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?Accept both
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Lean toward: no
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Accept: externalism
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Lean toward: non-skeptical realism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Lean toward: compatibilism
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheism
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?The question is too unclear to answer
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Reject one, undecided between others
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Agnostic/undecided
Logic: classical or non-classical?Agnostic/undecided
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Accept: externalism
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Lean toward: moral realism
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?The question is too unclear to answer
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?The question is too unclear to answer
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Accept: cognitivism
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Accept: internalismThis one should be sharpened to get a precise question, though on most sharpenings I count as an internalist.
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Lean toward: one box
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Lean toward: deontology
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?Lean toward: representationalism
Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?Reject one, undecided between others
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Accept: egalitarianism
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Accept: Millian
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Lean toward: scientific realism
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Lean toward: death
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Insufficiently familiar with the issue
Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don't switch?The question is too unclear to answerIt seems that it matters whether you are driving the trolley or a bystander -- at least if you think the relevant distinction is between killing or letting die. That's now Judy Thomson's view and I've myself found it at least plausible for about 20 years.
Truth: correspondence, deflationary, or epistemic?Lean toward: correspondenceWithout a precise view of how deflationary a view of truth needs to be to be deflationary it is hard to answer this well.
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?Agnostic/undecided