Theoretical

Room A109
Chair: Lucy O’Brien (UCL)

A Critique of A Counterfactualist Approach to the Exclusion Argument
Simona Aimar Oxford University

Yet Another Attempt of Grounding Modality
Li Kang University of St Andrews

Specular Spaces
Clare Mac Cumhaill Edinburgh University

The numerical diversity of relationally indiscernible elements in a structure
Kate Hodesdon University of Bristol

Normative

Room C110
Chair: Miranda Fricke (Birkbeck College)

“I couldn’t have done otherwise”
Florian Cova Institut Jean-Nicod - Ecole Normale Supérieure

Moral Foundations of the Principle of Fairness
Dong-il Kim University of Warwick

A Critique of Hermeneutical Injustice
Laura Beeby University of Sheffield:

On the Scope of Practical Rationality
Evgenia Mylonaki University of Pittsburgh

A Critique of A Counterfactualist Approach to the Exclusion Argument
Simona Aimar Oxford University
Karen Bennett (2003, 2008) propounds a counterfactual test in order to show that the physical does not pre-empt the mental – contrary to what the exclusion argument says. I argue that her strategy fails. Perhaps unsurprisingly, appealing to counterfactuals does not help with pre-emption cases.

Li Kang, University of St Andrews Yet Another Attempt of Grounding Modality
Coincidentalists argue that distinct objects can occupy the same spatio-temporal region and be made of the same matter. This commits them to the problematic view that the modal features of objects are ungrounded, for coincident objects differ modally but not nonmodally. This is the grounding problem. Theodore Sider (2008) offers a new solution to this problem. He argues that coincidentalists can ground modality if they replace modal properties by certain modal relations, i.e. opposite-possibly F and same-possibly F; for coincident objects do not differ in these modal relations.

In this paper, I offer three independent arguments to show that Sider’s attempt fails. His modal relations unavoidably result in modal differences between coincident objects, and moreover his strategy ultimately leads to even more serious problems. The first argument shows that coincident objects bear different opposite-possibly F relations. The second argument shows that Sider’s definition of opposite-possibly F also commits him to an arbitrary dualistic view about coincidence. The third argument shows that coincident objects bear different same-possibly F relations; and although an amendment is available, the amendment causes more problems than it solves.

Clare Mac Cumhaill, Edinburgh University Specular Spaces
We seem to see empty space ‘in’ mirrors. I ask whether this should lead us to prefer a unifier or multiplier account of specular space. I detail a putative analogy with pictorial spaces, and note how perceiving specular space diverges: Unlike pictorial space, perceiving specular space does not involve seeing-in. Rather, because one perceives oneself to be path-connected to the objects displayed, specular space looks see-through. And this is so even when one is aware that the space ‘in’ the mirror is the space in which one is.

Kate Hodesdon, University of Bristol The numerical diversity of relationally indiscernible elements in a structure
I describe new identity criteria for mathematical structures and argue that this allows a response to one of the most pressing problems for structuralism. The problem is that there are many examples of numbers which satisfy exactly the same relations and predicates. Keränen has argued that the structuralist, whose view implies that objects are individuated only by structural properties, must conclude that these indiscernibles are identical by the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII).
The usual identity relation for mathematical structures is that of isomorphism. I defend instead the wider-grained notion of elementary equivalence. This account provides natural identity criteria for places within a structure, if we accept that relationally indiscernible objects may be identified only on the condition that the revision structure which results from their identification is the same structure as (is elementarily equivalent to) the one we started with. On this criterion there is no imperative to identify objects that are relationally indiscernible simpliciter. PII alone does not give identity criteria for places within a structure; their identity depends also on the identity of the structures in which they are embedded.

Florian Cova , Institut Jean-Nicod - Ecole Normale Supérieure “I couldn’t have done otherwise”
In this paper, I argue that both the compatibilist and incompatibilist uses of expressions such as “I couldn’t have done otherwise” fail to capture our ordinary linguistic practices. I then propose an analysis of our use of such excuses.

Dong-il Kim, University of Warwick Moral Foundations of the Principle of Fairness
The principle of fairness states, briefly speaking, that beneficiaries of a cooperative scheme set up and maintained by others (cooperators) have an obligation to do their share in return for their benefit according to the scheme’s rules. A moral foundation of this obligation, ‘mutuality of restrictions’ suggested by HLA Hart, can be understood as the right-based thesis and the equality-based thesis. The right-based thesis claims that the obligation for beneficiaries to do their share stems from the right of cooperators not to be harmed while the equality-based thesis holds that beneficiaries should do their share so as to achieve equality between them and cooperators. This paper argues that both theses can play a role as a moral foundation of the principle of fairness so long as there is a natural duty for beneficiaries to do their share in return for their benefit, which has priority over the right of cooperators and equality between the parties.

Laura Beeby, University of Sheffield A Critique of Hermeneutical Injustice
Recent work at the junction of epistemology and political theory has focused on the notion of epistemic injustice. This work is in its early stages. We are not yet clear on what exactly it is to be wronged as a knower. Miranda Fricker has split epistemic injustice into two varieties and offered definitions for both. I will focus on the variety called hermeneutical injustice, the injustice of having some significant area of one’s social experience obscured from collective understanding. I will argue that Fricker’s way of combining politics and epistemology is not quite right. Using her paradigmatic example involving sexual harassment, I will identify a flaw in Fricker’s definition. I will conclude by drawing a picture of what hermeneutical injustice could look like if we address this flaw.

Evgenia Mylonaki, University of Pittsburgh On the Scope of Practical Rationality
In this paper I will argue that the debate between the wide and the narrow scope reading of the normativity of practical rational requirements is premised on a problematic assumption about intention. On this assumption, intending an end and intending the means to it are two entirely separable practical concepts. The wide scope reading fails to account for practical rationality, because if the instrumental rational principle normatively relates to our intentions disjunctively, then the principle cannot capture the subject-matter of practical rationality. The narrow scope reading fails, because if facts in the world normatively relate to our intentions atomistically, then there is no reason to expect that the normative force of a requirement to intend an end will extend to intending means to it. But there is room for an alternative account of intention and practical rationality. On this alternative, intention is the principle which unites true means and ends descriptions in acting. The scope of practical rationality is thus both broadened and bounded. It is broadened because thought about what the means to one’s ends are cannot be excluded from it. And it is bounded since it no longer exhausts the realm of practical normativity. So for instance, a distinctively instrumental failure may be a practical failure, even if it is not a rational practical failure. It may constitute failure to meet the non rational practical norms involved in satisfying one’s desires through one’s own agency.