Robert Pargetter

Oughts, options, and actualism

W Am Be often approach the question of what to do by identifying a set of alternative possible actions available to us, our options, and designating the best as what we ought to do. Questions can be raised about this approach; for instance, what to say about supererogation. This paper, though, is concerned with two problems that arise within the option approach, and which remain however questions about that approach are resolved. It can hardly be supposed that the option approach is totally misconceived, and, as will be apparent, our problems would arise for any approach to what agents ought to do (in the action guiding sense) which incorporated a ranking of available alternatives. An option for an agent is an action or course of action possible for that agent. Our first problem is whether, in addition to what is possible for the agent, we sometimes need to take into account what the agent would actually do in certain circumstances. By Actualism we will mean the view that the values that should figure in determining which option is the best and so ought to be done out of a set of options are the values of what would be the case were the agent to adopt or carry out the option, where what would be the case includes of course what the agent would simultaneously or subsequently in fact do: the (relevant) value of an option is the value of what would in fact be the case were the agent to perform it. We will call the alternative view that it is only necessary to attend to what is possible for the agent, Possibilism. The main aim of this paper is to explore and defend Actualism. Our second problem is how to select the right set of options in order to answer a given question about what ought to be done. The option approach says that what ought to be done is the best (or one of the best, but lets leave this inessential complication to one side) out of a set of options-but which set for which question about what ought to be done? Suppose we want to know if A is something an agent ought to do. Clearly A must be an option for the agent at (or over) whatever time it is, as must each member of the set out of which A needs to be best if it is to be something the agent ought to

Science and Necessity

Preface 1. Realism and truth 2. Quantities 3. Modal language and reality 4. Modal ontology 5. Laws of nature 6. Causation 7. Explanation 8. Mathematics in science Coda: scientific platonism Bibliography.

Vectors and change

Vectors, we will argue, are not just mathematical abstractions. They are also physical properties—universals. What make them distinctive are the rich and varied essences of these universals, and the complex pattern of internal relations which hold amongst them.

A modified Dutch Book Argument

A unifying strand in the debate between objectivists and subjectivists is the thesis that a mans degrees of belief ought to obey the axioms of the probability calculus. This paper is concerned to reconstruct the argument most widely employed in support of this thesis the Dutch Book Argument (DBA). We first note a critical shortcoming in the usual presentation of the DBA; we then introduce a general principle of rationality as the basis for a modification that overcomes this shortcoming; and, finally, we argue that the modified DBA is immune from certain further objections that might be or have been advanced to the DBA.

Re-acquaintance with qualia

Frank Jackson argued, in an astronomically frequently cited paper on ‘Epiphenomenal qualia’[Jackson 1982 that materialism must be mistaken. His argument is called the knowledge argument. Over the years since he published that paper, he gradually came to the conviction that the conclusion of the knowledge argument must be mistaken. Yet he long remained totally unconvinced by any of the very numerous published attempts to explain where his knowledge argument had gone astray. Eventually, Jackson did publish a diagnosis of the reasons why, he now thinks, his knowledge argument against materialism fails to prove the falsity of materialism [Jackson 2005. He argues that you can block the knowledge argument against materialism—but only if you tie yourself to a dubious doctrine called representationalism. We argue that the knowledge argument fails as a refutation of either representational or nonrepresentational materialism. It does, however, furnish both materialists and dualists with a successful argument for the existence of distinctively first-person modes of acquaintance with mental states. Jacksons argument does not refute materialism: but it does bring to the surface significant features of thought and experience, which many dualists have sensed, and most materialists have missed.

From extroverted realism to correspondence: A modest proposal

Once upon a time realists seemed to exhibit an understandable complacency. They had a metaphysics that seemed simple, highly explanatory, and obviously true. And they had a semantics that was formally appealing, was again explanatory, and was harmonious with the metaphysics. They believed that the things they encountered in their lives, including the things they encountered in the pursuit of such intellectual activities as science, existed. And they believed there were important relationships between these things and the languages used to talk about them, which in turn determined if the sentences of their language were true. Sentences were true if there was an appropriate correspondence between the words they contain and the things that exist, and false otherwise. This correspondence provided them in turn with a reason for believing in the existence of other things. If sentences, or truthbearers of any sort, were true, there would have to be things, or truthmakers, in existence to make them true. So realists came to believe in the existence of properties and relations, numbers, sets, certain other abstract entities, and even possible worlds and similar possibilia. But realists can no longer be so complacent. They face a profound threat from without. Instrumentalists, idealists, and anti-realists query the rationality of their realism, and scorn their use of the correspondence theory of truth. And even more disturbing is the fifth column activity of some supposed realists. Some try to purge realism nominalists and others, for instance, deny reality to all but concrete particulars, shunning universals, numbers, and various categories of possibilia. Others drive a wedge between realism and the correspondence theory of truth, either by rejecting the theory altogether or else by making its connection with realism far more tenuous,

Relative simultaneity in the special relativity

In this paper a method is proposed for empirically determining simultaneity at a distance within the special theory of relativity. It is argued that this method is independent of Einsteins signalling method and provides a basis for denying the conventionality of distant simultaneity.

Indefinite probability statements

ConclusionIndefinite probability statements can be analysed in terms of statements which attribute probability to propositions. Therefore, there is no need to find a special place in probability theory for them; once we have an adequate account of statements that straightforwardly attribute probability to propositions, we will automatically have an adequate account of indefinite probability statements.

An analysis of indefinite probability statements

An analysis of indefinite probability statements has been offered by Jackson and Pargetter (1973). We accept that this analysis will assign the correct probability values for indefinite probability claims. But it does so in a way which fails to reflect the epistemic state of a person who makes such a claim. We offer two alternative analyses: one employing de re (epistemic) probabilities, and the other employing de dicto (epistemic) probabilities. These two analyses appeal only to probabilities which are accessible to a person who makes an indefinite probability judgment, and yet we prove that the probabilities which either of them assigns will always be equivalent to those assigned by the Jackson and Pargetter analysis.