Geoff Plauché asks for a copy of my Vegas and Tuscaloosa papers. I hereby post them for all interested parties: Vegas and Tuscaloosa. As you’ll see, they’re just different versions of the same paper.
Speaking of Tuscaloosa, there are updated driving directions for the conference.
Thanks!
Roderick, there’s something that bugs me about an argument you make in these papers that I hope you can clear up for me.
Few of us would choose the magic pill over the life insurance, but does that really prove that it is not solely the thought that our relatives will be cared for that motivates us in buying the life insurance? When we compare the two alternatives in our imaginations we are aware of the deception of the magic pill. Our effective omniscience in this thought experiment contaminates any judgements we can make between its alternatives – in conceiving of the deceptiveness of the magic pill we are not deceived for a moment, yet we are asked to imagine that we are. I might as well imagine that I do not exist and make arguments based on what results.
It seems to me that a lot of arguments based on imagining alternatives could similarly be contaminated in this way. For imagining that A is preferable to B to give us grounds for believing that A really is preferable to B, surely tje act of imagination has to simulate reality in whatever respects are relevant. .