Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Content Preservation', 'The Mental Life of Some Machines' and 'On a supposed right to lie'

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4 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 1. External Justification

9382	Subjects may be unaware of their epistemic 'entitlements', unlike their 'justifications' [Burge]
	Full Idea: I call 'entitlement' (as opposed to justification) the epistemic rights or warrants that need not be understood by or even be accessible to the subject.
	From: Tyler Burge (Content Preservation [1993]), quoted by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered §III
	A reaction: I espouse a coherentism that has both internal and external components, and is mediated socially. In Burge's sense, animals will sometimes have 'entitlement'. I prefer, though, not to call this 'knowledge'. 'Entitled true belief' is good.

17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 2. Machine Functionalism

5495	Instances of pain are physical tokens, but the nature of pain is more abstract [Putnam, by Lycan]
	Full Idea: In machine functionalism, pain tokens (individual instances of pain) are identical with particular neurophysiological states, but pain itself, the kind, universal, or 'type', can be identified only with something more abstract.
	From: report of Hilary Putnam (The Mental Life of Some Machines [1967]) by William Lycan - Introduction - Ontology p.6
	A reaction: This is where the "what is it like?" question seems important. Pain doesn't seem like a physical object, or an abstract idea. Personally I think the former is more likely to be correct than the latter. Causation by pain is not like causation by gravity.

23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 3. Promise Keeping

22442	If lies were ever acceptable, with would undermine all duties based on contract [Kant]
	Full Idea: Truthfulness is a duty that must be regarded as the basis of all duties to be grounded on a contract, the law of which is made uncertain and useless if even the least exception to it is admitted.
	From: Immanuel Kant (On a supposed right to lie [1797], p.30)
	A reaction: Should we keep contracts which are made by means of deception and coercion? Where could such absolute authority for contracts come from? Do contracts and treaties tend to lapse after a long period of time?

23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 2. Duty

22441	The law will protect you if you tell a truth which results in murder [Kant]
	Full Idea: If you have by a lie prevented someone bent on murder from committing the deed, then you are legally accountable for all the consequences that might arise from it. But if you keep strictly to the truth, then public justice can hold nothing against you.
	From: Immanuel Kant (On a supposed right to lie [1797], p.29)
	A reaction: Shocking, from a supposedly great thinker. Cowardly hiding behind a perverse law. What would Kant do if the law were changed, to condemn someone who told a truth which would probably lead to a murder? Would he accept a jail sentence?