Tyler A. Young’s Blog

In a monist, materialist world, how is it that the mind can act on the body? Virtually no one today believes that the mind is of a separate substance from the body, immaterial and ethereal; most believe instead that it is a product of the physical brain. If this is the case—and it certainly appears it is—must we contend that the conscious mind is epiphenomenal? The standard physics-inspired argument goes something like this: since the mind arises from the brain, and since causation acts from foundations to outward effects, the mind must not be able to change its material foundations. Continue reading…

John Rawls’ “veil of ignorance”-based egalitarian justice, as he describes it in “Justice and Fairness,” presents a very different view of what a fair society looks like compared to Robert Nozick’s account in “Distributive Justice” of the libertarian stance. As I will argue, Rawls’ position is not only undesirable in light of the alternative presented by Nozick, but is indefensible on its own grounds. Continue reading…

In his essay “The Will to Believe,” William James argues that in special cases, a person is justified in believing a hypothesis which has positive implications for the believer but is not necessarily supported by sufficient evidence. Continue reading…