“…17 Hare (2009) argues that, unless we adopt a particular form of subjectivism called "egocentric presentism", we cannot make rational sense of our moral inclination to favour conditions in which we (as opposed to anyone else) are better off. Hellie (2013) suggests that an inegalitarian stance towards personal perspectives is a central and ineliminable aspect of our understanding of consciousness. An application of subjectivism to the metaphysics of the mental is defended by one of us in Merlo (2016).…”
Section: From Relativism To Subjectivismmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…We borrow the term "Egalitarianism" fromHellie (2013) Fine (2005). calls a thesis closely related to Egalitarianism "Neutrality".…”
Relativists make room for the possibility of "faultless disagreement" by positing the existence of subjective propositions, i.e. propositions true from some points of view and not others. We discuss whether the adoption of this position with respect to a certain domain of discourse is compatible with a realist attitude towards the matters arising in that domain. At first glance, the combination of relativism and realism leads to an unattractive metaphysical picture on which reality comprises incoherent facts. We will sketch the contours of a realistrelativist position called "subjectivism", which avoids this result by giving up the assumption that the points of view of different subjects are all metaphysically "on a par".
“…17 Hare (2009) argues that, unless we adopt a particular form of subjectivism called "egocentric presentism", we cannot make rational sense of our moral inclination to favour conditions in which we (as opposed to anyone else) are better off. Hellie (2013) suggests that an inegalitarian stance towards personal perspectives is a central and ineliminable aspect of our understanding of consciousness. An application of subjectivism to the metaphysics of the mental is defended by one of us in Merlo (2016).…”
Section: From Relativism To Subjectivismmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…We borrow the term "Egalitarianism" fromHellie (2013) Fine (2005). calls a thesis closely related to Egalitarianism "Neutrality".…”
Relativists make room for the possibility of "faultless disagreement" by positing the existence of subjective propositions, i.e. propositions true from some points of view and not others. We discuss whether the adoption of this position with respect to a certain domain of discourse is compatible with a realist attitude towards the matters arising in that domain. At first glance, the combination of relativism and realism leads to an unattractive metaphysical picture on which reality comprises incoherent facts. We will sketch the contours of a realistrelativist position called "subjectivism", which avoids this result by giving up the assumption that the points of view of different subjects are all metaphysically "on a par".
“…6 Recent literature in philosophy addresses the apparent datum that a single subjective experience is present (Valberg 2007;Hare 2007;2009;Hellie 2013;Merlo 2016;Conitzer 2018).…”
Research in artificial intelligence, as well as in economics and other related fields, generally proceeds from the premise that each agent has a well-defined identity, well-defined preferences over outcomes, and well-defined beliefs about the world. However, as we design AI systems, we in fact need to specify where the boundaries between one agent and another in the system lie, what objective functions these agents aim to maximize, and to some extent even what belief formation processes they use.
The premise of this paper is that as AI is being broadly deployed in the world, we need well-founded theories of, and methodologies and algorithms for, how to design preferences, identities, and beliefs. This paper lays out an approach to address these problems from a rigorous foundation in decision theory, game theory, social choice theory, and the algorithmic and computational aspects of these fields.
“…And maybe what separates my mental life from yours is simply the fact that you and I are numerically distinct subjects. Maybe subjects (be they Cartesian souls or physical objects in the ballpark of bodies and brains) are the “‘pegs’ around each of which [...] to aggregate a stream of consciousness separate from all others” (Hellie , 307; my emphasis).…”
Section: The Subjectivist and The Mainstream View Of The Mentalmentioning
This paper defends the view that one's own mental states are metaphysically privileged vis‐à‐vis the mental states of others, even if only subjectively so. This is an instance of a more general view called Subjectivism, according to which reality is only subjectively the way it is. After characterizing Subjectivism in analogy to two relatively familiar views in the metaphysics of modality and time, I compare the Subjectivist View of the Mental with Egocentric Presentism, a version of Subjectivism recently advocated by Caspar Hare. I argue that the Subjectivist View of the Mental goes a considerable way towards solving (or dissolving) certain long‐standing philosophical puzzles having to do with the unity of consciousness, the contents of self‐awareness and the intransmissibility of experiential knowledge through testimony.
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