Philosophers' Carnival #103

Welcome to the 103rd Philosophers' Carnival: a round-up of recent philosophical blog posts from around the web.

First let me highlight the inaugural Ethics Discussion at PEA Soup, on Cécile Fabre's "Guns, Food, and Liability to Attack in War". To facilitate the discussion, Ethics is providing open access to the published article (for three months) here. The PEA Soup discussion is kicked off by a commentary from Jeff McMahan, and lively discussion continues in the comments thread.

Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber offers an interesting discussion of the point of thought experiments in moral philosophy (with special reference to Thomson's violinist).

Over at Public Reason, Joshua Preiss asks whether "the recent US Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance should have any impact on our work as political philosophers." Meanwhile, Julian Sanchez expresses skepticism about public financing of elections, and instead suggests some techno-libertarian means to keep politicians responsive to citizens rather than moneyed interests. (It's unfortunate that the Cato blog doesn't seem to allow comments, as I'd be interested to see some critical discussion of Sanchez's ideas.)

Moving on to the submitted entries...

Gualtiero Piccinini invites feedback on his new paper on Improving on Heterophenomenology.

Clayton Littlejohn argues against Conee and Feldman's mentalist view of evidence in 'It’s not the thought that counts'. (Highly recommended!)

Chris Hallquist discusses anti-skeptical philosophy, contrasting reformed epistemology and moral realism in particular.

Kenny Pearce presents Seeing the World Through Teleology-Colored Glasses, asking, "Does the psychological tendency of human beings to see purpose everywhere undermine teleological arguments for the existence of God?"

Austin Duggan discusses Locke's Theory of Personal Identity, and some traditional objections.

Alfredo Lucero-Montano presents an essay On Walter Benjamin's Historical Materialism.

Update: let me also add Tomkow's Retributive Ethics, which develops a novel moral theory according to which "all moral rights are merely provisos in the general prohibition against harming others and that what is morally impermissible is always and only the infliction of harms without right."

The next carnival will be hosted by Jean Kazez, with submissions on animal-related topics -- animal minds, animal ethics, etc. -- especially encouraged. (As always, you can use the blogcarnival submission form to submit a post for consideration.)

P.S. We're always on the lookout for more hosts. If you're interested (and especially if you haven't already hosted an edition in the last six months), please check out the hosting guidelines and send me an email (r dot chappell at gmail dot com). Thanks!