Normal Science

Someone asked me about some papers I’m planning to submit for review in the near future. Answering the question is a bit hard to answer in 140 characters and this blog is just taking up space on the internet currently, so I figured I’d describe the projects here in at least a little more detail than I can on Twitter.

1. Rethinking Multi-level Realism: Problems for the Trait-Group Framework of Group Selection
I assume multi-level realism about the levels of selection – the view that natural selection really operates at levels of organization higher than the individual and/or gene – but argue that the trait-group framework offered by Sober and Wilson is not fully adequate as a framework for multi-level realism. The trait-group framework consists of a definition of ‘group’ and a set of definitions for selection at a level. I construct a set of cases that serve to undermine the trait-group framework and suggest a new set of definitions for selection at a level that avoids the problems I raise.

2. Moral Status Enhancement and Non-human Research Subjects.
I explore whether it is possible to enhance the moral status of non-human animals by enhancing their cognitive capacities in the context of research of cognitive enhancement technologies. I explore the various potential bases of the moral status of non-human animals, argue that it is possible to enhance the moral status of research subjects, discuss the ethical issues that arise from this possibility, and develop some research guidelines to avoid ethical infractions in the relevant research contexts.

3. The Extensionist Strategy and The Moral Considerability of Non-individuals
One of the most productive strategies for grounding claims of the direct moral status of individuals has been the extensionist strategy of arguing that there is no morally relevant difference between individuals of kind A and of kind B, that individuals of kind A have direct moral status, and so consistency requires that we extend direct moral status to individuals of kind B. This strategy has been applied with varying degrees of success in attempts to extend moral considerability from humans to sentient non-humans and from sentient beings to non-sentient individuals such as plants. However, many people have objected that the strategy cannot be employed to extend moral considerability to non-sentient non-individuals such as communities or ecosystems. The basis of these objections is that the relevant interests of non-sentient individuals are ultimately grounded their functions which are in turn grounded, at least in part, in selection-etiologies. The objection continues that since selection does not operate at levels higher than the individual, non-individuals cannot have interests in the same way that individuals may. Thus, there is no basis for extension. I argue that these objections are grounded in an implausible view about the levels of selection, develop a version of multi-level selection theory and appeal to a set of empirical results to show that community-selection is possible. This shows that current objections to the use of the extensionist strategy in the case of non-sentient non-individuals fail.

No Comments »

Ever since this piece on the hiring process in philosophy was published in Inside Higher Ed, there has been a lot of discussion about the role that pedigree should play in hiring committees decisions about job candidates (see here, here, and here). However, there has been little discussion about publications or, rather, discussions about publications have been about what kinds of publications are most helpful. The underlying assumption seems to be that publications in reputable journals are a good thing on the job market. Many people I know delay going on the market until they get a paper accepted somewhere reputable (I hear that there are some departments that encourage students not to publish, usually departments with a particularly good pedigree or reputation).

Given that it seems to be common wisdom that publications are helpful, two anecdotes I heard in the past week or so scare me a little bit. Both anecdotes are about departments that were searching or are planning a search. Both departments see their department as mainly a teaching department but they do have research requirements (I think 3/3 or 3/2 loads). Also, according to both anecdotes, these departments consider publications in top journals as counting against a candidate!

Continue Reading »

8 Comments »

A couple of weeks ago on Twitter, someone posted a link to a blog post discussing ways to attract more majors in the philosophy department. Attracting majors is really important, especially in departments without graduate students where the number of majors is a determining factor in the amount of funds you get, the potential for new hires, etc..

Today, I was reading up on some of the factors that influence teacher evaluations, and was rethinking some of the discussions I’ve had with colleagues about whether taking advantage the psychological factors that influence student’s evaluations of teachers has any advantage beyond making the teacher look good.

Continue Reading »

10 Comments »

A few days ago on twitter, Peter Singer made the following comment

Re Michael Vick: if you eat factory farmed chicken, eggs, pork or veal, you’re in no position to be outraged by the Eagles signing him.

I think the spirit of this comment is largely correct, but some comments on twitter made me want to defend this claim in a little more detail than can be done in 140 characters (even by someone as eloquent and compelling as Singer). In fact, it seems that, if anything, we should be more outraged at those that support factory farming than at the Eagles for signing Vick. I’ll defend that below.

Continue Reading »

2 Comments »

I’ve recently come to hold the view that artifacts have morally relevant interests (i.e. artifacts are morally considerable). I came to hold this view because I hold that etiological functions underwrites interests, artifacts have functions in the sense mentioned, and that there is no morally relevant difference between the functions of those artifacts and other things that have morally relevant interests in virtue of having interests derived from functions. I don’t intend to spell out this view or my arguments in detail here. But, I do want to block one objection to my view that I think results from a misuse of reflective equilibrium.

Continue Reading »

6 Comments »

This past Monday (3/2/09) I attended a public talk by Dan Dennett. Overall, I thought Dennett’s talk was pretty good. It was a public lecture and it was to be expected that it would be a bit superficial. It was, and that is fine. But, at one point, Dennett made the claim that both Thomas Nagel and Jerry Fodor were creationists. I almost threw up on myself. Okay, not really but I was extremely aggravated for two reasons.

Continue Reading »

9 Comments »

The internet has become densely populated with philosophy blogs and other content. A lot of this content is, or would be, interesting to philosophers but the time and effort required to keep up with all the content strikes many as an insurmountable obstacle. Checking every blog or site every day is tedious and inefficient. After all, if the other blogs are anything like this one, they update sporadically and so you are visiting a site only to see the same content you saw last time.

An RSS reader such as Google Reader is the perfect solution to the information overload. Read on to see how RSS readers can make your internet philosophy life much more efficient.
Continue Reading »

5 Comments »

PhilPapers has just come out of beta and is, I think, a must use piece of technology for every philosopher and student of philosophy. It collects philosophical works in many (many!) areas of philosophy and puts them in a directory that is easily searchable by a variety of criteria. To say only that is to undersell the potential of PhilPapers. Read on for more…
Continue Reading »

No Comments »

As if applicants to grad school didn’t have enough to worry about, Leiter has a post here talking about the financial crisis and PhD admissions. You can see the post here

No Comments »

While visiting Boston, I was put in touch with a sophomore undergrad who was interested in graduate school in philosophy. In particular, the student had heard that I attended the UC Boulder Summer Seminar in Philosophy and wanted to know what I thought about this and how useful such a thing would be. I ended up talking about the issue more generally and thought I would mention some of what I thought here.
Continue Reading »

1 Comment »