http://hdl.handle.net/1842/1251 2013-06-19T05:56:14Z 2013-06-19T05:56:14Z Kohavi, Zohar http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6582 2013-02-27T13:53:34Z 2007-06-27T00:00:00Z

Title: Animals, anthropocentrism, and morality analysing the discourse of the animal issue Authors: Kohavi, Zohar Abstract: This dissertation identifies and criticises a fundamental characteristic of the philosophical discourse surrounding the animal issue: the underlying anthropocentric reasoning that informs the accounts of both philosophy of mind and moral philosophy. Such reasoning works from human paradigms as the only possible starting point of the analysis. Accordingly, the aim of my dissertation is to show how anthropocentric reasoning and its implications distort the inquiry of the animal debate. In extracting the erroneous biases from the debate, my project enables an important shift in the starting line of the philosophical inquiry of the animal issue. In chapters one and two, I focus on philosophy of mind. I show how philosophical accounts that are based on anthropocentric a priori reasoning are inattentive to the relevant empirical findings regarding animals' mental capacities. Employing a conceptual line of argument, I demonstrate that starting the analysis from a human paradigm creates a rigid conceptual framework that unjustifiably excludes the possibility of associating the relevant empirical findings in the research. Furthermore, I show how the common approaches to the issue of animals' belief and intentions deny that animals can have these capacities, and I demonstrate how such denials can be avoided. The philosophical discourse that I examine denies intentional mental capacities to animals. Such denials take place, I maintain, because the analysis is anthropocentric: it uses humans' most sophisticated capacities as the only possible benchmark for evaluating animals' mental abilities. A central example of such anthropocentric reasoning is the oft-mentioned view that there is a necessary link between language and intentionality. Such a link indeed characterises humans. Yet the claim that there is no intentionality without language is a problematic framework for analysing the supposed intentionality of non-linguistic and prelinguistic creatures. Employing a standard that applies to normal, adult humans excludes the possibility of animals' intentionality from the outset. It seems, however, that intentionality is a capacity that evolves in stages, and that simple intentional mental states do not require language. At the same time, such an analysis ignores, to a large extent, cases of attributing intentionality to pre-linguistic humans and even normal, adult humans. Thus, I show how the denial that animals may have intentional mental capacities results in a double standard. In chapters three to six, I critically examine the anthropocentric nature of the debate concerning animals' moral status. The anthropocentric reasoning relates to the conditions of moral status in an oversimplified manner. I show that human prototypes, e.g., rational agency and autonomy, have mistakenly served as conditions for either moral status in general or of a particular type. Seemingly, using such conditions excludes from the proffered moral domain not only animals, but also human moral patients. Yet eventually only animals are excluded from the proffered moral domain. I identify and criticise the manoeuvre that enables this outcome. That is, although the proffered conditions are based on individual characteristics of moral agents, they are applied in a collective manner in order to include human moral patients in the moral domain under examination. I also show that when animals are granted moral status, this status appears to be subjugated by human needs and interests, and therefore the very potential to substantiate animal moral status becomes problematic. Significantly, I also criticise arguments in favour of animals' moral status, claiming that they sustain the oversimplified nature of the inquiry, hence reproducing the major problems of the arguments they were originally designed to refute. As part of my critique towards both such arguments and anthropocentric reasoning, I suggest a non-anthropocentric framework that avoids oversimplification with regard to the conditions of moral status. The aspiration of anthropocentric reasoning as well as of pro-animals philosophers is to find a common denominator that is allegedly shared by all members of the moral community as the single foundation of moral status, which consists of individual characteristics. My framework challenges this aspiration by showing that this common denominator cannot account for all cases. The framework that I suggest enables establishing moral statuses upon distinctive foundations, and at the same time, my proposal avoids falling into the trap of speciesism.

2007-06-27T00:00:00Z Colombo, Matteo http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6462 2012-09-26T15:02:10Z 2012-06-27T00:00:00Z

Title: Complying with norms. a neurocomputational exploration Authors: Colombo, Matteo Abstract: The subject matter of this thesis can be summarized by a triplet of questions and answers. Showing what these questions and answers mean is, in essence, the goal of my project. The triplet goes like this: Q: How can we make progress in our understanding of social norms and norm compliance? A: Adopting a neurocomputational framework is one effective way to make progress in our understanding of social norms and norm compliance. Q: What could the neurocomputational mechanism of social norm compliance be? A: The mechanism of norm compliance probably consists of Bayesian - Reinforcement Learning algorithms implemented by activity in certain neural populations. Q: What could information about this mechanism tell us about social norms and social norm compliance? A: Information about this mechanism tells us that: a1: Social norms are uncertainty-minimizing devices. a2: Social norm compliance is one trick that agents employ to interact coadaptively and smoothly in their social environment. Most of the existing treatments of norms and norm compliance (e.g. Bicchieri 2006; Binmore 1993; Elster 1989; Gintis 2010; Lewis 1969; Pettit 1990; Sugden 1986; Ullmann‐Margalit 1977) consist in what Cristina Bicchieri (2006) refers to as “rational reconstructions.” A rational reconstruction of the concept of social norm “specifies in which sense one may say that norms are rational, or compliance with a norm is rational” (Ibid., pp. 10-11). What sets my project apart from these types of treatments is that it aims, first and foremost, at providing a description of some core aspects of the mechanism of norm compliance. The single most original idea put forth in my project is to bring an alternative explanatory framework to bear on social norm compliance. This is the framework of computational cognitive neuroscience. The chapters of this thesis describe some ways in which central issues concerning social norms can be fruitfully addressed within a neurocomputational framework. In order to qualify and articulate the triplet above, my strategy consists firstly in laying down the beginnings of a model of the mechanism of norm compliance behaviour, and then zooming in on specific aspects of the model. Such a model, the chapters of this thesis argue, explains apparently important features of the psychology and neuroscience of norm compliance, and helps us to understand the nature of the social norms we live by.

2012-06-27T00:00:00Z Kuntz, Joseph Robert http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6459 2012-09-26T14:59:24Z 2012-06-27T00:00:00Z

Title: Methods and approaches to theories of philosophical intuitions Authors: Kuntz, Joseph Robert Abstract: This thesis is about the arguments and the methods that can sustain the epistemic support that comes from intuitions regarding hypothetical cases vis-à-vis theories of intuition. In the past twenty years, philosophical intuitions have received new attention, spurred by fashionable experimental philosophy that empirically tests philosophers’ intuition-engendering hypothetical cases with experimental methods. The results purportedly show that intuitions are unreliable, subject to demographic variation, and error-prone. In response, philosophers have presented various theories of philosophical intuition and explanations of how intuitions are situated in the justificatory apparatus of philosophical methodology. Three types of theories prevail in the literature, each a plausible option for the explanatory sustenance of intuitions’ epistemic efficacy. Selfevidence theories depend on the understanding of the intuited proposition. Intellectual seemings theories depend on the content of the intuited proposition. Judgment theories depend on our normal capacities for making judgments. Judgment theories divide further into disposition-to-believe theories and capacity theories. I argue that, beyond objections and unique epistemic burdens that each theory faces regarding the methodologies underpinning their conception and defense, no one theory of intuition can be reasonably accepted over the others. The centrality of intuitions’ use in philosophical methodology and in philosophers’ ways of thinking and reasoning, giving an argument that supports intuitions as conferrers of epistemic status, which does not itself appeal to intuitions, is a precarious endeavor. I consider various methods to avoid engaging question-begging premises and epistemic circularity. However, none are successful when the theory at hand is characteristically a priori and countenances only intuitions that confer epistemic status. In response to the ill-fated caricature of philosophical intuitions epistemic-statusconferrers, I present my own survey evidence concerning philosophers’ conception of intuition-use in philosophical method. Surprisingly, professional philosophers are more inclined to think that intuitions operate in the context of discovery more so than they are inclined to think that intuitions operate in the context of justification. The upshot of these survey results motivates my preferred account philosophical intuitions wherein philosophical intuitions are bifurcated into epistemic (justificatory intuitions) and epistemically-related (intuitions of discovery) roles. In the light of the objections I pose regarding the proper grounding of intuitions, revising the standard conception of philosophical intuitions requires two sorts of moves in the debate. First, one must offer a proviso for sources of justification that do not epistemically depend on intuitions for the ability to confer epistemic status. This allows one to justify a theory of intuition without appeal to intuition or epistemic regress. Second, one must give an explanation for and build on the recognition that intuitions are bifurcated into justificatory and discovery roles. The added clarity of filling out the nature of bifurcation allows for a more accurate characterisation of philosophical intuitions in the methods of philosophy. Furthermore, that intuitions operate in discovery roles offers an explanation for philosophical innovation and progress.

2012-06-27T00:00:00Z Bermúdez, Manuel Vazquez, Manuel Bermúdez http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6447 2012-09-26T14:42:14Z 2012-06-27T00:00:00Z

Title: Philosophical scepticism and its tradition in Michel de Montaigne’s Essais Authors: Bermúdez, Manuel; Vazquez, Manuel Bermúdez Abstract: Montaigne has widely been regarded as one of the most significant sceptics of the XVI Century. Yet, if we consider his Essais as a whole, he turns out to be more a sceptical thinker like Socrates or Saint Augustine rather than a pyrrhonist like Sextus Empiricus. He is closer to the Academic scepticism rather than to the absolute scepticism of Pyrrhonism. This thesis contends that despite most of modern research, Montaigne’s biggest debt to ancient sources is with Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Saint Paul, Saint Augustine and Plutarch rather than with Sextus Empiricus. I argue that Montaigne was familiar with the distinction between Academic and Pyrrhonian scepticism and his quest for truth meant that he had more affinity with Socrates and St. Augustine than with Sextus Empiricus or Pyrrho. He did not suspend his judgment more pirronico: on the contrary, he exerted it in every occasion. The Christian tradition left a more important mark than it was initially thought in Montaigne’s Essais. This reconsideration of Montaigne’s scepticism leads to a re-evaluation of different aspects of the sceptical tradition since the ancient times. In this thesis I show that Montaigne’s scepticism was partly shaped by the presence of scepticism in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Old Testament and in St. Paul, Lactantius and St. Augustine. Powerful currents of scepticism permeated different traditions during the Middle Ages and although their existence has been acknowledged, their potential debt to Greco-Roman antiquity and their influence in the recovery and transmission of scepticism in the early modern period still need further investigation. I argue that in the sceptical crisis of the early modern period Sextus’ writings may have fuelled this crisis, but they did not initiate it. I claim that Sextus Empiricus revival was more a result rather than a cause of the sceptical crisis. Considering that scepticism is a fundamental part of the Essais as a whole we can say that Montaigne was an important part of the sceptical crisis but his scepticism was not shaped by Sextus. I present in this thesis Montaigne’s originality and the complexity of his thought, and even though sometimes it is difficult to follow, his vision is utterly harmonious and consistent. Montaigne considered the ideas of many who had gone before him, sometimes following them, sometimes taking his own path. Montaigne believed in the possibility of real knowledge, even if, in the tradition of Socrates and Augustine, he despaired of achieving it in one person’s life. Montaigne was a sceptic who believed in the existence of truth and he sought that truth through the medium of the essay.

2012-06-27T00:00:00Z