PEA Soup

Do we have Vague Projects?

Tenenbaum and Raffman (2012) claim that "most of our projects and ends are vague." (p.99)  But I'm not convinced that any plausibly are.  On my own blog, I recently discussed the self-torturer case, and how our interest in avoiding pain is not vague but merely graded.  I think similar things can be said of other putative "vague" projects.

T&R's central example of a vague project is writing a book:

Suppose you are writing a book. The success of your project is vague along many dimensions. What counts as a sufficiently good book is vague, what counts as an acceptable length of time to complete it is vague, and so on. (p.99)

But it strikes me as strange for one's goal to be to reach some vague level of sufficiency.  When I imagine writing a book, my preferences here are graded: each incremental improvement in quality is pro tanto desirable; each reduction in time spent is also pro tanto desirable.  These two goals seem like they should be able to be traded off against each other -- perhaps precisely, or (if they are not perfectly commensurable goods) then perhaps not, but this sort of rough incomparability between two goods is (I take it) not the same as either good itself being vague.

 

I could imagine a cynical person who really doesn't care to improve the quality of their book above a sufficient level.  Perhaps they just want it to be of sufficient quality to earn a promotion, or some other positive social appraisal.  But these desired consequences are even more clearly not vague.

Submissions to Multiple Journals

[UPDATED WITH A CORRECTION] In my recent summer orgy of refereeing, there were two occasions in which it seemed that an author had simultaneously submitted to different places (in one case it turned out I was mistaken). I know there are movements amongst some folks to allow these, but for now they are against most (if not all) philosophy journal policies, for what I take to be pretty good reasons about the time and energy involved in refereeing and editing that could be wasted (I had one former really placid colleague who got so angry about people engaging in this practice that his face turned red and he banged repeatedly on the poker table).

Now the journal editors I contacted about these cases were very grateful for the information and handled the situation swiftly and delicately. My question here is this: What more could be done to prevent this activity? I'm assuming that editors would want there to be a way to check that submissions are only to their journals. So why not some kind of coordinated private wiki, where, say, the title and the first paragraph of the paper are entered when it's received? Or perhaps there are other solutions? Have editors tried anything? Or do they think this is like voter fraud, happening so infrequently that there's no justification for trying to do anything to prevent it? (I hadn't discovered anything like this before, and I've refereed well over 200 papers). I'm especially interested in hearing from actual journal editors. (I'm also interested in whether other referees have made these discoveries, although that's less important here.)

Call for Participants and Discussants: Climate Ethics and Climate Economics

Call for Participation and Discussants

Climate Ethics And Climate Economics: Fat Tails - Imposing and Redistributing Risks
Workshop at the London School of Economics
Convened by Kai Spiekermann and Jonathan Aldred, supported by the ESRC

14-15 September 2016

Accompanied by public lectures given by Prof Pindyck and Prof Gardiner on the evening of the 13th and 15th of September
The third of six ESRC-funded workshops on Climate Ethics and Climate Economics

We are now looking for participants. Priority will be given to participants willing to act as discussants.

Survey: "What Matters to Philosophers?"

Valerie Tiberius (University of Minnesota and APA Central Division President) seeks input from philosophers about what matters to us. We hope you will consider taking the survey below which only takes about 15 mins. Below are her words about the survey and its point.

Dear Colleague,

As chair of a philosophy department at a large state institution (University of Minnesota), I’ve frequently been called upon to defend philosophy and to justify its place in higher education.  This has made me reflect on what really is worth preserving, celebrating, or (possibly) changing about our field.  To this end I want to solicit the views of my philosophy colleagues in a more systematic way than just asking my Facebook friends, which is what drew me to the project of creating a survey. 

I am now writing to ask you to participate in this (fairly short) survey:  “What Matters to Philosophers”.  Please click the link below to take the survey, or copy it into the location bar of your web browser:

 http://z.umn.edu/PhilosophySurvey

The point of this survey is to gather your views regarding what is valuable in your academic discipline, so that we can address questions about philosophy’s future and its role in the academy on the basis of values we share as a community.

New Methods of Ethics 1 Programme

HERE is the programme of the first New Methods of Ethics Conference, which will be held here at the University of Birmingham in September (15th and 16th). The conference is free and open to all, but please book a place by emailing me ([email protected]) as there are limited places available.  If you have any questions about attending the conference, feel free to email me at any point. The programme for the second conference in January will follow shortly.

The Morality of Library Fines

My local library fines its patrons ten cents per overdue book per day. They will let you continue to borrow books as long as your fine balance is less than $10. As an academic, I sort of think of library fines as a cost of doing business, and I frequently carry a balance in library fines of a few dollars. (To be clear: I mostly incur these fines on books taken out for pleasure reading. What I mean is that I don’t have a moralistic attitude about my library fines.) Since there are no interest charges or time limits, I can carry such a balance for months on end. I’m following the rules, not cheating anyone, and I have never felt bad about my habit of being a few bucks in debt to the library.

WiNE Program Out!

From Mark Timmons:

The 2017 Program for the 8^th annual Arizona Workshop in Normative Ethics is now available here. Registration is free and open to all. You may register to attend here. I will send periodic updates to those who register.

Information about the Westward Look resort (where the workshop will be held) and about travel and accommodations is available on the workshop website. I hope you will join us this January.

Ethics Discussion at PEA Soup: Joshua Gert's "A Fitting End to the Wrong Kind of Reason Problem," with a critical précis by Justin D'Arms and Daniel Jacobson

Welcome to what we expect will be a very interesting discussion of Joshua Gert's "A Fitting End to the Wrong Kind of Reason Problem." The paper is published in the most recent edition of Ethics and is available through open access here. Justin D'Arms and Daniel Jacobson have kindly agreed to contribute a critical précis, and it appears immediately below. Please join in the discussion!

Objective and subjective akrasia

Suppose that there is both an objective ‘ought’ and a subjective ‘ought’. Which of these two kinds of ‘ought’ figures in the anti-akrasia principle that it is irrational to do something at the same time as believing that one ought not to do it?

There is a simple of way of understanding the relation between the objective and the subjective ‘ought’ on which the answer to this question is: Both! It is irrational to do something at the same time as believing that one objectively ought not to do it; and it is also irrational to do something at the same time as believing that one subjectively ought not to do it.

(Note: The original version of this post contained a terrible mistake, which was pointed out by Doug Portmore and Jamie Dreier in their comments below. This is an amended version, without the mistake.)

Final Call for Abstracts: 2016 Effective Altruism Global Research Meeting

Location: August 5th to 7th, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract Deadline: July 10th

Contact: [email protected]

Overview
The 2016 Effective Altruism Global Research Meeting is an opportunity for Postgraduate students and early stage academics from a variety of disciplines to present research relevant to Effective Altruism. The meeting will take place on August 5th to 7th, 2016 at UC Berkeley alongside the Effective Altruism Global conference. The meeting will consist of two events, an academic poster session and a number of short oral presentations. Presentations will be awarded to the most exceptional submissions. Participants selected for presentations will still have the option to present a poster.