Kenneth Silver
Biographic Data
| ID | 1076086 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kenneth Silver |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kenneth |
| FAMILY NAME | Silver |
| SIGNATURE | SILVER K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Trinity College Dublin |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0634-1976 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The Standing of Self-Identity
I identify as a philosopher, as cisgender, as an American. But are these identities secured merely by my claiming them, and what is the broader significance of our self-identification? Here, I argue that self-identifying secures the standing to participate in an ongoing process of determining the membership of the group with that identity. Using resources from political philosophy, I show why groups are entitled to revise the criteria for group m…
The permissibility of blaming arbitrarily
Should equally blameworthy individuals be blamed equally by someone who has the standing to blame and the same relationship to each? Recently, it has been argued that the answer to this question is ‘yes,’ there is a condition on appropriate blaming that the blame is not meted out arbitrarily. The literature on standing has proceeded, taking this for granted. Here, however, I argue that this is a mistake. There is no prohibition on arbitrary blami…
Corporate Weakness of Will
Proponents of corporate moral responsibility take certain corporations to be capable of being responsible in ways that do not reduce to the responsibility of their members. If correct, one follow-up question concerns what leads corporations to fail to meet their obligations. We often fail morally when we know what we should do and yet fail to do it, perhaps out of incontinence, akrasia, or weakness of will. However, this kind of failure is much l…
Backwards Causation in Social Institutions
Whereas many philosophers take backwards causation to be impossible, the few who maintain its possibility either take it to be absent from the actual world or else confined to theoretical physics. Here, however, I argue that backwards causation is not only actual, but common, though occurring in the context of our social institutions. After juxtaposing my cases with a few others in the literature and arguing that we should take seriously the real…
Organizations as Wrongdoers
Markets Within the Limit of Feasibility
The ‘limits of markets’ debate broadly concerns the question of when it is (im)permissible to have a market in some good. Markets can be of tremendous benefit to society, but many have felt that certain goods should not be for sale (e.g., sex, kidneys, bombs). Their sale is argued to be corrupting, exploitative, or to express a form of disrespect. In Markets without Limits , Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski have recently argued to the contrary: F…
Causal Exclusion and Ontic Vagueness
The Causal Exclusion Problem is raised in many domains, including the metaphysics of macroscopic objects. If there is a complete explanation of macroscopic effects in terms of the microscopic entities that compose macroscopic objects, then the causal efficacy of the macroscopic will be threatened with exclusion. I argue that we can avoid the problem if we accept that macroscopic objects are ontically vague. Then it is indeterminate which collecti…
Emergence within social systems
Group Action Without Group Minds
Groups behave in a variety of ways. To show that this behavior amounts to action, it would be best to fit it into a general account of action. However, nearly every account from the philosophy of action requires the agent to have mental states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Unfortunately, theorists are divided over whether groups can instantiate these states—typically depending on whether or not they are willing to accept functionalism…
Strategy (Part I)
Strategies are mentioned across a variety of domains, from business ethics, to the philosophy of war, philosophy of sport, game theory, and others. However, despite their wide use, very little has been said about how to think about what strategies are or how they relate to other prominently discussed concepts. In this article, I probe the close connection between strategies and plans, which have been much more thoroughly characterized in the phil…
The peasants of Paris
Emergence within social systems
Group Action Without Group Minds
Groups behave in a variety of ways. To show that this behavior amounts to action, it would be best to fit it into a general account of action. However, nearly every account from the philosophy of action requires the agent to have mental states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Unfortunately, theorists are divided over whether groups can instantiate these states—typically depending on whether or not they are willing to accept functionalism…
The peasants of Paris
Emergence within social systems
Group Action Without Group Minds
Groups behave in a variety of ways. To show that this behavior amounts to action, it would be best to fit it into a general account of action. However, nearly every account from the philosophy of action requires the agent to have mental states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Unfortunately, theorists are divided over whether groups can instantiate these states—typically depending on whether or not they are willing to accept functionalism…
Strategy (Part I)
Strategies are mentioned across a variety of domains, from business ethics, to the philosophy of war, philosophy of sport, game theory, and others. However, despite their wide use, very little has been said about how to think about what strategies are or how they relate to other prominently discussed concepts. In this article, I probe the close connection between strategies and plans, which have been much more thoroughly characterized in the phil…
Causal Exclusion and Ontic Vagueness
The Causal Exclusion Problem is raised in many domains, including the metaphysics of macroscopic objects. If there is a complete explanation of macroscopic effects in terms of the microscopic entities that compose macroscopic objects, then the causal efficacy of the macroscopic will be threatened with exclusion. I argue that we can avoid the problem if we accept that macroscopic objects are ontically vague. Then it is indeterminate which collecti…
Markets Within the Limit of Feasibility
The ‘limits of markets’ debate broadly concerns the question of when it is (im)permissible to have a market in some good. Markets can be of tremendous benefit to society, but many have felt that certain goods should not be for sale (e.g., sex, kidneys, bombs). Their sale is argued to be corrupting, exploitative, or to express a form of disrespect. In Markets without Limits , Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski have recently argued to the contrary: F…
Backwards Causation in Social Institutions
Whereas many philosophers take backwards causation to be impossible, the few who maintain its possibility either take it to be absent from the actual world or else confined to theoretical physics. Here, however, I argue that backwards causation is not only actual, but common, though occurring in the context of our social institutions. After juxtaposing my cases with a few others in the literature and arguing that we should take seriously the real…
Organizations as Wrongdoers
Corporate Weakness of Will
Proponents of corporate moral responsibility take certain corporations to be capable of being responsible in ways that do not reduce to the responsibility of their members. If correct, one follow-up question concerns what leads corporations to fail to meet their obligations. We often fail morally when we know what we should do and yet fail to do it, perhaps out of incontinence, akrasia, or weakness of will. However, this kind of failure is much l…
The Standing of Self-Identity
I identify as a philosopher, as cisgender, as an American. But are these identities secured merely by my claiming them, and what is the broader significance of our self-identification? Here, I argue that self-identifying secures the standing to participate in an ongoing process of determining the membership of the group with that identity. Using resources from political philosophy, I show why groups are entitled to revise the criteria for group m…
The permissibility of blaming arbitrarily
Should equally blameworthy individuals be blamed equally by someone who has the standing to blame and the same relationship to each? Recently, it has been argued that the answer to this question is ‘yes,’ there is a condition on appropriate blaming that the blame is not meted out arbitrarily. The literature on standing has proceeded, taking this for granted. Here, however, I argue that this is a mistake. There is no prohibition on arbitrary blami…
Epistemology (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Free Will and Agency (3 works) · History (3 works) · Metaphysics (3 works) · Ontology (3 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (3 works)