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?Lean toward: noWe might be wired with good true beliefs pre-experience, but it seems to me even such beliefs need to get some justification from the whole body of experience to be knowledge.
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Lean toward: PlatonismMy hunch is that abstract objects are real patterns of concreta. I guess that makes me Platonist?
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Lean toward: objective
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Accept: no
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Accept: externalismAgain I think something two-factory is right but since I think /some/ important notion of justification depends on the extra-mental, I count myself as externalist.
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Lean toward: non-skeptical realismI'm inclined toward explanationism.
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Accept: no free willBut I construe responsibility like a typical compatiblist, of course - consequentially.
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Lean toward: empiricismBut I'm a scientific realist, etc.
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Lean toward: contextualism
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Lean toward: Humean
Logic: classical or non-classical?Lean toward: classical
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: externalismI'm inclined to accept a two-factor theory; I guess that makes me externalist because I think /some/ notion of content requires the extra-mental?
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Lean toward: moral realism
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Accept: naturalismI construe naturalism basically as methodological commitment to IBE. Thus I'm on board in principle with notions like "naturalistic dualism" (though I'm not one).
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Lean toward: physicalism
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Lean toward: cognitivism
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: externalismBecause I have overall background preference for welfare utilitarianism, which I fear is motivation externalist. But I think this is something of a problem for utilitarianism.
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Lean toward: one box
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Lean toward: consequentialism
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Lean toward: representationalism
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Accept: psychological view
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Lean toward: egalitarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Lean toward: Fregean
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Lean toward: scientific realism
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Accept: survival
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Lean toward: B-theoryA fairly strong leaning, though not at all my expertise.
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?Accept: switch
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Lean toward: correspondence
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possible