2nd SPPA Seminar Day 
Saturday 9th October 2004 
University of Glasgow 
69 Oakfield Avenue (Department of Philosophy, Caird Room) 
 
Programme 

11.00-11.30 Registration 

11.30-12.45 The Agent as Cause? 
Markus E. Schlosser (University of St Andrews) 
Response: Ezio Dinucci (University of Edinburgh) 

12.45-13.40 Lunch 

13.40-14.55 The Surveyability Dilemma 
Jim Mawby (University of Glasgow) 
Response: Jean-Louis Hudry (University of Edinburgh) 

14.55-15.10 Break 

15.10-15.20 General Meeting of the SPPA - Election of new member to committee 

15.20-16.35 Kant’s account of treating human beings as ends: perfect duty, imperfect duty and their interrelation. 
Dan Dennis (University of Edinburgh) 
Response: Brian Michael McElwee (University of St Andrews) 

16.35-16.45 Break 

16.45-18.00 Is Lewis' Modal Realism modal realism. 
Ross P Cameron (University of St Andrews) 
Response: Sam Addison (University of Aberdeen) 

18.00 - Post-conference drinks and meal 

http://www.societies.stir.ac.uk/sppa/seminarday2.html

NO FEES

LUNCH ARRANGEMENTS: There will be a conference lunch provided for all conference participants.

POST-CONFERENCE MEAL: All conference participants are encouraged to attend at their own cost (£9.50/head includes starter & main). If you wish to come please send me an email ([log in to unmask]) as soon as possible (in case you haven’t done it yet). 

ABSTRACTS FOR PAPERS: 
Markus E. Schlosser  The Agent as Cause. 
When agents act, they bring something about. It is therefore plausible to say that agents cause something, when theyact. According to mainstream philosophy of action and mind, causation by agents consists in causal relations between actions and the agent’s mental states and events; that is, the causal power of the agent is reducible to thecausal powers of agent-involving (mental) states and events. Some philosophers, mostly libertarians and incompatibilists about moral responsibility, reject such a reduction of the agent’s causal power. The central thesis of this agent-causal position is that causation by an agent is causation by a substance.
In this paper I will set aside the question whether causation by a substance is possible. Rather, I will focus on the motives for the defence of agent-causation. Assuming incompatibilism about free will, moral responsibility, and about the ability to choose in the light of reasons, proponents of agent-causation argue that only their theory can provide an adequate account of agency, and that we have therefore good reason to believe in agent-causation.
Assuming that non-causal theories of action and reason-explanation are inadequate, the relevant alternatives to the (non-reductive) agent-causal accounts are (reductive) standard-causal accounts. Proponents of agent-causation argue that the standard-causal theories fail since they cannot account for the required feature of origination. The agent-involving mental states and events that cause the action are themselves caused. And since the causal chains that led to their formation can be traced back to causal factors external to the agent, the agent is never the origin of her actions. According to the agent-causal view, however, the agent is originator, since she is the uncaused cause of her actions. Furthermore, the control of an agent over her actions is according to standard-causal theories restricted to the non-deviant causation of actions by the agent’s mental states and events. But according to agent-causal accounts, human agents have a kind of active control that goes beyond that in virtue of possessing the non-reducible agent-causal power.
I will argue that the agent-causal power does not constitute a kind of control, since its exercise and guidance remains unintelligible. In the case of standard-causal accounts, the exercise of control is guided by the content of the agent’s desires, beliefs and intentions. But there is nothing that could, in a similar fashion, render the exercise of the agent-causal power intelligible. My conclusion is that agent-causal theories do not do any better in illuminating free will, the ability to choose in the light of reasons, and accountability than standard-causal accounts of agency. Given the lack of alternative accounts, this result also casts doubt on libertarianism and incompatibilism about moral responsibility.

Jim Mawby The Surveyability Dilemma. 
Mark Addis (‘Surveyability and the sorities paradox’, Philosophia Mathematica (3), Vol. 3. 1995) has suggested that the epistemological aspects of the notion of surveyability will cause trouble for the strict finitist construal of a foundation for mathematics. Addis maintains that the question as to whether a person can survey a proof at a certain time even if they are not thinking about it at that time presents a dilemma for the strict finitist: if she claims that the question has a determinate answer, Addis asserts that she is committed to an undesirable counterfactual realism. If she responds instead that there is no determinate answer, Addis suggests that the notion of surveyability will be too drastically reduced in application to be of any use. 
I consider Addis’ counterfactual analysis carefully, and argue that neither horn of the dilemma is particularly sharp; on the one hand I argue that counterfactual realism does not seem obviously undesirable for counterfactuals involving surveyability, and on the other that Addis is guilty of a kind of scope ambiguity.

Dan Dennis  Kant’s account of treating human beings as ends: perfect duty, imperfect duty and their interrelation. 
The similarities and differences between perfect and imperfect duties are explored. It is shown that imperfect duties are not weak or second-rate duties and that one must do one’s perfect and imperfect duty simultaneously. This means that the accounts that one adopts of what constitutes perfection and what brings happiness, must be such that when acting on them: one promotes happiness and perfection whilst never reducing the dignity & humanity of any human being. This provides a constraint on one’s decision regarding which accounts of perfection and happiness to adopt, with any account that fails to satisfy this constraint being dismissed.

Ross Cameron Is Lewis' Modal Realism modal realism.
In this paper I discuss and develop the modal irrelevance objection to Lewis' modal realism. The objection, put forward by van Inwagen and Michael Jubien, says that Lewis' modal realism is unjustified so long as it leaves unanswered the question 'what do Lewisian worlds have to do with modality?'
I argue that the modal irrelevance objection is one that Lewis does indeed have to answer and which, as a matter of necessity, he cannot answer; and as such, Lewisian realism cannot be justified. There is an obvious parallel between the modal irrelevance objection and Moore's open question objection to naturalism, and many would view that as a reason to disregard the modal irrelevance objection. I offer a way of understanding these objections which avoids the usual rejoinders to them; I understand them as methodological challenges - as attempting to challenge the justification for a theory rather than attempting to expose some internal adequacy of the theory.
So understood, Moore is challenging the naturalists basis for believing their theory, and van Inwagen and Jubien are challenging Lewis' basis for believing his. As I develop it, the objection is this: Lewis asks us to believe in modal realism because of the benefits the theory has if it is true. One of those benefits is that it offers a reduction of modal notions to non-modal notions. This is only a benefit if Lewis' theory is a realist theory of modality (in a sense to be explained): for otherwise the theory does not give a reduction of the modal to the non-modal but instead eliminates the modal in favour of the non-modal. But one will only believe that Lewisian realism is a realist theory of modality if one believes that there is the right sort of connection (again: to be explained) between modal facts and facts about Lewisian worlds. And, I argue, one will only believe this if one is a Lewisian realist.
The crux of the argument then is that there is a vicious methodological circularity in Lewis' arguments for his modal realism. Lewisian realism is only warranted if it affords the benefits Lewis claims of it. But one only has warrant to believe that it does afford such benefits if one has warrant to believe in modal realism. Hence, one must have a warranted belief in modal realism in order to acquire a warranted belief in modal realism; and hence warrant for modal belief is unobtainable.
Crucial to the argument is the claim that Lewisian realism is only a realist position on modality if one is a modal realist. I attempt to establish this by adopting a variant of the definition of realism given by Michael Devitt. Devitt defines realism about the Fs as the doctrine that Fs exist and are mind-independent. But this makes anti-realism about mental entities trivially true. I give an alternative characterisation: realism about the Fs is the doctrine that the Fs exist and that they do not constitutively depend on the wrong kind on thing. Lewisian realism is modal realism, then, iff facts about worlds are the right type of facts for modal facts to depend upon. This is what the modal irrelevance objection questions, and what I argue only the Lewisian realist should accept.


All welcome!

Best wishes,
Dimitris Platchias