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: yesSure, a little bit.
Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?Lean toward: Platonism
Aesthetic value: objective or subjective?Accept: objective
Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?Lean toward: yes
Epistemic justification: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: externalism
External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?Accept: non-skeptical realism
Free will: compatibilism, libertarianism, or no free will?Accept another alternativeAccept: the existence of voluntary actions for which we are properly assessed is compatible with determinism. Lean toward: hard (near-)determinism for certain modes of moral assessment that libertarians and most compatibilists seem to want.
God: theism or atheism?Accept: atheismDeism is still a live option for me.
Knowledge: empiricism or rationalism?Lean toward: rationalism...in a fairly weak, limited form.
Knowledge claims: contextualism, relativism, or invariantism?Accept: invariantism
Laws of nature: Humean or non-Humean?Accept: non-Humean
Logic: classical or non-classical?Lean toward: non-classical
Mental content: internalism or externalism?Lean toward: externalism
Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism?Accept: moral realismAssuming that "moral" is construed broadly. I am tempted by anti-realism about specific moral categories like duty and obligation, which some think of as essential to *morality*.
Metaphilosophy: naturalism or non-naturalism?Lean toward: naturalismBut I may have a more capacious view of what could count as naturalism than most people who so self-identify.
Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?Lean toward: physicalism
Moral judgment: cognitivism or non-cognitivism?Accept: cognitivism
Moral motivation: internalism or externalism?Accept: internalismAgain, it matters how broadly 'moral' is construed. I accept internalism about at least some kinds of value judgments.
Newcomb's problem: one box or two boxes?Agnostic/undecided
Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?Accept another alternativeAccept: eudaimonism. Lean toward: specifically virtue-ethical eudaimonism.
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: biological view
Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?Accept more than one
Proper names: Fregean or Millian?Lean toward: Millian
Science: scientific realism or scientific anti-realism?Accept: scientific realism
Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?Agnostic/undecided
Time: A-theory or B-theory?Lean toward: B-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?Lean toward: correspondence
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?OtherSkeptical of metaphysical possibility as distinct from logical and nomological possibility.