Michigan Highlights

Philosophical Studies, Online first
Andy Egan. (UM Professor) Seeing and believing: perception, belief formation and the divided mind in .

Mind, Vol. 117, #2, 2008
Krista Lawlor, (UM Ph.D., 1999) Reviews Self-Knowledge and Resentment by Akeel Bigrami.

Ethics, Vol. 118, #2, 2008
J. David Velleman (Former UM Professor) Beyond Price.*
* The first version of this article was presented to a workshop on value at Columbia University. I am grateful to the participants for helpful discussion: Ruth Chang, Jonathan Dancy, Jim Griffin, Ulrike Heuer, Tom Hurka, Shelly Kagan, Frances Kamm, Maggie Little, Veronique Munoz, Peter Railton, Joseph Raz, Jacob Ross, Michael Smith, and Larry Temkin. A subsequent version was presented to the philosophy department at the University of Miami and to the Legal Theory Workshop at Yale Law School. Thanks to Shelly Kagan and Ruth Marcus for additional comments on the latter occasion. Finally, this article was presented to a conference organized by Jeanette Kennett at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics of the Australian National University.

Anita L. Allen's (UM Ph.D., 1980) book: Why Privacy Isn’t Everything: Feminist Reflections on Personal Accountability is reviewd by Cheshire Calhoun.

Bioethics, Volume 22, Issue 3, March 2008
RIVKA WEINBERG (UM Ph.D., 2001). THE MORAL COMPLEXITY OF SPERM DONATION.
Sperm donation is a widely accepted and increasingly common practice. In the standard case, a sperm donor sells sperm to an agency, waives his parental rights, and is absolved of parental responsibility. We tend to assume that this involves no problematic abandonment of parental responsibility. If we regard the donor as having parental responsibilities at all, we may think that his parental responsibilities are transferred to the sperm recipients. But, if a man creates a child accidentally, via contraception failure, we tend to assume that the man does indeed have parental responsibilities. Assessing these contrasting conclusions requires a theory of parental responsibility.
I analyse prevalent theories of what makes someone parentally responsible and show that none of these theories can withstand scrutiny. I propose a new theory of parental responsibility, which, I argue, is more plausible than the alternatives. My theory of parental responsibility is based on our ownership and control over hazardous materials, namely, our gametes.
I show that neither my theory, nor the theories I reject, can support our contrasting intuitions. I conclude that sperm donors are fathers, with parental responsibility. I argue that the alternative conclusion, that neither sperm donors nor accidental fathers are parentally responsible for their resulting offspring, is less plausible. I then consider whether parental responsibility can be transferred and argue that it is far from clear that it can. Finally, I address objections and consider some practical implications of these views.

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Vol. 30, #5-6, 2007
Jennifer Church (UM Ph.D., 1982). Three steps to rational imagining?
Abstract: Ruth Byrne presents a three-step argument to the conclusion that counterfactual imagining is rational. Insofar as this argument is valid, the conclusion is weaker than it seems. More importantly, it does not represent the central contributions of this book contributions that, if anything, point instead to what is irrational about counterfactual imagining.

Jesse Prinz. (Speaker Spring Colloquium, 2008). Accessed, accessible, and inaccessible: Where to draw the phenomenal line
Abstract. One can distinguish among perceptual states that have been accessed by working memory, states that are accessible, and states that are inaccessible. Block compellingly argues that phenomenology outstrips access but wrongly implies that phenomenology outstrips accessibility. There is a subjective difference between Sperling cases and inattentional blindness, which suggests that phenomenology occurs under conditions of accessibility, and not inaccessibility.

Maja Spener. (Former Visiting Professor) Expecting phenomenology.
Abstract. Block's argument against correlationism depends in part on a view about what subjects in certain experiments can be aware of phenomenally. Block's main source of evidence for this view is introspection. I argue that introspection should not be trusted in this respect. This weakens Block's argument and undermines correlationism at the same time.

Analysis, Vol. 68, #2, 2008
Terry Horgan, (UM Ph.D., 1974) John Pollock et al. An objectivist argument for thirdism.

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Vol. 31, #1, 2008
Alvin I. Goldman (@ UM Professor, 1963-1980). Does one size fit all?

Dialectica: Volume 62, # 1, 2008
Genoveva Marti. (March Speaker) Direct Reference and Definite Descriptions.