McDowell, Williams, and Intuitionism

This paper is concerned with a disagreement between Bernard Williams and John McDowell. It starts by asking what form a dispositional account of value should take. A no-priority view could hold that value is a disposition to elicit a certain response, and the response is to the object as disposed to elicit just that response. But a different no-priority view could talk of meriting a response and responding in the way merited. The response is explained as an instance of things being as they rationally ought to be. The paper debates the merits of such a view, and then turns to ask how much truth there is in the common claim that McDowell is an intuitionist.

Phenomenal roles: a dispositional account of bodily pain

In this paper I argue that bodily pain, as a phenomenal property, is an essentially and substantial dispositional property. To this end, I maintain that this property is individuated by its phenomenal roles, which can be internal -individuating the property per se- and external -determining further phenomenal or physical properties or states. I then argue that this individuation allows phenomenal roles to be organized in a necessarily asymmetrical net, thereby overcoming the circularity objection to dispositionalism. Finally, I provide reasons to argue that these roles satisfy modal fixity, as posited by Bird, and are not fundamental properties, contra Chalmers’ panpsychism. Thus, bodily pain can be considered a substantial dispositional property entrenched in non-fundamental laws of nature.

A Refined Propensity Account for GRW Theory

Spontaneous collapse theories of quantum mechanics turn the usual Schrödinger equation into a stochastic dynamical law. In particular, in this paper I will focus on the GRW theory. Two philosophical issues that can be raised about GRW concern (a) the ontology of the theory, in particular the nature of the wave function and its role within the theory, and (b) the interpretation of the objective probabilities involved in the dynamics of the theory. During the last years, it has been claimed that we can take advantage of dispositional properties in order to develop an ontology for GRW theory, and also in order to ground the objective probabilities which are postulated by it. However, in this paper I will argue that the dispositional interpretations which have been discussed in the literature so far are either flawed or—at best—incomplete. If we want to endorse a dispositional interpretation of GRW theory we thus need an extended account which specifies the precise nature of those properties and which makes also clear how they can correctly ground all the probabilities postulated by the theory. Thus, after having introduced several different kinds of probabilistic dispositions, I will try to fill the gap in the literature by proposing a novel and complete dispositional account of GRW, based on what I call spontaneous weighted multi-track propensities. I claim that such an account can satisfy both of our desiderata.

Musical works’ repeatability, audibility and variability: A dispositional account

This paper is devoted to face recent views in the ontology of music that reject that musical works are repeatable in musical performances. It will be observed that musical works? repeatability implies that they are audible and variable in their performances. To this extent, the aim here is to show that repeatability, audibility and variability are ontologically substantive features of musical works? nature. The thesis that will be defended is that repeatability, audibility and variability are dispositional non-aesthetic properties of musical works. The plausibility of the dispositional account of musical works? repeatability, audibility and variability will lead us to the conclusion that they are ontologically substantive features of musical works? nature, and consequently, any suitable explanation of the ontology of musical works must not ignore them.

A Dispositional Account of War Crimes

Chapter 3 challenges the situationist account of war crimes and offers an alternative dispositional account of the causes of war crimes. After criticizing the situationist accounts of war crimes described in Chapter 2, we propose a dispositional account of war crimes that emphasizes the ways in which war crimes can be conceived of as expressions of combatants’ character traits and moral agency. This account draws on a social cognitivist theory of personality according to which personality is best construed as a Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS). We argue that military training and culture leads to the development of CAPS traits in military personnel by interacting with and shaping their goals, actions, beliefs, and emotions related to their military service.

Blaming Perpetrators

Chapter 5 explains why the arguments in the preceding chapter fail. On our view, an agent is blameworthy if her behavior manifests an inappropriate degree of moral regard for others. Typically, this involves treating others with unjustified contempt, ill will, or certain forms of indifference. We argue that a perpetrator’s actions may manifest these objectionable qualities regardless of whether he believes that he is acting permissibly, and regardless of whether he is at fault for possessing this belief. This claim is developed in the context of the dispositional account of war crimes presented in Chapter 3, which is particularly well suited to our account of moral responsibility since it stresses the role that agents’ beliefs, goals, and values play in their actions.

Epistemic basing relation

The epistemic basing relation is the relation that holds between beliefs and the reasons for which they are held. It is important to understand this relation if we want to have a full account of epistemic justification, because it sometimes happens that people possess good reasons for their beliefs, but fail to hold their beliefs on the basis of their good reasons. In cases like that, it seems, beliefs are not fully justified. In addition to possessing good reasons for our beliefs, we must also hold our beliefs on the basis of our good reasons. It is tempting to think that the basing relation is some sort of causal relation, something along the following lines: a subject S’s belief that P is based on a reason R if and only if R is at least part of what causes or causally sustains S’s belief. However, this analysis is subject to important and well-known objections, such as the causal deviance problem: sometimes reasons cause beliefs in ways that are too strange or indirect (that is, they deviate from the normal ways that reasons cause beliefs), and in cases like that, a reason will cause a belief but the belief will not be based on the reason. A main alternative to the causal account is the doxastic account, according to which whether S’s belief that P is based on a reason R depends on whether it seems to S that R is a good reason for believing P. Another alternative is the dispositional account, which roughly holds that S’s belief that P is based on a reason R just in case S is disposed to revise or give up the belief that P if S loses R. A fourth kind of account appeals to what subjects would say in defense of their beliefs if they were asked to give their reasons for holding them.

Conclusion

Dispositional Pluralism is more consistent with our dispositions talk than more monolithic views. Our evidence for extrinsic, ungrounded, and non-natural dispositions is comparable to that of intrinsic, grounded, and natural ones. Dispositional Pluralism has wide applicability to various philosophical issues. Secondary qualities, such as colors, can be given a dispositional account. Thinking of character traits as dispositions sheds light on the debate over Dispositionalism Situationism in moral psychology. One can give an account of gender identity as a cluster of behavioral dispositions. Finally, the potentiality of an embryo or a patient is best understood as an extrinsic dispositional property.