Methods Conference Paper Abstracts

The Horrifying Self-Driving Vehicles (Haoxuan Dai)

In the year 2045, Coil Automotive Inc., the nation’s leading automobile manufacturer, developed the first level V fully autonomous electric vehicle. In response, the National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) immediately issued a ban on the production of this type of vehicle due to “serious ethical concerns”. The passage presents a series of exchanges of letters between the two parties. In a complaint letter, the executive board of the manufacturer requested a detailed explanation of the ban from NHTSA, claiming that autonomous vehicles are far safer than conventional vehicles. In response, the NHTSA stated that the ethical concern is the privation of individual moral agency by corporations. The algorithm of the self-driving vehicles makes the manufacturer the ultimate moral arbitrator on life-and-death issues. The manufacturer argued that individual moral agency should not be given supremacy in moral considerations. Utilitarian calculations should also be applied to determine what reasonable individual expectations are. And society has a right to override unreasonable expectations through the legislative body of the government since the law is the representation of the will of the people in a democracy. In the final letter, the NHTSA argued that even the government cannot possibly resolve this moral dilemma.

On Evaluating Academic Philosophy (Peter Hawes)

What is the value of academic philosophy? In his article “Remarks on Academic Discourse,” Douglas Mann criticizes the academic institution of philosophy for failing to achieve the highest and most valuable goals of the philosophical pursuit. Rather than doing philosophy, he says, most academic philosophers are required to perform mere scholarship. Conversely, in his article “The Schoolman's Advocate: In Defence of the Academic Pursuit of Philosophy,” J.L.H. Thomas argues that academic philosophy is valuable for the manner in which it preserves the very possibility of the philosophical pursuit. For Thomas, academic philosophy works to maintain a high level of discourse and transmission of ideas between both colleagues and successive generations of students. Between these two opposing evaluations of academic philosophy, I argue for a stance in the middle. Rather than opting for one of these over the other, I contend that academic philosophy be seen as a fundamentally incomplete form of philosophical activity, yet one that is valuable in its own right. I conclude by conceding that the specific form this reconciliation will take is something each academic philosopher will have to sort out for themselves.

The Self-Predication Assumption in Plato’s Theory of the Forms (Gabby Raymond)

In the Parmenides, the Platonic Forms face fatal consequences due to the self-predication assumption (SP), which states that: “any form F-ness is also itself F.” Though SP is consistently implied throughout his dialogues, it is never explicitly stated or clarified by Plato. In this paper, I will offer an alternative interpretation of SP by suggesting that Plato was expressing identity instead of predication. I begin by examining a few alleged examples of Plato implying SP. I then introduce and explain the problems that follow SP, including the “Third Man Argument” found in the Parmenides. Next, I explain the difference between the identity sense of “is” and the predicative sense. I then apply the identity sense to SP and instead interpret it as an identity assumption, or IA. I will find that IA, when applied to the forms and the TMA, solves the problems that arise due to SP and is more compatible with other essential features of the forms. Lastly, I consider potential objections to my suggestion and conclude that, despite unknown possible complications, IA is supported by more explicit evidence than SP, solves the problems that arise due to SP, and is overall more compatible with the forms as originally envisioned by Plato.

Is there a fallacy with Plato's notion of justice? (Ryan Silverman)

In his article, "A Fallacy in Plato's Republic", David Sach's will seek to prove that Plato's defense and definition of injustice are ultimately irrelevant to his main goal in the Republic. That is to show that the just man is better off and the unjust man. To accomplish this goal, Sach's attempts to show that there is a fallacy in Plato's conception of justics, by showing he has two different conceptions that fail to connect. I will ultimately reject Sach's conclusion on the basis that he misinterpreted Plato's conception of justic.

Against The Criminal Philosophy of Socrates in The Crito (James Early)

Was Socrates right to claim that he should willingly go to his death in the Crito? I argue that he was not, and use his case as an example for the more general situation of disobedience to the law in the name of justice, also briefly touching on an argument from Kant in the process. In doing so I approach Crito primarily to examine Socrates’s arguments, and not to analyze and interpret the text philologically. I do, however, base my formulation of Socrates’s argument on the analyses crafted by other philosophers as well as the immediate context provided by Plato’s Apology. I take Socrates’s central thesis to be that escape (disobedience) is wrong because it is repaying injustice with injustice, and further take him to make three distinct claims in persecuting this thesis: that disobedience unjustly nullifies laws and threatens political legitimacy, that it is analogous to unjust rebellion against one’s parents and/or master, and that it is an unjust violation of a just agreement. I offer arguments against each of these claims and ultimately conclude that Socrates’s escape would not have been repaying injustice with injustice, that it in fact would have been just, and that therefore neither are acts of disobedience under analogous circumstances wrong or unjust, but are in fact just.

On Pleasure and “Pure Aesthetics” (Spike Cheng)

What makes something an artwork? What role does pleasure play in justifying something to be an artwork? What is “pure aesthetics”? In this dialogue, I start by explicating Kant’s answer to these questions, then point out the essential problem of aesthetical pleasure in Kant’s aesthetic theory by shifting to a Wittgensteinian perspective, claiming that aesthetics is only possible within certain contexts.

Do Judith Thompson and Ian McDaniel Sufficiently Respond to the Tacit Consent Argument? (Leo Piazza)

In A Defense of Abortion, Judith Thompson argues that a fetus being human is insufficient to prove that abortion is morally impermissible. Thompson proceeds to give examples - cases of rape, the mother’s life being endangered etc. - where the woman receiving an abortion would not be morally impermissible. However, at one point, Thompson responds to an anticipated objection where it is argued that because a woman engaged in consensual sex, that this automatically means she is not allowed to receive an abortion. Thompson responds to this objection using two analogies, both of which serve the same purpose: The Burglar analogy and The Peopleseeds analogy. I argue that these analogies are not actually analogous to pregnancy, and that the woman tacitly consented to the pregnancy. McDaniel disagrees with the Tacit Consent argument and provides his own analogy in support of his argument. However, McDaniel’s argument also fails because it is not realistic. Consequently, the Tacit Consent argument is still a legitimate objection to Thompson’s defense of abortion.

Against Physicalism (Will King)

Grounding physicalism is a belief that holds that all things are either a physical property or are grounded in a physical property. In this paper, I will argue that grounding physicalism is insufficient as a metaphysical theory. This is due to the existence of mathematics as a universal, necessary, synthetic, and a priori abstract object that is both non-physical and not grounded in a physical property. I then respond to potential objections to my counterexample of mathematics. Notably, mathematical fictionalists, who claim that math does not exist as a truth-containing entity, fail to semantically account for existential mathematical assertions. I will then conclude with an overview of the paper and the main takeaways.

Meaning and the Poetry as Paraphrase Machine (Bryan Valdes)

Could paraphrase ever be a viable alternative for the experience of reading a poem? Could a paraphrase of a poem be so advanced that there is no longer any added value in reading the original poem? Many people have a natural inclination to say that a poem will never reach this level, that there are some elements of poetry that elude all paraphrase. This claim is called the Incompleteability of Paraphrase, and it is what Gregory Currie and Jacopo Frascoli work to deny in their paper “Poetry and the Possibility of Paraphrase”. However, the argumentation they provide is built on weak foundations, and I have proposed a thought experiment called the Poetry as Paraphrase Machine, which provides more plausible counterexamples to two IP supporting elements of poetry, elusiveness and inexhaustibility. PPM ultimately works to reach the same conclusion, a complete denial of IP.