This paper reviews Veli Mitova's recent article, "The collective epistemic reasons of social-iden... more This paper reviews Veli Mitova's recent article, "The collective epistemic reasons of social-identity groups," which proposes and defends a collectivist account of epistemic reasons for social-identity groups. The paper first discusses what makes a collectivist account appealing in the context of moral obligations, a context from which Mitova apparently draws inspiration for her collectivist account of epistemic reasons. The paper then considers two issues that may make a collectivist account of epistemic reasons lose much of the theoretical advantage that a collectivist account of moral obligations has over its individualist competitor: (1) epistemic reasons need to be internally possessed and (2) the individual inability that motivates a collectivist account of moral obligations is of a special kind.
One type of soft-line reply to manipulation arguments, which I call ‘the another-agent reply’, fo... more One type of soft-line reply to manipulation arguments, which I call ‘the another-agent reply’, focuses on the existence of some controlling agent(s) and how this can undermine the actor's moral responsibility. A well-known challenge to this type of reply is the so-called ‘machine induction’ case. This paper provides an argument for why ‘machine induction’ presents no real challenge to the another-agent reply. It further argues that any soft-liner who does not leave room for the existence of some controlling agent(s) in their explanation of why manipulation undermines responsibility will face a dilemma. Thus, instead of presenting a challenge to the another-agent reply, ‘machine induction’ actually presents a reason in support of it.
A frequent caveat in online dating profiles – “No fats, femmes, or Asians” – caused an LGBT activ... more A frequent caveat in online dating profiles – “No fats, femmes, or Asians” – caused an LGBT activist to complain about the bias against Asians in the American gay community, which he called “racial looksism”. In response, he was asked that, if he himself would not date a fat person, why he should find others not dating Asians so upsetting. This response embodies a popular attitude that personal preferences or tastes are simply personal matters – they are not subject to moral evaluation. In this paper, I argue, against this popular attitude, that a personal preference like racial looksism is indeed wrong. A preference like racial looksism is wrong because it is an overgeneralization that disrespects individuality by treating people as exchangeable tokens of one type, and such disrespect denies its objects appreciation that their dignity entitles them to. As it turns out, there is on my account a relevant moral difference between racial looksism and simple looksism.
Philosophers debate over the truth of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, the thesis that there i... more Philosophers debate over the truth of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, the thesis that there is a morally significant difference between doing harm and merely allowing harm to happen. Deontologists tend to accept this doctrine, whereas consequentialists tend to reject it. A robust defence of this doctrine would require a conceptual distinction between doing and allowing that both matches our ordinary use of the concepts in a wide range of cases and enables a justification for the alleged moral difference. In this article, I argue not only that a robust defence of this doctrine is available, but also that it is available within a consequentialist framework.
Using pure statistical evidence about a group to judge a particular member of that group is often... more Using pure statistical evidence about a group to judge a particular member of that group is often found objectionable. One natural explanation of why this is objectionable appeals to the moral notion of respecting individuality: to properly respect individuality, we need individualized evidence, not pure statistical evidence. However, this explanation has been criticized on the ground that there is no fundamental difference between the so-called ''individualized evidence'' and ''pure statistical evidence''. This paper defends the respecting-individuality explanation by developing an account of what it means to respect individuality. It combines an idealistic account of respecting individuality and a prioritization account of respecting individuality, and offers a principled way to distinguish individualized evidence from non-individualized evidence.
Can someone without visual organs have an experience of seeing something? A dialogue in The Shura... more Can someone without visual organs have an experience of seeing something? A dialogue in The Shurangama Sutra between the Buddha and one of his disciples, Ananda, gives a positive answer to this question. In the dialogue, the Buddha compares the experience of a blind person with that of an ordinary person situated in a completely dark room, and claims that they are phenomenally identical. Consequently, the Buddha concludes that a blind person can also have a perceptual experience of seeing complete darkness. This paper considers both conceptual and empirical objections to this “argument from darkness”. After showing why the latter presents a greater challenge to the argument from darkness, the paper proposes a new argument—“the argument from silence”, which, it argues, can be better defended against empirical objections. On the basis of this new argument, the paper draws a further conclusion: any experience contains perceptual experiences of all possible modes, such as visual, auditory, and olfactory mode. Finally, the paper considers why this seemingly ridiculous conclusion can nevertheless be an attractive metaphysical position to Buddhism.
(This is not the full article, official link: 10.1093/mind/fzaa085 )
One type of soft-line reply... more (This is not the full article, official link: 10.1093/mind/fzaa085 )
One type of soft-line reply to manipulation arguments, which I call ‘the another-agent reply’, focuses on the existence of some controlling agent(s) and how this can undermine the actor’s moral responsibility. A well-known challenge to this type of reply is the so-called ‘machine induction’ case. This paper provides an argument for why ‘machine induction’ presents no real challenge to the another-agent reply. It further argues that any soft-liner who does not leave room for the existence of some controlling agent(s) in their explanation of why manipulation undermines responsibility will face a dilemma. Thus, instead of presenting a challenge to the another-agent reply, ‘machine induction’ actually presents a reason in support of it.
A series of our experimental studies showed that some actions that consequentialism would treat a... more A series of our experimental studies showed that some actions that consequentialism would treat as morally right or wrong were not regarded by ordinary people as a matter of morality. These experiments suggest that there is a divide between the moral and the non-moral that ordinary people intuitively believe in, yet consequentialism seems unable to accommodate. We then argued that the root of this conflict lies in the inclusion of non-moral value in consequentialist theory of the good, which causes consequentialism to deny, in all cases that involve primarily non-moral value, a moral/non-moral divide. We further argued that there is no good theoretical reason (other than what motivates consequentialism) to think that such a divide is unjustified. Therefore, consequentialism faces a problem: any version of consequentialism that allows non-moral value into the theory of the good will be at odds with a substantial number of seemingly justified intuitions. "Is consequentialism the correct moral theory?" has long been an issue of debate; but "Is consequentialism a moral theory?" is a question that few people bothered to ask. We believe the latter is not entirely out of question. The issue that we discuss in this paper is a conflict between how consequentialism depicts and how ordinary people think about the boundary of morality. We start by presenting a recent experimental study of ours, which shows that some actions that consequentialism would regard as morally right or wrong are not regarded by ordinary people as a matter of morality. This result suggests that there is a divide between the moral and the non-moral that ordinary people intuitively believe in. We then argue that any form of consequentialism that takes non-moral value into the outcome-calculation threatens to erase this divide and thus will be at odds with a substantial number of folk intuitions regarding what counts as a matter of morality.
A frequent caveat in online dating profiles – “No fats, femmes, or Asians” – caused an LGBT activ... more A frequent caveat in online dating profiles – “No fats, femmes, or Asians” – caused an LGBT activist to complain about the bias against Asians in the American gay community, which he called “racial looksism”. In response, he was asked that, if he himself would not date a fat person, why he should find others not dating Asians so upsetting. This response embodies a popular attitude that personal preferences or tastes are simply personal matters – they are not subject to moral evaluation. In this paper, I argue, against this popular attitude, that a personal preference like racial looksism is indeed wrong. A preference like racial looksism is wrong because it is an overgeneralization that disrespects individuality by treating people as exchangeable tokens of one type, and such disrespect denies its objects appreciation that their dignity entitles them to. As it turns out, there is on my account a relevant moral difference between racial looksism and simple looksism.
This paper is an attempt to improve the practical argument for beliefs in God. Some theists, most... more This paper is an attempt to improve the practical argument for beliefs in God. Some theists, most famously Kant and William James, called our attention to a particular set of beliefs, the Jamesian-type beliefs, which are justified by virtue of their practical significance, and these theists tried to justify theistic beliefs on the exact same ground. I argue, contra the Jamesian tradition, that theistic beliefs are different from the Jamesian-type beliefs and thus cannot be justified on the same ground. I also argue that the practical argument, as it stands, faces a problem of self-defeat. I then construct a new practical argument that avoids both problems. According to this new argument, theistic beliefs are rational to accept because such beliefs best supply us with motivation strong enough to carry out demanding moral tasks.
Philosophers debate over the truth of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, the thesis that there i... more Philosophers debate over the truth of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, the thesis that there is a morally significant difference between doing harm and merely allowing harm to happen. Deontologists tend to accept this doctrine, whereas consequentialists tend to reject it. A robust defense of this doctrine would require both a conceptual distinction between doing and allowing that matches our ordinary use of the concepts in a wide range of cases and an explanation of how this conceptual distinction enables a justification for the alleged moral difference. In this paper, I argue not only that a robust defense of this doctrine is available, but also that it is available within a consequentialist framework.
Using pure statistical evidence about a group to judge a particular member of that group is often... more Using pure statistical evidence about a group to judge a particular member of that group is often found objectionable. One natural explanation of why this is objectionable appeals to the moral notion of respecting individuality: to properly respect individuality, we need individualized evidence, not pure statistical evidence. However, this explanation has been criticized on the ground that there is no fundamental difference between the so-called "individualized evidence" and "pure statistical evidence". This paper defends the respecting-individuality explanation by developing an account of what it means to respect individuality. It combines an idealistic account of respecting individuality and a prioritization account of respecting individuality, and offers a principled way to distinguish individualized evidence from non-individualized evidence. Austin, a forty-year-old white businessman, is waiting for taxi outside of a high-end shopping mall in Shanghai. A flower peddler approaches him and asks: "Sir, would you like to buy a flower for this beautiful lady?" pointing to a young Chinese woman standing next to him, whom Austin does not know. The peddler takes them to be a couple. Out of curiosity, Austin asks the peddler why he came to this belief. Imagine three different scenarios: Peddler 1: The peddler responds that he believes that most middle-aged white men are attracted to young Chinese women. Peddler 2: The peddler responds that his company has actually conducted systematic research in the past ten years, according to which a middle-aged white man and a young Chinese woman appearing next to each other in this shopping district have a high chance to be in a relationship.
This paper reviews Veli Mitova's recent article, "The collective epistemic reasons of social-iden... more This paper reviews Veli Mitova's recent article, "The collective epistemic reasons of social-identity groups," which proposes and defends a collectivist account of epistemic reasons for social-identity groups. The paper first discusses what makes a collectivist account appealing in the context of moral obligations, a context from which Mitova apparently draws inspiration for her collectivist account of epistemic reasons. The paper then considers two issues that may make a collectivist account of epistemic reasons lose much of the theoretical advantage that a collectivist account of moral obligations has over its individualist competitor: (1) epistemic reasons need to be internally possessed and (2) the individual inability that motivates a collectivist account of moral obligations is of a special kind.
One type of soft-line reply to manipulation arguments, which I call ‘the another-agent reply’, fo... more One type of soft-line reply to manipulation arguments, which I call ‘the another-agent reply’, focuses on the existence of some controlling agent(s) and how this can undermine the actor's moral responsibility. A well-known challenge to this type of reply is the so-called ‘machine induction’ case. This paper provides an argument for why ‘machine induction’ presents no real challenge to the another-agent reply. It further argues that any soft-liner who does not leave room for the existence of some controlling agent(s) in their explanation of why manipulation undermines responsibility will face a dilemma. Thus, instead of presenting a challenge to the another-agent reply, ‘machine induction’ actually presents a reason in support of it.
A frequent caveat in online dating profiles – “No fats, femmes, or Asians” – caused an LGBT activ... more A frequent caveat in online dating profiles – “No fats, femmes, or Asians” – caused an LGBT activist to complain about the bias against Asians in the American gay community, which he called “racial looksism”. In response, he was asked that, if he himself would not date a fat person, why he should find others not dating Asians so upsetting. This response embodies a popular attitude that personal preferences or tastes are simply personal matters – they are not subject to moral evaluation. In this paper, I argue, against this popular attitude, that a personal preference like racial looksism is indeed wrong. A preference like racial looksism is wrong because it is an overgeneralization that disrespects individuality by treating people as exchangeable tokens of one type, and such disrespect denies its objects appreciation that their dignity entitles them to. As it turns out, there is on my account a relevant moral difference between racial looksism and simple looksism.
Philosophers debate over the truth of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, the thesis that there i... more Philosophers debate over the truth of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, the thesis that there is a morally significant difference between doing harm and merely allowing harm to happen. Deontologists tend to accept this doctrine, whereas consequentialists tend to reject it. A robust defence of this doctrine would require a conceptual distinction between doing and allowing that both matches our ordinary use of the concepts in a wide range of cases and enables a justification for the alleged moral difference. In this article, I argue not only that a robust defence of this doctrine is available, but also that it is available within a consequentialist framework.
Using pure statistical evidence about a group to judge a particular member of that group is often... more Using pure statistical evidence about a group to judge a particular member of that group is often found objectionable. One natural explanation of why this is objectionable appeals to the moral notion of respecting individuality: to properly respect individuality, we need individualized evidence, not pure statistical evidence. However, this explanation has been criticized on the ground that there is no fundamental difference between the so-called ''individualized evidence'' and ''pure statistical evidence''. This paper defends the respecting-individuality explanation by developing an account of what it means to respect individuality. It combines an idealistic account of respecting individuality and a prioritization account of respecting individuality, and offers a principled way to distinguish individualized evidence from non-individualized evidence.
Can someone without visual organs have an experience of seeing something? A dialogue in The Shura... more Can someone without visual organs have an experience of seeing something? A dialogue in The Shurangama Sutra between the Buddha and one of his disciples, Ananda, gives a positive answer to this question. In the dialogue, the Buddha compares the experience of a blind person with that of an ordinary person situated in a completely dark room, and claims that they are phenomenally identical. Consequently, the Buddha concludes that a blind person can also have a perceptual experience of seeing complete darkness. This paper considers both conceptual and empirical objections to this “argument from darkness”. After showing why the latter presents a greater challenge to the argument from darkness, the paper proposes a new argument—“the argument from silence”, which, it argues, can be better defended against empirical objections. On the basis of this new argument, the paper draws a further conclusion: any experience contains perceptual experiences of all possible modes, such as visual, auditory, and olfactory mode. Finally, the paper considers why this seemingly ridiculous conclusion can nevertheless be an attractive metaphysical position to Buddhism.
(This is not the full article, official link: 10.1093/mind/fzaa085 )
One type of soft-line reply... more (This is not the full article, official link: 10.1093/mind/fzaa085 )
One type of soft-line reply to manipulation arguments, which I call ‘the another-agent reply’, focuses on the existence of some controlling agent(s) and how this can undermine the actor’s moral responsibility. A well-known challenge to this type of reply is the so-called ‘machine induction’ case. This paper provides an argument for why ‘machine induction’ presents no real challenge to the another-agent reply. It further argues that any soft-liner who does not leave room for the existence of some controlling agent(s) in their explanation of why manipulation undermines responsibility will face a dilemma. Thus, instead of presenting a challenge to the another-agent reply, ‘machine induction’ actually presents a reason in support of it.
A series of our experimental studies showed that some actions that consequentialism would treat a... more A series of our experimental studies showed that some actions that consequentialism would treat as morally right or wrong were not regarded by ordinary people as a matter of morality. These experiments suggest that there is a divide between the moral and the non-moral that ordinary people intuitively believe in, yet consequentialism seems unable to accommodate. We then argued that the root of this conflict lies in the inclusion of non-moral value in consequentialist theory of the good, which causes consequentialism to deny, in all cases that involve primarily non-moral value, a moral/non-moral divide. We further argued that there is no good theoretical reason (other than what motivates consequentialism) to think that such a divide is unjustified. Therefore, consequentialism faces a problem: any version of consequentialism that allows non-moral value into the theory of the good will be at odds with a substantial number of seemingly justified intuitions. "Is consequentialism the correct moral theory?" has long been an issue of debate; but "Is consequentialism a moral theory?" is a question that few people bothered to ask. We believe the latter is not entirely out of question. The issue that we discuss in this paper is a conflict between how consequentialism depicts and how ordinary people think about the boundary of morality. We start by presenting a recent experimental study of ours, which shows that some actions that consequentialism would regard as morally right or wrong are not regarded by ordinary people as a matter of morality. This result suggests that there is a divide between the moral and the non-moral that ordinary people intuitively believe in. We then argue that any form of consequentialism that takes non-moral value into the outcome-calculation threatens to erase this divide and thus will be at odds with a substantial number of folk intuitions regarding what counts as a matter of morality.
A frequent caveat in online dating profiles – “No fats, femmes, or Asians” – caused an LGBT activ... more A frequent caveat in online dating profiles – “No fats, femmes, or Asians” – caused an LGBT activist to complain about the bias against Asians in the American gay community, which he called “racial looksism”. In response, he was asked that, if he himself would not date a fat person, why he should find others not dating Asians so upsetting. This response embodies a popular attitude that personal preferences or tastes are simply personal matters – they are not subject to moral evaluation. In this paper, I argue, against this popular attitude, that a personal preference like racial looksism is indeed wrong. A preference like racial looksism is wrong because it is an overgeneralization that disrespects individuality by treating people as exchangeable tokens of one type, and such disrespect denies its objects appreciation that their dignity entitles them to. As it turns out, there is on my account a relevant moral difference between racial looksism and simple looksism.
This paper is an attempt to improve the practical argument for beliefs in God. Some theists, most... more This paper is an attempt to improve the practical argument for beliefs in God. Some theists, most famously Kant and William James, called our attention to a particular set of beliefs, the Jamesian-type beliefs, which are justified by virtue of their practical significance, and these theists tried to justify theistic beliefs on the exact same ground. I argue, contra the Jamesian tradition, that theistic beliefs are different from the Jamesian-type beliefs and thus cannot be justified on the same ground. I also argue that the practical argument, as it stands, faces a problem of self-defeat. I then construct a new practical argument that avoids both problems. According to this new argument, theistic beliefs are rational to accept because such beliefs best supply us with motivation strong enough to carry out demanding moral tasks.
Philosophers debate over the truth of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, the thesis that there i... more Philosophers debate over the truth of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, the thesis that there is a morally significant difference between doing harm and merely allowing harm to happen. Deontologists tend to accept this doctrine, whereas consequentialists tend to reject it. A robust defense of this doctrine would require both a conceptual distinction between doing and allowing that matches our ordinary use of the concepts in a wide range of cases and an explanation of how this conceptual distinction enables a justification for the alleged moral difference. In this paper, I argue not only that a robust defense of this doctrine is available, but also that it is available within a consequentialist framework.
Using pure statistical evidence about a group to judge a particular member of that group is often... more Using pure statistical evidence about a group to judge a particular member of that group is often found objectionable. One natural explanation of why this is objectionable appeals to the moral notion of respecting individuality: to properly respect individuality, we need individualized evidence, not pure statistical evidence. However, this explanation has been criticized on the ground that there is no fundamental difference between the so-called "individualized evidence" and "pure statistical evidence". This paper defends the respecting-individuality explanation by developing an account of what it means to respect individuality. It combines an idealistic account of respecting individuality and a prioritization account of respecting individuality, and offers a principled way to distinguish individualized evidence from non-individualized evidence. Austin, a forty-year-old white businessman, is waiting for taxi outside of a high-end shopping mall in Shanghai. A flower peddler approaches him and asks: "Sir, would you like to buy a flower for this beautiful lady?" pointing to a young Chinese woman standing next to him, whom Austin does not know. The peddler takes them to be a couple. Out of curiosity, Austin asks the peddler why he came to this belief. Imagine three different scenarios: Peddler 1: The peddler responds that he believes that most middle-aged white men are attracted to young Chinese women. Peddler 2: The peddler responds that his company has actually conducted systematic research in the past ten years, according to which a middle-aged white man and a young Chinese woman appearing next to each other in this shopping district have a high chance to be in a relationship.
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Papers by Xiaofei Liu
没有视觉器官的人能否有视觉经验？《楞严经》记载的一段关于视觉的对话对这个问题给出了肯定的回答。在对话中，如来将盲人的感觉经验与身处暗室中的视力正常者的视觉经验做比较，认为两者没有区别，从而肯定盲人也有相同的经验。本文从概念和经验两个层面考虑了对“盲人类比”论证的挑战。在对这个论证的核心论点做出澄清后，本文指出虽然“盲人类比”能回应概念层面的质疑，它依然面临来自经验层面的有力挑战。本文随后提出了一个更易被辩护的论证——“聋人类比”，并依据这个新的类比得出一条推论：任何主观经验都必然包含所有感觉维度的相应形态的经验。最后，本文从相关佛教理论出发，对这条看似荒谬的推论做出辩护。
One type of soft-line reply to manipulation arguments, which I call ‘the another-agent reply’, focuses on the existence of some controlling agent(s) and how this can undermine the actor’s moral responsibility. A well-known challenge to this type of reply is the so-called ‘machine induction’ case. This paper provides an argument for why ‘machine induction’ presents no real challenge to the another-agent reply. It further argues that any soft-liner who does not leave room for the existence of some controlling agent(s) in their explanation of why manipulation undermines responsibility will face a dilemma. Thus, instead of presenting a challenge to the another-agent reply, ‘machine induction’ actually presents a reason in support of it.
Drafts by Xiaofei Liu
没有视觉器官的人能否有视觉经验？《楞严经》记载的一段关于视觉的对话对这个问题给出了肯定的回答。在对话中，如来将盲人的感觉经验与身处暗室中的视力正常者的视觉经验做比较，认为两者没有区别，从而肯定盲人也有相同的经验。本文从概念和经验两个层面考虑了对“盲人类比”论证的挑战。在对这个论证的核心论点做出澄清后，本文指出虽然“盲人类比”能回应概念层面的质疑，它依然面临来自经验层面的有力挑战。本文随后提出了一个更易被辩护的论证——“聋人类比”，并依据这个新的类比得出一条推论：任何主观经验都必然包含所有感觉维度的相应形态的经验。最后，本文从相关佛教理论出发，对这条看似荒谬的推论做出辩护。
One type of soft-line reply to manipulation arguments, which I call ‘the another-agent reply’, focuses on the existence of some controlling agent(s) and how this can undermine the actor’s moral responsibility. A well-known challenge to this type of reply is the so-called ‘machine induction’ case. This paper provides an argument for why ‘machine induction’ presents no real challenge to the another-agent reply. It further argues that any soft-liner who does not leave room for the existence of some controlling agent(s) in their explanation of why manipulation undermines responsibility will face a dilemma. Thus, instead of presenting a challenge to the another-agent reply, ‘machine induction’ actually presents a reason in support of it.