Moral Requirements are still not Rational Requirements

Non

Moral Requirements are still not Rational Requirements

Non

In pain

When I feel a pain in my leg, how should we understand the ‘in ’ in ‘in the leg’? Michael Tye has suggested in a number of places that the Representationalist has a neat explanation of what the ‘in ’ means (Tye 1995b: 226–28 or 331–32; Tye 1995c: 111–16; Tye 1996: 296–97). Peter Carruthers has agreed (Carruthers 2000, ch. 5). Tye’s Representationalist holds pains are states which represent damage to, or disorder in, the body. When pain represents damage in the leg, then the ‘in ’ is simply that of spatial location. Pains representing disorder in phantom limbs, and cases of referred pain, merely involve misrepresentation of spatial location. The merit of Tye’s proposal, as he sees it, is that no special sense of ‘in ’ needs to be introduced. I shall argue that Tye is wrong. I have sympathy with the Representationalist position in general, although I would not develop it in the way that Tye suggests. However, I am concerned that we are clear about what supports the position and what does not. Tye’s point offers no support at all. 1 Tye invites us to consider the following invalid argument taken from Ned Block. (1) The pain is in my fingertip. (2) The fingertip is in my mouth. Therefore, (3) The pain is in my mouth. Block notes that the argument is valid if the ‘in ’ is taken to be that of spatial location. However, he claims that the argument is not valid when the statements are understood in their ordinary sense. So the ‘in ’ must be used in a different systematic way for the location of pains (Block 1983: 517). Tye claims that this is not so. The ‘in ’ is just that of spatial location. The inference is invalid because pain creates an intensional context. He compares the argument above with the following. (4) I want to be in City Hall. (5) City Hall is in the ghetto. 1 Tye has also run arguments appealing to the intentionality of representational states for what-it’s-like contexts (Tye 1995a: 125–26). I think that they have been answere

Revisiting Maher’s One-Factor Theory of Delusion, Again

Chenwei Nie ([22]) argues against a Maherian one-factor approach to explaining delusion. We argue that his objections fail. They are largely based on a mistaken understanding of the approach (as committed to the claim that anomalous experience is sufficient for delusion). Where they are not so based, they instead rest on misinterpretation of recent defences of the position, and an underestimation of the resources available to the one-factor theory.<br/