Disadvantage, Autononomy, and the Continuity Test

The Continuity Test is the principle that a proposed distribution of resources is wrong if it treats someone as disadvantaged when they don’t see it that way themselves, for example by offering compensation for features that they do not themselves regard as handicaps. This principle – which is most prominently developed in Ronald Dworkin’s defence of his theory of distributive justice – is an attractive one for a liberal to endorse as part of her theory of distributive justice and disadvantage. In this paper, I play out some of its implications, and show that in its basic form the Continuity Test is inconsistent. It relies on a tacit commitment to the protection of autonomy, understood to consist in an agent deciding for herself what is valuable and living her life in accordance with that decision. A contradiction arises when we consider factors which are putatively disadvantaging by dint of threatening individual autonomy construed in this way. I argue that the problem can be resolved by embracing a more explicit commitment to the protection (and perhaps promotion) of individual autonomy. This implies a constrained version of the Continuity Test, thereby salvaging most of the intuitions which lead people to endorse the Test. It also gives us the wherewithal to sketch an interesting and novel theory of distributive justice, with individual autonomy at its core

Uniqueness and Logical Disagreement

This paper discusses the uniqueness thesis, a core thesis in the epistemology of disagreement. After presenting uniqueness and clarifying relevant terms, a novel counterexample to the thesis will be introduced. This counterexample involves logical disagreement. Several objections to the counterexample are then considered, and it is argued that the best responses to the counterexample all undermine the initial motivation for uniqueness

Saving the Equal Weight View from itself: a modest approach to strong conciliation

2013 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.The central question of the epistemology disagreement focuses on how, if at all, we should update our belief about p when we find ourselves party to a disagreement about p with someone whom we take to be our epistemic peer. In other words, how should we respond to disagreements with those whom we take to be just as intelligent, informed, free from bias, and likely to get things right in the field p occurs in? One response to this question, the Equal Weight View, holds that in typical cases of peer disagreements one is epistemically required to ascribe equal epistemic weight to each party's opinion and then split the difference between the two parties' respective degrees of belief. However, it is thought that the Equal Weight View faces a problem of being self-defeating, since there appear to be disagreements about the view amongst epistemic peers. Some proponents of the view have attempted to defuse this charge of self-defeat, but, as I will show, these attempts are less than satisfying. The aim of this project is to discuss the Equal Weight View's relation to the charge of self-defeat in hopes of sketching out a solution that is more promising than what has been put forth in the literature so far

Nomothetic Explanation and Humeanism about Laws of Nature

Humeanism about laws of nature — the view that the laws reduce to the Humean mosaic — is a popular view, but currently existing versions face powerful objections. The non-supervenience objection, the non-fundamentality objection and the explanatory circularity objection have all been thought to cause problems for the Humean. However, these objections share a guiding thought — they are all based on the idea that there is a certain kind of divergence between the practice of science and the metaphysical picture suggested by Humeanism. I suggest that the Humean can respond to these objections not by rejecting this divergence, but by arguing that is appropriate. In particular the Humean can, in the spirit of Loewer (2012), distinguish between scientific and metaphysical explanation — this is motivated by differing aims of explanation in science and metaphysics. And they can further leverage this into distinctions between scientific and metaphysical fundamentality and scientific and metaphysical possibility. We can use these distinctions to respond to the objections that the Humean faces

The Transformation of Kant\u27s Transcendental Idealism: Fichte\u27s Wissenschaftslehre

This dissertation examines Fichte\u27s original philosophical system, or the Wissenschaftslehre, against the background of Kant\u27s transcendental idealism. Although his system is formulated within the context of the reconstruction of Kant\u27s transcendental idealism, Fichte claims to posses the sole correct interpretation of Kant\u27s view. He further asserts that he understands Kant better than Kant understands himself. This dissertation maintains that the issue of Fichte\u27s relationship to Kant is a controversial one. It argues that Fichte\u27s philosophical system is identical with and yet different from Kant\u27s position. To the extent that Fichte rejects a representationalist solution to the problem of knowledge, this study contends that his system is true to the spirit of Kant\u27s critical philosophy. However, to the extent that his method of presentation differs from Kant\u27s, the dissertation argues that Fichte\u27s view is his own, and should be evaluated on its own merit

Van Til versus Stroud: Is the Transcendental Argument for Christian Theism Viable?

In this paper I introduce the transcendental argument for Christian theism in the context of Reformed theologian and philosopher Cornelius Van Til’s thought. I then present the critique proffered by Barry Stroud against ambitious transcendental arguments, and survey various formulations of transcendental arguments in the literature, seeking how the objection bears upon them. I argue that Adrian Bardon’s (2005) interpretation is the most helpful in understanding the Stroudian objection. From this interpretation, two types of possible rebuttals are deduced. Proceeding to survey the responses offered by Van Tillians to this objection in the recent literature, I discern two general strategies pursued in these responses, which map onto the previously deduced types of rebuttals: the Biblical justification strategy and the objection-undermining strategy. I argue that all the specific attempts to answer Stroud which I examine here (those of Butler, Bosserman, and Fluhrer) are inadequate and that these two strategies, in general, face serious problems. I conclude with considering the options before the proponent of the transcendental argument for Christian theism and with offering a new objection to the argument, which focuses on its inconsistency with the implications of Christian theism itself

Begging the Question Against a Peer?

A dialectical conception of justification helps conciliationists about peer disagreement establish the symmetry considerations on which their account is premised. On this conception, appeals to personal or hidden forms of evidence fail to provide a symmetry breaker that would allow one to dismiss a conflicting peer opinion. Furthermore, the act of citing the same evidence repetitively tends to illegitimately beg the question against the peer, no matter how accurate one’s own overall assessment of this evidence. However, the dialectical conception of justification does not automatically vindicate conciliationism. In many of the most interesting cases of peer disagreement there are vast bodies of dialectically sharable evidence that can ultimately provide enough non-question-begging epistemic resources to settle the dispute, even if appealing to those resources violates the independence requirement—a further premise of conciliationism. Absent modifications to the independence requirement, it would therefore be premature to embrace conciliationism.Peer reviewe