Elusive Fictional Truth

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society of Aesthetics. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/We argue that some fictional truths are fictionally true by default. We also argue that these fictional truths are subject to being undermined. We propose that the context within which we are to evaluate what is fictionally true changes when a possibility which was previously ignorable is brought to attention. We argue that these cases support a model of fictional truth which makes the conversational dynamics of determining truth in fiction structurally akin to the conversational dynamics of knowledge-ascription, as this is understood by David Lewis’s contextualist approach to knowledge. We show how a number of the rules which Lewis proposes for the case of knowledge-ascription can be employed to develop a novel and powerful framework for the case of truth in fiction.Peer reviewe

The Art of Time Travel: A Bigger Picture

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution LicenseWe reply to Storrs McCall's objections to our proposed solution to his puzzle concerning time travel and artistic creativity. We also raise some further thoughts, developing the discussion of time travel's implications for aesthetic value and artistic creativity.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Explanation and Quasi-Miracles in Narrative Understanding: The Case of Poetic Justice

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Craig Bourne, and Emily Caddick Bourne, ‘Explanation and Quasi‐miracles in Narrative Understanding: The Case of Poetic Justice’, Dialectica, Vol. 71 (4): 563-579, January 2018, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1746-8361.12201. Under embargo until 29 January 2020. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.David Lewis introduced the idea of a quasi-miracle to overcome a problem in his initial account of counterfactuals. Here we put the notion of a quasi-miracle to a different and new use, showing that it offers a novel account of the phenomenon of poetic justice, where characters in a narrative get their due by happy accident (for example, when the murderer of King Mitys happens to be crushed by a falling statue of Mitys). The key to understanding poetic justice is to see what makes poetically just events remarkable coincidences. We argue that remarkable coincidence is to be understood in terms of a distinctive type of experience quasi-miracles offer. Cases of poetic justice offer a dual awareness of the accidental nature of the events and of a non-accidental process, involving intention, which it appears would explain them. We also extend this account to incorporate how we might experience magic tricks. An account of poetic justice as quasi-miraculous allows us to account for the experience of encounters with poetic justice, as involving the incongruity of seeing design in accident.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

The Basis of Correctness in the Religious Studies Classroom

What is it that makes a student’s answer correct or incorrect in Religious Studies? In practice, the standards of correctness in the RS classroom are generally applied with relative ease by teachers and students. Nevertheless, they are problematic. We shall argue that correctness does not come from either the students or the teacher believing that what has been said is true. This raises the question: what is correctness, if it does not come down to truth? We propose, and examine, three rival solutions, each of which, to an extent, rationalises a fairly natural response to the problem. The first, the elliptical approach, says that correct contributions have some tacit content: they are elliptical for true sentences about beliefs (e.g. a sentence of the form ‘Christians believe that…’). The second, the imaginative approach, seeks to replace appeals to truth and belief with an appeal to imagination, treating RS as a ‘game of make-believe’ in which teachers and students imaginatively engage with certain worldviews. The third, the institutional approach, locates the root of correctness in the practices of the RS institution, which include making endorsements of some judgements and not others. We show that the first of our proposed approaches encounters a number of significant objections. We find the second of our proposed approaches to be better, but the third is the most attractive, providing a direct, intuitive and comprehensive route through the problem of correctness.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.1216

Players, Characters, and the Gamer's Dilemma

Is there any difference between playing video games in which the player's character commits murder and video games in which the player's character commits pedophilic acts? Morgan Luck's “Gamer's Dilemma” has established this question as a puzzle concerning notions of permissibility and harm. We propose that a fruitful alternative way to approach the question is through an account of aesthetic engagement. We develop an alternative to the dominant account of the relationship between players and the actions of their characters, and argue that the ethical difference between so-called “virtual murder” and “virtual pedophilia” is to be understood in terms of the fiction-making resources available to players. We propose that the relevant considerations for potential players to navigate concern (1) attempting to make certain characters intelligible, and (2) using aspects of oneself as resources for homomorphic representation.Peer reviewe

Does same-sex marriage show Church and state cannot sing from the same hymn sheet?

One important conflict between Church and state in which there is much contemporary interest centres on same-sex marriage. More and more states are reforming marriage law to allow for same-sex marriage in the secular context. The extension of equal marriage from the secular to the religious context, however, remains fraught. We respond to three arguments against same-sex marriage within religious contexts. The first says that same-sex relationships fail to realise the value of marriage because they do not lead to procreation. The second says that the attitudes expressed in a religious text justify not accommodating same-sex marriage. The third says that making marriage available to same-sex couples induces a change in the meaning of ‘marriage’. We argue that none of these arguments succeeds. Religious representatives should, if they are open to reasons (see §3), endorse same-sex marriage. Nevertheless, we argue that the state should allow individuals who perform religious marriages the option of declining to marry same-sex couples. This is because of the special role of sincerity in performing a marriage. The requirement of sincerity distinguishes the case of marriage from cases where a couple’s right to equality of opportunity is violated, e.g. where an hotelier refuses a room to a couple because they are of the same sex. Representatives of a religion who believe that marriage is unsuitable for same-sex couples, however poor their arguments, are incapable of performing same-sex marriages. In that case, they should not be subject to state sanctions for refusing to marry a same-sex couple.Final Published versio

Does same-sex marriage show Church and state cannot sing from the same hymn sheet?

One important conflict between Church and state in which there is much contemporary interest centres on same-sex marriage. More and more states are reforming marriage law to allow for same-sex marriage in the secular context. The extension of equal marriage from the secular to the religious context, however, remains fraught. We respond to three arguments against same-sex marriage within religious contexts. The first says that same-sex relationships fail to realise the value of marriage because they do not lead to procreation. The second says that the attitudes expressed in a religious text justify not accommodating same-sex marriage. The third says that making marriage available to same-sex couples induces a change in the meaning of ‘marriage’. We argue that none of these arguments succeeds. Religious representatives should, if they are open to reasons (see §3), endorse same-sex marriage. Nevertheless, we argue that the state should allow individuals who perform religious marriages the option of declining to marry same-sex couples. This is because of the special role of sincerity in performing a marriage. The requirement of sincerity distinguishes the case of marriage from cases where a couple’s right to equality of opportunity is violated, e.g. where an hotelier refuses a room to a couple because they are of the same sex. Representatives of a religion who believe that marriage is unsuitable for same-sex couples, however poor their arguments, are incapable of performing same-sex marriages. In that case, they should not be subject to state sanctions for refusing to marry a same-sex couple.Final Published versio