In this paper, I aim to do three things. First, I introduce the distinction between the Uniqueness Thesis (U) and what I call the Conditional Uniqueness Thesis (U*). Second, I argue that despite their official advertisements, some prominent uniquers effectively defend U* rather than U. Third, some influential considerations that have been raised by the opponents of U misfire if they are interpreted as against U*. The moral is that an appreciation of the distinction between U and U* helps to clarify the contours of the uniqueness debate and to avoid a good deal of talking past each other.
I consider and reject a specific criticism advanced by Korsgaard against virtue ethics and epistemology when these are conceived with the help of what she calls the image of the “Good Dog.” I consider what virtue ethics and epistemology would look like if the Good Dog picture of virtues were largely correct. I argue that attention to the features that make Korsgaard undermine the usefulness of virtues when conceived along the lines of the Good Dog picture reveals the opposite of what she claims. On the Good Dog picture, virtue ethics and epistemology are seen as more promising approaches to rationality than Korsgaard’s own advocacy of reflection.
This paper aims to assess current theoretical findings on the origin of coordination by salience and suggests a way to clarify the existing framework. The main concern is to reveal how different coordination mechanisms rely on specific epistemic aspects of reasoning. The paper highlights the fact that basic epistemic assumptions of theories diverge in a way that makes them essentially distinctive. Consequently, recommendations and predictions of the traditional views of coordination by salience are, in principle, based on the processes related to the agent’s presumptions regarding the cognitive abilities of a co-player. This finding implies that we should consider these theories as complementary, and not competitive, explanations of the same phenomenon.