Neil Levy
Macquarie University, Philosophy, Faculty Member
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University of Oxford, Philosophy, Faculty Member add
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I am professor of philosophy at Macquarie University and a senior research fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.edit
Conciliationism—the thesis that when epistemic peers discover that they disagree about a proposition, both should reduce their confidence—faces a major objection: it seems to require us to significantly reduce our confidence in our... more
Conciliationism—the thesis that when epistemic peers discover that they disagree about a proposition, both should reduce their confidence—faces a major objection: it seems to require us to significantly reduce our confidence in our central moral and political commitments. In this paper, I develop a typology of disagreement cases and a diagnosis of the source and force of the pressure to conciliate. Building on Vavova’s work, I argue that ordinary and extreme disagreements are surprising, and for this reason, they carry information about the likelihood of error. But deep disagreement is not surprising at all, and token deep disagreements do not put pressure on us to conciliate. However, a pattern of deep disagreements points to a different concern: not the problem of disagreement but the problem of irrelevant influences. Deep disagreement constitutes some pressure to examine the foundations from which we reason, rather than to conciliate on our central moral and political claims.
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Proposals for regulating or nudging healthy choices are controversial. Opponents often argue that individuals should take responsibility for their own health, rather than be paternalistically manipulated for their own good. In this paper,... more
Proposals for regulating or nudging healthy choices are controversial. Opponents often argue that individuals should take responsibility for their own health, rather than be paternalistically manipulated for their own good. In this paper, I argue that people can take responsibility for their own health only if they satisfy certain epistemic conditions, but we live in an epistemic environment in which these conditions are not satisfied. Satisfying the epistemic conditions for taking responsibility, I argue, requires regulation of this environment. I describe some proposals for such regulation and show that we cannot reject all regulation in the name of individual responsibility. We must either regulate individuals' healthy choices or regulate the epistemic environment.
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Nudges-policy proposals informed by work in behavioural economics and psychology that are designed to lead to better decision-making or better behaviour-are controversial. Critics allege that they bypass our deliberative capacities,... more
Nudges-policy proposals informed by work in behavioural economics and psychology that are designed to lead to better decision-making or better behaviour-are controversial. Critics allege that they bypass our deliberative capacities, thereby undermining autonomy and responsible agency. In this paper, I identify a kind of nudge I call a nudge to reason, which make us more responsive to genuine evidence. I argue that at least some nudges to reason do not bypass our deliberative capacities. Instead, use of these nudges should be seen as appeals to mechanisms partially constitutive of these capacities, and therefore as benign (so far as autonomy and responsible agency are concerned). I sketch some concrete proposals for nudges to reason which are especially important given the apparent widespread resistance to evidence seen in recent political events.
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In his last two books and in the essays and interviews associated with them, Foucault develops a new mode of ethical thought he describes as an aesthetics of existence. I argue that this new ethics bears a striking resemblance to the... more
In his last two books and in the essays and interviews associated with them, Foucault develops a new mode of ethical thought he describes as an aesthetics of existence. I argue that this new ethics bears a striking resemblance to the virtue ethics that has become prominent in Anglo-American moral philosophy over the past three decades, in its classical sources, in its opposition to rule-based systems and its positive emphasis upon what Foucault called the care for the self. I suggest that seeing Foucault and virtue ethicists as engaged in a convergent project sheds light on a number of obscurities in Foucault's thought, and provides us with a historical narrative in which to situate his claims about the development of Western moral thought.
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Philosophy and Noûs
One reason for the widespread resistance to evolutionary accounts of the origins of humanity is the fear that they undermine morality: if morality is based on nothing more than evolved dispositions, it would be shown to be illusory, many... more
One reason for the widespread resistance to evolutionary accounts of the origins of humanity is the fear that they undermine morality: if morality is based on nothing more than evolved dispositions, it would be shown to be illusory, many people suspect. This view is shared by some philosophers who take their work on the evolutionary origins of morality to undermine moral realism. If they are right, we are faced with an unpalatable choice: to reject morality on scientific grounds, or to reject our best-confirmed scientific explanation of our origins in order to save morality. Fortunately, as I show, we have no reason to accept the deflationary claims of some evolutionary ethicists: morality, as we ordinarily understand it, is fully compatible with evolution.
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Neuroethics – as a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary endeavor – examines the implications of the neurosciences on human beings in general and on their self-understanding and their social interactions in particular. The range of... more
Neuroethics – as a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary endeavor – examines the implications of the neurosciences on human beings in general and on their self-understanding and their social interactions in particular. The range of approaches adopted in neuroethics includes but is not limited to historical, anthropological, ethical, philosophical, theological, sociological and legal approaches. Based on the study of neuroscientific developments and innovations, examined from different angles, this Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the international neuroethical debate, and offers unprecedented insights into the impact of neuroscientific research, diagnosis, and therapy. This Handbook deals with a plethora of topics divided into in three parts: the first part contains discussions of theories of neuroethics, identity, free will, as well as other philosophical considerations. The second part is dedicated to issues involved in current and future clinical applications of ...
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I develop an account of weakness of the will that is driven by experimental evidence from cognitive and social psychology. I will argue that this account demonstrates that there is no such thing as weakness of the will: no psychological... more
I develop an account of weakness of the will that is driven by experimental evidence from cognitive and social psychology. I will argue that this account demonstrates that there is no such thing as weakness of the will: no psychological kind corresponds to it. Instead, weakness of the will ought to be understood as depletion of System II resources. Neither the explanatory purposes of psychology nor our practical purposes as agents are well-served by retaining the concept. I therefore suggest that we ought to jettison it, in favour of the vocabulary and concepts of cognitive psychology.
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This article presents a model for regulating cognitive enhancement devices (CEDs). Recently, it has become very easy for individuals to purchase devices which directly modulate brain function. For example, transcranial direct current... more
This article presents a model for regulating cognitive enhancement devices (CEDs). Recently, it has become very easy for individuals to purchase devices which directly modulate brain function. For example, transcranial direct current stimulators are increasingly being produced and marketed online as devices for cognitive enhancement. Despite posing risks in a similar way to medical devices, devices that do not make any therapeutic claims do not have to meet anything more than basic product safety standards. We present the case for extending existing medical device legislation to cover CEDs. Medical devices and CEDs operate by the same or similar mechanisms and pose the same or similar risks. This fact coupled with the arbitrariness of the line between treatment and enhancement count in favour of regulating these devices in the same way. In arguing for this regulatory model, the paper highlights potential challenges to its implementation, and suggests solutions.
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Abstract The use of interventions into the mind and body to treat a diagnosed disorder or disease is uncontroversial, but it is very controversial whether interventions aimed at enhancing function in the absence of disease or disorder are... more
Abstract The use of interventions into the mind and body to treat a diagnosed disorder or disease is uncontroversial, but it is very controversial whether interventions aimed at enhancing function in the absence of disease or disorder are acceptable or not. In this chapter we focus on transcranial electrical stimulation used as a cognitive enhancer, and aim to assess the case for and against its use. We first show that the treatment/enhancement distinction cannot be invoked to draw a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable uses of interventions. We then proceed to assess transcranial electrical stimulation against five common objections to the use of cognitive enhancements, which we call the safety, authenticity, cheating, social justice, and positional goods objections. Though we think that some of these objections provide reasons for caution with regard to the use of some cognitive enhancements, we argue that transcranial electrical stimulation is not seriously troubled by any of them.
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Psychology, Biological Psychology, Cognitive Science, Decision Making, Psychopharmacology, and 15 moreNonparametric Statistics, Ethical Theory, Utilitarianism, Humans, Judgment, Moral Judgment, Female, Male, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Time Factors, Propranolol, Neurosciences, Pain Measurement, and Statistics as Topic
Abstract: A number of philosophers have argued in recent years that we are each, typically, responsible for our characters; for what we are, as well as what we do. This paper demonstrates that this is true only of the basically virtuous... more
Abstract: A number of philosophers have argued in recent years that we are each, typically, responsible for our characters; for what we are, as well as what we do. This paper demonstrates that this is true only of the basically virtuous person; the basically vicious are not responsible for ...
A number of concerns have been raised about the possible future use of pharmaceuticals designed to enhance cognitive, affective, and motivational processes, particularly where the aim is to produce morally better decisions or behavior. In... more
A number of concerns have been raised about the possible future use of pharmaceuticals designed to enhance cognitive, affective, and motivational processes, particularly where the aim is to produce morally better decisions or behavior. In this article, we draw attention to what is arguably a more worrying possibility: that pharmaceuticals currently in widespread therapeutic use are already having unintended effects on these processes, and thus on moral decision making and morally significant behavior. We review current evidence on the moral effects of three widely used drugs or drug types: (i) propranolol, (ii) selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and (iii) drugs that effect oxytocin physiology. This evidence suggests that the alterations to moral decision making and behavior caused by these agents may have important and difficult-to-evaluate consequences, at least at the population level. We argue that the moral effects of these and other widely used pharmaceuticals warrant fur...
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Seasonal influenza kills many hundreds of thousands of people every year. We argue that the current pandemic has lessons we should learn concerning how we should respond to it. Our response to the COVID-19 not only provides us with tools... more
Seasonal influenza kills many hundreds of thousands of people every year. We argue that the current pandemic has lessons we should learn concerning how we should respond to it. Our response to the COVID-19 not only provides us with tools for confronting influenza; it also changes our sense of what is possible. The recognition of how dramatic policy responses to COVID-19 were and how widespread their general acceptance has been allowed us to imagine new and more sweeping responses to influenza. In fact, we not only can grasp how we can reduce its toll; this new knowledge entails new responsibilities to do so. We outline a range of potential interventions to alter social norms and to change structures to reduce influenza transmission, and consider ethical objections to our proposals.
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Moral judgments entail or consist in claims that certain ways of behaving are called for. These actions have expectable consequences. I will argue that these consequences are suspiciously benign: on controversial issues, each side... more
Moral judgments entail or consist in claims that certain ways of behaving are called for. These actions have expectable consequences. I will argue that these consequences are suspiciously benign: on controversial issues, each side assesses these consequences, measured in dispute-independent goods, as significantly better than the consequences of behaving in the ways their opponents recommend. This remains the case even when we have not formed our moral judgment by assessing consequences. I will suggest that the evidence indicates that our perception of the consequences of acting as recommended by our moral judgments is motivated, such that the warrant of such assessments is lower than we might have thought. The suspicion correlation between our moral judgments and our assessments of the implicated facts provides higher-order evidence that should lead us to reduce our confidence in these assessments.
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Should non-experts defer to epidemiologists with regard to the response to the coronavirus pandemic? We argue that deference is required with regard to settled science: non-experts (that is, people who may possess expertise of their own... more
Should non-experts defer to epidemiologists with regard to the response to the coronavirus pandemic? We argue that deference is required with regard to settled science: non-experts (that is, people who may possess expertise of their own but whose expertise is not relevant to a particular question) ought to defer with regard to climate science and the efficacy of vaccines. However, we suggest that this deference is warranted because these questions have been appropriately probed many times by many different kinds of people. While non-experts should defer to epidemiologists with regard to matters within the sphere of epidemiology specifically, responding to the pandemic requires expertise from many fields. We best build a consensus worth deferring to by contributing our expertise now. Ethicists and philosophers are not epistemically arrogant if they question policy responses. Rather, they play a responsible role in building a reliable consensus.
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There is a lively debate over who is to blame for the harms arising from unhealthy behaviours, like overeating and excessive drinking. In this paper, I argue that given how demanding the conditions required for moral responsibility... more
There is a lively debate over who is to blame for the harms arising from unhealthy behaviours, like overeating and excessive drinking. In this paper, I argue that given how demanding the conditions required for moral responsibility actually are, we cannot be highly confident that anyone is ever morally responsible. I also adduce evidence that holding people responsible for their unhealthy behaviours has costs: it undermines public support for the measures that are likely to have the most impact on these harms. I claim that these two facts-the fact that we cannot be highly confident that anyone is morally responsible and the fact that holding people responsible for their unhealthy behaviours has costs-interact. Together they give us a powerful reason for believing, or acting as if we believed, that ordinary people are not in fact responsible for their unhealthy behaviours.
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Law and Applied Ethics
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Dans le cadre d'un dossier consacré à Foucault, l'A. propose une lecture politique de l'esthétique de l'existence développée dans le second et le troisième volume de l'«Histoire de la sexualité». Soulevant le... more
Dans le cadre d'un dossier consacré à Foucault, l'A. propose une lecture politique de l'esthétique de l'existence développée dans le second et le troisième volume de l'«Histoire de la sexualité». Soulevant le paradoxe d'un impossible retour aux conceptions grecques ...
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Objective: This paper aims to analyse in a philosophically informed way the recent National Institute of Mental Health proposal for the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework. Conclusion: Current classification systems have helped... more
Objective: This paper aims to analyse in a philosophically informed way the recent National Institute of Mental Health proposal for the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework. Conclusion: Current classification systems have helped unify psychiatry and the conditions that it is most concerned with. However, by relying too much on syndromes and symptoms, they too often do not define stable constructs. As a result, inclusions and removals from the manuals are not always backed by sound reasons. The RDoC framework is an important move towards ameliorating matters. This paper argues that it improves the current situation by re-referencing constructs to physical properties (biomarkers for disorders, for example), by allowing theoretical levels within the framework, and by treating psychiatry as a special case of the cognitive sciences.
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Over the past fifteen years, Alasdair MacIntyre has been arguing that the project of modernity has irremediably failed, and urging us to turn instead to tradition-based modes of thought. According to MacIntyre, modernity aimed to break... more
Over the past fifteen years, Alasdair MacIntyre has been arguing that the project of modernity has irremediably failed, and urging us to turn instead to tradition-based modes of thought. According to MacIntyre, modernity aimed to break with tradition by isolating rationality as such, and ...
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... Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture Reviewed by. Neil Levy. Bookmark and Share. This journal is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommerical 3.0 Unported license. Philosophy in Review ISSN 1206-5269... more
... Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture Reviewed by. Neil Levy. Bookmark and Share. This journal is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommerical 3.0 Unported license. Philosophy in Review ISSN 1206-5269 EISSN 1920-8936. ...
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Neuroethics is a new sub-discipline of philosophy, with two broad focuses. The first, which has come to be called the ethics of neuroscience, concerns the assessment of ethical issues arising from neuroscience, its practice and its... more
Neuroethics is a new sub-discipline of philosophy, with two broad focuses. The first, which has come to be called the ethics of neuroscience, concerns the assessment of ethical issues arising from neuroscience, its practice and its applications; the second, which has come to be called the neuroscience of ethics, concerns the ways in which the sciences of the mind can illuminate longstanding issues within philosophy. Especially in its guise as the neuroscience of ethics, neuroethics cannot sharply be distinguished from the naturalistic trend in philosophy which attempts to bring to bear data to the resolution of philosophical problems. It is distinctive only inasmuch as it is motivated by practical, and especially moral, concerns to a greater degree than empirical philosophy more generally. This article illustrates the practice and typical concerns of neuroethics with two case studies, one from each of its branches. The ethics of neuroscience is illustrated with the issue of cognitiv...
Janna Thompson has outlined 'the apology paradox', which arises whenever people apologize for an action or event upon which their existence is causally dependent. She argues that a sincere apology seems to entail a wish that the... more
Janna Thompson has outlined 'the apology paradox', which arises whenever people apologize for an action or event upon which their existence is causally dependent. She argues that a sincere apology seems to entail a wish that the action or event had not occurred, but that we ...
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Abstract The self-deceived are usually held to be moral responsible for their state. I argue that this attribution of responsibility makes sense only against the background of the traditional conception of self-deception, a conception... more
Abstract The self-deceived are usually held to be moral responsible for their state. I argue that this attribution of responsibility makes sense only against the background of the traditional conception of self-deception, a conception that is now widely rejected. In its place, a new conception ...
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The prospect of a merger of human beings and technologies to create cyborgs arouses great fear as well as great excitement. I argue that neither the fear nor the excitement is justified. The threat from cyborgization to human nature is... more
The prospect of a merger of human beings and technologies to create cyborgs arouses great fear as well as great excitement. I argue that neither the fear nor the excitement is justified. The threat from cyborgization to human nature is non-existent, because there is a clear sense in which we are already cyborgs. Our great cognitive abilities are a product as much of the world, as we alter it, as of our unadorned brains. By the very same token, however, the excitement surrounding cyborgization is overblown: it is not a radical departure from our pre- existing mode of being, but an extension of it. Cyborgization presents us with many challenges and opportunities, but both the dangers and the benefits are of a familiar kind.
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In a recent article in the Journal of Social Philosophy, Paul Woodward argues that Frankfurt examples (as he calls them; hereafter FEs) beg the question against incompatibilists.1 FEs, named after Harry Frankfurt, who first noticed... more
In a recent article in the Journal of Social Philosophy, Paul Woodward argues that Frankfurt examples (as he calls them; hereafter FEs) beg the question against incompatibilists.1 FEs, named after Harry Frankfurt, who first noticed their apparent importance,2 are designed to ...
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Consequentialism and rights-based approaches to ethics, still the best known moral theories, focus directly on the notion of right action. Consequentialism provides a positive theory of right action. It tells us that everyone is to do... more
Consequentialism and rights-based approaches to ethics, still the best known moral theories, focus directly on the notion of right action. Consequentialism provides a positive theory of right action. It tells us that everyone is to do that action that, of the alternatives open to ...
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Philosophy and Inquiry
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Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Libertarianism, Liberty, Rationality, and 3 moreFreedom, Action, and Dialectica
No platforming – the refusal to allow those who espouse views seen as inflammatory the opportunity to speak in certain forums – is very controversial. Proponents typically cite the possibility of harms to disadvantaged groups, and... more
No platforming – the refusal to allow those who espouse views seen as inflammatory the opportunity to speak in certain forums – is very controversial. Proponents typically cite the possibility of harms to disadvantaged groups, and sometimes epistemically paternalistic considerations in its favour. Opponents invoke the value of free speech and respect for intellectual autonomy in favour of more open speech, arguing that the harms that might arise from bad speech are best addressed by rebuttal, not silencing. In this paper, I argue that there is a powerful consideration in favour of no platforming some speakers: allowing them a platform generates genuine higher-order evidence in favour of their claims. When that higher-order evidence would be misleading, we may reasonably believe it should not be generated.
Religious beliefs have some puzzling features. They may fail to guide behavior in some circumstances to which their content is apparently relevant. Even when they do guide behavior, they may do so in ways that appear oddly limited. And... more
Religious beliefs have some puzzling features. They may fail to guide behavior in some circumstances to which their content is apparently relevant. Even when they do guide behavior, they may do so in ways that appear oddly limited. And yet in other cases, they may motivate behavior that seems inexplicable except by supposing that the agent has unshakable faith in what they profess to believe. I argue that these facts arise from the ways in which religious beliefs are coupled to external cues. These cues may play the role of triggering internal representations or even of partially constituting them. I argue that the coupling of religious beliefs to triggers entails that in cases in which their content is relevant but the cue is unavailable, the representation will fail to guide behavior. When the representation is tokened, we may get behavioural incongruity because the representation is coupled to a partially belief-constitutive cue which is absent, or because the expectation of such a prop leads to the tokening of a sparse representation.
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Nudges – policy proposals informed by work in behavioural economics and psychology that are designed to lead to better decision-making or better behaviour – are controversial. Critics allege that they bypass our deliberative capacities,... more
Nudges – policy proposals informed by work in behavioural economics and psychology that are designed to lead to better decision-making or better behaviour – are controversial. Critics allege that they bypass our deliberative capacities, thereby undermining autonomy and responsible agency. In this paper, I identify a kind of nudge I call a nudge to reason, which make us more responsive to genuine evidence. I argue that at least some nudges to reason do not bypass our deliberative capacities. Instead, use of these nudges should be seen as appeals to mechanisms partially constitutive of these capacities, and therefore as benign (so far as autonomy and responsible agency are concerned). I sketch some concrete proposals for nudges to reason which are especially important given the apparent widespread resistance to evidence seen in recent political events.
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Because of the privileged place of belief in explaining behaviour, mismatch cases - in which agents sincerely claim to believe that p, but act in a way that is inconsistent with that belief - have attracted a great deal of attention. In... more
Because of the privileged place of belief in explaining behaviour, mismatch cases - in which agents sincerely claim to believe that p, but act in a way that is inconsistent with that belief - have attracted a great deal of attention. In this paper, I argue that some of these cases, at least, are explained by agents believing that they believe that p, while failing to believe that p. They do not believe that ~p; rather, they have an indistinct first-order, beliefy, representation that p.
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There is robust scientific consensus concerning climate change, evolution and the safety and efficacy of vaccines. But many people reject these expert views, in favour of beliefs that are strongly at variance with the evidence. It is... more
There is robust scientific consensus concerning climate change, evolution and the safety and efficacy of vaccines. But many people reject these expert views, in favour of beliefs that are strongly at variance with the evidence. It is tempting to try to explain these-beliefs by reference to ignorance or irrationality, but those who reject the expert view seem to be no worse informed or any less rational than those people outside the relevant scientific community who accept it. I argue that overconfidence in the power of individual reasoning plays some role in explaining these beliefs. However, this overconfidence is actually ubiquitous, so it cannot explain the difference between those who accept and those who reject expert views by itself. I argue that the difference in beliefs between dissenters and those who accept these views is a consequence of the agents to whom each group is disposed to defer, and the differences in deference, in turn, are explicable by how we respond to markers of benevolence and competence.
Cognitive and meta-cognitive models of obsessive-compulsive disorder explain it as the result of personality traits and belief biases of sufferers. But while there is good evidence for a correlation between OCD and the cognitive traits... more
Cognitive and meta-cognitive models of obsessive-compulsive disorder explain it as the result of personality traits and belief biases of sufferers. But while there is good evidence for a correlation between OCD and the cognitive traits these models make central to it, the correlation is by no means perfect: a substantial number of sufferers do not manifest these traits. In this paper, I propose a predictive coding account of the disorder, which aims to explain both the symptoms and the cognitive traits on which the cognitive models turn. On this account, OCD centrally involves heightened and dysfunctionally focused attention to components of action and thought contents that are normally unconscious or of which we are only peripherally conscious. This gives rise to anxiety and the cognitive dispositions because these components carry information that predicts a catastrophic outcome, as well as information compatible with a more realistic model of the world. The behaviors characteristic of OCD are aimed at resolving the ambiguity between these models by altering the world, suppressing the errors or increasing the precision of the information.
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Baron-Cohen, S. 2003. The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain. London: Allen Lane. Simon Baron-Cohen is well known to researchers in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, largely on the strength of... more
Baron-Cohen, S. 2003. The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain. London: Allen Lane. Simon Baron-Cohen is well known to researchers in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, largely on the strength of Mindblindness (Baron-Cohen 1997), his important book on the origins and nature of autism. He has now followed up that book with The Essential Difference (Baron-Cohen 2003), a much more ambitious work which aims to explain not only autism, once again, but also the (alleged) essential differences between men and women. This is a book which aims to reach a much wider audience. It is therefore important to examine it, both because it is the product of an important thinker, and because it is likely to have an impact on the wider intellectual climate. Unfortunately, The Essential Difference is a very disappointing book. There are many things wrong with it. But its central fault is one that is all too characteristic of a great deal of work in psychology. It is the complete innocence of a conception of reason that is, broadly, phenomenological. 1 Phenomenol-ogy's most important contribution to our intellectual tradition, I believe, does not consist in its distinctive methodology but in its conception of reason and intelligence as embodied, situated and holistic, and as decidedly not reducible to rule-governed manipulations of symbolic representations. Neglect this vision of reason at your peril, as Baron-Cohen's work vividly demonstrates. His superficial notion of intelligence vitiates both his central theses: that there is an 'essential difference' between men and women, and that autism is the product of 'the extreme male brain'. Baron-Cohen's major claims (stated, as we shall soon see, more carefully than he is wont to do) are these: 1. On average, men and women differ psychologically. Men have an advantage when it comes to systemizing, and women have an advantage at empathizing. 2. These differences are biological in origin, as is demonstrated by studies of neonates and correlations between psychological traits and fetal testos-terone. 3. Systemizing and empathizing give rise to different kind of cognitive abilities. Men and women have different, but equally valuable, intellectual skills. Neither gender is more intelligent than the other.