Let’s see… I’ll try to answer as I would have when I was taking this, for consistency...
Abstract objects: Aristotelianism. Forms are always instantiated, but are not completely arbitrary categories as nominalism would suggest.
Aesthetic value: subject-sensitive objectivism. There is a fact about what you find beautiful regardless of your say-so, but beauty depends on the observer.
Epistemic justification: subject-sensitive invariantism / contextualism: There is an external fact about whether a belief is justified, but it depends upon the context of the question and/or the person being asked, so the distinction is flawed. (see “knowledge claims”)
Science: Models necessarily leave out facets of reality, and science simply aims to provide good models, so science will never fully describe reality by design. Thus, it does not achieve realism. However, the models are not arbitrary and do refer to reality.
Trolley problem: The question about what one ought to do is ill-formed. Humans are not designed to make that sort of decision, and so an ethics that answers trolley problem questions will be ill-suited to everyday use. Thus, what one should do is be virtuous in all one’s activities, and I expect such a person would still freeze and panic if faced with the trolley problem. Or to paraphrase one philosopher’s take on it, if you find the answer to the trolley problem easily, then there’s something wrong with you.
There you go. I’m just guessing on what I was thinking on “science” and a bit on some of the others. I’d have to rethink the whole thing to answer it again—I haven’t been running in philosophy circles for a while.
I’d like to know your intermediate views, if you ever have time.
Let’s see… I’ll try to answer as I would have when I was taking this, for consistency...
Abstract objects: Aristotelianism. Forms are always instantiated, but are not completely arbitrary categories as nominalism would suggest.
Aesthetic value: subject-sensitive objectivism. There is a fact about what you find beautiful regardless of your say-so, but beauty depends on the observer.
Epistemic justification: subject-sensitive invariantism / contextualism: There is an external fact about whether a belief is justified, but it depends upon the context of the question and/or the person being asked, so the distinction is flawed. (see “knowledge claims”)
Science: Models necessarily leave out facets of reality, and science simply aims to provide good models, so science will never fully describe reality by design. Thus, it does not achieve realism. However, the models are not arbitrary and do refer to reality.
Trolley problem: The question about what one ought to do is ill-formed. Humans are not designed to make that sort of decision, and so an ethics that answers trolley problem questions will be ill-suited to everyday use. Thus, what one should do is be virtuous in all one’s activities, and I expect such a person would still freeze and panic if faced with the trolley problem. Or to paraphrase one philosopher’s take on it, if you find the answer to the trolley problem easily, then there’s something wrong with you.
There you go. I’m just guessing on what I was thinking on “science” and a bit on some of the others. I’d have to rethink the whole thing to answer it again—I haven’t been running in philosophy circles for a while.