How outlandish can imaginary cases be?

Journal of Applied Philosophy

Volumn 28, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 241-258

  Elster, Jakob ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OSLO   (Norway)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84864728410     PISSN: 02643758     EISSN: 14685930     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5930.2011.00531.x     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Kathleen V. Wilkes, Real People: Personal Identity Without Thought Experiments (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988)
2. Roy Sorensen, Thought Experiments (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), in particular pp. 277–285
3. Sören Häggqvist, Thought Experiments in Philosophy (Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1996)
4. Tamar Szabó Gendler, Thought Experiment: On the Powers and Limits of Imaginary Cases (NewYork: Garland Publishing, 2000).
5. Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Frances Kamm and Derek Parfit. Parfit explicitly defends conceivabilism in Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), e.g. p. 200 and pp. 388–9.
6. G. A. Cohen, Rescuing Justice and Equality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), chapter 6.
7. Thomas Pogge, R. M. Hare, and David Miller. Cf. Thomas Pogge, ‘The effects of prevalent moral conceptions’, Social Research 57,3 (1990): 649–63, especially p. 660
8. Thomas Pogge, ‘Cohen to the rescue!’, Ratio XXI,4 (2008): 454–75, e.g. p. 475
9. R. M. Hare, Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), e.g. p. 47
10. David Miller, ‘Political philosophy for earthlings’, in D. Leopold & M. Stears (eds) Political Theory — Methods and Approaches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 29–48.
11. Pogge 1990 ‘Political philosophy for earthlings’, in D. Leopold & M. Stears (eds) Political Theory — Methods and Approaches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) p. 660.
12. John Rawls, ‘Outline of a decision procedure for ethics’, The Philosophical Review, 60, 2 (1951): 177–197 at p. 182.
13. F. M. Kamm, Intricate Ethics - Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 427–8.
14. Kamm makes this point in F. M. Kamm, Morality, Mortality,Volume I: Death and Whom to Save from It (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 7.
15. These two types of argument are briefly distinguished in Parfit op. cit., pp. 388–9.
16. Roy Sorensen: Sorensen op. cit., chapter 10, especially pp. 277–285.
17. For example, Peter Singer, ‘Ethics and intuitions’, The Journal of Ethics 9 (2005): 331–52
18. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, ‘Framing moral intuitions’, in W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.) Moral Psychology Volume 2: The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), pp. 47–76.
19. Cf. Sorensen op. cit., pp. 288–9 for a related discussion (and a related analogy).
20. Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, ‘Against self-ownership: There are no fact-insensitive ownership rights over one’s body’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 36, 1 (2008): 86–118.
21. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1974), p. 34.
22. Admittedly, Lippert-Rasmussen suggests the contrary (Lippert-Rasmussen op. cit., p. 99).
23. Jonathan Dancy, Ethics Without Principles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 52.
24. On the general idea of specifying principles by incorporating enablers, cf. Brad Hooker, ‘Moral particularism: Wrong and bad’ in B. Hooker & M. Little (eds) Moral Particularism (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000), pp. 1–22: 7–11.
25. Pogge 2008 ‘Moral particularism: Wrong and bad’ in B. Hooker & M. Little (eds) Moral Particularism (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000), pp. 459–460
26. Jeff McMahan, ‘The ethics of killing in war’, Ethics 114 (2004): 693–733.
27. Cohen ‘The ethics of killing in war’, Ethics 114 (2004): p. 265.
28. Cohen ‘The ethics of killing in war’, Ethics 114 (2004), p. 263–268.
29. Hare ‘The ethics of killing in war’, Ethics 114 (2004): p. 48.
30. For example, Singer op. cit,; Sharon Street, ‘A Darwinian dilemma for realist theories of value’ Philosophical Studies 127 (2006): 109–66.
31. Rachel Cooper, ‘Thought experiments’, Metaphilosophy 36, 3 (2005): 328–347, at p. 342
32. Jonathan Dancy, ‘The role of imaginary cases in ethics’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 66 (1985): 141–153
33. Marilyn Friedman, ‘Care and context in moral reasoning’ in E. F. Kittay & D.T. Meyers (eds) Women and Moral Theory (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1987), pp. 190–204) and about outlandish cases more specifically by Wilkes and by Häggqvist. For discussion, see also Sorensen op. cit., pp. 246–8.
34. Cf. Jonathan Ichikawa & Benjamin Jarvis, ‘Thought-experiment intuitions and truth in fiction’, Philosophical Studies 142, 2 (2007): 221–246.
35. David Lewis, ‘Truth in fiction’, in David Lewis, Philosophical Papers Volume I (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1983).
36. Cf. Sorensen ‘Truth in fiction’, in David Lewis, Philosophical Papers Volume I (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 258–9.
37. Häggqvist ‘Truth in fiction’, in David Lewis, Philosophical Papers Volume I (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 152.
38. Häggqvist ‘Truth in fiction’, in David Lewis, Philosophical Papers Volume I (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 152.
39. Häggqvist ‘Truth in fiction’, in David Lewis, Philosophical Papers Volume I (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 158.
40. & Jarvis op. cit. and Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell 2007)
41. Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell 2007) p. 359.