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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Tyler Colby Re (2026) “The Art of Work in Kant’s Critique of Judgment”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 28, 1–16. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

There is a general impression among Kant scholars that Kant has no robust theory of work. Most of his references to the topic appear in his historical and anthropological writings, where he tells us that work is burdensome, and valuable only for the sake of whatever we produce. In this paper, I argue that Kant has an under-explored theory of work in the third Critique. This theory bears little resemblance to his depiction of work in the historical and anthropological writings. The third Critique will depict work as self-expressive, creative, and free, features Kant will go on to associate with art. Kant's contention is that when work resembles art, it is both agreeable and something we enjoy for its own sake. However, when work fails to resemble art – when it is, in Kant's words, natural, scientific, and mercenary – it is both disagreeable and constrained, and begins to sound like his description of work from the historical and anthropological writings. Kant's theory of work in the third Critique has a number of important implications. The first is that it provides a new foundation for a contemporary philosophy of work that places freedom and creativity at the center of the labor process. My analysis also engages a part of Kant scholarship that has, until recently, been largely neglected. It is only in the last decade that the English-language Kant literature has taken up the question of how to make sense of Kant's remarks about work. However, the focus is rarely on Kant's aesthetic theory of work, but rather on the place of work in his moral and political philosophy. I discuss the implications of Kant's third Critique theory of work for these other debates, as well as for our understanding of the third Critique as a whole.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Bart Streumer (2026) “How Berkeley Can Go Quasi and Lose His Mind-Dependence”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 27, 1–17. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Berkeley defends idealism partly by taking ordinary objects such as tables and stones to consist of ideas. Materialists reject this account of ordinary objects. I argue that Berkeley can undermine this rejection by making quasi-realist moves of the kind that many expressivists about normativity make. This ultimately results in a version of idealism that we cannot believe, since trying to believe it will make us believe materialism. But I argue that this version of idealism may nevertheless be true.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Michael Towson Hicks (2026) “A Practitioner's Guide to Pragmatic Humeanism”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 26, 1–18. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

All Humeans hold, roughly, that laws are informative summaries of non-lawful matters of fact. Pragmatic Humeans go further: for them, what makes these summaries the laws is their usefulness to agents like us. By adding elements of our specific epistemic interests and constraints, pragmatists contend, we can arrive at satisfying explanations of otherwise surprising features of our actual laws and our actual scientific practice. But the pragmatic shift is not without problems. The more elements of our particular psychology we add to our nomic formula, the more susceptible we are to idealistic ratbaggery. Intuitively, what can or must happen does not depend on our particular cognitive architecture: we cannot change the laws by changing us. But if laws are distinguished from accidents by features of our psychology, then changes in our psychology might lead to differences in what the laws of nature allow. My aim here is to clarify the role of pragmatic constraints, and thereby respond to this challenge from creeping idealism. My strategy has two parts. First, I argue that pragmatic constraints determine the laws only indirectly, by generating a nomic formula that itself makes no reference to agents. Second, I discuss what sorts of agents are agents like us. I argue that pragmatists should appeal to a particular sort of idealized agent, one whose specific limitations and interests have been idealized away.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Jordan MacKenzie (2026) “Fear and Loathing in Silicon Valley: Does AI Threaten our Valuing Practices?”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 25, 1–13. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

We often have a visceral negative reaction to the prospect of AI taking over our creative activities or being used to demonstrate care and concern. What justifies this reaction? In this paper, I argue that AI raises two existential threats to our valuing practices. The first existential threat is forward-looking—when we offload our labor onto AI, we risk flattening our valuing landscape, turning activities and products that could have once been valued for the meaningful processes that resulted in their creation into things that can only be valued for their functionality. The second threat is backward-looking—AI forces us to reckon with the valuing discord that already exists in our lives. When we see that other people don’t care about whether the art or writing they’re consuming is AI-produced, we must reckon with the fact that they never shared in our valuing practices.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Charles Goldhaber (2026) “Mechanisms for Hume's Skepticism”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 24, 1–13. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

What happens to a mind that embraces skepticism? On familiar classical and contemporary accounts, it suspends judgment about the matters skepticism calls into question. For Hume, such suspension can occur only temporarily. He claims that skepticism's more enduring effect is weaker: it lowers the vivacity of, and thus our confidence in, beliefs, typically leaving commonplace ones intact. Hume's associationism offers at least two explanatory mechanisms for this effect, one doxastic and one emotional. In the doxastic mechanism, causal reasoning about our failures in reasoning decreases the vivacity of beliefs formed through reasoning. In the emotional mechanism, appreciating our cognitive failures diminishes certain passions, and with them the vivacity of beliefs otherwise augmented by those passions, especially pride. Understanding these mechanisms not only resolves exegetical puzzles about Hume's apparently flippant attitudes toward skepticism, but also provides a psychologically rich picture of how minds might self-correct without exaggeration.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New article: Daniel Wodak “Discrimination & Disadvantage”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 12. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Victims of discrimination are often disadvantaged. Are they necessarily disadvantaged? Many say so: “in discriminating against someone, one is necessarily acting to the disadvantage of that someone” (Gardner 2018: 67); “discrimination against someone simply is disadvantageous differential treatment” (Lippert-Rasmussen 2013: 15). The connection between discrimination and disadvantage is also supposed to play two significant explanatory roles. That you are disadvantaged by the differential treatment of you and me is meant to explain why it was discrimination against you rather than me; and that discrimination necessarily involves disadvantage is meant to unify direct and indirect discrimination. Drawing on cases from the opioid epidemic, I aim to challenge this received view about the connection between discrimination and disadvantage.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New article: Sonya Ringer “Violence and Reproductive Projects”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 13. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

What is wrong with violence? This paper explores an under-recognized aspect of violence: its moral significance for parents. For many parents, raising children is part of what gives meaning, structure, and shape to their lives and senses of self—it is a reproductive project. I offer a substantive account of projects which explains their role in our moral lives; and I argue that we have an obligation not to undermine the permissible projects of others without good reasons. Violence harms children and thereby undermines the reproductive projects which they are central to. Thus, violence fails our obligation and is a pro tanto wrong in part for this reason. This is particularly salient to mothers who, taking a global and historical perspective, perform the vast majority of reproductive work. This account has revisionary implications for the autonomy of adult children, self-defense, criminal sanction, and the waging of war.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New article: Emilia Lynette Wilson “Eroticised Refusal Narratives and Perspectival Rape Myths”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 14. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

It is common to see fictional depictions in which one character rejects another's sexual advances but, when their refusal is ignored or overpowered, they seemingly surrender to passion. I term these depictions, which frame this overcoming of refusal as a seduction, eroticised refusal narratives. This paper concerns how these narratives may be harmful: I develop a novel analysis of how these depictions may obstruct recognition of sexual violence. Feminist theorists have long argued that such depictions may promote rape myths and legitimise sexual violence. However, this work has largely neglected scholarship in aesthetics on the persuasive power of narrative. This paper remedies this oversight, analysing how these narratives frame sexual refusal, and connecting research on narrative in aesthetics to social research on 'rape myths'. I draw on the idea that narrative fiction may equip us with new 'perspectives', an open-ended suite of interpretive dispositions, and argue that eroticised refusal narratives prescribe a perspective on which overcoming sexual refusal is erotic and excusable. I then suggest that these narratives may operate as a kind of illustrative example which 'exemplifies' this perspective, enabling viewers to export it. On this proposal, these narratives are exemplars of a standard 'script' for seduction. This perspective obstructs recognition of sexual violence, by disposing one to notice and produce excuses for ignoring sexual refusal: it thereby operates as an implicit, perspectival rape myth.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New article: Zach Thornton “The Identity of Necessary Indiscernibles”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 15. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

I propose a novel metaphysical explanation of identity and distinctness facts called the Modal Proposal. According to the Modal Proposal, for each identity fact – that is, each fact of the form a=b – that fact is metaphysically explained by the fact that it is necessary that the entities involved are indiscernible, and for each distinctness fact –that is, each fact of the form a≠b – that fact is metaphysically explained by the fact that it is possible for the entities involved to be discernible. I argue that the Modal Proposal has greater payoffs at less cost than any of its competitors. It gives simple, uniform, and intuitive explanations of identity and distinctness that conserve longstanding philosophical insights about identity that go back to Leibniz. It does this while making our fundamental base more parsimonious, determining whether controversial cases of identity or distinctness are possible, and expanding our understanding of these central philosophical relations. It does all this while avoiding controversial ontological commitments.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New article: Chien-hsing Ho “The Interdependence of All Things”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 16. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

The concept of the interdependence of all things appears across Eastern and Western philosophical traditions. Jizang (549−623 CE), a prominent Chinese Madhyamaka Buddhist philosopher, contends that all objects are established by virtue of their mutual dependence. He endorses what can be termed “the interdependence thesis”—the view that the referents of complementary concepts or words are interdependent. In this paper, I clarify this thesis and characterize Jizang’s ontology as a form of metaphysical nonrealism. Drawing on this ontology, I construct an argument for the plausibility of the interdependence thesis. I also respond to several objections to the argument.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New article: Peter van Elswyk “Dissolving the Paradox of Ineffability”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 17. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Sentences like ⌜δ is indescribable⌝ appear to state that the speaker is unable to do what the speaker just did. This is known as the paradox of ineffability. An explanation for how such sentences can be true is widely thought to be a pre-requisite for showing the coherence of ineffability. This paper offers a dissolution of the paradox. I argue that the relevant sentences are always false. However, I show that the falsity of such sentences does not entail that ineffability is incoherent. That ⌜δ is indescribable⌝ can never be truthfully said does not entail that ineffability cannot be coherently explicated.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New article: Eric Schwitzgebel and Jeremy Pober “The Copernican Argument for Alien Consciousness; The Mimicry Argument Against Robot Consciousness”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 18. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

On broadly Copernican grounds, we are entitled to assume that apparently behaviorally sophisticated extraterrestrial entities ("aliens") would be conscious. Otherwise, we humans would be inexplicably, implausibly lucky to have consciousness, while similarly behaviorally sophisticated entities elsewhere would be mere shells, devoid of consciousness. However, this Copernican default assumption is canceled in the case of behaviorally sophisticated entities designed to mimic superficial features associated with consciousness ("consciousness mimics"), and in particular a broad class of current, near-future, and hypothetical robots. These considerations, which we formulate, respectively, as the Copernican and Mimicry Arguments, jointly defeat an otherwise potentially attractive parity principle, according to which we should apply the same types of behavioral or cognitive tests to aliens and robots, attributing or denying consciousness similarly to the extent they perform similarly. Instead of grounding speculations about alien and robot consciousness in metaphysical or scientific theories about the physical or functional bases of consciousness, our approach appeals directly to the epistemic principles of Copernican mediocrity and inference to the best explanation. This permits us to justify default assumptions about consciousness while remaining to a substantial extent neutral about specific metaphysical and scientific theories.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New article: Rafeeq Hasan “Poverty and Structural Injustice in (and beyond) Kant’s Theory of Right”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 19. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Kant argues that states should tax the rich to provide for the poor. Commentators have long struggled to reconcile this claim with Kant's staunch freedom-based defense of property rights. Poverty obviously hinders the poor's welfare, but why does Kant think it violates their freedom? This paper presents a new answer to this question and shows the relevance of that answer to contemporary debates about economic inequality. Against the widely-held view that, for Kant, poverty violates freedom because it allows rich people to dominate poor people, I argue that Kant understands poverty as a structural injustice which arises when the poor cannot participate in the institutions of ownership necessary for free interaction. A Kantian account of structural injustice, I maintain, can speak across the contemporary divide between libertarians and egalitarians. Such an account can do so because it is based on the value of freedom, which both sides share.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New article: Anthony Nguyen “Colonial Injustice and Self-Respect”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 20. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

What explains the necessary wrong of colonialism? I argue that colonial institutions unfairly treat the colonized as if they are moral inferiors, which consequently diminishes colonized peoples' social bases of self-respect. Because colonizers politically subjugate colonized peoples, colonial institutions permeate colonized peoples' basic structures of society. But colonial institutions degradingly treat the colonized as moral inferiors. So, these institutions unjustly diminish colonized individuals' social bases of self-respect. This result shows that, contra some recent philosophical discussion, colonialism is necessarily wrong for substantive—as opposed to merely procedural—reasons. After replying to several objections, I argue that my self-respect approach is superior to Stilz's (2019), Ypi's (2013), and Ferguson and Veneziani's (2021) accounts of colonialism's necessary wrong. Finally, I describe my view's implications for future work on just war theory, self-determination, and social oppression.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New article: Gabby Xin Zhang “Inquiry and The Inquiring Way”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 21. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Suppose Sally wants to know whether Matt will be in his office tomorrow and proceeds to answer her question by locking Matt in his office. Is this a case of successful inquiry? This paper develops the Right Way Account of inquiry that respects an intuitive “no”. According to the Right Way Account, the constitutive goal of inquiry is to acquire knowledge (or some related epistemic state) in the right way, specifically, the inquiring way. For a question-answering activity to constitute a case of inquiry, the inquirer must attempt to come to know the answer without intentionally causing an answer to be true so as to know. The upshot of my argument is that epistemology of inquiry has erred in assuming that the goal of inquiry is merely coming to be in a particular state. Instead, the goal of inquiry is coming to be in a particular state in a particular way. Accordingly, the inquiring way is indispensable to theorizing the nature of inquiry.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New article: Reza Hadisi “Imagination and Its Object: Recovering Suhrawardī’s Suspended Images”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 22. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

In this paper, I offer a modern adaptation of a theory of imagination that we can find in the writings of Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī (1154–1191) and his followers in the Ishrāqī tradition (‘illuminationism’). I turn to this philosophical tradition because it offers a rare historical example of a type of theory that treats imagination as a primary source of knowledge. That is, on the Ishrāqī account, even an ideal human knower must know certain things via imagination. What I offer is a ‘modern adaptation’ of the theory in that I try to extract the theory of imagination from the cosmological and theological framework of the Ishrāqī thought. The resulting theory is still Ishrāqī in that it relies on a unique form of Platonism about knowledge that, I suggest, we can find in Suhrawardī’s writings. Finally, I discuss how the reconstructed Ishrāqī conception of imaginative knowledge is especially appealing as a theory of moral knowledge.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

New article: Maria Waggoner “The Agentic Value of Intrusive Thoughts”, Philosophers' Imprint 26: 23. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

This paper investigates the relationship between the content of one's intrusive thoughts—such as intentionally swerving into oncoming traffic—and one's values. I first consider two approaches that are already on the table within empirical and philosophical literature – either one's intrusive thoughts indicate a moral failure of the person who has them, or they are to be seen as noise and to be disregarded. After pointing out problems with these approaches, I propose another avenue which builds on the finding that intrusive thoughts often occur in situations of increased uncertainty and social isolation when our agency would otherwise be threatened. By employing a social account of agency, I suggest that some instances of intrusive thoughts could play the role of an 'other.' Under this proposal, at least some intrusive thoughts would serve a surprising function of helping us to manifest our values and uphold our agency.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

The landing page has been restored. You can once again go to philosophersimprint.org to see our journal.

philosophersimprint.org

Philosophers' Imprint

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

We are having some technical issues with the philosophersimprint.org redirect page. The main journal site at journals.publishing.umich.edu/phimp/ is still working, but the redirect needs work. We are working on a fix.

journals.publishing.umich.edu

Philosophers' Imprint

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

New article: Saba Bazargan-Forward, "Compensation and Necessity in War", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 3. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

I argue that morally justified harms collaterally inflicted on civilians in war can yield compensatory duties – and that a failure to compensate post bellum renders in bello attacks retroactively unjust. Such attacks are unjust on the grounds that they violate the constraint of necessity, in the following way: the option of attacking-and-compensating is less harmful relative to the option of attacking-and-not-compensating (and typically no less effective at achieving the war’s aims). In making this point, I argue that we should evaluate the candidate courses of actions diachronically – that is, in a way that mereologically conjoins the ex ante attacks with ex post compensation. I then argue that a foreseeable risk of failing to compensate post bellum can affect the evidence-relative moral liability of those engaged in the in bello attacks. The upshot is that the moral significance of compensation for rights-infringements in war is not limited to jus post bellum, but also has profound effects on jus ad bellum and jus in bello. The US and select allies are in a position, even now, to affect the moral status of some of the military operations undertaken in the Middle East over the past two decades, by deciding whether to compensate those civilians whose rights were infringed. Neglecting to do so retroactively transforms tragic but potentially justified rights-infringements into gratuitously unjustified rights-violations. I end the article by addressing several practical quandaries that such a view seems to raise.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

New article: Dominic McIver Lopes, "Rasa, Self, and Love in Bhoja", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 1. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Rasa, or aesthetic emotion, is a central concern of South Asian philosophy. Bhoja, writing in the eleventh century, crafted a unique and intriguing theory of rasa as fundamentally the artistic expression of love. Love, for Bhoja, is a capacity for sensitive attention that grounds self-making and self-awareness. The reason we have to engage with works of art is that they equip us to be who we are.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

New article: Anna-Bella Sicilia, "Love, Fairness, and Sharing a Life", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 2. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

According to a long philosophical tradition and a potent kernel of common sense, loving partnerships are governed by affection and care, and so not properly evaluated by standards of justice or fairness. In this paper I precisify and challenge this idea. I argue that love and fairness are unified in the sense that some partners are only able to perform particular act-types (loving and expressing love) if their actions are sensitive to considerations of fairness. When loving acts are aimed at “sharing a life”, we properly evaluate more-basic acts of sharing–where this concerns their adherence to standards of fairness–as a way of evaluating them as complex acts of loving. Life-sharing offers an attractive feminist ideal of love, immune to concerns about the alleged imposition of fairness-related considerations where they don’t belong.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

New article: Alex Gregory, "Take In Your Hen: Fittingness and Hedonic Adaptation", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 4. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Humans have a strong tendency to hedonically adapt to their circumstances, so that something that once brought joy eventually brings only indifference. Does this tendency guarantee a kind of failure on our part? Happiness, like other emotions, seems subject to evaluation in terms of its fittingness. But it’s not clear how hedonic adaptation could possibly maintain fittingness: it involves changing one’s level of happiness in a way that doesn’t track the absolute goodness of one’s circumstances. This paper mounts a defence of hedonic adaptation against this concern. It does so by articulating a key difference between the scale of happiness and the scale of goodness, and shows how that difference guarantees an inability to track absolute levels of goodness with our levels of happiness. Given this background constraint, hedonic adaptation may be the most appropriate way for our happiness to change over time.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

New article: Mikayla Kelley, "The Normative Function of Intentional Action", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 5. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

This essay identifies a normative function of the concept of intentional action. Specifically, I argue that the concept of intentional action functions to focus our evaluative concern on some doings rather than others. It acts as a proxy for evaluative priority. Two arguments are offered for this thesis. First, we need a concept that functions to focus evaluative concern, and the concept of intentional action exhibits features we'd expect from a concept with this prioritizing function. Second, the thesis is explanatorily powerful: it explains in a unified manner a number of puzzling features of intentional action, including the Knobe effect, the threshold of sufficient control governing intentional action, disagreement over whether knowledge is required for intentional action, cultural variation in ascription of intentionality, and the radical pluralism of ways that intentional action manifests. This second argument also shows what can be gained by attending to the functions of our concepts of agency.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

New article: David Owens, "Authority and Agreement: The Case of Employment", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 6. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Employers exercise directive authority over their employees; they can issue binding orders and enforce those orders by way of various administrative sanctions. It is generally agreed that this authority is legitimate only when the employee has consented to employment but it turns out that vindicating this idea requires a careful analysis both of the kind of authority employers claim over their employees and of the kind of agreement involved in a contract of employment. It also requires getting clear on the distinctive rationale that informs the employer-employee relationship. Once this has all been done, we can explain why some of us decline any employment because we wish to 'remain our own boss' whilst many others are happy to be employed provided this is something to which we have agreed.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

New article: Megan Henricks Stotts, "A Behavioral Theory of Social Institutions", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 7. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

When writing about the metaphysics of social institutions, philosophers rightly emphasize that institutions’ existence and nature are “up to us” in a deep and important way. Objects such as insects and stars could exist with the same basic nature in the absence of human activity; governments and religious institutions could not. But my project is to explore what happens if we begin with ways in which institutions are sometimes relatively less “up to us.” This approach points toward a behavioral theory of institutions: institutions are made up of behavior that clusters into copied roles, and the individuals who engage in that behavior, where all of the roles together promote some particular result(s). I develop and apply the theory in detail, and then show how it differs from other views in the literature by eschewing mental states and precluding metaphysical inconsistency.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

New article: Danielle M. Wenner and Derrick F. Gray, "Structural Injustice, Exploitation, and Static Non-Ideal Theory", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 8. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

We argue for two claims in this paper. First, we argue that existing taxonomies of ideal and non-ideal theory must be expanded. While non-ideal theory is often thought to be transitional in nature - that is, theorizing how agents in structurally unjust circumstances should act so as to bring about a more just state of affairs - we show that some non-ideal theory is in fact static. Static non-ideal theory attempts to guide the actions of individuals while taking background structural injustice as a kind of fixed point, or as a "backdrop" against which individuals can try to ethically interact. Second, we argue that notwithstanding the intentions of theorists, static non-ideal theory often serves ideological purposes by functioning to reinforce the (unjust) status quo. Throughout, we use theoretical debates about exploitation as illustrative of the phenomenon under discussion.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

New article: Heather Demarest and Isaac Wilhelm, "Three Ontological Options for the Laws of the Best System", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 9. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

What, ontologically speaking, are best system laws? Should the laws of the best system account be identified with sentences, or propositions, or perhaps something else? These questions differ from more familiar questions about which criteria we should use to pick out the best system laws: regardless of whether laws are picked out using simplicity, informativeness, tractability, predictability, perfect naturalness, or whatever, there remains the question of what, ontologically, the best system laws are. But very little has been written on this issue; and what has been written is often ambiguous. So in this paper, we present and evaluate three ontological options for best system laws: taking them to be sentences, unstructured propositions, and structured propositions. Surprisingly, the two most cited options—sentences and unstructured propositions—face significant problems. Defenders of the best system account might want to take seriously the idea that best system laws are structured propositions.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

New article: Alexander Roberts, "Speaking for Haecceitists", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 10. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Haecceitism is the thesis that some truths are not necessitated by the qualitative truths. In this paper I explore a general argument that purports to establish that haecceitism leads to objectionably 'cheap' violations of determinism. In response to this argument, I develop a novel position that combines considerations from metaphysics and the philosophy of language to secure the compatibility of haecceitism and determinism. This position has important parallels to the way haecceitism has been developed within counterpart theory, but, crucially, it makes no use of counterpart theory itself.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

New article: Rose Ryan Flinn, "The Unity of Pictorial Experience", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 11. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Seeing-in is the experience of seeing something in a picture. This experience is present to the subject as a single, unified experience. It is not like the disjoint experience of visualizing something into a scene that one perceives. This is so despite the fact that, like the latter experience, seeing-in is twofold: it involves being visually aware of two distinct objects – an array of ink-marks, on the one hand, and the depicted scene, on the other. Plausibly, it also involves being aware of them in two distinct ways: while we see the ink-marks before us, our manner of visual awareness of the depicted object is not perceptual. In the first half of this paper, I offer an account of the subject’s sense of experiential unity in the face of twofoldness. In the paper’s second half, I demonstrate how my account of unity forces a considerable reconfiguration of the space of possible theories of seeing-in.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: Nicolai Knudsen, “Groups and Second-Person Competence”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 51. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Some moral philosophers argue that we hold others and ourselves morally responsible for acting on second-personal reasons. This article connects this idea with the emerging literature on the moral responsibility of groups by exploring in which sense, if any, groups can be held accountable for acting on second-personal reasons. On the developed view, groups are second-personally competent if and only if they possess capacities for sympathy, acting on that sympathy, and related self-reactive attitudes. Focusing especially on loosely structured groups without unifying decision-making procedures, the article goes on to argue that the required group-level capacities can be realized through the interdependent exercise of member-level capacities.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: Shawn Tinghao Wang, “What Is Counterproductive About Angry Blame?”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 50. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Theorists are divided concerning the productivity of angry blame. Some argue that it has tremendous instrumental values or serves crucial social functions. But some argue that it is counterproductive, and we should thereby eliminate, or drastically revise, blame as a kind of moral practice. In this paper, I raise a new counterproductivity critique of angry blame. In contrast to the existing critiques, my critique does not rely on a negative characterization of blame’s content or functionality. I suggest that angry blame serves two positive social functions—a function of issuing a moral protest and a function of initiating and facilitating a moral dialogue. However, for these two functions to work optimally, they require different psychological stances in tension with each other. Angry blame is thus counterproductive, not because it is inherently bad, but because it is designed to do too much.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: Samuel Reis-Dennis, “Blame's Topography: Standing on Uneven Ground”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 49. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Attempts to illuminate the nature of “blame” have shaped recent philosophical discussion of free will and moral responsibility. In this paper I show how, in at least one context, this search for a theory of blame has led us astray. Specifically, I focus on the contemporary debate about the “standing” to blame and argue, first, that theorizing about blame-in-general in this context has assumed an impoverished moral psychology that fails to reflect the range of blaming emotions and that conflates these emotions’ distinctive logics; and, second, that such theorizing has encouraged the propagation of misleading theories of blame’s “norms.” Rather than searching for the nature of blame, I employ and defend an alternative methodological approach that focuses on the psychology and ethics of specific reactive emotions. I then show how an agent’s own bad behavior can alter the appropriateness of these various attitudes in distinctive ways. Marking these distinctions leads to some surprising conclusions. For example, it allows us to move beyond the assumption that the wrongness of standingless blame is fundamentally a matter of hypocrisy.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: Jonathan Brink Morgan, “Non-Inferential Knowledge of Perception”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 48. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Those who take visual perception to be transparent face a puzzle: How does one know that she sees given that seeing is not itself an object of awareness? Most solutions to this puzzle are inferentialist in that they claim that one comes to believe that she sees on the basis of a belief that she has about the extra-mental environment. In this paper, I argue for a non-inferential alternative. I show that extant inferentialist accounts are committed to the claim that the contents of vision are inexpressible—quite literally, you can never say what you see. In light of this, I develop a non-inferential solution to the above puzzle that avoids the problem of inexpressibility. Rather than an inferential transition, I suggest that one may simply transition from the having of (but not an awareness of!) a particular visual experience to the belief that she sees thus-and-such. Properly understood, this non-inferential transition is perfectly reliable, always issuing in true belief, thereby underwriting one’s knowledge that she sees.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: Christopher Register “The Depth of the Body”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 47. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

A person's body is extended in space, and parts of their body occupy spatial regions. In that way, the body has a dimension of breadth in space. Yet, there is another, less appreciated dimension of the body: its depth. Roughly speaking, the depth of the body is the level of abstraction of its parts. Characteristically, and in particular for moral purposes, the depth of the body is rather high-level. Low-level objects and properties, such as individual molecules, do not really fall within the purview of the moral body--the body as it figures in various morally significant rights and interests. As I will argue, the depth of the body becomes more salient and relevant when people come to have partly digital embodiments, such as when brain-computer interfaces are integrated into their bodily processes. The dimension of depth, it turns out, is crucial for properly understanding the moral significance of brain-computer interfaces. Here, I develop a theory of depth to complement existing theories of the body and use it to improve our understanding of the purview of bodily rights and interests.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New post: Richard Healey, & Angie Pepper, “Pets, Power, and Legitimacy”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 46. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

This article argues that the relations of social and political power that obtain between humans and pets are illegitimate. We begin by showing that pets, a largely neglected population in political philosophy, are subject to socially and politically organised power, which stands in need of justification. We then argue that pets have three moral complaints against the relations of power to which they are subject. First, our power over pets disrespects their moral independence: the fact that they are not simply available to be used to serve the interests or projects of others. Second, our power over pets systematically sets back their interests in exercising control over their own body, actions, and environment. Third, in subjecting pets to asymmetric relations of power in which they are heavily dependent on humans for the satisfaction of their interests, we subject them to objectionable risks of harm. Together, these complaints support our thesis that the power relations central to the insitution of pet keeping are illegitimate. The practical upshot is that we have a strong moral reason to abolish this institution.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: John D. Proios, “Identity and Difference in Kind: The Metaphysics of Pleasure at the Beginning of Plato’s Philebus”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 45. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: Devin Lane, “Expert Disagreement and the Duty to Vote”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 44. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

In this paper, I argue that widespread expert disagreement about sufficiently many issues central to a democratic decision-making procedure can nullify the duty to vote. I begin by drawing a distinction between different ways that we might conceive of the duty to vote, i.e. whether it is a duty to vote, no matter how one votes, or a duty to vote well. I then review some prominent arguments in favor of the existence of the duty to vote and suggest that they go through only when the potential voter in question would vote well. So the most promising existing arguments for the duty to vote, if successful, really show not merely that citizens have a duty to vote, but more strongly that they have a duty to vote well. I then discuss the epistemology of expert disagreement to show how circumstances of expert disagreement can nullify such a duty by making it impossible to vote well. To my knowledge, no one has yet brought considerations of the epistemology of expert disagreement to bear on this topic. That is my aim in the main argument of this paper. The remainder of the paper addresses alternative characterizations of 'voting well,' and argues that on other plausible characterizations, expert disagreement will still often nullify the duty to vote.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: S. Baron, H. Beebee, D. Braddon-Mitchell, A. Eagle, & K. Miller, (2025) “How much did each of the authors of this paper causally contribute to its writing?”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 43. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Some philosophers argue that in order to accommodate a range of our practices we must suppose that causation is not an all or nothing matter: it comes in degrees. We argue for two key claims. First, we can accommodate these practices without positing degree theoretic causation, and we can do so by appealing to various things that clearly do admit of degrees. So, positing causation by degree is unnecessary. Second, not only is positing degree theoretic causation unnecessary, but in fact there is no single thing, causation by degree, that could play the role required of it if it is to accommodate these practices. Thus, we conclude, there is no motivation to posit degree theoretic causation that arises from consideration of these practices.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: Ezra Rubenstein, “Conjunction as Identity”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 42. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

How do conjunctions relate to their conjuncts? How, for example, does <Snow is white and grass is green> relate to the propositions <Snow is white> and <Grass is green>? This paper explores the unorthodox answer that conjunctions are identical to their conjuncts: throwing grammar to the wind, <Snow is white and grass is green> just 'is' the propositions <Snow is white> and <Grass is green>. I suggest two ways of motivating the view (§1), present my preferred formulation of it (§2), discuss some objections (§3), point out some connections to neighboring issues (§4), and finally, consider how it may be extended to a more comprehensive view of logical complexity (§5).

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: Raimund Pils, “Navigating the Meta-Epistemology of the Scientific Realism Debate: In Defense of Truth”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 41. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

This article examines the meta-stance choice in the scientific realism debate. I propose that the epistemological aspect of this debate be reframed within an epistemological framework that views our cognitive activities as a trade-off between believing truths and minimizing errors. I identify two main alternatives to this meta-epistemological framework: firstly, the view that the realism debate involves a voluntary choice between incommensurable stances, such as an empirical and a metaphysical stance; secondly, the notion that stance selection is a result of negotiating between explanatory power and error avoidance. My proposal and the two alternatives have in common that they imply a form of epistemic voluntarism and explain the recurring stalemate in the debate. However, I argue that the presented proposal outclasses the competing perspectives due to its enhanced generality, impartiality, a more comprehensive explanation of the anti-realist sentiment, and its potential to mitigate the recurring stalemate.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: Katharina Stevens, “Standing Norms in Argumentation”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 40. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Normative argumentation theory is a field dedicated to the normative study of argumentation in real-life contexts and to the development of norms meant to guide arguers in the attempt of arguing well. Among argumentation theorists, there exist two widespread assumptions. First, the assumption that ideally, arguers ought to explore the reasons relevant to the topic of their interpersonal arguing without constraints. And second, the assumption that the norms of argumentation should be designed to contribute to the realization of this ideal. In this paper, I question those assumptions. I show that argumentative norms meant to realize the ideal of free exploration, freedom-to-explore norms, reliably clash with morally valuable standing norms that protect privacy, autonomy and legitimate authority. When they so clash, they generate epistemic and other morally relevant harms. I argue that normative argumentation theory ought to resolve this problem by acknowledging the potential legitimacy of standing norms even during argumentation. I show how such a change would impact fallacy theory with respect to the ad hominem and poisoning the well fallacies.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: Chloé de Canson, “Bayesianism and the Inferential Solution to Hume's Problem”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 39. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: Angela Sun, “Can Consent Be Irrevocable?”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 38. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

This article argues that consent must be revocable. I present two arguments for this conclusion. On the argument from informed consent, irrevocable consent lacks validity because it cannot be sufficiently informed. On the argument from bodily integrity, irrevocable consent lacks validity because we do not have the authority to deny our future selves the ability to protect our bodily integrity. I explain why the argument from bodily integrity captures unique moral problems raised by irrevocable consent and illuminates an important but undertheorized distinction between autonomy and bodily integrity.

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Philosophers' Imprint @philimprint.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

New article: Robbie Kubala,“Aesthetic Reactive Attitudes and Artistic Responsibility”, Philosophers' Imprint 25: 37. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

In addition to praising and criticizing works of art, we can and do hold artists responsible for their artistic productions. Building on a suggestion from Susan Wolf, this paper develops a Strawsonian approach to aesthetic responsibility and shows both its attractions and limitations. The proper target of aesthetic reactive attitudes in general is an agent’s quality of aesthetic judgment, and the ‘basic demand’ we make of artists as such is for aesthetic value responsiveness: we expect artists to be counterfactually sensitive to the realization of expected aesthetic value in their productions. In contrast with our moral responsibility responses, we do not expect artists to be able to give their reasons for what they have done, and we allow for fewer artistic exemptions from the basic demand. While this Strawsonian approach sheds light on the nature of creative artistic agency, it fails to capture the full range of our artistic responsibility responses, since it excludes credit and criticism for artists’ (lack of) embodied skill.

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