Hobbes

Descartes

Tennessee Philosophical Association
43rd Annual Meeting: Nov. 4-5, 2011
Vanderbilt University
 
 

 Keynote Speaker: John H. Whittaker, Louisiana State University

"What it Costs Philosophy to take Religious Belief Seriously."

Abstract: Judeo-Christian religion – and indeed, most any religion – is defenseless when its critics focus on the literalism of its exponents and the mythical character of its sacred stories. This target is too easy to criticize, and it is beneath the dignity of philosophy to concentrate on this naïve form of belief. To take religion at its best, philosophers must pay attention to faith’s insistence that it is not knowledge in the ordinary sense, that all descriptions of the divine are anthropomorphic, that its principles can be reasonable without being evidentially or argumentatively justified, that its wisdom is therapeutic and not cognitive, that its truths are not objectively determinable but discernible in new forms of understanding, that its trust is open-ended, and that the “objects” of this trust are wholly unknowable mysteries. To take these aspects of religion seriously requires nothing less than the overthrow of standard models of epistemology. With respect to these narrow models of epistemology, the wisdom of faith is a form of “not-knowing.”

Friday, 7:30 P.M., 114 Furman Hall, followed by a spirited reception

Sessions: Saturday, Furman Hall
9:00 am through 5:00 pm

9:00 – 9:55

Nietzsche’s Approriation of Aristotle’s Notion of To Katon: Beauty as the Fundamental Norm for Virtuous Action
Christian Roos (University of Arkansas)
Response: Nolan Hartley (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
Furman 109

Diagrams as Locality Aids for Functional Explanation
Nicholaos Jones (University of Alabama at Hunstville)
Response: Justin Barnard (Union University)
Furman 132

Cognitive Agendas and Legal Epistemology
Danny Marrero (University of Arkansas)
Response: Andrea Pitts (Vanderbilt University)
Furman 209

Infinitism, Reasons, and Impossible Ideals
Andrew Cling (The University of Alabama at Huntsville)
Response:  Georgi Gardener (Rutgers University)
Furman 217

10:00 – 10:55

Miracle-avowal as Expressive
Scot Aiken and Michael Hodges (Vanderbilt University)
Response: Taylor Worley (Union University)
Furman 109

Justification and Forgetting
Andrew Naylor (Indiana University South Bend)
Response: Stacie Hocke (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
Furman 132

The Ancient Greeks and John Stuart Mill
John Fitzpatrick (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)
Response: Josh Hall (Vanderbilt University)
Furman 209

Preserving Equality,
Charles Cardwell (Pellessippi State Community College)
Response: John Regan (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
Furman 217

11:00 – 11:55

Worldview Adoption as a Special Psychology
Jon Garthoff (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
Response: Emily McGill (Vanderbilt University)
Furman 109

Irrational Surrogates and Religiously-Based Medical Decisions
Greg Bock (Walters State Community College)
Response: John Fitzpatrick (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)
Furman 132

Liability, Just Cause, and Limits on the Multiplication of Purposes in War
Jordy Rocheleau (Austin Peay University)
Response: Paul Morrow (Vanderbilt University)
Furman 209

Humility and Moral Disagreement
Matthew Pianalto (Eastern Kentucky University)
Response: Allen Coates (East Tennessee State University)
Furman 217

12:00 – 12:05

Very Brief Business Meeting – Election of President and Secretary
Furman 109

1:30 – 2:25

Concerns Regarding Genetic Selection and Enhancement
Melinda Hall (Vanderbilt University)
Response: Ben Mitchell (Union University)
Furman 109

Zombie University: The Unity of Knowledge and Modal Arguments Against Physicalism
Noel Boyle (Belmont University)
Response: Andrew Cling (University of Alabama at Huntsville)
Furman 132

How Not to be a Moral Particularist
Mark Minuk (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
Response: Jason Fishel (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
Furman 209

Prudence and a Properly Functioning Conscience: A New (and Old) Account of Moral Knowledge
Brian Besong (Purdue University)
Response: Nicholaos Jones, (University of Alabama at Huntsville)
Furman 217

2:30 – 3:25.

The Mental is Not Physical
Irwin Goldstein (Davidson College)
Response: Georgia Gardener (Rutgers University)
Furman 109

Immunity and Republican Freedom
Robert Talisse (Vanderbilt University)
Response: Emily McGill (Vanderbilt University)
Furman 132

Coercion and its Effect on Knowledge of the Divine in Paul Moser’s The Elusive God
Jason Fishel (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
Response: Scott Aiken (Vanderbilt University)
Furman 209

An Objection to Cognitivist Accounts of Instrumental Rationality
Allen Coates (East Tennessee State University)
Response: Mark Minuk (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
Furman 217

3:30 – 4:25

A Dilemma for Plantinga
John Regan (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
Response: Brian Besong (Purdue University)
Furman 109

Representation, Awareness, and Phenomenology
Chris Parker (University of Arkansas)
Response: Christian Roos (University of Arkansas)
Furman 132

A Rousseauian Epistemology of Ignorance
Andrea Pitts (Vanderbilt University)
Response: Grace Campbell (University of North Carolina, Asheville)
Furman 209

The Theistic Argument from Beauty: A Philonian Critique
Brian Ribeiro (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)
Response: Michael Hodges (Vanderbilt University)
Furman 217

4:30 – Whenever ….

Informal Tribute Session for Jeffrey Tlumak
Hosted by
Phil Oliver (Middle Tennessee State)
and
Andy Cling (University of Alabama at Huntsville)
Location:  TBA

Abstracts of papers

Scott Aiken and Michael Hodges (Vanderbilt University)
“Miracle-Avowal as Expressive”

We present what we call an internalist account of the term ‘miracle.’  Miracle-avowal is part of a religious language used to identify events of significance and to express and endorse that significance.  From a survey of everyday usage of the term, to hold something is a miracle is to claim that the event reveals a singular religious truth, one of organizing significance in the speaker’s life.  It, then, is not a causal claim but rather a meaning claim. 

 Brian Besong (Purdue University)
“Prudence and a Properly Functioning Conscience”

In this paper, I will propose and defend an account of how we know moral facts that preserves historical attention paid to the conscience. In order to defend this view, I will first consider and improve upon a highly popular view in moral epistemology known as moral intuitionism. I will then defend the view I advance against three objections, particularly responding to the reason why some have felt the need to abandon the conscience as a source of moral knowledge.

Greg Bock (Walters State Community College)
“Irrational Surrogates and Religiously-Based Medical Decisions”

Christopher Meyers proposes rationality criteria for judging whether to honor a surrogate’s religiously-based request for medical treatment. Using Robert Audi’s principle of theo-ethical equilibrium, Meyers proposes two rules to guide caregivers; nevertheless, I find Meyers approach to be both culturally insensitive and morally lax.

 Noel Boyle (Belmont University)
“Zombie University: The Unity of the Knowledge and Modal Arguments Against Physicalism”

It is commonly claimed that the knowledge argument (most famously associated with Frank Jackson) and the modal argument (most famously associated with David Chalmers) are the two strongest anti-physicalist arguments. I argue that the two are one. Jackson’s account of super-neuroscientist Mary’s biography conceals an underlying modal claim that, upon close analysis, is revealed to be identical to the modal claim at heart of Chalmers’ account of zombies. As Chalmers’ intuition regarding zombies is routinely rejected by physicalists, the knowledge argument does little to advance the anti-physicalist cause.

 Charles Cardwell (Pellissippi State Community College)
“Preserving Equality”

Hobbes and Locke held that we should give up some state-of-nature freedom in order to gain the benefits of commonwealth, but that we should not give up equality.  I argue that, by virtue of introducing those things lacking in the state of nature, commonwealth necessarily produces inequality.  The challenge then becomes to minimize and mitigate what we might call "epiphenomenal" inequalities.  I suggest we should take Locke very seriously here, and I offer some analysis and suggestions regarding limitations on legislation and briefly outline an approach to taxation that would so mitigate.

Andrew Cling (University of Alabama at Huntsville)
“Infinitism, Reasons, and Impossible Ideals”

The keystone of the epistemic regress problem is a principle stating that only propositions for which one has reasons can be reasons: Reasons Require Reasons. I support infinitism by giving two arguments for Reasons Require Reasons each of which is based on an important value: having non-arbitrary reasons and rational intellectual autonomy. I argue, however, that infinitism cannot solve the regress problem for evidence-providing basing reasons. So Reasons Require Reasons expresses an impossible ideal. I conclude by suggesting, in light of examples, that some impossible ideals may nevertheless be worthy of our allegiance.

 Allen Coates (East Tennessee State University)
“An Objection to Cognitivist Accounts of Instrumental Rationality”

You are instrumentally irrational if you take the means to your ends. One strategy for explaining this form of irrationality is to adopt cognitivism about intention, or simply cognitivism, which holds that intentions involve beliefs about what you are (or will be) doing. We could then argue that these beliefs will be epistemically irrational if you are instrumentally irrational. However, I will argue that the cognitivist explanation of instrumental rationality fails, and its failure shows that there are distinctively practical principles of rationality.

 Jason Fishel (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
“Coercion and its Effect on Knowledge of the Divine in Paul Moser’s The Elusive God”

Under Moser’s conception of God, the use of coercion is contradictory to God’s nature.  Using Joan McGregor’s model of coercion as a base for analysis, I show that Moser’s account of religious epistemology is incompatible with his concept of God because the process by which we come to know God according to Moser is objectionably coercive, contrary to Moser’s assertion otherwise.

 John Fitzpatrick (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)
“The Ancient Greeks and John Stuart Mill”

The influence of the Greeks and Greek philosophy on John Stuart Mill's education has been noted by many commentators (most importantly, Mill himself in his autobiography).  But it is strikingly rare to see commentators try to explain ambiguities in Mill's thought with reference to problems or attempted resolutions of problems that one can find in ancient philosophy.  This is an interesting omission, particularly in analysis of Mill's mature works that are often peppered with references to the Greeks.

Jon Garthoff (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
“Worldview Adoption as a Special Psychology”

John Rawls uses "special psychology" to denote features of psychology idiosyncratic to particular circumstances, as contrasted with features that are nearly universal. His principal example is envy, the special psychology he sees as most inimical to social justice. In this essay I propose that the disposition to adopt a worldview, understood as taking on a system of values from a culturally provided menu, is also a special psychology inimical to social justice. This is because adopting a worldview distorts the terms of civic friendship, undermines the quality of political deliberation, and constrains feasible possibilities for political consensus.

 Irwin Goldstein (Davidson College)
“The Mental Is Not Physical”

Neural materialists analyze pain, pleasure, and other mental states by reference to physical events in the brain – perhaps along with causes and effects of those events.  Neural materialists do not merely maintain, what few dispute, that brain events causally impact mental states.  Even substance dualists, who think mental states are events in a non-physical, spiritual substance, usually embrace mental-physical causal interaction.  Striving to subsume the mental within the physical scientist’s ontology, neural materialists maintain the mental is physical.  In this paper I show the mental is not physical.  Neural materialism is false.

 Melinda Hall (Vanderbilt)
“Uneasy Alliances: Concerns Regarding Genetic Selection and Enhancement”

As a feminist who affirms reproductive liberty yet takes issue with conservative and retrogressive threads in cultural transhumanism, I find myself at an impasse—that is, I unexpectedly agree with some critiques of genetic enhancement and selection. Those willing to critique the drive toward enhancement and problematize the encouraged practice of genetic selection are often reactionary and reject reproductive liberty entirely. I hesitate to take up arguments from sources that would threaten my commitments, but it is important to isolate what is helpful from the contemporary conversation, as I will attempt to do in the following paper.

Nicholaos Jones (University of Alabama at Huntsville)
“Diagrams as Locality Aids for Functional Explanation”

Laura Perini has argued that biologists use diagrams to represent biological systems because their two-dimensional nature makes them especially well-suited for providing functional explanations. Specifically, she argues that diagrams are more concise than linguistic representations by virtue of being able to simultaneously represent components of biological systems and synchronic relations among those components. I argue that Perini's account is limited in its applicability. I offer a more comprehensive account, according to which diagrams are superior to linguistic representations for providing functional explanations by virtue of being locality aids, grouping together information that is to be used together.

 Danny Marrero (University of Arkansas)
“Cognite Agendas and Legal Epistemology”

The domain of legal epistemology (LE) is defined from two perspectives: individual (e.g., Hack) and social (e.g. Goldman) epistemology. Since these perspectives have different objects, their judgments privilege and exclude different sets of information. While individualism is concerned with justified beliefs of agents, the social angle focuses on the institutional conditions of knowledge. I will show that the information that is respectively excluded by both concepts of LE weaken their respective evaluations. I will propose a proper function LE. My intuition is that such an alternative is more accurate because it takes into account both legal agents and institutions.

Mark Minuk (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
“How Not to be a Moral Particularist”

Jonathan Dancy attempts to make room in his version(s) of moral particularism for what he calls 'invariant' and 'default' reasons. He also allows a limited role for moral principles. I argue that each of these concessions to the generalist is a mistake, for a particularist. The existence of invariant reasons undermines holism's support for particularism. The existence of default reasons suggests the possibility of Rossian style 'prima facie' duties. And any role for principles undermines the particularist account of what agents should be doing in moral judgment.

 Andrew Naylor (Indiana University South Bend)
“Justification and Forgetting”

This paper sets forth a view about how epistemic justification figures in remembering that something is so (remembering that p, for short), a view that I call moderate justificational preservationism (MJP).  According to MJP, when one remembers that p, one is prima facie justified in believing that p on the basis of having been prima facie justified in believing that p at an earlier time.  The paper offers support for this view by examining a series of cases that involve forgetting.

 Chris Parker (University of Arkansas)
“Representation, Awareness, and Phenomenology”

A first-order representationalist theory of perception must specify two things: (i) the type of content and (ii) the functional role which are necessary and sufficient for a mental state to have phenomenology. This paper critiques Tye’s attempt to meet the second criteria – his “poisedness” condition. Following Byrne, I take this condition to be interpretable in either a weak or a strong sense. Tye prefers the strong sense but I will show that either option places his theory in conflict with empirical findings in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. These empirical worries pose a problem to first-order representationalism in general.

 Matthew Pianalto (Eastern Kentucky University)
“Humility and Moral Disagreement”

Intellectual humility involves acknowledging one’s position as one among many and one’s limitations as a perceiver and knower. Given the nature of humility, it might seem that an intellectually humble person should not have strong convictions about controversial moral matters, where such moral controversy is a case of peer disagreement. I suggest that things are not as they seem, and that a person can maintain intellectual humility even while holding to those convictions with which she deeply identifies and to which she is strongly committed.

Andrea Pitts (Vanderbilt University)
“A Rousseauian Epistemology of Ignorance”

I argue that Rousseau provides what today might be characterized as an “epistemology of ignorance” to analyze the limitations of human freedom. First, I briefly examine his notion of freedom in Emile and the Social Contract. I then show that the educational project outlined in Emile suggests that a substantial amount of deception and misinformation would be required to establish perfect freedom. I conclude by pointing to the failure of this educational project and propose that Rousseau’s texts offer a negative critique of the possibility of absolute freedom, rather than an endorsement of such an ideal.

 John Regan (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
“A Dilemma for Plantinga”

Plantinga established what has come to be called proper functionalism as his suggestion for what confers positive epistemic status on a true belief.  Zagzebski has objected to proper functionalism on the grounds that it fails to account for what makes knowledge more valuable than true belief.  Sosa’s “swampman” case asserts that knowledge does not require a design plan as stipulated by proper functionalism.  Plantinga can salvage proper functionalism from Zagzebski’s objection by assuming a theistic interpretation of proper functionalism reliant upon the epistemic achievement of a divine design plan.  However, doing so leaves proper functionalism vulnerable to Sosa’s “swampman” case.

 Brian Ribeiro (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)
“The Theistic Argument from Beauty: A Philonian Critique”

In this paper I consider an understudied form of the design argument which focuses on the beauty of the natural world and which argues, on that basis, that the world requires a divine Artist in order to explain its beauty.  Against this view, one might raise a question concerning the beauty of, and in, this divine Artist.  What explains the divine beauty?  This kind of explanatory regress objection is exactly like that used by Philo in Hume’s Dialogues to undercut standard versions of the design argument focused on the orderliness of the world.  Here I argue that Philo’s explanatory regress objection likewise significantly undercuts versions of the design argument focusing on the beauty of the world.

 Jordy Rocheleau (Austin Peay State University)
“Liability, Just Cause, and Limits on the Multiplication of Purposes in War”

Thomas Hurka argues that while the initial cause for war can only be the defense against a grave wrongdoing, additional lesser aims can be become just causes conditional upon the original, independent cause.  He cites disarmament, deterrence, and the combat of injustice less serious than that thought necessary to justify humanitarian intervention as the primary examples of such “conditional just causes.”  Wars initially fought for defensive purposes can subsequently be fought for these reasons.  This paper counters Hurka’s view, arguing these causes do not justify fighting a war beyond what is required for defense.  Drawing on the concept of just cause, the theory of punishment, and pragmatic arguments, an account of the proper scope of each of these war aims is given.   The arguments amount to a defense of a restrictive view on punitive war, contrary to a recent effort to resurrect this classic war cause.  The article also seeks to clarify the extent to which new war aims can be adopted over time, especially in ongoing occupations like that of Afghanistan.   Thus the paper contributes to the theory of jus post bellum.

Christian Roos (University of Arkansas)
“Nietzsche’s Appropriation of Aristotle’s Notion of To Kalon: Beauty as the Fundamental Norm for Virtuous Action”

In this paper, I contend that Friedrich Nietzsche appropriates the Aristotelian notion of the beautiful [to kalon] and that a proper understanding of virtue involves recognizing the connection between a virtue as a mean condition [mesotês] and virtuous action as performed for the sake of the beautiful.  I begin by explicating how Aristotle conceives of virtuous action performed for the sake of the beautiful.  Then, I show how Nietzsche possesses a similar notion of beauty as the fundamental norm by which the virtuous agent cognitively and affectively responds to his instincts, drives, emotions and other mental content.

 Robert Talisse (Vanderbilt University)
“Impunity and Republican Freedom”

Republicans hold that freedom is non-domination rather than non-interference.  This entails that any instance of interference that does not involve domination is not freedom-lessening.  The case for thinking of freedom as non-domination proceeds mostly by way of a handful of highly compelling cases in which it seems intuitive to say of some person that he or she is unfree despite being in fact free from interference.  In this essay, I call attention to a kind of case which directs attention to what seems to me to be a highly counterintuitive element of the