James Andow
Biographic Data
| ID | 5995803 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James Andow |
| GIVEN NAMES | James |
| FAMILY NAME | Andow |
| SIGNATURE | ANDOW J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of East Anglia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5760-0475 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Can Soft‐Line Compatibilism Handle Eternally Recurrent Manipulation
A key challenge to compatibilism comes from manipulation arguments. These argue that agents whose actions are manipulated are not morally responsible and that manipulation is not relevantly different from determinism. One common response from compatibilists is to claim that there is a relevant difference between manipulation and ordinary determinism. Cases of eternally recurrent manipulation challenge that response
The hidden logic of discounting in curriculum design
The article argues that educators should notice and critically reflect on the implicit assumptions they make about the value of future educational goods when designing teaching and curricula. Teaching and assessment decisions often reflect an implicit discount rate or approach to discounting. But different rates or approaches to discounting can significantly influence curriculum design, particularly when evaluating which skills or knowledge bases…
Fully experimental conceptual engineering
Conceptual engineers are in the business of helping us think as we should. Experimental philosophy can be seen as being in the business of describing how we think. One might think there must thus be a gap between any experimental philosophy project and any successful project in conceptual engineering, that conceptual engineering reserves a special role for armchair philosophers. But, a successful project in conceptual engineering might be fully e…
Avoiding misanthropic sacrifice in African environmental ethics
Holist nonanthropocentric approaches in ethics face the challenge of avoiding the misanthropic sacrifice objection. Those who raise the objection do so on the basis that holist nonanthropocentric ethics imply that it might be permissible to sacrifice individual humans, groups of humans, or even humanity as a whole, for the sake of preserving broader ecological wholes. The misanthropic sacrifice objection is thus relevant to African environmental …
Slippery Slope Arguments as Precautionary Arguments
It has been argued that geoengineering research should not be pursued because of a slippery slope from research to problematic deployment. These arguments have been thought weak or defective on the basis of interpretations that treat the arguments as relying on dubious premises. The paper urges a new interpretation of these arguments as precautionary arguments, i.e. as relying on a precautionary principle. This interpretation helps us better appr…
Intuitions about cases as evidence (for how we should think)
Much recent work on philosophical methodology has focused on whether we should accept evidence: the claim that philosophers use intuitive judgments about cases as evidence for/against philosophical theories. This paper outlines a new way of thinking about the philosophical method of appealing to cases such that evidence is true but not as it is typically understood. The idea proposed is that, when philosophers appeal to cases, they are engaged in…
Epistemic deontology, epistemic trade-offs, and Kant’s formula of humanity
An epistemic deontology modelled on Kant’s ethics—in particular the humanity formula of the categorical imperative—is a promising alternative to epistemic consequentialism because it can forbid intuitively impermissible epistemic trade-offs which epistemic consequentialism seems doomed to permit and, most importantly, it can do so in a way that is not ad hoc
Further exploration of anti-realist intuitions about aesthetic judgment
Experimental philosophy of aesthetics has explored to what extent ordinary people are committed to aesthetic realism. Extant work has focused on attitudes to normativism -a key commitment of realist positions in aesthetics -the claim that aesthetic judgments/statements have correctness conditions, invariant between subjects, such that there is a fact of the matter in cases of aesthetic disagreement. The emerging picture is that ordinary people st…
What is it like to be colour‐blind? A case study in experimental philosophy of experience
What is the experience of someone who is “colour‐blind” like? This paper presents the results of a study that uses qualitative research methods to better understand the lived experience of colour blindness. Participants were asked to describe their experiences of a variety of coloured stimuli, both with and without EnChroma glasses—glasses which, the manufacturers claim, enhance the experience of people with common forms of colour blindness. More…
How do philosophers and nonphilosophers think about philosophy? And does personality make a difference
Recent metaphilosophical debates have focused on the methods/epistemology of philosophy (e.g., the role of intuitions), and the structure of the discipline (e.g., which subfields are considered central to philosophy). The paper reports the results of an exploratory study examining the relationship between personality and both kinds of metaphilosophical view. The findings reported are (a) No important link between personality and attitudes to intu…
Conceptual engineering is extremely unlikely to work. So what
Conceptual engineering aims to improve our concepts. That's plausibly an extremely difficult thing to do. Should this make us sceptical of the idea that philosophers should try to do it? You might think so. Cappelen, in his Fixing Language: an Essay on Conceptual Engineering, thinks it shouldn't stop us – but his stated reasons are not really encouraging. In this paper, I say what I think Cappelen should have said, on the basis of a very rough co…
If Philosophers Aren't Using Intuitions as Evidence, What Are They Doing
Various philosophers have recently argued for a descriptive account of philosophical methodology in which philosophers do not use intuitions as evidence. This paper raises and considers an objection to such accounts. The objection is that such accounts render various aspects of philosophical practice inexplicable. The contribution of this paper is to demonstrate that one can provide a satisfactory account of the relevant aspects of philosophical …
Lay intuitions about epistemic normativity
Recent empirical work on non-philosophers’ intuitions about epistemic normativity reveals patterns that cannot be fully accounted for by direct epistemic consequentialism. On the basis of these results, one might picture participants as “epistemic deontologists.” We present the results of two new experiments that support a more nuanced picture. We examine intuitions about guesses and hypotheses, and about beliefs. Our results suggest a two-factor…
Do non-philosophers think epistemic consequentialism is counterintuitive
Direct epistemic consequentialism is the idea that X is epistemically permissible iff X maximizes epistemic value. It has received lots of attention in recent years and is widely accepted by philosophers to have counterintuitive implications. There are various reasons one might suspect that the relevant intuitions will not be widely shared among non-philosophers. This paper presents an initial empirical study of ordinary intuitions. The results o…
Do non-philosophers think epistemic consequentialism is counterintuitive
Direct epistemic consequentialism is the idea that X is epistemically permissible iff X maximizes epistemic value. It has received lots of attention in recent years and is widely accepted by philosophers to have counterintuitive implications. There are various reasons one might suspect that the relevant intuitions will not be widely shared among non-philosophers. This paper presents an initial empirical study of ordinary intuitions. The results o…
Lay intuitions about epistemic normativity
Recent empirical work on non-philosophers’ intuitions about epistemic normativity reveals patterns that cannot be fully accounted for by direct epistemic consequentialism. On the basis of these results, one might picture participants as “epistemic deontologists.” We present the results of two new experiments that support a more nuanced picture. We examine intuitions about guesses and hypotheses, and about beliefs. Our results suggest a two-factor…
How do philosophers and nonphilosophers think about philosophy? And does personality make a difference
Recent metaphilosophical debates have focused on the methods/epistemology of philosophy (e.g., the role of intuitions), and the structure of the discipline (e.g., which subfields are considered central to philosophy). The paper reports the results of an exploratory study examining the relationship between personality and both kinds of metaphilosophical view. The findings reported are (a) No important link between personality and attitudes to intu…
Do non-philosophers think epistemic consequentialism is counterintuitive
Direct epistemic consequentialism is the idea that X is epistemically permissible iff X maximizes epistemic value. It has received lots of attention in recent years and is widely accepted by philosophers to have counterintuitive implications. There are various reasons one might suspect that the relevant intuitions will not be widely shared among non-philosophers. This paper presents an initial empirical study of ordinary intuitions. The results o…
Lay intuitions about epistemic normativity
Recent empirical work on non-philosophers’ intuitions about epistemic normativity reveals patterns that cannot be fully accounted for by direct epistemic consequentialism. On the basis of these results, one might picture participants as “epistemic deontologists.” We present the results of two new experiments that support a more nuanced picture. We examine intuitions about guesses and hypotheses, and about beliefs. Our results suggest a two-factor…
Conceptual engineering is extremely unlikely to work. So what
Conceptual engineering aims to improve our concepts. That's plausibly an extremely difficult thing to do. Should this make us sceptical of the idea that philosophers should try to do it? You might think so. Cappelen, in his Fixing Language: an Essay on Conceptual Engineering, thinks it shouldn't stop us – but his stated reasons are not really encouraging. In this paper, I say what I think Cappelen should have said, on the basis of a very rough co…
If Philosophers Aren't Using Intuitions as Evidence, What Are They Doing
Various philosophers have recently argued for a descriptive account of philosophical methodology in which philosophers do not use intuitions as evidence. This paper raises and considers an objection to such accounts. The objection is that such accounts render various aspects of philosophical practice inexplicable. The contribution of this paper is to demonstrate that one can provide a satisfactory account of the relevant aspects of philosophical …
Further exploration of anti-realist intuitions about aesthetic judgment
Experimental philosophy of aesthetics has explored to what extent ordinary people are committed to aesthetic realism. Extant work has focused on attitudes to normativism -a key commitment of realist positions in aesthetics -the claim that aesthetic judgments/statements have correctness conditions, invariant between subjects, such that there is a fact of the matter in cases of aesthetic disagreement. The emerging picture is that ordinary people st…
What is it like to be colour‐blind? A case study in experimental philosophy of experience
What is the experience of someone who is “colour‐blind” like? This paper presents the results of a study that uses qualitative research methods to better understand the lived experience of colour blindness. Participants were asked to describe their experiences of a variety of coloured stimuli, both with and without EnChroma glasses—glasses which, the manufacturers claim, enhance the experience of people with common forms of colour blindness. More…
How do philosophers and nonphilosophers think about philosophy? And does personality make a difference
Recent metaphilosophical debates have focused on the methods/epistemology of philosophy (e.g., the role of intuitions), and the structure of the discipline (e.g., which subfields are considered central to philosophy). The paper reports the results of an exploratory study examining the relationship between personality and both kinds of metaphilosophical view. The findings reported are (a) No important link between personality and attitudes to intu…
Slippery Slope Arguments as Precautionary Arguments
It has been argued that geoengineering research should not be pursued because of a slippery slope from research to problematic deployment. These arguments have been thought weak or defective on the basis of interpretations that treat the arguments as relying on dubious premises. The paper urges a new interpretation of these arguments as precautionary arguments, i.e. as relying on a precautionary principle. This interpretation helps us better appr…
Intuitions about cases as evidence (for how we should think)
Much recent work on philosophical methodology has focused on whether we should accept evidence: the claim that philosophers use intuitive judgments about cases as evidence for/against philosophical theories. This paper outlines a new way of thinking about the philosophical method of appealing to cases such that evidence is true but not as it is typically understood. The idea proposed is that, when philosophers appeal to cases, they are engaged in…
Epistemic deontology, epistemic trade-offs, and Kant’s formula of humanity
An epistemic deontology modelled on Kant’s ethics—in particular the humanity formula of the categorical imperative—is a promising alternative to epistemic consequentialism because it can forbid intuitively impermissible epistemic trade-offs which epistemic consequentialism seems doomed to permit and, most importantly, it can do so in a way that is not ad hoc
The hidden logic of discounting in curriculum design
The article argues that educators should notice and critically reflect on the implicit assumptions they make about the value of future educational goods when designing teaching and curricula. Teaching and assessment decisions often reflect an implicit discount rate or approach to discounting. But different rates or approaches to discounting can significantly influence curriculum design, particularly when evaluating which skills or knowledge bases…
Fully experimental conceptual engineering
Conceptual engineers are in the business of helping us think as we should. Experimental philosophy can be seen as being in the business of describing how we think. One might think there must thus be a gap between any experimental philosophy project and any successful project in conceptual engineering, that conceptual engineering reserves a special role for armchair philosophers. But, a successful project in conceptual engineering might be fully e…
Avoiding misanthropic sacrifice in African environmental ethics
Holist nonanthropocentric approaches in ethics face the challenge of avoiding the misanthropic sacrifice objection. Those who raise the objection do so on the basis that holist nonanthropocentric ethics imply that it might be permissible to sacrifice individual humans, groups of humans, or even humanity as a whole, for the sake of preserving broader ecological wholes. The misanthropic sacrifice objection is thus relevant to African environmental …
Can Soft‐Line Compatibilism Handle Eternally Recurrent Manipulation
A key challenge to compatibilism comes from manipulation arguments. These argue that agents whose actions are manipulated are not morally responsible and that manipulation is not relevantly different from determinism. One common response from compatibilists is to claim that there is a relevant difference between manipulation and ordinary determinism. Cases of eternally recurrent manipulation challenge that response
Epistemology (11 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (7 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (7 works) · Metaphysics (4 works) · Philosophical methodology (4 works) · Philosophy of language (4 works) · Philosophy of science (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works)