.  I then examine two recently-proposed "autonomous-maintenance" conditions, and argue that, as those conditions stand, neither is satisfactory.  What we need, I argue, is an autonomous-maintenance condition that adjusts and combines the requirements of those two conditions, such as that I go on to propose.

 A Brief Enquiry into Organ Donation
Charles Cardwell (Pellissippi State)

I begin this brief paper with a discussion of organs for transplantation and markets.  This leads to a look at the ethics of removing healthy organs from healthy persons.  I argue that such removal is unethical and that physicians should refuse to perform such removals.

 Beginning with Cognition, or the Bias of Modern Philosophy
Andrew A. Davis (Belmont University)

I aim to describe and expand Hegel's criticism of beginning philosophy with an inquiry into the nature of cognition. Hegel identifies beginning with cognition and the fear of error, which he ultimately connects to the fear of the truth. Principally, this is an argument against the procedure adopted in the Critique of Pure Reason, but many other modern texts (from Descartes, Locke and Hume) are implicated. A theory of the powers and limits of human cognition is properly seen as a crowning statement of an ontological inquiry, not the metaphysics-free, error-reducing beginning enterprise it often claims to be.

 Choosing Children: Analysis of Jonathan Glover's Argument for Parental Liberty and Obligation in Genetically Selecting out Potential Children with Disabilities
Stacie Hocke (UT, Knoxville)

In Choosing Children: Genes, Disability and Design, Jonathan Glover argues for selecting out potential children based on antenatal genetic testing. Limiting his discussion to the issue of disabilities, Glover grounds parental choice in a conception of human flourishing that constrains potential parents under certain moral obligations while allowing for parental liberty. These moral obligations allow and in some cases may obligate potential parents to select out potential children with disabilities. In this paper I argue that Glover fails the make the necessary distinctions required to fully understand his argument. Four areas are discussed in which Glover's argument is most problematic.

 Counterfactuals, Past Tense Statements, and Projected Fictionalized Worlds
Manning Garrett (Lambuth Univ.)

A possible justification for the claim "counterfactual statements do not have truth value" could be something like the "Modified State of Affairs Principle" (MSP).  The MSP states: In order to have truth value, a statement must represent a state of affairs that was actual at some time.  Most counterfactual statements do not represent actual states of affairs at any time.  Thus, counterfactual statements do not have truth value.  In this paper, I argue that MSP is too narrow excluding other kinds of statements that have truth value.  Therefore, the MSP is false.

 A Dilemma for the Psychological Continuity Theory of Personal Identity
Andrew Naylor (Indiana Univ., South Bend)

It is a liability of the psychological continuity theory of personal identity that persons may get lost. This is so whether psychological continuity is robust or sparse. If psychological continuity is robust, anyone who has too little of it fails to qualify as a person and therefore gets lost. If psychological continuity is sparse, there may be nothing to distinguish one person from another and, once again, persons may get lost.

 Does Bell's Theorem Imply Metaphysical Realism?
Ron Bombardi (MTSU)

A curious implication of Bell's theorem is that it restores cogency to the currently disfavored view that some representational systems can be said to correspond to ways the world is in-itself, independent of those systems.

 A Focus on Process: Defining the Clinical Pragmatist Method of Moral Problem Solving
Meghan Bungo, (UT, Knoxville)

Clinical Pragmatism offers a unique account of ethical decision making that places a strong emphasis on the process of decision making, over and above the outcome, or decision that is reached.  They emphasize that a morally acceptable process is one that is "aimed at and governed by a consensus that can withstand moral scrutiny," but in fact do very little to explain this idea.  The purpose of this paper is to examine their particular approach with an eye towards developing their account of the aim of consensus into a more robust guide for the process of ethical decision making.

 Is Virtue Ethics (Un)Virtuous? The Charge of Egoism
Jeff Cervantez (UT, Knoxville)

If we understand virtue ethics to say that an agent's aim is her own flourishing and that virtue is necessary to flourish, then an agent's reason to be virtuous seems motivated by her own self-interest. Thomas Hurka claims that this is enough to make eudaimonism foundationally egoistic. In this paper I argue that eudaimonism is not foundationally egoistic and in so doing introduce a novel conception of eudaimonism -- one that protects it from Hurka-style egoism objections. In the end, eudaimonism may be in some sense self-centered, but I argue that this amounts to a moral agent being self-cognizant of her own virtue and this isn't problematic for the eudaimonist.

Knowing Better and Cognitive Command: A Case for Moderate Epistemic Infinitism
Scott Aikin (Vanderbilt)

The various conditions that jointly constitute the relation of one subject knowing something better than another amount to a case for a non-skeptical form of epistemic infinitism.  A non-skeptical case can be made for epistemic infinitism on the basis of the relation of a subject knowing better some proposition than another.  What follows is an outline of  prima facie reasons to take one subject to know something better than another, which points to a conception of someone who knows things better than others as one who synchronically can answer critical questions about her knowledge, and who diachronically can formulate and pursue further questions.  Epistemic infinitism captures the aspirations of this pursuit.

 Methodological Pragmatism- A Way Out of the Swamp?
Mark Michael (Austin Peay State Univ.)

Methodological Pragmatists argue that their approach to environmental ethics will enable environmental philosophers to circumvent the deep divides that trouble that field and which prevent environmentalists from contributing to the enactment of environmentally friendly legislation. In this paper I argue that there are at least three variants of Methodological Pragmatism. Two of these are deeply flawed and need to be rejected. The third is coherent and avoids the flaws of the first two variants but is largely trivial. I conclude that Methodological Pragmatism fails to live up to its promise.

 Moore, Chisholm and the Problem of the Criterion
Joshua Anderson (St. Louis Univ.)

This paper seeks to come to some understanding of G. E. Moore's epistemology, as presented in A Defence of Common Sense and Proof of an External World.  Using Roderick Chisholm's theory of justification found in his "The Problem of the Criterion," and then returning to what Moore actually says in his two essays, I show that: a) Chisholm partially wrong in what he attributes to Moore, and b) Moore is best understood as anti-epistemological and would either reject the problem of the criterion, or at least claim that it is not a problem for him.

 Physicalism and Entailment: Placing the Phenomenal
Noel Boyle (Belmont Univ.)

In 1998, Frank Jackson abandoned dualism and embraced reductive physicalism. Throughout his career, Jackson has maintained that only reductive approaches to physicalism are tenable. I argue that Jackson has been consistently wrong about the commitments of physicalism, specifically in regard to the phenomenal. Pointing out a conflation between various senses of 'entailment', I suggest that Jackson's position offers no grounds for excluding phenomenal facts from physicalist ontology that would simultaneously account for the inclusion of biological facts. The overall lesson is that it might be possible to develop an ontology that simultaneously honors Jackson's (pre-1998) phenomenal and (post-1998) physicalist intuitions.

 Solomon's Regal Prudence and Dante's Attitude Towards Philosophy
Jason Aleksander (Saint Xavier Univ., Chicago)

I will discuss what light Saint Thomas' description of King Solomon in Paradiso 10 and 13 sheds on the question of Dante's attitude towards philosophy in the Commedia. I will show that this description suggests that Dante esteems philosophy but defines its legitimate preoccupation in a way that departs significantly from the Aristotelian veneration of the virtue of contemplative activity. I will conclude by remarking on what may be historically significant about Dante's departure from his philosophical predecessors on the question of the value of contemplation

 A Surprise for Horwich
David Harker (East TN State)

To be surprised by some event it is necessary that we judge the event improbable. The converse is not true. Improbable, unlikely things happen all the time without inducing surprise. A sequence of 100 coin flips that each land heads would ordinarily surprise us; an ostensibly random sequence, split approximately evenly between heads and tails, would not. Both sequences, however, have the same probability (i.e. (1/2)100). Horwich (1982) suggests that what distinguishes a surprise from a merely improbable event is that only in the case of the former are we led to question those background assumptions that lead to the assignment of a low probability. In this paper I argue that Horwich's suggestion fails; in its place I offer a new interpretation for the concept of a surprise.

 Symbol and Discourse in Ricoeur's Hermeneutic Philosophy
Chris King (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School)

The purpose of this paper is to examine Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutical explorations from his theory of symbols to his recognition of the polyphony of discourse. While Ricoeur never abandons his theory of symbols, it is encompassed by a fuller philosophy of language. This broader conception of hermeneutics appears to postpone Ricoeur's judgments on the interpretation of the symbols of evil, requiring the interpreter to listen to the modes of discourse presented in the text and posit the meaning of the origin of evil only after hearing the ensemble of textual voices.

 Understanding David Hume's Argument Against Miracles
Greg Bock (Walters State)

The proper interpretation of Hume's argument against miracles in Section X of An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding has been heavily debated. In this paper, I argue that Hume's main argument has the intended conclusion that there can never be a sufficient justification for believing that a miracle has occurred on the basis of testimony sufficient to make it a basis for a religion. I also consider and argue against two other common readings.

 Unreasonable Demands: Why Ruling Out Skeptical Hypotheses is Unnecessary for Knowledge
John Putz (St. Louis Univ.)

Many arguments for skepticism employ skeptical hypotheses, such as the evil demon hypothesis, the dreaming hypothesis, or the brain in the vat hypothesis. These hypotheses are designed (i) to induce us to skepticism about our ordinary knowledge claims and (ii) to be impossible to rule out without taking these ordinary knowledge claims for granted. In this paper, I argue that (i) there is a moral condition on knowledge, (ii) that moral ought implies can, and, therefore, (iii) it cannot be a condition on knowledge that we must rule out skeptical hypotheses.

 What God Just Might Know About Us
Chad Bogosian (Univ. of Arkansas)

Among theists, the ongoing debate over Divine Omniscience seems far from reaching a terminus. Classical theists insist that omniscience must include not only knowledge of past and present truths but exhaustive knowledge of future truths. Some include in such future truths only the intended actions and plans of the Divine but the free actions of rational human beings. These latter truths are future contingents called counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (CCF's). Open theists, however, insist that omniscience need only include truths about the past and the present. Since the Open Theist generally endorses the principle of presentism she holds that only the present is real or exists. What has occurred in the past is fixed, unalterable, and hence no longer exists; and given that the future has not yet occurred, it does not exist. From presentism, it follows, that there is nothing "there" for the God to know regarding future contingents like CCF's. So CCF's are either all false or simply unknowable.

I consider the Molinist account of Omniscience as it falls under the classical theist side of the debate. To do this, I unpack the key components of the theory, noting what the motivations are for holding it to be an attractive model. Then we consider what I take to be the two foremost objections to the theory put forward by the "Robert Adams-William Hasker Tag Team". I argue that while challenging, these objections are unsound, or at least my responses are sufficient to thwart the proposed demise of Molinism. However, I will grant that the jury is still out on the matter, since further work is needed in the areas of truth-maker theory and the nature of the future.

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