Samuel C. Rickless

In this paper, I argue that Book II, Chapter viii of Locke’s Essay is a unified, self-consistent whole, and that the appearance of inconsistency is due largely to anachronistic misreadings and misunderstandings. The key to the distinction between primary and secondary qualities is that the former are, while the latter are not, real properties, i.e., properties that exist in bodies independently of being perceived. Once the distinction is properly understood, it becomes clear that Locke’s arguments for it are simple, valid, and (in one case) persuasive as well.

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According to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing (DDA), there is a morally significant difference between doing harm and merely allowing it to occur. According to Philippa Foot, the distinction is primarily one between (i) initiating or sustaining a harmful causal sequence and (ii) allowing or enabling a harmful causal sequence to run its course. Foot claims that the distinction between doing and allowing does not reduce to the distinction between action and inaction. Warren Quinn argues that Foot’s distinction either fails to account for our considered intuitions in some cases or collapses into the action/inaction distinction. In this paper, I argue that Foot has the better of Quinn in their debate over the proper interpretation of the DDA.

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In the Protagoras, Socrates appears to affirm and defend a paradoxical doctrine: the unity of virtue. Plato scholars do not agree on how the doctrine should be understood. Some, following Gregory Vlastos (1972), take Socrates to hold that the virtues are biconditionally related, i.e., that anyone who has one of the virtues has them all. Others, following Terry Penner (1973), take Socrates’ position to be that the names of the virtues all refer to the same thing, namely virtue. In this paper, I argue that both of these interpretations are mistaken: the main thesis of the Protagoras is, very simply, that each of the virtues is a kind of knowledge or wisdom.

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Let a “chain” be a discourse of the following form: “An F is G. He/she/it is H. He/she/it is J.” In this paper, I consider various accounts of the semantic function of pronouns in chains. On one view, each pronoun is syntactically recoverable as an indefinite or definite description containing the conjunction of all previous predicates in the chain. The truth-conditions of the sentences in the chain would then be as follows: “An F is G. An/the F that is G is H. An/the F that is G and H is J.” On another view, every pronoun in a chain refers to whomever or whatever the speaker has in mind as bearing the properties mentioned in the chain. I argue against these views, and defend the following account: every pronoun P in a chain performs the semantic function of an existential quantifier whose domain is the common intersection of the domains of the pronouns that appear in the true sentences that precede P in the chain.

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Plato’s Parmenides is divided into two main parts, the first ostensibly devoted to a series of criticisms of Plato’s own middle period theory of forms (MPTF) developed in Symposium, Phaedo, and Republic II-X, the second consisting of a large number of arguments to seemingly mutually incompatible conclusions. In this paper, I defend the view that Plato intends every argument in the dialogue to be sound and that he means us to see that the results of Part II can be used to solve all but one of the problems raised for MPTF in Part I. As it turns out, all but one of the inconsistencies generated in Part I depends on the axiom of MPTF that no form can have contrary properties (one and many, large and small, like and unlike, and so on). In Part II, Plato argues that this axiom is false. What remains standing at the end of the dialogue is a leaner and meaner theory of forms that is impervious to all but one of the criticisms raised in Part I.

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In Book II, Chapter xxvii of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke claims that we are free inasmuch as we are able to do, or not do, as we will. Because Locke identifies the will and freedom as powers and insists that only substances (and not powers) can have powers, he finds it absurd to suppose that the will could be free. But this leaves him with the question of whether we can be free with respect to the act of willing. Locke divides this issue into two separate questions, one addressed in E II.xxvii.23-24, the other addressed in E II.xxvii.25, both seemingly answered in the negative. In later editions of the Essay, Locke introduces a “doctrine of suspension”, according to which we have the ability to suspend the prosecution of our desires. According to Chappell (1994), the doctrine of suspension conflicts with Locke’s negative answers to both questions, leading to Locke’s repudiation of these answers in the second and subsequent editions of the Essay. In this paper, I argue that Locke’s answer to the first question is negative in the first edition, and then qualified in the second and subsequent editions. I then argue that Locke’s answer to the second question is actually in the affirmative. Both answers, I claim, are consistent with the doctrine of suspension.

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This paper argues that, given the fact of reasonable pluralism, citizens of a liberal democracy have a moral duty not to use religious arguments in public attempts to persuade their fellows to support coercive public policies. Beginning with the fundamental Rawlsian assumption that a liberal society is a “fair system of cooperation”, the citizens of such a society cannot view themselves as cooperating for the common good unless the rules that each follows in her social interaction with others are ones that these others might reasonably be expected to accept as governing their social interaction with her. Rules of this kind exclude the attempt to employ religious arguments to publicly persuade one’s fellows to support coercive public policies. Although this is a conclusion Rawls himself has come to deny, the paper maintains that it is one her should embrace.

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In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues for the claim that a good human will acts on the Formula of Universal Law: act only on those maxims that you can will to be universal laws. In this paper, I reconstruct Kant’s argument for this claim. The argument contains three principles: (P1) A human action has moral worth only if it is done from duty, (P2) An action from duty has its moral worth not in the purpose to be attained by it, but in the maxim in accordance with which it is decided upon, and (P3) Duty is the necessity of an action from respect for law. I explain how Kant argues for these principles, and how the principles are logically interconnected. I also describe, and fill, the famous “gap” in Kant’s reasoning from the principles to the Formula of Universal Law.

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It is widely believed that, in the Meditations, Descartes needs to assume God’s existence in order to establish the reliability of the perceptions on the basis of which he argues for God’s existence. I argue that this claim is false. Descartes takes the premises of his argument for God’s existence to be reliable because he takes them to be known by the natural light, and hence indubitable. I argue that an idea’s being known by the natural light is not, as is commonly thought, its being distinctly perceived, but rather its being distinctly perceived by the intellect. Thus, ideas that are known by the natural light are indubitable, but ideas that are distinctly perceived by the senses or by the imagination are not.

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It is widely believed that Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is a mess. I demur. In this paper, I lay out a normative, rights-based theory of the Fourth Amendment that provides the best reconstruction of the U.S. Supreme Court’s orthodox opinions (including its decisions establishing the Warrant Requirement, Probable Cause Requirement, and Exclusionary Rule), and I explain how to extract the theory from the constitutional text. The reconstruction helps us identify the theoretical mistakes the Court has made on its way to crafting a coherent approach to Fourth Amendment cases. I also consider the various “exceptions” to the three Requirements, explaining how most (though not all) may be justified in light of the rights-based theory. Finally, I consider and reply to some general objections to this sort of normative reconstruction.

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The standard theories of legal interpretation are (old and new) textualism, intentionalism, and normativism. Old textualists focus on word meaning, new textualists on hearer meaning, intentionalists on speaker meaning, and normativists on moral theory. In this paper, I propose that there is something right and something wrong about each of these approaches. When word meaning is crystal clear, old textualism is a great recipe; otherwise, not. In the face of ambiguity, intentionalism helps; otherwise, not. In case of vagueness, new textualism fits the bill; otherwise, not. And when language is explicitly normative, there is no way to avoid appeal to moral theory. Language presents us with challenges and infelicities. The trick to legal adjudication is to face each challenge by using the tool that is best suited to meet it.

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In Book IV of the Essay, Locke makes what appear to be contradictory epistemic claims. On the one hand, he defines knowledge as the perception of agreement or disagreement between ideas. On the other, he claims that we have sensitive knowledge of the mind-independent causes of our sensations. In this paper, I criticize two solutions to this conundrum, the first offered by Ruth Mattern, the second by Lex Newman. I then explain how two Lockean distinctions, between verbal and mental propositions, and between knowledge and judgment, provide a complete and satisfactory solution to the problem of apparent inconsistency.

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There is little agreement among privacy scholars on the nature of the right to privacy. For reductionists, it is no more than a cluster of property rights. For some nonreductionists, it is a right to control information about oneself; for others, it is a right to control access to oneself. For yet others, it is a right to cognitive inaccessibility, physical inaccessibility, or both. In this paper, I defend what I call the “Barrier Theory”, according to which X’s having a right to privacy against Y amounts to X’s having a claim against Y that Y not learn or experience some personal fact about X by breaching a barrier used by X to keep others from learning or experiencing some personal fact about X. I explain how this theory avoids counterexamples to the most influential reductionist and nonreductionist accounts of the right to privacy, and how the theory might contribute to answering some pressing legal questions.

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Plato’s Sophist is puzzling inasmuch as it presents us with seven completely different definitions of sophistry. Though not all seven definitions could be accurate, Plato never explicitly indicates which of the definitions is mistaken. Kenneth Sayre and Mary Louise Gill have proposed a clever solution to this puzzle. In this paper I explain why the Sayre-Gill solution is mistaken, and suggest a better solution.

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The purpose of this paper is to set the record straight on the logical relation between anti-abstractionism and idealism in Berkeley’s metaphysics. The gist of my argument is as follows. Berkeley distinguishes between two kinds of abstraction: there is, first, the mental separation of one particular quality from another (singling abstraction), and second, the mental separation of a general quality from its particular determinations (generalizing abstraction). I argue that Berkeley’s case for idealism does not in any way depend on his denial of the possibility of “generalizing” abstraction. Berkeley’s numerous references to “generalizing” abstraction are all in the service of a different claim, namely that belief in the possibility of “generalizing” abstraction has led many of his predecessors and contemporaries into inextricable philosophical difficulties, both in metaphysics and in ethics. As it happens, Berkeley also claims that belief in the possibility of “singling” abstraction has led to the mistaken belief that idealism is false. But, as I argue, the logical relation between Berkeley’s idealism and his denial of the possibility of “singling” abstraction is complicated. On the one hand, Berkeley relies on the claim that certain kinds of qualities cannot be mentally separated from other kinds of qualities to establish results that play an important role in his argument for the mind-dependence of physical objects and their sensible properties. On the other hand, Berkeley intends the most important of his anti-abstractionist theses, namely the claim that there could be no such thing as an abstract idea of existence, to follow from his idealism. Importantly, the procedure of appealing to the denial of the possibility of certain kinds of “singling” acts of abstraction to establish a thesis (namely, idealism) that is then used to argue against the possibility of “singling” out an abstract of idea of existence is non-circular.

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According to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, it is more difficult to justify doing harm than it is to justify allowing harm. Enabling harm consists in withdrawing an obstacle that would, if left in place, prevent a pre-existing causal sequence from leading to foreseen harm. There has been a lively debate concerning the moral status of enabling harm. According to some (e.g., McMahan, Vihvelin and Tomkow), many cases of enabling harm are morally indistinguishable from doing harm. Others (e.g., Foot, Hanser) support the Equivalence Hypothesis, according to which enabling harm is morally equivalent to allowing harm. Here I argue that there is every reason to embrace, and no reason to reject, the Equivalence Hypothesis.

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There are two major semantic theories of proper names: Semantic Descriptivism and Direct Reference. Semantic Descriptivism suffers from a number of drawbacks first pointed out by Donnellan (1970) and Kripke (1972). Direct Reference faces difficulties of its own, most importantly the problem of empty names. The most promising Directly Referential solution to this problem is the Unfilled Proposition view, according to which utterances of sentences containing empty names semantically express unfilled propositions. But this view faces the problem of accounting for the intuition that negative existentials involving empty names are true. The most promising way of dealing with this problem within Unfilled Proposition theory is to suppose (i) that utterances of sentences may be used to pragmatically convey propositions they do not semantically express, and (ii) that the proposition pragmatically conveyed by a speaker S’s utterance of a sentence containing an empty name N (where “the F” is a definite description S associates with N) is identical to the proposition semantically expressed by an utterance of the sentence obtained by replacing N with “the F”. Call this view “Pragmatic Descriptivism”. Despite its theoretical virtues, Pragmatic Descriptivism has come under fire. Everett (2003), in particular, has advanced four different lines of criticism, to which Adams and Dietrich (2004) have responded in some detail. In this paper, I have two main aims. The first is to argue that Adams and Dietrich’s replies to Everett’s criticisms (with one exception) are ineffective. I conclude that there is no acceptable strategy for solving the problem of empty names within Direct Reference theory. The second is to argue that there is a promising alternative to Semantic Descriptivism and Direct Reference that requires us to fill unfilled propositions with names, thereby solving the problem of empty names.

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The standard view of Hume’s theory of pity and malice in Book II of the Treatise is that they are indirect secondary impressions. This is in part because Hume says as much at T 2.1.1.4, and appears to place his discussion of pity and malice in a section of Book II devoted to discussion of other indirect passions, such as pride, humility, love, and hatred. Nonetheless, there is important, and heretofore unremarked, evidence that Hume takes pity and malice to be direct secondary impressions. Some textual evidence suggests that Hume takes pity and malice to be different combinations of desire and aversion. But, as I argue, the most powerful evidence suggests that Hume takes pity to be sorrow, and malice joy, at the misery of another. And sorrow and joy are paradigmatic direct passions.

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According to the standard view, Berkeley uses sections 29-33 of A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge to argue non-enthymematically for the existence of God. However, Ksenjek and Flage (2012) argue that Berkeley’s argument comes in two steps: the first step (in sections 29-33) is intended to establish no more than the existence of an Author of Nature who is “conceptually weaker” than God; the second step (in section 146) establishes that this Author of Nature is God. In this paper, I argue that both the standard view and the Ksenjek-Flage reading of Berkeley’s argument are mistaken. Contrary to the Ksenjek-Flage reading, Berkeley takes himself to have established God’s existence by the end of section 33. Contrary to the standard view, however, Berkeley’s reasoning in sections 29-33 is actually enthymematic. The missing premise in the argument of these sections concerns the boundless extent, intricacy, and connectedness of the world.

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Some epistemologists, notably Schaffer (2004, 2005, 2008), argue that knowledge ascriptions are implicitly contrastive: in a context in which, say, the question at issue is whether Mary stole the bicycle or the wagon, the proposition that Holmes knows that Mary stole the bicycle is really, they say, the proposition that Holmes knows that Mary stole the bicycle rather than that Mary stole the wagon. In this paper, I argue that five arguments for knowledge ascription contrastivism proposed by Schaffer (2004) fail, and the reasons why they fail strongly suggest that contrastivism itself is false.

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The doctrine of double effect, together with other moral principles that appeal to the intentions of moral agents, has come under attack from many directions in recent years, as have a variety of rationales that have been given in favor of it. In this paper, our aim is to develop, defend, and provide a new theoretical rationale for a secular version of the doctrine. Following Quinn (1989), we distinguish between Harmful Direct Agency and Harmful Indirect Agency. We propose the following version of the doctrine: that in cases in which harm must come to some in order to achieve a good (and is the least costly of possible harms necessary), the agent foresees the harm, and all other things are equal, a stronger case is needed to justify Harmful Direct Agency than to justify Harmful Indirect Agency. We distinguish between two Kantian rationales that might be given for the doctrine, a “dependent right” rationale, defended by Quinn, and an “independent right” rationale, which we defend. We argue that the doctrine and the “independent right” rationale for it are not vulnerable to counterexamples or counterproposals, and conclude by drawing implications for the larger debate over whether agents' intentions are in any way relevant to permissibility and obligation.

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Scholars disagree about whether Locke thinks that we can really know through sensation that material substances and their sensible qualities exist outside our minds. A great deal of what Locke writes on this subject strongly suggests that he takes sensitive knowledge of the existence of external things to be bona fide knowledge. But it has also been suggested that a closer look at the Essay reveals that Locke treats the word ‘knowledge’ in ‘sensitive knowledge’ as an honorific; on this view, sensitive knowledge, properly understood, is really no more than a kind of assurance, that is, a kind of judgment (not knowledge) that is based on the highest degree of probability. Call the former interpretation, the “Knowledge View”, and the latter interpretation, the “Assurance View”. My aim here is to defend the Assurance View and criticize the Knowledge View. I will argue, first, that none of the criticisms of the Assurance View is persuasive and, second, that the Knowledge View, as it has been defended by its most recent proponents, is inconsistent with some of the basic tenets of Locke’s theory of knowledge. I conclude that the available textual evidence, properly interpreted, establishes that Locke holds that sensation assures us, but does provide us with knowledge, of the existence of material things.

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According to the classical Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE), there is a morally significant difference between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm. Versions of DDE have been defended in a variety of creative ways, but there is one difficulty, the so-called “closeness problem”, that continues to bedevil all of them. The problem is that an agent’s intention can always be identified in such a fine-grained way as to eliminate an intention to harm from almost any situation, including those that have been taken to be paradigmatic instances in which DDE applies to intended harm. In this paper, we consider and reject a number of recent attempts to solve the closeness problem. We argue that the failure of these proposals strongly suggests that the closeness problem is intractable, and that the distinction between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm is not morally significant. Further, we argue that there may be a deeper reason why such attempts must fail: the rationale that makes the best fit with DDE, namely, an imperative not to aim at evil, is itself irredeemably flawed. While we believe that these observations should lead us to abandon further attempts to solve the closeness problem for DDE, we also conclude by showing how a related principle that is supported by a distinct rationale and avoids facing the closeness problem altogether nevertheless shares with DDE its most important features, including an intuitive explanation of a number of cases and a commitment to the relevance of intentions.

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In this paper, we defend the general thesis that intentions are relevant not only to moral permissibility and impermissibility, but also to criminal wrongdoing, as well as a specific version of the Means Principle that we believe can help solve some challenging puzzles in the criminal law. We begin by answering some recent arguments that marginalize or eliminate the role of intentions as components of criminal wrongdoing (e.g., Alexander and Ferzan (2009), Chiao (2010) and Walen (2009)). We then turn to some influential theories that articulate a direct role for intentions (e.g., Duff (2007), Husak (2009)). While we endorse the commitment to such a role for intentions, we believe that extant theories have not yet been able to adequately address certain objections or solve certain puzzles such as that some attempt convictions require criminal intent when the crime attempted, if successful, requires only foresight, and that some intended harms appear to be no more serious than non-intended ones of the same magnitude, for example. Drawing on a variety of resources, including the specific Means Principle we have developed in recent published work, we present solutions to these puzzles, which in turn provide mutual support for our general approach to the role of intentions and for thinking that using others as means is itself a special kind of wrongdoing.

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In Book II, Chapter xxvii of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke provides an account of the synchronic and diachronic identity of persons. Unfortunately, he does not offer us an official ontology of persons. This raises the question of whether Locke is committed to a particular account of the nature of persons, a question that has generated no end of controversy among Locke scholars. In the Essay, Locke takes over from the scholastics the tripartite ontology of substance, mode, and relation. One widely held view is that Locke’s persons are substances. But several influential scholars, following suggestive remarks of Locke’s eighteenth century follower, Edmund Law, have gone further in arguing that Locke’s persons are modes. In this paper I argue that some of the best reasons for thinking that Locke considers persons to be modes, particularly those offered by LoLordo (2010), are weak, and that Locke’s views on the connection between persons and powers, and on the connection between powers and substances, commit him to the view that persons are bona fide substances.

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Readers of George Berkeley’s two major works, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (“Principles”) and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (“Dialogues”), cannot help but be struck by the fact that his argument for the existence of God in the former appears to be significantly different from his argument for the existence of God in the latter. The argument from the Principles appears designed to establish the existence of God as the cause of the sensible world, while the argument from the Dialogues appears designed to establish the existence of God as the continuous perceiver of the sensible world when no finite mind is perceiving it. My aim in this chapter is to analyze these arguments, focusing particularly on the latter, with a view to determining how similar or dissimilar they in fact are. I argue that Berkeley’s argument in the Dialogues is partly deductive and partly abductive. It also overlaps with the Principles argument, inasmuch as there are premises, and pieces of reasoning from those premises, that are shared by both arguments. But the arguments presented in these two works are distinct, inasmuch as there are propositions that function as premises in the one argument that do not function as premises in the other. The fact that the arguments are both distinct and overlapping may explain why some scholars see significant differences while others see significant similarities.

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Matthew Leisinger (2020) argues that previous interpretations of John Locke’s account of akrasia (or weakness of will) are mistaken and offers a new interpretation in their place. In this essay, we aim to recapitulate part of this debate, defend a previously articulated interpretation by responding to Leisinger’s criticisms of it, and explain why Leisinger’s own interpretation faces textual and philosophical problems that are serious enough to disqualify it as an accurate reconstruction of Locke’s views. In so doing, we aim to shed further light on Locke’s views on the various ways in which humans are prone to err in their pursuit of happiness.

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