My philosophical views

The answers shown here are not necessarily the same provided as part of the 2009 PhilPapers Survey. These answers can be updated at any time.

See also:

QuestionAnswerComments
A priori knowledge: yes or no?Accept: yes
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Lean toward: Platonism
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Lean toward: objective
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Lean toward: yes
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Accept bothInternalism applies to the justifiability of commitment to truth-claims (entitlement to take it to be true that p); but *states* of belief can have epistemic value of an externalist kind.
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Accept: non-skeptical realism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Accept: compatibilism
God: theism or atheism?Accept: theismI believe in God, but reject the existence of the supernatural personal omni-God (I'm 'an omni-God atheist'), and am thus committed to understanding God according to some alternative conception (which I draw from a certain interpretation of the object of worship in the Judaeo-Christian tradition).
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?The question is too unclear to answer
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Lean toward: contextualism
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Lean toward: non-Humean
Logic: classical or non-classical?Agnostic/undecided
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Agnostic/undecided
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Accept: moral realismI'm inclined to think that the most sophisticated forms of moral anti-realism come remarkably close to (the best version of) moral realism.
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?The question is too unclear to answerNot sure that I understand the question: but if being a naturalist is taking it that our metaphysics has to be consistent with the view of the world that is presupposed by our best scientific theories, then I am certainly a naturalist. This is consistent with holding (as I do) that there is more to the world than can be known through natural science.
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Accept: physicalism
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Accept: cognitivism
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: externalism
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Lean toward: two boxes
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Accept another alternativeI'm inclined to think that what is ethically fundamental is the notion of right relationship.
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Lean toward: disjunctivism
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Lean toward: psychological view
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Lean toward: communitarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Agnostic/undecided
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Accept: scientific realism
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Lean toward: survival
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Lean toward: A-theory
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Lean toward: switch
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Reject one, undecided between othersI reject epistemic accounts, but am not sure about how to choose between correspondence and deflationary accounts.
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possible