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Philosophy in Practice Volume 11 — Spring 2017 Philosophy in Practice Volume 11 — Spring 2017 California State uniVerSity, loS angeleS Department of philoSophy a Philosophy in Practice VOLUME 11 – SPRING 2017 © Copyright 2017 by CSULA Philosophy Department. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Individual copyright reverts to the authors upon further publication of their articles. CONTENTS Acknowledgments ..................................iv Faculty ...........................................v Professor Spotlight: Talia Bettcher ....................vii Articles: Enabling Libertarian Free Will Through Human Enhancement Taylor Dunn. 1 Modal Meinongianism and the Many Worlds of Nonexistent Objects Cameron Takeda ........................... 17 Names, Rigidified Descriptions and Persistency David Fonth .............................. 35 A Practical Approach to Free Will and Moral Responsibility Johnathan Poh ............................. 60 Down the Rabbit Hole of Consciousness Eduardo Salazar ........................... 75 A Kantian Approach to the Problem of Shortage of Kidneys Van Doan ................................ 97 Utopia and Fabulation: Erasures and Affirmations Craig Laubach ............................. 111 The Human as the Object to be Eaten Andre Agacer .............................127 More Democracy Everywhere Fernando Cierra ...........................151 Contributors .....................................165 Philosophy Program Information ....................166 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Philosophy in Practice is produced by students at California State University, Los Angeles. The editorial staff wishes to thank all the authors for submitting and refereeing articles, the faculty of the philosophy department for agreeing to supervise individual contri- butions, and the University for its generous financial support. EDITORS: Fernando Cierra Van Doan Eduardo Salazar FacULTY ADVISOR: Dr. Michael K. Shim iv CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LOS ANGELES PHILOSOPHY FACULTY Talia Bettcher (2000– ), Chair, Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles. History of Modern Philosophy, Philosophy of Self, Gender and Sexuality Mohammed Abed (2008– ), Ph.D. University of Wisconsin, Madison. Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy, Philosophies of Violence, Geno- cide and Terrorism Bruce Atta (1996– ), M.A. California State University, Los Angeles. Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy Mark Balaguer (1992– ), Ph.D. City University of New York. Philosophy of Mathematics, Metaphysics, Meta-ethics, Philosophy of Language, Logic Jay Conway (2005– ), Ph.D. University of California, Riverside. 19th- 20th Century Philosophy, Modern Philosophy, Aesthetics, Social and Political Philosophy Richard Dean (2009– ), Ph.D. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Ethics, Kant’s Moral Philosophy, Applied Ethics Foad Dizadji-Bahmani (2013– ), Ph.D. London School of Economics, United Kingdom. Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Physics, Philos- ophy of Probability Ronald Houts (1983– ), Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles. Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic Keith Kaiser (2001– ), Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles. Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind Steven R. Levy (2005– ), Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles. Epistemology, Metaphysics, Logic, Applied Ethics Henry R. Mendell (1983– ), Ph.D. Stanford University. Ancient Philos- ophy, History of Ancient Mathematics and Science, Philosophy of Science, Metaphysics David Pitt (2003– ), Ph.D. City University of New York. Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language, Metaphysics v Joseph Prabhu (1978– ), Ph.D. Boston University. Philosophy of Reli- gion, 19th and 20th Century German Philosophy, Moral and Social Philosophy, Indian and Comparative Philosophy Sheila Price (1964– ), M.A. University of California, Los Angeles. Recent Philosophy, Comparative Religions, Medical Ethics, Environ- mental Ethics Michael K. Shim (2007– ), Ph.D. State University of New York, Stony Brook. 20th Century Continental Philosophy, Phenomenology, Husserl, Modern Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language Kayley Vernallis (1993– ), Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley. Moral Psychology, 19th and 20th Century Continental Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy, Ethics, Aesthetics, Gender and Sexuality EMERITUS PROFESSORS Thomas Annese (1961–1992), Epistemology, Modern Philosophy Sharon Bishop (1967–2004), Ethics, Political Philosophy, Philosoph- ical Psychology, Feminist Ethics Donald Burrill (1962–1992), Ethics, Philosophy of Law, American Philosophy Ann Garry (1969–2011), Feminist Philosophy, Philosophical Method- ology, Epistemology, Applied Ethics, Wittgenstein, Philosophy of Law Ricardo J. Gómez (1983–2011), Philosophy of Science and Tech- nology, Philosophy of Mathematics, Kant, Latin American Philosophy George Vick (1967–1997), Metaphysics, Phenomenology, Existen- tialism, Philosophy of Religion, Medieval Philosophy vi PROFESSOR SPOTLIGHT: TALIA MAE BETTCHER Talia Mae Bettcher was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and lived in various places throughout the country during her child- hood. As an undergraduate, she attended York University, origi- nally planning to pursue a B.Ed. Initially, her main interests of study were English and French, but around the same time she came across philosophy. She signed up for a critical thinking course, which she then applied in studying the philosophy of religion. Despite excel- ling in this course, Talia found the subject matter personally discomforting. At the end of the course, her professor and advisor suggested she major in philosophy. Talia initially rejected the idea; however, in the years ahead, she found herself gradually gravi- tating towards philosophy. While Talia had originally planned on becoming a high school teacher, the discipline and rigor of theo- retical philosophy lent new focus to her studies and she wound up majoring in philosophy and linguistics. After receiving her bach- elor’s degree, Talia decided to pursue her PhD in philosophy at UCLA. vii Midway through her studies at UCLA, she approached her department about gender transitioning. At the time, there were no legal protections for trans people in California. However, the department proved very supportive. During this time Talia had been doing work on the self and first person self-reference. Initially focusing on the work of Witt- genstein and Anscombe, she turned to investigate early modern conceptions of the self. She wrote her dissertation on Berkley and Hume, arguing that Berkeley had contributed a great deal more to how we should understand the self than had previously been thought. It was not until later on that she came to realize that her early work on the self was partly motivated by the desire to make sense of the complicated experience of transitioning. Towards the end of her Ph.D. program, Talia had begun teaching some classes at Cal State LA, and was eventually offered a position. The department’s plurality and strong feminist roots made it particularly appealing. While she began her work as a Berkeley scholar (publishing several articles and two books), it was not long until she turned her attention to the philosophy of gender. Talia had been informally philosophizing about trans people and the obstacles and violence they confront since she was a graduate student. From even before her transition, she had been actively involved in Los Angeles trans activist communities and her experiences there provided the starting point for her reflec- tions. However, it was the murder of Gwen Araujo in 2002 and L.A. trans community response to it that inspired her to begin publishing articles on trans issues. Since the initial publication of Evil Deceivers and Make Believers in 2007, which examined transphobic violence, Talia has continued to work in the area of trans philosophy. She is currently working on a new book about what transphobic violence can show about the concepts of inti- macy and personhood. The more she has delved into the philo- sophical issues underpinning transphobia and violence, the more she has been returning to critique the starting points of those early modern conceptions of the self. While the work is highly theo- viii retical, it is also grounded in real-life experience and motivated by the desire to make the world a better place for trans people. Unlike some professional philosophers, then, it is clear that Talia pursues philosophy as a deeply personal project. — F.C. et al ix x ENABLING LIBERTARIAN FREE WILL THROUGH HUMAN ENHANCEMENT Taylor A. Dunn OVERTURE It has recently been argued that whether or not we have free will is an empirical question to which there is not yet an answer. In particular, the claim is that neuroscience will eventually give us the final word on the matter. Assuming this is the case, there are several plausible answers neuroscience may give us about free will. It could be that our brains are structured exactly as needed for us to consistently act freely, or we may find out that our neuro- physiology has nothing like what is needed for free will. However, the most plausible and probable answer neuroscience can give us is that our neurophysiology is close to enabling libertarian free will, but every action is at least partially determined in some way such that we cannot be said to possess
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