Bradford Saad
Biographic Data
| ID | 1218530 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bradford Saad |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bradford |
| FAMILY NAME | Saad |
| SIGNATURE | SAAD B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2492-6214 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Rational Slack and Doxastic Grain
This paper argues for granular permissivism , roughly the view that evidence is sometimes permissive between doxastic attitudes at different levels of grain. The argument identifies three sources of rational slack between granularly differing doxastic states: doxastic tidiness, safety, and evidential responsiveness. After arguing for granular permissivism and contrasting it with a more familiar, Jamesian form of permissivism, I show how granular …
Digital suffering
As ever more advanced digital systems are created, it becomes increasingly likely that some of these systems will be digital minds, i.e. digital subjects of experience. With digital minds comes the risk of digital suffering. The problem of digital suffering is that of mitigating this risk. We argue that the problem of digital suffering is a high stakes moral problem and that formidable epistemic obstacles stand in the way of solving it. We then p…
Planetary fine-tuning, cosmological fine-tuning, and the multiverse
Many philosophers and scientists take cosmological fine-tuning—roughly the fact that our universe would have been devoid of life if it had had slightly different cosmological parameters—to point to the existence of a designer or multiverse. Planetary fine-tuning—roughly the fact that our planet would have been devoid of life if it had slightly different intrinsic characteristics or relations to other objects in the solar system—points to the exis…
A dualist theory of experience
Dualism holds that experiences somehow arise from physical states, despite being neither identical with nor grounded in such states. This paper motivates a stringent set of constraints on constructing a dualist theory of experience. To meet the constraints, a dualist theory must: (1) construe experiences as causes of physical effects, (2) ensure that experiences do not cause observable violations of the causal closure of the physical domain, (3) …
The Multiverse Theodicy Meets Population Ethics
The multiverse theodicy proposes to reconcile the existence of God and evil by supposing that God created all and only the creation-worthy universes and that some universes like ours are, despite their evils, creation-worthy. Drawing on work in population ethics, this paper develops a novel challenge to the multiverse theodicy. Roughly, the challenge contends that the axiological underpinnings of the multiverse theodicy harbor a ‘mere addition pa…
The Sooner the Better
In this article I argue that we should be prudentially and morally biased toward earlier events: other things equal, we should prefer for good events to occur earlier and disprefer for bad events to occur earlier. The argument contends that we should accord at least some credence—if only a small one—to a theoretical package featuring the growing block theory of time and that this package generates a presumptive bias toward earlier events. Rival t…
The problem of nomological harmony
Our universe features a harmonious match between laws and states: applying its laws to its states generates other states. This is a striking fact. Matters might have been otherwise. The universe might have been stillborn in a state unengaged by its laws. The problem of nomological harmony is that of explaining the noted striking fact. After introducing and developing this problem, we canvass candidate solutions and identify some of their virtues …
Should dualists locate the physical basis of experience in the head
Dualism holds that experiences are non-physical states that exist alongside physical states. Dualism leads to the postulation of psychophysical laws that generate experiences by operating on certain sorts of physical states. What sorts of physical states? To the limited extent that dualists have addressed this question, they have tended to favor a brain-based approach that locates the physical basis of experience in the head. In contrast, this pa…
Does Cognitive Phenomenology Support Dualism
Dualism holds that experiences and physical states are distinct in that neither sort of state is identical with or grounded in the other. Cognitive phenomenal realism holds that cognitive experiences are irreducible to sensory experiences. While dualism and cognitive phenomenal realism are logically orthogonal and usually discussed separately, I argue that dualism’s plausibility is sensitive to whether cognitive phenomenal realism is true. In par…
Permissiveness in morality and epistemology
Morality is intrapersonally permissive: cases abound in which an agent has more than one morally permitted option. In contrast, there is a dearth of cases in which an agent has more than one epistemically permitted response to her evidence. Given the structural parallels between morality and epistemology, why do sources of moral permissiveness fail to have parallel permissive effects in the epistemic domain? This asymmetry between morality and ep…
Panpsychism and ensemble explanations
Harmony in a panpsychist world
Experiences tend to be followed by states for which they provide normative reasons. Such harmonious correlations cry out for explanation. Theories that answer or diminish these cries thereby achieve an advantage over theories that do neither. I argue that the main lines of response to these cries that are available to biological theorists—theorists who hold (roughly) that conscious subjects are generally biological entities—are problematic. And I…
Internal constraints for phenomenal externalists
We motivate five constraints on theorizing about sensory experience. We then propose a novel form of naturalistic intentionalism that succeeds where other theories fail by satisfying all of these constraints. On the proposed theory, which we call structure matching tracking intentionalism , brains states track determinables. Internal structural features of those states select determinates of those determinables for presentation in experience. We …
Spatial experience, spatial reality, and two paths to primitivism
Internal constraints for phenomenal externalists
We motivate five constraints on theorizing about sensory experience. We then propose a novel form of naturalistic intentionalism that succeeds where other theories fail by satisfying all of these constraints. On the proposed theory, which we call structure matching tracking intentionalism , brains states track determinables. Internal structural features of those states select determinates of those determinables for presentation in experience. We …
Spatial experience, spatial reality, and two paths to primitivism
Should dualists locate the physical basis of experience in the head
Dualism holds that experiences are non-physical states that exist alongside physical states. Dualism leads to the postulation of psychophysical laws that generate experiences by operating on certain sorts of physical states. What sorts of physical states? To the limited extent that dualists have addressed this question, they have tended to favor a brain-based approach that locates the physical basis of experience in the head. In contrast, this pa…
Harmony in a panpsychist world
Experiences tend to be followed by states for which they provide normative reasons. Such harmonious correlations cry out for explanation. Theories that answer or diminish these cries thereby achieve an advantage over theories that do neither. I argue that the main lines of response to these cries that are available to biological theorists—theorists who hold (roughly) that conscious subjects are generally biological entities—are problematic. And I…
Spatial experience, spatial reality, and two paths to primitivism
Panpsychism and ensemble explanations
Harmony in a panpsychist world
Experiences tend to be followed by states for which they provide normative reasons. Such harmonious correlations cry out for explanation. Theories that answer or diminish these cries thereby achieve an advantage over theories that do neither. I argue that the main lines of response to these cries that are available to biological theorists—theorists who hold (roughly) that conscious subjects are generally biological entities—are problematic. And I…
Internal constraints for phenomenal externalists
We motivate five constraints on theorizing about sensory experience. We then propose a novel form of naturalistic intentionalism that succeeds where other theories fail by satisfying all of these constraints. On the proposed theory, which we call structure matching tracking intentionalism , brains states track determinables. Internal structural features of those states select determinates of those determinables for presentation in experience. We …
Does Cognitive Phenomenology Support Dualism
Dualism holds that experiences and physical states are distinct in that neither sort of state is identical with or grounded in the other. Cognitive phenomenal realism holds that cognitive experiences are irreducible to sensory experiences. While dualism and cognitive phenomenal realism are logically orthogonal and usually discussed separately, I argue that dualism’s plausibility is sensitive to whether cognitive phenomenal realism is true. In par…
Permissiveness in morality and epistemology
Morality is intrapersonally permissive: cases abound in which an agent has more than one morally permitted option. In contrast, there is a dearth of cases in which an agent has more than one epistemically permitted response to her evidence. Given the structural parallels between morality and epistemology, why do sources of moral permissiveness fail to have parallel permissive effects in the epistemic domain? This asymmetry between morality and ep…
The Multiverse Theodicy Meets Population Ethics
The multiverse theodicy proposes to reconcile the existence of God and evil by supposing that God created all and only the creation-worthy universes and that some universes like ours are, despite their evils, creation-worthy. Drawing on work in population ethics, this paper develops a novel challenge to the multiverse theodicy. Roughly, the challenge contends that the axiological underpinnings of the multiverse theodicy harbor a ‘mere addition pa…
The Sooner the Better
In this article I argue that we should be prudentially and morally biased toward earlier events: other things equal, we should prefer for good events to occur earlier and disprefer for bad events to occur earlier. The argument contends that we should accord at least some credence—if only a small one—to a theoretical package featuring the growing block theory of time and that this package generates a presumptive bias toward earlier events. Rival t…
The problem of nomological harmony
Our universe features a harmonious match between laws and states: applying its laws to its states generates other states. This is a striking fact. Matters might have been otherwise. The universe might have been stillborn in a state unengaged by its laws. The problem of nomological harmony is that of explaining the noted striking fact. After introducing and developing this problem, we canvass candidate solutions and identify some of their virtues …
Should dualists locate the physical basis of experience in the head
Dualism holds that experiences are non-physical states that exist alongside physical states. Dualism leads to the postulation of psychophysical laws that generate experiences by operating on certain sorts of physical states. What sorts of physical states? To the limited extent that dualists have addressed this question, they have tended to favor a brain-based approach that locates the physical basis of experience in the head. In contrast, this pa…
Rational Slack and Doxastic Grain
This paper argues for granular permissivism , roughly the view that evidence is sometimes permissive between doxastic attitudes at different levels of grain. The argument identifies three sources of rational slack between granularly differing doxastic states: doxastic tidiness, safety, and evidential responsiveness. After arguing for granular permissivism and contrasting it with a more familiar, Jamesian form of permissivism, I show how granular …
Digital suffering
As ever more advanced digital systems are created, it becomes increasingly likely that some of these systems will be digital minds, i.e. digital subjects of experience. With digital minds comes the risk of digital suffering. The problem of digital suffering is that of mitigating this risk. We argue that the problem of digital suffering is a high stakes moral problem and that formidable epistemic obstacles stand in the way of solving it. We then p…
Planetary fine-tuning, cosmological fine-tuning, and the multiverse
Many philosophers and scientists take cosmological fine-tuning—roughly the fact that our universe would have been devoid of life if it had had slightly different cosmological parameters—to point to the existence of a designer or multiverse. Planetary fine-tuning—roughly the fact that our planet would have been devoid of life if it had slightly different intrinsic characteristics or relations to other objects in the solar system—points to the exis…
A dualist theory of experience
Dualism holds that experiences somehow arise from physical states, despite being neither identical with nor grounded in such states. This paper motivates a stringent set of constraints on constructing a dualist theory of experience. To meet the constraints, a dualist theory must: (1) construe experiences as causes of physical effects, (2) ensure that experiences do not cause observable violations of the causal closure of the physical domain, (3) …
Epistemology (14 works) · Philosophy (14 works) · Metaphysics (8 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (8 works) · Philosophy of language (7 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Philosophy of science (5 works) · Argument (complex analysis) (4 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (4 works)