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.
In the paper, I discuss Robert Kirk’s attempt to refute the zombie argument against materialism by demonstrating, “in a way that is intuitively appealing as well as cogent”, that the idea of phenomenal zombies involves incoherence. Kirk’s argues that if one admits that a world of zombies z is conceivable, one should also admit the conceivability of a certain transformation from such a world to a world z* that satisfies a description D, and it is arguable that D is incoherent. From which, Kirk suggests, it follows that the idea of zombies is incoherent. I argue that Kirk’s argument has several minor deficiencies and two major flaws. First, he takes for granted that cognitive mental states are physical (cognitive physicalism), although a zombist is free to—and would better—reject this view. Second, he confuses elements of different scenarios of transformation, none of which results in the incoherent description D.